0:00:00I just want to let everyone know that I remain unsatisfied.
0:00:02Well, I mean, I think everyone always knows that.
0:00:05Yeah, that's a given.
0:00:06I know, but like, more than usual.
0:00:09It may be too late by the time you're hearing these words to order ATP shirts.
0:00:13So if you are even vaguely thinking about, "Hmm, I might want one of these delightful,
0:00:19wonderful shirts," now is the time to order.
0:00:22Or actually, it may not even be the time to order.
0:00:24You may have already missed the boat.
0:00:26So, if you are interested in either of our two shirts, go to ATP.fm/shirt, and hopefully
0:00:34for you, it's sometime Friday, I think our time.
0:00:39It expires sometime in the Friday to Saturday transition.
0:00:42I forget exactly when.
0:00:43>> MATT O'DOWD - Midnight Eastern, I believe.
0:00:44>> CHAD CURTIS - Okay, there you go.
0:00:46If you're listening to this right now, and it is not yet Saturday, and you want a shirt,
0:00:50stop everything, pause the show, go get you a shirt.
0:00:53And to the many, many, many people who have already bought a shirt or sweatshirt or what
0:00:57have you, thank you.
0:00:58We really appreciate it.
0:00:59Cool.
0:01:00Thanks everybody.
0:01:01We'll see you next week.
0:01:02Oh, goodness.
0:01:03All right.
0:01:04So, I had tweeted earlier today that we would have a show without follow-up.
0:01:10I didn't say we'd have a show without follow-up, but at that point earlier today we did not
0:01:13yet have follow-up.
0:01:15And here it is, just a few scant hours later, and we have follow-up about new MacBook Pros.
0:01:20We had follow-up, it just wasn't written into the thing yet.
0:01:22- So you had follow up.
0:01:24- Follow up, it just expands,
0:01:25it's like hard drive space and wedding planning.
0:01:27It expands into whatever space is available for it
0:01:30to expand into.
0:01:32- Yeah, and crap in your attic, right?
0:01:33- Well, John's attic at least.
0:01:35- I cleaned up.
0:01:36- I did some attic cleaning actually the other weekend.
0:01:38I must have got rid of, I don't know, 40 boxes of stuff.
0:01:43And some boxes of not stuff.
0:01:45That's a lot.
0:01:46- I'm surprised your house hasn't fallen down.
0:01:48- What do you have more of, boxes of stuff in the attic
0:01:50or brasswood tabs open right now?
0:01:52Box of stuff in the attic, no contest.
0:01:55I'm slightly surprised to be honest with you.
0:01:58So if you were able to get rid of 40, how many do you think are still there?
0:02:03This is the low hanging fruit.
0:02:04I'm going for like, you know, modems.
0:02:08Okay?
0:02:09So get rid of those.
0:02:11Are we talking like surfboard or US robotics?
0:02:14No.
0:02:15No.
0:02:16Oh boy.
0:02:1728.8 modems.
0:02:1856k modems.
0:02:1914.4 modems.
0:02:20At least are they K56 Flex or were they X2?
0:02:25They were the...which one were they?
0:02:28I think they were the Flex one.
0:02:29I remember those competing standards.
0:02:31I think I didn't look too closely at the box.
0:02:33We were an X2 family.
0:02:36We were all about the X2 because that's what our ISP said we should be.
0:02:40I think X2 was the superior one until they merged the two into the V90, whatever that
0:02:44was.
0:02:45Yeah.
0:02:46Yeah, maybe that's what I had when they finally settled that thing.
0:02:49But yeah, lots of boxes of stuff.
0:02:51A lot of these boxes didn't have anything in them anymore.
0:02:53Some of them did and the things in them weren't worth much.
0:02:56Yeah, a lot of empty boxes.
0:02:59Or somewhat empty boxes.
0:03:00Some of them just had cables in them, boxes for old hard drives, old hard drive enclosures.
0:03:04The easy things to get rid of, but it was a lot.
0:03:06All these boxes were flattened, you know.
0:03:08And you want to make sure that when you sell your 28.8 K56 Flex modem, no that doesn't
0:03:14make sense, you want to make sure that you have the original box so that you get the
0:03:18maximum price for it.
0:03:19Well, that's the way things are stored in my attic, is in their boxes.
0:03:23I don't get rid of the boxes until I get rid of the thing for the most part.
0:03:27But think about how much more old computer garbage you could store in your attic if you
0:03:30weren't also storing the boxes.
0:03:32I don't know if that's true because they, with all the loose cables and everything,
0:03:37I just think they, you can pack them in better like a Tetris puzzle if they're all kind
0:03:40of rectilinear.
0:03:41Oh, goodness.
0:03:42Anyway, I got rid of a lot of stuff and then getting rid of so much stuff and seeing that
0:03:47bags and bags full of styrofoam that you know you can't really compress and then
0:03:52these stacks and stacks of flattened cardboard boxes and then looking back at
0:03:55the attic and realizing it looks like stuff has been removed but not that much
0:03:59stuff. Boy I got a long way to go. I can't believe your house hasn't imploded under
0:04:05the weight that you're putting into the attic. Yeah I've thought about how much
0:04:09that stuff must weigh up there. Some of it's pretty heavy. Hey wait can we solve
0:04:12multiple problems here? Can you take some of the flattened cardboard boxes of old
0:04:17computer equipment that you've taken out of your attic and make interior door trim with
0:04:21it for your front door?
0:04:22No, already recycled. Too late for that.
0:04:26Oh, sad times.
0:04:27You have to wait until you get more modems.
0:04:28Yeah.
0:04:29Actually, you know, the US Robotics external modems were about the right shape to be like
0:04:33molding if you line them all up, you know?
0:04:36Yeah, that's a fair point.
0:04:37It doesn't have that many.
0:04:38The sportsters.
0:04:39Yeah, I remember, you know, at the time I didn't think of it that way, but there was
0:04:42something oddly satisfying about hearing that god-awful handshaking sound. Like, today is
0:04:48so much better in every measurable way, but like that light amount of stress that you
0:04:54had. Is this going to work? Am I going to get the full, you know, 56k? Oh, God, it fell
0:04:59down on the 56k negotiation, so we're back to stupid analog.
0:05:02That's the first thing I did in my AT whatever init string was turn off that sound. Come
0:05:07on, people. You don't need to hear that. It frustrates me that I can't remember what that
0:05:12What was the code for turning off the sound?
0:05:14It's not ATS, was it?
0:05:15- What was that whole protocol called?
0:05:17- Was that the haze command set or was that something else?
0:05:19- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:05:21- Yeah, no, I actually had to leave my speaker on constantly
0:05:24because we only had one phone line
0:05:27and everybody would always call at night to talk to my mom
0:05:30and so I was only allowed to tie up the phone line
0:05:34if I left call waiting on
0:05:36and would leave the modem speaker on constantly
0:05:39with a special config string to set it to the higher level
0:05:42unlike Jon, to set it to like number two or whatever that keeps it on the entire time.
0:05:46So I was just always hearing static when I was online. And when I would hear call waiting
0:05:49beeps, I have to go flip off the power to the modem so it would hang up immediately
0:05:52and then pick up the phone and then just go do something else for a while while my mom
0:05:55talks on the phone. It was fun.
0:05:58Yep, good times.
0:06:00>> Cod world. In any case, we should talk about what we were intending to talk about,
0:06:04which is the new MacBook Pros. Apparently, there is going to be something funky with
0:06:10the F in key row, but it may actually be only one screen and not individual screens on the
0:06:16individual buttons like we were perhaps led to believe. I don't know what to make of this.
0:06:21I mean, I don't feel like my thoughts have really changed since last week. It could be
0:06:24good. This doesn't strike me as it's fixing a problem I have in my life. But you never
0:06:27know with Apple. Sometimes they come up with things you don't know you need.
0:06:30So assuming these parts leaks are legit, it definitely looks like one big long screen
0:06:36and not a bunch of optimus keyboard style individual keys with screens on them which
0:06:40i'm very disappointed about because i have my hopes up from last week that that's what it was
0:06:44going to be but boy looking at these parts leaks you see a little place where probably like a touch
0:06:48id sensor or the connector for things going to be in a part where a ribbon cable exits and a big
0:06:52long channel looks like it's going to be for a big long screen the only thing i can think of now i'm
0:06:58trying to convince myself that this is not as bad as i think by saying well they could show
0:07:01notifications on it or something could scroll across there i don't know and the other thing
0:07:08i was getting my hopes up about was like if when i was thinking about the keycaps maybe they could
0:07:12be e-ink so they wouldn't take any power because keycaps are kind of monochrome too and that would
0:07:15be like classy but it really looks like it's gonna be a big long skinny screen again if these things
0:07:21are to be believed but this close to announcement date it's reasonable for parts to leak these look
0:07:29semi-legitimate. I'm kind of sad.
0:07:32- Yeah, now the tipster is saying in the chat
0:07:34that that's just the mount the thing sits in.
0:07:36We'll see, that's not, I mean, to my eye,
0:07:38that is not at all what it looked like,
0:07:40but it's so hard to say with these terrible pictures
0:07:44that clearly were taken, what's the word I'm looking for?
0:07:47Surreptitiously, something like that.
0:07:48Taken illicitly, if you will.
0:07:50And so it's hard to tell.
0:07:52- Well, the other thing with these pictures is,
0:07:55if you look, I mean, tipster's also kind of arguing
0:07:57whether this might be the 13 inch MacBook,
0:08:00which last week we talked about this rumor.
0:08:03In the middle of the big long sentence of the rumor report
0:08:06was also a 13 inch MacBook One
0:08:09that we didn't talk about at all.
0:08:11(laughing)
0:08:12So I think it's worth mentioning.
0:08:14And then there's some speculation in the chat
0:08:16that I think is possibly warranted here
0:08:19that these leaked photos may have been
0:08:22that 13 inch MacBook, not 13 inch MacBook Pro.
0:08:26And there's a few things that support that.
0:08:28First of all, the people in chat are trying to figure out
0:08:30like is this implausibly thin for the kind of cooling system
0:08:33that an i5 would need?
0:08:35But what I spotted earlier when I saw these photos,
0:08:38it only has the four USB-C ports.
0:08:41There's no other ports.
0:08:43And so that would mean dropping some ports
0:08:45that are on the current 13 inch.
0:08:47Also, it would mean dropping the MagSafe port.
0:08:50And while it is possible to charge things
0:08:52through USB PD into a USB-C port,
0:08:54like what the MacBook One does.
0:08:57There's a limit to how much current
0:08:58that can actually deliver, and I think once you get
0:09:01into the 15-inch MacBook Pro with its external GPU,
0:09:05I think you're probably pushing that limit.
0:09:07It's probably, I'm guessing the 15-inch
0:09:10probably still has MagSafe, and then if the 15-inch
0:09:13still has it, the 13-inch would probably have it too,
0:09:15'cause they're built very similarly
0:09:17and share a lot of similar features and ports
0:09:19and capabilities and everything.
0:09:20So I'm guessing that the speculation that this part
0:09:25is actually the 13-inch MacBook One is probably correct,
0:09:29'cause that presumably would be able to be charged
0:09:32through USB-C just like the 12-inch MacBook One,
0:09:36or at least it would be more likely to.
0:09:38And we can speculate also about what the heck
0:09:40a 13-inch MacBook One might include,
0:09:43and why that would be necessary
0:09:46when there's also a new, thinner, lighter
0:09:4813-inch MacBook Pro.
0:09:50But, overall looking at these photos,
0:09:52I'd say it is fairly likely that we're looking
0:09:56at the 13X MacBook One enclosure,
0:09:57not 13X MacBook Pro enclosure.
0:09:59However, that said, I agree with John and Casey.
0:10:02I agree that if these are legitimate parts,
0:10:06which they look like they probably are,
0:10:08and this would be a reasonable time for them to be leaking,
0:10:11I'm guessing that this is real
0:10:14and that you're right about the keyboard row,
0:10:17that the F and key row sure does look like
0:10:19like it's gonna be just one big screen.
0:10:21And if you think about one other detail too,
0:10:24these rumors all said that these were supposed to have
0:10:26Touch ID, at least the MacBook Pro,
0:10:28we don't know about the MacBook One.
0:10:30These were supposed to have Touch ID.
0:10:32Where do you put the sensor?
0:10:34There is really nowhere on the keyboard to put it.
0:10:37You might be able to put it in the trackpad,
0:10:39but is that even possible without messing up
0:10:44the trackpad sensor, I don't even know.
0:10:45- I thought there was a patent for that.
0:10:48- Well, there's a-- - Could be--
0:10:48- Yeah, there's a lot of stuff that gets patented
0:10:50that never actually is practical to show up in a product.
0:10:52- Totally.
0:10:53- So it might be possible, but for now,
0:10:56we don't know if it's there.
0:10:57I'm guessing the most sensible place to put it
0:11:00is probably on, if that's gonna be one big flat screen,
0:11:04probably just on the right side of that or something.
0:11:07An area of that that is actually a touch ID sensor
0:11:10and not a screen, but it just looks,
0:11:12maybe it just looks straight black across the whole thing,
0:11:14it looks unified, but it's actually like,
0:11:16this part's a screen, this part's a sensor, you know.
0:11:19If you think about where else you'd put the Touch ID sensor,
0:11:21there's not really a lot of other good places
0:11:23that are plausible.
0:11:25So I'm guessing it's there.
0:11:26And then if you're gonna have one area of that be flat
0:11:30to be a Touch ID sensor and not be a key,
0:11:32it would look weird if there were a whole bunch of keys
0:11:35next to it and then the keys end
0:11:37like one key width short of the right side
0:11:39and there's a flat area there.
0:11:41So it's probably just gonna be all screen
0:11:43across the whole thing.
0:11:44I'm not sure what to make of this, but I am excited and I think it's worth recognizing that this
0:11:49hopefully will be something new and different about the MacBook line or the MacBook Pro line and
0:11:55We haven't really seen that much different in a long time. I mean there's certainly been incremental improvements
0:12:00And I love my work MacBook Pro and God do I love my 5k iMac
0:12:05But this is something new and exciting and different and I kind of like that
0:12:09We're trying something new and it's not just the what was it the titanium
0:12:13PowerBook or whatever that kind of started this whole unibody look. It's not a continuation of that just another you know
0:12:19photocopier perhaps slightly shrunken version of that it's something that's a little bit different and that's exciting so
0:12:25Why do you think this is the 13 inch MacBook one if it's not wedge-shaped isn't that kind of the?
0:12:31Signifier of that of the sort of ultra partable MacBook one line is that it would be wedge-shaped. I don't know I mean
0:12:38what would a 13-inch MacBook One be for?
0:12:41If you think about--
0:12:42- A bigger screen.
0:12:43- Okay, a bigger screen, but then what could differentiate it,
0:12:47what could justify it existing compared to just
0:12:49the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which the new version
0:12:52will probably be almost as thin and light
0:12:54as the current 13-inch MacBook Air?
0:12:56So why does that product need to exist?
0:13:00And I have a hard time answering that question, honestly.
0:13:03- It would have a wimpier CPU,
0:13:04maybe it could still be fanless,
0:13:06They could put the fastest of the fanless CPUs in there, give it more battery because
0:13:10it's bigger and have a bigger screen.
0:13:12I don't know.
0:13:13I mean, I'm trying to think of when I picture a MacBook One, since there's only been one
0:13:17model line in that, you know, one physical shape for that model line, I think of kind
0:13:22of like the Airs where there was the 11-inch Air and the 13-inch Air and they were both
0:13:26Air-shaped and the 13-inch had a bigger screen and more battery life, but otherwise not much
0:13:31differentiation.
0:13:32I mean, what if it's for price?
0:13:34You know, what if this is how they eventually
0:13:37replace the MacBook Air is by just making these
0:13:40like cheaper, more limited computers at the low end
0:13:43and then the MacBook Pro is the profitable one?
0:13:47- Yeah, we'll see.
0:13:48In the little picture they show,
0:13:49you can see the little connector in the upper right
0:13:52which I imagined, like there has to be a connector
0:13:54for the screen, right?
0:13:55- Yeah. - And I suppose you can't
0:13:56have the same connector for both the screen
0:13:57and the Touch ID but there's also a little opening
0:13:59on the left side that like a ribbon cable could go through.
0:14:01So if the ribbon cable connects to the screen,
0:14:04that could be all the screen needs for the connector,
0:14:06which would leave that thing on the right for touch ID.
0:14:10- Honestly, the left side just looks like
0:14:11a physical mounting point to me, but I don't know.
0:14:14I mean, who knows?
0:14:16We will probably, hopefully know soon enough from Apple,
0:14:19but yeah, I think if it's the MacBook Pro,
0:14:23if it's the 13-inch MacBook Pro, then okay.
0:14:27Then I think it makes more sense that way, honestly,
0:14:30even though we'd lose some of the ports and things
0:14:32that are on the current one and some people would get mad,
0:14:34well, that's what Apple's best at,
0:14:36is angering people who like the old laptops.
0:14:37So, you know, that's in the name of thinness.
0:14:40- You get four USB-C ports,
0:14:42that's a pretty big number for Apple,
0:14:45and I think you can do a lot with four USB-C ports.
0:14:48Like, just one of those ports,
0:14:50you can do a lot with a bunch of adapters,
0:14:51but having four of them means
0:14:52you're probably not gonna run out of ports.
0:14:54You may be annoyed that you still have to carry
0:14:56a bunch of adapters around,
0:14:57but I think four of them is enough for a 13 inch,
0:15:01because you can do pretty much anything
0:15:03from any one of those points.
0:15:03You can have a monitor, a USB thumb drive,
0:15:07an ethernet cable, and an external hard drive.
0:15:10And I feel like that is plenty of things hanging off of,
0:15:13and you can connect so much more
0:15:15through just one of those if you have
0:15:16like a Thunderbolt breakout box or whatever.
0:15:18- Yeah, exactly.
0:15:19And then, honestly, that's one of the biggest reasons
0:15:20I'm looking forward to the USB-C Thunderbolt 3 transition,
0:15:23because we finally will have like more,
0:15:27assuming that these are real and assuming that the laptops,
0:15:29at least some of them, are getting four ports total.
0:15:32I would love to have four USB ports on a laptop.
0:15:34I'm always running, I'm always using both of mine.
0:15:37Usually at least one of them is charging something
0:15:39or something else.
0:15:40I'm always using those when I travel.
0:15:42So that'd be, I'm looking forward to this feature.
0:15:43But I do wonder, it's such a weird wild card.
0:15:48It's like, assuming this is the 13 inch MacBook One
0:15:51and not 13 inch MacBook Pro,
0:15:52why do they justify having four ports
0:15:55on the 13 inch version of this computer
0:15:57where the 12 inch version has one.
0:15:59You know, it's just weird.
0:16:00It's like, this is a weird leak of what appears to be
0:16:04a very, like, a product that raises a lot of questions.
0:16:07And it might end up being awesome, whatever it is,
0:16:09but this certainly, yeah,
0:16:12this certainly raises a lot of questions.
0:16:14- It still has the headphone port too,
0:16:16unlike the rumored iPhone.
0:16:18- Oh, it does?
0:16:19Oh yeah, there it is, you're right, yeah.
0:16:20Yeah, so I don't know, the weird thing to me
0:16:22is the dropping of the MagSafe in this kind of enclosure.
0:16:24Like if it's big enough and high powered enough
0:16:27to have four USB ports and no MagSave,
0:16:30then it's charging through this,
0:16:32and if that can do it, then could the 15 inch also do it?
0:16:36I don't know, I don't know.
0:16:37It's a whole bunch of questions here.
0:16:39But I don't know, this is looking like
0:16:41it's gonna be a pretty great update.
0:16:44As to why this one's not tapered,
0:16:47I commend whatever decision led to this not being tapered.
0:16:51Because-- - Yeah, no,
0:16:52I've always been all for it too.
0:16:53But I'm just saying, if I have to think of what defines
0:16:56the MacBook One line, it's like, not only is it so
0:16:58insanely thin, but it wasn't thin enough that they had
0:17:01to make one edge thin enough to slice cheese.
0:17:04- Well also, again, going back to what I said last episode
0:17:07about defending deep keyboards, because keyboards weigh
0:17:11almost nothing in laptops, generally when you're defining
0:17:15the thickness of the laptop, you're limited really by
0:17:18how much weight you're willing to devote to battery,
0:17:22basically because batteries are generally
0:17:24like one of the heaviest things inside
0:17:25of monocomputing devices, if not the heaviest thing
0:17:28depending on the device.
0:17:29And so, and the way you make computers thinner and lighter
0:17:33is not by just like cutting the case in half
0:17:35and saying all right, now just kind of shove everything
0:17:37in tighter, I mean that's part of it,
0:17:38but the way you make them thinner and lighter
0:17:41is you first make them lighter by removing battery
0:17:44and you remove battery by removing the need
0:17:46for as much battery as you had before.
0:17:48Which usually comes in power advancements
0:17:50in how much power the screen and processor both draw.
0:17:53Usually the processor is the bigger one, but anyway.
0:17:56So the idea is you develop technology,
0:17:58you develop savings, you figure out a way
0:18:00to make the processor and everything else use less power,
0:18:04then you need less battery mass in there
0:18:06to achieve the same battery life you had before
0:18:08to achieve what people consider acceptable.
0:18:10So then you can shrink the battery
0:18:12and then you can kinda shrink the case around it.
0:18:14Like now you have FreeSpace and now it's like,
0:18:16all right, how thin can we make this case
0:18:19that only has to hold X amount of battery
0:18:21plus the other parts.
0:18:23I think the reason the MacBook One is as thin as it is,
0:18:26and the reason it's wedge-shaped,
0:18:28is because they were probably first targeting a weight goal,
0:18:31because that makes more sense.
0:18:32You know, it's like, okay, well now,
0:18:34Intel's making this new five watt CPU,
0:18:36so we can make a fanless and everything.
0:18:38So if we make a computer that's small enough,
0:18:40with a small enough screen that uses this CPU,
0:18:42it'll only need this little tiny amount of battery inside.
0:18:46So then, how do we make the thinnest case possible
0:18:48to contain these parts.
0:18:50And they had to still have some,
0:18:52even though it's very little,
0:18:53some room for a keyboard in there.
0:18:56But they didn't need the wrist rest area
0:18:58that was filled with battery,
0:19:00they didn't need that to be any thicker.
0:19:02'Cause any thicker, and they would've just been empty space,
0:19:05or more battery, which would've driven the weight up,
0:19:07which they didn't want.
0:19:08So you make the front of it as thin as it can be,
0:19:10while still holding that battery,
0:19:11and you make the back of it as thick as it needs to be
0:19:13to fit the keyboard and the other parts,
0:19:15and that's how you get a wedge shape.
0:19:16So they weren't necessarily targeting the wedge.
0:19:21They did the wedge because they just didn't need
0:19:22any more space in the front half of the laptop.
0:19:25So if this part is real, and if this is actually
0:19:27a member of the MacBook One line
0:19:29and not the MacBook Pro line,
0:19:31it certainly raises the question of
0:19:32what the heck is all that extra space for?
0:19:34And as far as I can guess,
0:19:37didn't the MacBook One's CPU architecture
0:19:41that with the crazy Intel 5 watt thing,
0:19:43didn't that have like a very low limit
0:19:45on how many ports it could even drive with its chipset.
0:19:48So maybe this isn't using those CPUs at all.
0:19:50Maybe this is using some other Intel low wattage chip
0:19:54that's higher end than the Core M.
0:19:57And then that's how it's driving all these ports,
0:19:59but then it needs all this additional battery to function
0:20:02and to have an acceptable battery life.
0:20:04Which of course then raises the question of,
0:20:06well what the heck is the difference between that
0:20:07and the MacBook Pro?
0:20:09- All that empty space in the front
0:20:10is for speaker cavities, right?
0:20:12Like on the iPad Pro?
0:20:13Four speakers.
0:20:14Tell you what, that'd be awesome.
0:20:16That'd be amazing, but no, I doubt it.
0:20:18- We have so much space left over in this case,
0:20:20we don't even know what to do with it.
0:20:22Speaker cavities, speaker cavities for everybody.
0:20:25All right, anything else about these laptops?
0:20:27- I'm looking forward to hearing what these actually are
0:20:30and seeing them, 'cause as you said, Casey,
0:20:33major changes to the Mac designs don't happen very often,
0:20:38and especially to the main workhorse computers.
0:20:42It's one thing to introduce a brand new,
0:20:43tiny little MacBook One at an event,
0:20:46but everyone's still using MacBook Pros.
0:20:47It's a whole other thing to totally redesign
0:20:49the MacBook Pro or the iMac or the Mac Pro.
0:20:52These are major events in the product line,
0:20:55and it's exciting, and it's exciting for those of us
0:20:58who have and love our Macs.
0:21:01It's kind of reassuring, it's nice to know
0:21:04that the company that seems like it cares
0:21:06a whole lot more about iOS devices,
0:21:08that they haven't forgotten about the Mac in the process,
0:21:10that the Mac is still being actively developed
0:21:13being evolved and having attention put on it, really.
0:21:17- Yeah, and the thing is, to kind of build on what you
0:21:19and I had both said earlier, is that they clearly,
0:21:22Apple clearly takes messing with the MacBook Pro
0:21:26and even the non-Pro line very seriously.
0:21:29Like, they don't tend to make really crummy decisions.
0:21:33Like, yeah, we all complained and moaned a little bit
0:21:35about the MacBook One, but at least you could understand
0:21:38what they were going for there.
0:21:39And for them to be messing with a design
0:21:41that really does work.
0:21:42I mean, I have loved every MacBook Pro I've ever owned,
0:21:45and I love the one that work gave me.
0:21:47And I'm very anxious to see this new one,
0:21:51because if they're gonna change something
0:21:53that is so important and that works so well,
0:21:56because the design that they have today, I really do love,
0:21:59then it's gonna have to be something good.
0:22:01This isn't the playground like the iPhone or the iPad
0:22:04where things change fairly frequently.
0:22:06This is kind of the slow and steady wins the race
0:22:09sort of product for them.
0:22:12And so because of that, I'm really, really anxious.
0:22:14I'm really, really excited to see it.
0:22:16And also dreading it,
0:22:16because then I'm gonna wanna buy a laptop,
0:22:18and I really don't need a laptop right now.
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0:24:24(upbeat music)
0:24:27- All right, so sticking with hardware for a moment,
0:24:30let's talk about this rumored external 5K display.
0:24:33This is all coming back again.
0:24:35I don't remember when it was we talked about this, but it was quite a while ago.
0:24:38It's all coming up tipster.
0:24:40It's all coming up tipster.
0:24:42And so just earlier today as we record this, there's been increased rumors about the potential
0:24:49of a new Cinema Display or Thunderbolt display, given that stock seems to be running out everywhere.
0:24:55So any new thoughts on this?
0:24:57Do we think this is real?
0:24:58Or is Jon finally getting his external Retina display so he can get his stupid trash can
0:25:02Mac Pro?
0:25:03What are we thinking?
0:25:04The story, the angle on the story I've seen,
0:25:06I think we did discuss all this in past episodes.
0:25:09Maybe we did it off air,
0:25:10maybe it all happened in the chat room.
0:25:12It all kind of blends together,
0:25:13but the angle on the story is,
0:25:15hey, new 5K display is fine,
0:25:16but then everyone's like,
0:25:17oh, how are they going to plug this into Macintosh computers
0:25:21and make an image appear on the screen?
0:25:22And everyone is going through all the DisplayPort specs
0:25:24and seeing that they don't give enough bandwidth
0:25:27and trying to figure it out
0:25:28and going in around and around,
0:25:29and eventually the GPU and the display idea comes out.
0:25:33So just as a review, in case we actually didn't discuss this
0:25:36and it was all in the chat room,
0:25:38the idea is that you can't power it with DisplayPort
0:25:41because there's not enough bandwidth
0:25:42unless you connect two wires,
0:25:43which is kind of what happens internally on the iMac
0:25:46or can happen externally on a current Mac.
0:25:49But everyone believes that Apple won't do that
0:25:51because it's gross.
0:25:52You don't want to have two wires
0:25:53connected to your actual display.
0:25:56And Intel is not going to have the,
0:25:58what is it, DisplayPort 1.4 or whatever,
0:26:00whatever standard it is that has the bandwidth
0:26:02power a 5k 1.3 I believe maybe it's 1.3 or 8.4 but either way it's not going to be in the skylake
0:26:08things it's not going to be in the next one even I think it's like it's a long ways out so even
0:26:12though DisplayPort will eventually support it doesn't look like any of the current Macs are
0:26:15going to and so the only thing left is something weird and people think proprietary but really it's
0:26:22not proprietary it's just plain old thunderbolts because remember the Thunderbolt spec has
0:26:25bandwidth allocated for data transfer and also DisplayPort and the idea is they will ignore a
0:26:31a display port. It will connect to it as if it's just a Thunderbolt 3 device and you'll
0:26:36be running PCI Express over a wire and the thing on the other end of the wire will be
0:26:40this monitor that has some sort of PCI Express terminator so that from the perspective of
0:26:45the Mac that you have connected to it, it looks like the monitor itself is a video card.
0:26:50And then it starts to get hazy and like, well, is the GPU entirely in the monitor? Maybe
0:26:54for laptops that don't even have a GPU that can drive it anyway, the GPU in the monitor
0:26:58will handle it, but what about something like the Mac Pro where surely the Mac Pro itself
0:27:02will have a better GPU than the monitor?
0:27:03Well, if they updated it might.
0:27:05Yeah, it will use its internal GPU, but then just use PCI Express to communicate that the
0:27:11image information over to the monitor and then the monitor will act as a PCI Express
0:27:15device, even though all the GPU stuff is happening on the Mac Pro.
0:27:18Anyway, bottom line is not DisplayPort.
0:27:21That's the answer that we all think of how they're going to drive this 5K monitor from
0:27:26a bunch of Macs.
0:27:27They can use Thunderbolt and use it as the same
0:27:30as all those Thunderbolts PCI Express breakout boxes,
0:27:33only this will be a breakout monitor box.
0:27:36- Yeah, I mean, this is another one of those things
0:27:38where there's a lot of people making a lot
0:27:40of blanket statements of, well, this isn't possible
0:27:43because of X, and the reality is this stuff
0:27:46is all very complicated.
0:27:48Most of us who are making these statements
0:27:49don't have a full understanding of all the stuff
0:27:51that's involved and what actually is possible
0:27:53and what actually isn't possible and what's needed
0:27:54and what's kind of just a thing we heard.
0:27:56The reality is the more I learn about this,
0:27:59the more I learn that it's way more complicated
0:28:02than I thought.
0:28:03There are actually ways to do it with current hardware
0:28:07or with near future hardware.
0:28:09And so it's really just a question of like, you know,
0:28:13has everything gotten together in time
0:28:14and what will support it and when will it come out
0:28:17and what will it plug into?
0:28:18And it seems like the answer to almost all those things
0:28:21is kind of like, well, that's up to Apple.
0:28:23So I think it's too early to say really.
0:28:26they've had a long time to work this out and Apple does have experience for
0:28:29example having dual GPU laptops and dealing with the GPU switching that's
0:28:32another question people have like how can you have a GPU in the monitor what
0:28:36if you yank the cable out of the monitor first of all yanking the cable out of
0:28:38monitors historically has always been a little bit weird not just when you're
0:28:43doing them over Thunderbolts right but Apple has some experience dealing with
0:28:48multiple GPUs running multiple displays and laptops granted not all of that
0:28:52experience is great but presumably Apple's the company can they can do it
0:28:55because they know all the hardware involved, they control the monitor side, they control
0:28:59the Mac side, and surely they'll be limited to support for certain collection of Macs
0:29:04that can do this and it will probably require a new OS update and all this other stuff.
0:29:08And we've just waited so long.
0:29:10How long has the Thunderbolt display been out for?
0:29:12I think I saw the date filed by, it's been like four years?
0:29:15Five years?
0:29:16I don't know.
0:29:17It's been a long time.
0:29:18Yeah, and it's especially because it's barely different from the LED SIMO display
0:29:22that came right before it.
0:29:23Right.
0:29:24just updated it with a Thunderbolt but having more ports than going over a Thunderbolt.
0:29:27Yeah. July 20, 2011. There you go. Yeah, it's a long time. So, it is entirely technically
0:29:36possible now for Apple to launch both a new Mac Pro, Apple please, and/or an external
0:29:435K display that a bunch of the laptops that they will also introduce can drive. Now, is
0:29:47it possible that existing laptops can drive it too? Probably, maybe, especially if it's
0:29:51GPU in the monitor that's sufficient to drive the monitor itself.
0:29:56And this will be a weird solution, but it's better than waiting for the DisplayPort spec
0:30:02that supports us and waiting many more years for Intel chipsets to support them.
0:30:07This is far preferable, so I really want Apple to do this.
0:30:10We've all waited long enough for an external 5K display.
0:30:13It's time.
0:30:14And a Mac Pro update.
0:30:15Well, I'm willing to believe that is not in the cards for WWC.
0:30:19I'm trying to keep my expectations tamped down but surely announcement of new laptops and
0:30:23Surely an announcement of a 5k display. Come on. Although I keep seeing more people
0:30:28Oh, yeah, q4 definitely later in the year
0:30:30So they could even they could even skip this and announce it not a W
0:30:34I don't understand why they would but they could if they wanted to give all the glory the WWC stage - I
0:30:40Don't know what could possibly trump this iPhone stuff
0:30:44Swift stuff
0:30:47renaming Mac OS and iOS, I don't know.
0:30:50Like, who knows what they have planned,
0:30:52but this year for sure, right guys?
0:30:54- Mm.
0:30:55(laughing)
0:30:58- I sure hope not.
0:30:59I mean, I'm really excited for you, I hope it works out.
0:31:02I don't know if I can handle--
0:31:03- It doesn't, you know, even if they release the new Mac Pro,
0:31:06you know John's not gonna buy it.
0:31:07- That's true.
0:31:08- Oh, you don't know that, you don't know that at all.
0:31:10Saving my pennies.
0:31:11- You're gonna, first you're gonna say,
0:31:14well, I wanna wait and see,
0:31:16make sure that it doesn't have any big problems.
0:31:17I'm gonna wait for other people to buy it first.
0:31:19- Well, of course I'm gonna do that.
0:31:20Of course I'm gonna do that no matter what about everything.
0:31:22- Right, and so then, so six months in,
0:31:23we're gonna remember to ask you about it.
0:31:24- 'Cause I don't have to wait six months to find out.
0:31:26- And we're gonna say, "Hey, John, remember when you said
0:31:28"you were waiting for the first people to buy the Mac Pro?
0:31:30"So now it's been a while, there's no problem,
0:31:32"so when are you gonna buy it?"
0:31:33And then you're gonna be like, "Well, I wish I had
0:31:35"better GPUs or the gaming performance isn't that good here
0:31:38"and it's so expensive and so I think my Mac Pro
0:31:41"is still gonna work for a little bit longer.
0:31:43or I can get a few more years out of it until the next one.
0:31:45And then two years into the cycle,
0:31:47I'd be like, well, now it's pretty old,
0:31:48I might as well wait till the next one comes out.
0:31:50(laughing)
0:31:51- This Mac's gonna break someday, right?
0:31:54Can't last forever.
0:31:55- I don't know, those old Mac Pros are pretty solid.
0:31:57- It is tempting to try to go for 10 years though,
0:31:59isn't it?
0:32:00- No, no it's not. - Oh my god.
0:32:02Oh my lord.
0:32:03- Would you go 10 years for milk in your fridge?
0:32:05No, it doesn't matter what the number is.
0:32:07- It's not milk, it's hardware.
0:32:09- This is not the kind of area
0:32:11where you should achieve incredible longevity
0:32:13of your main computer just for the heck of it.
0:32:18- This'll be great when I upgrade my PS4
0:32:20to a faster version while my Mac sits there,
0:32:22continues not to be upgraded.
0:32:24- Yeah, how many gaming systems have you bought
0:32:26in the time you've had that Mac Pro?
0:32:28- All of them?
0:32:31No, not all of them.
0:32:32N64 came out before this, right?
0:32:34- Oh my god.
0:32:35- I think the 360, well, you never have a 360, right?
0:32:37- No.
0:32:38- I think 360 came out before it,
0:32:39but did the PS3, no the PS3 was before,
0:32:42that was like '06 or something like that, right?
0:32:45- Yeah, console generation's for like seven years
0:32:48for the PS3 generation, so I haven't bought that many.
0:32:50- Oh, God.
0:32:52All right, what else is going on?
0:32:54Let's see here.
0:32:55We didn't talk about Apple potentially opening up Siri
0:32:59and developing an Echo Rival.
0:33:01- We mentioned the article, but then we got off
0:33:03on another tangent about Apple and services and stuff.
0:33:06- We would never do that.
0:33:07- Us?
0:33:08that was the headline of the story was, you know, an echo arrival and the Siri opening
0:33:14up. I guess we didn't talk too much about the API aspect of it, but we mostly just talked
0:33:18about Apple and services.
0:33:19Yeah, so apparently Apple may be opening up Siri, there may be an echo arrival, and that's
0:33:25about all we know, which is to say basically nothing.
0:33:28Was this the article that said, or maybe I heard this somewhere else, that the idea of
0:33:31opening up Siri is that it wouldn't be as open as the skills are on the echo, it would
0:33:34still be more kind of, at least initially for like select
0:33:38partners to have Siri integration.
0:33:40I don't quite understand what the holdup is on having an
0:33:43official API for Siri.
0:33:44Apple loves APIs.
0:33:45WWDC is all about APIs.
0:33:48Like they're all just look at these great new APIs,
0:33:50integrate this into your app, integrate that into your app,
0:33:52your app should have one of these.
0:33:53And yet Siri it's like, no, nothing for you this year.
0:33:57Like it's been so long.
0:33:58It seems like they could have come up with the safest
0:34:03possible Siri integration.
0:34:04Maybe it would be useless, maybe you don't use it,
0:34:06but like get the ball rolling on the idea
0:34:08that Siri is not just like this feature of your phone,
0:34:12but rather is an API that your apps can integrate with
0:34:14to make, you know, your apps can make Siri more useful
0:34:16in the same way that share sheets made
0:34:17like every app on the system more useful.
0:34:19Just implement the new share sheet API
0:34:21and suddenly everybody's apps can all work together
0:34:24to make everybody's phones more useful.
0:34:25Siri should be exactly the same, but isn't.
0:34:28- I really hope that this report is true,
0:34:30that there is Siri API being unveiled soon,
0:34:34because as a developer, I would love it.
0:34:36And there are so many things that,
0:34:38like I would love for myself to have access to it,
0:34:40I would love for other developers to have access to it,
0:34:42I would love to, as a user, for other developers
0:34:44to have access to it so I can do
0:34:45so much better stuff with Siri.
0:34:47I really hope this is real.
0:34:50I recognize it's a very hard problem to solve
0:34:53in a way that Apple would be happy with.
0:34:55And it is not that surprising to me
0:34:58that they don't have an API,
0:35:00that they haven't had an API yet up to this point
0:35:02because it is a very hard problem to solve
0:35:05in a way Apple would find tolerable.
0:35:07But it's time, it's really time.
0:35:11As we see other voice assistant platforms
0:35:14having APIs and adding APIs and coming soon with APIs,
0:35:19this is an area where I just really hope
0:35:21Apple keeps up, I guess.
0:35:24And as we talked about last week,
0:35:26I really, really hope that they bring competitive
0:35:29this area because it's exciting.
0:35:30It could be really cool.
0:35:32It's very useful a lot of times.
0:35:34And I hope I can participate in that as an Apple user
0:35:37and as an Apple developer.
0:35:39- You know, thinking of the APIs
0:35:41and thinking of what the Amazon Echo skills system is,
0:35:44it's not like Apple hasn't done APIs like that before.
0:35:47I'm thinking of the Passbook API
0:35:49before they changed it to Wallet.
0:35:50I don't remember what that was like.
0:35:52It was pretty easy for airlines or whatever
0:35:54to integrate with Passbook.
0:35:55It was just like, it was very webby.
0:35:57It was very sort of make a rest-ish endpoint
0:36:00that sends and receives JSON in this format
0:36:03and sends some simple markup.
0:36:04And in the app, it looked like these little cards.
0:36:08And I think it's probably the same API for the wallet thing.
0:36:10I don't think they've changed it that much.
0:36:11That is exactly the API that you could use for skills
0:36:15in terms of integrating Siri, not with iOS apps,
0:36:18just with other backend services and stuff like that,
0:36:20to be able to ask Siri questions
0:36:23and have skills installed to let Siri ask something
0:36:25other than Wolfram Alpha to get questions about,
0:36:28I don't know, sports, like ask ESPN
0:36:29for more detailed sports information or whatever.
0:36:32Like that type of system, that is an API.
0:36:34It's not like Apple has never made those APIs before.
0:36:36They've done it, it's rare, but it's possible.
0:36:40And it's successful.
0:36:43Like Passbook and all that stuff
0:36:44had pretty wide adoption pretty quickly,
0:36:46but it's like, we don't really care that much.
0:36:48We don't know how much people are gonna use it,
0:36:49but it's so easy to do.
0:36:50Throw one web developer at it for a few weeks.
0:36:53Every airline did it and it was fine.
0:36:55and it continues to sort of lurch along, right?
0:36:58They could do that with Siri easily.
0:36:59Maybe they just don't think that's sufficient.
0:37:00Maybe they have bigger plans with this,
0:37:02the new, you know, whatever rumored, much better Siri.
0:37:06The other thing I was thinking of is that
0:37:08if they're doing the whole Mac OS renaming
0:37:10with the lowercase Mac capital OS,
0:37:12it's a good time to perhaps think about,
0:37:16and if Siri's gonna appear on the new version
0:37:18of the Mac operating system,
0:37:20good time to think about rebranding/combining Spotlight
0:37:23in Siri, which have been sort of merging
0:37:25and dancing around each other for years.
0:37:26I don't know who wins, probably Siri instead of Spotlight,
0:37:29but how can you have two different things
0:37:31that are all very similar?
0:37:32They really should be integrated UI wise,
0:37:34branding and conceptually.
0:37:37It's kind of confusing to have them like that.
0:37:38So this would be a good time to unify those brands too.
0:37:42And if you did that,
0:37:43Spotlight does have an extension mechanism
0:37:45where you can write plugins
0:37:46and let your files be indexed on your Mac or whatever.
0:37:49That's another good time to add a Siri API
0:37:54because once they're combined into one thing,
0:37:55you can add an API for, I don't know.
0:37:57Like again, Apple, that's what WDC is all about.
0:38:01It's all about sessions where they have new APIs
0:38:03that you can use to make your apps cooler.
0:38:05And that usually Apple wants you to incorporate.
0:38:07They're practically begging you to think of a reason,
0:38:09think of a way that you can incorporate this new API
0:38:13in all the sessions.
0:38:14Like you may not think you need this API in your app,
0:38:16but let me show you some examples.
0:38:17You can add, you know, a rotating 3D cube in the corner.
0:38:20So you should use SceneKit.
0:38:21Like, they're very gung ho about,
0:38:24we have great new APIs and you should incorporate them
0:38:25because by incorporating the new APIs,
0:38:27you add value to Apple's platform
0:38:28and show its unique value proposition
0:38:30because Apple believes these APIs are, you know,
0:38:32something that the other platforms don't have,
0:38:35things to compete with or that their APIs
0:38:36are more complicated or whatever.
0:38:37So yeah, I guess this is the time of year
0:38:40where everything seems possible at WWC.
0:38:43All our dreams will come true
0:38:44and everything we thought of will be announced
0:38:47at the keynote and we'll have 15 sessions,
0:38:48but obviously they can't all fit in.
0:38:50So we'll see what gets dropped on the floor.
0:38:52- So quick aside, are you in favor of
0:38:54or against OS X becoming Mac OS?
0:38:58- Aesthetically, I'm pretty against,
0:38:59but in terms of it's time for a rebrand, I'm for.
0:39:04Like I don't like the lowercase M-A-C-O-S,
0:39:06but I think it's just like the drop the cats.
0:39:10If you wanna rename it after so many versions
0:39:12to do a different thing, get rid of the X and the X thing.
0:39:15And like, I don't know, yeah, sure rename it,
0:39:17but I really don't like the lowercase thing,
0:39:19I'll live with it.
0:39:20- I think it'd be good.
0:39:21I think it's time.
0:39:22I'm ready.
0:39:23- Yeah, me too.
0:39:24I'm in favor.
0:39:25You know, the capitalization of the Mac aside, you know, I don't really have a strong opinion
0:39:28on that.
0:39:29You know, I would, I think it'd be cool if it was capital 'cause it's, it'd kind of be,
0:39:32you know, an old school reference and kind of just fits better.
0:39:36- It's not an old school reference if there's no space.
0:39:39- But yeah.
0:39:40- Psy is a different name.
0:39:44- We have a new sponsor this week.
0:39:45We are sponsored by Eero, E-E-R-O, Eero.
0:39:48Now Eero is a new Wi-Fi router company
0:39:52for really high-end Wi-Fi at home.
0:39:54This is like enterprise-grade Wi-Fi to get it home,
0:39:57and it's super easy to set up and super modern.
0:39:59So here's how this works.
0:40:00Now, almost everybody I know who's ever had Wi-Fi
0:40:03in the house, which is almost everybody,
0:40:04there's always like areas of low reception or dead zones
0:40:07or parts that are just really slow.
0:40:09What you really need is multiple access points,
0:40:12multiple Wi-Fi routers to cover the area of your house.
0:40:15It's very hard to have one super powerful one
0:40:19that you put hopefully near the middle of your house
0:40:22and have that have adequate coverage.
0:40:24So what Eero is is a system that makes it super easy
0:40:27to have multiple Wi-Fi routers in your house
0:40:30that all talk to each other
0:40:31and automatically configure themselves.
0:40:33So you basically just plug them in wherever you need them,
0:40:36roughly one per thousand square feet.
0:40:38So most homes in the US,
0:40:40you'd have either two or three of them.
0:40:41You designate one of them as your router
0:40:44and you plug that one in with a wire
0:40:45to your modem or your internet connection or whatever,
0:40:48you plug it into ethernet.
0:40:49The other two, you just plug those in somewhere else
0:40:52in your house and they communicate with each other
0:40:54on a secondary mesh network and so it's faster
0:40:57than typical WiFi range extenders
0:40:59'cause it uses dual radios, you don't have to worry
0:41:01about the throughput being horrible.
0:41:03And it's automatically configured
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0:41:06So it basically solves the home WiFi coverage problem
0:41:09in a way that it's, I've never seen anything
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0:41:15So you guys have them, right?
0:41:16What do you think?
0:41:17- I'm really impressed.
0:41:18I wasn't sure if I would just throw them on
0:41:20and then kind of try them out and then put them away,
0:41:23but I think they have replaced my very old Airport Extreme.
0:41:26- All right, sounds good.
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0:41:37So thanks a lot to Eero for sponsoring our show.
0:41:43So iPhone 7, another tuck or maybe tick?
0:41:46I didn't see this.
0:41:47Tuck?
0:41:48Tell me about this.
0:41:49Tuck, yeah.
0:41:50Christina Warren's article at Mashable, talking about the iPhone 7, we talked a lot about
0:41:54it already, you know, dropping the headphone port and we've seen the spy shots where it
0:41:57looks a lot like the iPhone 6, but the antenna lines are a little bit moved around and the
0:42:01big one's gonna have two cameras and so on and so forth.
0:42:05This story was sort of meta-story about, okay, assuming all that's pretty much the case,
0:42:08"Hey, the iPhone 7 doesn't really look that different than the iPhone 6."
0:42:13And for a long time now, the iPhone has been on the thing where they make a new case design,
0:42:19then they put faster innards in it, then they make a new case design, then put faster innards in it,
0:42:23and they're calling this the TikTok strategy. Unfortunately, now that Intel has left the TikTok
0:42:27strategy and I have a solid grasp exactly on what is the Tik and what is the Tok,
0:42:30really, they said, "Oh, the iPhone 7 will be as if it was TikTokTok when really it should be
0:42:38talk tick tick it's confusing i know anyway the iphone 7 would really be another tick because
0:42:43tick is the shrink and the shrink is the boring one where it's the same thing but they just put
0:42:46it at a smaller size so and the talk is the exciting one the new architecture or whatever
0:42:51anyway so the iphone 6 new form factor look different than its predecessor phone entirely
0:42:56the iphone 6s looks like the 6 faster innards and the iphone 7 also kind of looks like the 6s with
0:43:03with faster innards.
0:43:05And the angle on the story is that this is a new three year
0:43:08cycle for phones, that they're not going to do
0:43:10the every other year thing.
0:43:11They're slowing down a little bit, possibly permanently
0:43:14or possibly just because the iPhone 8 will be like
0:43:18the 10 year anniversary of the iPhone.
0:43:20And the rumors about that one are like it's edge to edge
0:43:22glass and it's super thin and it's glass all over.
0:43:25And it looks like it's really radical and amazing.
0:43:27And wouldn't it be great to have a 10 year anniversary
0:43:29of the iPhone with just this amazing new design
0:43:31that's something that no one ever thought of.
0:43:33So maybe the iPhone 7 year, this year,
0:43:36is gonna be a kind of boring year for a change
0:43:39where yeah, it's gonna be faster and cool
0:43:41and have different antenna lines
0:43:42and maybe some different colors
0:43:44and all the great stuff that we love
0:43:46and the big one will have two cameras
0:43:47and do all cool things.
0:43:49But next year is the big one
0:43:50where the phone is gonna look totally different
0:43:52and it's gonna blow your mind
0:43:53'cause the Touch ID sensor will be integrated
0:43:54into the screen and it won't have any frame around the glass
0:43:57and who knows what the heck else it'll have.
0:44:00And I'm not quite sure how I feel about that
0:44:02'cause I have a six and I skipped the 6S
0:44:05and I was thinking of getting a seven,
0:44:06but if the seven looks the same
0:44:07and if I know the eight is gonna be
0:44:08the crazy 10 year anniversary one,
0:44:10this is gonna be like my Mac Pro all over again.
0:44:12Am I gonna keep this iPhone 6?
0:44:13- Oh God.
0:44:13- The first and only iPhone I've ever owned,
0:44:15how long am I gonna keep using this?
0:44:16'Cause you know what, my iPhone 6 is fine.
0:44:19Like it's still good, I still like it.
0:44:22The battery life is still decent.
0:44:23- You're accustomed to using crappy iPod Touch hardware,
0:44:26John, trust me, we need to teach you
0:44:30as a first time iPhone owner,
0:44:31We need to teach you how to be an iPhone owner.
0:44:33- I need to get one every two years.
0:44:34I need to get one every year
0:44:35if I wanna be like you crazy people.
0:44:36- You're a tech podcaster.
0:44:38Just get one every year.
0:44:39It's part of your job.
0:44:39- Yeah, I agree.
0:44:41- My wife has a 6S Plus.
0:44:43I see that it's faster and everything.
0:44:45It's also giant, but I don't know.
0:44:48I don't think I need a new phone every,
0:44:49I'll think about it.
0:44:50- You do.
0:44:51At least every two.
0:44:53- At least every two.
0:44:54But then if I get the 7,
0:44:56then when the 10-year anniversary one comes out
0:44:58and it's awesome, I'll be even more resistant to getting it.
0:45:01I don't know, I really have to think about this.
0:45:02I really have to see what the seven is like.
0:45:03- When you get the 6SS, or whatever went through that
0:45:07this year-- - I don't think they're
0:45:08gonna go with SS, just off the top of my head.
0:45:11- Yeah, let's hope not.
0:45:12So when you get the one that comes out this year,
0:45:16and then next year, just one year later,
0:45:18an amazing new one comes out, get that one too.
0:45:21- I don't know. - You're a tech podcaster,
0:45:23this is what we do.
0:45:24- Yeah, that's the thing, like I always wanted to go
0:45:27on the annual cycle and could never justify it to myself,
0:45:29And then it occurred to me, we do make a little bit of money off of this show.
0:45:34It is sponsored for a reason.
0:45:36And you know what?
0:45:37$1,000 or $1,500 or however much a damn iPhone is these days.
0:45:40Where are you getting your iPhone?
0:45:42What the hell?
0:45:43No, they're like, is there like $800 now?
0:45:45I don't even know.
0:45:46He's factoring in the cost of the data plan.
0:45:47Yeah, totally.
0:45:48That's what it was.
0:45:49Oh yeah, okay.
0:45:50Yeah, but anyway.
0:45:51No, but the point is, you know, even a well-equipped iPhone, you know, it's, what is it, like $800
0:45:57with that?
0:45:58It's $900.
0:45:59So once a year, I think I can afford that,
0:46:03and I do consider it to be part of the job
0:46:05of doing this podcast.
0:46:06And I don't think that's true of everyone.
0:46:08Like Erin, I've offered to get her a new phone
0:46:11on off years for her, and she's,
0:46:12"Meh, I don't think I really need it."
0:46:14And that's fine, I don't think that's a bad thing.
0:46:15Before the podcast, I wanted it, but I never did it.
0:46:19But John, you make a few dollars from the show, it's time.
0:46:23- Isn't this why we do the podcast?
0:46:25- My wife has this year's phone,
0:46:27she has a 5k iMac, she's all swanky and the fancy new hardware. I'm the one with the,
0:46:33on the other hand, I have been buying more games recently, so that's how I spoil myself.
0:46:38- I mean, it is the polite thing to do as the tech podcaster to make sure that the other
0:46:43members of your family are adequately set up with good technology. So you're doing that
0:46:48part right, but you do have to think of yourself as well here. You don't buy an iPhone and
0:46:53sit on it for three years because the next one might be good.
0:46:55- Well anyway, my particular use aside,
0:46:58what do you guys think of having an off year
0:47:02where they just kind of cruise with another S revision
0:47:06while we wait for what we hope will be an amazing new one?
0:47:08Do you think that's a good idea, a bad idea?
0:47:10Can they lower the price if they do that?
0:47:12Can they get their margins up?
0:47:13Like why is this something that Apple would do?
0:47:15- I mean, let's think about it.
0:47:16First of all, as a huge disclaimer here,
0:47:19what we're really talking about is an external case design.
0:47:24Like every new generation of iPhone has been
0:47:26a substantial upgrade from the one before it so far.
0:47:29You know, the ones that have the S on the end
0:47:32look about the same or exactly the same,
0:47:35but they still have really significant upgrades.
0:47:37All of them have.
0:47:38So what we're talking about here,
0:47:41if they actually do what this rumor might say,
0:47:44they're really just saying like, you know,
0:47:45we're not gonna change the case this time.
0:47:47You know, normally we would have changed the case this time,
0:47:50but you know, now we're going to give it another year
0:47:53and change the case next year.
0:47:55That matters a lot less, really,
0:47:56than everything else all told.
0:47:58I mean, granted, sometimes the case changes come
0:48:00with things like screen size changes,
0:48:02which is nice and important,
0:48:04but ultimately I think it's not that big of a deal.
0:48:08As long as they have a good set of iPhone guts,
0:48:13as long as it's a good phone and it's a decent upgrade
0:48:16from the 6S in important ways,
0:48:19like if the rumors are true
0:48:20that the camera's getting a lot better,
0:48:22especially on the plus size one,
0:48:23then that's a big deal, you know?
0:48:25So it all depends on what else they upgrade.
0:48:27If it's a compelling upgrade for the privileged of us
0:48:31who upgrade every year, that all talk about
0:48:33how good it is or how good it isn't, it'll be fine.
0:48:35If it's a compelling upgrade for all the people
0:48:37who still have two and three year old phones
0:48:39to want to upgrade now instead of waiting
0:48:41for the crazy rumor to all glass one next year or whatever,
0:48:43that's good for them too.
0:48:45I do think though, given the state of iPhone sales
0:48:48and being, you know, the growth is slowing
0:48:51and they're under all this scrutiny now,
0:48:53I do think the timing of this is not good.
0:48:55Obviously this was probably decided
0:48:58before these quarterly results came in,
0:49:00but certainly the timing of an appearance
0:49:04of them slowing down or not trying as hard,
0:49:07whether or not they actually are slowing down,
0:49:10and no matter how hard they are trying,
0:49:12it will appear as though they're slacking off
0:49:16if they do this again.
0:49:16So I'm totally up for it.
0:49:19I don't really care for the six design that much,
0:49:21but it's fine, it's good enough.
0:49:23I care more about the way the phone works and the internals.
0:49:25So I'll be okay, most of us will be okay.
0:49:28People who buy the phones without doing a whole lot
0:49:30of research will be okay.
0:49:32But I think in the public eye, and for a lot of the press,
0:49:36I think it will not be well received,
0:49:39because people will think Apple is kind of phoning it in,
0:49:41no pun intended.
0:49:43- Well, there are potential upsides.
0:49:45I can think of a couple upsides.
0:49:46One, potentially, the battery life could be better,
0:49:49because if they're not making it thinner,
0:49:50like that's the rumor,
0:49:51that not only will it look the same,
0:49:52but that it'll essentially like the cases
0:49:53will still fit and everything,
0:49:55or at the very least it won't be any thinner.
0:49:57They always go down in power
0:49:59and find ways to eke out a little bit more power
0:50:01from the components.
0:50:02If they keep the same amount of battery,
0:50:04battery life should be better there, right?
0:50:06It will also presumably be cheaper for them to make
0:50:09because they won't have to have new tooling and everything
0:50:11and build those costs into the line of phones.
0:50:14So they could either lower the price for consumers,
0:50:16which would make them sell more,
0:50:18or they could have higher margins on the ones they do sell.
0:50:20So potentially, even though it could be boring aesthetically
0:50:23and there could be stories written about how,
0:50:25like you said, they're not really trying or whatever,
0:50:27when it comes time to report results,
0:50:28depending on which one of those levers they tried to pull,
0:50:30they could have increased customer sat
0:50:32because battery life is better,
0:50:34they could have higher ASP
0:50:35because it's cheaper for them to make them,
0:50:36or they could have more sales
0:50:37because they could actually sell it for a lower price,
0:50:40or at least like adjust the prices,
0:50:41like the top end one will still be the same price
0:50:43'cause that would be a bad signal to send,
0:50:44but they could mess with the prices.
0:50:46And by the way, luckily it seems like I'm just believing what I want to believe.
0:50:50But anyway, there were stories about the low end model still being 16 gigs and then there
0:50:53were follow-up stories that said, "No, no, no, no, don't worry.
0:50:55The bottom end will be 32."
0:50:56If they make the bottom end 32, that will also increase customers that probably won't
0:51:00increase their cost of goods any because people probably won't even sell them the stupid 16
0:51:04gig chips anymore because it's insane.
0:51:07So financially speaking, like in terms of what results they report and how many of these
0:51:11these things they sell and everything,
0:51:14another S revision could actually be really good for Apple
0:51:17and really good for consumers,
0:51:18especially if they actually do S stuff to it.
0:51:21So the 6S, they tried to make less slippery,
0:51:23like the outside is a little bit less slippery, right?
0:51:25And they, you know, obviously upgrade all the components
0:51:28and if there were any sort of manufacturing problems
0:51:30with it, like it was a little bit bendy in the 6,
0:51:32so they made the 6S stiffer.
0:51:33If they keep doing that stuff,
0:51:35like if this is yet another S where it's like,
0:51:38it's, you know, it's even less slippery
0:51:40and it's even stiffer
0:51:40and we've made it lighter and it gets better battery life.
0:51:44And of course the components are all, you know,
0:51:46revised and faster and all this other good stuff.
0:51:49This could really be like, they've never had three shots
0:51:52at the same phone essentially before.
0:51:53This could really be sort of a, you know,
0:51:57a third attempt at building a iPhone 6 shaped phone
0:52:02where they've learned so much from the past two years
0:52:04of doing that, this will really be a great phone to buy.
0:52:07But when you look at it from the outside,
0:52:08it'll be boring.
0:52:09and whatever the 10 year anniversary phone is,
0:52:12however radical that is,
0:52:14that in theory could have a bunch of weird problems,
0:52:17but it will sell like hotcakes
0:52:18'cause it'll be sexy and new and everything.
0:52:19So I like breaking up cycles like this.
0:52:22Any type of cycle you kind of get into,
0:52:24it starts to feel like you're into a rut for a while.
0:52:27I think there are a lot of potential upsides to this,
0:52:29but if you're going for like glam and trying to wow people,
0:52:32I'm thinking of like showing this on a stage.
0:52:34Traditionally, showing the new iPhone has been,
0:52:38especially when it's like an even year, whatever odd year,
0:52:41like when we're expecting the big redesign
0:52:44has been like, woo and ah.
0:52:46I can't imagine that much oohing and ahhing
0:52:47over the iPhone 7 except for maybe the dual camera thing
0:52:50on the Plus stuff.
0:52:51I guess we'll just have to save the oohing and ahhing
0:52:54for the 10 year anniversary
0:52:55and whatever that's gonna look like.
0:52:57Ooh.
0:52:57- Yeah, I agree.
0:53:00I agree mostly with Marco
0:53:02that I think that the fallout from the media will be ugly.
0:53:07- Ugly.
0:53:08- Well, and not just the media, the public.
0:53:10You know, like Apple gets a lot of crap
0:53:11from regular people, from the customers.
0:53:13- That's true.
0:53:14- Whenever they don't change the outside design.
0:53:16It is not just like a couple articles
0:53:18from like tech media trolls.
0:53:20It's actually like people care about this.
0:53:23- No, that's a good point.
0:53:24And a lot of people say, "Oh, I'm holding on.
0:53:26"I don't want to bother with an S.
0:53:27"I want the new case."
0:53:29And they say, "I'm holding on for the seven,"
0:53:30or what have you.
0:53:32I do think, I don't know if I'd go so far as to say
0:53:35a good idea, but I'm not frustrated by it. And like I was saying a few minutes ago, I like that
0:53:42my MacBook Pros over the last few years have been basically the same. They've gotten a little bit
0:53:47thinner and a little bit lighter, but the battery life has kept about the same. They've gotten
0:53:51faster, they've gotten better, they've gotten retina screens. It's a formula that works,
0:53:56and I don't have a problem with just iterating on a formula that works. I think that there are
0:54:01perhaps better choices of case design than the six, but I don't dislike it. And if the
0:54:07formula works, I don't have a problem with them sticking with it, but the fallout from
0:54:11the press and, to Marco's point a second ago, from regular people is just going to be intolerable.
0:54:17And there will be a part of me that will be like, "Oh, that's sad that we're not getting
0:54:19a new one this year." But in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn't be upset about it. So
0:54:24I don't know, we'll see. It would be a very fascinating... It would be fascinating to
0:54:29to see the reaction if they do have a 6SS.
0:54:33- They're not gonna call it that though.
0:54:35- No, certainly not, but whatever.
0:54:37- And they can't call it 6S Plus, they already used
0:54:38that name.
0:54:40- Would they call it the 7 even if it looks the same?
0:54:41I would guess so.
0:54:43- To me, I think if they call it a 7,
0:54:45that would make the negative reception even worse.
0:54:49Like, you know, the negative superficial reaction
0:54:51because people would be like, remember with like
0:54:53the iPhone 5?
0:54:54- It was the 4S, the 4S was the one that made everyone
0:54:56lose their crap because it was like, whoa,
0:54:58it's supposed to be the five and it's only a four
0:55:00with a letter.
0:55:01- Yeah, like I'm gonna wait for a five
0:55:03and it was like this massively upgraded phone
0:55:05with all this new stuff with Siri,
0:55:08with way faster chip and everything.
0:55:10- The 4S was a great phone too.
0:55:11- It was an amazing, it was a great upgrade.
0:55:14And yeah, and then everyone freaks out
0:55:18'cause they didn't call it five.
0:55:19- Well that's why I think they have to name it
0:55:20the seven though.
0:55:21They have to give it, like you can't,
0:55:22if you do it the other way, it just reinforces the story.
0:55:25You have to give it the seven 'cause they'll be like,
0:55:26well it doesn't look that interesting
0:55:28but the number is one bigger, so I guess it's new.
0:55:30- I see the argument for that,
0:55:33but I feel like that would make people even more mad
0:55:37that they call this the seven,
0:55:39it's the same as the last one.
0:55:40I feel like that would make that worse.
0:55:43- I think you gotta put the number,
0:55:46because even if the story will then be
0:55:49this doesn't justify the number seven,
0:55:51not having the number seven is worse.
0:55:53- Yeah, that's where I'm coming from.
0:55:54- Because then you're buying into the story.
0:55:57Anyway, they could just drop the letters
0:55:59and say this is the new iPhone, or the numbers, rather.
0:56:02- Here's how you solve this problem.
0:56:04You ready?
0:56:04One simple problem.
0:56:05You call it the seven, and you change all three, four?
0:56:10You change all four colors.
0:56:12- Yeah.
0:56:13- You can even call them the same names
0:56:15and just make all of them lighter or darker.
0:56:17Just make them all look different, visibly different.
0:56:19- Blue Dalmatian and flower power, it's time.
0:56:22- Yeah.
0:56:22- Steven Hackett has finally had his day.
0:56:26Honestly, I would love cool colored iPhones personally,
0:56:28but even if you keep the same colors that you offer now,
0:56:32like the names, just change them all.
0:56:34Make the phone look visibly different,
0:56:37even if it's the exact same stupid case,
0:56:39the exact same design, make everything that matters,
0:56:44make it all like the same physically,
0:56:45but make it just look different
0:56:47and people will be happy with that.
0:56:48- Just so you can still call it space gray though,
0:56:50because everything is called space gray,
0:56:52even though all the grays are entirely different.
0:56:54- How many space grays have there been?
0:56:56about 14. Oh goodness. Now I don't know, we'll see what happens, but it'll be an interesting
0:57:01fall if that's the case. And I don't know, there's a large part of me that thinks maybe
0:57:08just slowing down isn't a bad thing. I mean, the three of us especially keep talking about
0:57:13how Apple stretched so thin and how they've got so much going on. Now granted, that's
0:57:19usually about software, but still, it may be nice for Apple to have a rebuilding year.
0:57:24that may not be such a terrible thing.
0:57:26- And Wall Street just imploded.
0:57:27I mean, nobody should suggest that the way for Apple
0:57:32to slow down is to release the iPhone less often.
0:57:35(laughing)
0:57:37Oh my God, all right, Casey, you should not direct Apple.
0:57:40Sorry, I mean, in all fairness, neither should I,
0:57:43but still, that's the one option they should not do.
0:57:47- Well, I mean, sure, for the purpose of Wall Street,
0:57:49which granted is kind of the purpose
0:57:51for that entire company existing,
0:57:52is to please Wall Street in many ways, but I don't know.
0:57:55It would just be cool to see them breathe for a second
0:57:59and take a breath and make the iPhone 8
0:58:03even more amazing than we ever could have imagined.
0:58:05- They should call it the iPhone 10.
0:58:07They're gonna skip eight and nine and call it the iPhone 10
0:58:09because it'll be the 10-year anniversary.
0:58:11They could use Roman numerals if they want.
0:58:12They'll take the Roman numeral away
0:58:13from the Mac operating system and give it to the iPhone.
0:58:15- There you go.
0:58:17- Conservation of Xs.
0:58:18- Oh, God.
0:58:19- And you have everybody saying iPhone X instead of iPhone 10.
0:58:22No, they should actually call it iPhone X.
0:58:24Like it's not a Roman numeral, it's the capital letter X.
0:58:27Confused yet?
0:58:28Wait till we hear your name more stuff.
0:58:30- iPhone times.
0:58:32- Yeah, you don't remember the very brief OS X days.
0:58:35Do you remember that?
0:58:36- What?
0:58:37No.
0:58:38- The capital O, capital S, space capital X.
0:58:41That there was for like 15 minutes,
0:58:43that was gonna be what they called,
0:58:46I forget if it was like the shared operating system
0:58:49between the Mac and the phone.
0:58:50when they dropped iPhone OS and they were like iPhone runs OS 10. Do you remember that
0:58:55part of the presentation? Yeah, during the initial iPhone, yeah. Yeah, they didn't say
0:58:59the iPhone ran Mac OS 10. iPhone runs OS 10. Right, and in the literature, briefly, and
0:59:08in Apple's press releases, there was a thing called capital L, capital S, space capital
0:59:12X. It was not referring to the Mac operating system. Later they would rename the Mac operating
0:59:17system to that, drop the Mac, and that didn't last very long. I think it was maybe a miscommunication
0:59:21or they changed their mind about the branding, but it was an exciting day or two there.
0:59:27It would be an amazing troll of John Gruber if they switched to Roman numeral numbering
0:59:30for the iPhones.
0:59:32That would be...
0:59:33No, people can't handle a Roman numeral. Although, when you do get up into the high numbers,
0:59:39you do have to do something, because the iPhone 17, I don't know, it just doesn't have the
0:59:43same ring to it. But they're fine for a while.
0:59:46to start using yours, iPhone 95.
0:59:48- No, no, Microsoft has tainted that whole naming scheme.
0:59:51- Forever.
0:59:52- Yeah, really, it's not like,
0:59:54it was a good idea when they had it,
0:59:56it served them well,
0:59:57but now everyone who uses it is associated with like,
1:00:00Windows operating system and Office and all those stuff,
1:00:02even Office dropped it for 365.
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1:01:47(upbeat music)
1:01:50- Apple almost bought Time Warner.
1:01:54- I wouldn't say that.
1:01:56- Or maybe, possibly.
1:01:58- According to this rumor story,
1:02:00I like the fact that it involves ADQ
1:02:02'cause now I have, well, not really a new image of him,
1:02:05but reinforcements of old image from that cover story
1:02:08when he was at the basketball game.
1:02:10Oh, God, did you see that?
1:02:12I made a video of him yelling his excitement
1:02:15to his favorite player's face.
1:02:16Anyway, according to this rumor from the Financial Times,
1:02:21Eddy Cue was all, "We should buy Time Warner.
1:02:23What do you guys think?"
1:02:24And it didn't really go anywhere,
1:02:26and Apple didn't buy Time Warner,
1:02:28but the fact that it was floated as an idea
1:02:30and was vaguely resulted in meetings according to this,
1:02:34and that it was a thing that might be considered
1:02:37kind of blends into the, we talked about it a couple weeks ago when we were talking about
1:02:42Jason Sonnell's story about Apple should do something like Netflix and sponsor its own
1:02:45content.
1:02:48That type of stuff, Apple getting into the creative content business as, not as a middleman,
1:02:56not as a distributor, not as a store, but as a creator of original content or at least
1:02:59a funder of original content, I think that idea still has legs and I just think Apple
1:03:05Apple hasn't quite figured out what to do about it, which is good that they're, you
1:03:09know, considering all ideas and not quite sure, like it's bad to jump in with that.
1:03:14Time Warner itself has such a weird history as a not a great, like there's not a good
1:03:20precedent there for the AOL Time Warner merger, which was kind of a disaster.
1:03:23I don't know if Apple wants to get in on that.
1:03:26I don't know if they're the right company to buy.
1:03:27They have HBO now and everything, right?
1:03:29So you can kind of see where there's some value there.
1:03:33But on the other hand, Netflix has sort of gone on its own.
1:03:36Apple could buy Netflix.
1:03:38So many things you can do when you have so much money piled up.
1:03:41And maybe that's part of it.
1:03:42Maybe it's like money burning a hole in their pocket.
1:03:43They're trying to give it back to shareholders.
1:03:45They're trying to buy back their own stock.
1:03:47They're doing all sorts of things to try to make this pile of money not quite increase
1:03:52at the same rate.
1:03:53I think they've kind of leveled it off a little bit, the rate of increase.
1:03:55But it's just so much money.
1:03:57And if they're not going to buy Google, which they probably shouldn't really, and they're
1:04:01not going to buy Nintendo.
1:04:02Apparently they're not gonna buy TiVo.
1:04:04Apparently we're never gonna talk about that.
1:04:06Buying some company that owns the rights to a bunch of television shows
1:04:10and has an existing system made to create original content,
1:04:15it's not the worst idea in the world.
1:04:17So even though this didn't go anywhere, assuming this rumoured story is true,
1:04:22I like the idea that this is what Apple's considering doing with its money
1:04:26instead of, say, I don't know, I'm actually more enthused about this
1:04:30than the idea of them making a car, for instance.
1:04:32- On the other hand, this was too bad
1:04:35for even AOL to hold onto.
1:04:37(laughing)
1:04:38- Was it too bad for AOL, or was AOL too bad for Time Warner?
1:04:41That was just--
1:04:42- Yeah, good point, it could be either way, I guess.
1:04:44I forgot.
1:04:44But no, I mean, in the world of,
1:04:48in the areas in which Apple competes now,
1:04:50things that include online media services,
1:04:54and possibly TV-related things,
1:04:57you know, the Apple TV, you know, with people like Amazon playing hardball, which we can
1:05:02get to, but there's not much to discuss. Having good original content is important.
1:05:08It is strategically important. It is important for sales of your stuff and your devices.
1:05:11It is important for potential subscription services that Apple might want to launch with
1:05:16things like TV service or, you know, like a Netflix kind of service. So, it totally
1:05:21makes sense why this is a plausible story and why it might make sense for Apple to do
1:05:26something like this.
1:05:27So, you know, this is the kind of thing, I mean, you know,
1:05:30Apple is such a big company now.
1:05:33If you look at what other companies this size do,
1:05:35there's a lot of like big acquisitions and stuff
1:05:37for strategic reasons, like that's totally normal.
1:05:39And I know Apple doesn't work just like other big companies,
1:05:41but, you know, there's gonna be some similarities there.
1:05:43And we're in a big business world
1:05:46with all this media stuff.
1:05:47We, you know, we're in times where
1:05:50lots of money's being thrown around
1:05:52for very important things,
1:05:53and a lot of power shifting going on,
1:05:56a lot of high stakes going on,
1:05:57stuff like this is gonna happen.
1:05:58And it makes sense, and most of it is going to
1:06:02be really boring for us to talk about,
1:06:05or to think too much about, but, you know,
1:06:07this is the world we live in now.
1:06:09We're in the big leagues now,
1:06:10we're in big company dealings.
1:06:12Apple is no longer the scrappy underdog.
1:06:15- I worry a little bit about the size of acquisitions.
1:06:18I like it better when Apple is buying smaller companies,
1:06:21especially when it comes for something
1:06:22that can really change the character of a company
1:06:24much as getting into the content business. I like the idea of Apple getting into the
1:06:29content business as just one aspect of its ongoing strategy of selling digital television
1:06:35movies, you know, all that kind of stuff. If you make a big acquisition with a company
1:06:41that's not as big as Apple but is actually really big, how do you incorporate that, those
1:06:45assets, all that intellectual property, all those employees, all those existing deals,
1:06:50How do you incorporate that into Apple without it significantly changing the character of
1:06:55the company?
1:06:56So that's why I would say I would prefer smaller, more strategic purchases.
1:07:01So for example, if Apple could just buy HBO and the things HBO owns, right?
1:07:06Instead of all of Time Warner or even just buy Netflix, like, because I think the sizes
1:07:11of their business and their entanglement are not credit spares.
1:07:14"Hey, you should have bought TiVo, too late for that."
1:07:17type of acquisitions I feel like don't threaten, don't threaten the character of Apple, won't
1:07:21distract Apple from the important things it's already doing in businesses where it has a
1:07:25lot of competition, but will give it table stakes to be part of the competition for,
1:07:31you know, TV set-top puck boxes and having a value proposition. Why should you buy our
1:07:35puck thing? Well, we have original content and that's why you should do this. And all
1:07:39of this, as we've said many times in the past, get into the whole conflict of interest where,
1:07:45You sell a Puck Box that lets me use the Netflix app, but you're also competing with Netflix
1:07:50because you have your own subscription video service and you have your own original content?
1:07:54How does that work?
1:07:56I think that's unavoidable at this point.
1:07:58It's the same way that Apple sells apps in the App Store, but also sells your apps in
1:08:01the App Store.
1:08:02And sometimes Apple's apps are free or cheaper than yours can be, to the point where Apple
1:08:08is funding the development of its iWork suite with all the rest of the money it makes.
1:08:12If you're going to try to compete with them,
1:08:14you're not gonna be able,
1:08:15you're not doing it on a level playing field,
1:08:17but somehow everyone lives with the idea
1:08:19that Apple sells software through its own app store
1:08:22and also lives with the idea
1:08:23that Apple doesn't always have to follow its own rules
1:08:25and all these other things.
1:08:26And we get along and it's not like everyone leaves in a huff.
1:08:28It's harder to do that in music and movies and TV
1:08:30because there are fewer players
1:08:31and they're bigger and they're crankier.
1:08:34But I think Apple can navigate that.
1:08:36Again, especially since everybody's doing it these days.
1:08:38Like it's just gonna be expected at some point.
1:08:42And it also makes sense in light of Apple's apparent
1:08:46inability to cut a reasonable deal for subscription video
1:08:49service, which we know they wanted to do for a long time,
1:08:52that they wanted to launch that with the Apple TV
1:08:53and just couldn't and didn't.
1:08:56This is another angle.
1:08:57Well, if we can't figure out how we can license your content
1:08:59and compete with cable or whatever,
1:09:00we'll go the bootstrap Netflix route and say,
1:09:03we'll still sell all the people's stuff,
1:09:06but we're going to fund our own original content.
1:09:08And really in the grand scheme of things,
1:09:09funding your own original content,
1:09:11couple hundred million dollars here and there
1:09:13for a couple of TV shows and a movie or two,
1:09:14that's peanuts for Apple.
1:09:16They probably spend that much money,
1:09:18like I don't wanna speculate about what the budgets are
1:09:21at Apple because I would probably be way off base,
1:09:23but in the grand scheme of things for a company
1:09:25with hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank,
1:09:28it's nothing and the potential upside is huge.
1:09:31So yeah, I'm all for something happening here.
1:09:36here. I am disappointed that this is just a rumor and that it was considered and nothing
1:09:40happened. I'm disappointed there still is no TV subscription service, but I'm heartened
1:09:44to hear that ideas like this are floating around, even if they do come from Medicue.
1:09:48Well, because content is king here, you know? In so many ways, look at what people will
1:09:53tolerate in terms of bad devices, bad apps, bad services, incredible expense, in order
1:10:02to get specific content they're looking for. You know, the entire world of TV, cable, video,
1:10:10movies, this is like everything is just dictated by like must-have content. And people are
1:10:15willing to do crazy stuff like have cable TV, which if you think about it, is incredibly
1:10:21hostile and terrible in so many different ways, but people are willing to do it for
1:10:26specific content they get there. People are willing to, you know, even within the realm
1:10:30of like iOS and Apple TV and stuff, people are willing to use horrible apps from other
1:10:35companies in order to get must-have content. People are willing to pay big money. Look
1:10:39how many people pay for HBO. I just subscribed to it. Whichever version of HBO doesn't require
1:10:43the cable subscription, whether it's now or go, I forgot one of those. We subscribe to
1:10:48that now. The app is horrible and we're paying $15 a month. I haven't paid a monthly fee
1:10:53for television shows in almost 10 years. And now we're paying for this and using their
1:10:59crappy app because there's stuff on there we really want to watch. People are willing
1:11:05to make decisions like that. People are willing to use inferior apps to pay decent prices
1:11:12to change entire platforms or to not use entire platforms like Apple TV or whatever because
1:11:17of certain content that they get in other places. So it's very, very important for Apple
1:11:23to play in that world.
1:11:26If it's content that's keeping people away from Apple stuff
1:11:30or that is making it less of a good proposition for people
1:11:34or it's making it a worse experience for people
1:11:36to go use other things,
1:11:38Apple has to get into the content business.
1:11:41So it makes total sense.
1:11:43- So you hear that Eddie?
1:11:44Go ahead and buy whatever companies you want.
1:11:46You have our blessing.
1:11:47- We say it's okay.
1:11:48- Well you know just run it past me first
1:11:50to give a thumbs up, thumbs down, obviously.
1:11:52- Obviously.
1:11:53But beyond that, yeah.
1:11:54- All right, go ahead Eddie, have fun.
1:11:57And if anything breaks, you know where to drive it.
1:11:59Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week,
1:12:01Fracture, Casper, and Eero, and we will see you next week.
1:12:04(upbeat music)
1:12:07♪ Now the show is over ♪
1:12:09♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪
1:12:12♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪
1:12:14♪ Accidental ♪
1:12:15♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪
1:12:16♪ Accidental ♪
1:12:18♪ John didn't do any research ♪
1:12:20♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪
1:12:23'Cause it was accidental (it was accidental)
1:12:25It was accidental (accidental)
1:12:28And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
1:12:33And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
1:12:38@caseyliss
1:12:42So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:12:47Anti-Marco Armin S-I-R-A-C
1:12:52USA, Syracuse It's accidental
1:12:56Accidental They didn't mean to
1:13:00Accidental Accidental
1:13:02Tech podcast so long
1:13:07Something big happened this past week.
1:13:11Something happened this past week.
1:13:13[laughter]
1:13:15Season or series, 23 of Top Gear started and aired and began, etc.
1:13:21The new Top Gear without our dear friends, Clarkson, Hammond, and May.
1:13:26All three of us have watched it.
1:13:28I didn't watch the whole thing. I told you I only watched the beginning.
1:13:30I didn't have time to watch the rest of it.
1:13:32Shut up.
1:13:33No, you weren't. Well, what am I supposed to watch? I go to work, I come home, I make dinner, put the kids to bed, I do this.
1:13:37[laughter]
1:13:38You're the worst.
1:13:39Well, I'm telling you, spoiler city now.
1:13:41You said in the middle of the day when I'm at work, you said, "We should all watch Top Gear for tonight."
1:13:46The middle of the day?
1:13:48What time did you think I was supposed to watch this?
1:13:50After you got home from work. Let's see what time the middle of the day was.
1:13:546.57 in the morning. 6.57 in the morning. I'd like to discuss the new Top Gear on the post show.
1:14:00So Marco, if you haven't watched, please do so today. Marco, did you do your homework?
1:14:04I did. He's unemployed.
1:14:06Well, there's that, but we're also not allowed to give you homework because that's what the theme song says.
1:14:10Yeah, anyway, I would have watched the rest of it if I had time, but I didn't know so how far did you get?
1:14:15I thought I got through the first segment. I felt like that was enough. I'm gonna watch the rest of it to be fair
1:14:20That's most of all you need so spoiler horn
1:14:23will be a
1:14:26Sounding horning whatever the word is I'm looking for we have the rights to use a spoiler horn
1:14:30I don't even know you can use the spoiler dong. That's all in the family
1:14:33Okay, so the spoiler spoiler dong has just gone off
1:14:39I think that the new Top Gear, as I'll call it, shows a lot of promise.
1:14:45I really, really honestly do.
1:14:47Really?
1:14:47And if you remember, you should—and this is a collective you, not you, Marco, not you, John, just anyone you—
1:14:55if you really want to see a rough car show, go watch seasons one and two of the Top Gear that had Clarkson, Hammond, and May,
1:15:03because they were borderline unwatchable. They were so bad.
1:15:08Or the American Top Gear.
1:15:09The American Top Gear, particularly in the beginning, was unwatchable.
1:15:13I actually don't think it's bad, but...
1:15:16Pretty bad.
1:15:17I mean, to each their own.
1:15:19As we've already established, I am not the arbiter of what's good and bad.
1:15:22But, um...
1:15:23But yeah, I mean, like, the first season of the Top Gear that we know
1:15:26didn't even have James May.
1:15:27It had Jason Dawes, I believe, who did, like, a used car segment
1:15:31on every show or something like that.
1:15:32I haven't seen it in many, many years.
1:15:34But it was bad.
1:15:36The studio audience had like 50 people in it or something like that because it seemed like nobody could be bothered with going to the set to be part of the filming.
1:15:43It was rough.
1:15:44This show, season 23, episode 1, similarly rough.
1:15:49Chris Evans, I was expecting to love him because I'd heard just tons of chatter about how much of a car guy he is, a gearhead if you're American, a petrolhead if you're not.
1:16:00I was excited to see him. He seemed like he really loved the brand, the brand.
1:16:04Seemed like he really loved the opportunity. I hated Chris Evans so much.
1:16:09Oh my god. Did you like him, Marco? I'm trying to think of what I liked about
1:16:15this. About the show or about Chris Evans? Because I was just, I was just
1:16:20concentrating on Chris Evans at the moment. Uh, no. The answer is no. What
1:16:24you're looking for is no. Yeah, see, I love Clarkson. Like, he, Clarkson is
1:16:29bombastic and loud and obnoxious and ridiculous but Chris Evans was just like
1:16:34loud for the sake of loud I did not get it and I did not care for it now John
1:16:38what did you think of Chris Evans I have never seen him before to my knowledge
1:16:43before watching this show he struck me as an overexcited poor man Simon Pegg
1:16:47and he didn't give me what I was looking for I'm looking for different things and
1:16:52then you are certainly from from Top Gear again first show there's always
1:16:57gonna be first show jitters first segment of first show i i give a lot of leeway i didn't get the
1:17:02impression i i'm sure this is the case but it wasn't communicated to me uh his enthusiasm for
1:17:10cars in general like enthusiasm was communicated but it seemed like non-genuine enthusiasm not
1:17:17particularly focused on cars um and i guess like it's kind of rough comparing the old top gear
1:17:24where all of the hosts were, had mellowed into their roles and could relax and just kind of be
1:17:30themselves and had sort of established their personality. The old ones had sort of the,
1:17:34the Gene Hackman school of acting as an interview. I saw Gene Hackman once where
1:17:39someone was asking him about his acting technique and he says, if you're acting for a long enough
1:17:44time and you're in enough movies and you're in enough things, you develop a certain poise based
1:17:49on your years of experience and you pretty much know how things are going to go down.
1:17:53and people interpret that poise as good acting. And so the hosts of the show, they've been doing
1:17:59it long enough, they kind of know what their shticks are, and they do them in a relaxed manner,
1:18:04and you become comfortable with it. And is it the case that the previous hosts were actually
1:18:10wittier and more insightful about cars than these new ones? Maybe. But definitely they were more
1:18:16relaxed and more assured in their sort of roles and personalities when it comes to their positions
1:18:22on these cars or whatever and in general as you all know I don't like the silly stunt things they
1:18:26do with cars I like the part where they pretend to review cars like as seriously as the show
1:18:31possibly can that's what I like out of the show then I tolerate the parts where they play with
1:18:35a giant soccer ball with a bunch of small cars I tolerate those barely so the first segment being a
1:18:42combination of let's review the Viper ACR and let's also do some silly thing with Top Gun I didn't
1:18:47like that combination, I didn't like any of the segments, and Chris Evans just seemed
1:18:51overexcited about nothing. The only part that came away from that first segment liking
1:18:54was the fact that the jet fire pilot got sick in the car.
1:18:58Yeah, and Sabine is excellent. Like, she was relatively reserved, I thought, on this episode,
1:19:06and I was disappointed that she got like three minutes of air time, but I'm super, super
1:19:11excited to see more of her, because I've enjoyed any time she appeared on old Top Gear, if
1:19:15well. I thought the segment was fairly cheesy, I agree, but I was happy that they started with
1:19:23something American, which was surprising. You would figure they would just triple down on all
1:19:28things British. And then Matt LeBlanc came out, and Matt LeBlanc had also been rumored to be a
1:19:35huge gearhead petrolhead, and I wasn't sure what to make of him, and I actually really liked him.
1:19:43And I can't figure out if it's because I'm American and I'm just predisposed to like other Americans on the show
1:19:48But I really liked him
1:19:50I thought he did a great job and and he was far away my favorite host of the basically three that they showed Sabine
1:19:57Chris and Matt and I got it. I hate Chris Evans
1:20:00Oh the other thing I noticed I actually jumped ahead the lap times that they used for the supercars
1:20:05He actually rewrote all of Clarkson's little stickies or whatever and in Chris Evans's hand
1:20:12which I thought was kind of funny. And I also thought the jabs at Clark's at
1:20:17Hammond and May, like, they did make me giggle, but I don't, I don't know, I just
1:20:21didn't think it was really necessary. Like, I forget what he said, but something
1:20:24like, "Oh, we don't talk about catering on this show anymore. Ha ha ha!"
1:20:27Yeah, I find most of that pretty cringe-worthy.
1:20:29I feel like you do have to acknowledge it. Like, if you say nothing, it will seem
1:20:34weird, but you have to do it. It's a tough line to walk, because you want to do it in a
1:20:37way that is funny, but also respectful, but also acknowledges that I know, that
1:20:41know that I know that this is weird and they didn't pull that off. I completely agree. Well said.
1:20:46So yeah, so Matt LeBlanc I really liked. This segment with the two of them, the Reliant Robin,
1:20:51like it was ostensibly US versus Britain, but they're in two British cars. Like it just served
1:20:56no point to me and that I didn't care for at all. But everything took a terrible, terrible, terrible
1:21:02turn when it was time for the guests. This was the most ridiculous, cringe-worthy, terrible interview
1:21:09I've seen on top here. So the premise was they were having like a competition between Gordon Ramsay and
1:21:15Jesse something rather the dude who played Zuckerberg on the social network and
1:21:20They were like I said, thank you
1:21:23They were talking about like oh who had the best first car and who had like the best
1:21:30Current car and it I just thought it was terrible
1:21:35That sounds like a good--I haven't seen the segment, but that sounds like a good premise for an interview.
1:21:40Like, wouldn't it be fun to have celebrities on and have them compete over those type of car-related things?
1:21:44But I guess they didn't do it well.
1:21:47No. I think if the roles were reversed, I would have said the same thing, but having seen it, I thought it was terrible.
1:21:54What did you think, Marco?
1:21:56Hmm. Where do I begin?
1:21:58[laughs]
1:22:00- I mean, so to be fair, I started watching this
1:22:04at 8 p.m. or 7.45.
1:22:06- So you had to fast forward a little bit.
1:22:09- So I knew I was gonna have to fast forward
1:22:11through parts, and this was fine,
1:22:13because for old Top Gear, I would always fast forward
1:22:16through the British celebrity interview
1:22:19and the star of the reasonably priced car segments,
1:22:21because they were just too slow for me,
1:22:23I would always fast forward through those,
1:22:24and usually I didn't know the people, so it was fine.
1:22:27So I gave the show the same courtesy,
1:22:29because I started watching a little bit of it
1:22:31to give it a chance and it was so bad.
1:22:33It just dragged on so poorly.
1:22:36In general, one of my main complaints
1:22:38about what I saw so far, and granted only episode one,
1:22:42but one of my main complaints is that it seems like
1:22:46both the writing and the editing
1:22:48have gotten substantially worse.
1:22:51And that was made very clear in every part of the show,
1:22:54but especially in the interview,
1:22:56where it's like, it was clear that a lot of these things
1:22:59are scripted that they're saying,
1:23:01they're trying to make it seem like it's not scripted.
1:23:05It kind of flowed in many ways similarly to
1:23:09the Tim Cook Bono skit before the finger touch,
1:23:14where it's like, it's so painfully obvious
1:23:16that it's scripted, and they're trying so hard
1:23:19to make it seem like it's not,
1:23:20and doing a really poor job of it.
1:23:23That's how a lot of this felt to me.
1:23:25The interview, the bits, the challenge in quotes,
1:23:29whatever challenges were going on in reality,
1:23:32it all just seemed like it was really forced.
1:23:36It seemed like everybody was reading badly written cue cards
1:23:40and having trouble seeing them.
1:23:42I mean, it was, it was so rough in so many ways.
1:23:47And the fundamental problem I have with this
1:23:52is that they walked right into the shoes
1:23:57of a show where the show had really moved beyond
1:24:01its initial premise of basically like a boring
1:24:04BBC show about cars.
1:24:06It had moved beyond that into these three
1:24:09particular people who had great chemistry,
1:24:12great personalities, who had years to develop
1:24:15into this chemistry and into these personalities
1:24:18and into this show.
1:24:20And the show that was really about them
1:24:23and about their chemistry together,
1:24:26the things they did together, them being funny together,
1:24:29being, you know, making fun of each other
1:24:30and doing things together, it was really all about them.
1:24:33It wasn't really about the cars.
1:24:34Sorry, John.
1:24:35And so it has taken that, removed them,
1:24:39and then they tried to just keep it going in the same way
1:24:44with a completely different cast
1:24:46and some minor variation on the formula,
1:24:48not much variation.
1:24:50And I just don't see that working,
1:24:52because what you have now is all these people
1:24:56who clearly have no previous experience with each other,
1:25:00or at least not enough to matter,
1:25:03trying to take a role of a show that depended so heavily
1:25:08on chemistry and on long-established personalities,
1:25:11I just don't see how that's going to work, and it doesn't.
1:25:16Hopefully the show will develop over time
1:25:18into something people care about.
1:25:21But the way it is now, I don't see that happening
1:25:24because I think what took it from that old,
1:25:28boring British car show and turned it into
1:25:31the worldwide phenomenon that it was,
1:25:34was that it went beyond just talking about the cars
1:25:37and doing skits with cars.
1:25:39And it went into something that was way more mass appeal
1:25:43and could appeal to people who only like cars a little bit
1:25:45or barely even cared about cars at all,
1:25:48but were just entertained by the show.
1:25:50The new show doesn't do that.
1:25:51The new show is, it kind of reminds me,
1:25:56or it has shown me how little I care about cars.
1:26:00Because I had no interest in almost anything they did.
1:26:06I realized what I was actually watching for all this time
1:26:09was the cast, and not this cast.
1:26:13Maybe over time, as they're trying too hard
1:26:17to be old Top Gear, there have been other things
1:26:21in the past that have started off this poorly
1:26:23and have gotten better.
1:26:25I think the most direct, clear example of this
1:26:28is the US version of The Office,
1:26:30where the first couple of episodes were direct clones
1:26:34of the British Office show with a whole different cast
1:26:37and trying to be that, and they were terrible.
1:26:40They were just so bad.
1:26:42And eventually, maybe like one or two seasons in,
1:26:45the show kind of grew into its own and became its own thing
1:26:48because it stopped trying to be the old show.
1:26:50And it became its own thing and it ended up becoming,
1:26:53I think, one of the best shows that's ever been on TV.
1:26:56And so, this, I hope this does that.
1:27:00I don't have incredibly high hopes that it will
1:27:03based on what I've seen so far, but I hope it does
1:27:05because it just, so much of it just didn't work for me
1:27:11at all, I mean, it just seemed so forced,
1:27:15so badly acted, badly edited, badly written,
1:27:19badly conceived, and it's like you have this massive budget
1:27:23and not enough talent to use it right.
1:27:25- Well, this is only episode one, though,
1:27:27I mean, and like Casey said, if you're gonna think
1:27:29of an example of a show that started off bad
1:27:30in episode one, according to Casey, Top Gear did.
1:27:32Like, I give them, I'm gonna give them some time
1:27:36to settle in, although I wish I hadn't read the stories
1:27:39skim the stories about like who's feuding with who on the show because it seemed to
1:27:44me that from the first shot that Matt LeBlanc does not like the fake Simon Pegg guy.
1:27:50I don't know if those are the two people who were supposed to be feuding.
1:27:54They were, I believe.
1:27:55But that's not a good start.
1:27:58If your show is going to be based on the chemistry and camaraderie, what are we going to say
1:28:02say about the badly behaved, slightly eccentric, and all around strange old hosts of Top Gear,
1:28:10they seem to all pretty much get along with each other as evidence from the fact that
1:28:13they had some amount of solidarity to sort of stick to their jerky face punching non-steak
1:28:19eater guy when he got kicked off the show.
1:28:21So I think they all get along with each other, at least in their working relationship, and
1:28:28that came through on the show, that they mostly enjoyed being together and doing the show
1:28:34together. And I think you need that. If a show is going to be based on chemistry, you
1:28:37need that. And even though the show is not about the cars in terms of like gearhead type
1:28:40things where they're going to tell you about tech specs and get all into the nitty-gritty
1:28:45of the testing and stuff, I think everyone on that show had an enthusiasm for cars that
1:28:50came through in the cars that they reviewed. Like each person would review a particular
1:28:54car and they would do the voiceovers and I'm assuming they had a lot of influence on how
1:28:58how the segment was put together and structured.
1:29:00And that came through in the reviews.
1:29:01And it's not like I read car magazines
1:29:03for the more in-depth reviews and stuff.
1:29:04It's not like that's what I'm looking for.
1:29:06I was looking for basically the same reason
1:29:07you read like a columnist or whatever,
1:29:09like three individual people whose personalities
1:29:11I'd come to know talking about cars
1:29:13that they have interesting things to say about,
1:29:15that they're interested in,
1:29:16whether they like them or not,
1:29:17or they're into them or they're not into them.
1:29:18They always had an interesting angle on the cars.
1:29:20And I felt like the segments were put together well,
1:29:23edited well, and it sort of like,
1:29:25it was like a coherent vision of it.
1:29:27James May review is very different from a Jeremy Clarkson review and and all the different cars were the reviews are different from each other and
1:29:33And that's what I enjoyed out of the show and I haven't even gotten to well
1:29:37I don't have I gotten to the car view segment was that ACR thing it
1:29:39But you know I finished the episode is there anything more in there for me not really
1:29:43Well anyway episode one I give them lots of leeway in the meantime
1:29:47I will try out the whatever whatever the hell it's called the Amazon thing those guys are doing a lot unfortunately
1:29:53Grand Tour. If they're not reviewing cars at all, maybe I'll be not too excited about that either. Yeah, I think that Marco really
1:30:01took the words right out of my mouth that when they the rare occasions when they didn't try to just follow the exact formula I
1:30:08Thought it actually went reasonably well
1:30:10The star in a reasonably priced car is now star in a rallycross car. I think they called it
1:30:15so it was like a rally mini and
1:30:18part of the track for the purpose of the stars is an off-road segment which at first I was like really and then
1:30:25Actually, I was like I watched a little more thought you know what this is pretty good. They're trying something different
1:30:30They're they're trying something new. I'm okay with this. I thought the
1:30:33US versus UK segments with Matt and and Chris
1:30:38After the star in a reasonably reasonably priced car
1:30:42So once they got into the the Willys Jeep and the and the Range Rover Land Rover Land Cruiser. I always get it wrong
1:30:49I'm sorry. It's all a mash mash up in my head doesn't matter. It's only a British thing, right? Whatever
1:30:54It's only a British car. They never matter. Yeah, never at all
1:30:57God, we're gonna get so much email about this because I know they were like the most popular off-road car in the world
1:31:03We know etc. Blah blah blah. The point is all the people who own British cars don't listen to this
1:31:06They're they're busy fixing their cars. Oh
1:31:09Shots fired in any case that segment. I actually enjoyed I thought that was that was really good
1:31:15I thought Matt segment on the air on the off-road aerial aerial Adam
1:31:17I thought that was really good the things that bothered me the most about those two segments were exactly what Marco said earlier that
1:31:24Even though if you really look closely at old top gear you could tell it was scripted and maybe for some people you didn't even
1:31:30Have to look close, but for me. I was so caught up in the entertainment of it
1:31:34I didn't really think about it, and then you look closely and you realize oh wow this is totally scripted
1:31:38It was so obvious here how scripted it was and where it was
1:31:43Completely clear that it was that it they were trying to follow the script
1:31:48It just made it rough
1:31:49But all that said I do think the hosts with the exception of Chris Evans have a lot of promise
1:31:55I'm hoping Chris Evans gets his act together and lives up to the expectation I had because he is so well regarded as a radio host
1:32:03and that's the other thing the other reason I hated the interview because
1:32:07He was interviewing people on the radio for decades and yet it was such a rough interview
1:32:11But anyway, I do think it shows a lot of promise. I thought the cinematography was still really really really good
1:32:16Maybe I'm easily amused, but I thought that was still
1:32:20Completely up to snuff and I really feel like if we give them time this will end up
1:32:27Okay, the other thing I should point out is that they did another show called extra gear
1:32:32Which is kind of like a behind-the-scenes thing. That's only about half an hour. Yeah, this was curious
1:32:36I didn't see this yet, but I've been so I'd I'd really prefer not to have spoilers if you don't mind
1:32:42But I have heard it was very very good and Chris Harris who was one of the hosts of that
1:32:48at least this episode of
1:32:50extra gear I
1:32:52Really like because he had a YouTube series for a long time or a couple of YouTube series
1:32:56That were excellent. And so I'm really looking forward to seeing Chris Harris on top gear
1:33:04Without spoiling it was extra gear good. I take it you had the time to watch it Marco
1:33:08So I had to do a lot of skipping through because I was trying to fit it in before this show
1:33:13so I did I had you a lot of skipping but I
1:33:15Will say that I had a way higher Tiff and I both had had similarly low opinions of of the main show
1:33:23And we both had similarly promising opinions of extra gear where extra gear is a different cast almost entirely
1:33:31It's it's Sabine Schmidt the it's it's what's the guy's name Matt Chris Harris?
1:33:37Oh, yeah, that show was I think
1:33:41Substantially more promising it was kind of like an after-dark behind-the-scenes kind of thing
1:33:46But they they also did like some original bits here or some original things here and there
1:33:50It's it's clearly like a way lower budget thing
1:33:54And you this is clearly like the B team in like celebrity rankings
1:34:00I guess like that whatever politics led to them choosing these weird people for the main show, but to me
1:34:06That has a way better chance of developing into something good than the main show does because those hosts are not only I thought
1:34:14substantially better and their enthusiasm for cars is more obvious and clear and and is is
1:34:20Better integrated into the show, but they're doing like less goofy crap because it there there
1:34:28the role of that show is not to have like a fighter jet
1:34:33fly around, it's like all the goofy crap the main show did,
1:34:37Extra Gear didn't.
1:34:39And it was people, it was what you want the main show
1:34:43to be in many ways, which is three people who are very
1:34:47passionate about cars, who know a lot about it,
1:34:49and can talk well about them in a seemingly
1:34:53less scripted way or unscripted way
1:34:56compared to the main show.
1:34:58So honestly, I think that Extra Gear is the better show,
1:35:01and when you see Extra Gear, it kind of makes you wonder
1:35:05why they didn't just make these people
1:35:07the hosts of the main show.
1:35:09- Hmm, that's too bad.
1:35:10Well, I mean, I'm excited to watch it even more so now,
1:35:12but that's too bad that that's the way
1:35:14the hosting shook out, you know, kind of played out.
1:35:17So did you like Matt LeBlanc or not really?
1:35:20- Honestly, no, I really didn't like him or Chris Evans.
1:35:24Yeah, I didn't like either of them.
1:35:25I mean, I saw, obviously I saw Matt LeBlanc in Friends,
1:35:28I haven't really followed his work since then,
1:35:30but I didn't really, I had a fairly neutral opinion
1:35:33going in, I never saw the other guy.
1:35:35But I thought both of them were pretty painful, honestly.
1:35:39It was hard to watch, it was very hard to watch,
1:35:42because I thought they were both doing such a mediocre job
1:35:47reading, doing things and reading things
1:35:50that were written in mediocrity.
1:35:54And it just, it was not, my position on this show is now,
1:35:59I'm just gonna let you keep watching it
1:36:04and you tell me when it gets good.
1:36:06Because I have zero interest in seeing any more episodes
1:36:09of this show until everyone else has decided
1:36:12that this has become good.
1:36:14- Yeah, we'll see how it goes.
1:36:15I'm curious to see.
1:36:17I am hopeful, I'm excited that we have two shows to watch.
1:36:23There was Fifth Gear back in the day. That actually just got cancelled.
1:36:27Which I used to watch when I could, and it was a much more serious motoring show,
1:36:34so it might have been much more up John's alley.
1:36:37But it was never quite the same as Top Gear. It was always kind of an also-ran.
1:36:43I'm hopeful that the Grand Tour, the new Top Gear, if you will, with the original three hosts,
1:36:50I'm hopeful that's really good, and I'm hopeful that Amazon treats it right.
1:36:54And I'm also hopeful that they get their act together on the actual new Top Gear that we
1:37:00spent all this time discussing, because I really do think there's promise there, but
1:37:05man, it was rough, this first one.
1:37:09We'll see.
1:37:10- I think there's a reason why we've seen all these different spin-offs and clones and
1:37:16and everything of this show,
1:37:18and none of them have taken off.
1:37:20There's a reason for that.
1:37:22And what we have now is basically
1:37:24just another top-year clone or spinoff.
1:37:27I don't think it's going to go very far.
1:37:29I think it will probably be canceled
1:37:31within maybe three to five years at most.
1:37:34And I think whatever Clarkson and May and Hammond do
1:37:39is going to be what we are mostly paying attention to.
1:37:43But we will see.
1:37:45Yeah, but I'm hopeful. I mean, I agree with nearly everything you said, but I am hopeful.
1:37:49And Jon, you should watch the rest of the episode now that we've spoiled it, just so you can see and decide whether we are trying to shine a turd or if it's actually really just a diamond in the rough.
1:38:02I will. And the extra gear thing, is that on after it? Like, when is that supposed to be--or is it web-only or something?
1:38:09I believe it was on after I think you can get it on BBC America or if you have a friend that might have acquired
1:38:14It you might be able to get it off of his
1:38:16Plex or Synology perhaps possibly maybe yeah, it's right next to the main show on Casey's Plex server John
1:38:23That's that's how I might have seen it. Are they are they airing them and I get BBC America
1:38:28Are they airing them in real time on BBC America? Not real time. I think it was
1:38:33Monday that they aired on BBC America because the show airs on Sunday evenings on the actual
1:38:39Oh, but it's not delayed by like a week or anything. It's like a day off.
1:38:43That's correct. Or at least that's the way it was this week. And I don't know how much
1:38:48time was allotted to it on BBC America. The chat room is saying that it will be consistently
1:38:55on Monday nights on BBC America. But I'm not sure if they're going to do the thing that
1:39:01they used to do where they cut it down and add commercial. So the runtime is actually
1:39:05an hour on the BBC.
1:39:07Honestly, that would be doing it a favor.
1:39:09- Well, potentially.
1:39:10But yeah, so they used to cut out scenes
1:39:14and also change the music,
1:39:15which that was another thing I meant to bring up.
1:39:17The music, I didn't notice any of the music on that episode,
1:39:22which is peculiar because usually the music on Top Gear
1:39:25is excellent.
1:39:27And a friend of mine, the guy who got me into Top Gear,
1:39:31actually said to me that he doesn't think
1:39:33they actually licensed any actual songs.
1:39:36like popular songs to use on the episode, they just found like the the the oral equivalent of
1:39:43Stock photography in order to fill out the episode and I haven't watched back since he said that I might be wrong
1:39:49He might be wrong. But um
1:39:51But yeah, I'm curious to see whether or not that's true
1:39:54And anyway, I bring that up because in the BBC America version they didn't have the rights to all these songs for anywhere
1:39:59But the UK so they would change all the music and it would be crappier
1:40:01They would cut it down from an hour to 42 minutes because commercials and it was just terrible additions
1:40:06And I don't know if that's going to be the case again for the new top gear.
1:40:11It may or may not be.
1:40:12Anyway, I'm hopeful.
1:40:13We'll see.
1:40:14That makes one of us.
1:40:16No matter what, you can satisfy your cravings for car-related things by buying an ATP shirt.
1:40:21Quickly.
1:40:22Very quickly.
1:40:23Right now.
1:40:24[laughter]
1:40:24(loud thud)