PodSearch

ATP

140: Harpooned a Turtle

 

00:00:00   Hi, John.

00:00:02   [SIGHS]

00:00:03   [LAUGHTER]

00:00:05   [BEEPING]

00:00:07   It's like WWDC all over again.

00:00:10   Although, at least WWDC was over quickly,

00:00:12   because it's like, well, Bob, it's clear I didn't get tickets

00:00:13   here.

00:00:14   It's just clear these people don't

00:00:15   know how to make websites that can withstand any kind of load.

00:00:19   We have many devices working on it.

00:00:21   Tina actually did get tickets for the--

00:00:25   not the Thursday opening night, but the Friday one.

00:00:27   But she accidentally bought 3D.

00:00:29   And that's not acceptable because of motion sickness?

00:00:31   - No, it's not acceptable because 3D is terrible.

00:00:34   - Oh, I agree, but I wasn't sure.

00:00:36   I figured desperation would make it acceptable,

00:00:39   but apparently not.

00:00:40   - I'm gonna watch it.

00:00:41   I mean, if it's all I can get, it's all I can get,

00:00:43   but ugh, well, that's just really...

00:00:45   I have many times I got to the stage

00:00:48   where you're picking your seats to reserve.

00:00:50   Many, many times I got to that step.

00:00:52   - Is the theater near you like an Alamo Drafthouse

00:00:55   in some fancy and highfalutin, or is it--

00:00:57   - No, none of these are fancy.

00:00:58   They're all just whatever.

00:00:59   I mean, the fanciest one is the one

00:01:01   we actually have tickets for.

00:01:02   It's reserved seating, and it's the big reclining seats

00:01:04   and everything like that.

00:01:05   But 3D, come on.

00:01:09   So I may be distracted during this episode

00:01:11   as I occasionally reload the 5,000 tabs

00:01:14   that I have preconfigured to exactly the page

00:01:17   where you can buy tickets, all of which

00:01:19   are just returning 503 gateway errors

00:01:23   or just spinning forever, because that's great.

00:01:25   Well, I mean, I don't think it's a problem,

00:01:26   because I'm not at all distracted by the New York football Giants that are currently acting

00:01:31   like the Giants. No one cares about football, Casey. This is Star Wars. Me. Football games

00:01:37   happen every year. People get concussions. Yeah. They have terrible brain injury that

00:01:42   destroys their entire family. Also true. And it happens, what, 16 times every year. Yep.

00:01:49   But to put things in perspective with regard to my priorities, Aaron and I were just having

00:01:55   a very casual debate, which we didn't even conclude

00:01:58   as to whether or not we would go see this movie

00:02:00   in the theaters.

00:02:01   - You should stay away and let other people get the tickets.

00:02:04   (laughing)

00:02:05   - I love, John, that you're able to resist

00:02:10   every Apple product on day one,

00:02:12   every new release of anything.

00:02:14   Like, you're able to say, "You know what?

00:02:16   "I'm gonna let everybody else go try those things first

00:02:18   "and tell me what's wrong so I know

00:02:19   "whether to actually do it myself."

00:02:21   But with this, you're going right in.

00:02:23   - It's Star Wars.

00:02:24   And it's also a slightly smaller investment than a multi-thousand dollar Mac

00:02:29   I don't know man your dreams and hopes and wants and desires

00:02:33   They're pretty big investment that you're putting on this movie the main investment that I'm protecting with this whole thing is the investment

00:02:39   I have put into avoiding Star Wars related spoilers

00:02:42   That is a serious investment that can be destroyed very easily when the rest of the world has seen the movie and you haven't

00:02:46   All right, so I'm sorry. It wasn't completely successful, but hopefully it's successful enough

00:02:53   Yeah, I mean, I'm sure I will see it in 2d eventually. I just really don't like 3d

00:02:57   Alright, so you want to do some follow-up?

00:03:00   Chip works has some thoughts on the 2a9s. I don't know if John you wanted to talk about this a little bit

00:03:07   Yeah, I put this in there, and I was all excited

00:03:10   This is going to be a really detailed breakdown of what is different about the chips with little microscopic views

00:03:14   And there was a little bit of that

00:03:15   But there's two problems with it one a lot of it the stuff in it is over my head because they're using lingo that they

00:03:20   Assume everybody knows and I don't know

00:03:22   Or I have a vague idea of what it means, but I don't understand the implications like you know one of the chips is weak

00:03:28   En Masse

00:03:29   You know I can have vague memories of what that is, but I don't understand what the implications are anyway

00:03:33   I suppose I could look it up and the other one is that there's a lot of information about all the other components that I

00:03:38   Don't care about who do they use for the display controller?

00:03:41   What chip do they use for the power?

00:03:42   Regulating thing or the battery thing or you know like all sorts of other stuff that I'm not interested in

00:03:47   but we'll put a link in the show it's because

00:03:50   Chipworks is the only place I know that is taking these things apart and like slicing the chips open and putting them under

00:03:56   microscopes and stuff like that, so

00:03:58   No real news there, but for people who understand more about this than I do

00:04:02   Maybe they can glean something from it

00:04:04   excellent and

00:04:06   Speaking of the a9s consumer reports weighed in about them. That's a more

00:04:10   Yeah, that's more reasonable consumer focus test consumer reports. It's out of spotty history with a technology and everything really like

00:04:17   Consumer reports I always wonder about because the more I know about a topic the more I think consumer reports

00:04:23   selections are just

00:04:25   Don't make any sense. And so that makes me suspect like maybe their dishwasher recommendations also don't make any sense

00:04:31   I don't know anything about dishwasher

00:04:32   But every time I know something about it like their car reviews like the cars they pick they recommend for you to get I guess

00:04:37   It's really they just have different criteria than I do

00:04:40   Like the way they pick cars is those are not the things that are important to them are not the same things that are important

00:04:45   to me and that's true in a lot of things if you look at car and driver for example and

00:04:48   they're always emphasizing like performance and handling and stuff like that and it's

00:04:53   like maybe that's not what's important to you and you should read consent reports anyway

00:04:55   you hate performance well i don't but i have anyway so their review hit their test of the

00:05:06   batteries is more or less what i was looking for like they're trying to do real world testing

00:05:11   I think their testing was pretty timid.

00:05:13   It's similar to the battery testing I did

00:05:16   when I was doing Mavericks.

00:05:17   It's very, like, I would call it light usage.

00:05:19   Maybe they're calling it medium usage,

00:05:20   or they just loaded a bunch of web pages

00:05:21   over and over again.

00:05:22   But they did do a bunch of fairly standard things,

00:05:27   I think probably in a way that is less stressful

00:05:30   than someone actually using the phone.

00:05:32   They also monitored the temperature

00:05:34   of both of the phones during this,

00:05:35   which I thought was a good idea,

00:05:36   because hey, maybe one of them, you know,

00:05:37   maybe one of them is hotter than the other.

00:05:40   and they didn't find any appreciable differences.

00:05:42   So they basically said 1 to 2% differences in their tests,

00:05:44   which they consider not an appreciable difference

00:05:46   and like within the margin of error.

00:05:48   So there you go.

00:05:50   The benchmark testing may have showed a 20 or 30%,

00:05:53   but the Consumer Reports attempt to simulate real-world

00:05:56   usage, which they detail.

00:05:56   You should follow the link, we'll put in the notes.

00:05:59   They detail what they did, like, oh,

00:06:00   we loaded a webpage repeatedly for this amount of time,

00:06:02   or we ran this thing for this amount of time.

00:06:04   You can see what they did and see if that is representative

00:06:06   of how you use your phone,

00:06:07   and then you'll know what the difference is.

00:06:09   But anyway, Consumer Reports loves a good story about Apple phones being broken in some

00:06:12   way, so if they are not jumping on this and saying that one of the A9s is much, much worse

00:06:18   than the other, it's a pretty good bet that they're about the same.

00:06:22   Excellent.

00:06:23   All right, and somebody wrote in with regard to Fusion drives.

00:06:26   "Jopter Horse."

00:06:27   You're not going to say that name?

00:06:28   It's exciting.

00:06:29   Nope.

00:06:30   So this is about the Fusion drive size.

00:06:32   We complain that they dropped the flash portion of the Fusion drive in the new iMacs down

00:06:36   to 24 gigs from 128 gigs, but apparently if you get the two or three gigabyte

00:06:41   fusion drive you do get the old 128 gigabytes of SSD. Two or three terabyte.

00:06:45   Terabyte, yes. Only the one terabyte fusion drive option has a 24 gig one, so

00:06:50   that's some good news in that front, I suppose. All right, and Toby wrote in and

00:06:56   had an interesting point. They said, "When I hear the merits of the Magic Trackpad

00:07:03   discussed, it's usually in comparison to using a mouse, but I find it really comes

00:07:06   into its own in combination with a mouse. And we've heard this from a few other people. I heard this

00:07:11   from Mike Hurley a year ago now, I think at least, but I'd forgotten about it. I'm glad Toby said

00:07:18   something. I have never run both a Magic Trackpad and a mouse. I love my Magic Mouse, even though

00:07:26   it's ergonomically atrocious, but I love the functionality it provides for me. I was lamenting

00:07:32   on Twitter, I don't know, yesterday, the day before, or maybe it was on here actually,

00:07:36   on this podcast somewhere I was lamenting that I think my mousing days may be over shortly

00:07:41   because I think Force Touch will eventually catch on to the point that I'm going to be

00:07:45   kind of grumbly about not having it on the Magic Mouse. And I've been thinking a lot

00:07:48   about maybe I should just get one of these stupid Magic track pads and just embrace the

00:07:52   future in the same way that maybe my next car should just get a stupid dual clutch gearbox

00:07:57   and embrace the future. But neither is happening right now.

00:07:59   now. The future is no gearbox. Oh, God. You're already getting smug. You're turning into

00:08:03   one of those smug Tesla owners. You're not even an owner yet. This is going to be a long

00:08:08   year or so when you first get that car. It's not going to be this year. Oh, thank God.

00:08:12   All right. At least I have a few more months to raise my defenses and get prepared for

00:08:19   this awfulness. Anyway. We can talk about Mac Pros some more if you want, if that's

00:08:23   better. Oh, God. Please stop. Although I was thinking earlier today actually how ridiculous

00:08:27   it is. You two fawned over this stupid trash can for like 15 episodes of ATP and Jon never

00:08:33   bought one and Marco you kicked it to the curb within like six months.

00:08:38   I suspect that my next computer will probably be a Mac Pro again but you know because the

00:08:45   difference now between like like there was a good discussion about this with Serenity

00:08:48   and Jon on this last week's episode of the talk show about how like the Mac Pro right

00:08:53   now is kind of like the best of almost nothing except for multi-core performance and things

00:09:00   that use that second GPU somehow, which is basically only OpenCL stuff that can even

00:09:05   use it. So there's a small number of things that are better on it, but there's a whole

00:09:12   lot about it that the iMac beats it at, including for my purposes, including the screen quality

00:09:20   for one, the fact that there is no good way to get 5K or large Retina on the Mac Pro.

00:09:28   And so if there's a new Mac Pro in, I mean, there's probably going to be one in like four

00:09:32   or five months, but I probably won't get that one, but I would probably get the next one.

00:09:38   Wait, so you're saying if there's a Mac Pro that is released in the next year or so that

00:09:44   supports Retina, you're not going to insta-buy it?

00:09:47   I'm not planning on it.

00:09:48   I mean, you know with me, I can never really guarantee that as much as you guys.

00:09:52   This is what I sounded like when I was like, "Oh no, I'm totally not getting an Apple

00:09:55   Watch, isn't it?"

00:09:56   Or a BMW or an iPhone or...

00:09:59   If they don't have a retina screen, you're not going to get it.

00:10:01   Exactly.

00:10:02   You're not going to give up the retina screen.

00:10:03   So it doesn't matter if a Mac Pro is introduced.

00:10:05   All we should be watching for is an external 5K screen release, because they're not going

00:10:10   to release the screen unless something can drive it.

00:10:12   Exactly.

00:10:13   And so I would like their, like before I really do an update, I would like for their, first

00:10:18   First of all, to be a good performance increase on the CPU side, I think whatever they update

00:10:23   to next, I forget what core they're up to in the Xeon line, and I might even, you know,

00:10:27   depending on, if it comes soon, I'll probably skip it because I'm still very happy with

00:10:31   my iMac, but I would like more parallel CPU power eventually, 'cause I really do max it

00:10:39   out like crazy when doing stuff to my new photos on my new camera, 'cause they're just

00:10:42   but that's the only time I really destroy the CPUs.

00:10:47   So I can wait.

00:10:48   Aren't you happy you asked?

00:10:49   - I've been watching the football game

00:10:51   for the last 10 minutes, were you talking?

00:10:53   (laughing)

00:10:55   - Awesome.

00:10:55   So anyway, while I'm talking and you're not listening,

00:10:59   let's do an ad read.

00:11:00   - Well, no, no, no, no, no,

00:11:01   we never finished the talk about the track pad.

00:11:03   That's where all this started.

00:11:04   That was Genesis.

00:11:05   - Right.

00:11:06   So, track pads.

00:11:07   - Yeah, so I have nothing else to add about this,

00:11:09   but somebody had some other notes in the show notes about it

00:11:11   and it wasn't me.

00:11:12   I'm assuming it was John who was also not paying attention because he's trying to buy Star Wars tickets again.

00:11:17   That's one of those days. No, I'm you know, I thought you had it handled. Yeah

00:11:22   My question on this is do any of you work this way?

00:11:29   Have you have you worked this way like mouse and trackpad at the same time?

00:11:32   You know, I don't generally however because I the only trackpad I have is on my you know

00:11:37   Physically in the computer attached the computer

00:11:39   But I did notice a couple times, and I think it was getting a definition of a word the other day.

00:11:45   I was at work, and I'm on a client's site now, so I only have my onboard monitor.

00:11:53   I'm not using my clamshell with two identical externals like I was at our office.

00:11:58   So anyway, so I had my keyboard open, and you know, obviously the trackpad's right there.

00:12:02   And I was trying to get a definition of a word, and I force-touched in order to get the definition,

00:12:07   Rather than like right-clicking and going to define or what or what have you and it took me aback because I didn't even really think

00:12:13   Twice about it. I just reached for the trackpad and did it with my left hand. I was like wait a second

00:12:16   That was weird and it was kind of nice, but I don't know I I can't fathom

00:12:23   getting an external

00:12:25   magic trackpad in

00:12:28   Addition to a magic Mouse in no small part because they are damned expensive

00:12:33   It is really stunningly expensive. What are they $130? I believe why is everyone saying that's super expensive though?

00:12:38   I've seen a lot of complaints about the magic trap being bad

00:12:41   We didn't mention in the last show

00:12:42   But I've seen a lot of people saying $130 to the trackpad that seems outrageous now

00:12:46   Obviously, it's more than my like $19 plastic Logitech mouse from 1995 that I've been using forever

00:12:52   But I wouldn't flinch it spending $100 on a really good mouse. So why is it that this is a big deal at 100?

00:13:00   is it because

00:13:01   You'd see it as just a flat thing that doesn't move and it seems like how am I paying $130 for a flat thing?

00:13:07   It doesn't move. I mean, it's no no

00:13:09   It's it's because of what you just said because I'm used to paying like $20 for a mouse my magic mouse that I bought way back

00:13:15   When was probably what $60?

00:13:17   I think it was something like $70 the original magic mouse and I thought that was silly expensive

00:13:22   I don't know. I think it just seems like a lot of damn money

00:13:27   $130 for a mouse for a freaking mouse well for a trackpad

00:13:31   But still so you know that the fact is high-end mice have always cost in the $100 range

00:13:38   Right like that like the one the logitech MX master that that's a hundred bucks isn't it I?

00:13:43   Don't recall, but I do remember vividly

00:13:46   Looking at it when Mike had said that it does a lot of the stuff that I do with swipes on the magic Mouse and thinking

00:13:51   To myself man. I really would love something that doesn't look like a piece of sushi

00:13:55   And I looked at it and I was gonna buy it and then I saw whatever the price was apparently between

00:14:00   70 and $100 spending on where you buy it in and I remember looking at it and thinking that's way too much damn money for

00:14:06   An M for a mouse no way

00:14:08   Like I don't understand why people think that's a lot of money with the razor gaming mice are probably similarly priced like this

00:14:13   Brings me a good point to pull this thing that's been in the post show section for god knows how long

00:14:17   The Xbox elite controller which you should all follow the link to right now

00:14:21   You guys see it up on the top for some reason in the post show thing

00:14:24   This makes a lot of sense to me.

00:14:28   This is an Xbox controller. I believe it's $150.

00:14:32   It more or less looks like the regular Xbox controller, but

00:14:36   they put more money into it. It's sturdier, it's more customizable, it has higher quality materials,

00:14:40   it has better tolerances. I'm sure it feels better to use.

00:14:44   It's also got some extra weird triggers on the bottom so you can use different button

00:14:48   pressing arrangements. It's like a premium controller. For a controller

00:14:52   like a mouse and like a keyboard is something that when you're using the thing your hands are on almost all the time and for a

00:14:58   controller pretty much all the time and

00:15:00   they try to make them as sturdy as they can make them and keep them as cheap as possible to

00:15:05   Bundle them in with the game consoles and then they usually like maybe 40 bucks to 60 bucks to buy

00:15:10   Another one which is kind of expensive these things do have Bluetooth. They do have a lot of buttons

00:15:14   sometimes they have lights and on them and microphones and all sorts of other stuff and

00:15:19   I'm willing to buy a fancier version of basically every controller that I have by all means

00:15:25   Double the price of the controller and put 25% more

00:15:29   Value of parts into it. So obviously your margins to go up for the expensive controller

00:15:33   But I'm getting 25% better like to take that money and put it towards because you have the same buttons as everything else

00:15:38   This one has the extra things on the bottom, but put it towards making the buttons

00:15:41   Sturdier or feel better or improving the materials or make them not wear out as much or not using

00:15:47   Hardier bushings or surface, you know things that rub together

00:15:50   You know whatever they're gonna do to it make it more expensive

00:15:55   And I think that is an incredibly smart purchase the same reason you should buy a really good expensive chair

00:15:59   The best one you can find keyboard mouse all the stuff if you're gonna sit in it all day and touch it all day with

00:16:05   Your hands that's where you should spend your money so

00:16:08   Now the magic track bed isn't quite the same thing because really like it doesn't do anything it just sits there right

00:16:15   So maybe 130 is too much for that because people feel like it is not

00:16:18   That much better than the old magic trackpad in that again. It's just a little surface

00:16:24   It's a little bit bigger has slightly nicer materials it supports force touch

00:16:27   whatever but at the bottom line all people see is like a flat slab that lays on the ground that you put your finger on but

00:16:34   It doesn't seem that crazy to me now

00:16:36   Maybe maybe it's overpriced in that there's no lower price model for this for the in the case of the Xbox Elite controller or fancy keyboards

00:16:42   or fancy chairs, you can get less expensive ones

00:16:44   that are still pretty good.

00:16:45   Whereas the Apple external desktop trackpad

00:16:48   that's not $130 for people who want a trackpad

00:16:51   but really don't want to spend $130 on one

00:16:53   because they're on a budget.

00:16:54   That's where I can see the criticism.

00:16:56   But this specific product saying,

00:16:58   "This isn't worth $130 because Apple's margins

00:17:01   "must be crazy," doesn't really bother me that much.

00:17:04   - It's not that it's not worth $130.

00:17:07   It's just, I feel like whatever my barrier

00:17:11   for a mouse or mouse-like device is,

00:17:15   this is on the other side of that barrier.

00:17:17   And what you just said makes perfect sense to me.

00:17:21   I'm touching this constantly.

00:17:22   This is how I'm making my living,

00:17:25   is by using a mouse and a keyboard

00:17:27   and sitting on a chair and so on.

00:17:29   All of that makes perfect sense, you're absolutely right.

00:17:31   But I don't know, I look at these prices

00:17:32   and as soon as I get much past like 60, $70,

00:17:35   I just feel like it's just too damn much.

00:17:38   The rent is just too damn high.

00:17:40   But how often do you buy new input devices?

00:17:43   I mean, people can justify spending $100 for an extra

00:17:48   few gigs of memory on their iPhone

00:17:52   with barely even thinking about it often.

00:17:54   But then an input device that you probably buy

00:17:58   once every five years at most,

00:18:01   how often do people buy these things new by themselves?

00:18:05   I think it's pretty rare.

00:18:07   And so, you know, this is a high-end premium device.

00:18:10   This is not a mass market device.

00:18:11   Most people are not buying desktops to begin with.

00:18:14   Those who are buying desktops are generally gonna be using

00:18:17   whatever comes with it, and by default,

00:18:18   it comes with the mouse.

00:18:19   And those who are gonna be willing to pay extra

00:18:22   for this premium and trackpad thing,

00:18:25   like that's kind of an upscale premium thing in that market.

00:18:29   I don't think it's a high-volume product.

00:18:32   I don't think Apple probably makes

00:18:33   or sells a whole ton of them.

00:18:34   I'm honestly surprised they updated it at all.

00:18:37   As I mentioned like last show, I'm surprised that the desktop input device has got any

00:18:41   attention from Apple given how relatively unimportant they are in Apple's overall market.

00:18:47   But I don't think it's that ridiculous.

00:18:49   I mean, a premium mechanical keyboard is going to cost you between $100 and $200 usually.

00:18:55   I don't think it's that crazy to have this trackpad from Apple, which is a premium brand

00:19:00   now, it's a fashion brand.

00:19:01   I don't think it's that ridiculous to have this coming from them doing things that no

00:19:05   what the trackpad can do, at least on a Mac,

00:19:09   possibly anywhere, offering that for $130

00:19:12   that somebody's gonna buy once every five years.

00:19:13   That doesn't seem crazy to me at all.

00:19:15   - So a couple thoughts about this.

00:19:16   First of all, I don't know when I bought this Magic Mouse,

00:19:20   but I can assure you it was shortly after

00:19:21   it was initially released, and it's the same damn one

00:19:23   I've been using for like easily five years.

00:19:26   So there's that.

00:19:27   But secondly, you're both trying to use logic

00:19:32   to fight with my emotions and you're right.

00:19:36   I mean, you're absolutely right.

00:19:38   Everything you both said, absolutely right.

00:19:39   But all I can tell you is I look at these price tags

00:19:41   and I'm like, holy God, that's just,

00:19:43   it's too much money, dammit.

00:19:44   And it's just because it's what I feel.

00:19:49   It's the same reason that I look at a piece of software

00:19:51   on the App Store and if it's north of five bucks,

00:19:53   I think, whoa, whoa, whoa, is this something I really want?

00:19:56   And I shouldn't think that way.

00:19:57   - Oh, please, please don't get into this.

00:19:58   - No, I know.

00:19:59   I'm not saying that because I'm proud of this.

00:20:01   I'm not saying that because I think it's the right approach.

00:20:03   I'm just saying that's how I feel.

00:20:04   And then I remind myself, oh my God,

00:20:06   this is like $6 or $7, and it's gonna give me

00:20:09   plenty of enjoyment for a long time.

00:20:11   Like, when Tweetbot whatever came out,

00:20:14   and it was what, five bucks for Tweetbot 2?

00:20:17   - Four and, yes, five bucks.

00:20:18   - Yeah, so for a split second, I was like,

00:20:21   wow, that's, I mean, not that I wouldn't do it,

00:20:22   but I was like, Jesus, no it's not, you idiot.

00:20:24   You use that app constantly, every single day.

00:20:26   What are you doing even thinking

00:20:28   that $5 is too much money?

00:20:29   But that's logic talking to the emotional side of my brain,

00:20:32   which initially was like, wow, $5 for an app, really?

00:20:36   And I'm wrong, I'm not arguing that I'm right,

00:20:38   I'm not saying I'm right, I'm wrong.

00:20:40   But it's that gut reaction.

00:20:42   When I see $130 or anything north of 80 bucks

00:20:45   for a pointing device, I'm just like,

00:20:47   wow, that's a lot of money.

00:20:50   - So on the other side of this,

00:20:51   the other reason this is in here, like I said,

00:20:53   is setting aside the price of the trackpad,

00:20:55   is that the concept of people who either have become accustomed to or were brought up in

00:21:01   the age of trackpads and mice and keyboards adopting a desktop computer usage pattern

00:21:11   that involves them all.

00:21:12   So in the same way that I grew up with a mouse, my way of using computers was alien to the

00:21:18   people who were teenagers or adults when I was first getting my Mac.

00:21:23   Their way of using computers was the keyboard.

00:21:25   You sit in front of the keyboard and that's how you use a computer.

00:21:28   Keyboard keyboard, there is nothing else.

00:21:29   I was always from day one of the Mac, mouse and keyboard.

00:21:36   Sometimes just the mouse, sometimes just the keyboard, but very often both at once.

00:21:39   Command clicking to clean up icons on the desktop, shift clicking, option clicking,

00:21:44   the whole nine yards.

00:21:45   Clicking, typing, clicking, typing, switching back and forth between them, doing them both

00:21:48   simultaneously, using shortcut keys and graphics programs while you're drawing with the mouse

00:21:53   and switching tools with the keyboard.

00:21:54   All those things are second nature to me because that's how I was brought up.

00:21:58   Now that we have trackpads, especially on the desktop, I can imagine there being people

00:22:02   who get into a groove of one hand on the mouse, one hand on the keyboard, or trackpad, where

00:22:09   you're mousing around and, you know, Toby wrote in to say, the two things that he uses

00:22:13   a trackpad for while also using the mouse is swiping between spaces and swiping between

00:22:17   launchpad pages.

00:22:18   Why bother?

00:22:19   Why don't you just click on the little things that take you to the next launchpad?

00:22:22   It's faster and more natural to do it the other way.

00:22:23   What is your other hand doing anyway? It's sort of it's not like being ambidextrous. It's just like

00:22:27   Accepting that there are a bunch of places that you can give him to input to your computer and not saying well

00:22:32   I can only be using one of those at once or I can only be using two of those at once because one of them

00:22:36   Didn't exist when I was growing up

00:22:38   You know and I feel like if I I'm almost makes me want to take down my magic trackpad because I have one too

00:22:42   Like I said, I got it for OS 10 review so I could do all the gestures

00:22:45   To try to find a place for it to see if I get integrated into my life

00:22:49   Maybe you know can't teach an old dog new tricks. Maybe it's too late for me

00:22:52   But I like the idea of younger or more flexible people using all forms of input simultaneously

00:22:59   Without being constrained by like well because computers because desktop computers didn't used to have a trackpad

00:23:04   Therefore there's no place for a trackpad in my computing life

00:23:08   So not that I'm gonna run out and buy one of these trackpads

00:23:11   But I am kind of fascinated by that idea and I may I may try bringing my thing down from the shelf and trying

00:23:16   To find a place for it on my keyboards right here. I

00:23:18   I love that both of you always get up my butt about how I buy everything that Apple makes and I'm always buying everything.

00:23:24   Meanwhile, I'm the only one here not even tempted a little bit by the trackpad because I just know I wouldn't use it.

00:23:30   We'll see what actually happens.

00:23:32   There's the talking about it and there's the buying and the buying is you just bought a new iMac and you bought a Mac Pro and you bought a new iPhone.

00:23:39   And so you're ahead on the actual buying.

00:23:41   I never bought the last trackpad. That's been around for years.

00:23:43   Well, the only reason I bought it was I bought it used on eBay.

00:23:46   The only reason I bought it was I had to for OS X reviews because I did the trackpad on my ancient non-unibody

00:23:50   Mac does not do the gestures one that you remember when they introduced the gestures and everything I couldn't actually do them

00:23:55   I didn't have any I didn't have review hardware from Apple, and I didn't have anything else so I had to eBay a magic trackpad

00:23:59   I can't believe you but trackpad used. Yeah, I can't get over that either. I thought the exact same thing

00:24:04   It was in very good condition. It did not smell like smoke

00:24:06   But did you like and I cleaned it after I got it? Yeah?

00:24:11   I don't even want to think about the cleaning procedure you put that poor trackpad through.

00:24:16   Man's assumption, right?

00:24:17   Yeah, exactly.

00:24:18   It's a miracle that that thing worked after you surely dismantled it in order to clean

00:24:22   the insides that you would never have ever touched.

00:24:25   Is it man's assumption or man's conjecture?

00:24:27   Now I'm feeling doubtful.

00:24:28   Neither one of you knows because you're useless.

00:24:30   Our first sponsor this week is Squarespace, the all-in-one platform that makes it fast

00:24:35   and easy to create your own professional website, portfolio, or online store.

00:24:39   For a free trial and 10% off, visit squarespace.com and enter offer code ATP at checkout.

00:24:44   Squarespace is simple and powerful with intuitive, easy to use tools to make your website.

00:24:49   Comes with tons of beautiful designs to choose from and sites look professionally designed

00:24:53   regardless of your skill level with no coding required.

00:24:56   You can customize the designs to whatever you want your site to look like.

00:24:59   You can change things like fonts, colors, even layouts, what's displayed where.

00:25:03   You can change a lot with these beautiful templates.

00:25:06   They're all responsive, so they work well on every device,

00:25:08   every screen size, you don't have to worry about it.

00:25:11   If you want, you can just use the graphical editors,

00:25:14   do things very easily with your others of your skill level,

00:25:16   or you can actually inject custom HTML and JavaScript

00:25:20   in CSS if you want to.

00:25:21   If you're an advanced user, if you're a developer,

00:25:23   you can actually just inject your own code

00:25:24   and do whatever you want to the layout.

00:25:26   If you wanna sell things, physical or digital goods,

00:25:29   all that is built in at no additional charge.

00:25:31   They offer 24/7 support via live chat and email.

00:25:35   All this is powered by state of the art technology

00:25:37   to ensure stability and security.

00:25:39   No matter what kind of load you get,

00:25:41   no matter what kind of hacking is going around,

00:25:42   they got you covered.

00:25:44   Squarespace is trusted by millions of people

00:25:46   and some of the most respected brands in the world.

00:25:48   All this starts at just $8 a month

00:25:50   and you get a free domain if you sign up

00:25:52   for a whole year upfront.

00:25:53   Now Squarespace, trust me people,

00:25:55   you probably need Squarespace for something in your life.

00:25:58   And if you don't need it right now,

00:25:59   I bet you know somebody who does.

00:26:01   They have free trials, no credit card required.

00:26:04   Check it out, see if it works for you.

00:26:06   I bet whatever your next project is,

00:26:07   or if you know somebody who needs to make a website

00:26:09   for something, I bet it works just fine,

00:26:11   and then you're done.

00:26:12   You don't have to do anything else.

00:26:13   You can be done with it in a couple of hours.

00:26:15   You can have your entire site done

00:26:17   for just eight bucks a month,

00:26:18   and move on with your life.

00:26:20   Do anything else.

00:26:21   Do your business, do your projects,

00:26:22   do your other hobbies.

00:26:23   Make another website, doesn't matter.

00:26:25   You can do all that with Squarespace so easily, so quickly.

00:26:27   Start your free trial today with no credit card required

00:26:30   at squarespace.com.

00:26:31   When you decide to sign up, use offer code ATP

00:26:33   you get 10% off your first purchase.

00:26:36   Squarespace built it beautiful.

00:26:38   - Do you wanna talk more about this new iMac?

00:26:40   - Well, I put this last thing in here

00:26:42   'cause it was supposed to be for last week.

00:26:43   Maybe it's follow-up, but I don't know,

00:26:44   it's more of the same topic.

00:26:46   I just, and a lot of other people pointed this out,

00:26:49   but I thought it was worth,

00:26:50   (laughs)

00:26:51   worth hammering them one more time in the 5,400 RPM drive.

00:26:54   So Apple put up a website at apple.com/imac/then-and-now

00:26:59   that says, "Hey, let's compare the original iMac,

00:27:02   that iconic computer from yesteryear with the new one just to see how far we've come.

00:27:06   And they go like, oh, 62,000 times faster graphics at 14 million more pixels, 1,000

00:27:13   times more RAM, 750 times more storage, 366 times more processing power.

00:27:19   But I'm pretty sure the hard drive in the original iMac was also 5,400 RPM.

00:27:23   So I would like the last number that scrolls by on this little web page to be 1x more speed

00:27:29   on the spindle.

00:27:31   And a couple of people pointed me to that thing, it was like other world computing articles

00:27:34   and saying, "Oh, it's not, even though the RPM is the same, the storage density is so

00:27:37   massively increased that the bandwidth is higher."

00:27:39   I agree with that.

00:27:40   Like I said last show, if you come from a spinning disk and you get another spinning

00:27:45   disk computer, this spinning disk will be faster than your old spinning disk.

00:27:47   This is how hard drive technology gets better, right?

00:27:50   Setting aside the storage density, which is going to give you higher throughput for how

00:27:54   many megabytes a second can you pull off the disk, I'm sure the seek times are potentially

00:27:58   better as well, or lots of things about a modern hard drive are better than the big

00:28:02   clunker that was in the original iMac.

00:28:04   But the reason I put this in there is because this is the meta-argument about the 16 gigabytes

00:28:11   of memory in the iPhone and how much RAM Apple used to put in the computers.

00:28:14   It's not so much the absolute number that galls the technology enthusiasts so much.

00:28:20   It's like whatever numbers you come up with, whatever numbers you pick, whatever you feel

00:28:23   the line of products with a set of parameters in them.

00:28:27   The only thing I'm looking for is over time,

00:28:30   make that number go up.

00:28:32   And that's kind of what this whole website is about.

00:28:33   Look how these numbers have gone up.

00:28:35   And on the longterm, yeah, it does go up.

00:28:36   Look how much better we've done since like 1998.

00:28:38   Good job guys.

00:28:39   1998, 2015, you made great advancements, right?

00:28:42   But one, two, three years in a row

00:28:44   with the same bottom storage tier on your phones

00:28:47   is too much because it feels like where's the progress?

00:28:49   Why are you holding steady at the three year ago levels?

00:28:52   Has really nothing changed since three years?

00:28:54   Is everything else exactly the same

00:28:55   Are we making bigger pictures? Are we making bigger videos? Are the application sizes increasing? Like all these things that change

00:29:01   Do we have can we not get more storage for the same price?

00:29:04   We want to see progress and it really this is the most grating thing for me about Apple because I'm so gung-ho and like oh

00:29:09   progress progress is that

00:29:11   Whatever numbers you pick

00:29:12   Please just let me see progress in them and doesn't have to be every single month every single six months and even maybe I'll give

00:29:18   You pass in every single year if the previous year you were above the you know

00:29:21   You seem to be generous, but if time passes and a stat doesn't change that's bad

00:29:25   And that's why the 5400 rpm hard drives like seriously. I remember purposely trying to avoid

00:29:30   5400 rpm hard drives on laptops

00:29:33   I bought well before the unit the unibody error because like oh you want to get the fast hard

00:29:37   I'd get the 7200 rpm one right it feels like going back in time

00:29:40   It's like are you know we should be making meaningful progress, and we are everywhere else everywhere else is SSD wow what amazing progress great

00:29:46   Spread that across your entire line

00:29:48   except for these thinkers at the bottom which by the way

00:29:51   I think no one sent this theory in but it occurred to me after the show last week that

00:29:54   The only reason for the bottom of the line retina

00:29:58   I'm ack is to get people in the door, you know

00:30:00   Kind of like the cars that you advertise in the paper just to get them into the dealership

00:30:03   But you never actually saw anyone that car

00:30:05   It's like oh and retina starts at 1500 but not really because you should never buy the 1500 one

00:30:09   You're always gonna but you always have to get the option for whatever

00:30:11   You know the option that actually gives you a transmission or whatever option they have that you know

00:30:15   Oh if you want seats, then then you have to pay the you know to get get the convenience package for $800

00:30:21   So that could be another potential reason

00:30:23   They're trying to hit a price point to get people into the retina line like once they start considering well

00:30:27   There's a non right now, but look at this screen isn't it nice and you can get into this one for only 1,500 bucks

00:30:31   But no one should go out the door with the $1,500 model, so let me start

00:30:34   Selling you some options. That's another possibility

00:30:37   I don't know if that's the case but anyway

00:30:38   I just thought that then and now site was like Apple highlighting the worst feature of its new line of retina

00:30:44   iMacs unintentionally. Awesome. Nice. I actually, in my deep thoughts that I had earlier today,

00:30:54   apparently I had a lot of time to think earlier today, I was thinking again about, you know,

00:30:58   whenever it is I upgrade my personal machine, what should I get? And we talked about this

00:31:03   over a couple episodes, a few episodes back. And I was thinking again, you know, maybe

00:31:08   the right answer is an iMac, and maybe the right answer is I just get a 5K iMac. And

00:31:13   And the thing that made me stop...

00:31:17   I can sell you mine.

00:31:18   There we go.

00:31:20   At least you're honest.

00:31:21   Now we're getting to real talk.

00:31:23   Wait until the next Mac Pro comes out.

00:31:25   That's exactly right.

00:31:26   That's the most real of real talk.

00:31:28   Anyway, it occurred to me that the problem I have with an iMac is that I oftentimes work

00:31:35   from home, as we talked about.

00:31:36   And when I do work from home, I want to be able to plug in to an external monitor.

00:31:41   I am one of those people who works much better with two monitors, or at least more than just

00:31:48   the 15-inch monitor I have built into the computer.

00:31:52   And I don't really care that there isn't a target display mode or whatever it's called,

00:31:58   but in this case, it would have made the conversation with myself a little bit different if I knew

00:32:04   I could plug my Mac into that screen, even if I couldn't get retina resolutions, even

00:32:09   if it was just scaled or something, that would make it a much more compelling option because

00:32:15   otherwise I'm never really going to be able to plug into an external monitor or I'm going

00:32:19   to have to have a second monitor sitting next to this 27-inch behemoth on my desk, which

00:32:26   I really don't want.

00:32:27   And so I don't know what to do.

00:32:30   And I know that we talked about this before and I didn't know what to do then, and I still

00:32:33   don't know what to do now.

00:32:34   But the fact that I was really thinking about, well, how could I make an iMac work was really

00:32:39   weird for me in the same way that the what the same way I was thinking about when maybe

00:32:43   I should try to make a trackpad work for me. That was another weird thought for me because

00:32:48   I've never been interested in desktop Macs or computers of any sort since college. I've

00:32:53   never been interested in trackpads. I use them because I have to not because I want

00:32:57   to track point for life. So it's I've been having a bit of an identity crisis with regard

00:33:03   to my computing preferences over the last 24 hours.

00:33:06   Have you considered the iPad Pro?

00:33:08   No, not really, why?

00:33:10   I don't know, you're considering you seem to be open to all options.

00:33:13   No, let's not get crazy.

00:33:15   I'm standing in for Viticci saying, "You know, iPad, it's really big, you can split

00:33:18   the screen now."

00:33:19   Yeah, no, let's not talk crazy talk.

00:33:22   Although I did briefly consider an iPad Air 2, as opposed to my beloved Mini whenever

00:33:27   I upgrade that, and that was also an odd thought.

00:33:29   I don't know, just weird, weird times in my noggin these days, gentlemen.

00:33:34   Weird times.

00:33:35   You guys are so much worse than me.

00:33:36   Well, it's not worse, it's different.

00:33:39   You just buy everything and get rid of it instantly, including businesses.

00:33:43   At least I'm consistent.

00:33:45   But yes, at least you are consistent.

00:33:48   Both of us, actually, although perhaps me more vocally, hem and haw for three years

00:33:53   and then eventually get something that we should have bought three years prior.

00:33:55   I know what I'm waiting for on the computer.

00:33:57   And like I said, I'm probably going to get one of these iMacs.

00:33:59   It will be my wife's computer, not mine.

00:34:01   I'm just waiting to see, like, I'm basically waiting to decide which GPU I should get.

00:34:05   Is it worth it to get the big one?

00:34:06   Is the big one much hotter than the other one?

00:34:08   Is it a waste to get the big one

00:34:09   because it gets thermal throttle all the time,

00:34:11   so you might as well get the cheapest, smallest,

00:34:12   coolest one because the gaming performance

00:34:14   is gonna be crap either way.

00:34:15   Like, I just wanna see benchmarks and numbers

00:34:18   and noise stuff and wait for everyone else

00:34:20   to get the lemons off the assembly line,

00:34:21   and then I'll buy one.

00:34:23   - I mean, for whatever it's worth, like, you know,

00:34:24   I mean, I haven't used the new one yet,

00:34:25   but I imagine, I know it's the same thermal design

00:34:28   as the old one, you know,

00:34:29   maybe the actual thermal load might be different,

00:34:30   but in general, gaming on a 5K iMac works fine,

00:34:36   but is loud.

00:34:37   That's it, like the fan is loud when gaming.

00:34:40   - Yeah, I don't think anything could be louder

00:34:41   than my 13-inch MacBook Air

00:34:44   that my kids play Minecraft on.

00:34:45   (laughing)

00:34:47   I mean, I don't know how much noise

00:34:48   the little tiny 13-inch Air can make,

00:34:50   but it is at max speed and max volume,

00:34:55   and it's not that loud because the Air

00:34:56   is such a tiny machine,

00:34:57   but it sounds like it's being hurt the whole time.

00:35:00   It's amazing this machine hasn't died.

00:35:02   They just sit in front of Minecraft for hours

00:35:03   and just, it sounds like a tiny little hairdryer behind there

00:35:05   going all the time. No, it is not that bad at all. But it is, you know, it's exactly

00:35:10   the same thing with their like asymmetrical blades on the 15 Retina. It's like, it sounds

00:35:15   more pleasant of a tone, but it's still just as loud, basically.

00:35:20   No. Anyway, like, I feel bad for them because, you know, there's the 27-inch non-Retina,

00:35:26   but still 27-inch monitor attached to that little 13-inch air, and they play Minecraft

00:35:30   full screen at native res, and they get like 12 frames

00:35:34   a second, I just, they don't know what they're missing,

00:35:36   I think, but boy, I look at it and I'm like,

00:35:39   you know, I don't know how they tolerate it.

00:35:41   I guess it's what they're used to, like,

00:35:43   well, I guess this is what Minecraft is like on a computer.

00:35:45   Like, it's faster on their iPads.

00:35:47   A little like the iPad 2 runs Minecraft Pocket Edition

00:35:50   at a higher frame rate, much higher frame rate

00:35:52   than this MacBook Air runs on this 27-inch screen.

00:35:55   - Goodness.

00:35:56   All right, so what else do we have going on?

00:35:58   We have something called Marco's pet topic.

00:36:00   Hey, you skipped a bunch of things.

00:36:02   I'm still not done with peripherals on the iMac.

00:36:04   Oh, god, it's like follow-up that's not follow-up.

00:36:06   OK, carry on.

00:36:06   I'll admit it.

00:36:07   It's a topic.

00:36:07   Yeah, those things we didn't mention last time.

00:36:11   We didn't mention last time that the keyboard and trackpad

00:36:14   work if they're plugged in, even if you have Bluetooth off.

00:36:17   So in theory, you could buy this keyboard and trackpad

00:36:20   and connect them to a computer that does not have Bluetooth.

00:36:23   Because even though they are Bluetooth peripherals

00:36:25   and they charge through a lightning port

00:36:26   that connects to USB at the other end, theoretically you could buy a computer with either broken

00:36:31   Bluetooth or no Bluetooth at all and still plug these things in and use them.

00:36:35   And since the trackpad and the keyboard don't move, you don't have to worry about fraying

00:36:38   the ends of the lightning cable by wiggling it back and forth.

00:36:42   And that brings up the other topic that's not in here, theories about why the charging

00:36:47   port is on the bottom of the mouse, which we talked about last time, and I was willing

00:36:51   to say aesthetics explains it 100%, but other people have theories like, well if you put

00:36:56   the plug like where you would expect the cable to connect aside from it being ugly it would

00:37:01   encourage people to keep it plugged in all the time and use it like that and then that

00:37:06   would inevitably fray the lightning cable which is not meant to be yanked around like

00:37:08   that or the connector would start wiggling or whatever so by putting it on the bottom

00:37:11   you assure that it is impossible to use it when it is plugged in and then therefore no

00:37:16   one will use it when it's plugged in.

00:37:18   That makes some sense I still think aesthetics is the you know Occam's razor it is the obvious

00:37:23   solution, it is the easiest solution, it explains that entirely.

00:37:26   Yeah, I guarantee you that was the reason. It was not because of the cable fraying questions,

00:37:30   no, not at all. The reason was it looks better.

00:37:32   Or the idea that people would accidentally use it. Like they understand they're buying

00:37:35   a wireless mouse, once they realize it can work with that, someone would probably use

00:37:38   a plug then, I don't doubt that because people will do all sorts of things. But in general

00:37:41   I don't think it's like, the biggest people would be confused or anything like that. Like

00:37:46   I said last week, doing it for aesthetic reasons makes so much sense except for the fact that

00:37:53   when you charge it, it is almost impossible

00:37:55   to make it aesthetically pleasing while charging.

00:37:57   And charging is a very infrequent occurrence,

00:38:00   but it's always going to look like you've harpooned a turtle

00:38:03   and it's in the throes of death or already dead

00:38:06   when you charge it.

00:38:07   It just doesn't look good.

00:38:09   It's not a good look.

00:38:10   There is no way, like, you know,

00:38:12   Johnny Ives' elegant desk with everything cleared off of it

00:38:15   and his minimalist setup with his beautiful apple peripherals

00:38:17   that look like a piece of sushi,

00:38:18   and then he's gotta charge his mouse,

00:38:20   and there's just no way to make that look good.

00:38:23   Maybe it's like, you know,

00:38:25   hanging a lantern on it in a movie script parlor

00:38:27   and it's like, we have this thing that's a problem.

00:38:29   Let's us point, let's say, yes, this seriously is a problem.

00:38:31   There is no way to make this look good when charging.

00:38:33   Guess what, your mouse is dead.

00:38:34   It was harpooned by a lightning cable.

00:38:36   (laughing)

00:38:37   - Well, this is, I mean, this is kind of,

00:38:39   this leads in very well to my pet topic,

00:38:41   if you wanna go right into that.

00:38:43   - Well, yes, but before we do,

00:38:44   you should tell us about something that's awesome.

00:38:46   - Well, John still has to tell us

00:38:46   about Apple's mouse click sounds concerns.

00:38:49   Isn't that part of your thing though?

00:38:50   Yeah, so this was a link to,

00:38:52   who did this one, I gotta look at it.

00:38:54   It was Steven Levy, right?

00:38:56   - Yeah.

00:38:57   - He got access to Apple's input peripherals lab,

00:39:01   basically where they work up the mouse and keyboards

00:39:03   and everything, they were talking with the engineers

00:39:04   and they're all serious about everything.

00:39:06   Like we really swept the details

00:39:07   and they told him a big story

00:39:08   about how the click sound of the new mouse

00:39:10   wasn't quite right and they had to figure out

00:39:11   why it didn't sound right

00:39:12   and adjust the little feet that touched the bottom

00:39:15   and they angled the feet differently

00:39:17   to make the resonance of the click sound better

00:39:21   until they got the click just right

00:39:22   and it talks about sweating the details.

00:39:24   And a lot of people pointed out like,

00:39:26   that's all well and good.

00:39:27   I love that you sweat the details

00:39:28   on how nice the mouse click sounds,

00:39:30   but A, you may be missing the forest for the trees

00:39:33   and that a lot of people would say

00:39:34   that the shape is not particularly ergonomic

00:39:36   for the class of people

00:39:37   who want to rest their entire hand on the mouse.

00:39:38   But I still say that's a categorical,

00:39:40   like how you grip the mouse thing.

00:39:41   And B, you're really concentrating on that,

00:39:44   but everyone's okay with the speared turtle charging thing.

00:39:47   Like they really sweat the details except for this detail

00:39:49   because they say, you know what?

00:39:50   I don't care what it looks like when it's charging.

00:39:52   Have it look as ugly and stupid and awkward as you want.

00:39:54   That is the detail we are not sweating.

00:39:56   It's just fine, just forget it, right?

00:39:58   So the detail they're sweating, obviously,

00:40:00   and it makes kind of sense.

00:40:01   You click the mouse all the time.

00:40:02   You want it to be satisfying and feel good.

00:40:04   You charge the mouse very infrequently.

00:40:06   It's okay for that to just be a total disaster, I guess.

00:40:09   - Our second sponsor this week is Automattic.

00:40:11   Automattic is a connected car adapter

00:40:13   that plugs into your car's diagnostic port

00:40:15   and it integrates with over 20 different apps

00:40:17   to give you a better driving experience.

00:40:19   Go to automatic.com/ATP to see for yourself

00:40:23   and get 20% off.

00:40:25   Now, automatic, this is a cool little thing.

00:40:26   You plug it into your OBD2 port.

00:40:29   You pair it with an automatic app for iPhone or Android,

00:40:33   and then this helps you out in several ways.

00:40:35   So first of all, simple stuff.

00:40:36   If your check engine light comes on,

00:40:38   this is in the diagnostic port, so it can read that.

00:40:40   It'll tell you exactly what's wrong.

00:40:41   So any kind of engine error code that your car throws,

00:40:45   you can see what it means on automatic.

00:40:46   And some of them you can even just clear it.

00:40:48   Like if the code is something that's temporary,

00:40:50   like your gas door is open, you can just close it

00:40:52   and then go to automatic and have it reset the code.

00:40:54   Problem solved, you don't have to go to a mechanic

00:40:56   or anything like that.

00:40:57   Also, it has access to all the data that your car has

00:41:00   about all the systems are working,

00:41:02   how quickly you're driving, where you are going.

00:41:04   With your phone it has GPS.

00:41:07   So the combination of those things can do things

00:41:09   like if you have an accident,

00:41:11   it can automatically call for help.

00:41:14   They could also do simpler things like it can give you a log of your fuel efficiency

00:41:17   and how you've been driving, where you've been driving.

00:41:19   It can give you your parking location so you never lose your car in a big parking lot.

00:41:24   So much stuff like that.

00:41:25   And they also now have, fairly recently they added apps.

00:41:29   And so they have a whole SDK now.

00:41:30   So if you're a developer, there's a whole API.

00:41:33   It's a nice simple rest API.

00:41:35   They have this whole rich API that you can build apps against.

00:41:38   So they have all sorts of apps already.

00:41:40   like Concur for expense reports, FreshBooks for invoices,

00:41:45   Pebble watches have integration for parking locations

00:41:47   and stuff like that.

00:41:48   They also have integration with IFTTT, if this then that,

00:41:52   which gives you the power to build all kinds

00:41:54   of useful recipes based on your driving

00:41:57   or various events that happen with you and your car.

00:42:00   Like you can trigger things to happen

00:42:01   when you're getting close to home,

00:42:02   such as turning on your Nest thermostat,

00:42:04   all sorts of stuff you can do with the automatic API.

00:42:07   Get automatic today, and normally it's 100 bucks,

00:42:10   And this is great because it's a flat price.

00:42:13   There is no monthly fee to use this.

00:42:14   You just buy the automatic device up front, and that's it.

00:42:18   You have it, you own it, it just works after that.

00:42:20   There is no monthly fee.

00:42:22   You just buy the device.

00:42:23   Now it's normally 100 bucks, and it's free shipping

00:42:26   in two business days with a 45 day return policy.

00:42:29   And there's a special for our listeners.

00:42:31   If you go to automatic.com/atp,

00:42:34   you get 20% off in addition to that.

00:42:36   So it's just 80 bucks, free shipping,

00:42:39   45 day return policy.

00:42:40   Check it out, automatic.com/ATP.

00:42:43   Thanks a lot.

00:42:44   - Alright, so tell us about this pet topic of yours.

00:42:47   - So this is, so I was kind of inspired by this iMac stuff,

00:42:51   you know, what John was saying, like the,

00:42:53   you know, being concerned about the detail

00:42:54   of how it looks when it's not plugged in,

00:42:56   and then, you know, the ridiculousness

00:42:59   of how the mouse looks when it is plugged in,

00:43:01   and how you can't use it while charging and everything.

00:43:03   And then, so we had an email from Florian Kunlens,

00:43:07   and he said, "For me, the new Magic peripherals discussion left me the impression that Apple's

00:43:12   laser focus might be a bit too focused. They care about the sound of the mouse but not

00:43:16   the weird charging port position, or at least not enough to change it. Meanwhile, it would

00:43:20   make a lot of sense being able to use the mouse wired only like the other two new peripherals.

00:43:25   Similar with the iMac and the 5400 RPM hard drive, why give it the super screen but not

00:43:30   a good drive? Same with the iPhone and 16 gig and so on."

00:43:34   And so, you know, for me, so that's, you know, end email.

00:43:39   I think this is a bigger discussion

00:43:41   that I've kind of alluded to for a while,

00:43:43   but I think it's worth diving into here,

00:43:46   'cause these all are relevant.

00:43:47   You know, Apple, we all like to think

00:43:50   that Apple always does things that are best for usability,

00:43:53   and the fact is, that is not true now,

00:43:56   and that really has never been true.

00:43:58   Usability has always kind of been balanced

00:44:01   between appearance and profitability,

00:44:05   (laughs)

00:44:06   you know, for lack of a better word.

00:44:07   And it's kind of this tight balance

00:44:09   that Apple has had to walk.

00:44:11   If usefulness and usability and like, you know,

00:44:13   good engineering-wise things being awesome,

00:44:17   if those were the top priorities,

00:44:19   regardless of how it would look

00:44:20   or how profitable it would be,

00:44:23   Apple stuff would be,

00:44:25   like it would be more like the PC market.

00:44:27   We, you know, we have that in the market.

00:44:28   We see what that is like,

00:44:30   and that's not, it's a very low profit business,

00:44:33   it's very badly differentiated or minimally differentiated

00:44:37   and it's not that great.

00:44:38   And also, people like us who kinda care

00:44:41   about how things look a little bit,

00:44:44   we like to think that we are objective 'cause we're geeks

00:44:47   and we like to think like, oh, it doesn't matter

00:44:48   how it looks, I'll just get the one that functions best.

00:44:51   - Wait, who thinks that?

00:44:52   Who thinks that?

00:44:53   None of us do.

00:44:55   - Okay, so, good.

00:44:56   (laughs)

00:44:57   So in many cases, people really do care what it looks like.

00:45:00   So it looks very important.

00:45:01   Anyway, I can look at almost any Apple product and I can point out ways in which appearance,

00:45:08   or the overall visual appeal, just appearance, has trumped usefulness or real world use.

00:45:16   Like, John, pointing out that the mouse, when you charge it, it looks ridiculous when you

00:45:24   and you have to charge it on its back or on its side,

00:45:27   diagonally, like whatever it is, it looks ridiculous, right?

00:45:30   In reality, Apple worked so hard to make the iPhone

00:45:33   look super thin and be super small and look great,

00:45:37   but almost every iPhone I see in the wild

00:45:38   is in some kind of crappy case,

00:45:40   because the iPhone is, either it's a case for durability,

00:45:45   which is most of the time, or for better grip,

00:45:47   because the phones themselves aren't durable enough

00:45:49   and don't offer good enough grip,

00:45:51   or it's a case that's a battery case,

00:45:53   because the phones don't offer good enough battery life

00:45:55   for people, so it's like, there's always, you know,

00:45:57   there's always these trade-offs

00:46:00   that Apple makes for good looks.

00:46:02   Similar thing with the iPhone 6 design.

00:46:04   Why is the sleep/wake button directly across

00:46:07   from the volume up button, which makes it very hard

00:46:09   to hit just one of them,

00:46:11   without hitting the other one accidentally.

00:46:13   The reason, most likely, is because it looks better.

00:46:15   It is visually symmetrical on that level,

00:46:17   and so it looks better than offsetting those buttons at all

00:46:20   or by having them, by having the sleep/wake button

00:46:22   be like in the middle or still on top or whatever,

00:46:25   you know, it looked better that way.

00:46:27   That might not be the only reason it's there,

00:46:29   but it's probably the biggest reason it's there.

00:46:32   - I don't think looks is the reason

00:46:33   for the sleep/wake button at all.

00:46:35   I think looks is the reason that the tops

00:46:37   are aligned exactly, but I don't think there's any place

00:46:40   you could put that that is better

00:46:42   than opposite the volume buttons, unfortunately,

00:46:45   'cause top is too high and once you slide

00:46:46   either the volume buttons or the power button down,

00:46:48   they become much more awkward to reach.

00:46:50   - Well then, so even if it was like centered

00:46:52   between the two rather than align with the top one.

00:46:55   - You think that would help?

00:46:56   - Yeah, I do actually.

00:46:57   I think it, I mean it still wouldn't be ideal,

00:46:59   but I think it would be easier to hit just one of them

00:47:01   if they weren't exactly aligned.

00:47:03   - Eh, maybe, maybe.

00:47:05   Anyway, that would still be aesthetically aligned

00:47:07   'cause it would be exactly centered

00:47:08   between the two volume buttons.

00:47:09   - Yeah, but I'm sure somebody said,

00:47:10   I'm sure somebody was like, no, it looks better like this,

00:47:12   and that's why, anyway, so.

00:47:13   - Your other arguments are stronger.

00:47:14   Well, I think your arguments got weaker as you went on,

00:47:16   as in, weaker is defined by whether I agree with you or not.

00:47:20   - Sure, okay, but you know, let's go, you know,

00:47:22   And even with the new stuff, like the iPad Pro,

00:47:24   I called out, and many people did,

00:47:27   one of the big problems with the iPad Pro

00:47:28   that people are gonna have in practice

00:47:30   is that there's nowhere on it to put the pencil.

00:47:34   Like if you have a pencil, there is nowhere on the iPad,

00:47:37   even if you buy the big keyboard case,

00:47:39   there's no slot for the pencil.

00:47:42   And part of that is 'cause it's super thin,

00:47:43   there's nowhere, it's just not thick enough to have a slot.

00:47:46   The pencil, by the way, which as CGP Grey pointed out

00:47:49   on Cortex, the pencil which is perfectly round

00:47:52   and can roll away because that looks better.

00:47:54   - Did you see the person who, I forget who it was,

00:47:56   posted a picture of the Surface,

00:47:58   the stylus for the Surface 4?

00:48:00   It's shaped like a pencil,

00:48:02   and the Apple Pencil is shaped like a pen.

00:48:04   - Exactly.

00:48:05   Anyway, so there's issues with that,

00:48:08   where at least for the keyboard case,

00:48:11   at least make a hole,

00:48:12   'cause you know there's gonna be

00:48:13   a million third-party iPad cases

00:48:15   that are gonna have pen holes in them

00:48:17   because that's what people actually need

00:48:18   if they're gonna have the iPad Pencil,

00:48:20   but it'd be great if Apple made them,

00:48:24   'cause Apple's cases are generally pretty nice.

00:48:25   So anyway.

00:48:26   - They should attach it with a chain like at the banks,

00:48:28   like one of those little metal chains

00:48:31   just so no one walks away with it

00:48:32   and you could have the metal things

00:48:33   just clunking around as you try to write.

00:48:34   That'd be great.

00:48:35   - Right.

00:48:36   Obviously, the new MacBook One,

00:48:38   that has a lot of these trade-offs for thinness

00:48:42   because it looks nicer.

00:48:43   And as I've ranted many times before,

00:48:45   I think the keyboard and the trackpad both suffer from that,

00:48:49   from this trade-off just to make it look thinner.

00:48:51   But again, the MacBook, like how many people go buy MacBooks

00:48:55   because they are, like they kind of inspire lust

00:48:59   like when you touch one, when you see one,

00:49:01   it's like my God, it's amazing.

00:49:02   So it does work.

00:49:04   The iMac is a curious case of this

00:49:07   because like the iMac and the Mac Pro,

00:49:08   you could look at all these things.

00:49:11   The iMac is really, really thin

00:49:15   and if they would be willing to make it thicker,

00:49:18   even just the thickness it used to be,

00:49:20   you'd be able to do a lot of things that would be very nice.

00:49:23   You could, for instance, the 21 inch model

00:49:25   could use three and a half inch hard drives again,

00:49:27   which would make them faster and cheaper and larger.

00:49:30   You know, you could, if it was thicker,

00:49:31   you could have a kind of more robust cooling solution

00:49:35   so that you could have the fans

00:49:37   that don't spin as fast under high load.

00:49:40   So, like the Mac Pro has that one giant fan,

00:49:44   which is awesome because you can stress out a Mac Pro

00:49:46   like crazy and you will not hear it,

00:49:48   no matter what it's doing, you will not hear it.

00:49:50   The iMac is much more designed like a laptop

00:49:53   and because it's so super thin, it kinda has to be.

00:49:56   So the iMac is, I think it's one main fan in the middle

00:50:00   or something like that, but anyway,

00:50:00   it's like, it has to spin really fast

00:50:03   under very heavy CPU and GPU loads

00:50:06   and it's very loud as a result

00:50:07   and if they'd be willing to make the enclosure thicker,

00:50:10   they could have larger, slower fans in there

00:50:12   that could have the same degree of cooling,

00:50:14   but they don't because it looks better when it's thin

00:50:17   from the side, which like, I have,

00:50:19   I'm looking at this 5K iMac on my desk,

00:50:22   if it was three inches thicker, I would never notice.

00:50:25   'Cause I would never see it,

00:50:27   because I'm looking at it head on,

00:50:28   and it's against a wall, it doesn't matter.

00:50:30   - But when it's on the reception desk at a fancy office,

00:50:33   people do see the back.

00:50:34   - Yeah, but you know, even then, they really can't,

00:50:37   but yeah, that's why they do it,

00:50:39   and it looks nice in their press shots,

00:50:40   and they like saying how thin it is,

00:50:42   even though it's only that thin on the edge, but oh well.

00:50:44   Oh, and also with the iMac,

00:50:45   one of my biggest complaints about the iMac

00:50:47   is that the stand is too low.

00:50:50   If you actually want to have an ergonomically correct setup

00:50:53   with an iMac or an Apple Cinema Display,

00:50:55   you have to like put it on a book or something.

00:50:57   You have to lift it up by about three inches.

00:50:59   - What is yours on?

00:51:01   - Mine is on a, I believe it's called the Elevation Stand.

00:51:05   - I thought you had it on top of one of your weird,

00:51:06   expensive German amplifiers.

00:51:08   - I used to, 'cause those are also the exact right height,

00:51:09   but now I move those to the left and right

00:51:12   'cause they're holding speakers up for, anyway.

00:51:15   So I have an elevation stand from Elevation Lab,

00:51:17   which is pretty perfect.

00:51:19   - Yeah, all of Apple's monitors,

00:51:20   monitors and iMacs have always been too low.

00:51:22   I have mine on a stand too.

00:51:23   My stand doesn't even need high enough.

00:51:25   I have like a clear piece of Lexan

00:51:26   that's kind of curved into U shape.

00:51:28   - Right, yeah.

00:51:29   - And I wish it could be higher still.

00:51:30   I kind of bought it thinking,

00:51:31   well, I'm surely gonna replace this 23-inch monitor

00:51:33   as soon as they come out with a big 27-inch one or whatever,

00:51:36   and I just never bought one,

00:51:37   so now it's just been too low for a long time.

00:51:39   But yeah, you're right, all of their stands are too low.

00:51:42   which I mean, the solution that other monitor makers do,

00:51:47   like Dell or NEC or Asus or whatever,

00:51:50   they make adjustable height stands,

00:51:52   like especially on the fancier models.

00:51:53   And adjustable height stands just all look gross

00:51:55   and don't feel good to use.

00:51:57   And you know what I mean?

00:51:58   Like an Apple wouldn't do that

00:51:59   because making an adjustable height stand,

00:52:01   making a very good adjustable height stand

00:52:03   would be really expensive.

00:52:04   And making a cruddy one makes them feel bad

00:52:06   about their products.

00:52:07   So they don't.

00:52:08   So it's a single contiguous piece of bent aluminum

00:52:10   with a little hole for the cables to come out of,

00:52:12   and that's it.

00:52:13   - And even then, obviously, in all of their photos of it,

00:52:16   there's no cables plugged into any of their products,

00:52:19   because cables are ugly.

00:52:20   But again, the reality of somebody using these Apple

00:52:24   products is usually uglier and clunkier

00:52:27   than the way they're presented,

00:52:28   and because it looks gross.

00:52:29   And I can't really blame them for that,

00:52:31   but I do wish that their designs would consider it more.

00:52:34   And I think it seems like over time,

00:52:36   the reason I bring all this up,

00:52:37   the reason why I wanted to talk about this tonight

00:52:38   that it does seem like over time, the balance between what is the best overall product versus

00:52:46   what looks the best versus what's most profitable, I feel like the best overall product side

00:52:51   of that triangle has been losing a little too much recently. That in seeking out higher

00:52:56   average selling prices, more upsells, more profit, and also I think, I don't know how

00:53:02   the internal politics work, but it does seem like the most powerful person in the company

00:53:06   is Johnny Ive from the outside. That's how it looks to me. It seems like he can do basically

00:53:10   whatever he wants and that anything he says just goes. You know, because Steve was so

00:53:15   involved in product and design, I'm guessing Steve and Johnny had a really nice balance

00:53:21   going that Tim and Johnny just can't have because Tim is not the same kind of person.

00:53:25   You know, he doesn't, he's not really in that role as much. And so I think now Johnny

00:53:29   has so much power and it's going less checked or possibly even unchecked. And so what we're

00:53:36   seeing now is like we're seeing like the Johnny and Tim sides get really strong of

00:53:41   like you know if you think about Tim as like the profitability side right you know he that

00:53:46   is Apple is nailing the profitability Johnny is making these beautiful looking objects

00:53:51   but it seems like that that advocate for keeping the product in check with Steve and that role

00:53:59   is now just kind of you know it's falling to other people but none of them are as maybe

00:54:05   Maybe it's power, maybe it's just high ranking,

00:54:08   whatever it is, none of them are exerting as much influence,

00:54:12   it seems, over the product line the way Steve did and could.

00:54:16   Versus Johnny and Tim who are, if you think about Johnny

00:54:19   as wanting the beautiful things and Tim as wanting

00:54:21   the profitability, which those are probably

00:54:22   oversimplifications, but those are clearly kind of

00:54:25   where their strengths have lied in the past.

00:54:27   If you look at that, it does seem like there's this

00:54:30   kind of vacuum where Steve used to be in keeping

00:54:33   product stuff in better balance with those two factors.

00:54:37   - I don't know, I would've put Steve in the camp

00:54:39   that's just as extreme in terms of wanting

00:54:41   to remove everything, and it seemed to me,

00:54:45   because every time you saw an interview with Steve Jobs,

00:54:48   it always seemed like what he really wanted

00:54:49   was to get rid of all this crap.

00:54:51   Like, what he really wanted essentially was the iPad, right?

00:54:54   Can we just get rid of all this crap?

00:54:55   I don't want any ports, I don't want any expansion slots,

00:54:57   I just want it to be like a beautiful single-piece obelisk

00:55:02   that has no features on it whatsoever,

00:55:03   but is a computing device.

00:55:05   I mean, he's the guy who made the Power Mac G4 Cube,

00:55:08   for crying out loud.

00:55:09   He wanted to get rid of it all, hide it, get rid of it all,

00:55:13   and yet even in the Cube, did he make the Cube

00:55:15   with no FireWire ports, with no connections for a keyboard,

00:55:19   with everything wireless?

00:55:20   No, because he couldn't do that yet.

00:55:23   And so I definitely feel like if he was still around,

00:55:25   not that it matters, but anyway,

00:55:27   that he would be on the side of get rid of everything.

00:55:29   And in that vein, like the idea of getting rid of everything,

00:55:34   the little triangle that you sketched out between,

00:55:36   I figured it was like profitability,

00:55:38   does it look nice and is it a good overall product

00:55:40   or whatever?

00:55:41   - Yeah, basically.

00:55:41   - There is a little bit of overlap there

00:55:44   because when I look at the products they're making

00:55:46   these days, aside from thinking that Steve Jobs

00:55:49   would be totally going home,

00:55:50   removing every single port and every single feature

00:55:52   and just making them have nothing

00:55:53   and just removing all choice

00:55:55   because it's just, you shouldn't need that crap

00:55:56   and it's annoying.

00:55:58   There is something to be said for whether intentionally or accidentally, and I think it is mostly intentionally,

00:56:02   doing stuff like

00:56:05   removing the number of possible moving parts,

00:56:08   reducing the number of joints, fewer parts, fewer joints, fewer moving things, fewer ports, fewer holes,

00:56:14   simpler, smaller, less stuff.

00:56:17   That does actually make a better product and

00:56:20   aggressively pursuing that can get you, you know, it's not like a smooth gradient of like, well it was,

00:56:27   You know more reports are good, but fewer reports is fewer things to break

00:56:30   Apple seems to always be looking for the next kind of

00:56:34   Discontinuity or step jump where it's like well if we remove you know

00:56:37   It could be argued that the you know

00:56:39   The iPhone or the iPad like that if we remove everything about computers

00:56:42   We give you a little handheld computer that we call a smartphone remove everything about it. No finder. No file system

00:56:47   No installing your own apps a bubble like they're looking for that in hardware design - now are they successful?

00:56:53   Do they make products that actually that people appreciate? Oh, it's great

00:56:55   It only has one port.

00:56:56   See how that's better than two

00:56:57   because one is fewer than two

00:56:59   and it's less things to break

00:57:00   and it's simpler and blah, blah, blah.

00:57:01   I think they blow it a lot.

00:57:02   But it seems to me what they're going for all the time is

00:57:06   to try to make it simpler.

00:57:09   And that instinct is mostly a good instinct.

00:57:13   It's just like what you're putting in the axis of like,

00:57:15   is this a better product?

00:57:16   It's judging it by the criteria of like kind of,

00:57:19   is it useful for me in the same way

00:57:21   that the previous Mac was used for me

00:57:22   only faster and nicer looking or whatever.

00:57:25   And they're always trying to say,

00:57:26   but we wanna go beyond that.

00:57:27   We want you to not need any ports.

00:57:29   We want need, you know,

00:57:30   if they could make mice and keyboards

00:57:32   that you didn't plug in ever, they would.

00:57:34   Like tiny little atomic power plants.

00:57:35   Like they would seal them up and just say like,

00:57:37   you never plug these in, they're wireless forever.

00:57:39   If they could put wireless power to the iMac,

00:57:40   so it looks like it did in their product shots, they would.

00:57:42   Like they do, they wanna remove everything

00:57:44   that makes this thing a computer.

00:57:45   They wish, if you could give,

00:57:47   like Johnny I have a magic wand and say,

00:57:49   you can make a computer that's anything you want.

00:57:51   Assuming he didn't immediately go into images

00:57:52   projected on the back of your retina by nano machines,

00:57:55   He would just make a beautiful floating screen

00:57:58   that floats in midair and has no edges, right?

00:58:00   And input devices that are invisible,

00:58:03   they'd either a mind controlled

00:58:05   or controlled by your hands not touching anything.

00:58:07   And there would be nothing.

00:58:08   Like they all want to get rid of the computer

00:58:10   and just make it it's you and the screen.

00:58:11   That's all there is.

00:58:12   Maybe they'd make something like VR or whatever.

00:58:14   And so I see in this thing that you're attributing

00:58:17   to aesthetics as in I want it to look

00:58:19   like a beautiful sculpture or nickel and diming as in,

00:58:22   Now the GPU and the iMac could support two external screens,

00:58:26   as people in the chat room were saying,

00:58:27   but that would mean more ports,

00:58:28   and more ports mean supporting those ports

00:58:30   and making sure we have the buses to go through them.

00:58:32   It's more expensive to do that,

00:58:33   and I gotta drill my holes in the case or whatever.

00:58:35   Then I'm just trying to say, we just wanna, you know,

00:58:38   Johnny Iovin and his white world,

00:58:40   boil it down to its essence.

00:58:41   What is it, just you and the screen?

00:58:42   You shouldn't need more than one screen,

00:58:44   just you and this beautiful screen

00:58:45   that's just wrapping around your whole head

00:58:47   and it's all you can see,

00:58:48   and you put your hand on the sushi,

00:58:49   and you touch a little keyboard

00:58:51   that has no edges and nothing is plugged in

00:58:53   and there are no wires and that's the, you know,

00:58:55   I see them striving for that

00:58:57   and I kind of applaud them striving for that

00:58:59   and I don't attribute it all to just Johnny Ives disconnect

00:59:01   from like, well, I don't want people to actually use these

00:59:03   and they just want it to be sculpture.

00:59:04   I feel like he does want them to be useful things.

00:59:06   He just has the same sort of allergy

00:59:08   that I always send to Steve Jobs

00:59:10   to the greebles in ILM parlance

00:59:15   or special effects industry parlance of computers,

00:59:18   the little doodads and doohickeys and ports and flanges and switches and I mean

00:59:22   it's like the rotation lock has gone from the stupid iPad because like can we get rid

00:59:25   of that switch if we can get rid of it because I want there to be nothing I just

00:59:28   want it to be a screen like that's why everyone thinks the home button is going

00:59:32   away this is like one of the few remaining moving parts in the thing so

00:59:35   but I totally get your point I just I'm myself internally conflicted about

00:59:40   applauding their their aspirations while at the same time saying you missed the

00:59:46   mark with this particular feature or product or whatever,

00:59:48   and we may differ on what those are.

00:59:50   So I get where you're coming from, but I sympathize.

00:59:53   - Well, but most of what you just said I agree with.

00:59:56   It's just really an issue of the balance

00:59:58   and whether they have the right balance now or not.

01:00:01   I totally agree that generally the track they're on,

01:00:05   the direction they're going is generally good,

01:00:07   and I generally think, obviously, the world thinks so too.

01:00:10   It's working for them.

01:00:11   Who am I to say that this massively successful company

01:00:15   is doing something wrong, but the reality is

01:00:19   that in the real world there are things that are not ideal

01:00:21   with the way some of this stuff works,

01:00:23   and I do think, again, I think they're on the right track

01:00:27   overall, but there are little course corrections

01:00:30   that are necessary that are not happening now.

01:00:34   It does seem like it's kind of out of whack

01:00:37   with the priorities, and that might get magnified over time.

01:00:41   I don't know, I mean, when I read that Johnny Ive

01:00:44   was moving into the clouds to be his new position,

01:00:47   I was happy.

01:00:48   Everyone else was like, "Oh no, we're gonna lose Johnny."

01:00:50   I was like, "Let him ascend into the heavens

01:00:54   "to whatever he wants to do,

01:00:55   "because I would love to get new blood under him,

01:00:59   "get new people up there, get new ideas here."

01:01:01   - I mean, there's a whole team.

01:01:02   That's the whole thing with Johnny.

01:01:03   He's not coming up with all these designs.

01:01:05   The most you can say is that he's giving yes, no, no, yes

01:01:08   to 17 designs that are presented to him.

01:01:10   And so in that way, he has an influence over the company,

01:01:12   but other people are designing these products.

01:01:14   Maybe he gives them notes. Maybe he says I'm thinking I'm thinking like an egg, but with no rounded parts go like

01:01:20   I don't know what he says to people to inspire them, but he's not there with a pencil drawing every single product

01:01:25   I don't know which products he even has a handed but you're right like in the same way Steve Jobs wasn't drawing anything

01:01:30   He was just saying sitting back and say I I'm thinking like leather like on my Lear jet and then iOS 6 would come

01:01:36   He would go no. Yes. Yes. No, no. Yes. Look at this other sample. No - yes

01:01:39   Like Johnny I was more involved in Steve Jobs and just saying no and yes

01:01:42   But like we're using him as a standard just for the people who get the idea that's tonight

01:01:46   I was designing we're using him and his philosophy as a standard so a new blood

01:01:49   I feel like with him ascending that maybe that he is delegating more of the

01:01:54   What makes the cut and what doesn't and maybe also delegating the the direction like what I always think about is uh

01:02:01   You guys never read the Johnny I book. It's a good one that Lander Canyon one. It's pretty good

01:02:06   Talking about the early iMac designs and how they're like well

01:02:10   Now we can go a lot of ways with this phone thing.

01:02:12   It's probably gonna be some kind of rectangle, rounded,

01:02:14   and we have a couple of different designs.

01:02:15   And one of the ones that came up really early on

01:02:17   was essentially the iPhone 4 design.

01:02:18   You know the one we all know,

01:02:20   it's like it looks like an ice cream sandwich

01:02:21   with the metal thing,

01:02:24   and then the glass thing on the front and back.

01:02:26   That was like one of the very first designs

01:02:28   they were thinking of for the iPhone.

01:02:29   They just couldn't make it happen for the iPhone 1.

01:02:31   It was just like, well, that's great and all.

01:02:34   That was one of their ideas in the mix,

01:02:35   and it was like manufacturability problems,

01:02:38   and how big it had to be,

01:02:40   and the timeline that they had.

01:02:42   And so they basically had to say,

01:02:43   even though we like that design the best,

01:02:44   what about this design?

01:02:45   Or what about this design?

01:02:46   The iPhone 1 design that came up

01:02:48   was like the fourth compromise down of like,

01:02:51   or none of us really like this design.

01:02:53   Like if you think of the original iPhone,

01:02:54   you can tell that John A.I. was probably upset

01:02:56   about many aspects of it, right?

01:02:58   But it's the best they could do with the time and materials

01:03:00   and skills they had at the time.

01:03:01   But eventually, by the time the iPhone 4 came around,

01:03:04   he didn't give up.

01:03:05   He's like, I remember that ice cream sandwich one,

01:03:06   and it was pretty awesome,

01:03:07   and we're gonna make that phone.

01:03:08   And they did eventually make it.

01:03:10   That's kind of the, you know,

01:03:13   the compromises that are necessary in industrial design.

01:03:17   And I see in a lot of the products they're making now,

01:03:19   like the ones that look like transitional fossils,

01:03:21   where it's like, well, we're not quite at the point

01:03:23   where you can get rid of all these things,

01:03:24   but they have a design that almost tries to get rid of them,

01:03:25   but leaves this little weird vestige.

01:03:27   And in that way, you can kind of see the previous iteration.

01:03:31   Now that the new keyboard is out,

01:03:32   look at the old tiny Bluetooth keyboard,

01:03:35   and you're like, what is all that crap around the edge?

01:03:37   "Why is that big barrel thing over there?

01:03:39   I don't understand it.

01:03:40   Like it seems unnecessary."

01:03:41   And that's what they're trying to do with their advance.

01:03:43   Maybe they had this as idea,

01:03:44   like the first time they drew,

01:03:45   "We're gonna make a Bluetooth aluminum keyboard, go."

01:03:47   So they drew that.

01:03:49   And I said, "Yeah, we can't do that

01:03:51   'cause we need a place to put batteries

01:03:53   and we, you know, we need to be bigger

01:03:56   and we're comfortable."

01:03:57   How about this?

01:03:57   I don't know if that's true, I'm just making this up.

01:03:58   But the whole idea that they,

01:04:02   what I'm finding is the idea that anyone inside Apple

01:04:05   is particularly pleased with any product they produce

01:04:07   because I think every product they put out,

01:04:09   there is potentially a design that they really wanted

01:04:12   to make that they either couldn't or didn't make

01:04:14   that's still sitting in the back of their own mind

01:04:16   annoying at them.

01:04:17   That's what drives them forward to make the next one.

01:04:19   So maybe what I'm saying is maybe a lot of people

01:04:23   inside Apple are just as disappointed

01:04:24   in like the lumpy back of the iMac as we are.

01:04:27   And just that like, you know, that's design is compromising.

01:04:31   I have to say, what can we ship?

01:04:32   And what's the best we can make it look?

01:04:34   Even the 20th anniversary Mac. Do you guys remember that? The big vertical thing?

01:04:38   You don't remember this before your time. Anyway.

01:04:40   Oh, is this the one that Hackett's obsessed with?

01:04:42   Yeah, it's it's weird looking. Anyway, that one, it was at Johnny Ive Design.

01:04:46   Oh, I'm gonna make this beautiful 20th anniversary Mac and use one of these new fancy LCD screens.

01:04:50   They can have leather and wood and all this stuff like that.

01:04:52   But then they said it had to have like ports or I forget what the thing was. It had to have some expandability.

01:04:58   He's like, "Ugh." And he had to put this big giant

01:05:00   Backpack on the thing like he had to take his design that he liked and add like two inches like this big lump on the

01:05:06   Back of it so you can see if you google for you can see the 20th anniversary Mac both with and without the lump I forget

01:05:11   If it was expansion chassis or expansion guards or something like that that was mandated to him from from above the Johnny

01:05:16   I have of today will not let that be mandated to him from above if someone says oh

01:05:20   But by the way after you've already designed thing actually has to have three more ports drill some more holes. He's gonna go no

01:05:26   And that I think is better because I think the compromise in the 20th anniversary Mac makes that machine worse

01:05:31   Than if you just said I'm making it the way I want to make it if it doesn't have whatever the feature that was the backpack

01:05:37   Added oh well tough luck

01:05:39   That's what it's got and then you can just sort of accept it and say this is the computer

01:05:43   And it looks the way I want it to look and it's got the features that I want and if you don't like it

01:05:46   No one will buy it like the power Mac G5 G4 Cube and we'll go back and we'll reconsider

01:05:50   We'll go back to our rooms and think about what we've done and try again and try to make a computer people will buy

01:05:54   I don't know how I feel about this because on the one side I agree with you guys and

01:06:01   I think that there are a lot of compromises.

01:06:03   I would love to have a phone that I would never even have to think twice about lasting

01:06:09   all day.

01:06:10   I would love to have a phone that when I go to a football game and I know I'm going

01:06:15   to be using my phone a fair bit and I'm going to be searching for signal for three

01:06:18   and a half hours, I don't need to bother putting it in a battery case.

01:06:22   Yes, I am aware that the plus club exists, but I am a human with human-sized hands, so I want a human-sized phone

01:06:29   I would love to have a phone that's a little thicker with a little more battery

01:06:33   But I'm looking at my phone now, and it is a freaking beautiful device

01:06:38   It really truly is and with this Apple leather case on it is perhaps less beautiful than it could possibly be

01:06:43   but it's still freaking beautiful and

01:06:47   I charge my phone every night and only have to worry about battery life when I know I'm going to be using it hard

01:06:54   All day long. Otherwise, I never have to worry about it. Is that really so bad? Could it be better? Sure

01:07:00   But is that really so bad?

01:07:02   I was thinking earlier today in my continued deep thoughts that I really do love this new 15-inch retina MacBook Pro that work on me

01:07:08   It's beautiful. It's thinner noticeably thinner. I like that. It's thinner. I like that. It doesn't have an onboard

01:07:16   optical drive I

01:07:18   Kind of wish it had an onboard Ethernet port, but I I can fix that very easily

01:07:23   I know I'm just saying because I mean

01:07:27   Maybe it's low latency for it when he plays quick through arena. He doesn't really want to wait for the

01:07:32   Here we go

01:07:35   No, I actually all kidding aside. I needed to get well, I already had one but I would have needed to get a

01:07:42   Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter for work because the company where I am working does not give

01:07:49   access to the restricted areas of their network except by hardline so

01:07:55   With my Mac I need to get on an Ethernet connection in order to get to the servers that I need in order to develop

01:08:03   the things I need to develop so

01:08:05   Would I have liked to have had an onboard Ethernet port? Hell yeah, but

01:08:10   Would I have chosen that over just bringing the dongle and having a device that's

01:08:15   perfect or nearly perfect in every other measurable way? I'd probably take the dongle. So I don't know,

01:08:22   it's a very tough thing, and this is what makes engineering so beautiful, is that you get to make these tough engineering decisions as to what's

01:08:28   more important. And I agree with you, especially John, that I think every engineering decision that Apple makes, I would expect that they have a

01:08:37   serious amount of regret about every single one, but they're doing the best that they possibly can.

01:08:41   And I think that's the case with all of their devices. And do they have room to do it better? Sure.

01:08:47   Better for me? Absolutely. But better for everyone? I don't know.

01:08:51   That's what I was looking for, or at least what I'm always looking for on the Apple computer, is the time when it all comes together.

01:08:56   When there were no major design compromises that had to be made.

01:09:00   Like, it wasn't like, "We wish we could have made it this thin or this size or had this battery life or this performance of this feature,

01:09:06   but we didn't have enough room or it was too expensive or the parts weren't ready in time or the material we were on to use

01:09:11   Didn't work out or whatever and it's just an all-around

01:09:13   Good computer that's like ahead of its time that lasts for a long time that is sturdy

01:09:18   That's nice-looking that that the looks don't go out of date

01:09:22   Like you're it's same thing with cars for that matter of 9/11 aside when there's the one model when there's the one model

01:09:29   That's like that was the one to get that's where it all came together briefly

01:09:32   even if it all came together like,

01:09:33   oh, the '65 version of that is, you know,

01:09:36   the height of the pre-fuel injection error,

01:09:40   like just the beautiful specimen where it all comes together

01:09:43   and those computers are rare.

01:09:45   Like Macworld did those big, like best Mac ever things

01:09:47   and the SE30 kept coming up,

01:09:49   A, because I picked it and it's the correct answer

01:09:51   and B, because a lot of other people

01:09:52   felt the same way about it

01:09:53   and that obviously modern Macs are so much better

01:09:56   but for that time, it was like,

01:09:58   it was the perfection of that form.

01:09:59   It was, they had perfected that form factor.

01:10:03   The innards of it were the best innards

01:10:04   they could possibly be.

01:10:05   Everything about it was better

01:10:06   than all previous computers of that size.

01:10:09   It lasted a long time.

01:10:10   You could expand it in ways that you didn't expect.

01:10:12   It was sturdy, it was beautiful.

01:10:14   Like it was just, that was a peak.

01:10:16   And I think you can pick out other models that are like that.

01:10:19   The 5K iMac could be like that.

01:10:21   Maybe you could quibble over the Thunderbolt compromise

01:10:24   and say, well, it's like in between the Thunderbolt 3 error

01:10:26   and the USB-C error, so it was a little bit weird.

01:10:28   So maybe it doesn't qualify.

01:10:29   But I'm sure we can pick out ones like to have out the 2008 Mac Pro a pretty damn good

01:10:34   Like it kind of in the middle of the run of the of the cheese graders, you know post Intel, you know

01:10:39   after all the g5 stuff or whatever, but before they started to get kind of long in the tooth and

01:10:43   That's a great computer. That was that was a high point

01:10:47   When we're looking at any other type of device we have to say

01:10:50   Like for the iPhone line, what are the high points in the iPhone line?

01:10:54   I would definitely pick if for industrial design anyway the four but maybe I'm wrong about that because

01:10:59   because I'm not looking at the broken home buttons

01:11:02   and the crappy antenna when you grab the edges of it

01:11:04   and stuff, but industrial design-wise,

01:11:07   ignoring the other parts of the thing.

01:11:08   So maybe that's not the one.

01:11:09   I don't know, what would you guys--

01:11:11   - I'd say the high points were the 3GS and the 5S.

01:11:14   - Eh, maybe.

01:11:15   I mean, everyone's got their own things,

01:11:16   but it depends on what criteria you're choosing from.

01:11:19   And the thing is, for the designers, do they care so much?

01:11:22   Like, oh, the stupid engineer screwed up the home button.

01:11:24   That's not my fault.

01:11:25   The part that I did, my design, I like that sandwich phone.

01:11:28   I really liked, like you said, the 3GS,

01:11:32   I think inside Apple's industrial design

01:11:34   because it just had this big plastic bubble on back.

01:11:35   But anyway.

01:11:36   - But for the time, it was insanely fast,

01:11:41   great innards, huge upgrade from the past one.

01:11:44   It was also very practical.

01:11:45   It had great gripability on that case.

01:11:47   It was durable.

01:11:48   And long term, you could see,

01:11:51   I don't think it really had any major hardware flaws,

01:11:53   whereas the 4 had the antenna issue,

01:11:56   had the bad proximity sensor, and then the 4S had those dying home buttons, and the 5

01:12:02   had the flaky finish, and the 5 also I believe had a sleep/wake button issue, whereas the

01:12:09   5S I think actually really was pretty rock solid. I don't think anybody really had consistent

01:12:14   hardware problems with the 5S, and I would say the design there was a high point.

01:12:19   That's like, that's your priorities. I would imagine that there's not anyone on

01:12:23   on Apple's industrial design team who would pick the 3GS

01:12:26   as their design high point.

01:12:27   - No, definitely not.

01:12:28   - Because just isolating that part of it.

01:12:30   And so you're like, I don't care that much about the design.

01:12:33   It was nice and it looked nice and it was grippable,

01:12:35   but the point is that it felt good,

01:12:37   it was fat, like all the things that you listed

01:12:38   are the product attributes that you are,

01:12:40   you give a ranking of like, which ones do you prioritize?

01:12:42   And that's why maybe the design people would prioritize

01:12:46   the materials and physical appearance and be like,

01:12:49   well, I had no control over the stuff

01:12:50   they put inside the phone.

01:12:51   So if they screwed that part up, it's not my fault.

01:12:54   And I feel like the pinnacle was

01:12:55   whatever their favorite design is.

01:12:56   And the flaking finish even,

01:12:58   you could even see someone would be like,

01:12:59   "Well, flaking finish, that's not really my problem."

01:13:02   They probably wouldn't say this,

01:13:03   'cause that's what designers know this is their problem too.

01:13:05   But they say, "It looked perfect when it was new,

01:13:07   just don't touch it, don't even look at it."

01:13:10   It can't be played, I can't do the accent.

01:13:12   But Mike has seen that movie now,

01:13:14   I'm finally listening to Mike at the movies

01:13:15   and I realize all these movies now,

01:13:16   Mike is seeing them in case he's not.

01:13:19   - Like which one?

01:13:20   - Well, this was Spinal Tap.

01:13:21   You didn't expect that one with it, did you?

01:13:22   - Oh yeah, nope, definitely not.

01:13:24   - Yeah, anyway, Marco, I'd give it up.

01:13:26   - Yeah, you know I haven't seen anything.

01:13:29   - Anyway, the point is we should all be kings

01:13:32   of our own companies with the resources of Apple,

01:13:33   and then we can make exactly the products we want

01:13:35   until we find out that we can't get what we want either,

01:13:37   because the materials aren't available,

01:13:39   or the chips cost too much,

01:13:40   or Intel's not ready or whatever.

01:13:42   - Our last sponsor this week is Fracture.

01:13:46   Go to fractureme.com.

01:13:48   Fracture is vivid color prints of photos directly on glass.

01:13:52   These prints look awesome.

01:13:55   I have so many of them around my office now.

01:13:57   Our friends are all getting them.

01:13:59   They are so nice.

01:14:01   So here it is.

01:14:02   You get your photos printed on a slab of glass.

01:14:05   And it's a nice thin slab of glass.

01:14:07   So it's very, not only would Johnny Ive like it a lot,

01:14:10   'cause it's so thin, but it also works really well.

01:14:14   It satisfies both of those sides

01:14:16   because it is very, very lightweight.

01:14:20   You don't have to be all stressed out

01:14:21   the way I would be about hanging on the wall

01:14:23   and having to put in some giant drywall anchor

01:14:26   and hope it doesn't fall out or tear a hole in your wall

01:14:29   or whatever else.

01:14:30   They're incredibly practical and they look great.

01:14:33   Now, fracture prints make great gifts also.

01:14:36   Now, going into this holiday season,

01:14:38   I highly recommend, first of all, in general,

01:14:40   I highly recommend fractures as gifts.

01:14:43   I have done that myself many times.

01:14:46   I'm doing more of them this holiday season, however,

01:14:49   fracture prints are all handmade and checked

01:14:51   by real people in Gainesville, Florida.

01:14:54   In the holiday season, they often get really backed up

01:14:56   with orders because there are just so many people

01:14:58   who have figured out, thank you everyone,

01:15:00   who have figured out to use fracture for holiday gifts

01:15:03   that sometimes they can't,

01:15:05   if you wait until mid-December, say,

01:15:08   to order a holiday order,

01:15:09   you might not be able to get it in time

01:15:10   'cause they're gonna be so backed up by then.

01:15:12   So they wanna ask you, please,

01:15:14   If you're gonna be ordering for the holidays,

01:15:16   place your orders now, 'cause it's already,

01:15:19   as we record this, it's mid to late October already.

01:15:22   November is coming very soon,

01:15:25   and then December comes right after that,

01:15:26   in case you've forgotten.

01:15:27   I frequently forget, and it surprises me,

01:15:29   but trust me, you wanna get these orders in now,

01:15:32   because Fracture, many people have figured out

01:15:34   how good this is, and they're all right.

01:15:37   (laughs)

01:15:37   Many people figure this out.

01:15:39   Please place your holiday orders now for Fracture prints.

01:15:42   Vivid color prints of your photos directly on glass.

01:15:45   They make great gifts.

01:15:46   They're great to hang up around your house,

01:15:48   around your office.

01:15:49   I use mine to have my app icons printed

01:15:51   whenever I make a new app.

01:15:52   I print out the icon,

01:15:53   I have this nice little trophy row up top.

01:15:55   So check it out at fractureme.com

01:15:58   and use code ATP15 for 15% off your first order.

01:16:03   Once again, fractureme.com,

01:16:05   use code ATP15 for 15% off your first order.

01:16:08   Big thanks to Fracture for supporting us for so long.

01:16:11   Thanks a lot, recommended.

01:16:12   - Alright, what is Facebook battery?

01:16:16   - Alright, so actually I think Viticci's been one

01:16:19   of the leading investigators on this, right?

01:16:21   - Oh, you're talking about the ridiculous battery usage?

01:16:23   - Yeah, like so-- - Ah, gotcha.

01:16:25   - So everyone's, I mean, I think people have known

01:16:28   for a while that the Facebook app

01:16:30   is incredibly battery inefficient,

01:16:32   but nobody really had a great idea of why or how

01:16:35   that was that way, and a few things changed in iOS 9.

01:16:40   One of the biggest things that changed is that the iOS 9

01:16:43   battery shaming menu or screen in settings,

01:16:48   it now will tell you how many hours things were on screen

01:16:51   and how many hours they were in the background.

01:16:53   It'll also tell you what they were doing in the background.

01:16:55   So it'll say things like audio or network or whatever.

01:16:59   So it'll tell you what it was doing, background refresh,

01:17:02   what it was doing in the background.

01:17:04   People have been noticing that the Facebook app

01:17:06   is somehow being woken up really for a very long time

01:17:11   for background usage, even when these people

01:17:12   are not using the app.

01:17:13   So they'll have like one guy had the app was open

01:17:17   for two minutes, was in the background for like seven hours

01:17:20   or something like that, and used up a ton of his battery.

01:17:23   Some crazy difference like that.

01:17:25   And more importantly what people are finding,

01:17:27   even if they disable background app refresh,

01:17:30   it was still finding ways to run in the background,

01:17:33   and in some cases use even more battery,

01:17:36   often by doing really, really sleazy tricks.

01:17:40   So do you remember, back forever ago,

01:17:43   in like, I don't know, 2009, 2010, something like that,

01:17:46   forever ago, before you could do much

01:17:49   in the background of iOS, one of the things you could do

01:17:52   was if you were, the very first backgrounding modes

01:17:55   in iOS 4, whenever that came out,

01:17:56   one of the very first things you could do

01:17:58   was you could play audio.

01:18:00   So if you're an audio player, like if you were a podcast app

01:18:02   or if you're a streaming music service,

01:18:05   That was one of the things that you could run indefinitely

01:18:07   if you're playing audio.

01:18:08   And so one of the very first things that somebody,

01:18:11   I forget who it was, was it Tapots that made,

01:18:14   was it Payspot that did this?

01:18:16   - They played silence the whole time.

01:18:18   - Yes, so yeah, they submitted an app

01:18:21   that through this clever hack, you could run indefinitely

01:18:25   if you were playing audio.

01:18:27   And so they figured out that if you just played silence,

01:18:30   like if you're evoking the audio buffer,

01:18:32   but you're just sending it all silence in the buffer.

01:18:35   Your app can run indefinitely.

01:18:36   And so they were using this to do clipboard history

01:18:38   management and clipboard sharing between computers

01:18:40   and everything.

01:18:41   And Apple very quickly figured out what they were doing

01:18:46   and banned them from doing this.

01:18:47   Facebook is now doing that same trick in 2015,

01:18:51   and Apple's permitting it.

01:18:53   So we'll see what happens.

01:18:54   Oh, is that what it's come down to?

01:18:56   I didn't realize we figured it out.

01:18:57   Yeah.

01:18:58   So people have done some investigation.

01:19:00   and Facebook is using background audio to play silence to stay running as long as possible.

01:19:06   And among other tricks. And so, I can explain at least one thing. So first of all, I've

01:19:12   had so many people report bugs to me in Overcast that sound really weird about like not playing

01:19:17   in the background after they've launched Facebook or something and now I'm suspecting this might

01:19:20   be related to Facebook's stupid activity. But also, people have wondered, you know,

01:19:27   If I block you with background refresh, and I, like if I disable background refresh for

01:19:32   your app, and I've, you know, quote, force quit your app by, you know, removing it from

01:19:35   the multi-tasking switcher, how do you still run in the background?

01:19:39   And I can answer this question.

01:19:40   Back when Newsstand was unveiled, one of the cool new things Newsstand apps could do was

01:19:45   called a content available push notification.

01:19:47   Now normally, if you run a web service and you want to like send something to all the

01:19:52   iPhone people that are using your app, you could send notifications, but previously to

01:19:56   Notifications had to be visible on screen.

01:19:58   You couldn't just send an app, like an empty notification,

01:20:02   to have it just start running and download new stuff.

01:20:04   You couldn't do that before.

01:20:06   You could send it an alert, and it would show,

01:20:08   like, you know, the box and the text,

01:20:10   and the user could then say, you know, okay, enter the app,

01:20:13   and then it would launch.

01:20:14   But all that was user controlled,

01:20:16   and so you couldn't be doing it behind the user's back,

01:20:18   and you had to have the user interacting with it

01:20:20   to actually get launched again in the background.

01:20:22   With Newsstand, they added this new thing

01:20:24   called content available pushes,

01:20:25   where for a while it was only newsstand apps could do this.

01:20:28   They could be woken up remotely by their servers.

01:20:32   You as the service owner could wake up

01:20:34   all the instances of your app

01:20:35   by sending this special push notification that was silent.

01:20:39   It did not show anything to the user.

01:20:42   And the way they initially,

01:20:44   so first it was just on newsstand.

01:20:46   And then I think it was iOS 7

01:20:48   that made content available push notifications

01:20:50   available to all apps.

01:20:52   You could be waking up your app all the time.

01:20:54   And so initially Apple would throttle these things

01:20:56   and it would only allow it to wake up the app once a day

01:21:00   or only when it was plugged in or something.

01:21:02   And over time those restrictions have gotten loosened.

01:21:05   And in 8, you could wake up your app pretty frequently

01:21:08   if you really wanted to with content available.

01:21:09   It was pretty reliable, you could usually wake your app up.

01:21:12   But if the user quit you out of the multitasking switcher,

01:21:16   so if they force quit your app,

01:21:19   you wouldn't get those anymore.

01:21:21   And in iOS 9, they changed that.

01:21:23   In iOS 9, even if background refresh is off,

01:21:27   'cause background refresh is a separate thing,

01:21:29   background refresh is the system

01:21:31   of periodically waking up the app to do something,

01:21:34   and the user can control that.

01:21:36   However, there is no system control

01:21:40   for whether to allow an app to receive

01:21:42   content-available silent push notifications.

01:21:45   And I think, I haven't tested this with the Facebook app,

01:21:49   because I don't have it installed, because I'm not insane.

01:21:51   Sorry, Facebook people.

01:21:52   (laughing)

01:21:53   No, I don't use Facebook enough to use their app,

01:21:55   but I recognize that it's very popular.

01:21:57   Different viewpoints, anyway.

01:21:58   So I don't know, I would like,

01:22:02   I'm curious to know if Facebook people can test this

01:22:04   who are experiencing these battery problems,

01:22:05   'cause people are saying, I disabled background refresh,

01:22:08   but it's still doing all this stuff in the background.

01:22:10   Try disabling all notifications, because,

01:22:14   so anyway, in eight, if you force quit it,

01:22:16   those content available silent pushes would not come through.

01:22:20   In nine, they still come through.

01:22:22   So in 9, even if you have quote, force quit my app,

01:22:25   if I send content available from my server to your phone

01:22:29   and you've enabled notifications,

01:22:31   my app will wake up in the background

01:22:32   and I can start doing something.

01:22:34   I can start a background download,

01:22:35   I can start playing silent audio forever,

01:22:37   you know, like Facebook does.

01:22:39   So I'm curious if disabling notifications

01:22:43   entirely is the fix.

01:22:44   - You mean disabling them entirely on the entire phone

01:22:46   or just for the Facebook app?

01:22:48   - Just for the app, but like, you know,

01:22:49   'cause there's like, in each app,

01:22:50   there's the notifications area

01:22:51   And then there's this big magic switch up top,

01:22:54   allowed notifications.

01:22:55   And then there's the more granular stuff,

01:22:57   show notification center, badge the app icon,

01:22:59   what shape should they be.

01:23:00   But if you turn that off for Facebook,

01:23:03   I wonder if then it won't get these notifications.

01:23:06   But anyway, so that's what they're doing, it seems.

01:23:10   And they issued some kind of weird response,

01:23:12   you know, just like the Volkswagen thing.

01:23:14   Well, must have been some bug or rogue engineer,

01:23:16   you know, some BS.

01:23:17   But the reality is this is a disgusting company

01:23:19   and they do lots of unethical things.

01:23:21   and this is just one thing.

01:23:22   They're doing it because they can't,

01:23:24   this is not the kind of thing that you program accidentally.

01:23:27   They're doing it because they can,

01:23:28   and what's Apple gonna do, reject the Facebook app?

01:23:31   Like, this is kind of, they can't really do that much for it

01:23:36   and I think it's unfortunate,

01:23:39   but that's just the power dynamic.

01:23:41   This is also from the talk show.

01:23:44   The Facebook app is most likely the most popular

01:23:47   third-party app on iOS by a long shot.

01:23:50   My guess is it's number one, YouTube is number two,

01:23:52   but you can't exactly tell Facebook,

01:23:56   you know, you can't do this anymore.

01:23:59   You know, like, how much power do they have?

01:24:01   I mean, I kinda wish they would exert that power

01:24:03   a little bit more here, but they might not

01:24:06   really be able to, but I don't know.

01:24:08   Either way, this is, if you are a Facebook user,

01:24:12   you should not be surprised by this.

01:24:14   You should be mad, but you should not be surprised.

01:24:17   And this is just what Facebook does,

01:24:18   And it's, you know, it's disgusting.

01:24:21   - Yeah, I don't really have anything to add about this.

01:24:23   I don't use the regular Facebook app

01:24:25   because around the time,

01:24:27   this is probably a year ago now,

01:24:29   but around the time the Facebook Messenger became a thing,

01:24:32   they eventually took the ability to send

01:24:36   and receive messages out of the standard Facebook app.

01:24:41   But they would still send you a push notification.

01:24:44   They still had the entry point to the messages section

01:24:48   in the app, so it was like a tab or something like that.

01:24:52   But you would get there and they would say,

01:24:53   "Oh no, we've moved this to a new app.

01:24:56   "You have to go get that other app.

01:24:57   "Oh, it's so sad, this is stinky."

01:25:00   But I refused to go get that other app

01:25:02   because I almost never send or receive Facebook messages.

01:25:06   Eventually, I got sick of this

01:25:08   and I got sick of the Facebook app

01:25:10   and so I downloaded Facebook Paper,

01:25:11   one of the 85 things named Paper

01:25:13   that is in our little world.

01:25:16   And that allows you to send and receive messages,

01:25:18   and so that's what I use if I'm using anything

01:25:20   with Facebook on my phone.

01:25:22   And it's fine, I mean it's pretty,

01:25:25   but otherwise unremarkable.

01:25:28   And that was basically it for me.

01:25:30   However, Erin does use the normal Facebook app.

01:25:34   And the other day, I noticed when I was looking

01:25:37   at battery usage that it looked really high,

01:25:39   but I didn't think much of it because I didn't know

01:25:41   if perhaps she had been using Facebook all day or something.

01:25:44   And then it was just a day or two later that all this kerfuffle started about battery usage,

01:25:49   and I really wish I had paid close attention to it.

01:25:52   But I have been intending to keep closer track of the app's usage, and I did turn off, like,

01:26:00   background updates and all the things that you guys described, and I suspect, and I think

01:26:06   that's exactly what you said, Marco, that it's still getting used a lot for seemingly

01:26:11   no reason.

01:26:12   And that's just gross.

01:26:14   Just because you can doesn't mean you should, kids.

01:26:18   And yet, when you're a company as big and powerful as Facebook, when you likely have

01:26:23   the most popular third-party app on the platform, you can get away with this.

01:26:28   And it's also, it's kind of too bad that Apple allows it.

01:26:31   That they should have reacted in some way, shape, or form publicly in the sense that

01:26:38   maybe they should have pulled the app, or not like disabled it on existing devices,

01:26:42   but maybe you can't download it from the app store

01:26:44   or something and maybe, I don't know,

01:26:47   maybe I'm being ridiculous, but I feel like it's just,

01:26:49   it's stinky that the big powerful people

01:26:51   get away with things that the little guys can't.

01:26:54   - Yeah, my question is what benefit does Facebook

01:26:58   think this provides them?

01:27:00   Like just ignore everything else about it.

01:27:01   There's Facebook, I assume Facebook does this on purpose

01:27:04   because they want it.

01:27:06   Why do they want this?

01:27:07   Like wouldn't you think it would be bad?

01:27:09   Like what does their app need to do all the time?

01:27:11   Like what?

01:27:12   - Gather data.

01:27:13   - Seriously. - About what?

01:27:15   About like where they're getting location data

01:27:18   from the phone?

01:27:18   I'm just wondering.

01:27:19   - 'Cause they might be.

01:27:20   - 'Cause I don't think there's that much,

01:27:21   like if the Facebook app just said,

01:27:24   I don't know what the interval is,

01:27:25   but like wake me up every 15 minutes to get updates,

01:27:28   or is it the immediacy of being able,

01:27:30   like I'm always running,

01:27:31   so as soon as something happens to Facebook,

01:27:33   people know right away instead of having to wait

01:27:35   for a background refresh interval,

01:27:37   or something like that,

01:27:37   because Facebook must also know the downside,

01:27:40   which is that you're going to run people's batteries down

01:27:43   more.

01:27:44   And I don't know if they just assume, well, they'll

01:27:47   find a charger somewhere because they're not going to go

01:27:48   without their Facebook updates.

01:27:50   Or they'll use their phone less.

01:27:52   You would think if you had an app, what you'd be trying

01:27:54   to get-- maybe you're right, Casey.

01:27:56   The thing is, we don't want your engagement or interaction

01:27:58   with the app.

01:27:59   We just want your information.

01:27:59   I don't know.

01:28:00   I'm just trying to understand from their perspective

01:28:02   how it makes sense to try to have your app be

01:28:06   running all the time.

01:28:07   So to put things in perspective, just today,

01:28:09   was at the dentist's office and the the dentist nurse we were talking waiting

01:28:14   for the dentist to come in and she I don't remember how we got on the subject

01:28:18   but she said to me oh yeah the other day I went to that place I believe she said

01:28:23   she was talking about Facebook it I might get this can I might be getting

01:28:26   this confused with Google but I went to this place on Facebook where it can

01:28:29   where it'll show you like all the stuff it knows about you and all the places

01:28:32   you've been and it was super creepy because it knew everywhere I had been

01:28:37   And so, granted this is one data point, completely anecdotally from a person who just ten minutes

01:28:43   before told me she was completely inept when it comes to computers, but this conversation

01:28:50   happened completely naturally.

01:28:51   I didn't prompt it, I didn't interrogate her.

01:28:53   She said to me, "Oh yeah, it's so creepy what they know.

01:28:57   That's so weird."

01:28:58   So I suspect it is just data gathering.

01:29:02   Maybe there's non-nefarious purposes as well, like when you start the app you want it to

01:29:05   to be totally refreshed, blah, blah, blah,

01:29:08   but I think mostly it's for data gathering.

01:29:10   - I mean, it's probably all of these things.

01:29:12   It is probably, if they do any kind of continuous location

01:29:16   or periodic location monitoring, I'm sure it's for that.

01:29:19   I'm sure it's if they're doing any kind of analytics

01:29:22   of what kind of phone you have, whatever it is,

01:29:25   there are things they can measure.

01:29:26   I'm guessing it's probably a little bit about location

01:29:29   and it is almost certainly, what John said,

01:29:32   it's almost certainly about engagement.

01:29:34   It is about, I'm sure that having your app

01:29:38   running in the background, being able to get data

01:29:40   immediately from your server, being able to start

01:29:44   downloading things, like to start caching things,

01:29:46   to start preloading things, things that you're gonna

01:29:49   be looking at, I'm sure it's for all those reasons.

01:29:52   And I'm sure the overall reason is,

01:29:55   data gathering is probably part of it,

01:29:56   and the other thing is just engagement.

01:29:58   Because if they can increase the amount of time,

01:30:01   if they're basically always running,

01:30:03   or running as much as they possibly can,

01:30:05   then they can get you notifications faster,

01:30:09   they can get you data faster,

01:30:10   they can get you new stuff downloading faster,

01:30:12   and it's all about reducing the friction

01:30:14   so that not only can they bother you as often as possible

01:30:17   to come back to the app, but also that when you are there,

01:30:20   there's no delay in loading anything.

01:30:23   'Cause they've measured that both people like that,

01:30:25   and also it increases our numbers.

01:30:27   It makes us X per year of more engagement

01:30:30   and more growth hacking or whatever.

01:30:32   That's why, you know, there's plenty of reasons

01:30:35   why they want to do this.

01:30:36   Those are the two big ones.

01:30:37   - Yeah, it makes me wonder if like there was a setting

01:30:39   in the app that said, should we try to run in the background

01:30:42   even when every setting you're telling us is like basically

01:30:45   to let the users choose which behavior they want to be.

01:30:48   That would be an interesting choice.

01:30:49   'Cause like, you know, if they didn't do this,

01:30:50   when you launch the Facebook app,

01:30:52   less stuff would be loaded, presumably.

01:30:53   I'm assuming that they're taking, like you said,

01:30:55   taking advantage of that.

01:30:56   Which user experience would people prefer?

01:30:58   Would they prefer that when you launch the Facebook app,

01:31:00   it's like up to date and most of the stuff is loaded,

01:31:02   would you prefer it that as soon as your friend

01:31:04   posts something you know about it immediately?

01:31:06   Like would people trade the battery hit

01:31:08   for that immediately?

01:31:10   Most people will think about it,

01:31:11   oh Facebook app is using my battery too much.

01:31:13   If they're techy enough to know that,

01:31:14   oh Facebook app is using my battery, I wish it didn't.

01:31:16   Do you really wish it didn't?

01:31:17   If we took away all of the things that it's doing

01:31:20   during that battery time, 'cause then you'd be like,

01:31:23   oh the Facebook app is so slow every time I launch

01:31:25   it's gotta load a bunch of stuff.

01:31:26   Like I'm wondering what trade off people would make.

01:31:27   Because like I said, you know, as the app maker

01:31:30   you're sucking everyone's battery down,

01:31:32   do you think you're gonna lose engagement

01:31:34   because they're going to say, well, it's lunchtime,

01:31:36   and normally I would keep looking at Facebook,

01:31:38   but my battery is too low, so I'm not going to.

01:31:41   No, they'll just find a charger, I guess,

01:31:43   or they'll use a battery pack or something like that.

01:31:45   I wonder if they've determined that this is the trade-off

01:31:49   that people would choose anyway,

01:31:51   so let's just aggressively be in the background.

01:31:53   And the other part of it, like speculating,

01:31:55   is just the game of chicken with apple,

01:31:56   because like you both said, what are you gonna do,

01:31:58   pull the Facebook app?

01:32:00   good luck with that, that will hurt your iPhone sales numbers more than pretty much any other

01:32:03   app pulling that you could possibly do.

01:32:06   I was getting an iPhone but it doesn't have Facebook so forget it, right?

01:32:09   So that is a negotiation between those two powerhouses to say, Apple to say please don't

01:32:14   run your thing in the background so much, Facebook to say I dare you to pull our app.

01:32:18   I don't know how that's working out, maybe they just don't even know, I mean because

01:32:21   Apple has been, like you said Margo, changing the rules for the various push notifications

01:32:26   and updates and all the other stuff and surely they know the consequences of those with respect

01:32:30   the Facebook app, so.

01:32:31   - Yeah, I'm sure that Apple has been in touch

01:32:36   with Facebook over this by now.

01:32:38   'Cause it's very possible Apple just didn't know about it.

01:32:41   I find that a little hard to believe

01:32:42   'cause it's just so widespread,

01:32:44   but it's very possible that this was brought

01:32:47   to their attention, or at least the right people's attention

01:32:49   within Apple at the same time that we all learn about it.

01:32:51   So I'm sure that somebody at Apple contacted somebody

01:32:55   at Facebook to talk about this,

01:32:57   and we'll see how it shakes out.

01:32:58   But I'm not surprised to see this because Facebook's entire iOS app, they have this

01:33:06   culture similar to Google has this too, this culture of extreme engineering arrogance to

01:33:11   the point where they don't feel like they need to respect the platform they're running

01:33:16   on.

01:33:17   They feel like they know better and they're above it.

01:33:19   And so the attitude of Facebook that permitted this to happen, I guarantee you this was not

01:33:24   a bug.

01:33:25   guarantee you this was somebody saying screw Apple's limitations this is how we

01:33:29   get around them and and we deserve it because we know what's best for us and

01:33:33   for our users period and Apple's not involved in this discussion like it's

01:33:36   this culture of arrogance that that is very very common at Facebook and and

01:33:41   Google's engineer departments for sure and you see it a lot in you know the way

01:33:45   like their app is this massive bloated mess of a million different custom

01:33:51   written things to customer implement things from the system and ever I mean

01:33:54   this massive, massive app and they're like

01:33:57   rewriting their own Xcode 'cause they break Xcode

01:33:59   the way they use it and all this crazy stuff

01:34:01   that they do out of this arrogance.

01:34:03   So like if they think they're above the rules,

01:34:06   that fits right into all that, it's not a surprise at all.

01:34:08   And also I would argue that this is actually

01:34:13   kind of like a hole, like almost a security hole,

01:34:15   it's like a battery hole on Apple's side,

01:34:18   which is why do none of these switches that used to work

01:34:22   or that seem like they should work?

01:34:23   Like why, if you turn off background refresh on an app,

01:34:28   should content available notifications still come through?

01:34:30   'Cause like, I know in the old world of iOS 8,

01:34:33   when if you'd force quit an app,

01:34:35   they wouldn't come through anymore.

01:34:37   That caused definitely some support emails with Overcast,

01:34:40   'cause that's how I do my updates,

01:34:41   and the notification I show on screen

01:34:43   is a local notification.

01:34:45   So it would cause problems in that people wouldn't expect

01:34:48   that to work that way.

01:34:49   They wouldn't expect that they force quit the app,

01:34:51   that it wouldn't get new data anymore, ever.

01:34:54   So it made sense to change that behavior from eight to nine,

01:34:58   but I definitely think that there should either be

01:35:00   a separate switch, which is probably less good,

01:35:02   or they should just roll this into the background refresh,

01:35:05   which is if somebody has disabled background refresh

01:35:07   for an app, it should not also still get

01:35:10   content-available notifications.

01:35:11   - Do you feel like where you've commented on Google

01:35:16   and Facebook's engineering arrogance,

01:35:19   given our conversation earlier,

01:35:20   you feel like Apple's arrogance lies in industrial design? I think it's more than

01:35:25   just that, but perhaps their largest bit of arrogance?

01:35:28   Apple has no shortage of their own arrogance, believe me. I mean, that's one of the reasons

01:35:33   why the people who love all these companies love them, because each of them has their

01:35:37   own breed of arrogance in different areas, and they all think they know best for the

01:35:41   whole stack top to bottom. And that's what makes, you know, Apple ship what it ships

01:35:47   as its Windows software, which gives a lot of Windows people a really terrible impression

01:35:53   of Apple. Like iTunes and QuickTime for Windows back in the day, like that, oh boy. This applies

01:36:01   to all of them, but generally the results of one company being a little too pushy in

01:36:08   some area, usually it hurts the customers on the other platforms. And this is one of

01:36:14   of those instances where like Facebook clearly thinks they're above the law with app store

01:36:19   rules and iOS system restrictions and as a result, they really are hurting their users

01:36:25   and they're, you know, it's not good. So, but I don't think they care. They're benefiting

01:36:29   themselves and that's all Facebook ever does and, you know, that's Facebook.

01:36:32   David Schanzer, Ph.D. Well, that's all any company ever does. I mean, I don't think that's

01:36:36   exclusive to Facebook or Google. I mean, I think Apple in many ways does the same thing.

01:36:40   They generally do, but I think, speaking of striking balances, I think Apple strikes a

01:36:45   way better balance in that regard with quality and respect for their users than Facebook

01:36:53   or Google. And I think Facebook is worse than Google. I mean, I'd put Google right in

01:36:58   the middle there. I'd say Facebook is horrible. Google is in the middle and Apple is decent

01:37:02   most of the time. Anyway, thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Squarespace,

01:37:07   automatic and fracture and we will see you next week.

01:37:14   They didn't even mean to begin 'Cause it was accidental

01:37:19   Oh, it was accidental John didn't do any research

01:37:25   Marco and Casey wouldn't let him 'Cause it was accidental

01:37:30   Oh, it was accidental And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:37:37   And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:37:47   So that's Kasey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:37:51   E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

01:37:59   It's accidental (accidental)

01:38:02   They didn't mean to Accidental, Accidental Tech Podcast so long

01:38:12   Yeah time to talk about pearl six for two seconds well have a short after show two seconds

01:38:16   Oh really people people are asking about pearl six cuz Larry wall gave a speech that said hey pearl six is coming

01:38:22   It's going to be ready

01:38:24   And

01:38:26   People are asking me what I thought about it. I think I've discussed this before

01:38:30   Speculating what I would think when pearl six is announced and now that it has been I'll say the same thing that I said before

01:38:36   I

01:38:38   I like Perl 6. I think it's a really interesting language, but my interest in it is proportional to the

01:38:45   Quality of the implementation, so I don't just want to be able to write Perl 6 in something that executes. I need it to be

01:38:53   Reasonably fast and stable and better than some other language

01:38:57   I'm using it implementing real-world applications because as much as I enjoy the language and what it looks like

01:39:02   I'm not gonna build anything with it for reals e reals

01:39:07   until it like all all the benefits of the language is supposed to have like oh look at all these contracts that are you know

01:39:13   That are ripe for actual concurrency and look at the ability to pin down types

01:39:20   That could let us use more efficient types internally to have higher performance

01:39:25   Well, unless I actually have the higher performance unless it actually does the concurrency that is inherent in the semantics of the language

01:39:32   I'm much less interested in it.

01:39:34   So I'm glad that they're deciding to put a pin in 6.0.0

01:39:39   and have it come out 15 years later or whatever,

01:39:41   but I'm mostly interested in it when I can use it

01:39:44   to build actual real things,

01:39:46   because it's not like I'm being super demanding about it.

01:39:50   I really love the language.

01:39:51   I think other language designers should study it

01:39:53   and take the ideas from it or whatever,

01:39:54   but I'm never going to learn what it's good for

01:39:58   and what it's not good for

01:39:59   until I can implement something in it.

01:40:00   And I'm never gonna implement something in it

01:40:02   if the performance and reliability is

01:40:05   worse than every other possible language I could choose.

01:40:07   Now, I'm not saying the performance and reliability

01:40:08   are going to be terrible.

01:40:09   I know it's improved.

01:40:10   I know there's multiple back ends because the JVM one might

01:40:12   be faster because you're piggybacking

01:40:14   all the JVM work that's been done over the past decades

01:40:17   or whatever.

01:40:18   It's just that I need to see that.

01:40:19   I need to see, hey, like Marco, hey, I built this thing in Go,

01:40:23   and it was super fast and really reliable.

01:40:27   And by the way, I got to learn Go, and it was neat.

01:40:29   I need to see someone else say, hey, I

01:40:31   built this thing in Perl 6 and it was super fast and really reliable and if I had built

01:40:34   it in Perl 5 it would have been worse and if I had built it in Python it would have

01:40:37   been worse and if I had built it in Go it would have been worse in this way or whatever.

01:40:41   That's what I'm looking for. That's just me personally. Your mileage may vary so I encourage

01:40:45   everyone to check out Perl6.org, especially the people who have no idea what Perl 6 is

01:40:49   because people who don't have any idea what it is, I think they just think it's like PHP

01:40:52   with different dollar signs and stuff and then nothing could be further from the truth.

01:40:56   Pearl-6 is strange in ways. If Swift didn't exist it would be more weird.

01:41:00   Because I think Swift has given everyone a kick in the pants of like, "What the hell's going on with this language?"

01:41:04   Like, what are they trying to do there?

01:41:06   It's like C with structs, but like it's got this weird stuff like it's object-oriented

01:41:09   But they're also it's got this functional stuff mixed in like what the hell like Swift is like Pearl-6

01:41:14   Like a tiny fragment of Pearl-6 like Pearl-6 exploded and a little tiny star came out of it and dumped in some other things

01:41:21   But Pearl-6 has got all the crazy and all the crazy in the best sense like crazy like a fox

01:41:25   So I encourage everyone who is interested in anything having to do with languages, check

01:41:31   out the Perl 6 website, wade through the documentation until your eyes roll back in your head and

01:41:36   you think these people must be on something.

01:41:38   They probably are.

01:41:39   Lots of good ideas in language still.

01:41:42   So I have two questions.

01:41:44   First of all, on an infinite time scale, do you think you will use Perl 6?

01:41:49   Yeah, if it's kind of one of those things like, you know, is there something magical

01:41:55   about them putting out a 6.0.0 that's going to make the implementation much better, much

01:41:58   faster?

01:41:59   I don't know about that, but I assume people will keep working on it because it's interesting.

01:42:03   I assume at least a small group of people will have enough motivation to keep plugging

01:42:07   away.

01:42:08   I'm not entirely confident that they will ever get to the point where I end up using

01:42:11   it to make a real project, because it is conceivable that for my entire life it could be like a

01:42:16   a weird research project that is interesting to the people who

01:42:19   toy around with it, but it never becomes

01:42:21   sort of a thing that large applications are written with.

01:42:24   So I don't know there.

01:42:25   I'm not going to say it definitely will,

01:42:27   because it could, on an infinite time fail,

01:42:28   it could just peter out.

01:42:29   And people stop working on it, and it becomes just

01:42:32   a historical curiosity from which people

01:42:34   take ideas going forward, which would be fine.

01:42:36   It's a lot of--

01:42:37   Perl 5, for that matter.

01:42:39   Most of its benefit, I think, has not

01:42:41   been the part where it played the prime role in making

01:42:43   dynamic web applications during the Web 1.0 era.

01:42:46   But the fact that so many other people used Perl or looked at it and took those ideas

01:42:49   forward into their own languages, yes, including Swift.

01:42:53   Question number two.

01:42:54   Which do you think is likely to happen first?

01:42:58   You adopt Perl 6 or you replace your Mac Pro?

01:43:01   Oh, I've been replacing my Mac Pro way before I adopt Perl 6 for anything, definitely.

01:43:07   [BEEP]