ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Not the right environment.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Other people

00:00:04 ◼   ► talking, no.

00:00:06 ◼   ► [

00:00:09 ◼   ► - Going great.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I talked for two hours about it on debug last night.

00:00:14 ◼   ► Go there to hear more,

00:00:15 ◼   ► 'cause I don't wanna flood our show too much with it.

00:00:17 ◼   ► - Too late.

00:00:17 ◼   ► - So I flooded their show instead.

00:00:19 ◼   ► And a guy asked me to be on debug a while ago,

00:00:22 ◼   ► and I kept delaying it.

00:00:23 ◼   ► I kept saying, "Oh, I'll just wait until I release Overcast.

00:00:25 ◼   ► "That way we have something to talk about,

00:00:26 ◼   ► "and I can promote it," and whatever.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And I'd been putting it off,

00:00:30 ◼   ► because that was probably back in February

00:00:31 ◼   ► that I said that.

00:00:33 ◼   ► And so I've been putting it off for quite a while.

00:00:35 ◼   ► So finally I went and talked about it there for a while.

00:00:39 ◼   ► while with some of the more low-level tech stuff and then kind of app business

00:00:43 ◼   ► and social stuff like how do you break into the social crowd how do you break

00:00:47 ◼   ► into the business stuff like that I'm pretty happy with how it turned out so

00:00:50 ◼   ► we'll see you I don't know when they're gonna post it but we'll see I haven't

00:00:53 ◼   ► heard all of your overcast tour so maybe you talked about this or maybe you don't

00:00:57 ◼   ► want to talk about it but in case no one has asked what are your conversion

00:01:01 ◼   ► numbers like if you want to share that I don't even know off the top of my head

00:01:05 ◼   ► But they're pretty good.

00:01:08 ◼   ► I would say, I don't even know what a percentage would be

00:01:12 ◼   ► 'cause I just know like dollars in total,

00:01:14 ◼   ► which I don't really want to share.

00:01:15 ◼   ► - I was gonna ask just to be a jerk, but you beat me to it.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - But anyway, you're happy with it,

00:01:19 ◼   ► it's more or less what you expected.

00:01:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean the thing is like it's so early right now

00:01:24 ◼   ► that, you know, 'cause it's only been out now

00:01:26 ◼   ► as we record this for eight days.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And so it's still on its launch high.

00:01:32 ◼   ► You know, it's still featured in the App Store.

00:01:33 ◼   ► I think today was its last day, so it was featured in the App Store until probably midday

00:01:37 ◼   ► today.

00:01:40 ◼   ► It might be featured somewhere else this week, but I probably not.

00:01:42 ◼   ► I don't know if they do two weeks in a row for anything.

00:01:46 ◼   ► And it had all of its launch press, so I really have no clue what the resting point will be.

00:01:54 ◼   ► What's going to be the common, everyday income from it?

00:01:59 ◼   ► Instapaper I knew that number and it wasn't always the same but it would be the same for

00:02:04 ◼   ► like a month and it was always within the same ballpark. It would gradually go down

00:02:10 ◼   ► over time if I didn't do much with the app but it was pretty predictable for the most

00:02:16 ◼   ► part and so I don't know what that level will be for Overcast yet and I won't know

00:02:21 ◼   ► until probably like a month or two from now really what that is.

00:02:27 ◼   ► I can tell you that I've had something like,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I don't know the exact number,

00:02:32 ◼   ► something like 100,000 or 160,000 downloads.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And of those, a little more than half

00:02:40 ◼   ► have actually made a user account.

00:02:43 ◼   ► And that's an interesting ratio.

00:02:44 ◼   ► The problem is, again, that will be more interesting later.

00:02:48 ◼   ► Like it'll be more interesting in a few weeks or months

00:02:50 ◼   ► once all this stuff has settled down.

00:02:52 ◼   ► I wasn't sure, like, you know,

00:02:55 ◼   ► because the whole thing about needing to create an account

00:02:59 ◼   ► to use it, that was a decision I made for various reasons.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I think I already went to them somewhere,

00:03:03 ◼   ► but they're pretty boring reasons,

00:03:05 ◼   ► but that was a conscious decision.

00:03:07 ◼   ► I know I could just generate a random ID and use that,

00:03:10 ◼   ► but there were lots of reasons I didn't wanna do that,

00:03:12 ◼   ► mostly involving sync to new devices

00:03:17 ◼   ► and people forgetting that they have this account

00:03:18 ◼   ► and then creating duplicate empty accounts

00:03:20 ◼   ► and then it's a support issue

00:03:21 ◼   ► and they think they lost all their data.

00:03:22 ◼   ► It's a bad scene.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Anyway, so you know, roughly a little more than half

00:03:27 ◼   ► right now have actually created a user account.

00:03:30 ◼   ► But I don't know, I'm not doing any analytics yet

00:03:33 ◼   ► in the app to know like how many of those people

00:03:36 ◼   ► who didn't make a user account have even launched

00:03:38 ◼   ► the app yet, you know, like it could just be people

00:03:41 ◼   ► downloaded the app 'cause it was featured

00:03:42 ◼   ► and they haven't even launched it.

00:03:43 ◼   ► It still has the blue dot next to it on Springboard.

00:03:46 ◼   ► You know, it could be many of those.

00:03:48 ◼   ► It could be people launch the app,

00:03:50 ◼   ► they see the login screen, they say I don't wanna create

00:03:51 ◼   ► an account and they close the app and never launch it again

00:03:54 ◼   ► or they delete it.

00:03:55 ◼   ► I'm sure it's probably a mix of both.

00:03:57 ◼   ► I don't know what the ratios are.

00:03:59 ◼   ► So anyway, that's probably something I should put analytics

00:04:02 ◼   ► in in the app so I can know and maybe educate

00:04:04 ◼   ► that decision going forward.

00:04:06 ◼   ► - Right.

00:04:06 ◼   ► And now Matthew Palmer asked an interesting question

00:04:09 ◼   ► in the chat.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Have you been paying close enough attention

00:04:11 ◼   ► to like server load to see roughly when the peak was?

00:04:16 ◼   ► - The peak of just like server activity in general

00:04:19 ◼   ► was a few hours into launch day.

00:04:21 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, being featured in the App Store

00:04:26 ◼   ► does not cause a big spike.

00:04:28 ◼   ► It causes a general rise in the whole week

00:04:31 ◼   ► because people aren't all checking the App Store

00:04:33 ◼   ► at the same time.

00:04:35 ◼   ► And so that, that has just lifted the average

00:04:38 ◼   ► for the whole week and I expect next week's average

00:04:41 ◼   ► to be substantially lower.

00:04:43 ◼   ► But I don't really, I'm not gonna really know that again

00:04:46 ◼   ► until a couple weeks from now when I can look back

00:04:48 ◼   ► and see the patterns, see the data.

00:04:50 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, I'm not gonna need all eight

00:04:54 ◼   ► of my web servers that I created,

00:04:56 ◼   ► but I haven't killed any of them yet

00:04:58 ◼   ► because I wanna do some experiments and stuff,

00:05:00 ◼   ► but it doesn't matter.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:05:03 ◼   ► Anything else you'd like to share about Overcast?

00:05:06 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't think so.

00:05:07 ◼   ► I mean, I don't wanna bore people with it

00:05:08 ◼   ► 'cause who already heard me talk about it

00:05:10 ◼   ► for about six hours now, but yeah,

00:05:12 ◼   ► I guess if you have any specific questions,

00:05:14 ◼   ► write it and we'll see if we can answer them,

00:05:15 ◼   ► but I don't know.

00:05:18 ◼   ► John, any other questions regarding Overcast?

00:05:20 ◼   ► - No, nothing except for like tech support questions.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I'll just email Marco and add it to his app.

00:05:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:28 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:05:29 ◼   ► All right, so we've had something that is possibly follow up,

00:05:33 ◼   ► possibly not, depending on how you classify it,

00:05:34 ◼   ► and it's been in the show notes for weeks now,

00:05:36 ◼   ► but we've had more important things to talk about.

00:05:39 ◼   ► And it's about the emails that Ed Catmull from Pixar

00:05:44 ◼   ► had written long ago that were recently revealed.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And John, I think you're probably most qualified

00:05:48 ◼   ► to talk about this.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Do you wanna give us kind of the blow by blow?

00:05:51 ◼   ► - I was trying to remember, you can get a link for the show,

00:05:53 ◼   ► it's a past show where we discussed the Apple, Google,

00:05:57 ◼   ► sort of, not really direct wage fixing,

00:06:00 ◼   ► but the little agreement they had

00:06:01 ◼   ► to not poach each other's employees.

00:06:03 ◼   ► - It was more than just them,

00:06:04 ◼   ► it was a lot of big tech companies.

00:06:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, Apple and Google were the headliners,

00:06:08 ◼   ► 'cause they're, you know, and they had emails,

00:06:10 ◼   ► it was part of a court case,

00:06:11 ◼   ► that's why we got to see emails from Steve Jobs,

00:06:13 ◼   ► And I was incredulous about Google sending the emails,

00:06:18 ◼   ► talking amongst themselves, saying,

00:06:19 ◼   ► we want to hire this guy, but Steve Jobs might not like it,

00:06:22 ◼   ► so get his OK first.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And then Steve Jobs says, no, I'd actually rather

00:06:25 ◼   ► you not hire this guy, and then they don't hire him.

00:06:28 ◼   ► We complained about that.

00:06:31 ◼   ► This story is about a--

00:06:33 ◼   ► I think it's the same thing-- a courtroom case where that's

00:06:37 ◼   ► why we're seeing these internal emails,

00:06:38 ◼   ► and that's why this information is public,

00:06:40 ◼   ► this time involving digital special effects companies,

00:06:44 ◼   ► or some of them anyway.

00:06:45 ◼   ► One of them is Pixar.

00:06:46 ◼   ► What was the other one?

00:06:47 ◼   ► Sony was the one who was not playing by the rules

00:06:50 ◼   ► and was poaching people from Pixar,

00:06:51 ◼   ► and Pixar was all cranky about that.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And Ed Catmull was heavily featured

00:06:55 ◼   ► both on the witness stand and in these emails.

00:06:58 ◼   ► And the last time we talked about Ed Catmull

00:06:59 ◼   ► was about his book "Creativity, Inc."

00:07:01 ◼   ► which I really liked and talked about on the "Incomparable"

00:07:04 ◼   ► and episode we did just on that topic.

00:07:06 ◼   ► And these emails show that he was involved

00:07:09 ◼   ► this wage fixing, you know, what I'm not gonna call wage fixing. What's the best way to describe

00:07:14 ◼   ► this? Wage fixing?

00:07:16 ◼   ► Yeah, wage fixing is the result. It wasn't quite the action they took, but that was definitely

00:07:22 ◼   ► the result of the actions they took.

00:07:24 ◼   ► Yeah, anyway, it's the same exact thing that the other tech companies were involved in.

00:07:29 ◼   ► All these companies are like, the heads of these companies are like, "It's best for all

00:07:32 ◼   ► of us involved if we just promise not to poach each other's employees. So don't cold call

00:07:36 ◼   ► our people at their desks if you get their number and say,

00:07:38 ◼   ► hey, come work for our company.

00:07:40 ◼   ► We do a similar thing and we'll pay you our money.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Just don't do that to each other

00:07:43 ◼   ► 'cause it's just a hassle for all of us

00:07:45 ◼   ► to have to worry about these people leaving

00:07:46 ◼   ► and so on and so forth.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And it's the exact same situation with Apple

00:07:49 ◼   ► and Steve Jobs and Google and all these other tech companies

00:07:52 ◼   ► in that the result is that the marketplace

00:07:57 ◼   ► for these people's skills is not as competitive

00:07:59 ◼   ► as it should be because these guys are essentially agreeing

00:08:01 ◼   ► not to pay the people what they're worth

00:08:03 ◼   ► just to make their lives easier as the heads of the companies

00:08:06 ◼   ► And as much as I admire Ed Catmull,

00:08:09 ◼   ► he's doing the exact same thing here.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And seeing this, both in the case of Steve Jobs,

00:08:12 ◼   ► who I also admire, and Ed Catmull and Pixar

00:08:15 ◼   ► and all these companies, you just have to think about

00:08:17 ◼   ► what is it that makes these people think

00:08:19 ◼   ► that this is an appropriate thing to do?

00:08:20 ◼   ► Especially Ed Catmull, who makes a point in his book

00:08:22 ◼   ► of specifically highlighting instances

00:08:26 ◼   ► where he did something for moral reasons,

00:08:29 ◼   ► even though not taking advantage of employees,

00:08:32 ◼   ► not working them to death, not doing all these strategies

00:08:35 ◼   ► that other companies in the tech business do,

00:08:38 ◼   ► not because it's bad for business,

00:08:39 ◼   ► but because it's immoral,

00:08:40 ◼   ► because you'd be exploiting your workers.

00:08:42 ◼   ► This is exactly as immoral.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And I'm thinking like, what happens to you

00:08:47 ◼   ► that you get into a space where you believe you're being,

00:08:51 ◼   ► you're doing your job well, and you're also a good person,

00:08:54 ◼   ► and yet these are the decisions you make?

00:08:56 ◼   ► - Do you think it came down from Jobs

00:08:58 ◼   ► that he maybe didn't want to do it,

00:09:00 ◼   ► but Steve Jobs said you have to, this is the way it is?

00:09:04 ◼   ► Now, it seems like, I mean, it's kind of a Masters of the Universe thing where at a certain

00:09:10 ◼   ► point, and despite all the things I say in Creativity, Inc. and one of the things that

00:09:13 ◼   ► Campbell talks about is it's very difficult to know when this is happening to you.

00:09:17 ◼   ► So the relevant part for Creativity, Inc. is when they're having these meetings and

00:09:20 ◼   ► they wanted to have these meetings where everyone could have a voice and they didn't want there

00:09:24 ◼   ► to be any sort of class structure and they would invite everybody to these meetings and,

00:09:29 ◼   ► you know, we all talked together and they were intentionally trying to make it, "Don't

00:09:32 ◼   ► like you can't speak up because you just got hired a week ago and I'm the president of

00:09:36 ◼   ► the company. Everyone's input is important. I forget the details, but it was something

00:09:39 ◼   ► like, that's all well and good, but when you came in the room, they had arranged seating

00:09:43 ◼   ► so that the important people got the good seats in the place where everybody could hear

00:09:46 ◼   ► them and other people had to be sitting on the radiator in the corner. Of course, they

00:09:50 ◼   ► never felt like they could jump in. They did this for a long time until the executives

00:09:53 ◼   ► realized the reason other people aren't jumping in is because we are the executives and we

00:09:58 ◼   ► get the good seats and it makes, you know, we're marginalizing them unconsciously.

00:10:01 ◼   ► And so they abolish the assigned seating, let people sit wherever they want, executives

00:10:05 ◼   ► don't automatically get the good seats or whatever.

00:10:08 ◼   ► And you know, again, creativity is all about, you're not going to see that that's happened,

00:10:11 ◼   ► you're going to think you're doing everything in an equitable manner and you're not.

00:10:14 ◼   ► And this seems like an even worse case where he's on the witness stand, he doesn't seem,

00:10:19 ◼   ► you know, like he's apologizing for this, he doesn't even seem regretful or whatever,

00:10:23 ◼   ► he's just sort of stating the facts the way they are.

00:10:26 ◼   ► When you're running a company, you're like, "I'm doing a good job, aren't I?

00:10:29 ◼   ► This kind of churn of employees going from place to place, that's bad for everyone's

00:10:33 ◼   ► business.

00:10:34 ◼   ► I'm going to treat my employees well and do right by them."

00:10:37 ◼   ► But it's no good if these employees keep going for the better offer from one place to the

00:10:41 ◼   ► other.

00:10:42 ◼   ► That's just too much churn.

00:10:44 ◼   ► Maybe it is inconvenient for the people who run these companies, but if you're the head

00:10:49 ◼   ► of the company, it's not your job to dictate the lives and job prospects of the people

00:10:53 ◼   ► under you.

00:10:54 ◼   ► It's not indentured servitude.

00:10:56 ◼   ► It's an employment at will.

00:10:57 ◼   ► You can fire them whenever you want.

00:10:58 ◼   ► They should be able to leave whenever they want.

00:10:59 ◼   ► And by illegally colluding with other people in the same industry to say, "Don't give that

00:11:04 ◼   ► guy a better opportunity than anyplace else.

00:11:06 ◼   ► If you agree to that, I'll agree to that for your people.

00:11:08 ◼   ► We'll just keep all our people, and we don't have to pay them what they would get paid

00:11:11 ◼   ► otherwise."

00:11:12 ◼   ► How do you square that circle?

00:11:13 ◼   ► And I think it's more like you just feel like you're doing what's best for the company.

00:11:19 ◼   ► You're doing your job well, and you're trying to make your people happy.

00:11:22 ◼   ► And you're like, "Oh, look, no one is hurt there."

00:11:23 ◼   ► you don't see that you are essentially deciding,

00:11:26 ◼   ► you're controlling people's lives in an improper way.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And I think as you move up in the executive ranks,

00:11:32 ◼   ► and I've seen this in many places to varying degrees,

00:11:34 ◼   ► you lose touch with the rest of the world.

00:11:36 ◼   ► You start to think you are different than other people,

00:11:38 ◼   ► even in a sort of egalitarian company

00:11:40 ◼   ► where they don't like having assigned seating and meetings,

00:11:41 ◼   ► but most companies are not like that.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Most companies are like, I'm big people,

00:11:44 ◼   ► you're little people.

00:11:46 ◼   ► I make a salary that has more digits than your salary.

00:11:49 ◼   ► I drive a nicer car, I have a personal assistant,

00:11:51 ◼   ► I have a secretary, I don't keep my own schedule.

00:11:54 ◼   ► I get to come and go as I please.

00:11:56 ◼   ► You know, like all these things just build up

00:11:58 ◼   ► this sort of image of yourself

00:12:00 ◼   ► that you are different than the other people.

00:12:01 ◼   ► And even if you're a magnanimous and like, you know,

00:12:03 ◼   ► you're like, I'm the benevolent dictator.

00:12:05 ◼   ► You're still the king, but like, but I love my subjects.

00:12:07 ◼   ► I treat them well.

00:12:08 ◼   ► But you know, and it's really difficult

00:12:10 ◼   ► to fight against that.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Even apparently, even if you're Ed Catmull,

00:12:13 ◼   ► no analytical engineering style brain

00:12:16 ◼   ► is apparently enough to completely resist that.

00:12:18 ◼   ► Although I'm sure there are exceptions.

00:12:19 ◼   ► think probably, "That would never happen to John Carmack because he has too much nerdiness and not

00:12:24 ◼   ► enough of the other things to ever get him into that headspace." And now someone should send me

00:12:27 ◼   ► a story about John Carmack doing something similar and I'll cry. But I'm sad to hear about, you know,

00:12:32 ◼   ► my personal heroes making a mistake, and I'm sadder to see that as far as I can tell from,

00:12:37 ◼   ► you know, witness stand testimony, which may not be representative because a lawyer probably advises

00:12:41 ◼   ► them just to just stick to the facts, that, you know, your heroes have flaws too and they make

00:12:48 ◼   ► mistakes and this was a bad move and it makes me sad. You know it reminds me of

00:12:54 ◼   ► the episode of Top Gear where James May drives the... you knew I had to go there...

00:13:00 ◼   ► where James May drives a Countach. Everything reminds you of an episode of

00:13:04 ◼   ► Top Gear. It's true. It's kind of sad. But anyway, James drives a Countach which is

00:13:09 ◼   ► his favorite car when he was growing up or whatever and he realized that

00:13:14 ◼   ► that this, his fantasy car was an utter piece of crap

00:13:17 ◼   ► because you can't get into it, can't get out of it,

00:13:19 ◼   ► can't see out the back.

00:13:20 ◼   ► It's impossible to drive, impossible to park,

00:13:22 ◼   ► and it's awful.

00:13:23 ◼   ► And he said, you know, he kind of wished

00:13:25 ◼   ► he had never driven it in the first place

00:13:27 ◼   ► because it ruined it for him.

00:13:29 ◼   ► And I'm not saying that this is a perfect analogy,

00:13:32 ◼   ► but it reminds me of it nevertheless.

00:13:34 ◼   ► - That's how I felt when I finally played a Sega Saturn.

00:13:37 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:13:39 ◼   ► - You and I are the king of terrible analogies,

00:13:40 ◼   ► kings of terrible analogies.

00:13:41 ◼   ► - I mean, like, it's not as if I thought anyone was perfect.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Like Steve Jobs is the perfect example.

00:13:45 ◼   ► Anyone who knows anything about Steve Jobs, you can admire him all you want, but there

00:13:47 ◼   ► are so many terrible stories about him that no one is ever thinking that Steve Jobs is

00:13:51 ◼   ► perfect and then has those dreams crossed.

00:13:52 ◼   ► It's part and parcel of the reputation, whereas Catmull's reputation was just so much like

00:13:57 ◼   ► everything that's bad about other high-powered executives is not bad about this guy because

00:14:01 ◼   ► he's, you know, he's the, you know, the nerd's nerd.

00:14:04 ◼   ► He's the engineer.

00:14:05 ◼   ► He's able to not fall victim to all those other things.

00:14:08 ◼   ► He's not a jerk in the way those guys are jerks.

00:14:09 ◼   ► He's soft-spoken and thoughtful and look at this great book he wrote and look at all these

00:14:13 ◼   ► talks he gives and all that. This doesn't take away from all that. All that is good,

00:14:16 ◼   ► just as much as this thing is also bad. And it just goes to show that everyone makes mistakes.

00:14:23 ◼   ► And the worst thing about it is, does he think it's a mistake? Or does he think, well,

00:14:27 ◼   ► if we didn't do this, it would have been worse for our employees because of reasons X, Y, and Z.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And you can say, well, the law is against collusion. I don't agree with them. I think

00:14:38 ◼   ► those laws shouldn't be there and therefore I'm breaking an unjust law. It's not a big deal. But

00:14:42 ◼   ► I would hope that in any sort of extended conversation on that topic, you could be brought around to the notion that is so clear to all those of us who are the peon workers, that this is a terrible thing to do to anybody, to collude with other companies, to limit the employment opportunities.

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like, that's not how you keep your employees, by just making sure that they don't have other job prospects. Even if you treat them super well, which by all accounts they do, or at least try to, it doesn't matter. You don't get to do that.

00:15:06 ◼   ► do that. You don't get to say, "Because I'm so important, not only will I keep you here

00:15:10 ◼   ► not just by treating you well, but by sort of making sure that you don't have any better

00:15:13 ◼   ► prospects elsewhere." Despite the fact that if we didn't have this deal, you know, like

00:15:17 ◼   ► Sony who wasn't following these rules was like, "We'll offer you more money. We'll put

00:15:20 ◼   ► you in charge of an entire movie. Come over to our company." And, you know, employees

00:15:24 ◼   ► would leave and they'd be like, "Oh, we don't want that." Well, if you don't want that,

00:15:26 ◼   ► pay those people more. Make them happier. That's called the competitive marketplace.

00:15:31 ◼   ► It's disappointing. It's sad. It makes me angry that this happens to people because,

00:15:36 ◼   ► not that I'm in the digital animation field,

00:15:38 ◼   ► but if the similar thing was going on

00:15:42 ◼   ► and I was looking for a job,

00:15:44 ◼   ► or it's not just looking for a job,

00:15:46 ◼   ► if I had a job and I knew that some other company

00:15:48 ◼   ► wanted me to work for them,

00:15:49 ◼   ► but they had an agreement with my company

00:15:50 ◼   ► that they wouldn't poach me, I would be pissed.

00:15:53 ◼   ► - I would be too, and Marco doesn't know what that's like.

00:15:55 ◼   ► So tell me about something that's awesome.

00:15:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:58 ◼   ► - This week we are sponsored by our friends,

00:16:00 ◼   ► once again, at Hover.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Hover is, in my words, a domain registrar

00:16:05 ◼   ► that is actually good.

00:16:07 ◼   ► There are many domain registrars that are not good.

00:16:09 ◼   ► In fact, I would say pretty much every other one I've tried.

00:16:12 ◼   ► And I, last time I was registering domains

00:16:16 ◼   ► and looking to leave the, let's say the elephant in the room.

00:16:21 ◼   ► I got suggestions from all sorts of people

00:16:25 ◼   ► about whatever, you know, whatever registrars they use,

00:16:27 ◼   ► basically, is what people always recommend.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Like when you ask people for recommendations on anything,

00:16:31 ◼   ► they just tell you what they use.

00:16:33 ◼   ► And I tried a lot of them actually.

00:16:36 ◼   ► And I really didn't like any of them very much

00:16:39 ◼   ► and Hover was definitely my favorite.

00:16:41 ◼   ► It was the one that, it was not only the only one

00:16:44 ◼   ► I really liked but clearly the best in the bunch.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And I don't even use most of their features honestly

00:16:50 ◼   ► 'cause they, so they have all sorts of cool stuff.

00:16:52 ◼   ► So let me go through the basics.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Hover of course lets you register domain names.

00:16:57 ◼   ► You guys know what that is, I'm not going to explain it.

00:17:01 ◼   ► You can register domains, you can get host,

00:17:03 ◼   ► I don't think they offer full-blown web hosting,

00:17:06 ◼   ► but they do offer email hosting,

00:17:08 ◼   ► and all the domain stuff, you need DNS.

00:17:12 ◼   ► All the stuff that you think should come with it

00:17:13 ◼   ► does come with it.

00:17:14 ◼   ► You have privacy, who is privacy, built in for free

00:17:18 ◼   ► for any TLD that supports it.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Some of them have weird restrictions,

00:17:21 ◼   ► don't allow anyone to do that,

00:17:22 ◼   ► but most of them support it.

00:17:24 ◼   ► However they get that to you at no charge.

00:17:26 ◼   ► They have amazing support,

00:17:28 ◼   ► and oh, and they have a beautiful interface,

00:17:29 ◼   ► managing the stuff is all like this nice web interface.

00:17:32 ◼   ► They have amazing support where not only can you go online,

00:17:35 ◼   ► of course they have those options,

00:17:36 ◼   ► but you can even call them on the phone

00:17:38 ◼   ► and a human being picks up the phone.

00:17:40 ◼   ► They have a no hold, no wait, no transfer phone policy.

00:17:43 ◼   ► So you just call this number during business hours

00:17:45 ◼   ► and you talk to a human immediately

00:17:47 ◼   ► who can actually help you.

00:17:48 ◼   ► It's really quite amazing.

00:17:50 ◼   ► They're running a sale right now.

00:17:52 ◼   ► So we have all these new domain extensions,

00:17:55 ◼   ► things like dot plumbing and all these crazy

00:17:58 ◼   ► domain extensions, now they are running it

00:18:02 ◼   ► until September 1st.

00:18:04 ◼   ► These are, let me see, I think it's half off.

00:18:07 ◼   ► I don't know if it's half, I don't know what the sale is,

00:18:09 ◼   ► but they are on sale.

00:18:10 ◼   ► I believe they're pretty steeply discounted.

00:18:14 ◼   ► So all these new domain extensions that have come out

00:18:16 ◼   ► over the last few months that are mostly useless,

00:18:18 ◼   ► but there's a couple of good ones,

00:18:20 ◼   ► all of those are on sale now at hover through September 1st,

00:18:24 ◼   ► or until September 1st.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I believe this is the dot dot greater than,

00:18:28 ◼   ► or dot dot less than operator in Swift for this range here.

00:18:32 ◼   ► So until September 1st, these are on sale.

00:18:35 ◼   ► See, I'm learning Swift.

00:18:36 ◼   ► I told you I would learn it.

00:18:37 ◼   ► - Or something.

00:18:38 ◼   ► - See, I'm learning a new language, guys.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Give me some credit.

00:18:41 ◼   ► I even paid attention to when they changed the syntax

00:18:44 ◼   ► like a week ago.

00:18:45 ◼   ► See?

00:18:47 ◼   ► I read the internet.

00:18:48 ◼   ► So head over to hover.com, see the full list

00:18:50 ◼   ► of all these crazy new domains,

00:18:52 ◼   ► or you can buy one of the old ones.

00:18:53 ◼   ► They're fantastic.

00:18:54 ◼   ► they have also this great value transfer service.

00:18:56 ◼   ► One of our, a friend of the show, Joel Houseman,

00:18:58 ◼   ► was telling me that he had a transfer,

00:19:01 ◼   ► and I don't know if, I don't think I'm allowed

00:19:02 ◼   ► to go into all the details, but he had to do

00:19:05 ◼   ► a pretty large transfer of many domains into Hover,

00:19:09 ◼   ► and he used the value transfer service for it.

00:19:12 ◼   ► And it's a number that I, you know, I would assume

00:19:15 ◼   ► that if Hover had some asterisk somewhere saying,

00:19:17 ◼   ► we won't do this for more than X domains,

00:19:20 ◼   ► I would have assumed this number was above that.

00:19:23 ◼   ► but they did it and it worked great.

00:19:26 ◼   ► And they did this whole transfer of many domain names

00:19:30 ◼   ► from the old registrar where if you choose to,

00:19:32 ◼   ► you basically just give them the login

00:19:34 ◼   ► to your old registrar and they will move it all over for you

00:19:37 ◼   ► and you don't have to, of course you can move it yourself

00:19:39 ◼   ► but moving domain names sucks

00:19:40 ◼   ► 'cause you gotta like make sure you got

00:19:42 ◼   ► the DNS settings correct and you know,

00:19:43 ◼   ► don't drop anything on the floor,

00:19:44 ◼   ► otherwise then your server goes down for eight hours

00:19:46 ◼   ► while new things propagate.

00:19:47 ◼   ► Anyway, go to hover.com.

00:19:49 ◼   ► It's just a registrar that's good basically

00:19:52 ◼   ► And that's quite a feat in this industry.

00:19:55 ◼   ► I use it, lots of people use it, check it out.

00:19:57 ◼   ► Go to, use our promo code, new this week,

00:20:01 ◼   ► promo code, I hate you so much.

00:20:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:20:06 ◼   ► Maybe one of the hosts of this show

00:20:08 ◼   ► might say that frequently.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I think. - Whoever could that be?

00:20:11 ◼   ► - Something like that.

00:20:12 ◼   ► So go to hover.com and use promo code, I hate you so much,

00:20:16 ◼   ► and that will get you 10% off your first purchase.

00:20:19 ◼   ► And tell them that you came from us,

00:20:20 ◼   ► which will make them keep sponsoring our show,

00:20:22 ◼   ► which will make us keep making shows.

00:20:23 ◼   ► So everyone's happy.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Hover

00:20:26 ◼   ► for sponsoring our show once again.

00:20:28 ◼   ► - Excellent.

00:20:29 ◼   ► All right, so today, the day that we're recording this,

00:20:33 ◼   ► which is probably roughly a week before we release it,

00:20:36 ◼   ► is the first day of the public beta for Yosemite.

00:20:40 ◼   ► And I haven't even registered for it.

00:20:45 ◼   ► - You should, it's capped to a million people.

00:20:47 ◼   ► You better hurry.

00:20:48 ◼   ► - I would've assumed they were all just taken

00:20:50 ◼   ► as soon as they started.

00:20:51 ◼   ► - Me too.

00:20:52 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't know if they announced anything

00:20:54 ◼   ► about it, when I heard that it was capped at a million,

00:20:57 ◼   ► I'm like, do a million people really wanna run a beta OS?

00:21:01 ◼   ► A beta app, maybe, but a beta OS, that's all,

00:21:05 ◼   ► you gotta do the whole installation procedure

00:21:06 ◼   ► and it's all different and weird.

00:21:08 ◼   ► I don't think a million people are probably equipped,

00:21:13 ◼   ► well, I guess maybe they are,

00:21:15 ◼   ► let's say equipped in terms of having,

00:21:16 ◼   ► do you think a million Mac users have good enough backups

00:21:19 ◼   ► that if they installed the Yosemite beta

00:21:20 ◼   ► and immediately erased their entire disk,

00:21:22 ◼   ► they would be fine.

00:21:23 ◼   ► No, definitely not, but they will.

00:21:25 ◼   ► How many-- what's the install base of Mac users?

00:21:28 ◼   ► Oh, pfft, I don't know.

00:21:29 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:29 ◼   ► I would guess in the maybe around 100 million range,

00:21:32 ◼   ► something like that.

00:21:33 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:21:33 ◼   ► So it's like 1% of-- do you think 1% of people--

00:21:36 ◼   ► I think 1% of Mac users might have good backups with Time

00:21:39 ◼   ► Machine and everything.

00:21:41 ◼   ► 80 million, says the chat room, install base of Mac users.

00:21:45 ◼   ► Anyway, it seems--

00:21:46 ◼   ► I mean, we know that most of the people who install this beta

00:21:48 ◼   ► are not going to have good backups, and chances are they'll be fine. But like, you know, people

00:21:52 ◼   ► are people are our own worst enemies and people just like to be daring and there's just a

00:21:55 ◼   ► bunch of kids like I mean I know if I was a kid I would be like yep I'm installing this

00:21:58 ◼   ► on the family computer right now.

00:22:00 ◼   ► Oh I would have no question. I mean like I did with Windows 2000 when that when that

00:22:03 ◼   ► beta came out.

00:22:04 ◼   ► Yep.

00:22:05 ◼   ► When I tweeted about this I was like look I don't generally I've talked about this in

00:22:08 ◼   ► the show I don't generally recommend people install betas. A beta means it's not finished,

00:22:12 ◼   ► means there's going to be bugs. Have backups blah blah blah the whole nine yards. It's

00:22:17 ◼   ► best if you could do it on a spare machine, if not that on a spare hard drive, all this

00:22:22 ◼   ► stuff.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And then people are like, "Oh, you're being too conservative," or whatever.

00:22:24 ◼   ► I'm like, "Yeah, I mean, like I said, when I was a kid, I just would have done it, but

00:22:28 ◼   ► that's why I kept screwing up our computers when I was a kid."

00:22:30 ◼   ► It's part of the learning process.

00:22:32 ◼   ► I don't tell people they can't do it.

00:22:33 ◼   ► But if someone installs this, and you know this is going to happen no matter how many

00:22:37 ◼   ► disclaimers you give, and there's some bug that causes data loss, they're going to be

00:22:41 ◼   ► super pissed.

00:22:42 ◼   ► They'd be like, "How dare this Apple..."

00:22:43 ◼   ► It's like, it's a beta.

00:22:45 ◼   ► You did it to yourself.

00:22:47 ◼   ► in the release version, like there's always gonna be bugs.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Like every piece of software comes with that big,

00:22:51 ◼   ► giant all caps thing that says this software

00:22:53 ◼   ► is not useful for any purpose.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Like whatever the hell that text is, do you have that?

00:22:57 ◼   ► - The warrant, it's like a warrantability something

00:22:59 ◼   ► like disclaimer of warrantability or something like that.

00:23:02 ◼   ► - Not suitable for any purpose.

00:23:04 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Like no matter what you think

00:23:05 ◼   ► the software is good for, we're saying, nope,

00:23:07 ◼   ► we do not say that the software is good for anything.

00:23:09 ◼   ► - Even if it directly contradicts what was on the box.

00:23:12 ◼   ► - Right, like if we put on the box,

00:23:15 ◼   ► this software can add numbers together.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Nope, we're not promising anything.

00:23:18 ◼   ► It might just erase your disk and that's it.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Anyway, so people just have to use their own conscience

00:23:25 ◼   ► and like kids and adults will make mistakes,

00:23:28 ◼   ► people will lose data, that's life.

00:23:31 ◼   ► But just because Apple releases something publicly

00:23:33 ◼   ► doesn't mean it is of the same stability.

00:23:35 ◼   ► Beta actually does have a meaning

00:23:37 ◼   ► and it means not done yet.

00:23:39 ◼   ► So, you know, go for it, use your conscience as your guide.

00:23:43 ◼   ► So I mean, that's why I thought million

00:23:45 ◼   ► is maybe not outside the realm of possibility.

00:23:47 ◼   ► 'Cause a million people may want to do this.

00:23:49 ◼   ► There's probably a million kids who want to install this

00:23:51 ◼   ► on their parents' computers and have an Apple ID.

00:23:54 ◼   ► So there's your million right there.

00:23:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, the real question is not so much

00:24:01 ◼   ► who's gonna install it and how are they gonna go,

00:24:04 ◼   ► how is it gonna go for them,

00:24:04 ◼   ► but why is Apple doing this?

00:24:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:24:08 ◼   ► - That's a very good question.

00:24:09 ◼   ► You know, I wonder if it has to do with the IBM thing.

00:24:12 ◼   ► I wonder if this is about enterprise stuff, you know?

00:24:14 ◼   ► How so?

00:24:15 ◼   ► Like giving enterprises-- being able to go to enterprise

00:24:20 ◼   ► customers and say, look, we're becoming more open.

00:24:22 ◼   ► We are now doing public betas to make our stuff

00:24:24 ◼   ► a little more palatable to your IT departments.

00:24:26 ◼   ► I don't think it's aimed at IT departments.

00:24:28 ◼   ► If you remember, they did public betas for 10.93 and 10.94.

00:24:32 ◼   ► Do you remember that?

00:24:33 ◼   ► Probably not, because most people don't.

00:24:35 ◼   ► But they actually did do public betas of OS X, the 10.93

00:24:38 ◼   ► release, and the 10.94.

00:24:39 ◼   ► And who cares to have a public beta of a point release?

00:24:41 ◼   ► Because there's nothing-- it doesn't look any different,

00:24:44 ◼   ► They probably fixed some driver issues or whatever.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I don't even install the point releases.

00:24:49 ◼   ► Even though I'm on the Mac dev program

00:24:50 ◼   ► and I get all the emails about it,

00:24:51 ◼   ► but this was a public beta of 10.93 and 10.94,

00:24:53 ◼   ► and that was sort of the warm up round

00:24:55 ◼   ► for the public beta of these things.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And I think Apple got good results

00:25:01 ◼   ► from the 10.93 and 10.94.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Again, the beta says, why bother going to the public,

00:25:06 ◼   ► especially with 10.9?

00:25:07 ◼   ► Do you really care if regular non-developers download 10.93?

00:25:11 ◼   ► Is that getting you any information

00:25:13 ◼   ► that you're not already getting from developers?

00:25:15 ◼   ► And the answer is yes.

00:25:16 ◼   ► The answer is that a different class of person

00:25:19 ◼   ► downloads this type of thing,

00:25:22 ◼   ► and they use it in a different way than developers use it.

00:25:24 ◼   ► Developers are probably using it to test their apps

00:25:27 ◼   ► or to test whether their pet bug is fixed.

00:25:28 ◼   ► But regular people don't have apps,

00:25:31 ◼   ► and they don't have, maybe they have pet UI bugs,

00:25:34 ◼   ► but they don't have like pet API bugs, right?

00:25:36 ◼   ► So they're gonna install it

00:25:37 ◼   ► and use it like a regular computer

00:25:39 ◼   ► and find things that developers wouldn't find.

00:25:42 ◼   ► And that's, I think, why Apple is going with the larger beta.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And people in chat were pointing out, yes, of course,

00:25:47 ◼   ► there was OS X public beta as in before 10.0,

00:25:51 ◼   ► if anyone remembers way back when.

00:25:53 ◼   ► That, you got to pay for the privilege of installing.

00:25:56 ◼   ► It was like 30 bucks or something.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I think I still have the box sitting

00:25:58 ◼   ► off to my right here somewhere.

00:26:00 ◼   ► And that was a similar type of thing

00:26:03 ◼   ► in that they had had developer preview releases of OS X.

00:26:07 ◼   ► But A, there was probably some schedule pressure to say,

00:26:09 ◼   ► is this a real thing that people can buy?

00:26:10 ◼   ► And B, having a wider test group is a good thing.

00:26:14 ◼   ► So it's gated by something, then it was gated by 30 bucks

00:26:16 ◼   ► and the knowledge that it exists,

00:26:18 ◼   ► and now it's gated by this million people or whatever.

00:26:22 ◼   ► The public beta has a public feedback application

00:26:25 ◼   ► that it's right in the dock.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I just installed the public beta right before the show.

00:26:29 ◼   ► It's a little purple icon right in the dock.

00:26:31 ◼   ► It's a nice looking little app

00:26:32 ◼   ► where you can send your feedback.

00:26:33 ◼   ► And I guarantee you,

00:26:34 ◼   ► they're gonna get very, very different feedback

00:26:37 ◼   ► from people typing in that little application

00:26:39 ◼   ► they would get from developers. And they've made it as easy as possible. As soon as you

00:26:42 ◼   ► launch a public beta, it throws the feedback thing in your face, explains what it is, it

00:26:46 ◼   ► stays in your doc, it says click the big giant button, click here and start typing stuff

00:26:50 ◼   ► if you think you've got a suggestion or a problem or whatever. So I don't think there's

00:26:55 ◼   ► any particular downsides to this except for the poor suckers who are going to download

00:26:58 ◼   ► it and encounter some bug and be sad. But for Apple, it seems like a little upside.

00:27:04 ◼   ► I don't think any reputation that they get from people who download a beta, find a bug

00:27:09 ◼   ► and get sad about it is going to really hurt them,

00:27:11 ◼   ► especially since they're capping it,

00:27:13 ◼   ► and especially since those people will probably

00:27:15 ◼   ► get over it.

00:27:16 ◼   ► I wonder if one of the big driving factors for this

00:27:18 ◼   ► might have been the 10.9.0 Gmail issues.

00:27:23 ◼   ► Because that was like this massive issue where

00:27:26 ◼   ► Mavericks.0 had-- and even, I think, .1 and .2--

00:27:30 ◼   ► the first few Mavericks releases had many issues using

00:27:34 ◼   ► Gmail and mail.app.

00:27:35 ◼   ► And that's the kind of bug that you

00:27:37 ◼   ► you don't tend to find in large numbers among developers

00:27:41 ◼   ► because they're usually not making it their primary machine

00:27:43 ◼   ► and like moving into it and bringing their email over

00:27:47 ◼   ► and everything, developers who are just testing out

00:27:49 ◼   ► their apps are probably just doing a clean install

00:27:51 ◼   ► on some external drive or some different partition

00:27:54 ◼   ► and testing their app and that's it.

00:27:56 ◼   ► And so, and that was a pretty severe and embarrassing bug

00:28:00 ◼   ► for Apple that affected a lot of people,

00:28:02 ◼   ► like a lot of everyday users.

00:28:04 ◼   ► And it definitely should have gotten caught in the betas,

00:28:06 ◼   ► But for whatever reason, it didn't.

00:28:08 ◼   ► I think that's a weird one, because I

00:28:10 ◼   ► did put my real Gmail account into Apple Mail and that thing,

00:28:13 ◼   ► as I do with all OS X things.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And the reason I didn't notice this thing is because Gmail

00:28:18 ◼   ► never has worked right for me in Apple Mail.

00:28:22 ◼   ► Every time I do it, I go to--

00:28:24 ◼   ► first, I just try it in the default config.

00:28:27 ◼   ► It's Gmail, Apple Mail, you just do the right thing.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And it doesn't work right.

00:28:30 ◼   ► And I move things, they go back to where they were.

00:28:32 ◼   ► Things appear in one place, not in the other.

00:28:34 ◼   ► It's not in sync with the web UI, all sorts of things.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Then I go to Google's website and say,

00:28:38 ◼   ► Google, do you have any updated advice

00:28:39 ◼   ► on how I'm supposed to configure Apple Mail

00:28:40 ◼   ► to work with your thing?

00:28:41 ◼   ► And inevitably it's different than the default,

00:28:43 ◼   ► and I configure it the way Google says,

00:28:44 ◼   ► and it still works in crazy ways.

00:28:46 ◼   ► I just think that's not a tenable configuration.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I never would recommend anybody,

00:28:51 ◼   ► if you have a Gmail account, do not use Apple Mail with it.

00:28:54 ◼   ► The only thing that works if you have a Gmail account

00:28:56 ◼   ► and you wanna use Apple Mail is to pop,

00:28:58 ◼   ► which Gmail still supports, pop your mail to Apple Mail,

00:29:01 ◼   ► which is terrible, who wants to use pop, right?

00:29:03 ◼   ► but at least that works in a understandable,

00:29:05 ◼   ► consistent fashion.

00:29:06 ◼   ► So, I feel bad for the people who have this problem,

00:29:11 ◼   ► but I feel worse that these people have been using Gmail

00:29:13 ◼   ► and Apple Mail for years.

00:29:15 ◼   ► Like, maybe they sort of got to a steady state

00:29:17 ◼   ► where they understood the foibles,

00:29:18 ◼   ► and like, you know, the civil law,

00:29:20 ◼   ► just don't hide all mail from the label, from IMAP,

00:29:23 ◼   ► and do all the things you're supposed to do.

00:29:24 ◼   ► Like, whatever recommended guide that they read this year,

00:29:27 ◼   ► last year, the year before,

00:29:28 ◼   ► 'cause there have been many, many guides

00:29:30 ◼   ► of how to get Apple Mail to work with Gmail.

00:29:32 ◼   ► First of all, all those guides are different.

00:29:33 ◼   ► Like go back through the years and find the different guides.

00:29:35 ◼   ► All the guides are different.

00:29:36 ◼   ► They can't all be right.

00:29:37 ◼   ► Apple Mail may have changed behavior,

00:29:39 ◼   ► there may be updated device,

00:29:40 ◼   ► but anyway, they get something that they sort of understand

00:29:42 ◼   ► that works the way they think it does,

00:29:43 ◼   ► and then the behavior changes.

00:29:44 ◼   ► And yeah, there were legitimate bugs in here

00:29:46 ◼   ► that apparently were worse than they were before,

00:29:48 ◼   ► but there still have to be crazy idiosyncratic behaviors.

00:29:51 ◼   ► I mean, there was when I was testing it,

00:29:52 ◼   ► I just can't use it as a mail client.

00:29:54 ◼   ► I can't trust that it's going to do what I want.

00:29:56 ◼   ► And the web interface to Gmail,

00:29:58 ◼   ► when I move something, mark something as read,

00:30:00 ◼   ► archive something, label it or whatever,

00:30:02 ◼   ► It works, it always does what it was supposed to do.

00:30:04 ◼   ► It never undoes itself, there's never any mysteries

00:30:06 ◼   ► or anything like that.

00:30:07 ◼   ► In Apple Mail, I never know if it is completely up to date,

00:30:11 ◼   ► if my actions are gonna take place,

00:30:13 ◼   ► when it's gonna synchronize with the web UI

00:30:15 ◼   ► and all this other stuff.

00:30:16 ◼   ► So I think that is kind of a lost cause.

00:30:19 ◼   ► But you're right that if there are complaints about this,

00:30:23 ◼   ► like if suddenly people's existing Gmail,

00:30:25 ◼   ► Apple Mail setups that they were used to,

00:30:27 ◼   ► like the set of bugs that we're used to,

00:30:28 ◼   ► shifts to a different set of bugs or adds a worse bug,

00:30:31 ◼   ► people will tell them about it and they won't miss it.

00:30:33 ◼   ► So I think that, you know,

00:30:35 ◼   ► if they had done this for Mavericks,

00:30:36 ◼   ► they would have caught that bug as well.

00:30:38 ◼   ► I'm just saying it for the specific case of this bug,

00:30:40 ◼   ► I don't recommend anybody use Apple mail with Gmail.

00:30:43 ◼   ► Not in this release, not in any future release until like,

00:30:46 ◼   ► I think, I think pretty simply ever,

00:30:49 ◼   ► because as much as Gmail wants to support IMAP,

00:30:52 ◼   ► IMAP has a different model than the Gmail model.

00:30:54 ◼   ► And I don't see how you can ever bridge those worlds

00:30:56 ◼   ► without some compromises.

00:30:57 ◼   ► - Well, and also from what I understand, you know,

00:30:59 ◼   ► IMAP is a pretty complicated standard, and also Apple Mail apparently is not the best

00:31:05 ◼   ► IMAP client.

00:31:06 ◼   ► It takes some liberties.

00:31:08 ◼   ► I was complaining about that problem earlier, and some guy on Twitter told me that he wrote

00:31:12 ◼   ► an IMAP server once, and dealing with Apple Mail was hard.

00:31:15 ◼   ► I've heard that before throughout history from a lot of people.

00:31:19 ◼   ► I suspect that the Google attitude—if some kind of behavior in mail that is not quite

00:31:25 ◼   ► doing what the IMAP spec says is correct or ideal, if something like that is causing issues

00:31:30 ◼   ► with Gmail, Google is exactly the kind of company to say, "Well, we're not going to

00:31:34 ◼   ► fix that.

00:31:35 ◼   ► That's Apple's problem."

00:31:36 ◼   ► Well, Google does seem like it wants to work with Apple Mail, because they do publish these

00:31:41 ◼   ► detailed guides with screenshots of how to configure Apple Mail to work with Gmail.

00:31:45 ◼   ► I think there is an effort there on Google's part to make their web service work with Apple's

00:31:51 ◼   ► Mail client, mostly because I think a lot of people at Google use Macs and like to use

00:31:54 ◼   ► Apple Mail. You think they use Apple Mail in like corporate and Google? Yeah,

00:31:58 ◼   ► there's Macs all over Google and I can't imagine every single person is

00:32:02 ◼   ► using the web UI. I mean, you're not, like there's a lot of people who just don't

00:32:05 ◼   ► like to use the web UI for mail. I would love to hear from somebody who works at

00:32:08 ◼   ► Google to confirm or deny this statement. Well, either way, I think that Apple is

00:32:12 ◼   ► actually more apt to be like, "Well, screw those Google guys. Gmail doesn't really

00:32:16 ◼   ► treat IMAP the way it should," which is up for debate, but you know, they do that

00:32:20 ◼   ► label thing, they do all this weirdness and delete is actually archive and screw those

00:32:25 ◼   ► Google guys, we're going to do it our way, which is the way the spec says we should,

00:32:29 ◼   ► maybe. And it's actually Google's problem. I think that's much more likely than Google

00:32:35 ◼   ► being bitter about Apple not handling things right.

00:32:38 ◼   ► I also imagine that Google does not care that much about getting all the details of my map

00:32:44 ◼   ► exactly right. You know, if this is their problem, like, I mean, I said on Twitter a

00:32:49 ◼   ► a while ago that I suspect Gmail IMAP is not long for this world. I really don't think

00:32:56 ◼   ► Google gives a crap about IMAP, and that shows throughout history with how bad it's been.

00:33:01 ◼   ► It hasn't just been client-side bugs. It's actually been server failures frequently and

00:33:05 ◼   ► stuff like that. Google IMAP or Gmail IMAP has always sucked. And so I have to imagine

00:33:11 ◼   ► it's just not a big priority for them because it just doesn't serve any of their interests,

00:33:16 ◼   ► they probably just look down on it like some kind of crappy compatibility layer that they

00:33:20 ◼   ► have to have for certain stubborn people who won't use the web app. That's the attitude

00:33:24 ◼   ► that I get from them.

00:33:25 ◼   ► They still support POP, though.

00:33:27 ◼   ► In the same way. They support POP in the way I support IE6.

00:33:31 ◼   ► But they support POP correctly. Like, POP is not a complicated protocol. They support

00:33:35 ◼   ► it. Why would they still have POP? Who in the world is using POP for their Gmail other

00:33:39 ◼   ► than me? By the way, I use POP for Gmail and Outlook, and the reason I do that is that

00:33:44 ◼   ► my backup of all my Gmail email. I pop everything from Gmail down and it just gets siphoned

00:33:49 ◼   ► into a big bin. It doesn't get filtered off to the internet. But that is 100% reliable

00:33:55 ◼   ► and there's no way I'm ever going to launch my app and it's going to synchronize with

00:33:58 ◼   ► Gmail and delete all my mail. Whereas if I was using IMAP and it gets confused about

00:34:01 ◼   ► the world because it thinks the prefix is different, it's going to be like, "Oh, I don't

00:34:06 ◼   ► think you have any mail, but I've got all these local files. Let me just delete them

00:34:08 ◼   ► all for you." It's never going to do that with POP. POP is like it comes in, it goes

00:34:11 ◼   ► and after you get it, I don't care what the hell

00:34:14 ◼   ► you do with it, I'm never gonna touch it again.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Unless you delete it locally, I'm not gonna,

00:34:18 ◼   ► so it's just so much simpler.

00:34:21 ◼   ► So I hope they never do get rid of POP

00:34:22 ◼   ► because that is essentially how I have my real-time backup

00:34:24 ◼   ► of my Gmail.

00:34:26 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't know how you, IMAP,

00:34:28 ◼   ► I don't even know if IMAP is one of those standards

00:34:30 ◼   ► where there's like 800 different nuances

00:34:32 ◼   ► and there's no like official one,

00:34:33 ◼   ► so you can argue about, well, I'm complying

00:34:35 ◼   ► with the standard, well, I'm complying.

00:34:37 ◼   ► Is there an RFC on IMAP or is it just a million different

00:34:39 ◼   ► weird implementations, kind of like the web used to be in the bad old days.

00:34:42 ◼   ► I don't know for sure. I do know it is a very large, complicated protocol that can do a lot of things.

00:34:48 ◼   ► Like, I know it can do calendar syncing, note syncing, all this crazy stuff that almost no clients actually support.

00:34:53 ◼   ► Apple uses it for notes.

00:34:54 ◼   ► Right, exactly. And so I would imagine it's the kind of thing where, like, every client supports a different 80% of the spec.

00:35:01 ◼   ► It's probably that situation.

00:35:02 ◼   ► Yeah. And then Apple Mail does all this weird stuff about, like, "Where do you want me to put deleted messages?"

00:35:07 ◼   ► messages. And then in IMAP you're like, am I putting that in a place that also exists

00:35:12 ◼   ► in the IMAP world or am I putting it in a local one? And it's like, I'm always fighting

00:35:15 ◼   ► with Apple Mail to get each account to keep track of its own, where do I put my drafts,

00:35:20 ◼   ► where do I put my deleted messages, where do I put my sent mail, in a sane way. Because

00:35:24 ◼   ► it's just so, so confusing. Which is why I recommend everybody who uses email, who's

00:35:30 ◼   ► not technically inclined, should just use the Gmail web interface and funnel all their

00:35:34 ◼   ► email there because the Gmail web interface will never be out of sync. You can send to

00:35:39 ◼   ► and from any kind of account from there. It is like the Rosetta Stone of email. And I

00:35:44 ◼   ► guess your punishment is that you, the Rosetta Stone is the exactly wrong analogy, don't

00:35:48 ◼   ► send me email, but your punishment is that you have to use a web UI. But it will always

00:35:53 ◼   ► be in sync. And I can't even get my own parents to do that. So I am unsuccessful in this campaign

00:35:58 ◼   ► to try to get, my mother insists on using Apple mail and she insists on having multiple

00:36:02 ◼   ► email accounts. One is for spam, she says. Don't even talk to me about it. Anyway, it

00:36:10 ◼   ► becomes more complicated. It's much simpler if you do that. Someone put the RFC in the

00:36:13 ◼   ► chat room for IMAP, they say it's RSC 3501. So maybe there is a spec, but yeah, like Marco

00:36:21 ◼   ► said, there was a long history of, oh, well, this IMAP server is good and this service

00:36:25 ◼   ► doesn't fit in like in Gmail. You're totally right. There is no IMAP server. It is Gmail

00:36:29 ◼   ► and someone put some sort of IMAP-like adapter

00:36:31 ◼   ► on front of it and had to decide, okay, well,

00:36:33 ◼   ► what is the closest analogy in the way the Gmail works

00:36:36 ◼   ► to this operation in IMAP?

00:36:38 ◼   ► And they just have to make choices and it's weird.

00:36:41 ◼   ► - So as riveting as all this email conversation is,

00:36:44 ◼   ► can we go back to the Yosemite beta?

00:36:45 ◼   ► 'Cause I have a couple questions.

00:36:47 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week once again by lynda.com.

00:36:51 ◼   ► That's L-Y-N-D-A dot com, go there, slash ATP.

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00:36:58 ◼   ► to help you learn new skills,

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00:37:07 ◼   ► lynda.com has amazing,

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00:37:18 ◼   ► They work directly with software companies

00:37:19 ◼   ► to get new versions and new betas.

00:37:22 ◼   ► In fact, I guarantee you,

00:37:23 ◼   ► lynda.com is definitely working on a Yosemite video

00:37:25 ◼   ► right now, 'cause now that there's a beta out,

00:37:27 ◼   ► and then as soon as the USM is released,

00:37:30 ◼   ► they will have videos to support it.

00:37:32 ◼   ► Lynda.com, they have people at the top of their fields,

00:37:35 ◼   ► professionals who work in these fields making these videos,

00:37:38 ◼   ► and they put in like animations and diagrams and everything.

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00:37:43 ◼   ► It's not just like some crap thing you find on YouTube

00:37:45 ◼   ► or some guy yelling in front of his computer.

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00:37:53 ◼   ► like learn how to better edit podcasts using Logic.

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00:38:29 ◼   ► and see how much you can fit in a week.

00:38:31 ◼   ► And to help you out with that, they even have a new app

00:38:34 ◼   ► for iOS.

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00:38:37 ◼   ► but I stopped paying attention to that part.

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00:38:40 ◼   ► and that supports cellular playback, Wi-Fi playback,

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00:38:58 ◼   ► There's a transcript on the side.

00:38:59 ◼   ► You can follow along the transcript.

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00:39:10 ◼   ► You can learn PHP or you can learn a real language.

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00:39:21 ◼   ► learn how to use these terrible apps in good ways.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Anyway, thanks a lot to lynda.com/atp.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:39:30 ◼   ► - All right, so I have a couple questions

00:39:31 ◼   ► about this Yosemite beta.

00:39:33 ◼   ► If Apple really wanted to appeal to the enterprise,

00:39:36 ◼   ► I don't recall which one of the two of you said that,

00:39:38 ◼   ► wouldn't you think there are better levers to pull

00:39:42 ◼   ► than just issuing a public beta?

00:39:44 ◼   ► For example, wasn't it you, John,

00:39:46 ◼   ► that had complained and moaned unjustifiably

00:39:48 ◼   ► about the Cisco VPN client or whatever VPN client it was

00:39:52 ◼   ► that didn't work with Mavericks for forever?

00:39:54 ◼   ► Or am I making that up?

00:39:55 ◼   ► - Still doesn't because I mean,

00:39:57 ◼   ► I actually tried it and you sent me to have no idea

00:39:59 ◼   ► if it does, but yet.

00:40:01 ◼   ► The built-in, Apple built in a bunch of, you know,

00:40:04 ◼   ► capability to work with a lot of common VPN clients

00:40:07 ◼   ► using like whatever the open protocols are for secure IP

00:40:10 ◼   ► and so on and so forth.

00:40:11 ◼   ► And for a little while, my company used a VPN

00:40:15 ◼   ► that conform to these standards,

00:40:16 ◼   ► but it's basically the fault of the VPN company saying,

00:40:20 ◼   ► well, we can't have that.

00:40:21 ◼   ► We can't have just built in OS support for our VPN.

00:40:24 ◼   ► We need to innovate.

00:40:25 ◼   ► And so we need to make a new protocol

00:40:27 ◼   ► that this OS doesn't support

00:40:28 ◼   ► and then make everybody install the world's worst software,

00:40:30 ◼   ► which is like, you know, VPN software

00:40:33 ◼   ► from random VPN vendors

00:40:36 ◼   ► who don't really know or care anything about the Mac.

00:40:39 ◼   ► It's gotten better over the years.

00:40:41 ◼   ► I still feel a little wiggy using it

00:40:43 ◼   ► to give an example of the type of thing

00:40:44 ◼   ► that really makes no difference,

00:40:45 ◼   ► but just makes me feel bad about VPN software.

00:40:48 ◼   ► When I launch my VPN software,

00:40:52 ◼   ► it has a little dialogue box with a connect button on it.

00:40:55 ◼   ► That little window, the first window that appears,

00:40:58 ◼   ► appears in just some location that's like,

00:41:00 ◼   ► the top of it is jammed up against the menu bar,

00:41:02 ◼   ► but the right side is like an inch away.

00:41:04 ◼   ► Like it's an arbitrary position.

00:41:06 ◼   ► I don't understand how that position is picked.

00:41:07 ◼   ► If I move that window, it doesn't matter.

00:41:09 ◼   ► Next time I launch the app,

00:41:10 ◼   ► it's gonna be right back to the other spot.

00:41:11 ◼   ► I don't know where it stores that window location.

00:41:13 ◼   ► Every time it launches, I feel like I have to move it.

00:41:15 ◼   ► It's taunting me.

00:41:17 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:41:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:41:19 ◼   ► Yeah, if Apple wanted to appeal to the enterprise,

00:41:21 ◼   ► this doesn't, I don't think this move is a way to do it,

00:41:24 ◼   ► because it is so clearly focused on the public,

00:41:27 ◼   ► as in people who might, like,

00:41:29 ◼   ► if you, I encourage both of you to go through the process,

00:41:31 ◼   ► like sign up and go through the process.

00:41:33 ◼   ► It is so consumer, like aimed at a consumer.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Super friendly, big giant text screenshots.

00:41:39 ◼   ► When you try to sign up for it,

00:41:40 ◼   ► it's like, here's what you should do.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Backup your computer.

00:41:43 ◼   ► You can do it this way, you can do it the other way.

00:41:44 ◼   ► like it's just step by step.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And then when you download it,

00:41:47 ◼   ► it makes you go through another big long list.

00:41:48 ◼   ► It doesn't even show you the download link.

00:41:50 ◼   ► So you can't rush through and click stuff.

00:41:51 ◼   ► You have to read text and then eventually like,

00:41:53 ◼   ► it is so consumer focused.

00:41:54 ◼   ► And the same thing with the installation,

00:41:56 ◼   ► putting the feedback thing right in your face.

00:41:58 ◼   ► This is for regular people.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Now I suppose IT people can do it as well,

00:42:02 ◼   ► but IT people,

00:42:03 ◼   ► they would just sign up for a Mac developer account

00:42:06 ◼   ► and have access to all the dev seeds anyway.

00:42:07 ◼   ► And they would probably be using it more like a developer.

00:42:10 ◼   ► And they have specific apps or specific, you know,

00:42:12 ◼   ► things that they're testing compatibility with,

00:42:14 ◼   ► but they're not going to install it on their personal machine

00:42:17 ◼   ► and use it every day for their work.

00:42:18 ◼   ► They're really just going to install it on a test machine

00:42:19 ◼   ► and try out all their supported software

00:42:21 ◼   ► and report bugs to whoever is appropriate

00:42:23 ◼   ► for the stuff that doesn't work.

00:42:25 ◼   ► - Right, and that's my point is that a public beta

00:42:28 ◼   ► doesn't really help with this moronic VPN company.

00:42:31 ◼   ► What helps with enterprise adoption

00:42:34 ◼   ► is getting these moronic VPN companies like Cisco

00:42:37 ◼   ► that insists on having their own god-awful clients

00:42:40 ◼   ► to actually support new operating systems.

00:42:42 ◼   ► I just feel like if what they're trying to accomplish

00:42:45 ◼   ► is enterprise adoption, I don't feel like a public beta

00:42:48 ◼   ► is the right lever to pull to get there.

00:42:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it wasn't there,

00:42:51 ◼   ► didn't we go through the whole thing with the VPN?

00:42:52 ◼   ► This is Cisco VPN.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I'm not gonna call it the moronic,

00:42:54 ◼   ► because again, their software works,

00:42:56 ◼   ► hasn't crashed, hasn't caused kernel panics,

00:42:58 ◼   ► unlike some other company's Symantec antivirus.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Oh God, someone please kill me.

00:43:02 ◼   ► It's just, the UI-wise looks gross,

00:43:06 ◼   ► but I think last time it was more or less

00:43:08 ◼   ► that they had an update, but there's sort of a release train

00:43:11 ◼   ► and they couldn't get their update to support Mavericks

00:43:13 ◼   ► onto the release train that would be out sooner.

00:43:15 ◼   ► They had to get it out on the one later.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I think that software like that that is essential should--

00:43:23 ◼   ► you've got a long time to test with Yosemite,

00:43:26 ◼   ► however long it's been since June and then to the fall.

00:43:29 ◼   ► It should be available on day one,

00:43:30 ◼   ► unless there's something about the OS, some bug in the OS

00:43:32 ◼   ► that Apple hasn't fixed that you told them about.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And it's just like, well, we can't

00:43:37 ◼   ► go until they fix that bug.

00:43:39 ◼   ► I don't, you know, do I have to wait a couple of weeks?

00:43:41 ◼   ► Is that a big deal?

00:43:42 ◼   ► Not really.

00:43:42 ◼   ► It's better than not being supported for years.

00:43:44 ◼   ► Again, the an example of that from my past is when Oracle didn't have a 64

00:43:48 ◼   ► bit client library for OS 10 for literally years, like, and it was just,

00:43:53 ◼   ► you know, that's just inexcusable neglect.

00:43:56 ◼   ► Cisco was just behind by a week or two or whatever.

00:43:58 ◼   ► And their Mac software is not great.

00:44:00 ◼   ► But there's a range of stuff here.

00:44:02 ◼   ► But a public beta is not even on the radar.

00:44:06 ◼   ► think of these IT people unless they're worried about their individual employees knowing about

00:44:10 ◼   ► the public beta and trying to install it or agitating that way.

00:44:14 ◼   ► Right.

00:44:15 ◼   ► And then that's kind of my point is that the public beta may do a lot of things for Apple,

00:44:18 ◼   ► but I don't think it helps with enterprise adoption.

00:44:20 ◼   ► The other question I had, which I don't know what the answer to this would be, but where

00:44:25 ◼   ► do these, what did you call the thing that was on the dock that lets you submit feedback?

00:44:30 ◼   ► Whatever that feedback app is, what is the output of that internal to Apple?

00:44:34 ◼   ► Like are those radars?

00:44:35 ◼   ► What is that?

00:44:36 ◼   ► But it's—I mean, they probably use everything.

00:44:38 ◼   ► It probably all goes into radar eventually, but I'm sure they're tagged as coming

00:44:41 ◼   ► from public beta in some way.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Yeah, it's just—I know that Marco and a couple other people, a friend of the show,

00:44:48 ◼   ► Daniel Jowkut, and a few other people right around WWDC time were kind of going back and

00:44:52 ◼   ► forth about, "Well, is there any real utility in filing a radar, blah, blah, blah?"

00:44:56 ◼   ► And this is not exactly a, forgive me, apples-to-apples comparison, but nevertheless, I just kind

00:45:02 ◼   ► of wonder if this is going to radar, that sounds just freaking terrible because I got

00:45:10 ◼   ► to imagine they're overwhelmed with radars as it is, I hope.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Well, you'd be able to feel like if it is going to radar, it would only be because that's

00:45:18 ◼   ► the only bucket they have available for this, but it's not as if it would be suddenly cluttering

00:45:21 ◼   ► up people's inboxes because there's got to be a process whereby someone, you know, there's

00:45:25 ◼   ► a first level triage of sorting through the giant avalanche of crap that's coming through

00:45:29 ◼   ► the feedback agent to find anything actionable and then throw it off into an engineering

00:45:34 ◼   ► bucket.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Like, I don't think suddenly after this launches, people who would normally troll

00:45:39 ◼   ► through radars for bugs have a big flood of stuff.

00:45:41 ◼   ► There's got to be layers of—there's got to be processes before—because so much

00:45:45 ◼   ► of it is going to be like, you know, as someone just put in the chat room, "I think the

00:45:48 ◼   ► new Finder icon is ugly."

00:45:49 ◼   ► Well, maybe that one's not really actionable in the Yosemite 10.10.0 timeframe.

00:45:55 ◼   ► Right.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Right. And I mean, I think you're right that the smart money says that it's—if it is radar,

00:46:01 ◼   ► it's just radar with some sort of tag or whatever, an indication that it comes from the public. But

00:46:06 ◼   ► golly, I mean, if we thought that radars were black hole before all of this,

00:46:12 ◼   ► oh, I got to imagine they're going to become an even bigger black hole after.

00:46:15 ◼   ► But like I said, like, they're not doing this just for their health. They really believe that

00:46:20 ◼   ► they're going to get—I mean, they have in 10, 9, 3, and 4 found things that they wouldn't have

00:46:25 ◼   ► have found otherwise with the developer stuff, with developers using it, they really believe

00:46:29 ◼   ► that this way, this is the only way and the best way to get to find the bugs that they're

00:46:34 ◼   ► just not finding when just developers are using it.

00:46:36 ◼   ► So they're not going to let it just all sit in a bucket.

00:46:39 ◼   ► The whole point of this is that they're, I mean, it's, you know, it's a little bit like

00:46:41 ◼   ► sifting for gold, but they're going to sift.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Like they're not just going to let it all sit there.

00:46:45 ◼   ► They're going to sift for that gold and hope to find like the one or two weird things of

00:46:48 ◼   ► someone with an unexpected configuration.

00:46:51 ◼   ► And they're going to look for the big ones, crashers, data loss, kernel panics, all that

00:46:54 ◼   ► good stuff.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Right, right. And then my final question, not because I would actually advocate you giving advice of this capacity,

00:47:01 ◼   ► but I know we're going to get a million emails, I've already seen quite a few tweets.

00:47:05 ◼   ► If you were to recommend a backup strategy that is the minimum viable backup strategy in order to safely install a Yosemite Beta,

00:47:14 ◼   ► what do you think that would be in broad strokes?

00:47:17 ◼   ► A super duper or time machine back up to a different drive, I think is what you have to be protect yourself from is

00:47:25 ◼   ► Some catastrophic stuff we say there's a problem in the install process like it doesn't even install successfully now your disk is unbootable

00:47:32 ◼   ► You shouldn't be sad because you just clone that entire disk to super duper and you just take out the bad disk

00:47:37 ◼   ► Boot off the super duper disk immediately clone from the super duper disk back on top of the bad disk and you're okay

00:47:42 ◼   ► But here's the other thing that I could not fit in a tweet that people should understand

00:47:47 ◼   ► There is still a risk, even if you install beta and it seems to work fine for a while,

00:47:52 ◼   ► if you use it as your main machine, that if there's some sort of problem like, "Oh, I

00:47:56 ◼   ► used it for like a week and everything was fine, but then there was some kind of bug

00:47:59 ◼   ► and the thing became unbootable and I don't know what to do."

00:48:03 ◼   ► Even if you have a super duper backup from a week ago, there's a week's worth of work,

00:48:07 ◼   ► and maybe it's just a day's worth of work or an hour's worth of work.

00:48:09 ◼   ► There's always a chance of day loss if you did something somewhere and that stuff is

00:48:13 ◼   ► not backed up.

00:48:14 ◼   ► People can be just as pissed. They're like, "But I wrote, you know, 2000 words of an article yesterday.

00:48:20 ◼   ► You tell me those 2000 words are gone?" It's like, "Oh, well, you know, you just did a backup

00:48:23 ◼   ► yesterday. You should be fine." No, there was a whole day's worth of work. Like, people are pissed

00:48:27 ◼   ► sort of not in proportion to the amount of data they lose. It's just an emotional thing. Like,

00:48:32 ◼   ► "Oh, that was super important." Or they'll restore from backup and go, "Oh, I didn't realize that I

00:48:38 ◼   ► was actually writing that draft locally in my email client, and that draft is gone." You know? Or,

00:48:42 ◼   ► Like you you can lose data even when you have a backup because if you keep using the computer you're producing new data

00:48:49 ◼   ► And if you're not backing up everything you produce every second and nobody could possibly be backing up stuff every second

00:48:53 ◼   ► You yeah, I mean this is a learning lesson

00:48:55 ◼   ► I guess maybe we just let people go ahead learn

00:48:57 ◼   ► Are about like if there's no such thing is I am instantly backed up all the time and I never lose any data not yet

00:49:03 ◼   ► Anyway, like I mean maybe with some crazy redundant real-time synchronous raid system or something. You could have

00:49:11 ◼   ► some chance of

00:49:13 ◼   ► You know zero data loss even that you could you still could end up in a situation where it's consistent on disk

00:49:19 ◼   ► But it's still meaningless because something was in the middle of doing something on your kernel packed anyway

00:49:23 ◼   ► Yeah, so super duper a time machine and you're still not entirely protected you're never entirely protected even you're using a non beta OS

00:49:32 ◼   ► When you're working if something bad happens and the whole disk goes corrupt or you have a hardware failure. You're gonna lose everything

00:49:40 ◼   ► That happened between your last backup and now and nobody backs up every three seconds. So that's you know, that's life

00:49:46 ◼   ► fair enough

00:49:49 ◼   ► What else is good these days Marco?

00:49:51 ◼   ► Better than not backing up. It is igloo. I mean, I wish backlit is sponsoring this week this

00:49:56 ◼   ► But instead it's igloo and they're pretty cool too. So igloo is the internet you will actually like and

00:50:03 ◼   ► I mean, so first of all, they have something important here. Let me just tell you quickly because they didn't include this

00:50:09 ◼   ► Intranets are terrible usually.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Theirs is good.

00:50:12 ◼   ► They have all these great features.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It's built by people who care.

00:50:15 ◼   ► And that's saying a lot for an intranet company.

00:50:19 ◼   ► That's unusual in that market.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Aloo's fantastic.

00:50:22 ◼   ► And it's free for up to 10 people, so you check it out.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Now, they have a super exciting release coming

00:50:28 ◼   ► this summer called Unicorn.

00:50:30 ◼   ► We've talked about Unicorn on the show before.

00:50:32 ◼   ► It has a ton of new features.

00:50:34 ◼   ► But the best is integrated task management

00:50:36 ◼   ► that will change how you stand track with your work.

00:50:39 ◼   ► Igloo tasks can be assigned in different ways

00:50:40 ◼   ► depending on the work you're doing.

00:50:42 ◼   ► So one of the coolest ways to use tasks

00:50:44 ◼   ► is you can create them directly on your content.

00:50:46 ◼   ► So why do you need this?

00:50:48 ◼   ► Let's say when requesting updates on a graphic

00:50:50 ◼   ► or a text correction on a Word document,

00:50:52 ◼   ► you can create these tasks right on your content

00:50:55 ◼   ► so you and your team stay up to date

00:50:56 ◼   ► on what has to be done next

00:50:58 ◼   ► and it's all right there in one place.

00:51:00 ◼   ► When you're viewing content,

00:51:01 ◼   ► even if it's a blog, event, or forum topic inside your Igloo,

00:51:04 ◼   ► 'cause Igloo supports all those cool things,

00:51:06 ◼   ► these tasks are right there informing everyone

00:51:08 ◼   ► if all tasks have been completed

00:51:10 ◼   ► or if someone needs additional work.

00:51:12 ◼   ► You can assign these tasks to yourself or a teammate,

00:51:14 ◼   ► you can comment on these tasks,

00:51:15 ◼   ► you can keep all your changes all in one place.

00:51:18 ◼   ► And when you're the one who's been assigned a task,

00:51:20 ◼   ► first of all, I'm sorry,

00:51:21 ◼   ► but all your tasks show up in a unified dashboard

00:51:23 ◼   ► within your igloo.

00:51:25 ◼   ► As far as I know, they don't have to stay

00:51:26 ◼   ► out in the parking lot outside.

00:51:28 ◼   ► They are all in a unified dashboard

00:51:29 ◼   ► with due dates clearly marked,

00:51:31 ◼   ► making it super simple to manage your day-to-day work

00:51:33 ◼   ► and clarify your priorities.

00:51:35 ◼   ► Unicorn is a free update for all igloo customers

00:51:38 ◼   ► coming this summer.

00:51:40 ◼   ► Once again, Igloo is awesome, they're an internet,

00:51:42 ◼   ► it's free for up to 10 people, check it out.

00:51:44 ◼   ► Learn more at igloosoftware.com/atp.

00:51:49 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Igloo Software once again

00:51:51 ◼   ► for sponsoring our show, they're really good.

00:51:53 ◼   ► - All right, anything else on the Yosemite beta?

00:51:56 ◼   ► John, you said you installed it, so.

00:51:58 ◼   ► - Well John has to install it.

00:52:00 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I don't have to 'cause I'm on the dev builds

00:52:02 ◼   ► and that's one of the first tidbits.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Like we discussed this way back

00:52:05 ◼   ► when we were first discussing the beta,

00:52:06 ◼   ► I think it was after WAC and I said,

00:52:07 ◼   ► they're going to do betas, but I'm sure that the developer releases are, you know, there's going to

00:52:12 ◼   ► be a couple of betas like milestone-wise, but in between there's going to be dev releases.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And that is the case. DevSeeds will, if you run the Mac developer program, they will continue to

00:52:22 ◼   ► release seeds of Yosemite every two weeks or so. They're going to have bigger gaps for the beta,

00:52:27 ◼   ► mostly because you don't expect regular users to be subject to that kind of churn. Like,

00:52:31 ◼   ► regular users don't want to, even just doing through software update, don't want to update

00:52:35 ◼   ► at their OS with that frequency.

00:52:37 ◼   ► So the public betas are gonna be sort of milestone releases

00:52:40 ◼   ► and in between there there's gonna be smaller releases

00:52:42 ◼   ► of developer previews.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Which means essentially the public betas

00:52:46 ◼   ► may not necessarily correspond

00:52:47 ◼   ► to any particular dev release.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And I believe that is actually the case

00:52:50 ◼   ► with the public beta.

00:52:52 ◼   ► We're on developer preview release four.

00:52:53 ◼   ► I can tell you that developer preview release four

00:52:55 ◼   ► is different than the public beta.

00:52:57 ◼   ► And developer preview release three, I think,

00:52:59 ◼   ► was also a different build.

00:53:00 ◼   ► So anyway, those are two different trains

00:53:02 ◼   ► It's all pulling from the same source repository, but there is a difference in the program.

00:53:08 ◼   ► So developers, you're not really missing anything by not being in the public beta other than

00:53:11 ◼   ► seeing that experience.

00:53:13 ◼   ► The reason I'm doing it is not for development reasons, developer for journalistic purposes,

00:53:18 ◼   ► just to see what is this experience like and what is Apple doing there.

00:53:22 ◼   ► They have a big fact on the thing and interestingly in the fact, I always wondered how they were

00:53:26 ◼   ► going to handle this.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Like, how do you like, come on and do a beta thing.

00:53:30 ◼   ► If you want, you know, if you decide you don't want it,

00:53:33 ◼   ► what are they gonna tell them?

00:53:34 ◼   ► Like, oh, I tried this beta, I don't like it,

00:53:36 ◼   ► I wanna go back to my old thing.

00:53:37 ◼   ► That's in the fact that it says,

00:53:38 ◼   ► if you need help returning your Mac

00:53:40 ◼   ► to your shipping version of OS X

00:53:42 ◼   ► and restoring from your Time Machine backup,

00:53:43 ◼   ► which they told you to do earlier,

00:53:45 ◼   ► you can call AppleCare to speak to a support specialist

00:53:48 ◼   ► or reference online documentation.

00:53:49 ◼   ► So they're basically saying, look,

00:53:51 ◼   ► if you join this program and you decide you wanna go back

00:53:54 ◼   ► and you can't figure out how, call AppleCare.

00:53:56 ◼   ► And I suppose that's subject to the same AppleCare rules

00:53:59 ◼   ► everything else. Like you get whatever 90 days free and after that they charge you. But I suppose

00:54:03 ◼   ► you could also show up at an Apple store and say, "Hey, I joined this Yosemite beta and I don't want

00:54:07 ◼   ► it anymore. Put me back to Mavericks." And then a lot of people are going to have that conversation.

00:54:11 ◼   ► And then the person on the phone or at the Genius bar is going to say, "Okay, so where's your backup?"

00:54:16 ◼   ► And you're going to go, "My what?" And that's going to be an awkward conversation. I guess that's what

00:54:20 ◼   ► these guys get paid for. But it's interesting that Apple is essentially saying, "Yep, we're here for

00:54:27 ◼   ► for you, if you want to do this really complicated thing

00:54:30 ◼   ► and you want to bail out of it, they also go on to say,

00:54:33 ◼   ► but really, if you just want to wait a little bit longer,

00:54:36 ◼   ► eventually Yosemite will be a shipping version of OS X

00:54:39 ◼   ► and you'll be fine.

00:54:39 ◼   ► And that's the final interesting point I wanted to make

00:54:41 ◼   ► is that Apple is explicitly promising

00:54:44 ◼   ► that if you get this beta and you just continue

00:54:46 ◼   ► to run software update, you will update right through

00:54:48 ◼   ► to the retail version, which I tweeted about that

00:54:51 ◼   ► and people were like, oh, you've always been able

00:54:53 ◼   ► to do that, like more or less, most of the time

00:54:56 ◼   ► you've been able to, if not,

00:54:58 ◼   ► software update to the release version,

00:54:59 ◼   ► certainly install on top to get the release version.

00:55:02 ◼   ► But this is the first time that I can recall

00:55:05 ◼   ► that Apple is explicitly saying,

00:55:07 ◼   ► this train of pre-release software

00:55:12 ◼   ► will lead right into the release software.

00:55:15 ◼   ► It's completely officially supported.

00:55:16 ◼   ► It's not like you can get away with it

00:55:19 ◼   ► and it will probably work,

00:55:19 ◼   ► but you might have some weird like a plist files leftover.

00:55:22 ◼   ► This is a configuration that Apple is supporting

00:55:24 ◼   ► and that they're going to presumably test

00:55:26 ◼   ► and make sure it really works so there's no weird leftover

00:55:29 ◼   ► turds from the pre-release builds

00:55:31 ◼   ► that screw with the release one.

00:55:32 ◼   ► So that is--

00:55:33 ◼   ► Is that a technical term?

00:55:35 ◼   ► That's what people are afraid of, that some prefs file will

00:55:38 ◼   ► have changed format, but it won't rewrite itself

00:55:40 ◼   ► when you install the retail version of the OS.

00:55:42 ◼   ► So you'll be left with the pref file from the last build,

00:55:45 ◼   ► the last dev build.

00:55:46 ◼   ► And every time the app launches, it'll crash.

00:55:48 ◼   ► Because some crappy thing like that that is eminently solvable

00:55:52 ◼   ► but just never came up in Apple's testing

00:55:53 ◼   ► because they didn't really support you

00:55:56 ◼   ► taking the last dev build and then trying to install

00:55:59 ◼   ► the retail on top of it without like first erasing it

00:56:01 ◼   ► or whatever, but here they're giving it their blessing

00:56:04 ◼   ► and saying you'll be fine, which I mean,

00:56:06 ◼   ► they have to do obviously, you're not gonna tell

00:56:08 ◼   ► these people, okay, now erase your disk

00:56:10 ◼   ► or restore from your backup and install the retail.

00:56:12 ◼   ► They just want people to get the beta

00:56:14 ◼   ► and just keep doing software update

00:56:16 ◼   ► and that will carry them right through to the release builds.

00:56:19 ◼   ► - Well, that's convenient.

00:56:20 ◼   ► - I still don't really get the motivation

00:56:22 ◼   ► for installing a beta OS.

00:56:24 ◼   ► Like on my phone when I was a developer for that

00:56:27 ◼   ► and that made sense.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Like I still, now I am a developer for the phone again

00:56:30 ◼   ► and I still haven't installed the iOS 8 beta.

00:56:32 ◼   ► I keep planning on installing the 8 beta 4

00:56:35 ◼   ► but I keep having other more important things to do.

00:56:37 ◼   ► But like on the Mac, I would never install

00:56:40 ◼   ► a beta OS on my Mac.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Like that's where I get my work done.

00:56:43 ◼   ► - Well you would if you were trying

00:56:45 ◼   ► to add Handoff to Overcast.

00:56:47 ◼   ► - No, I wouldn't even install it on my main Mac.

00:56:48 ◼   ► I would install it on like a laptop.

00:56:50 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I know.

00:56:51 ◼   ► Developers have lots of spare Macs or whatever.

00:56:53 ◼   ► Yeah, like installing your main most people only have one Mac that is their main male

00:56:57 ◼   ► I guess the whole thing with like that's why I don't think most people are gonna have backups like Oh installing

00:57:01 ◼   ► You're spreading me my spare Mac. How many max you think I have in this house?

00:57:03 ◼   ► They're like trees right of course developers developers have a million of them and hoarders like me have a million

00:57:09 ◼   ► You just never throw them out or sell them, but regular people don't act that way so I mean

00:57:14 ◼   ► I don't think this is gonna be lots and lots of spare max

00:57:17 ◼   ► Or if you know if they did have spare max the spare ones are gonna be old maybe like I'm not gonna install on the

00:57:21 ◼   ► old one. Right, or the spare Macs exist for some purpose. It's the kid's computer or

00:57:25 ◼   ► something. Or it's, you know, it's the Mac Mini on the TV or something like that, or

00:57:28 ◼   ► there's a server in the house. There's something, usually there's some kind of

00:57:31 ◼   ► purpose for people to have multiple computers. So, fun fact, when I was a kid, I don't remember

00:57:37 ◼   ► how old I was, but like 12 or something like that, Dad brought home a box full of three

00:57:44 ◼   ► and a half inch diskettes from work. I want to say it was like 30 of them or something

00:57:48 ◼   ► like that, and sure enough, that was the OS/2 warp beta,

00:57:52 ◼   ► which I installed from three and a half inch disks,

00:57:54 ◼   ► which took like a day and a half.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And that crap was awesome.

00:57:59 ◼   ► Oh man, warp was great.

00:58:01 ◼   ► I miss those days.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Me and Guy English, I think we're the only ones

00:58:03 ◼   ► that miss it, but I miss it.

00:58:05 ◼   ► - You're the only ones who ever used it.

00:58:07 ◼   ► - Also true.

00:58:08 ◼   ► That and a bunch of ATMs, that was it.

00:58:10 ◼   ► All right, is that it, we good?

00:58:12 ◼   ► - I think so.

00:58:14 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week,

00:58:16 ◼   ► Hover, Lynda.com, and igloo, and we will see you all next week.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

00:58:28 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

00:58:33 ◼   ► John didn't do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn't let him

00:58:39 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, it was accidental

00:58:44 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

00:58:49 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

00:58:54 ◼   ► @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

00:58:59 ◼   ► So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

00:59:03 ◼   ► E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E

00:59:06 ◼   ► S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

00:59:11 ◼   ► It's accidental

00:59:14 ◼   ► They didn't mean to

00:59:16 ◼   ► ♪ Two accidental accidental ♪

00:59:19 ◼   ► ♪ Tech podcast so long ♪

00:59:22 ◼   ► - Did you guys install the new iTunes yet?

00:59:26 ◼   ► - Nope. - No.

00:59:26 ◼   ► Why would I do that?

00:59:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, seriously.

00:59:28 ◼   ► - It's got a nice icon.

00:59:29 ◼   ► It's nice and red.

00:59:31 ◼   ► - I have been beta testing some new headphones, but--

00:59:33 ◼   ► - Of course you have.

00:59:35 ◼   ► - You're the rich person headphone rental service.

00:59:38 ◼   ► I wouldn't think they would have a thing like that,

00:59:41 ◼   ► but the whole thing about being a rich person

00:59:42 ◼   ► is you don't rent the headphones, you just buy them.

00:59:45 ◼   ► [LAUGHTER]

00:59:46 ◼   ► Well, these headphones require a special amp.

00:59:49 ◼   ► And to buy them both--

00:59:50 ◼   ► I'm sure they do.

00:59:51 ◼   ► Right.

00:59:51 ◼   ► No, but like they--

00:59:53 ◼   ► regular amps don't even--

00:59:55 ◼   ► these headphones are so ridiculous

00:59:56 ◼   ► that a regular amp doesn't have enough power to power them

00:59:59 ◼   ► unless you connect it to speaker terminals of a speaker amp.

01:00:03 ◼   ► My goodness.

01:00:04 ◼   ► Is that the one--

01:00:05 ◼   ► I read your big headphone post.

01:00:06 ◼   ► And you said you mentioned one of the headphones that didn't

01:00:09 ◼   ► have the power.

01:00:09 ◼   ► Is this a new different pair of crazy headphones?

01:00:12 ◼   ► This is not mentioned in that post.

01:00:14 ◼   ► This is the pair I mentioned in the footer saying,

01:00:16 ◼   ► I would love to try these sometime,

01:00:17 ◼   ► but I don't know where I could try them

01:00:19 ◼   ► without just buying them.

01:00:20 ◼   ► - And then people emailed you and say,

01:00:21 ◼   ► this service rents them out.

01:00:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:00:23 ◼   ► But to buy the headphones and the amp would be like $3,000.

01:00:28 ◼   ► And you pretty much can't try them in person anywhere.

01:00:32 ◼   ► You can't walk into a Best Buy.

01:00:33 ◼   ► They don't have things that are this specialized.

01:00:35 ◼   ► - Do they come with these single directional

01:00:37 ◼   ► oxygen-free crystal-enhanced cables or no?

01:00:41 ◼   ► - No, most of that crap is what the aftermarket

01:00:44 ◼   ► people and the hobbyists do, the ones that come stock,

01:00:47 ◼   ► even on the fanciest cables,

01:00:48 ◼   ► or even on the fanciest headphones,

01:00:49 ◼   ► the stock cables are pretty low on the BS meter.

01:00:53 ◼   ► They're balanced cables, which means they're four pins

01:00:57 ◼   ► instead of three, and they use giant XLR plugs.

01:00:59 ◼   ► And that's to provide some kind of benefit.

01:01:02 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure on the rationale there.

01:01:06 ◼   ► - So are these headphones any good?

01:01:07 ◼   ► I mean, come on.

01:01:08 ◼   ► - They're amazing, yeah.

01:01:09 ◼   ► It's, yeah, they're shockingly good.

01:01:11 ◼   ► That's the gist of it.

01:01:13 ◼   ► but I'm not crazy about the amp, it's giant.

01:01:18 ◼   ► And the volume knob, it's one of these things,

01:01:21 ◼   ► this is really ridiculous,

01:01:22 ◼   ► I feel bad for even talking about this.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Rather than a typical pot on a volume knob,

01:01:28 ◼   ► because just like, I believe there usually

01:01:30 ◼   ► goes like a variable resistor, right?

01:01:33 ◼   ► - Potentiometer, that's what pot is short for, right?

01:01:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:01:35 ◼   ► Well, headphone nerds don't like regular volume knob pots

01:01:40 ◼   ► because apparently they're imprecise

01:01:43 ◼   ► and they maybe affect the sound quality somehow.

01:01:46 ◼   ► And that in some other ways, there's

01:01:48 ◼   ► issues with channel imbalance, where the left channel might

01:01:51 ◼   ► get slightly lower than the right at certain positions

01:01:53 ◼   ► on the knob just because of the way they're made

01:01:55 ◼   ► or their quality levels, whatever.

01:01:57 ◼   ► And so the volume knob on this fancy amp

01:02:00 ◼   ► is just like a notched selector.

01:02:02 ◼   ► And it turns this giant rod that goes

01:02:04 ◼   ► through the entire length of the amp,

01:02:06 ◼   ► and it goes to this tremendous drum in the back

01:02:09 ◼   ► where each notch has a pair of resistors,

01:02:13 ◼   ► like regular resistors.

01:02:14 ◼   ► And it's just like turning,

01:02:17 ◼   ► it's like a giant knife switch almost

01:02:19 ◼   ► that turns between these pairs of resistors

01:02:21 ◼   ► to just alternate.

01:02:22 ◼   ► So there is no setting between notch one and two.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And it's just this giant drum

01:02:28 ◼   ► of all these different resistors

01:02:29 ◼   ► for all the different volume settings.

01:02:31 ◼   ► - That is crazy.

01:02:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's pretty funny.

01:02:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's funny how crazy this is.

01:02:36 ◼   ► If anybody in the chat wants to look up

01:02:37 ◼   ► at what I'm talking about,

01:02:38 ◼   ► I'm talking about the HIFIMAN EF6 amp

01:02:41 ◼   ► and the HE6 orthodynamic headphones.

01:02:44 ◼   ► - Here's a question for your crazy audiophile people,

01:02:48 ◼   ► which is just Marco here,

01:02:49 ◼   ► but he can relay it if he doesn't know the answer.

01:02:51 ◼   ► What is the general accepted wisdom

01:02:53 ◼   ► about headphones versus speakers?

01:02:56 ◼   ► Like if you want like the best possible,

01:03:00 ◼   ► whatever the hell their definition of best is,

01:03:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna assume they're gonna say most accurate

01:03:03 ◼   ► or whatever, listening experience,

01:03:05 ◼   ► is it better to have, if you have unlimited funds

01:03:07 ◼   ► to build the building you're gonna have

01:03:08 ◼   ► this listening experience in, right?

01:03:10 ◼   ► Just unlimited phones.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Is headphones the way to go or speakers?

01:03:14 ◼   ► - I'm not familiar enough with the speaker world to say.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I can at least say that in the headphone world,

01:03:23 ◼   ► I mean, one of the big differences is

01:03:26 ◼   ► really, really nice headphones.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Most of what people would consider

01:03:30 ◼   ► the best headphones in the world

01:03:32 ◼   ► cost about 1500 bucks or less.

01:03:36 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure nobody in the speaker world would say

01:03:39 ◼   ► that any of the best speakers in the world

01:03:41 ◼   ► are below like 10 grand.

01:03:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

01:03:43 ◼   ► - I mean, it's a pretty, it's a giant price difference.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And so that's one of the big reasons

01:03:49 ◼   ► why people like high-end headphones so much

01:03:51 ◼   ► because they're so much more accessible.

01:03:53 ◼   ► You know, high-end speakers are basically

01:03:55 ◼   ► as expensive as cars.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Like they're insane.

01:03:59 ◼   ► - Or more, yeah. - Or more, yeah.

01:04:01 ◼   ► - I'm just asking 'cause it was like some, you know,

01:04:04 ◼   ► because like there's arguments two ways.

01:04:05 ◼   ► people are pointing out in the chat room, the speaker argument is that no headphone

01:04:09 ◼   ► is ever going to give you sort of that whole body bass feeling that you get

01:04:13 ◼   ► sitting in front of a speaker that has, you know, a powerful speaker that had a

01:04:16 ◼   ► bass, right? Like it's not going to be a full body experience, it's just happening

01:04:19 ◼   ► on your ears. But on the other hand you would think all the things that can

01:04:22 ◼   ► screw up the sound in a speaker as it moves around the room, and again I'm

01:04:25 ◼   ► saying you can build the room you want, like you have unlimited funds, right?

01:04:28 ◼   ► Build it however you want, but all all the things that could go wrong there,

01:04:31 ◼   ► it's like we can cut out all the middlemen and just get like, I can put a

01:04:34 ◼   ► a thing right next to your ear,

01:04:36 ◼   ► and I don't have to drive it with a lot of power

01:04:37 ◼   ► 'cause it's right next to your ear,

01:04:39 ◼   ► so I can get super accurate or whatever.

01:04:41 ◼   ► So that's the argument for headphones,

01:04:43 ◼   ► is we cut out all that crap,

01:04:45 ◼   ► all the potential problems with sound

01:04:47 ◼   ► in a non-ideal situation.

01:04:50 ◼   ► You're not gonna build a building for your speakers.

01:04:51 ◼   ► You have to put them in the room that you have.

01:04:53 ◼   ► And in that case, maybe you're better off with headphones

01:04:55 ◼   ► 'cause we don't have to worry about all the sound

01:04:57 ◼   ► bouncing around all over the place.

01:04:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree.

01:04:59 ◼   ► And my dad is a pretty big stereo nut,

01:05:02 ◼   ► and he has a really nice setup,

01:05:05 ◼   ► which is not limited to vinyl

01:05:06 ◼   ► before I get a million emails.

01:05:08 ◼   ► He has a fancy CD player as well.

01:05:10 ◼   ► But anyway, he has a really nice setup

01:05:12 ◼   ► with really nice speakers,

01:05:13 ◼   ► and I don't even wanna think about how much it all costs,

01:05:15 ◼   ► but he swears, and as I've sworn to Marco many times,

01:05:20 ◼   ► that the best speakers he's ever heard

01:05:23 ◼   ► are some custom molded in-ear monitors

01:05:26 ◼   ► that he got from Ultimate Ears that are,

01:05:29 ◼   ► Literally he had the molded for the shape of his ear canal and I know Marco that you swear that you can't use them and

01:05:34 ◼   ► They're uncomfortable and blah blah blah

01:05:35 ◼   ► But I would imagine based on the not custom molded ultimate ears that I have which are far and away

01:05:42 ◼   ► There's what best speakers I've ever heard. I can only I can only

01:05:46 ◼   ► Imagine how amazing these things are so to me

01:05:50 ◼   ► I would guess that an in-ear monitor or something like it would probably be the best that you can get

01:05:55 ◼   ► Most people who have who are experts in the field and have tried in your monitors and really fancy headphones

01:06:02 ◼   ► Do not share that opinion that really monitors are very well respected. They they

01:06:06 ◼   ► People love them. No question. However

01:06:09 ◼   ► People love full-size headphones better and like the

01:06:13 ◼   ► Experts who review like all at the top everything like when this it's a pretty small field really but in your monitor

01:06:20 ◼   ► I mean and so I I can't say I as Casey said I can't really wear them

01:06:23 ◼   ► and they hurt my ears too much,

01:06:25 ◼   ► even the ones that everyone says are more comfortable.

01:06:26 ◼   ► And I've never tried custom, yes, please don't email me.

01:06:29 ◼   ► But I'm very happy with full size headphones instead.

01:06:32 ◼   ► And I think it probably has just a lot to do,

01:06:38 ◼   ► John, I think you're right.

01:06:39 ◼   ► Headphones can do a lot that speakers can't do easily.

01:06:43 ◼   ► It is all about the room.

01:06:45 ◼   ► For me to build an audio listening room with speakers,

01:06:50 ◼   ► that would be the same quality I'm getting

01:06:52 ◼   ► from my headphones that cost a thousand bucks or less often.

01:06:56 ◼   ► And granted, I know that sounds ridiculous

01:07:00 ◼   ► to pay even that much for headphones.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I'm very aware of that.

01:07:03 ◼   ► And I don't expect anybody to do that at all.

01:07:06 ◼   ► But if you're really into high quality music,

01:07:11 ◼   ► it's really a pretty amazing value compared to speakers.

01:07:15 ◼   ► And it's just in practice, like I'm usually listening

01:07:18 ◼   ► while I'm at my computer working.

01:07:20 ◼   ► It's harder to do that with speakers.

01:07:22 ◼   ► It's harder to arrange the room.

01:07:23 ◼   ► You need much larger things.

01:07:25 ◼   ► And then the rest of the house

01:07:27 ◼   ► hears whatever you're listening to

01:07:28 ◼   ► and you hear the rest of the house.

01:07:30 ◼   ► So it just is so much more practical

01:07:35 ◼   ► and it seals you in and so you're able

01:07:38 ◼   ► to concentrate on things, whether that's the music

01:07:40 ◼   ► or something else or both.

01:07:42 ◼   ► - But you're not getting that full body bass.

01:07:43 ◼   ► - You're not, well but, yeah, it depends what you like.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Like, I don't need full body bass.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I think the other people, like my neighbors

01:07:52 ◼   ► and the rest of my family and my dog

01:07:55 ◼   ► probably wouldn't appreciate the full body bass either.

01:07:57 ◼   ► Headphones are a really fantastic way

01:08:00 ◼   ► to immerse yourself in extremely high quality music

01:08:04 ◼   ► for not that much money.

01:08:05 ◼   ► And you can go pretty high, but even like,

01:08:07 ◼   ► what most people consider the best headphones

01:08:09 ◼   ► in the world are about $5,000.

01:08:11 ◼   ► And even those, almost no headphone nerds

01:08:13 ◼   ► even go to that level.

01:08:14 ◼   ► That's extremely rare.

01:08:17 ◼   ► the in-ear ones, that's even more cutting out the middleman.

01:08:20 ◼   ► Like, that's just getting right down in there.

01:08:22 ◼   ► So you're right next to the eardrum.

01:08:23 ◼   ► It's like, the next step is just cut out the eardrum,

01:08:25 ◼   ► we'll go right to the nerves.

01:08:27 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:08:28 ◼   ► But the limitation there, I bet,

01:08:30 ◼   ► is when you get that close, now you're limited

01:08:32 ◼   ► by what kind of machinery to move air

01:08:36 ◼   ► can you fit in someone's ear canal.

01:08:37 ◼   ► - Yes, mm-hmm, that's absolutely true.

01:08:39 ◼   ► - And so that's why I would imagine

01:08:40 ◼   ► that the sweet spot for accuracy

01:08:45 ◼   ► versus cutting out the middleman

01:08:46 ◼   ► is probably not shoved into your ear,

01:08:47 ◼   ► but you know, who knows?

01:08:49 ◼   ► I don't know, I don't have fancy headphones.

01:08:51 ◼   ► - All right, so let's talk about something

01:08:52 ◼   ► a little more accessible.

01:08:54 ◼   ► - M3s.

01:08:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wish.

01:08:58 ◼   ► I just put a link in the chat

01:08:59 ◼   ► and we'll have it in the show notes.

01:09:00 ◼   ► Jon, do you remember this tweet that you tweeted at me,

01:09:04 ◼   ► I don't know, a couple days ago?

01:09:06 ◼   ► - Yes, I do.

01:09:07 ◼   ► Did you get a PlayStation 3 or 4?

01:09:09 ◼   ► - So I borrowed a PlayStation 3.

01:09:11 ◼   ► - Oh, exciting.

01:09:12 ◼   ► - And I borrowed a PlayStation 3

01:09:15 ◼   ► specifically to play Journey.

01:09:17 ◼   ► And I have played journey

01:09:19 ◼   ► What and were you were you spoiled before you played did you know anything about it besides that it's called journey

01:09:24 ◼   ► I'm not really I knew it had something to do with a scarf and that was about the extent of it

01:09:28 ◼   ► All right, that's that's a reasonable at this point. That's a reasonable spoiler for it

01:09:32 ◼   ► Now were was your PlayStation connected online when you played it? Yes

01:09:36 ◼   ► And did you know that that that it that it should be or did was that just an accident of um, I?

01:09:42 ◼   ► Okay, so I guess I fibbed. I did know that there was potential that I would run into other people in that I may or

01:09:47 ◼   ► May not be able to interact with them or if I could I like couldn't use like text or anything

01:09:53 ◼   ► In order to do so because I think I may have listened to the hypercritical where you see me

01:09:58 ◼   ► It was a hypercritical, but I don't my memory so bad

01:10:00 ◼   ► You're spoiled you're spoiled, but you didn't but you're you're a spoiler. Freeness is powered by apathy

01:10:05 ◼   ► You have heard spoilers, but you didn't care at the time. So you've right you've since forgotten them. Yes, you're both absolutely, correct

01:10:10 ◼   ► So let me start by saying that getting Journey onto this PlayStation

01:10:16 ◼   ► was so annoying that it is a

01:10:19 ◼   ► Testament to how much I love you that I even played the game

01:10:23 ◼   ► See if you had told me you were doing this

01:10:25 ◼   ► I would have told you what I told Marco to do which is to buy a code on Amazon for PlayStation points

01:10:31 ◼   ► So you don't have to give Sony your credit card

01:10:33 ◼   ► Presumably Amazon already has your credit card and you're comfortable with that and then you get a digital code and then enter that code annoyingly

01:10:40 ◼   ► - Certainly yes, but if that's the hangout

01:10:42 ◼   ► that you don't wanna do that,

01:10:43 ◼   ► and it's super annoying to even enter your credit card

01:10:44 ◼   ► in the PlayStation thing anyway, so.

01:10:46 ◼   ► - Well, it's funny you bring that up, Jon,

01:10:48 ◼   ► because here's my experience,

01:10:50 ◼   ► plugging in this PlayStation and trying to use it.

01:10:52 ◼   ► Again, it's a PlayStation 3.

01:10:53 ◼   ► It's actually one I borrowed from my parents

01:10:55 ◼   ► because my parents got it way back when,

01:10:58 ◼   ► when they wanted a Blu-ray player,

01:10:59 ◼   ► and at the time, it was basically

01:11:00 ◼   ► the cheapest Blu-ray player you could get.

01:11:02 ◼   ► - So you've been keeping this for me all this time,

01:11:03 ◼   ► that your parents have this PlayStation just sitting there.

01:11:05 ◼   ► - Yep, that's true.

01:11:07 ◼   ► - And it was a first-gen one?

01:11:08 ◼   ► That's usually even worse.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Yes, it was very early on.

01:11:12 ◼   ► I don't know anything about PlayStation 3s or really video games at all, but I know for

01:11:16 ◼   ► fact that this was bought pretty darn early.

01:11:19 ◼   ► You might have one with hardware PlayStation 2 support.

01:11:22 ◼   ► That is actually a rare and wonderful thing that you probably don't care about, but it's

01:11:27 ◼   ► significant.

01:11:28 ◼   ► I don't care.

01:11:29 ◼   ► I understand the words you're saying, but I have no idea why that's awesome.

01:11:32 ◼   ► But anyway, so the point is I plug it in.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Well, the first problem I had was when I borrowed it from Mom and Dad, they didn't give me

01:11:39 ◼   ► controllers and I kind of forgot to ask for them. So I had to wait a few days.

01:11:44 ◼   ► That's gonna make it hard to do anything. You play with a Bluetooth remote? I had

01:11:48 ◼   ► to wait a few days until I actually had the DVD remote comically which is how I

01:11:51 ◼   ► was playing the Blu-ray when I made that tweet about how loud it was. But anyways.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Please tell me you didn't play Journey with the DVD remote. No no no no no no.

01:12:00 ◼   ► So anyways, so I eventually got a couple of controllers from them and I knew

01:12:05 ◼   ► enough to know that I needed to plug them in via USB and that I and I was

01:12:09 ◼   ► pretty sure that I could use them even though they were dead while the USB cord

01:12:12 ◼   ► was plugged in which was fine okay whatever. So the first thing I do when I

01:12:16 ◼   ► turn on the PlayStation once I had bothered to connect it to the internet

01:12:20 ◼   ► of course I need to do a system update. That took I don't remember something

01:12:25 ◼   ► like half an hour an hour fine. So then I need to go to the PlayStation store I

01:12:30 ◼   ► assume so I can buy Journey. Fine go to PlayStation store. Well you need to do

01:12:35 ◼   ► another update are you freaking kidding me I just did a system no you need to do

01:12:39 ◼   ► a store update okay well now I have to download this 65 meg

01:12:45 ◼   ► update and install it that took easily an hour and a half to two hours no idea

01:12:49 ◼   ► why it was connected via Ethernet via mocha bridge V and then all the way up

01:12:54 ◼   ► to the router I have 75 35 internet I have no idea what the bread the bad

01:12:59 ◼   ► piece in this chain was it's like you're reliving 2006 all over again yep go back

01:13:04 ◼   ► and time and look at all the webcomics that were acclaimed by this exact thing.

01:13:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:13:09 ◼   ► PlayStation 3 is an update machine.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Yep.

01:13:12 ◼   ► So like two or three hours after I connect the PlayStation to the internet, which I should

01:13:17 ◼   ► say, before I connected it to the internet, it did a lot more stuff and was a lot more

01:13:22 ◼   ► fiddly than I wanted, but it worked.

01:13:24 ◼   ► I plugged it, I put a Blu-ray in the drive, it played it, and I was happy.

01:13:29 ◼   ► But then I connected it to the internet and all hell broke loose.

01:13:33 ◼   ► So anyway, so I do the system update,

01:13:34 ◼   ► that takes like half an hour, an hour.

01:13:36 ◼   ► I do the store update, that takes an hour or two.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Then I go to purchase Journey.

01:13:41 ◼   ► I'm all excited with myself and I'm going to purchase it

01:13:44 ◼   ► and it says, "Okay, you're going to pay

01:13:47 ◼   ► "with such and such credit card."

01:13:49 ◼   ► Which was my parents' credit card.

01:13:51 ◼   ► Well, I don't wanna do that.

01:13:52 ◼   ► No, I don't wanna do that.

01:13:53 ◼   ► So it says, "Okay, well you can't buy the game."

01:13:55 ◼   ► - Well see, again, if you had talked to me first

01:13:57 ◼   ► and told me you're doing it, I would have told you,

01:13:58 ◼   ► you can buy Journey on an optical disc

01:14:00 ◼   ► and then you would have stuck it into the drive

01:14:02 ◼   ► started playing it. Well, I probably would have done it first, but still, it would have

01:14:05 ◼   ► been a disc.

01:14:06 ◼   ► That would have ruined the surprise, though. So here I am, ignoramus extraordinaire, at

01:14:10 ◼   ► least in this capacity, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how to get it to allow

01:14:16 ◼   ► me to put in my own frickin' credit card number. So eventually I give up and ask Aaron, who

01:14:22 ◼   ► is sitting behind me, to go ahead and just Google, "How the F do you change your credit

01:14:27 ◼   ► card number in the PlayStation Store?"

01:14:29 ◼   ► Why is that the fallback frustration?

01:14:31 ◼   ► Why don't you just buy it and give your parents 15 bucks?

01:14:35 ◼   ► You're gonna see them.

01:14:35 ◼   ► - Well, okay, that was the other thing I didn't mention.

01:14:38 ◼   ► I agree, but whatever the credit card number was,

01:14:41 ◼   ► which I called my dad and confirmed was the correct number,

01:14:44 ◼   ► he indicated, or the PlayStation would not accept,

01:14:47 ◼   ► which might have been an expiration date issue,

01:14:50 ◼   ► but I couldn't even change that.

01:14:52 ◼   ► So I didn't know what to do.

01:14:54 ◼   ► Eventually, I try to get into,

01:14:56 ◼   ► or I find that I need to go into like my account

01:14:59 ◼   ► or dad's account, I guess I should say,

01:15:00 ◼   ► go into his like account settings and billing settings.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Well, even though I'm already logged in as my dad

01:15:07 ◼   ► and it's happy with that,

01:15:09 ◼   ► when I go to go to the billing settings,

01:15:10 ◼   ► it says, what's your password?

01:15:11 ◼   ► So I enter the password that my dad has given to me,

01:15:14 ◼   ► doesn't accept it.

01:15:15 ◼   ► He goes to the website.

01:15:17 ◼   ► This is from his house, I'm at my house.

01:15:19 ◼   ► He goes to the website and enters the exact same password.

01:15:21 ◼   ► Oh, everything works magically.

01:15:23 ◼   ► So we do that whole dance for like half an hour,

01:15:26 ◼   ► trying to figure out how the crap to get me in

01:15:28 ◼   ► to the point that I can just update my payment.

01:15:31 ◼   ► All I want to do is give somebody $15

01:15:35 ◼   ► and I am going through at least half an hour

01:15:38 ◼   ► to an hour of pain to do that.

01:15:41 ◼   ► So eventually we figure it out,

01:15:43 ◼   ► eventually I can buy Journey, eventually it downloads,

01:15:46 ◼   ► and I think did so quicker than the damn store update,

01:15:48 ◼   ► even though Journey was like half a gig

01:15:50 ◼   ► and the store update was 50 or 60 megs.

01:15:53 ◼   ► - This is, by the way, is why I recommend

01:15:54 ◼   ► for everyone I tell to play Journey,

01:15:56 ◼   ► dedicated day to installing it.

01:15:58 ◼   ► Do not play it on the same day that you download.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Just take a day.

01:16:00 ◼   ► - And again, this was all happening last night.

01:16:04 ◼   ► I didn't know if I would have time to do all this tonight.

01:16:07 ◼   ► I have a serious urgency

01:16:08 ◼   ► because I really wanted to talk about it today

01:16:10 ◼   ► 'cause I figured it would be a little bit of a shorter show.

01:16:13 ◼   ► I am freaking out.

01:16:15 ◼   ► Also because I'm high, strong, and ridiculous.

01:16:17 ◼   ► But anyway, eventually I finally get to the point

01:16:21 ◼   ► that I can start Journey.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And I played it and I liked it

01:16:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I totally recommend spending a day and the reason I recommend people take a day is not so much because like oh the PlayStation

01:16:42 ◼   ► It always takes a day to install anything

01:16:44 ◼   ► It's because the people who I'm telling to play journey if they haven't already played it

01:16:47 ◼   ► They're probably either not gamers or don't have a PlayStation 3 which means they're gonna have to either borrow one

01:16:52 ◼   ► Which is worse when it's like someone else's account and as you encountered as your dad's can't imagine

01:16:55 ◼   ► It was someone's account who you weren't related to yet to deal with all those issues

01:16:58 ◼   ► If you have a PlayStation and use it all the time

01:17:01 ◼   ► Yeah, it still does annoying updates and still frequently when you turn on it wants to do an update

01:17:06 ◼   ► But you don't have like 17 of them queued up like my PlayStation 3 right now is completely up to date with everything if I wanted

01:17:12 ◼   ► To buy a game on the PlayStation Store. I go right into the store. I buy it. Everything's all set up

01:17:15 ◼   ► I have money in my PlayStation account boom boom boom wait for the download which juice doesn't take that long

01:17:21 ◼   ► And play so the experience for people who have and use a PlayStation 3 all the time still not ideal

01:17:27 ◼   ► But it's much better than it used to be to give an example way back in the early days the PlayStation 3 couldn't even do

01:17:32 ◼   ► Background downloads so you'd be your thing would be paralyzed by downloading something like oh just like the store was yesterday

01:17:39 ◼   ► Well, that's like more of an update, but I'm saying like you just buy a game. It's like well. It's downloading the game

01:17:44 ◼   ► I'm gonna play something else would be like nope you're gonna sit here and look at a progress bar

01:17:47 ◼   ► So things have gotten better and PlayStation 4 is even better in that you can start playing the game before it even downloads

01:17:53 ◼   ► Which is one of the big features they tout because they're you know

01:17:55 ◼   ► They have learned their lesson essentially all the things you can play in but on the PlayStation 3

01:17:57 ◼   ► Every one of those has something addressing and in the PlayStation 4 to make it not be that terrible

01:18:02 ◼   ► Does it still have a giant loud fan all the time? Oh the fan is so bad

01:18:05 ◼   ► Yeah, oh, it's so bad the fans even on the slim one

01:18:08 ◼   ► They're bad, and I haven't tried the current model

01:18:10 ◼   ► Which is the one even smaller than the slim, but people say on that one the fan is better

01:18:14 ◼   ► But you can hear the optical drive more which is only it's not a problem with download games

01:18:18 ◼   ► But like they made it the it's so thin like the sound of the little mechanism is loud

01:18:22 ◼   ► Yeah, all these things are not great noise wise but I mean at least

01:18:26 ◼   ► The the update issues are still a problem in that

01:18:29 ◼   ► There are frequent updates and no matter how smooth you make the update process and how quickly it downloads if you're doing an OS level

01:18:35 ◼   ► update you have to reboot the thing and

01:18:37 ◼   ► It's frustrating if those come out more than if those come out more frequently than you play

01:18:42 ◼   ► Essentially every time you turn on your PlayStation 3 there will be an update. Yep sure is for me

01:18:46 ◼   ► And that's what happened with this one is my my parents

01:18:50 ◼   ► Definitely use the PlayStation as a blu-ray player and to my knowledge when it's in their own house

01:18:56 ◼   ► It's connected either via ethernet or their or their Wi-Fi

01:18:59 ◼   ► But they never do things like go to the store for example to buy anything the PlayStation store

01:19:05 ◼   ► So you're exactly right that in my case

01:19:07 ◼   ► I was set up for complete and utter pain and suffering

01:19:11 ◼   ► because they don't do the sorts of things that I was trying to do.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Even early on there was updates just to the Blu-ray player functionality, right?

01:19:18 ◼   ► I mean that sort of settled down and you know, you didn't keep adding updates to that.

01:19:21 ◼   ► But like in general I like, I would rather have more frequent small updates than have to wait for like a two hour thing every once in a while.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Because I don't play the games on it that often.

01:19:30 ◼   ► And these days I don't even use it for it's like media streaming capabilities

01:19:34 ◼   ► because I have all sorts of other solutions, mostly involving the Synology, to do my media

01:19:38 ◼   ► streaming.

01:19:40 ◼   ► I don't mind when I turn it on if there's an update.

01:19:42 ◼   ► I factor it into the time I'm going to play.

01:19:44 ◼   ► I don't say, "Okay, I'm going to dedicate a half an hour playing," and I assume there's

01:19:47 ◼   ► going to be an update because the last time I turned the thing on was three weeks ago.

01:19:51 ◼   ► I would rather have them update the software than just leave me.

01:19:55 ◼   ► For example, my TiVo.

01:19:56 ◼   ► I know there's a new version of the TiVo software out, but I keep going, "Check for updates."

01:20:00 ◼   ► They roll it out slowly.

01:20:01 ◼   ► I want the update now, so I like software updates.

01:20:04 ◼   ► This is one of those things that I think contributes substantially to game consoles now being so

01:20:12 ◼   ► unappealing to the mass market.

01:20:15 ◼   ► In order to really enjoy a game console, you have to be extremely dedicated to it.

01:20:20 ◼   ► This is one of the reasons they've lost casual gaming as a main market.

01:20:25 ◼   ► If you're a casual gamer, the experience of using a modern game console sucks way worse

01:20:29 ◼   ► than if you use it all the time.

01:20:31 ◼   ► I know but like it's still way better than a PC which is like the you know, it's it's all a spectrum

01:20:35 ◼   ► Oh sure

01:20:36 ◼   ► But you know compared to like in the olden days if you had an NES or a Genesis you could turn it on and you

01:20:40 ◼   ► Start playing the game and if you haven't turned it on in four months doesn't matter

01:20:43 ◼   ► It just starts up

01:20:44 ◼   ► But the thing is like there's benefits to offset that and the benefits are that if you bought an original

01:20:48 ◼   ► PlayStation 3 when you first got it, it was crappy and it got better over time through software updates

01:20:53 ◼   ► It could do more things right and it was you know, like that that is a phenomenal when you got your NES

01:20:57 ◼   ► It didn't get any new capabilities two years down the line

01:20:59 ◼   ► whereas you got your PlayStation it did get better over time so that's not true what I got I got the memory pack thing for

01:21:05 ◼   ► The n64 that's not an NES. That's the n64 and that's a hardware upgrade now to software

01:21:10 ◼   ► but yeah, like I'm just being silly and the n64 had no fans and

01:21:14 ◼   ► And the controllers didn't dig into your hands oddly. Well, that's debatable

01:21:19 ◼   ► All right, so let's hear your your thoughts on the game

01:21:27 ◼   ► Do not listen to this section of the after dark if you have not played journey

01:21:31 ◼   ► Because we will spoil the spoil the entire game for you all journey spoiler conditions apply

01:21:35 ◼   ► Marco is allowed to listen because a he doesn't care and B. He's seen his wife play it

01:21:38 ◼   ► And Casey and I have both played it

01:21:42 ◼   ► But if you have not played journey do not listen to this part of the after dark, okay

01:21:45 ◼   ► So the first impression I had well, let me back up just this mage

01:21:49 ◼   ► I thought it was like some sort of side scroller, which I'm sure is absolutely

01:21:54 ◼   ► I'm glad you thought that.

01:21:56 ◼   ► I know that's extremely ignorant of me, but I just really don't care about these sorts of things.

01:22:00 ◼   ► So I would rather have you be ignorant. I wish you knew nothing about it.

01:22:04 ◼   ► So the first couple of impressions I had,

01:22:07 ◼   ► well, the first thing I wrote down was that the soundtrack was good. And then by the end of the game,

01:22:14 ◼   ► I upgraded it to Incredible because I thought the soundtrack was unbelievable.

01:22:18 ◼   ► It is. You can buy it on iTunes. It is one of the best video game soundtracks ever made. Austin Wintry is

01:22:23 ◼   ► Amazing it was it was really incredibly incredibly good

01:22:27 ◼   ► The second thing I had written down and was basically my second impression was that it was visually very big

01:22:32 ◼   ► Especially when you thought it was going to be a side scroller

01:22:35 ◼   ► The the world that in which you play is quite a bit larger than I had expected it to be

01:22:42 ◼   ► and and I

01:22:45 ◼   ► Really was impressed by that

01:22:48 ◼   ► the other thing was I

01:22:52 ◼   ► Within about five or ten minutes, I started seeing other people.

01:22:56 ◼   ► And I wasn't 100% sure if those were, what is the term, NPCs or actual humans.

01:23:08 ◼   ► And I thought they were humans, but the one or two people I'd seen,

01:23:13 ◼   ► they behaved in such a way that I couldn't really tell.

01:23:18 ◼   ► And so most of the game, I was having this debate with myself whether or not they were actual people

01:23:26 ◼   ► on the other end of those characters. And this is despite the fact that you knew that there was a

01:23:29 ◼   ► possibility that you could see other people in the game. Yes. And so I thought like the background

01:23:37 ◼   ► knowledge I had made me think these were actual people, but I tried to look at it objectively. And

01:23:42 ◼   ► there was at first, there was nothing that I saw that convinced me that this was a human being.

01:23:47 ◼   ► I think people who don't play games a lot have much more faith in computer-controlled players than

01:23:52 ◼   ► Anyone who plays video games all the time can immediately distinguish a human from an AI because a eyes are so terrible in games

01:24:00 ◼   ► Yeah, well, I mean it's been a long time since I've played these sorts of games

01:24:03 ◼   ► But in any case so I went through I don't know the first I'll call it level

01:24:09 ◼   ► which I don't mean that dismissively, but I went through the first level or two and

01:24:13 ◼   ► Eventually I got well firstly I realized that this was a puzzle game and to me having played Monument Valley before this it felt

01:24:21 ◼   ► Vaguely similar to Monument Valley although clearly a very very very different animal

01:24:27 ◼   ► And again, I don't mean that to be offensive

01:24:30 ◼   ► I apologize to you John if that isn't anyone else that really likes journey

01:24:34 ◼   ► But but that's what I thought it was like this kind of like Monument Valley. There's puzzles. They're

01:24:39 ◼   ► kind of self-explanatory. I did, by the way, really like that the only sort of tutorial or help was occasionally a little outline or

01:24:46 ◼   ► kind of overlay if the controller came up and told you to either push or hold something.

01:24:51 ◼   ► But anyway, after a couple of stages, levels, what have you, I ended up kind of

01:24:56 ◼   ► going through a level with somebody and

01:25:00 ◼   ► I didn't pay close enough attention to see that when they spoke, if you will, if

01:25:08 ◼   ► if that symbol was the same symbol I saw two or three levels later when I was still kind

01:25:14 ◼   ► of playing with somebody.

01:25:17 ◼   ► What I did find, however, was that I really wanted to see where this was going and be

01:25:24 ◼   ► cooperative.

01:25:26 ◼   ► The indication I got from body language, for lack of a better description, was that this

01:25:30 ◼   ► other person also wanted to play cooperatively.

01:25:34 ◼   ► There were a couple of levels, like one where you kind of—oh, God, I don't even know

01:25:37 ◼   ► to describe it, but there was like a center column and you had to go around different

01:25:41 ◼   ► pedestals around the outside and you had to climb.

01:25:44 ◼   ► I know the level.

01:25:45 ◼   ► Okay. And so at one point...

01:25:48 ◼   ► I know. Go ahead. Move on.

01:25:49 ◼   ► At one point, we kind of got separated and I was sad about that. And then it occurred to me,

01:25:56 ◼   ► "Why am I sad about this? I have no idea who this person is. I'm not even 100% convinced

01:26:04 ◼   ► it is a person. I think it's a person."

01:26:06 ◼   ► Your motion chip was activated. My motion chip had indeed activated.

01:26:10 ◼   ► It's because your, it's, you know what, it's because your PlayStation has the emotion engine.

01:26:14 ◼   ► That was the PlayStation 2. Exactly. He has the PS2 hardware.

01:26:20 ◼   ► Oh, he has the hardware. Yeah, right. Finally, I made a reference that you bombed on.

01:26:25 ◼   ► Hooray! No, I didn't bomb on it. It just doesn't, it was not the right generation of console.

01:26:30 ◼   ► You were just wrong. No, I, I was saying it was because his-

01:26:33 ◼   ► We'd never didn't establish whether his head harvests that it might have hardwares apart. We never he didn't know

01:26:38 ◼   ► You just can't be wrong. Exactly. I finally got you wrong on something

01:26:43 ◼   ► Anyway, let's concentrate on the facts here, but you're right

01:26:47 ◼   ► So anyway, so I realized I was kind of sad about it and then eventually like a level or two later I

01:26:55 ◼   ► Wound up being next to another person and it very well could have been a totally different person

01:27:01 ◼   ► But again, because I wasn't paying close enough attention to the little symbol that came up when they spoke,

01:27:06 ◼   ► I had told myself, "This is the same person. Oh, my buddy's back!" And I was like all excited about it.

01:27:12 ◼   ► I was really happy again.

01:27:13 ◼   ► And after the game was over, it occurred to me that that is a really peculiar reaction and emotional investment I got

01:27:24 ◼   ► from something that I wasn't even unequivocally convinced was indeed a human being.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Well, now you can read my article on Journey if you haven't already.

01:27:31 ◼   ► I don't remember if I have. I want to say I have not, but either way, I was really taken

01:27:38 ◼   ► aback by how emotional I got about trying to get through this with my buddy.

01:27:43 ◼   ► So when you got to the underground level, were you with somebody or not?

01:27:47 ◼   ► Yes, I believe so, but we got separated for a long time, and I don't know if we finished

01:27:52 ◼   ► together or not.

01:27:53 ◼   ► Because as you go on, the levels become sort of more fraught with danger and companionship

01:27:58 ◼   ► becomes more important, especially towards the end of the game. And it's like, if you're with

01:28:02 ◼   ► someone in the early kind of playing around levels, then, you know, that's one thing. But

01:28:07 ◼   ► like later on, I feel like it's more important to be with somebody. Yeah. And I got to tell you,

01:28:13 ◼   ► when those like creepy shooter kill you creature guy things came, that scared the piss out of me.

01:28:20 ◼   ► And I wasn't, I'm still not sure. Can you like, can you get actually killed by these things or

01:28:26 ◼   ► or does it just take away like your ability to fly or whatever?

01:28:29 ◼   ► Now you should also listen to the After Dark with Tiff and I and the,

01:28:34 ◼   ► uh, the, what do you call it? The incomparable episode where we talked about

01:28:37 ◼   ► Journey because we addressed these very issues. That's the whole thing about the game.

01:28:40 ◼   ► You don't know. There's no life meter. There's no hearts. There's no like,

01:28:44 ◼   ► Well, but your, your scarf got smaller. Right. But there is no, there is no

01:28:48 ◼   ► established gameplay mechanic where you are, where you're sure, can I die? Can I not die?

01:28:54 ◼   ► Do I take damage? Does one hit kill me if I you know, the only thing you have going for you

01:28:58 ◼   ► is like if I fall from a height will I get hurt and they sort of train you on that early on that

01:29:02 ◼   ► you sort of float and you have the ability to fly so pretty much you're not going to die from a fall

01:29:06 ◼   ► but everything else is up for grabs and nothing threatens you and when something does threaten

01:29:10 ◼   ► you the game has not established up front uh rules that make you confident that you know uh

01:29:16 ◼   ► how much life do I have or you know can can I get hurt or can I die or can I lose my abilities?

01:29:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and it was, it was weird.

01:29:24 ◼   ► And I, and I should also go back.

01:29:25 ◼   ► I forgot to mention, I was looking at my notes that.

01:29:28 ◼   ► Developing some sort of like language between you and your buddy is an odd,

01:29:34 ◼   ► odd, odd experience, and I'm not sure if we really succeeded in developing a

01:29:39 ◼   ► mega air quotes language, but it was weird.

01:29:43 ◼   ► Like does just say like, just, just, just hitting, what is it?

01:29:47 ◼   ► Circle to like do a momentary ping, if you will.

01:29:50 ◼   ► Is that a happy thing?

01:29:51 ◼   ► Is that a sad thing if I mash on the circle repeatedly and so I'm like blabbering is that happy is that sad if I do?

01:29:57 ◼   ► The hold the circle thing and do the like really loud shouty thing. Is that

01:30:02 ◼   ► Happy or did you figure out how to sit down?

01:30:06 ◼   ► You probably saw your companion sit down perhaps at once did you figure out how you yourself could sit down at like the end of the level?

01:30:12 ◼   ► No anytime. Oh, no. No, I didn't know that

01:30:14 ◼   ► So like at this point if you see someone in the game

01:30:17 ◼   ► chances are good that it's someone who's played the game multiple times before and they're playing

01:30:20 ◼   ► it again and they would know how to do that. That's something you can do. One of the... You

01:30:25 ◼   ► don't have a lot of choices for actions in the game. You can move, you can press your little

01:30:28 ◼   ► circle button, you can sing, you can fly. You can also sit and just sit next to somebody and hang

01:30:35 ◼   ► out. Oh, I didn't know that. So anyway, so I get to the snow area and again, the way they...

01:30:43 ◼   ► Anytime I play a game, which is rare to begin with, and discovery is how they teach you

01:30:49 ◼   ► to play the game, and I feel like Monument Valley is a great example of this, I really

01:30:55 ◼   ► enjoy that.

01:30:56 ◼   ► And so like with the wind and you have to stand behind the little pedestal things, that

01:31:01 ◼   ► was really neat because it was hard enough that it took me a second to think about what

01:31:05 ◼   ► am I going to do here, but it was easy enough that it was pretty quickly obvious, "Oh,

01:31:09 ◼   ► duh, you idiot, you have to stand behind these like stone things."

01:31:12 ◼   ► Journey is not a puzzle game where you're going to get stuck.

01:31:15 ◼   ► And if you do, like, that's why I feel bad.

01:31:16 ◼   ► Like, if you get stuck and you get frustrated, like, then you're not.

01:31:19 ◼   ► You're not like the game has to meet you at your level.

01:31:22 ◼   ► And Journey is at a low enough level where there's not this big expectation

01:31:26 ◼   ► of gaming knowledge to get through it,

01:31:27 ◼   ► because you don't want to interrupt sort of the flow of the game.

01:31:29 ◼   ► The point of the game is not like a text adventure, like,

01:31:31 ◼   ► you know, where you're going to be stuck on a super hard puzzle

01:31:34 ◼   ► and figure out something really obscure to,

01:31:36 ◼   ► you know, like the Hitchhiker's Guide text adventure,

01:31:37 ◼   ► like the whole point of that game.

01:31:39 ◼   ► This game is supposed to you're supposed to be able to flow through it.

01:31:42 ◼   ► And if you get hung up on things that have to do with the game

01:31:44 ◼   ► Even if it's the puzzles in the games that sort of interrupting the flight. It's not that type of game

01:31:49 ◼   ► So I'm glad like that's you're looking for a little bit of challenge, but I think more of the challenge should be

01:31:53 ◼   ► You know emotional investment in your relationship with this other thing in the computer and your journey essentially like they put it up right in front

01:32:01 ◼   ► of you the beginning of the game

01:32:02 ◼   ► They show you a big freaking mountain with a light coming out of it, and they put a title

01:32:05 ◼   ► It's pretty clear what you're doing in the game like that's the thing

01:32:07 ◼   ► I forgot to ask you when the game started was it clear to you what you were supposed to be doing in this game?

01:32:12 ◼   ► Yes with an asterisk at the end. It was clear to me that I wanted to step into the light,

01:32:17 ◼   ► which made me wonder is this like a post-death journey, pardon the pun, but...

01:32:22 ◼   ► Well, but I remember like in the beginning of the game, you just start the game up, like it does the title sequence,

01:32:26 ◼   ► like I guess the game is called Journey, so you're obviously probably going to be going on a journey, right?

01:32:30 ◼   ► But other than that, did you know where you were going? Maybe not why, but where?

01:32:34 ◼   ► I figured I was going towards that light, yes.

01:32:37 ◼   ► Alright.

01:32:38 ◼   ► What I will say though is at the various checkpoints within a level where you look at a mural and

01:32:45 ◼   ► the cutscenes where they exposed more of that tapestry looking thing, I totally missed the

01:32:51 ◼   ► point of all of that and was not paying close attention to either of them.

01:32:55 ◼   ► Well, that's a shame because they are trying to tell a story.

01:32:57 ◼   ► I mean, that's the other thing about—

01:32:59 ◼   ► Well, and that's what I realized late when I'd already missed two-thirds if not three-quarters

01:33:03 ◼   ► of them.

01:33:04 ◼   ► Well, I mean, not just the tapestries that you find, but the cutscenes between levels

01:33:07 ◼   ► where they show more in tapestry style.

01:33:10 ◼   ► You mentioned earlier that they just show you at the very beginning the control on the

01:33:13 ◼   ► screen or whatever to tell you how to play.

01:33:15 ◼   ► There's no text in this game.

01:33:16 ◼   ► You don't notice until it's pointed out to you after the game, but there is no text,

01:33:20 ◼   ► which is great for localization.

01:33:21 ◼   ► I'm not going to say that's the reason they did it, but it's an awesome extra bonus booyah,

01:33:25 ◼   ► nothing to localize.

01:33:27 ◼   ► But there's no text in the game.