90: Speculative Abandonware

0:00:00So how's it going so far?

0:00:02- Going well.

0:00:03The prediction that you two had for night one at home,

0:00:09would you like to guess if it went as you expected

0:00:13or not at all as you expected?

0:00:15- I already heard an analog, right?

0:00:16You'd already told the world.

0:00:18- Did I already tell the world?

0:00:19Did that already come? - Yeah.

0:00:20- That didn't come out yet, did it?

0:00:21- That's out? - No.

0:00:22- I listened live.

0:00:23- Oh, okay. - Oh, that doesn't count.

0:00:24You're cheating.

0:00:25- Yeah, you absolutely cheated.

0:00:26Okay, so Marco, did it go as you expected,

0:00:28which is to say it went not swimmingly,

0:00:31or did Declan surprise everyone

0:00:34and it went pretty much flawlessly?

0:00:37- First night home from the hospital,

0:00:39I'm saying it did not go flawlessly.

0:00:42- Oh, it was a disaster.

0:00:43- Yeah, that's-- - It was a disaster.

0:00:45- It's simply unrealistic to expect otherwise.

0:00:46I mean, it's not really his fault.

0:00:48You know, zero year olds are pretty rough.

0:00:50- If it goes perfectly, you'd be worried

0:00:52that there's something wrong with the baby

0:00:53and you'd be bringing them back to the hospital.

0:00:55- That's true. - Get them inspected.

0:00:56- 'Cause you'd be like, "This not failing to thrive

0:00:58He's just too sleepy all the time, yeah.

0:01:00- Now, it's actually funny you say that

0:01:01'cause we did mention the pediatrician Monday

0:01:04that he was really sleepy and we were letting him go

0:01:07something like four-ish hours overnight

0:01:09'cause he really didn't wake up to feed

0:01:11and the pediatrician was like, "Uh-uh, no, not yet.

0:01:14"That ain't your thing yet.

0:01:15"You gotta wake that baby up."

0:01:16And so that's what we've been doing.

0:01:17And it's been, I mean, all in all,

0:01:20it's actually, he's been really good.

0:01:22The first night was a disaster

0:01:23because we hadn't yet come to the conclusion

0:01:26that divide and conquer is the answer.

0:01:27And so, you know, here it is, I'm trying to be supportive

0:01:29of Erin who is the only one who can actually feed Declan.

0:01:33And I'm waking up and just kind of staring at her

0:01:35while she's feeding him, not,

0:01:37and there's no point in me being up,

0:01:38but I'd wanna be supportive.

0:01:40And it took us until basically the end of that night

0:01:42where I think I said to her, "Listen, he's pissed off.

0:01:46You haven't slept in forever.

0:01:47You're the one who actually needs sleep right now.

0:01:49You go to bed, I'll just entertain him for a couple hours."

0:01:53And that's when kind of we had the epiphany

0:01:55that divide and conquer is really the way to do it.

0:01:58- Yeah, there is a purpose to you staying up

0:02:01at the same time, and that's like to offer moral support

0:02:05if your wife is the type of person who would resent you

0:02:09if you were sleeping peacefully in the other room

0:02:10while she was sleeping.

0:02:12But eventually, yes, you will both get over that

0:02:15because you will realize if either one of us

0:02:17ever wants to sleep, we have to get over the notion

0:02:19that all suffering must be shared.

0:02:20(upbeat music)

0:02:22- Which one of us said Adam Sandberg?

0:02:24Was that me or John?

0:02:25I did and then you confirmed it. We were trying to remember the name of some movie.

0:02:29I'm like, "Oh, that's the thing with Adam Sandberg." And you said, "Yep."

0:02:32But it's not—

0:02:33I don't know—yeah, I don't know why I let that slide, because I knew it was Andy Sandberg, but apparently we had a brain fire.

0:02:37Yeah, so did I. I knew it was Andy Sandberg, too. It just, you know, came out wrong.

0:02:39Anyway, in case you were wondering, the man's name is Andy Sandberg.

0:02:43So everybody was wrong except me.

0:02:45You didn't say anything.

0:02:46Right.

0:02:47It didn't make you right, but you were—you are correct in saying you are not wrong.

0:02:50You should have—you should have corrected me in real time, so you wouldn't have had this follow-up.

0:02:54you could have done a real-time follow-up.

0:02:55- You assume I know who that is

0:02:56or what you were talking about.

0:02:57- You know who Andy Samberg is, come on.

0:03:00- You overestimate me.

0:03:01No, you don't. (laughing)

0:03:02- If you saw him, you'd be like, "Oh yeah, it's that guy."

0:03:04Maybe you don't know the name.

0:03:05- Yeah, that's maybe also unlikely.

0:03:08- I think you would.

0:03:09I mean, if you've ever seen a recent "Saturday Night Live,"

0:03:13not now recent, but within the last five, 10 years recent,

0:03:17if you've seen "Brooklyn Nine-Nine,"

0:03:19and he's been in a bunch of movies too,

0:03:20although they're escaping me off the top of my head.

0:03:22So far I'm at zero for two.

0:03:24- How about Lazy Sunday, which was a--

0:03:28- Never heard of it.

0:03:29- The original reference that you made was on a boat.

0:03:31He's seen the on a boat thing.

0:03:32I'm on a boat.

0:03:33- The first time I saw that was when I recorded it

0:03:35to insert into the show last week.

0:03:37- Wow.

0:03:38- I heard about it,

0:03:39so I knew roughly what you were talking about,

0:03:42but I didn't know anything else about,

0:03:45like I had never heard the whole thing.

0:03:47Same thing with (beep) in a box,

0:03:48like when that came out, same people, right?

0:03:50- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:03:51- Like two weeks earlier or something.

0:03:52Yeah, that was like the entire world was obsessed with that and I didn't hear it for like six months

0:03:56It was really funny. Uh, so Adam I kind of did it again. Andy Samberg is part of a trio called lonely Island

0:04:03They're the ones who did the I'm on I'm on a boat song and they came out with an album

0:04:08I don't know two three months ago

0:04:10Maybe a little more than that and I read a review of it

0:04:13Which is weird because I never read album reviews

0:04:15but I read a review of it on like Rolling Stone or Pitchfork or something hipster and

0:04:20The point that they made about the album was you know, it's supposed to be satirical rap

0:04:24And so it's sort of kind of weird alish. Although weird al is deliberately goofy

0:04:30Whereas they're more satirical in my personal estimation

0:04:33well

0:04:34anyway

0:04:34They said that the problem with the Lonely Island album is that the music is

0:04:39Good enough and the writing is good enough that it's not really that satirical after all and that and so they totally kind of

0:04:46escape or missed the point of the entire album which was to be satirical and silly so that they accidentally made an album that was

0:04:52Just good enough to not be taken as a joke, which was their intention exactly, right?

0:04:56Yeah, no, it's weird. Should I be a little bit embarrassed that first of all, I had never heard t-pain before

0:05:02but while watching the on the boat video I was

0:05:04Like the only music I was actually enjoying was when t-pain was saying because it was actually singing and not just yelling

0:05:09I'm so not a rap guy clearly. I mean, well the comedy behind that though is that he was autotuned to death

0:05:16Like that was T-Pain's thing was, or at least as far as I knew, was he was like the first person to

0:05:21really embrace auto-tune. Well, that's not fair. The first person that everyone realized really embraced auto-tune.

0:05:28I think you could argue that many artists such as maybe Britney Spears had embraced auto-tune a long time before him.

0:05:33But, but yeah, that's kind of his shtick and, and yeah.

0:05:36Either way, he was definitely the most musical part of that,

0:05:39which I was trying to get some kind of musical enjoyment out of it because I'm like, well,

0:05:44If I'm gonna listen to something called music, I might as well attempt to extract some some enjoyment out of it

0:05:50And that was the only source of any any promise in that whole thing. You didn't like the lyrics at all. I

0:05:56Think one verse was kind of funny maybe but like the whole I was sitting there like this is still going

0:06:01Like I couldn't believe how long that like they I figured that it was like a 45 second SNL skit

0:06:07Not that they had made an entire, you know, three or four minute or whatever song out of it

0:06:11No, it's it's it's the real deal. I think it should have stayed as a 30 seconds good

0:06:15You should there's there's a couple of other

0:06:18Couple other videos that they've done that are pretty good. They're a semicolon video

0:06:23I thought was pretty awesome and it's all about using semicolons properly which which I thought was enjoyable

0:06:28Sounds incredible you've seen that one right Marco. No, that's a good one. Put it in the show notes force Marco to watch it

0:06:35I have seen nothing you have you have to understand any any question that begins with you know, surely you've seen blank

0:06:41No, you do all day. I start sending you more links

0:06:44Seriously, you assume going to actually watch them make TIFF press your little hand on the mouse button

0:06:49Yeah, but I'll have to like manually switch into Chrome to make flash work to play it yeah not worth it

0:06:56Well, I pause my music open my chrome ghetto. It's just not worth it. Well, what do you mean pause your music?

0:07:02You're listening to fish. That's not music pause your noise

0:07:05Open your open your flash ghetto

0:07:09Etc. Anyway, what else is going on? What is what did walrus CP tell us John? That's Colin Peck run

0:07:16Road tweeted to say that

0:07:19Last show I was talking about they were using bundles for upgrades a concept. We discussed long ago and and last week's show

0:07:25We posted I hope the link is in the show

0:07:28It's of a screenshot of this actually happening in the store

0:07:31And I mentioned the scenario where it could actually be more expensive

0:07:35to get a second app as part of an upgrade bundle than it would be if you just bought the second app on its own and

0:07:40Colin wrote in to say that apparently

0:07:42You the store now forbids you from purchasing a bundle if it would be cheaper for you to buy

0:07:47the the other apps like individually so I

0:07:51Guess that's one workaround to this problem with bundle pricing

0:07:56But it still seems pretty weird to me and complicated like people

0:07:59I don't know what the message looks like because I didn't test it

0:08:01I didn't have a scenario where I owned half of a bundle and I could try it out, but

0:08:04but what does it say to you to let you understand

0:08:07why you can't buy this bundle

0:08:08and what you should do instead?

0:08:10I don't know, it's very confusing.

0:08:11- Yeah, it's very weird.

0:08:13Additionally, somebody had asked us for you to explain

0:08:17how you're handling trim support

0:08:19with your new found baby SSD.

0:08:23Can you recap what trim is

0:08:24and then talk about what you're doing about it?

0:08:26- Yeah, this was a common question

0:08:28when I mentioned that I've got an SSD

0:08:30because people who have, and it's a third party SSD

0:08:33and I'm sticking it into a Mac,

0:08:34that never had, didn't ship with an SSD.

0:08:36And everyone wants to know about TRIM support.

0:08:39What am I doing with TRIM support?

0:08:40And that's a bunch of wrinkles related to Yosemite.

0:08:43So TRIM, I don't even know what it stands for,

0:08:45but TRIM is a command that gets sent to an SSD

0:08:49that tells it that a bunch of blocks of data on it

0:08:53are no longer being used.

0:08:55So the SSD is free to sort of reclaim them for future use.

0:08:57And this sounds weird.

0:08:58It was like, why would you need this on an SSD?

0:09:00Why don't you need this on a disk?

0:09:02And it has to do with the way disks are addressed

0:09:05by computers.

0:09:06We're gonna use the Unix parlance.

0:09:07It's like a block addressable device where it's just,

0:09:10it's this device hanging out there and you,

0:09:12instead of addressing it in bytes,

0:09:14you can address it in blocks like, you know,

0:09:15whatever, 4K or whatever.

0:09:17Actually, that's, I don't wanna get into blocks.

0:09:19Forget it, forget about the block thing.

0:09:21- Just kidding.

0:09:22- Just concentrate, yeah, concentrate on that as a,

0:09:24well, you know, because there's file system blocks

0:09:26and then there's the block address.

0:09:28Anyway, yeah.

0:09:29Yeah, now we're gonna get into file system.

0:09:30So when you're addressing a disk,

0:09:33you have to write a file system to it.

0:09:35And the file system is the structures that you put on it

0:09:37to keep track of where everything is.

0:09:39So you have a little index over here on the disk

0:09:41and you write it like a little tree or something.

0:09:43And this is where I'm gonna look up where the files are.

0:09:46And then there's a whole bunch of different techniques,

0:09:48depending on the file system to find

0:09:49where are the pieces of this file.

0:09:50Are they big, long, continuous string?

0:09:52Probably not.

0:09:53Probably there's a bunch of pieces

0:09:54and then a pointer to another bunch of pieces

0:09:56and a pointer to another bunch of pieces.

0:09:57And you've got blocks that direct you to other blocks

0:09:59You've got a doubly indirect blocks and triply indirect

0:10:02Well, I mean, this is all the realm of file system

0:10:04The file systems job is to put a bunch of things on disks that are structured so we can find the data

0:10:08And when you delete a file on most file systems

0:10:11All you do is go to the little place where you would look up where all the stuff for the file is and you just erase

0:10:16That entry it's like erasing an entry and like the index of a book, right?

0:10:21It doesn't touch the actual data that belonged to the file the data that belonged to the file is still sitting there

0:10:26All you did was erase like the bookkeeping information that the structures in the file system that would tell you where to find that stuff

0:10:31And that's why you can undelete files if people remember undelete utilities back from the DOS days and everything like that

0:10:37Because you know when you delete something it doesn't take as long as writing you don't you don't overwrite all the disks once you do

0:10:44Some kind of secure delete that's fine for spinning disks

0:10:47But for SSDs these are a little bit weird everything about memory chips is weird

0:10:50And I don't know if this is true of all SSDs, which is a point we'll get to in a little bit but

0:10:55uh for in the early days of SSDs and probably still is the case for most of them, the way the

0:11:01memory is addressed in the little chips that make up the SSDs, you can't just grab one little sort

0:11:07of block size piece and read and write it. When you want to write something you have to write it

0:11:13in a large chunk even if you're just interested in one little piece of it. And furthermore you

0:11:19can't write to a bunch of memory that already has stuff in it. So what you have to do is read

0:11:25Read that entire gigantic chunk into some other memory, temporarily.

0:11:29Erase that entire gigantic chunk, modify the little chunk you wanted to change in the copy

0:11:35that you made in memory before you erased it, and then write the whole thing back.

0:11:38Which seems incredibly inefficient, but that's the way SSDs work for a variety of reasons.

0:11:43And that means that even if the space isn't used, like even if you erased the little entry

0:11:48and said "Oh, that file's gone, I deleted it, I deleted that 5 gig movie," and it just

0:11:51erases the little tiny lookup table of where those 5 gigs were, that 5 gig is data-driven,

0:11:55is still in the chip so the next time you want to write something if it lands in one of those places

0:12:00where that 5 gig file was it can't just go "oh I'm going to write that data there" it has to erase it

0:12:04first you can't unlike a spinning disk where you can just write over any spot like writing is just

0:12:08an operation where you say "I don't care where I'm writing" just start writing because it just you

0:12:11know flips a little magnetic poles in the disk and you're all set you don't have to erase it before

0:12:15you write but on SSD not only do you have to erase it before you write but you have to erase this big

0:12:19gigantic block, modify the little bit in the copy that you got and then put the copy back on.

0:12:24So the trim command is an optimization the operating system when it deletes a little file

0:12:29It says okay. I'm going to delete this little entry from the file system

0:12:33But also i'm going to send this command to the disk that says by the way

0:12:36I deleted the entry for this for this file in the file system

0:12:38So you should go and find all the blocks that belong to that thing or it'll tell you where those blocks are and say the

0:12:43Mark, these is being freed. So it gives the ssd a chance

0:12:45To erase those blocks so that when something needs to be written later

0:12:49It doesn't find itself stumbling onto where you know

0:12:52because here's the thing about the SSD, SSD has no idea about the file system

0:12:55it is just a big addressable chunk of storage. The file system is all something that happens in the realm of the operating system

0:13:00So the SSD has no idea what's a file, what's not a deleted file, it just obeys commands

0:13:05It's just a stupid, you know, box for the most part

0:13:07So that's why trim is useful because it lets the operating system tell the SSD

0:13:12"I deleted a file" so all the blocks that belong to that file that were here, here, here, and here

0:13:17They're not used anymore

0:13:19So when you get a chance maybe in some idle time erase those because later when you need to write something

0:13:23You can have some freshly erased spots

0:13:24And this is by the way, one of the reasons that SSDs especially the early ones

0:13:27would slow down when they got full because that would mean that the number of places that you can write like the places that are

0:13:32Erased in an erase state would go down because you know, the SSD is almost full

0:13:37So anytime I needed to write anything would have to read the entire chunk back

0:13:40Erase the entire thing modify a little bit write it back. There wasn't any fresh sort of greenfield to put stuff in

0:13:46So here's the here's the thing with trim Apple

0:13:48I believe supports trim on most of its SSDs that it builds in most all I don't know what the situation is now

0:13:53I think maybe all of them

0:13:55But it doesn't support trim for third-party SSDs in general

0:14:00So I bought a third-party SSD if you go to the system information application in Yosemite

0:14:06You can you know select your little ATA bus or SATA bus or whatever your thing is on and it'll say trim support

0:14:13Yes, or no and mine says no so people are asking hey

0:14:16Did you use this thing called trim enablers all much as little system extension type things that will

0:14:20Force the operating system to enable the trim command even if your SSD is not one supplied by Apple

0:14:25That's what people have been doing in past versions of the US

0:14:29But Yosemite will not load a kernel extension that has not been signed and to sign a kernel extension

0:14:35You basically need to build it yourself

0:14:37You need to sort of have the source code or something and compile it

0:14:39But Apple does not release the source code to its what is it called?

0:14:42AHCI advanced host something interface we should get that where is that in like that advanced host controller interface

0:14:49Apple doesn't release the source code to those to that driver

0:14:53For OS X so third parties can't make their own

0:14:57Drivers and sign them and load them all they can do is these hacks they were doing before but Yosemite will basically refuse to load

0:15:04kernel extension that isn't signed so the only way to get trim enabler to work in Yosemite is to turn off the thing that

0:15:10Says I will only load signed kernel extensions

0:15:13Which it's not a great thing to do because it is a good security feature in that

0:15:16Like a virus or malware can't throw a kernel extension into your system like even if it gets like temporary root access because it tricks

0:15:23You into entering your local password and it writes a kernel extension somewhere

0:15:26And then you know you're rooted or whatever the system will not load a kernel extension

0:15:30that isn't signed, and if they signed it,

0:15:32presumably it's signed with an Apple developer ID,

0:15:34Apple has some contact information,

0:15:35like they could find the responsible parties.

0:15:37Like if someone goes through the effort to make malware

0:15:40with a signed kernel extension,

0:15:41at least Apple would have some recourse

0:15:42to find out who these people are,

0:15:43because presumably that whatever

0:15:45their authentication method is,

0:15:46determining if you're a real person

0:15:47and giving you a developer ID,

0:15:49and they can also revoke your certificate

0:15:50and validate that and do all sorts of other things

0:15:52that we do with it.

0:15:53So this is a very long-winded and possibly technically,

0:15:57slightly technically inaccurate way

0:15:59of getting to the question,

0:16:00which was, am I doing this thing?

0:16:02Am I using trim enabler?

0:16:04And am I disabling kernel extension signing in Yosemite

0:16:09or checking for kernel extension signatures in Yosemite?

0:16:11And the answer is no.

0:16:13And the reason I'm not doing it,

0:16:15one is that I don't really like the idea

0:16:18of bypassing the security feature in Yosemite,

0:16:20even though it wasn't there in previous ones,

0:16:22it just like, why would I do that unless I have a reason?

0:16:25And that leads to the second reason,

0:16:26which is until and unless I see performance problems

0:16:30with my SSD and those performance problems are solved

0:16:33by enabling trim, I'm not going to even consider doing this.

0:16:36Like in other words, I'm gonna wait until there's a problem.

0:16:40And if suddenly I feel like,

0:16:41oh, this SSD used to be really fast,

0:16:42but now it's getting slow.

0:16:43And that leads to the final nuance in that SSDs

0:16:47have on them like basically a little computer

0:16:49that manages the storage,

0:16:50it manages like the write leveling

0:16:51and all sorts of other things

0:16:52because you can only read and write flash

0:16:54a certain number of times before it wears out.

0:16:55And SSDs are over provisioned depending on

0:16:58If they're like an enterprise SSD or consumer SSD,

0:17:00they give you more storage than you think you have

0:17:02because where leveling will use up sections.

0:17:04And anyway, there's a complicated little computer in there

0:17:07managing the chips.

0:17:08And the complexity of what's going on inside an SSD

0:17:11is increasingly divorced from the view of that SSD

0:17:15from the operating system as just a simple box of bits

0:17:17that you can address.

0:17:18And so the assumptions about trim,

0:17:21that you have to tell the thing to trim

0:17:23because otherwise it's gonna be inefficient or whatever.

0:17:26It's not that the SSD knows where the deleted files are,

0:17:28but it's more like what's going on inside that SSD.

0:17:32It's like the operating system can't know better

0:17:34than the SSD when and how it needs to do its work.

0:17:37Because in the grand scheme of things,

0:17:40you're gonna have to erase the blocks

0:17:42that belong to that five gigabyte pod

0:17:43before you write to them anyway.

0:17:44And maybe it's better to do it soon rather than later,

0:17:47like send a trim command and tell the SSD to get rid of it

0:17:51during like an idle period or whatever,

0:17:52but the operating system can just send that as a suggestion.

0:17:55for all it knows, the SSD reads the trim command

0:17:58and files it away in a queue somewhere

0:17:59and doesn't do it for a long time.

0:18:01Or maybe it doesn't do it ever

0:18:02because actually it turns out there was another IO operation

0:18:04that addresses the same thing

0:18:05and then validates the trim and whatever.

0:18:06So I don't know the intricate details

0:18:09that are what's going on inside SSDs these days,

0:18:11but I do know that the storage management in SSDs

0:18:13has been changing a lot.

0:18:14So I'm not entirely sure whether trim is as necessary

0:18:19as it used to be.

0:18:20I think it probably still is useful

0:18:22and most benchmarks bear out that if you don't enable trim,

0:18:24you have serious problems,

0:18:25especially when storage gets tight.

0:18:27But anyway, what I'm doing is leaving Yosemite's

0:18:30kernel extension signature checking the way it is.

0:18:34And if I find that my SSD is getting slow,

0:18:36I will follow the instructions,

0:18:38which we will put in the show notes,

0:18:39the very scary process of disabling

0:18:42kernel extension signature checking and using trim enabler.

0:18:46- So I've had on my work MacBook Pro,

0:18:50I've had a third party SSD since I received the machine

0:18:53in June of 2012, is that right?

0:18:58Yes, June of 2012.

0:19:01I did not knowingly do anything to enable

0:19:05or disable trim support and the thing still screams.

0:19:09- Yeah, it's way faster than a spinning disk, right?

0:19:11Marco, have you ever enabled trim

0:19:13on any of your various third-party SSDs?

0:19:16- No, I always have just forgotten to do that.

0:19:18I mean, one thing I always,

0:19:20I mean this is now almost ancient history,

0:19:23but when SSDs were first getting to consume our stuff

0:19:26and they were getting popular,

0:19:28the SandForce controllers came out and became a big splash

0:19:31because, this was actually I think before Trim existed

0:19:36as a command that you could send.

0:19:37Basically, certain SSDs would do things kind of the dumb way

0:19:41and would have to, they would fill up

0:19:44and then they would have that,

0:19:45have whatever it's called, like the write slowdown,

0:19:47whatever that's, write degradation I think it's called.

0:19:50- Write amplification where you just wanted

0:19:52to write one little thing, but it turns out

0:19:54what you have to do is erase a huge swath,

0:19:55read a huge swath, modify, and then write a huge swath.

0:19:58- Right, so it's like after the SSD was filled up once,

0:20:00as you described earlier, like after it was ever filled up,

0:20:02then all writes over time would then be slower

0:20:05than that initial batch.

0:20:06Anyway, so SandForce was a controller company.

0:20:10They made those little computers on the SSDs

0:20:12to figure out where to put things and how to write things.

0:20:14And they figured out various techniques and optimizations

0:20:18to basically avoid that problem and minimize that problem

0:20:21without trim support,

0:20:22just by like how they would spread the rights around

0:20:24and how they would buffer them and things like that.

0:20:26Various tricks, I don't know all the details.

0:20:29So I would always just buy Sandforce controller SSDs

0:20:33because I knew, first trim didn't even exist

0:20:36and then when it was added,

0:20:39Max didn't support it at all first.

0:20:41And then when Apple did finally add support for it

0:20:44in the OS, it would only work on these whitelists to disks,

0:20:46which I didn't have any of them.

0:20:49So for all of my third-party SSDs,

0:20:51I just, I bought SSDs that didn't really need trim support

0:20:55and just never bothered trying to hack my way

0:20:57into enabling it.

0:20:58- All right, why don't you tell us about something

0:21:00that's pretty cool, though?

0:21:01- Gladly.

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0:22:05We wanted to hack a couple of little things,

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0:23:51A better web starts with your website.

0:23:53- Mr. Syracuse, could you tell us about the source list

0:23:58and opacity in Yosemite, please?

0:24:00This is old feedback from when we were complaining

0:24:02about Yosemite's transparency stuff

0:24:05and the sidebars and all that.

0:24:06This is from Robert Cooper and he was sending a note,

0:24:09maybe we even talked about this before, I don't know,

0:24:11that you can choose for the source list to be opaque,

0:24:14you know, programmatically if you're writing an application.

0:24:16Did we talk about this already?

0:24:17Sounds familiar.

0:24:18- I don't think we did.

0:24:20- Anyway, we're talking about it again.

0:24:21I think he's a developer for Skype

0:24:23because he says in one of his tweets,

0:24:24"We've chosen to do that in Skype 7."

0:24:27I haven't upgraded Skype 7, so I haven't seen it yet,

0:24:29But what I think they're saying is that they chose to make the sidebar opaque in Skype 7

0:24:33This I mean that you can programmatically do it. Yeah, of course. I mean you programmatically do anything right here

0:24:38You know, you don't even have to use Apple sourceless

0:24:40You could fake it if you wanted to but it's nice to see the easy option

0:24:43But the important thing about the transparency in Yosemite is what the defaults are for

0:24:48Applications that were compiled and built before Yosemite even shipped they can end up with like, you know, like Outlook 2011

0:24:55they can ship with

0:24:58They'll have translucent sidebars. They had no idea that we're ever gonna have a translucent sidebar that here

0:25:02They are running on Yosemite with a transits a sidebar that they never planned on having

0:25:05And those defaults show how dedicated Apple is

0:25:08It's not like hey, we're gonna have this new feature

0:25:09And if you want to use it just you know

0:25:11Flip this little bit in this API when you make this call and you'll get a translucent sidebar

0:25:15No, they opted everybody into it

0:25:17Which is a bold move and you know

0:25:21I don't particularly like it because I think the apps that never meant to have transparency the sidebars will look all weird

0:25:26And even the ones that want to have it sometimes don't look great, but we've talked about that before

0:25:31I've talked about it at length on this podcast and the talk show so reference those episodes you won't hear more whining about transparency in

0:25:38Yosemite

0:25:39Excellent. Do we want to finally clear out this GameCube controller follow-up that's been in our show notes for an eternity

0:25:47Sure. This is from someone named rich

0:25:50Long ago I was discussing the GameCube controller and the adapter that lets you use a GameCube controller with the Wii U

0:25:57The adapter is so you can play Smash Brothers

0:25:59And I was excited that the adapter would also let you play any other game that used the the pro controller for the Wii U

0:26:05But that was not the case and I was sad about it

0:26:07and I was mentioning this because I thought it was

0:26:09pretty damning evidence against the pro controller the Wii U pro controller is the

0:26:14Traditional looking controller with two analog sticks and buttons and triggers, you know, the typical looking controller

0:26:20That Nintendo made for the Wii U specifically and yet when Smash Brothers came out

0:26:25They offered this adapter for the GameCube controller

0:26:28And I'm saying like if they if if the Wii U Pro controller was really any good

0:26:32Nintendo would not have felt the need to make an adapter and rich was writing in to

0:26:36Clarify

0:26:38or to clarify that the GameCube controller was there just because Smash Brothers

0:26:43Players are addicted to it and because it's wired instead of wireless if you're not using the wave bird

0:26:48And I know this but it's worth it's worth pointing out why I still think

0:26:52It's evidence that the Wii U pro controller has not is not fulfilling its job

0:26:57Like if Nintendo is going to make a new traditional looking controller

0:27:00They should make something that is satisfactory

0:27:03to all but the hardest of hardcore Smash Brothers players and this

0:27:08You know Apple is not going to make an adapter just for people who compete in Smash Brothers tournaments

0:27:15It's just not enough of those people in the entire world

0:27:16This adapter is for the wide range of people who play Smash Brothers and it's basically Nintendo admitting that even if you're not a professional

0:27:23Smash Brothers player we understand that the pro Wii U pro controller is not is not it is not better than the GameCube controller

0:27:31So here you go

0:27:31We're actually gonna make a peripheral and

0:27:33Advertise it and sell it to regular people and reissue the GameCube controller with a Smash Brothers logo on it again

0:27:38This is not a product that is only for competitive Smash Brother players

0:27:42They're gonna sell way more than them than just the people who compete in tournaments obviously for the people who compete in tournaments

0:27:48Yes, this practice for them. They wanted wired. They need reaction times. They want to use the controller

0:27:52They've used for a long time so and so forth

0:27:54But I still feel like if Nintendo had made the Wii U Pro controller so that it was unequivocally

0:28:00Unassailably better than the GameCube controller and was perceived as such by customers

0:28:06It would not have felt the need to make a mass-market product like this

0:28:09so you can use your GameCube controller Smash Brothers again, and I agree with them and I agree with popular opinion that the pro controller is

0:28:17very well made

0:28:19but I think the layout and the shape are not as good as the

0:28:22GameCube controller except of course the d-pad which is X gurgle and everybody hates

0:28:27But that's why the GameCube controller is not perfect is that the only reason?

0:28:31That and the triggers are not great and of course the Z button that every hits

0:28:36But you know the Z if they could that's part of the triggers that the Z button the triggers are passable

0:28:40You can get by with them the triggers have something to recommend them, but they're not that great

0:28:45But the main controls that you use in games thumb stick buttons

0:28:49Like that's what you have your hand on your left thumb is on the thumb stick

0:28:52Your right thumb is hitting a bunch of buttons

0:28:54The GameCube controller is the current peak of controller design from Nintendo is traditional controller design as far as I'm concerned

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0:30:51Really enjoyed the Harry stuff.

0:30:53Apparently there's a month of Movember.

0:30:56- Yeah, so I did it the last couple of years

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0:32:04All right.

0:32:07So we are actually into main topics only 30, 35 minutes into the show.

0:32:12This might be a record for us for the last couple months.

0:32:14I'm very proud of us.

0:32:15Well, let's talk about this Microsoft band of which I have not had time to read anything

0:32:19about outside of listening to underscore David Smith's podcast about it or a podcast episode

0:32:25about it, which we will put in the show notes. So one of you guys tell me what this is about.

0:32:32Not everyone at once.

0:32:33You haven't seen it, Marco?

0:32:34Uh, no, I haven't actually. I only saw people talking about it, but I don't know anything

0:32:39about it except that it looks like what appears to be a pretty decent wearable for an ecosystem

0:32:43that nobody's going to use.

0:32:45I've seen it and played with it for a couple of minutes. And so I can't really talk about

0:32:48usage of it, although Underscore had a good post about his usage of it, like why he bought

0:32:53one and what he thinks of it, and we'll link that up in the show notes if you want to get

0:32:55sort of a hands-on experience of using it.

0:32:57I've just sort of played with it and I was looking at it from a hardware perspective,

0:33:00and there's this great sort of exploded view diagram at Microsoft.com/Microsoft-band if

0:33:09you scroll to the very bottom of the page, this little animation that shows how it's

0:33:12constructed.

0:33:13And it's an interesting take on how to get all the hardware they want into a band-type

0:33:20shape.

0:33:21So this thing is aiming for...

0:33:23It's kind of weird.

0:33:24It's not going to be like a full-fledged little computer on your wrist to the same degree

0:33:29as an Apple Watch is, in that they don't expect you to do much on the screen, much interacting

0:33:36in 2D.

0:33:37Like, the screen is very long and thin, so it's kind of a one-dimensional device where

0:33:40you're swiping white right and left but there's not a lot of up and down there's

0:33:44not even a lot of like hitting the top button or the bottom button there's a

0:33:47lot of like little sidebars and swiping to the sides and showing a little half

0:33:51of half of a little letter poking off the other side of the screen so you know

0:33:55there's more over there so you know which direction you know typical Windows

0:33:57Phone style metro UI type thing so in that respect it's not like the Apple

0:34:03Watch where you've got this 2d thing and you could have different sets of buttons

0:34:07and a dial and all those other things like that.

0:34:09But unlike the Apple Watch, for example,

0:34:11this does have a GPS built in,

0:34:13so you can go for a jog with it

0:34:15without having your phone with you to do the GPS part

0:34:17of like tracking what your route was and everything.

0:34:20- That is so smart.

0:34:21- Yeah, especially since like, you know,

0:34:22who's gonna have a Windows phone to join it up with.

0:34:25It does have all the sensors

0:34:26or a lot of the same sensors as the band,

0:34:28but it does an interesting thing

0:34:30where instead of the sensors for like your pulse

0:34:32and everything like that,

0:34:33being underneath the sort of chunky top part of the watch,

0:34:36They've split that stuff up so the sensors are sort of like

0:34:39inside your wrist, like where you'd take your pulse

0:34:41and the screen is on the outside of your wrist

0:34:43where you'd look at your watch,

0:34:44which is an interesting way to keep it thin on top

0:34:47because they don't have to have the sensors there.

0:34:49But that means that the bottom of the watch,

0:34:50sort of the part where it clasps together has a lump.

0:34:53There's a lump at the bottom of the strap basically

0:34:55and that's where the sensors are.

0:34:56And then to find a place to smuggle,

0:34:58I think, I can't tell from the exploded diagram,

0:35:00but I assume this is where they're smuggling the batteries.

0:35:02They put the batteries in the sides of the band.

0:35:04They have little stiff regions on the sides of the band, left and right side of the band,

0:35:08that are curved plastic that doesn't bend, and inside there I'm assuming are little battery

0:35:12packs or something, because otherwise I don't know where they'd be putting the battery.

0:35:16What that means is the shape of this watch, the shape of this band, is kind of like a

0:35:21square.

0:35:22There's a stiff rigid screen on the top, there's a stiff rigid sensor bundle on the bottom,

0:35:26and on the left and right side there's these sort of curved but still rigid regions, and

0:35:31between that there's a little bit of flexing and the clasp that adjusts has like a little

0:35:35groove, about an inch long groove that you can sort of slide it along in the groove and

0:35:39whatever point in the groove you want it to you just release the thing and these two little

0:35:42claws grab underneath the groove.

0:35:44So there is some size adjustability and I think they offer the actual band in three

0:35:47sizes because this is not like the Apple Watch where it's like a little computer and then

0:35:52a flexible band that you can adjust the length of, right?

0:35:56This computer is essentially all around your wrist.

0:35:58This is a very, much more like what I was thinking,

0:36:00although not quite as elegant,

0:36:02but what I was thinking of in terms of you could take

0:36:04advantage of the band to let you have more room

0:36:06to put hardware.

0:36:08But Apple has made a very different choice here.

0:36:10And I think the biggest dividing line between these products

0:36:12is not like, oh, Microsoft band has GPS

0:36:14or the Microsoft band has to work with all sorts

0:36:17of other phones because it can't just work

0:36:18with Windows phone because that's like Marco said,

0:36:20an ecosystem that's no one is into.

0:36:22I think the big difference is that Microsoft band

0:36:24is so clearly not going for anything having to do

0:36:26with fashion.

0:36:27And Apple Watch is so clearly focused on fashion,

0:36:31at least half of it's, you know,

0:36:32the effort of that product is,

0:36:34of course we're not gonna make it like

0:36:36all one color and computer we're looking in to have lumps.

0:36:38We're gonna make something that looks like jewelry,

0:36:40and we're not gonna put anything in the band

0:36:42because that's supposed to be decorative.

0:36:43And in fact, the device should be decorative,

0:36:45the band should be decorative,

0:36:46the entire thing has to be decorative

0:36:47because it's a fashion accessory.

0:36:49Microsoft band is absolutely not a fashion accessory

0:36:52in any way.

0:36:53And in that way,

0:36:54maybe perhaps it plays more to Microsoft strengths.

0:36:56I guess they've never been known to be a particularly fashionable brand, but

0:37:00Anyway, I think it's a really interesting

0:37:03design and a really interesting choice for Microsoft

0:37:06And I'm excited by the fact that this wasn't like a demo it like

0:37:09You know CES or something that never actually ships or doesn't ship for a year

0:37:13It's a product that no one knew about that they announced and said here it is you can go buy it

0:37:16So I give this this product and the effort from Microsoft a big thumbs up in the same way that it kind of did for

0:37:22like the whole Windows Metro thing,

0:37:24so they're kind of, they're doing their own thing,

0:37:26they're not trying to copy Apple, they're not being Samsung,

0:37:30and their own thing is actually pretty cool,

0:37:32and I hope this has more success in the market, let's say,

0:37:35than the various devices like Windows Phone

0:37:38and the OS with the Metro interface.

0:37:40- If I was into fitness, which is pretty far from the truth,

0:37:45then I would buy this, I think, no question.

0:37:48Because I'm not into fitness,

0:37:50I don't have much of a use for it,

0:37:53but I kinda like some of the trade-offs they've made.

0:37:56- Why do you say just because you're not into fitness

0:37:59that this seems useless to you?

0:38:00- Well, I'm not gonna use Windows Phone.

0:38:02- I mean, it does have integration with iOS,

0:38:04as I was saying, it doesn't like,

0:38:05Reid underscores the thing about it,

0:38:06like it's kind of a,

0:38:08I'm assuming he's not using it with a Windows Phone,

0:38:09but he's saying like he,

0:38:10it's like a one-way communication,

0:38:12it's not two-way because it's not

0:38:14completely platform integrated,

0:38:16but he's getting the experience

0:38:17of being able to be notified on his wrist.

0:38:19- Oh, it'll show blues with notifications?

0:38:21- What he compared it to, he divided the fitness bands,

0:38:23let me just summarize this post here,

0:38:24it's probably longer than just reading it

0:38:25all out on the air, but he divided them into like,

0:38:28the ones that are just always with you

0:38:29and track information like the Fitbits,

0:38:31and those necessarily, you know,

0:38:32they focus on just long battery life,

0:38:35it's just a sensor attached to you,

0:38:36but there's not much interaction with it, right?

0:38:38You're not flaking around a screen.

0:38:39And then there are the ones that have screens,

0:38:41but those have been like, I have to be sleepy all the time,

0:38:44I can't really do anything like the Pebble,

0:38:45where it's like, wake me up when you wanna use me,

0:38:47and use me through some limited interface,

0:38:49because I take a lot of energy to do all this stuff

0:38:51and then I'll go back to sleep.

0:38:53So they have an E Ink screen or a very limited screen

0:38:55or they're not awake a lot of time.

0:38:57And this is in kind of the same category

0:39:00as like a combination of the two.

0:39:01All the fitness sensors are there.

0:39:03I don't know what the battery life on this thing is

0:39:04by the way, but all the fitness sensors are there

0:39:06and it can do the persistence fitness things.

0:39:07But it's also like this other devices

0:39:09where you can use it as a little computer.

0:39:10And I think it does communicate with your iOS device

0:39:12at least at one direction

0:39:13to show you notifications and stuff.

0:39:14And what Underscore said is basically

0:39:16this convinced him that he will really like the Apple Watch

0:39:18because the Apple Watch will be two-way communication,

0:39:21and I guess you won't care that the Apple Watch

0:39:23doesn't have GPS because that's not, again,

0:39:24it was not into a fitness type thing.

0:39:27The Apple Watch will count your steps

0:39:28if that's all you care about.

0:39:29If you wanna map your route,

0:39:30then you don't have to run with your iPhone.

0:39:32But I totally think the lack of GPS in the Apple Watch

0:39:35is like three generations away from being a moot point

0:39:38because they'll add it in as soon as they can afford

0:39:39to do it with battery power.

0:39:41- I think that's optimistic, but yeah.

0:39:43- The reason I'm picking on you, Marco,

0:39:44is because I think this is basically a pebble,

0:39:47but better done and with the GPS.

0:39:50And I don't view it building on what Underscore

0:39:53and John were just saying,

0:39:54I don't view it as just a Fitbit with the GPS.

0:39:57I view it more as a Pebble with the GPS.

0:40:00And my understanding of what I heard

0:40:02on Developing Perspective was it uses the same sort of APIs

0:40:06that for example, that iDrive uses in your car

0:40:10so that you can read your text messages

0:40:12on the iDrive screen if you set it up appropriately.

0:40:14So just like John was saying, it's all one way,

0:40:16All it's doing is saying, hey, you just got a text message

0:40:19and here's the text message.

0:40:20And there's not much you can do to respond to it

0:40:23on the band, I almost called it a watch.

0:40:26But nevertheless, at least you can see something there.

0:40:28- Yeah, maybe I'll give it a try.

0:40:29Because I am also curious just to see

0:40:33what is the actual real life utility of such a device.

0:40:36But that being said, I mean,

0:40:37we're gonna be getting WatchKit this month, supposedly.

0:40:41So I think this might just be for iOS developers

0:40:45and iOS fans, this might just be a temporary distraction

0:40:49for the next five months until we have a watch from Apple.

0:40:51- Well, Underscore being his typical super industrious self

0:40:55is like, he's gotta get this so he knows what the utility is

0:40:58so he can create his fleet of watch out

0:41:01and understand how this man possibly,

0:41:02like there may be more than one of him.

0:41:04Have you guys checked to see if like--

0:41:05- I don't know how he does as much as he does.

0:41:07- Is he always the same guy when you,

0:41:09because he could be like one of seven identical,

0:41:12Anyway, he could be a clone, that's what I'm saying.

0:41:14But this gives him a chance to see

0:41:18what kind of applications would be good on this device.

0:41:20And he's sort of using it so that when the Apple Watch

0:41:22comes along, he will know, he will have a top 10 list

0:41:25of the applications he's gonna make

0:41:26while Casey still thinks about getting his FastX for iOS.

0:41:30- Why are you so mean to me?

0:41:31- I'm just saying, if you're gonna feel shame

0:41:33about not updating FastX,

0:41:34don't feel shame that Overcast beat you out.

0:41:35Feel shame that during the time

0:41:36Overcast was being developed,

0:41:38Underscore probably made seven apps.

0:41:39(laughing)

0:41:40- Yeah, he makes everyone else look bad.

0:41:42- Yup.

0:41:43Oh man, that's really funny.

0:41:45And you're right.

0:41:46I mean, if I had just a pool of money

0:41:48just sitting there for me to waste away on silly devices,

0:41:52I would absolutely buy one of these just to try it out.

0:41:56And it definitely looks, well, I shouldn't say looks cool.

0:41:58Its feature set seems very neat to me.

0:42:03Like you were saying, Jon,

0:42:04it's not aesthetically the most pleasing thing in the world,

0:42:06but it certainly doesn't look bad either.

0:42:08And I'm curious to see what comes of it,

0:42:10but only time will tell.

0:42:13You know, it's too bad that because it's Microsoft,

0:42:16everyone just kind of fluffs it off immediately.

0:42:19Because as a friend of the show, Ben Thompson,

0:42:22was saying in the chat a minute ago,

0:42:24you know, this ain't the old Microsoft.

0:42:25This is kind of a new Microsoft that's really trying.

0:42:28And John, you were talking about this earlier,

0:42:29really trying to do something different and unique.

0:42:31And a lot of times I think they hit the nail

0:42:35really closer to the head than anyone gives them credit for.

0:42:38And so it's kind of a bummer to me

0:42:40that nobody's really given them any credit

0:42:44from what I can tell.

0:42:45- Well, that's not really the problem.

0:42:46The problem isn't credit, the problem is action.

0:42:49So it's the same thing that happened with WebOS.

0:42:53Same thing happened with Windows Phone.

0:42:54- Well, WebOS ran out of money,

0:42:56that's not Microsoft's problem.

0:42:57- Well, well, but the reason why,

0:42:59so the same thing happened where the geeks like us

0:43:02and maybe the tech press, you know, these things come out

0:43:05and everyone's like, "Oh, you know what?

0:43:06"This is really interesting."

0:43:08Everyone says, "Oh, it's interesting."

0:43:10This is really progressive,

0:43:11or some word that means like, "This is cool,

0:43:15"but then the conclusion is, but I don't want it."

0:43:18Or, "This is great, I love this,

0:43:21"but I'm not gonna buy this instead of an iPhone."

0:43:24And so I think this is gonna have the same kind of problem,

0:43:26which is, so you have this device from Microsoft

0:43:31right before this probably big hit device from Apple, right?

0:43:36So you have this device from Microsoft

0:43:38that we're all looking at now and saying,

0:43:41this is really interesting.

0:43:43This might be really interesting.

0:43:45They're doing a good job.

0:43:47But how many people who say this

0:43:50are gonna be using one of these in a year

0:43:51instead of an Apple Watch?

0:43:53- Well, they have the same problem as Apple of old did

0:43:55where at a certain point it becomes like,

0:43:58no matter what Apple did, it was always like,

0:44:01yeah, but that's just Apple.

0:44:03So like, who cares?

0:44:05like it's exactly the same thing.

0:44:07Like it's interesting or whatever, but you know,

0:44:09come on real computers use Windows.

0:44:10Like it's a sideshow, you're not interested.

0:44:12And once you kind of get out of that position,

0:44:14once people start thinking of you as not,

0:44:18not part of the mainstream, not part of like the real thing,

0:44:21then it's really difficult to ever,

0:44:25to ever jump back up into the previous position

0:44:28where to get people to like,

0:44:29say I'm actually going to buy that

0:44:30because it starts to feel like I'm not gonna buy a Mac.

0:44:33I'm a PC guy, Macs don't run the programs that I want.

0:44:36I'm not familiar with how they work.

0:44:37It's just everything builds on top of everything

0:44:39and it becomes insurmountable.

0:44:40And the only way Apple could dig itself out of it

0:44:42was with these spectacular flashy products.

0:44:45Initially flashing ways that really weren't that substantial

0:44:48like using fashion again.

0:44:49Why do people care about the iMac?

0:44:50It was just a computer.

0:44:51Like it was an okay computer.

0:44:52It wasn't a bad computer,

0:44:53but the guts of the iMac were not all that impressive.

0:44:57It was because it was teal and translucent and cool looking.

0:44:59Like that's why the iMac made it.

0:45:00And the iPod was them making a product

0:45:03that had already existed but doing it so much better

0:45:05than the other ones.

0:45:06Like, and so is this so much better than the Apple watch?

0:45:08No, it's not.

0:45:09So it's not going to do that for them,

0:45:10but they must feel like,

0:45:12Microsoft must feel like Apple did where it's like,

0:45:14we're making good stuff.

0:45:15Like it's not bad, it's good.

0:45:17Arguably sometimes it's the best or it's close.

0:45:20And yet why is our reward not proportional

0:45:22to the quality of the product we're making?

0:45:24If we're making something that's like 80%

0:45:25as good as something, like, and we get no market share,

0:45:28it just seems like it's not fair.

0:45:31And so I feel for them, but on the other hand,

0:45:34I have a little bit of a glee about the fact

0:45:38that they're in the position that Apple,

0:45:40I'm trying not to hold a grudge.

0:45:41Like in some respects I'm rooting for them,

0:45:42but then when I think about rooting for them,

0:45:44I'm like, you know what, if they got control,

0:45:47they would just start making products I don't like again,

0:45:49and it would make me sad.

0:45:50- You said like, oh, if we make a product

0:45:52that's 80% as good, then it should have to market share.

0:45:53And the problem is like something like this,

0:45:56I think most people are going to have

0:45:57one wrist wearable at most.

0:45:59Most people are only gonna have zero,

0:46:01but I think that the most somebody will have

0:46:03is likely to be one.

0:46:05And so the question is,

0:46:06not only is this good enough to buy,

0:46:09but is this good enough to buy instead of the Apple Watch?

0:46:13And that's the problem.

0:46:14Most people don't carry two cell phones.

0:46:16Most people carry ones, at least that they buy themselves,

0:46:19most people carry one cell phone.

0:46:20- Most of them are not a PC,

0:46:22but a PC was like a $2,000 investment,

0:46:24you didn't replace it every two years.

0:46:26These type of devices are small enough

0:46:27and there's enough advancement in the field.

0:46:30be like for a lot of people would try the iPhone or try Android because you're like

0:46:34well my two-year contract stuff like this isn't subsidized or anything but it just feels

0:46:37like it's it's not as big of a commitment but it does get back to what you said earlier

0:46:41about the ecosystem where you might feel like what am I what am I buying into here do I

0:46:45have faith that this is going to be a supported product line for the future or is this going

0:46:49to be like a one-off or you know what was that courier project that they had with like

0:46:53remember that it was like a tablet that opened up like a book and they canned that before

0:46:56even got out the door. So it seems like Microsoft may not, maybe kind of a hostile environment to

0:47:02innovation at this point, or the Kin, what was that other one they made? The uh, yeah,

0:47:05like the social smartphone platform that they made like two of, it was from the Sidekick guys,

0:47:09and they released that and then canned it. Like, Microsoft needs to work on their, not so much

0:47:14execution, because a lot of times the products are like, have something to recommend them,

0:47:17but just like, the decision about when to release it, when to announce it, and whether this is going

0:47:23to be a thing you follow through with. And if it's not going to be a thing you follow through with,

0:47:25Like don't don't release the kin line on the hopes like hey, who knows maybe this will take off

0:47:30But we probably don't think it will because it's actually kind of a crappy product and we really did a kind of a half-assed launch

0:47:34And then when it doesn't catch on you're like, you know what a week later

0:47:37Let's just cam the whole thing or a courier which you show to people people get excited about and then just say well

0:47:42You know what? Let's just get rid of that

0:47:43You know like I know a couple people are excited but we don't really like it and don't show it like all the things that

0:47:48Apple tries out internally and gets rid of we never hear about those. That's what you have to do it

0:47:52You really they really have to pick what they're going to do

0:47:55do it really well put the company behind it and

0:47:59not do these things that either look technically interesting and you're sad that they go away or

0:48:05Kind of tumble out the door half-heartedly and that are canceled like when was the kin canceled like it was like two months

0:48:11It was very soon

0:48:13MTW in chat room says they didn't show courier that it just leaked

0:48:16Oh, that's also I mean it's part of the same problem whether you show it or whether it leaks like we if we need to not

0:48:21know about it. We need to not have pictures of it. We need to not, you know, for all of

0:48:24the various like TV products and tablet products and all the watch prototypes that Apple made,

0:48:30like we got the first thing we got to see out of Apple that was like a watch type thing

0:48:33was the watch that they said they were going to make. We didn't, and we haven't seen all

0:48:36whatever crazy TV stuff that they've tried and not released that we just assume was going

0:48:40on in there. Apple's much better about deciding which products are good enough to go out the

0:48:46door and once a product does go out the door, giving it a fair shot and putting the full

0:48:50way to the company behind it.

0:48:52And so we'll see if Band gets that from Microsoft.

0:48:55Really quick aside, does, well, I don't know if either of you guys have seen much of this,

0:48:59but watching the NFL these days is just a series of face palms because everywhere you

0:49:08see these bright blue Microsoft Surface tablet-y things.

0:49:12And it's so obvious that it's like, product placement is one thing and I know it's a thing.

0:49:19It happens everywhere.

0:49:20Hell, Apple does it constantly.

0:49:23But I don't know, maybe I am biased, but it just seems to me that it's done in a much

0:49:27more subtle way.

0:49:28Like I'm thinking of house, for example, you would see Macs all over the place, but it

0:49:32was subtle.

0:49:33Whereas with the NFL, it's like, here's the bright blue surface and there's a row of bright

0:49:39blue surfaces on the commentators desks.

0:49:42And here it is on the sidelines and on the Microsoft surface, they're reviewing the play

0:49:46right now.

0:49:47Oh, it's so tacky to me.

0:49:49- Yeah, similar problem in the most recent season

0:49:51on Netflix of Parks and Recreation,

0:49:53where like it was, which is not a very good season actually.

0:49:55But anyway, they got some kind of big Microsoft sponsorship.

0:49:59And so in previous seasons,

0:50:00everybody had iPhones and stuff.

0:50:03This season, every computing device you see

0:50:06is a Microsoft device.

0:50:07So every character is carrying a Windows phone

0:50:09and using it proudly, like holding it up constantly.

0:50:12And every computer that you see on the desk

0:50:15is a Surface or at least running Windows 8

0:50:17and it's always showing the Windows 8 home screen

0:50:19prominently and you have all these screens

0:50:23and Microsoft in your face and it's like,

0:50:25good product placement should be both

0:50:29unnoticeable and plausible.

0:50:31- Yeah, yeah, exactly.

0:50:33- And what you're saying with the NFL,

0:50:34it's like that also, it violates both these things.

0:50:36You shouldn't notice that they're beating you

0:50:38over the head with this one particular type of product.

0:50:41It should just seem like, oh, I just kinda see people

0:50:43subconsciously and it seems like everyone's using Apple products or

0:50:46Microsoft products and the cool people are or something like that's what it's

0:50:49supposed to do and you're not supposed to notice a wow they're really beating

0:50:54me over the head with this one kind of product and B this is so unrealistic

0:50:58because in reality I know for a fact that these things are not good enough or

0:51:03popular enough that all these people would naturally have them yep and the

0:51:07chat room is going berserk and we would be I was trying I want to take credit

0:51:11I didn't for once I didn't get something from the chat room. I saw the story today and it was it was hilarious

0:51:16This is on CNN and the same type deal

0:51:19They have some kind of product placement deal with Microsoft services and you can tell it's a surface from the back because it sort of has

0:51:24That you know iconic kickstand that they have, you know, the back of the surface looks like where little thing folds out

0:51:29So it looks like a little easel, right?

0:51:31And so what you see is just series of easels sitting in front of all the different commentators

0:51:36But when they have camera shots from the side what you can see is a lot of the commentators

0:51:40Have an iPad that they're sort of using behind the surface as like a shield, you know

0:51:46So you can't see that they're using the iPad either either the iPad is resting against the surface

0:51:49Like it actually literally is an easel or they just have an iPad in their hands and that's not good for Microsoft

0:51:54It's not good at all

0:51:55It's so bad. I don't know. It's just

0:51:58Yeah, granted. I make my living off of Microsoft technologies

0:52:02And so there's there's always going to be a special soft spot in my heart for Microsoft

0:52:07But so much of what Microsoft does is so cheesy and silly and this is some of it and it makes

0:52:16me sad.

0:52:17>> Fashion is not their strong suit.

0:52:19As Steve Jobs said, taste is not their strong suit.

0:52:22>> Yep.

0:52:23Oh well, what else is awesome these days, Marco?

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0:54:38- So let's talk about iWork 2013.

0:54:41- Wait, what?

0:54:42We're talking about this?

0:54:43- Yeah, well, okay.

0:54:43What else are we talking about?

0:54:44- What, did news happen?

0:54:46- No, I think this is a topic,

0:54:48I mean, it's not news news,

0:54:49but it's one of those things that people complain about

0:54:52and I keep seeing it and the complaints don't go away.

0:54:54And the more I think about it,

0:54:55the more it reveals to me something that Apple,

0:54:58like something that Apple is doing

0:55:00It just doesn't make sense and coincidentally for the people who are upset about us bashing

0:55:05Microsoft into something that Microsoft does much better than Apple.

0:55:08And I don't really understand why Apple is doing what it's doing.

0:55:13So have you, do either one of you have the new version of iWork?

0:55:17Yep.

0:55:18Yep.

0:55:19I don't think I have it on the Mac.

0:55:20I think I probably have it on iOS.

0:55:21Isn't it like free on iOS or it comes free with your devices or something like that?

0:55:24I think it's free everywhere now.

0:55:25Yeah.

0:55:26It's not about the specific programs which have their problems, right?

0:55:31And the file formats are weird, but it's about how they're handling backward compatibility.

0:55:36And I grabbed this quote from an InfoWorld article, I'm assuming it's reasonably accurate,

0:55:40but if it's not, the gist of it is right, if not the details.

0:55:44And so the details as listed here is basically if you get the new version of iWork, you can't

0:55:48open files created with any version of iWork earlier than iWork 09.

0:55:53If you try to do that, iWork detects that you're trying to open a document from something

0:55:58earlier than iWork 09 and says, "Oh, you should find a copy of iWork 09 and open the file

0:56:03with that instead."

0:56:05And so this is sort of leaving behind your own file format from not that long ago, like

0:56:11less than a decade certainly, probably less than five years ago, whatever it is, those

0:56:17documents can't be opened by the new version.

0:56:21And a lot of the time when Apple sort of races forward, leaving behind legacy things, whether

0:56:25it's ditching everything except for USB on the original iMac or dropping support for

0:56:31an API or some hardware thing or whatever, there's a reason.

0:56:36It helps them to make...

0:56:39It helps them get ahead of their competition, because they're not encumbered by legacy stuff,

0:56:43and so they can go and make the new shiny thing without worrying about dragging along

0:56:47this baggage of backward compatibility because the baggage just gets bigger and bigger, especially

0:56:53if you have a successful product in your past. Eventually all your time is spent trying to

0:56:56like support the past instead of worrying about the future so you can never make anything

0:57:00great. But I don't see how that philosophy can be or should be applied to file formats

0:57:06because it's not as if we're asking that these old file formats be supported forever in their

0:57:11current form. All I think most reasonable people are asking is if I create a bunch of

0:57:15of documents with iWork over the years,

0:57:17and I get the latest version of iWork,

0:57:19I just wanna be able to open them.

0:57:21And I don't care that much that if I open them,

0:57:22it converts them to the new format.

0:57:24As long as if it does the conversion, it's not lossy,

0:57:27like this looked fine in the old version of iWork,

0:57:29but when I converted it to the new version,

0:57:30all my fonts were screwed up

0:57:31and everything looked broken or whatever.

0:57:34You just, for file format compatibility,

0:57:37making new file formats, for example,

0:57:39one of the reasons that speculated

0:57:40they made these new file formats

0:57:41that are like zip archives and stuff,

0:57:43is for better compatibility with iOS

0:57:45because they want it to unify the code base,

0:57:47it's fine, that's a perfectly valid reason

0:57:48to change your file format and to rev the program.

0:57:50And maybe you can argue if it's a good reason

0:57:53to dumb down the feature set

0:57:54to a common set of functionality

0:57:55that can work on iOS on the web and on the Mac.

0:57:58But anyway, whatever, they're gonna do that, that's fine.

0:58:01But by not reading the old file formats,

0:58:03it shows a lack of respect for the work

0:58:06that people have done with previous versions

0:58:07of this program, especially since probably

0:58:09the pre-iWork 09 versions are gonna stop working

0:58:11on modern Macs pretty soon,

0:58:12that's the thing that Apple does which I think that does have a reason but you

0:58:15have to support the old file formats because if you don't what you're

0:58:18signaling to people and Apple signals this to people in iARC and also in

0:58:23pretty much everything that's ever done on the web do not trust us with your

0:58:27data make a bunch of picture galleries in like you know .Mac oh well those are

0:58:32gonna be gone when we switch over to the mobile me galleries make a bunch of

0:58:35mobile me websites with iWeb oh iWeb is not supported anymore I hope you didn't

0:58:39Hope you didn't write too much in your little blog that you made

0:58:41We're converting over to this thing

0:58:43And by the way, there's no way to get that content back out and make a bunch of documents with iwork

0:58:47Well five years are gonna pass and you can't open them up

0:58:49I hope you save a version of iwork or a nine which by the way won't run on the computer that you buy three years

0:58:53from now

0:58:54It's telling everybody do not trust Apple with your data because we will abandon it. We will race ahead

0:59:00We will leave behind like I feel so bad for people who like we put a lot of work into iwork websites

0:59:05It that tool what it did was basically give you a native Mac

0:59:09Application at lake let people who know nothing about the web make web pages and it put them up on little hosting that was part

0:59:14Of your service that you bought it was not a very good program

0:59:16the results were not very nice with the bottom line is people dragged in little pictures and type lots of words and

0:59:21Made a series of posts and Apple is just like well, sorry, that's going away

0:59:25Hope you have some way to pull that down and back it up or something

0:59:27I remember that year that I was going around to people in my family and and

0:59:32trying to find a way to like pull down the file and and modify the links so they still work locally so they can just

0:59:37Have a local copy because people invested time in that and Apple has no respect for the time that people spent on that and with file

0:59:43Formats Apple has no respect for the work that people put in making word processing documents

0:59:46so the lesson they're teaching everybody is

0:59:48Don't use our programs or our web services if you care about

0:59:52Being able to open this thing or view this thing in five or ten years

0:59:55and I

0:59:57Think Apple's probably with I work and what is done with the web properties?

1:00:01Probably the worst of the big companies like, you know

1:00:05Apple Microsoft Amazon or whatever in breaking compatibility with no way forward with no sort of like

1:00:10Import or export option or anything like that?

1:00:12I don't know. I'm angry about it. I don't even use I work and by the way, I don't work for

1:00:17For this and many other reasons. I mean part of the problem, you know, you're definitely right. I agree with everything you just said

1:00:25Part of the problem is is bigger than than just this was a bad decision in I work

1:00:29I mean part of that one of the biggest parts of the problem is that I work doesn't get a lot of attention from Apple

1:00:34There's a reason like there was literally no new update from

1:00:382009 until 2013 and the 2013 versions were not written during that whole time

1:00:45They were written like at the last minute and rushed out the door

1:00:48It seems like they spend a lot of time trying to do the sync up between there's an iOS version

1:00:53There's a web version as the Mac version and try to make them all work on the same thing and all work together

1:00:57Like that seems like what they put the effort in. It's probably not you're right a multi-year effort like that

1:01:01But who knows? I don't know what their schedules are like internally, but

1:01:04The result was a program that didn't satisfy people because that that synchronization between all the platforms

1:01:10Sort of dumbed down the applications to the common subset of functionality that will work across all of them and people are angry about that

1:01:16and the execution wasn't great, but

1:01:20Yeah, go on. I just I don't I don't think it's because they didn't put enough effort into it because it seems like they did

1:01:26Put a lot of resources into it. They just they just put them towards the wrong things

1:01:29Well, I mean the I work file formats have always been kind of a disaster

1:01:33So like the first versions of I work before oh nine

1:01:35They saved everything as a as a Mac bundle which for those of you who don't know a bundle or a package whatever

1:01:43It's called a package is just a directory with this

1:01:45How is it like a special flag set to make it into a package? How does that work?

1:01:49Now the Finder is the thing that interprets the bundle that is set now. That's classic my quest

1:01:55I believe it's the Finder that interprets them as something other than a directory because if you look at them anyplace else other than

1:02:01The Finder it looks like exactly what it is a directory with a bunch of files in it, right?

1:02:05So the first versions of I work their file format was these

1:02:09These fake files which are actually directories full of other files and that causes a lot of problems whenever that file has to leave the Mac

1:02:18Biggest thing is email attachments.

1:02:21Secondarily, you also can't put them in upload forms

1:02:25on websites, in the file input type,

1:02:28because those expect single files

1:02:29and these are actually directories.

1:02:31And you can imagine that was pretty annoying

1:02:33when you couldn't really email these things around

1:02:36very easily through most email servers or email programs,

1:02:38and certainly not through Windows at all,

1:02:41if it had to bounce through Windows.

1:02:42You couldn't email these files around

1:02:43from this Office suite of applications.

1:02:46that was a pretty stupid move really.

1:02:48And so then in the later version,

1:02:51I think in the '09 version, they moved to,

1:02:54I believe it was just like a zip file.

1:02:57It was basically like, it was either an SQL file

1:02:59or a zip file that was just all that data shoved

1:03:02into this container, which is a much better way to do it.

1:03:04And then with the new versions, I think they,

1:03:06didn't they move back?

1:03:08I think with the new versions, there were some kind of,

1:03:11we'll have to look this up and write this up and link to it.

1:03:13There were some kind of move,

1:03:15It was a move, like a step backwards

1:03:18because the justification was this is gonna be easier

1:03:22to sync between iOS and iCloud documents

1:03:24and Mac and everything because of the structure

1:03:27they've picked.

1:03:27Regardless, the file formats have always kind of been

1:03:31a disaster, they've always changed dramatically

1:03:34and many times have had very weird decisions

1:03:36and again, it just seems like,

1:03:40it seems like they just, the iWork team

1:03:42is not getting the resources it needs

1:03:44or it is not a high enough priority

1:03:47for iWork to ever be truly great.

1:03:49And I use iWork, I don't use Microsoft Office

1:03:51because I hardly ever need Office programs,

1:03:53so it's not worth me buying Office.

1:03:55I just use iWork stuff and get away with it just fine.

1:03:58And I've used iWork as my only Office suite for,

1:04:02I don't know, at least six or seven years now.

1:04:04So it's, I use this not every day,

1:04:09but I use it regularly,

1:04:10and I know these programs pretty well now.

1:04:13And they're always like 75% of the way there.

1:04:18They could be so good, but it just seems like

1:04:22they don't get attention from Apple.

1:04:24And I think what you're saying is true.

1:04:26It's very fair what you're saying,

1:04:28especially about things like the MobileMe photo galleries

1:04:31and stuff like that, like all the photo stuff,

1:04:33that is very valid.

1:04:35I think with iWork, I think it's mostly just an issue

1:04:41of these apps getting NOLA from Apple.

1:04:43And secondarily them not caring about drop-in compatibility.

1:04:47But it wouldn't surprise me at all

1:04:49if they were going to write in support

1:04:51for the new apps to rebuild formats

1:04:54and it just got cut because they didn't have enough time

1:04:56because they didn't give this project

1:04:57enough resources from the beginning.

1:04:59- Oh, they have that thing where they put out a version

1:05:01that dropped a huge number of features

1:05:03and then kind of backfilled apologetically as time allowed.

1:05:06- Right, yeah, that's the 2013 version,

1:05:09which is still, I think, worse than the previous ones.

1:05:13- And like, I don't use a lot of these things regularly,

1:05:14but I follow people who do.

1:05:15And it's like, even Keynote,

1:05:17which used to be like the one,

1:05:18the best program in that suite is like,

1:05:20everyone loves Keynote,

1:05:21is like been getting worse over time, not better.

1:05:23And that's something that Microsoft has always done so well.

1:05:25One, support backwards compatibility support

1:05:28for their file formats, like forever, basically.

1:05:31Like they are the masters of that.

1:05:32And you don't have to go to that extreme,

1:05:33but you should be good at it at least.

1:05:35And it's not like Microsoft didn't change their formats.

1:05:37They went to, you know, a zip file full of XML stuff.

1:05:40And, you know, they Docx and XLSX and all that stuff.

1:05:43Like they advanced, but when they advanced,

1:05:47they tried to be compatible

1:05:49because like that's their big selling point.

1:05:50If you make documents in Microsoft Office,

1:05:52Microsoft Office will up to them.

1:05:53I remember when like Office 97 came out

1:05:55and like there was a split in format between 97 and 95

1:05:58and people were freaking out or whatever.

1:05:59I don't remember the exact details of the year.

1:06:01So I'm sorry if I got it wrong, but that, you know,

1:06:05They condition their user base to accept

1:06:08that the format will change and feel safe

1:06:10that it's not like the documents

1:06:12are gonna become unreadable.

1:06:13And Apple is doing the opposite.

1:06:15They're conditioning all the users to fear these applications

1:06:18and not trust any important data to it.

1:06:20And the other thing Microsoft has done

1:06:22with a few bumps in the road, like, you know,

1:06:24Word 6 for the Mac and all that terrible stuff,

1:06:26they tend to make their programs better with time.

1:06:30The programs get faster, documents open faster.

1:06:32They have more features.

1:06:33They wouldn't like, if one version of a program

1:06:35had really interesting typography controls,

1:06:39the next version of the program

1:06:40would not drop all those features

1:06:41because like they're not possible in iOS

1:06:43or can't be done on the web or something.

1:06:44Like they would never do that.

1:06:45There's no major regression in functionality

1:06:49without some good reason.

1:06:50Like, oh, we're deprecating the access database.

1:06:52So forget about that whole integration.

1:06:54Like, you know, but just like,

1:06:56hey, this thing adds a new ability

1:06:59to tweak the kerning on text.

1:07:02And the next version says,

1:07:02yeah, you know all that kerning stuff, forget it.

1:07:04We pulled it out, it's gone.

1:07:05And if you open a document that had a custom kerning,

1:07:07we're just gonna show it a different way.

1:07:09Like that's not progress.

1:07:10It's over time, the reason we all love software

1:07:13is it gets better, faster, stronger.

1:07:15You know, it does not sort of stumble along.

1:07:19Occasionally features that you used

1:07:20and relied on disappear with no explanation.

1:07:23File formats get abandoned.

1:07:24The application changes its looks

1:07:27in ways that seem like lateral moves.

1:07:29Items move around the interface for no discernible reason.

1:07:33that is a web version you don't care about.

1:07:35Are there any like rabid iWork fans

1:07:37with the possible exception of Keynote,

1:07:39which I think did have rabid fans and may still have them?

1:07:41The rest of iWork is just like, meh.

1:07:43- You know, what's funny is,

1:07:47especially listening to what Markowitz said

1:07:49about how iWork is 80% of the way there,

1:07:52I feel like so many of the things you just said about iWork,

1:07:55you could make a reasonable substitution of say iCloud

1:08:00or any number of other Apple software products.

1:08:04Heck, even iOS 8, a lot of people,

1:08:06I mean, I think iOS 8 is fine, but.

1:08:09- No, I think it's not fair for iOS 8 and iCloud.

1:08:11iOS 8 is not worse than iOS 7,

1:08:16and it adds a bunch of things that you felt like

1:08:20you would be happy if you had them.

1:08:21Like iOS 7 didn't have extensions, which is a big thing.

1:08:23- Sure, sure, no, no, I'm on a different point.

1:08:26My point was when Marco was saying,

1:08:28Oh, it's so close, but it's not quite there.

1:08:31And iCloud has gotten better,

1:08:32but it seems like you could say that about a lot of things.

1:08:36Like so great example is in iOS 8,

1:08:38the ordering of the extensions and the share sheets,

1:08:42or I think that's what it is,

1:08:43wherever the one password icon lives,

1:08:45how you could at least put one,

1:08:47you could have a one password extension,

1:08:49yet when you tried to reorder

1:08:51what the order of those extensions were,

1:08:54the order got reset constantly.

1:08:57Now I believe that's been fixed in the latest beta,

1:08:59but that's a great example of, oh, you were so close,

1:09:02but then there's this one really annoying thing

1:09:04that you didn't quite get right.

1:09:05- I think that's much closer than iWork.

1:09:07Even iCloud, which has had it stumbled,

1:09:09on the long term, you have to say,

1:09:12iCloud Drive versus basically everything else

1:09:14they've ever done with documents.

1:09:15iCloud Drive is better than that.

1:09:16CloudKit versus everything else they've done

1:09:18in the same realm, CloudKit is better.

1:09:20Maybe it's not there,

1:09:21but you just wanna see forward progress.

1:09:23When you have a long running program like iWork

1:09:25or long-running suite like iWork,

1:09:27that is around for a long time,

1:09:30is not updated on sort of on a regular basis,

1:09:33such that you just often wonder like, is the product dead?

1:09:36Are they just not gonna do it anymore?

1:09:37Like iLife was the same way,

1:09:38where they were doing iLife with years in the name,

1:09:40and then all of a sudden a year would come and go

1:09:41and there'd be no new iLife,

1:09:43and you're like, so is iLife still a thing?

1:09:46And then they release a point update

1:09:47to keep the old version working.

1:09:48You're like, well, there's someone,

1:09:49it's gotta be someone over there working on it

1:09:50because they're doing some work

1:09:52to make sure it works with the new OS,

1:09:53like versus Microsoft Office back in its heyday especially,

1:09:57was like regular updates,

1:09:58you know they're gonna keep trying to make it better,

1:10:00maybe you'll disagree with something they've done

1:10:03or some weird interface

1:10:04or they implemented new crazy menus in Office

1:10:07because Microsoft has organized like a crazy,

1:10:12I don't know what the right word is, Tower of Babel

1:10:13and one hand doesn't know what the other hand is doing.

1:10:16But anyway, they always look like they were developing it

1:10:19and so many things with Apple

1:10:21are sort of like speculative abandonware,

1:10:24just like Marco was doing.

1:10:25(laughing)

1:10:26Is anyone working on this?

1:10:28Probably, like I guess, but maybe not.

1:10:33And I mean, the Mac Pro is speculative abandonware hardware

1:10:37for the longest time, but in software,

1:10:38there seems like a lot of that.

1:10:39And it has to be said at some point that like,

1:10:42maybe it has something to do with the fact

1:10:44that Apple feels like it shouldn't or can't

1:10:48sell the software anymore, that everything has to be free,

1:10:50that even the stuff that used to be $400 has to be $79 now.

1:10:54You know, like if iWork could be priced at something

1:10:58other than, you guys were saying it's free,

1:11:00I haven't even looked at it,

1:11:01but like priced at some price that is closer to sustainable,

1:11:06maybe it wouldn't really fund all this development,

1:11:08but just something.

1:11:09But if they feel like they just have to give it away

1:11:10for free as a perk to try to make their hardware

1:11:12more valuable, I don't see how a bunch of mediocre,

1:11:15mediocre to crappy programs

1:11:17make their hardware more valuable.

1:11:19You know what I mean?

1:11:20You're not adding value. No one is going oh, and if you get an iOS it used to be like remember

1:11:24How you used to be like that with I life it was like if you want to get I life you have to get

1:11:27A Mac that was practically a system seller to use game console parlance, right?

1:11:31Oh, yeah, people would play with GarageBand in the store and be like, oh my god

1:11:34If I got a Mac I could make music right design. Do they have I like for Windows?

1:11:38No, you have to have a Mac like it was a system seller

1:11:40It was like all these things that you know

1:11:42I know I have a computer and people tell me I can use it to make movies to make music to burn CDs

1:11:47But I know I personally can't use it to do those things because it's way too complicated

1:11:50I wouldn't know where to begin and I life was like hey

1:11:52We will make you successful at doing these things that you know are possible with a computer

1:11:57But you still feel are beyond your ability and I work is not a system seller

1:12:00Nobody is buying Macs or iPads or doing anything involving Apple to say oh no goody now. I get to use I work

1:12:07I can never do word processing before

1:12:09It's not it's not a system seller

1:12:12Yeah, and I think you're I mean, I don't think it's a pricing issue at all

1:12:16I don't think they ever sold high enough volumes of iWork to make the price of it matter much to their bottom line at all

1:12:22But it is very important to push the usefulness of their platforms

1:12:28And you know not only from like an independence perspective like it's an insurance policy

1:12:33against Microsoft ever stopping making Office for Macs first of all and it's also to serve

1:12:39their iOS interest to say

1:12:42Look at how useful, especially the iPad,

1:12:45which really needs some help right now,

1:12:46look at how useful the iPad can be for work.

1:12:49And IBM can go and sell it for them,

1:12:51they can sell and they can say,

1:12:52"Look, it runs all these Office apps."

1:12:54'Cause if Microsoft Office, well, for a while,

1:12:56Microsoft Office didn't exist on the iPad,

1:12:59now it does, but who knows if it always will

1:13:02and how good it will always be,

1:13:03now Apple can go around and say,

1:13:05"Look, you can get for this one low price of this iPad

1:13:11that might be three years old, A5,

1:13:13for this one price you can get this iPad

1:13:16and all this free software on it that's awesome

1:13:19and you should really buy this iPad because of it

1:13:21and you'll be able to get all this work done.

1:13:23And the problem is that, so that's like,

1:13:26again, the strategy tax, that's, well not really,

1:13:28that's their goal is to make their hardware sell more units

1:13:32'cause that's where they make most of their money

1:13:33but if the software is mediocre or absent,

1:13:38it makes it very hard to do that.

1:13:40The weird thing is that with iOS 8 now

1:13:42They've essentially given Microsoft all the tools needed to do the thing that previously would say well only Apple does like only apples are gonna

1:13:50Ever bother to make it an office type suite of programs that work on the web on iOS on the Mac with the same file

1:13:56Format all sharing between all synchronized, but now with the advent of iCloud Drive Yosemite iOS 8

1:14:01Extensions to like Microsoft. There's no reason Microsoft can't

1:14:05unify its office suite across all of its platforms using one drive or whatever their services and having that integrated into iOS and having that

1:14:12available on Macs and you know like

1:14:14Not only Apple can do this now and I wonder if Apple would be like relieved if someone else picked up the mantle of

1:14:21because that's what Apple wants to sell is like

1:14:23We have a way for you to do word processing and it doesn't matter where you do it

1:14:27If you do it on your Mac, if you do it on a website if you do it on your iOS device

1:14:31It's all the same documents. It's all the same program

1:14:33It you know it looks and works kind of roughly the same everywhere with a native interface and each one of those things

1:14:39with a feature set that's the same across all of them so on and so forth like that's what they're selling but

1:14:44If you do it with a bunch of mediocre applications these the sort of unification they're going for like I don't think that is

1:14:52As attractive if they say oh well especially what you know an establishment like we're like I know how to do that in Word

1:14:58I know how to make pivot tables in Excel. I don't know anything about numbers

1:15:01I don't know what this pages thing is and it's weird and it's kind of buggy and I use the old version now

1:15:06I can't open those documents anymore and you know, like that's why office is still popular because

1:15:10Microsoft for all its weirdness and all its troubles

1:15:13Still has held to the contract of office like as a standard, you know

1:15:17That like if you make your documents in this you'll be able to open them. We'll do a good job with compatibility

1:15:22We'll try to make them look the same

1:15:24I mean again, there's been stumbles with that too with like if you open it on the windows version of office

1:15:29looks different than on the Mac version, this font differences, there's that whole thing

1:15:32about the Mac's epoch being, what is it, January 1904 or something like that, which is different

1:15:37than the Windows epoch, so all your dates and your PowerPoints would be offset, and

1:15:40like, there are always problems.

1:15:42But Apple is not even, it's not even a contender, like they're, they're defeating themselves,

1:15:48like it's, you know, stop hitting yourself, Apple, like they're punching themselves in

1:15:51the face with "I work".

1:15:52They're just not, not a contender in this race.

1:15:56And to play devil's advocate for a second here, all of the characteristics that make

1:16:00Microsoft so good and reliable at being an office software supplier also make them very

1:16:06boring and unable to compete in a lot of consumer space.

1:16:09Because all those values, you need the opposite characteristics to make a lot of great products

1:16:15in the spaces that we care more about these days.

1:16:17But that being said, a lot of Apple's problems are just botched execution or bad decisions.

1:16:25the people in the chat were pointing out earlier,

1:16:26like you can make a lot of these same arguments

1:16:28about Final Cut Pro X when that came out.

1:16:31That like it was Apple clearly like moving the ball forward

1:16:36way too aggressively and cutting way too much out

1:16:39and starting over and angering every user

1:16:42of this software basically.

1:16:45- I think Final Cut Pro X is more defensible

1:16:47because they were moving forward.

1:16:50They felt like, I think they miscalculated their power maybe.

1:16:54Like they thought that they could make this great leap

1:16:57and that they would leave some people behind

1:16:59but that this future destination is better.

1:17:01And that in the end it would work out.

1:17:03They could bring their market,

1:17:06they could bring everybody ahead with them.

1:17:07There would be stragglers, people would grumble about it,

1:17:09kind of like OS X where it was kind of a mess

1:17:11in the beginning, people grumbled,

1:17:13but in the end the greatness of it

1:17:14like compelled everyone to move along.

1:17:17And plus it got this other audience of people

1:17:18who were never interested in the Mac.

1:17:19'Cause hey, this has Unix underneath it

1:17:20and it has a nice GUI.

1:17:21Like that strategy worked with them for OS X.

1:17:24They did essentially the same thing with Final Cut Pro.

1:17:27It was also combined with like the crazy price drop thing.

1:17:29Like forget about iWork being like, you know,

1:17:31that was never sustaining itself

1:17:32'cause not enough things were sold.

1:17:34I think the Pro apps were much closer

1:17:36to sustaining themselves as, you know,

1:17:38marketable products in their own right.

1:17:40But even those got the ax and say like,

1:17:42no, you can't be $300 anymore.

1:17:44You gotta be 79 bucks.

1:17:45I was like, this is the max we'll charge.

1:17:46And so now you know they're not sustainable

1:17:48and then they get less updates

1:17:49and the Final Cut Pro 10 thing didn't work out

1:17:51the way they wanted it to.

1:17:52And it's just been a series of miscalculations.

1:17:55And the pro apps are not things

1:17:57that are trying to help them sell hardware, right?

1:18:00It's not that there's just too small of a market.

1:18:02They were for Apple is for a while

1:18:04in the business of selling software to pros.

1:18:07And they seem to have sort of,

1:18:10in the same way that lost interest

1:18:11selling the X serve and X serve rate and everything,

1:18:13seem to have lost interest in pro software

1:18:15canceling programs, they cancel Shake or something like that.

1:18:18And Final Cut Pro X.

1:18:21I still thought Pro X was a good idea.

1:18:24It just didn't quite work out as well for them

1:18:26as you know, OS X did.

1:18:27- Well, exactly.

1:18:28And that's, you know, this is the problem.

1:18:30The Apple hardware is like firing on all cylinders.

1:18:33The hardware these days is great.

1:18:35Last few years, you can see like,

1:18:37almost every hardware product Apple has made

1:18:39in the last three to five years has just been awesome.

1:18:43Like there's been very few exceptions to that.

1:18:45And yet, on the software side, they're just crumbling

1:18:49on so many different fronts so frequently.

1:18:52I really worry about them,

1:18:53'cause it used to be that they moved much more slowly

1:18:56and were much smaller,

1:18:57but they had a solid reputation of reliability

1:19:01and ease of use and stability.

1:19:04And all of this was,

1:19:06that's what carried their brand for so long.

1:19:08That's why people would buy Apple products

1:19:11because it would quote, "Just work."

1:19:13Because they would be better.

1:19:16They would be more stable.

1:19:17They would be more intuitive.

1:19:18everything would work better than in the PC world.

1:19:22And in the last few years, this has crumbled so far

1:19:26that I don't necessarily think,

1:19:28I mean, unless PCs have gotten really bad, I don't know,

1:19:30I haven't used them in a while,

1:19:31but I think the Apple platform no longer has

1:19:35that high ground nearly as much as it used to

1:19:38if it still has it at all.

1:19:40- Maybe not in the application space, in the OS space.

1:19:43Like, I mean, I know a lot of people complain

1:19:44about you, somebody, but like I said in my review,

1:19:47Truth like I upgrade all my machines sooner and sooner like I just I just upgrade everything and it's just been

1:19:53remarkably

1:19:55problem-free

1:19:57IOS 8 not so much which is weird because that's their like more important platform. I always say it was super buggy for me

1:20:03I still occasionally can't copy a URL and paste it into another application. I have no idea why I'm on 8.1 now

1:20:10Drives me insane and no I don't have one password installed and no I don't have any custom keywords installed

1:20:15It's mysterious, but I think they're their OS, you know OS 10 at least

1:20:20Those guys are doing a good job

1:20:22I mean you can still argue about whether they want to yearly releases and stuff

1:20:25But then if you look at their application software, that's not part of the OS any application software

1:20:31That's not part of the s like I think this came up on one of our podcasts in the past

1:20:34It was like name an Apple application that like they're like would win an ADA

1:20:38That that is it is an example an Apple to Apple design award for people who don't know

1:20:42There is a shining example of what it's like to be an awesome Mac application name one

1:20:47That's not bundled with the OS and that used to be pretty easy to do like the whole iLite suite was pretty amazing

1:20:53It's like, you know, they're the original version of iPhone that would win an ADA. This is an amazing application

1:20:58Now I don't think anyone would say that about iPhone

1:21:01No one would say about anything in the iWork suite. Like I don't think Apple is

1:21:05Leading in software by saying if you were awesome. These are the kind of Mac apps you would make

1:21:11All right. Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week Squarespace, Harry's and Lynda.com and we will see you next week

1:21:19Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental

1:21:28It was accidental

1:21:31John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental

1:21:40It was accidental

1:21:42And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

1:21:47And if you're into Twitter

1:21:50You can follow them at

1:21:53C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

1:21:57So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

1:22:01Auntie Marco Arment

1:22:04S-I-R-A-C

1:22:06USA, Syracuse

1:22:09♪ It's accidental ♪

1:22:11♪ Accidental ♪

1:22:12♪ They didn't mean to ♪

1:22:15♪ Accidental ♪

1:22:16♪ Accidental ♪

1:22:17♪ Tech podcast ♪

1:22:19♪ So long ♪

1:22:22(man snoring)

1:22:24(laughing)

1:22:25Oh, you're gonna snore some more now Casey.

1:22:26I didn't wanna put this in the controller part

1:22:28'cause I thought we'd spend enough time.

1:22:29But every time I talk about controller stuff,

1:22:31the Wii U Pro Controller people keep coming out and saying,

1:22:34"What's wrong with the Wii U Pro Controller?

1:22:36Why do you keep saying bad things

1:22:37about the Wii U Pro Controller?"

1:22:38And I how many times have I talked about what I don't like about it like you two have heard it before right?

1:22:42Mmm. I'm sure I have but I don't remember which now I'm giving you giving you the excuse to tell me more

1:22:48Remember because I say it and immediately I put links in the chat room so people can look at them

1:22:53The Wii U Pro controller and the game you control it

1:22:56I guess the Wii U Pro controller if you looked at it in your hand you're like oh like like any Nintendo peripheral they make

1:23:02solid hardware in that like

1:23:04I'm not gonna say it's indestructible, but it's pretty darn tough like it feels like a solid thing you can abuse it

1:23:11It does not fall apart in general Nintendo is really good at making solid hardware

1:23:16So this feels like a solid product, but the problems with our the same

1:23:19I mean if you listen to my hypercritical

1:23:21I know we talked about this is I'd like we linked the hypercritical episodes a couple times to hypercritical episodes where I talked about

1:23:26video game controllers

1:23:29the main problem with the Wii U pro controller is that the

1:23:34The right thumb stick is the place where the button should be sort of the primary control location. Oh, yes. Yes

1:23:40You have talked about this

1:23:41Yeah

1:23:41And so they're just in reverse now if you if you use two stick shooters

1:23:44Maybe but even then I I like the octagonal surrounds for the sticks and they have round surrounds

1:23:49I don't like having uniform buttons that are all the same size laid out in a diamond pattern

1:23:53Because not every button is equally important and games most have a main button in a secondary button tertiary buttons

1:23:59And it doesn't feel as comfortable so like it's in almost every way the controller can can be inferior to the GameCube controller

1:24:07it is except the d-pad which is much better and the triggers are probably better - and

1:24:10The build quality is maybe a little bit

1:24:13It looks a little bit higher end because of the glossy finish on top or whatever and of course

1:24:17It's wireless and USB chargeable and all that modern technology type stuff, but

1:24:20No, that's why I don't like the Wii U Pro controller. That's why nobody likes the Wii U Pro controller

1:24:24That's right. Nobody in the entire universe what I'm saying is there's not a single person in the world

1:24:28Oh, yeah likes the Wii U Pro controller. Even its designer doesn't like it. That's right

1:24:32And the mother of the designer doesn't like it. Email John, please email John. I said every time I say that I don't like it

1:24:38It's like wait a second. Are you saying that nobody likes that controller? I like it. I had the pony

1:24:42You know that you got that reference case? No. Nope. That's okay. I

1:24:46Got a I got a silver game cue controller. I forgot if I told you that I saw that

1:24:50I think you tweeted a picture of it mint in box. Well, it's in box

1:24:54anyway the box is not mint but anyway point is hasn't been opened hmm how much

1:24:59does that cost you not too much 200 bucks no I'm not paid $200 for it speaking of

1:25:06things that cost $200 I ordered my phone what hey alright of course there's a

1:25:11wait you know which what'd you get what'd you get the gold one yeah I got the

1:25:17phone that everyone gets 64 black yep space gray please yeah right yeah are

1:25:23- Are you gonna do a case?

1:25:25- I already kept the case is already here.

1:25:26The phone is not, but they can't see.

1:25:28I got the black leather case.

1:25:30- You have exactly my phone then,

1:25:31or will have exactly my phone.

1:25:33- And mine.

1:25:34- I considered getting a red one,

1:25:35but I just, I don't know, I couldn't do it.

1:25:37- The case, the colored cases do not wear gracefully.

1:25:41- I definitely love the case.

1:25:43Like I definitely think you're making the right move

1:25:46getting a case and I question whether you're making

1:25:48the right move getting a six, but oh well.

1:25:50- What, instead of a six plus?

1:25:52- Instead of a five S.

1:25:53- Oh no, come on.

1:25:55You think I'm gonna finally buy an iPhone

1:25:58after like six years,

1:25:59then I'm gonna buy a generation old one?

1:26:01Not gonna happen.

1:26:02I had one for a week, I know what I'm getting into.

1:26:04It's not like I'm gonna be surprised.

1:26:05- All right, that's fair.

1:26:07- So Marco, if you were to buy a new phone tomorrow,

1:26:10the 6S is out and you can get it in four

1:26:14or four point whatever inches, seven?

1:26:16- Seven, yeah.

1:26:17- What are you buying?

1:26:19- That would, so does the smaller one

1:26:21have the same camera as the bigger one?

1:26:23- Sure, it's identical in every way,

1:26:25except that it's physically smaller.

1:26:28- Battery life?

1:26:30- We'll call it equivalent,

1:26:32because the screen is so much smaller.

1:26:34- I think I go smaller.

1:26:36- The thing of it is is that I still

1:26:39just drastically prefer the feel in the hand of the 5S,

1:26:43but golly, I am getting used to the new screen

1:26:46and I am liking it.

1:26:48- Oh, I like it when I'm using it,

1:26:50unless I'm using it one-handed,

1:26:51like while walking around doing something.

1:26:53And unfortunately, that's a pretty major role of a phone

1:26:55for most people.

1:26:57So I just really, it's like getting a 17 inch MacBook Air

1:27:01or MacBook Pro.

1:27:02It's like, it seems like a good idea

1:27:05if you park it at a desk most of the time

1:27:07and don't bring it with you most of the time.

1:27:08But if you're carrying it with you back and forth to work

1:27:11in a backpack every single day,

1:27:13you might regret that decision.

1:27:14That might not be the best choice for you.

1:27:17With a phone, it's like you have to consider

1:27:18how it's actually used.

1:27:19And yes, a bigger screen is nicer while it's being used.

1:27:23Like in two-handed, you know, it's stationary.

1:27:26It is indeed nicer.

1:27:28But is it worth the trade-off in portability

1:27:31in the sense that it makes it harder to use while portable

1:27:34for a lot of people?

1:27:35And obviously that's an individual decision.

1:27:39For people who are going back to the 5S

1:27:41or who are still using the 5S and not upgrading,

1:27:44I totally get that decision.

1:27:45I totally respect that decision.

1:27:46And I've almost made that decision.

1:27:48I think I will ultimately stick with the 6,

1:27:50but I've come very close to going back to the 5S

1:27:54because every time I pick it up,

1:27:56I think not only does it look way better,

1:27:57but it just feels so much better to use.

1:28:00And yes, it does look tiny,

1:28:01but everything I do is a million times faster,

1:28:04my grip is more secure, I can reach everything,

1:28:07it's less frustrating,

1:28:08'cause the fact is, as I've said earlier,

1:28:10iOS and iOS apps are still largely designed

1:28:15with the assumption that you can always reach

1:28:16all four corners.

1:28:17So many important buttons are up on the upper corners

1:28:20that are hard to reach on the 6.

1:28:21And that, maybe over time that changes.

1:28:25But we're not there yet, both in the OS and all the apps.

1:28:28And it's gonna be a while.

1:28:30So I think in the future this might be easier

1:28:32to use a larger phone because like the software

1:28:34will be more finger local in a lot of ways.

1:28:38Like it will assume that you're only holding

1:28:41the bottom two thirds of the phone.

1:28:43But until that point, and that point is not here yet,

1:28:46And again, when the watch comes,

1:28:50and when your phone is less often needed

1:28:53to be used one-handed,

1:28:55if you can do certain things on the watch

1:28:56that you'd previously take your phone

1:28:59out of your pocket to do while walking somewhere,

1:29:01while doing something, then again, that will also help.

1:29:04But we're not there yet either.

1:29:06So I think for this year, it makes sense

1:29:08for a lot of people who are sensitive to this

1:29:11to not upgrade it to the 6.

1:29:12And then maybe next year, we'll see what happens.

1:29:14As the environment around it changes,

1:29:16as we get the watch,

1:29:17as we get different software considerations,

1:29:20we'll see what happens.

1:29:21But as of today, I think it's a tough call.

1:29:24- Well, consider the rumored mix of 6 and 6 Plus.

1:29:28I don't know if this is rumored or announced,

1:29:29but I've seen numbers thrown around

1:29:31that make the mix of 6 and 6 Plus look way closer to 50/50

1:29:35than I ever thought it would be.

1:29:37Do you know any sources of authoritative numbers

1:29:39or have heard similar rumors?

1:29:41- I haven't seen anybody with any credibility.

1:29:43Yeah, I don't forget where I saw it.

1:29:45I mean, I'm assuming I saw it from like maybe a Simco

1:29:48or maybe some related thing.

1:29:49I don't know.

1:29:49I don't know if they'll ever tell us the mix,

1:29:51but what I can pretty confidently say

1:29:56is that I think we would have heard a story

1:29:57if it turned out that the 5S was like selling massively.

1:30:01You know, like the people weren't getting the 6

1:30:03that all the hardcore people were buying 5S's

1:30:05and it was just a crazy, I mean,

1:30:07and the thing against the 5S now is not so much

1:30:10just that it's older and slower,

1:30:12but also no Apple Pay, right?

1:30:14No NFC.

1:30:15And so if Apple does continue to make a smaller line,

1:30:18which is still up for grabs,

1:30:19what they do, if they gave it feature parity,

1:30:22then it would be like the iPads were last year,

1:30:25just pick the size.

1:30:25And if you had three sizes to pick from,

1:30:27they would have really covered

1:30:28pretty much every base you can imagine.

1:30:31- Well, and the Apple Pay, again,

1:30:32that's another thing where you have to look and say,

1:30:34well, Apple Pay just launched,

1:30:37it is still not supported widely yet.

1:30:40And in a year from now, then a lot of American places

1:30:44will have replaced their terminals

1:30:45with the new touchless terminals and everything,

1:30:47so you'll have more of that.

1:30:48I feel like over time,

1:30:51the usefulness of the larger phones will grow,

1:30:54but today it's more of a tough call.

1:30:56That also being said,

1:30:57all of this is not to say they won't sell well

1:31:01or that they aren't selling well.

1:31:02It's just like the TV in the store bright picture problem.

1:31:06People are going to buy these things in large numbers,

1:31:09regardless of whether they're actually easy,

1:31:11easy or better to use than the smaller ones.

1:31:14- Well, don't you think this is pent up demand

1:31:15for people who knew they wanted a bigger phone?

1:31:18- Oh yeah.

1:31:18- You know, like they knew,

1:31:19like it wasn't like they were speculating,

1:31:21they're like, I think I might like a bigger phone.

1:31:22They're like, maybe they were coming from a bigger phone

1:31:24and they're just like, I would buy the iPhone

1:31:25except it's too small.

1:31:26It's the whole reason they needed a bigger phone.

1:31:27So I, you know, and the number that I probably read,

1:31:30MTW in the chat room said the T-Mobile CEO

1:31:33said it was close to 50/50.

1:31:34Obviously he can only report on his own sales,

1:31:36but if that's true, we could try to find a link to it.

1:31:41That is at least one data point.

1:31:43- Yeah, I mean, who knows what the truth is?

1:31:46I think you're right that we'll probably never know.

1:31:48I do think it would be interesting if large apps

1:31:53with analytics packages, they could start tracking things.

1:31:56Or large analytics companies,

1:31:59they could start publishing numbers,

1:32:00like what does Flurry say?

1:32:02What percentage that they're installed on

1:32:03is this versus this model?

1:32:05That we can definitely, we'll have that information

1:32:07if we don't already have it.

1:32:08Yeah, again, I think they're gonna do fine with this

1:32:12and that's fine and in the future

1:32:13it might be better to use them,

1:32:15but that doesn't make these large phones

1:32:19a great solution today for a lot of priorities.

1:32:21And look, a lot of people are very happy with them.

1:32:24A lot of people love these things.

1:32:26I was even one of the people saying I want a bigger phone

1:32:29and I jumped to get one as soon as I could,

1:32:31But maybe there's a better point between 4.0 and 4.7.

1:32:36That's a pretty big range.

1:32:39You know, like maybe a 4.3 would be great.

1:32:42You know, you get a little bit more space.

1:32:44I don't know.

1:32:44- 4.7 is the compromise size.

1:32:47Like you're not just shaving inches.

1:32:49You're gonna be like, you know,

1:32:51you just need bigger hands.

1:32:52That's what it comes down to.

1:32:53- Yeah, I'll just upgrade them next year

1:32:55when I'm off contract with you.

1:32:57- With my week with the six, like I said,

1:32:59I think what happened was that I just upgraded my hand motions.

1:33:02I upgraded my little hand gymnastics.

1:33:05And you hold the phone differently than everybody else in the world.

1:33:08Well, you know, like the moves you do to get to the parts that you have to do, because

1:33:12like you said, the software just isn't updated.

1:33:14I'm using apps that were made for at best the iPhone 5 screen and at worst, you know,

1:33:18the smaller 3.5 inch.

1:33:21And I upgraded my hand moves so much so that it went back to the smaller one, I would find

1:33:26myself starting to do the hand move that I needed to do to hit the done button in Twitter

1:33:30if I can realize, oh, I don't need to do that move. I can go back to my other move to do,

1:33:34you know. I think that will mostly take care of itself, though. And like, the reason I

1:33:37think I'm not bothered by it is because once I sort of upgrade all my, you know, my hands

1:33:42move set, then it's fine. Like, the only, I think the only persistent bothersome thing

1:33:47about the iPhone 6 for me was how much room it took out, took in whatever pocket I had

1:33:52it in. Because that didn't go well. It always felt like it was bigger, it was more, you

1:33:56It was taking up more if I put it in my front jeans pocket

1:33:58It was more likely to feel it under stress if I sat down and i'm a little paranoid about bending it

1:34:02if it's in my coat pocket it pokes out a little bit farther than the other one did but

1:34:05That that I think will get over because I really do use mine

1:34:09more like a little mini tablet

1:34:12so

1:34:13Do you think there will ever come a time that?

1:34:15If you think back to

1:34:19The tweety days polder refresh wasn't a thing and then lauren brichter did it with tweety

1:34:24And then it became a thing.

1:34:26It literally became a system level thing.

1:34:28So do you think there may come a time where iOS transitions to a back button at

1:34:36the bottom of the screen kind of layout, be it because some popular app like

1:34:41Tweety does it and everyone embraces it, or perhaps because the SDK changes and

1:34:47suddenly, um, tab bars are at the top, Android style and back buttons are at

1:34:52the bottom.

1:34:52Do you think that would ever happen?

1:34:54I think they're going for the system back gesture.

1:34:57That's their attempt to say, here's

1:34:58a new paradigm for navigation.

1:35:00Instead of having a toolbar that you

1:35:01have to reach a back button that's really hard to find,

1:35:04do the system swipe.

1:35:05But I think that swipe is--

1:35:07I know I almost never do it.

1:35:09It is not obvious.

1:35:10Even if you show someone to it, they don't--

1:35:11Oh, I do it all the time.

1:35:13Yeah, I pretty much almost never do it.

1:35:14And I don't think it's the type of thing

1:35:16that if you show somebody, they will do all the time,

1:35:19because it's not reliable.

1:35:20It depends on which application you're using,

1:35:22whether it works or not.

1:35:23to it is a fairly precise gesture.

1:35:25It's not, there's not a lot of slop on it

1:35:28because if you just do a swipe sideways

1:35:30that may do something, but it's not the back one

1:35:32that has to involve the edge.

1:35:33And like, I think there's too much nuance to it.

1:35:35So I think what you were saying, Casey,

1:35:36is more likely that application developers will,

1:35:41especially if the 6+ ends up being like super popular,

1:35:44they'll have to redesign their applications

1:35:47to be inside like the thumb, you know, the thumb hot zone,

1:35:50like where you can reach, where, you know,

1:35:52put everything that's important within reach and then suddenly the phone doesn't feel as big anymore because the apps are designed not to have

1:35:58You do that and whatever paradigm it is that that does that whether it's moving everything to the bottom or you know

1:36:03I don't know what the solution is reachability is definitely not it

1:36:06That's like a hack that I'm sure a few people might use but that's not the best solution

1:36:12But yeah

1:36:12I am hoping that the UI is redesign themselves and we standardize on

1:36:16Even though it's not Apple doing it even it's just like, you know

1:36:19the hamburger button thing which Apple is not popularizing that and like you said that pull to refresh, you know

1:36:24Come out of the third-party world and have there be some kind of

1:36:27Consensus and have all the applications start to look the same and then Apple roll it in that's that's plausible

1:36:32Yeah now in other news Marco. Have you played with your retina iMac at all?

1:36:37Yeah, I'm using it right now. No and yeah, I've been using a full-time for about two days

1:36:42Oh, I didn't realize and things are amazing or whatever. Oh my god. It's amazing. Oh good. Oh my god

1:36:48It's, yeah, it's amazing.

1:36:51There's, so there's actually a few things

1:36:54that I've had to change as a result of going to Retina

1:36:58that are very, very boring.

1:37:00So I'm gonna tell you about them.

1:37:02So the first thing is, that's fair.

1:37:05So as John knows with Yosemite stuff,

1:37:08this was also an upgrade to Yosemite.

1:37:11So as John has pointed out, Yosemite takes cues

1:37:15from the desktop wallpaper to do most of its blurriness.

1:37:19So please email Jon with the details

1:37:22of how I got that wrong.

1:37:23So the problem is before, for years,

1:37:26I've used just like a static, like medium gray background,

1:37:29and I've put a whole bunch of crap on my desktop,

1:37:32and I save everything on the desktop,

1:37:33and everything's all, it's Jon's disaster scenario.

1:37:35It's like everything is saved on the desktop.

1:37:37In Yosemite, if you have a solid color desktop

1:37:39that has some drab dark color,

1:37:42many windows will pick that up in some little way,

1:37:45and just look terrible.

1:37:46You know, you just have these awful,

1:37:48I mean, Jon, you saw this, right?

1:37:49In your testing and stuff?

1:37:51- Yeah, like my background at work, I said, has pumpkins.

1:37:54Pumpkins are nice and beautiful and orange,

1:37:55but they make everything look terribly sick and rusty.

1:37:59- Well, yeah, but even like,

1:38:00like you can't just do a solid color,

1:38:02a flat color background even that,

1:38:03because even the flat color backgrounds

1:38:05now will make many things in Yosemite look terrible.

1:38:08- If you want to get away from this effect,

1:38:11use a background that has enough light colors in it.

1:38:14Like if it has like blue sky with fluffy white clouds your menu bar will look sane and most of your windows and menus

1:38:21Won't look that crazy

1:38:23Maybe maybe they'll like it'll look like the color temperature on your monitor is off because it'll be a little bit blue

1:38:27Because that's what that's what I have here at home

1:38:29I have a desktop background that has a white sky with fluffy clouds moving up to top it and my menu bar

1:38:35Looks okay and the menus I pulled down from it look a little blue, but like there's something about anything

1:38:40that's like brown or green it just it just makes the whole interface look sick

1:38:44like it's like sick house syndrome but for your Mac. Funny that you mentioned

1:38:47that so basically I have I tried a few different things and what I've come to

1:38:54is I started using the wallpaper I've been using on my retina MacBook Pro

1:38:58since I got it in 2012 which is a bright sky blue photo I took in New Zealand of

1:39:05of the bright sunlit sky and a bright blue ocean.

1:39:09And so it's this nice, like sunny, bright blue picture

1:39:13and it's crisp and it looks amazing

1:39:15on the retina resolution.

1:39:16It's fantastic for this purpose

1:39:19'cause it works with everything as you said.

1:39:21Like a light blue color is great for this.

1:39:24I also then had to declutter my desktop

1:39:26because it looked terrible covered in files.

1:39:29(laughing)

1:39:30- Good.

1:39:31- Especially if like, when they change the iTunes icon,

1:39:33of course they also change the file.

1:39:34Like if you have an MP3, it gets the iTunes file icon.

1:39:37So all of a sudden, everything that used to have

1:39:39a blue dot on it has this big shining red dot,

1:39:41it looks like the Japanese flag all over your desktop.

1:39:43(laughs)

1:39:44- Yeah, so I clean up my desktop,

1:39:47like that had to change also, 'cause that was part of it.

1:39:50Also, my monospace font had to change,

1:39:54because I was a Monaco holdout.

1:39:56All these years, I was doing Monaco non-anti-aliased

1:39:59on my desktop.

1:39:59- Go to Inconsolata.

1:40:01- I haven't tried that yet.

1:40:02So right now I'm on Menlo,

1:40:03'cause I basically inherited what I've been doing

1:40:06on my Retina laptop since that existed.

1:40:08So I went from Monaco 10 to Menlo 11.

1:40:12I had to go up a size also.

1:40:14And part of that is just because of,

1:40:16I think it just looks better on Retina.

1:40:17And part of that is because I went

1:40:19from a 30 inch screen to a 27.

1:40:21So I actually have a decrease in the size

1:40:24of elements on screen.

1:40:25'Cause it's the same point width,

1:40:27but three inches smaller diagonal.

1:40:29So it actually is like everything is noticeably

1:40:31a little bit smaller.

1:40:33But other, so I'm actually like,

1:40:34I'm fitting less per line in Xcode.

1:40:36I have to like go change my line wrap settings

1:40:38and adjust my standards and everything.

1:40:40- Not the same point width as your 30 inch, is it?

1:40:42- Yeah, 2560.

1:40:44- Really? - Yep.

1:40:45It's a little bit shorter vertically,

1:40:46but horizontal is the same. - Oh, that's the difference.

1:40:47All right. - Yeah.

1:40:48- Yeah, I've been thinking about what I'm going to go to

1:40:52because I'm also a bitmap Monaco holdout.

1:40:54I'm still on bitmap Monaco 9,

1:40:55but obviously once I go red now,

1:40:56that is not tenable anymore,

1:40:57so I'll have to pick a different font.

1:40:59- You're a nine.

1:41:00Wow, I was always 10.

1:41:01- Monaco, yeah, Monaco 9 has been my font.

1:41:03hardcore since the since the old days when lowercase l and capital I looked exactly the same

1:41:07hardcore Monaco 9 users

1:41:10Yeah, that's been the biggest difference like so like you know now

1:41:13I'm basically using like this this like clean wallpapered beach scene computer with all these big smooth fonts on it

1:41:20compared to my old like super geek Monaco pixel font, but I got used to it very quickly and then so

1:41:27So Tiff's iMac arrived today and I've been I've been back and forth with her computer setting it up and

1:41:32Going from her old computer to her new one. I keep having to briefly use

1:41:36her

1:41:3827 inch Thunderbolt display which of course is a non retina same size very similar finish the iMac though is less glossy

1:41:45But it's still still reflective just you know less so

1:41:48Same size same pixel dimensions and and the 27 inch Thunderbolt is no slouch

1:41:54It's a very good looking monitor like but my old my big 30 inch HP

1:41:58Mediocre monitor always had you know far more drab colors

1:42:03And you know worse contrast and everything than this awesome little 27 inch that if always had

1:42:07Well now that I was using the retina for I was using it for one day

1:42:12And I go to see TIS monitor, and it just looks like complete garbage like you see every pixel

1:42:17It's like it looks like you're going back to DOS like it's you you can't believe how much worse

1:42:22it looks like once once every screen you see all day is retina when you see it non retina one it is

1:42:30Shocking like it's a it's a big big difference. So yeah, that's how it's going. I'm loving it. It's great. The there is fan noise

1:42:38Not in not in most workloads, but if you if you stress the CPUs for more than about a minute or so

1:42:46Like if you're using handbrake to encode a video or something like that

1:42:49that if you max out all the CPUs for more than about a minute, you will hear the fan

1:42:54spin up. And I would say the overall noise level is similar to the Retina MacBook Pro

1:43:00when it's spun up. So it's like a nice kind of like medium, it sounds more like white

1:43:06noise than the old fans, like Casey's fan.

1:43:09Oh yes.

1:43:10It sounds more like white noise. It has like the asymmetrical blades, I assume, to do that.

1:43:15And it is not, I would not call it loud,

1:43:19but you do definitely hear it.

1:43:22And it is, yeah, I would say it's very similar

1:43:25to the 15 inch Retina Mipro Pro under full load.

1:43:29So it's fine, I'll see in practice over time

1:43:32if that ends up being a problem.

1:43:34While recording this podcast,

1:43:36I've been monitoring the fan speed

1:43:38and it has not gone above its idle speed

1:43:40during this entire time,

1:43:41so I'm not worried about things like this being a problem.

1:43:44We'll see what happens if I have to encode a bunch of video

1:43:47or something with edits.

1:43:49The reality is I need CPU speed,

1:43:53but I usually need it in short bursts,

1:43:55like compiling an Xcode or encoding the MP3 for the show.

1:43:59I need it in short bursts,

1:44:00and so I don't think the fan noise

1:44:02is ever really gonna be a huge problem for me,

1:44:05but I'll see what happens.

1:44:07This might be the one factor that in two years

1:44:10makes me want the new Mac Pro

1:44:11that can drive the new 5K standalone display,

1:44:13but we'll see.

1:44:14For now, I'm very, very happy with this.

1:44:15Good.

1:44:16I'm X for everyone.

1:44:17Yeah, something like that.

1:44:19Titles?

1:44:20Before I really do start snoring.

1:44:22How are you still awake?

1:44:23I'm dying.

1:44:24I am absolutely dying, if I'm honest.

1:44:27It should be less of a hardship for you because day and night just cease to have all meaning,

1:44:30and this should be just like if we were doing it at like 11am in the morning.

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