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545: My Butler Can’t Use It

 

00:00:00   I fixed something today.

00:00:02   - I mended something!

00:00:04   I don't know if you'll get that reference.

00:00:06   It's a Jeremy Clarkson thing.

00:00:08   - Oh, okay.

00:00:09   - Anyway, carry on, what did you fix?

00:00:11   - It took three weeks,

00:00:13   but I have fixed my stupid Dyson vacuum broken trigger.

00:00:16   - I was not aware that you had a Dyson vacuum

00:00:18   with a broken trigger.

00:00:20   - Long story short, yes I use Dyson vacuums,

00:00:23   of course I do.

00:00:23   Years ago when it came time to buy a new vacuum,

00:00:28   I did all the research and I looked at the specs

00:00:31   and I'm like, I got this giant upright Miele vacuum

00:00:35   that has like massive suction power

00:00:37   and is amazing to pull out all sorts of crap from rugs.

00:00:41   But it's super heavy and corded

00:00:43   and therefore I hardly ever use it.

00:00:45   Meanwhile, one year TIFF requested one of these little

00:00:47   like cordless Dyson thingies,

00:00:49   like the V7 or eight or nine or whatever it was back then.

00:00:53   - Which by the way must have incredible profit margins

00:00:55   because they are so expensive, I also have one.

00:00:58   - Oh, and before we go any further,

00:01:00   so we have one of the, not OG, but an older corded,

00:01:05   upright Dyson vacuum with the ball on the bottom.

00:01:08   I remember we got it from like, I don't know, Woot.com,

00:01:12   it was considerably discounted

00:01:15   and I gotta say I'm not that impressed with it.

00:01:16   So do you like the cordless one?

00:01:18   Because the corded, I did not think was that great.

00:01:20   - I also had an upright one

00:01:22   and I didn't like it and ditched it,

00:01:23   but the cordless one, I feel like comes closer

00:01:28   to justifying its insane price.

00:01:29   - Yeah, so I actually had that exact same

00:01:31   heavily discounted Dyson standup ball one

00:01:34   from a million years ago.

00:01:35   It eventually broke in some way

00:01:37   that I didn't feel that it was worth fixing.

00:01:39   Although I actually did fix it a couple of times

00:01:42   along the way there because one of the positives

00:01:44   about Dyson is that while they're not the best built things

00:01:47   in the world, there are lots of service parts available

00:01:50   for not that, and they aren't that hard to get

00:01:52   and they aren't that expensive,

00:01:53   so that you can at least service them to some degree,

00:01:56   which is nice, but anyway.

00:01:57   So the problem is, so I had this beautiful up,

00:02:00   this big upright heavy thing, and it was,

00:02:03   we just never used it.

00:02:04   Like I would use it occasionally,

00:02:05   but like no one else in the house would ever use it.

00:02:07   Everyone hated it and I would never like bring it upstairs.

00:02:10   It's too heavy and all this stuff.

00:02:11   So anyway, one year Tiff requested one of the Dyson V

00:02:13   whatever's for Christmas and everyone loved it

00:02:17   and that's all we ever used from that point forward

00:02:18   and the Miele still sits in the closet and never gets used.

00:02:21   Problem is they are built crappily in certain ways

00:02:23   and one of those ways is the little red trigger

00:02:25   that you squeeze.

00:02:27   If you search the internet for Dyson broken triggers,

00:02:30   you'll see these are horribly designed.

00:02:34   All the pressure to hold that trigger

00:02:35   against the battery terminals is this little thin piece

00:02:38   of plastic that cracks very easily.

00:02:40   - One thing about those triggers though,

00:02:41   one thing they did get right about the triggers

00:02:43   is the effort to pull the trigger is very, very low

00:02:46   because it would get fatiguing if you were holding it

00:02:48   and you had to like hold the trigger

00:02:49   and it was like fighting you the whole time.

00:02:51   Incredibly weak springs in there,

00:02:54   so it's very easy to hold it down

00:02:55   and I believe in the current versions of this,

00:02:58   they just got rid of the trigger entirely

00:02:59   so they probably should have done

00:03:00   because who wants to hold the thing down all the time?

00:03:01   I think it's like a switch or something

00:03:03   on the most recent ones, so mine hasn't broke

00:03:06   and I have always appreciated that they made the trigger

00:03:08   really easy to pull but I also kind of wish

00:03:11   it didn't have a trigger.

00:03:12   - Anyway, to answer your question Casey

00:03:14   about how good they are, the problem is

00:03:16   they're not super good at being vacuums,

00:03:18   like they're okay at being vacuums

00:03:20   but they're really convenient.

00:03:22   It doesn't really matter that they're not great vacuums,

00:03:25   it matters that that's the one you're gonna grab

00:03:27   and use the most often.

00:03:27   The same way like your phone is not a great camera

00:03:31   but it's an okay camera and it's always there

00:03:33   and you're always gonna use it

00:03:34   and you're gonna be using it way more

00:03:36   than you use your better camera.

00:03:37   Even though you have a better camera,

00:03:39   it's the same kind of thing.

00:03:40   - Well it does have, the thing I'll say

00:03:41   for the Dyson handheld is they do have a lot of suction

00:03:44   for their size and weight because I've had a lot

00:03:46   of handheld vacuums over the years starting with the,

00:03:48   my parents' dust buster back when dust busters were a thing

00:03:51   and they came in beige, those were terrible

00:03:53   and I've had other handheld ones over the years

00:03:56   and the Dyson handheld like per unit mass,

00:04:00   like suction per unit mass is really good on it

00:04:03   as long as you keep it clean.

00:04:05   Everything else about it is a little cheap

00:04:06   and the battery dies pretty quickly

00:04:07   and they're really expensive to replace

00:04:08   but still the best handheld I've found

00:04:10   but I can't, it has not made it to my good products list

00:04:13   because I feel like it's just too expensive.

00:04:15   - Yeah and they're not amazing products,

00:04:18   they're just decent products and the competition is worse

00:04:21   as far as I know.

00:04:22   Anyway, so my trigger broke, I had to replace it

00:04:24   and it became one of these projects like all right,

00:04:26   first of all, you order the replacement trigger,

00:04:29   it gets here, so that's four or five days.

00:04:32   Then I have the replacement, I start taking the vacuum apart

00:04:35   based on YouTube videos that tell me how to take stuff apart

00:04:37   and I realize, oh, I don't have a screwdriver

00:04:40   that can reach down this long skinny hole

00:04:43   to get to the screw, like this deeply recessed screw.

00:04:46   So now I gotta order some skinny screwdriver.

00:04:49   There goes another four days, five days.

00:04:51   Then I finally get it in there, I finally get down,

00:04:55   I get in there, I need another screwdriver.

00:04:57   This time I need a Torx bit on the end

00:04:59   of a long skinny screwdriver.

00:04:59   All right, four more days.

00:05:01   - Read ahead in the instructions, Margot,

00:05:03   find out which tools you're gonna need.

00:05:05   - Well, they're all just YouTube videos,

00:05:06   they're not good at documentation.

00:05:07   Anyway, so then eventually I finally have all the tools

00:05:11   I need, I finally get to the trigger,

00:05:13   which by the way is hilariously complicated

00:05:16   and hostile to get to.

00:05:18   It's like repairing a butterfly keyboard.

00:05:21   It's just, you have to take apart the entire thing

00:05:23   and you're really diving it, you have to bend

00:05:26   these terminals, it's a ridiculous process.

00:05:28   I finally get in there and I put, and I was smart,

00:05:32   I bought a metal trigger so it wouldn't break.

00:05:35   I go to put the metal trigger on, it doesn't fit

00:05:39   without bending it because it's like,

00:05:41   you have to bend and snap it on and the moment

00:05:44   I bend it even slightly to get it to fit, it breaks.

00:05:47   - Oh, it's stupendous.

00:05:49   - So, order plastic ones, another five days.

00:05:53   - I'm not sure I agree with the actor in that sentence

00:05:56   if there was one.

00:05:58   - I broke it, okay, I broke it.

00:06:00   - I think that's more accurate.

00:06:01   - But I was trying, I'm like, is there any way

00:06:03   I can get this to somehow snap on?

00:06:06   - Was it the wrong part?

00:06:07   - No, it was the right part, but it's one of those things,

00:06:10   this is from Dyson, this is like Amazon Randos.

00:06:13   - Oh yeah, no, especially for the batteries,

00:06:16   I would not recommend buying the much cheaper ones

00:06:18   from Amazon because--

00:06:19   - Oh, batteries, definitely I wouldn't, no.

00:06:21   But a little plastic piece that Dyson misdesigned

00:06:23   from the start, no.

00:06:24   Anyway, so the Amazon ones have like,

00:06:26   they have like more plastic in the right areas.

00:06:27   Anyway, so finally, another five days go by,

00:06:31   I finally get my plastic ones, today I finally

00:06:34   put it back on and reassembled it and it works.

00:06:37   And it took such a ridiculously long time

00:06:40   and it was so not worth it, if I'm honest with you.

00:06:43   I must have lost like five hours to this project at least.

00:06:47   - Oh my word.

00:06:48   - Probably still worthy, 'cause you don't wanna buy

00:06:50   another one of those, they're just too expensive.

00:06:52   - I know, but the one I was repairing

00:06:53   was like five years old, so it's like,

00:06:54   it wasn't super new, but it's almost not worth it.

00:06:57   Anyway, even though I hate these things,

00:06:59   they still are the ones I go for the most

00:07:01   and I do the most vacuuming in the house,

00:07:03   so I guess that's important.

00:07:04   - Jon, there's some exciting news.

00:07:08   - It's not, it's old news, I just wanna mention it again.

00:07:11   I'm still selling my shirts and since they're only sold

00:07:14   every five years, I made the sale extra, extra long,

00:07:18   which I do not wanna hear people say,

00:07:19   "Oh, I just missed the sale, the sale's running,

00:07:21   "it's running so long."

00:07:22   I apologize to the people who ordered their shirts already,

00:07:24   they're like, "When is my shirt coming?"

00:07:25   Like the sale's not even over yet.

00:07:26   It ends Saturday, August 12th,

00:07:28   if you want a Hypercritical shirt,

00:07:30   I hope you're hearing this before Saturday, August 12th,

00:07:33   do the Casey thing and like pull over to the side

00:07:35   of the road and order it, like don't set it off 'til later

00:07:37   because they're not coming back for five years.

00:07:40   I'm excited by the way that I think,

00:07:41   so it's 2028, they'll be back, that means in 10 years

00:07:44   after that it'll be 2038, which is the 32-bit rollover

00:07:47   of the UNIX Epoch, I think.

00:07:48   - Oh my gosh, nerd. - So that'll be a fun one.

00:07:50   But anyway, don't wait, if you want a shirt, get one.

00:07:52   That's what they're here for.

00:07:53   For all the people who have these shirts

00:07:55   and they're wearing out or they didn't get one last time

00:07:57   and they want one, Hypercritical shirts,

00:07:59   go to hypercritical.co/shirt before August 12th.

00:08:03   - If you're listening to this now, like Jon alluded to,

00:08:06   please pull over to the side of the sidewalk

00:08:08   if you're in New York, to the side of the road

00:08:10   if you're almost anywhere else,

00:08:12   and go ahead, take out your phone, hypercritical.co/shirt.

00:08:17   - What if you're on one of those giant escalators

00:08:19   for the London Underground?

00:08:21   Like, do you have enough space

00:08:22   to like squeeze over to the right?

00:08:24   - No, don't do it then, because you're not gonna notice

00:08:26   when the top of the, or bottom of the escalator comes

00:08:28   and you're just gonna like fall over and cause a big mess.

00:08:30   Wait until you're off the escalator

00:08:31   and then step to the side.

00:08:32   - Well, and plus, what side of the escalator do you stop on?

00:08:35   'Cause they drive on the wrong side of the road.

00:08:38   Do they also walk on the wrong side of the road?

00:08:39   - Yeah, there's no way to tell there.

00:08:41   It's like tipping, there's no way to tell what to do.

00:08:43   (laughing)

00:08:45   - It's not true.

00:08:45   Anyway, hypercritical.co/shirt.

00:08:47   We got a piece of follow-up from Wilson Martinez,

00:08:50   and Wilson writes, "I can't figure out who is who

00:08:52   when listening.

00:08:53   Can you say your names in the next podcast

00:08:55   so I can put a name to a voice?"

00:08:56   Well, I'm Casey, and I'm the normal one.

00:09:00   And you can take that however you'd like.

00:09:02   Marco, how would you like to introduce yourself?

00:09:04   - I'm Marco, and I'm the jerk.

00:09:05   (laughing)

00:09:08   - John.

00:09:09   - You have to say more.

00:09:10   - The whole point of this segment is

00:09:11   you get to hear our voices.

00:09:12   This is John, this is what my voice sounds like.

00:09:14   It's a little bit like Kermit the Frog.

00:09:15   I don't think my voice sounds anything like the other two.

00:09:17   I think we have very distinct voices,

00:09:19   but you might not know.

00:09:20   So if you're wondering, who's John, that's me.

00:09:22   S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.

00:09:24   That's me.

00:09:25   This is my voice.

00:09:26   You're hearing my voice right now.

00:09:27   See how much content I'm giving them?

00:09:29   So they'll know this is my voice,

00:09:30   whereas they just heard Casey briefly,

00:09:32   and they've already forgotten what he sounds like.

00:09:33   And Marco said like two words,

00:09:35   and then Casey laughed over him.

00:09:36   So they don't know who Marco is, but they know who I am.

00:09:38   They'll figure out the rest.

00:09:40   - It'll be fine.

00:09:40   My voice is my passport.

00:09:41   Verify me.

00:09:42   - Who said that?

00:09:43   - That was Casey speaking.

00:09:44   - Every time we speak there, we have to say,

00:09:46   "Hi, this is John.

00:09:47   "I'm speaking now."

00:09:48   (laughing)

00:09:49   - Hi, this is Tim.

00:09:51   - No, you're confusing people now they think you're Tim.

00:09:53   You have to go back and say you're Casey.

00:09:54   - We don't have a Tim.

00:09:56   - The reason I put this in the show notes

00:09:57   is because I wanted like a chapter marker to send people,

00:09:59   because lots of people can't distinguish our voices,

00:10:01   and we don't introduce ourselves.

00:10:03   And I apologize for that,

00:10:03   but it's just part of the show format.

00:10:05   But from now on, if someone asks,

00:10:06   I'll save this in a little notes document,

00:10:08   and I'll send it to them,

00:10:09   and I'll be able to listen to this,

00:10:11   and they'll hear me saying,

00:10:12   "Yes, this is John.

00:10:13   "This is what my voice sounds like."

00:10:14   Sometimes I mumble.

00:10:16   - We couldn't have done a better job of this.

00:10:18   To introduce people to who we are in our show.

00:10:20   - Who's talking?

00:10:21   I don't recognize that voice.

00:10:22   - Oh my gosh.

00:10:23   - Yeah, sorry, this is Marco.

00:10:25   Over.

00:10:25   - Oh no, no, it's happening again.

00:10:27   (laughing)

00:10:28   - Just every time we talk, it's like IRC.

00:10:30   We have to prefix it with our name.

00:10:31   Marco, colon.

00:10:32   Casey, no, I'm screwing it up now.

00:10:33   Edit that out, Marco.

00:10:34   We're gonna confuse people.

00:10:35   - Oh no, no, no.

00:10:36   - Oh my gosh.

00:10:37   The funny thing is, I don't know,

00:10:38   something like two years ago,

00:10:40   I got a bur up my keister about this.

00:10:42   This is, hi, this is Casey.

00:10:44   Like two years ago, I got a bur up my keister about this.

00:10:48   Casey got a bur up his own keister about this.

00:10:50   - Why are you putting burrs up there?

00:10:53   - Anyway, just bear with me here.

00:10:54   - He got a bur.

00:10:55   He didn't say how it got there.

00:10:56   It's passive voice.

00:10:57   - Yeah, I bet ER doctors hear a lot of that.

00:10:59   It got there.

00:11:00   I don't know how it got there.

00:11:01   - One in a million shot, doc.

00:11:02   - One in a million.

00:11:03   Anyway, so I had put together a meet your hosts page

00:11:08   on the ATP website, which is there.

00:11:10   It's been there this whole time.

00:11:12   The call's coming from inside the house.

00:11:13   - It is?

00:11:14   - Yes, ATP.fm/hosts.

00:11:16   And I put this together a while ago,

00:11:17   and the funny thing is, I put together a blurb

00:11:20   for Marco and for John and myself.

00:11:22   And I think both of them tweaked the blurb

00:11:25   that I gave them, at least a little.

00:11:27   - I didn't tweet this.

00:11:28   I would never leave a semicolon in my blurb.

00:11:30   - Oh, we gotta change this.

00:11:31   It links to my Twitter handle, come on.

00:11:33   Oh, this was years ago!

00:11:35   Stay with me.

00:11:36   Anyway, the point is--

00:11:38   - I've gotten taller since then.

00:11:40   - I don't think you have.

00:11:41   (laughing)

00:11:42   - This is going so far off the rails, it's ridiculous.

00:11:44   But anyways, the funny thing to me though

00:11:46   is that Marco, I think you at least acknowledged

00:11:49   the existence of this page two years ago, whatever it was,

00:11:51   and then basically ignored it,

00:11:52   which is typical Marco fashion.

00:11:54   That's neither good nor bad.

00:11:54   It's just typical Marco.

00:11:56   John, however, could not let this thing

00:11:58   that no other human has seen until today stand,

00:12:01   and triple the size of his little blurb,

00:12:03   making it far more involved than either of the two of us.

00:12:06   - Yeah, 'cause if you're gonna tell people who you are,

00:12:08   say something to distinguish who you are,

00:12:10   like you may know me from such things as Troy McClure style.

00:12:13   - Anyways, it probably should be updated,

00:12:16   but what I was envisioning was not only would we have

00:12:19   this image of us and little blurbs about each of us,

00:12:23   but I envisioned having Marco microphone review style

00:12:28   snippets of us talking from the show

00:12:30   or perhaps even introducing ourselves or whatever.

00:12:32   This has been such a train wreck that we cannot extract

00:12:35   any of this to use on this page.

00:12:36   - No, that's exactly correct for our show.

00:12:39   - Yes.

00:12:40   - It should be a giant train wreck.

00:12:41   Although it occurs to me that it sounds,

00:12:43   introducing ourselves, that's what they do

00:12:44   on the earnings calls, you know?

00:12:46   - Yep, yep.

00:12:47   - Like, "You're doing this, hi, this is Tim," or whatever.

00:12:48   This is not Tim, this is still John, don't be confused.

00:12:50   (laughing)

00:12:52   We're doing a terrible job of this.

00:12:54   This is amazing.

00:12:56   Now don't you appreciate the fact that we don't

00:12:58   introduce ourselves or refer to ourselves by name

00:13:00   most of the time?

00:13:01   - I think at this point they've all stopped listening.

00:13:04   - Yeah, it's so true.

00:13:05   - That's what chapter markers are for, baby.

00:13:07   If you already knew our voices,

00:13:08   you already skipped this chapter.

00:13:09   - That's true, well, but then you missed out

00:13:11   on this delightful, beautiful train wreck.

00:13:13   - You missed out learning about atb.fm/hosts,

00:13:16   which is a terrible page that we need

00:13:17   to either update or delete.

00:13:18   - I feel like now we can't.

00:13:19   Like now we have to leave it.

00:13:20   - No, you have to stay there, we'll fix it.

00:13:22   We'll just get rid of the Twitter handles

00:13:23   and put it on our Mastodon handles and stuff.

00:13:24   We'll fix it, we'll work on it.

00:13:27   We are brought to you this week by you, the audience,

00:13:30   and specifically the ATP members.

00:13:32   Now of course they aren't hearing this

00:13:34   because this is considered an ad

00:13:35   and members get an ad-free version of the show.

00:13:38   So if you become a member today,

00:13:40   and well, really any day, but we encourage you

00:13:42   to become a member as soon as you can.

00:13:45   If you become a member, you won't hear messages like this

00:13:48   and you won't hear our usual sponsor reads either.

00:13:50   You get an ad-free version of the show.

00:13:51   You also get the bootleg feed, which many members enjoy.

00:13:55   This is the unedited livestream feed

00:13:57   and this includes all the roughness of the unedited stream.

00:14:00   It includes Casey's cursing, it includes my bad joke timing,

00:14:04   it includes the beating and end little segments

00:14:05   that we cut out for time or they aren't relevant enough.

00:14:08   It includes the title selection process

00:14:10   at the end of the show that we always do.

00:14:11   So it's a pretty fun bonus, a lot of people really enjoy that

00:14:14   but mainly you're paying for those feeds.

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00:14:52   So check it out today, ATP.fm/join.

00:14:56   Thank you so much for considering

00:14:57   and now back to the show.

00:14:59   - Apple Vision Pro Labs developer kit

00:15:05   and compatibility evaluation signup are live

00:15:08   and you can ask to work with Apple as it says in the URL

00:15:12   in order to do any of these things.

00:15:15   So they are starting extremely soon.

00:15:18   I forget exactly when but I think in the next week or so,

00:15:21   at least the Cupertino ones are happening

00:15:23   and then there's going to be labs in London, Munich,

00:15:26   Shanghai, Singapore and Tokyo.

00:15:28   That is where you can go in and use a Vision Pro

00:15:31   presumably with your app and tweak it

00:15:33   and work on it and so on.

00:15:35   They can take your app and do a compatibility evaluation.

00:15:38   So they run it to kind of like app review

00:15:40   kind of sort of style.

00:15:42   I mean, none of the three of us have any issues

00:15:43   with app reviews, that's awesome.

00:15:45   And they'll tell you, hey, it's a pile of garbage

00:15:47   or hey, there's a video player here that you need to look at

00:15:50   or whatever the case may be

00:15:51   or maybe they'll talk about copyright.

00:15:53   And then finally, you can apply to get

00:15:55   a Vision Pro developer kit,

00:15:57   which we should talk a little bit about the details

00:15:59   with regard to that as well here in a moment.

00:16:01   But all of those things you can do right now.

00:16:04   And I think that signups for the labs at least,

00:16:07   I believe those close very, very soon,

00:16:09   like in the next couple of days, if I'm not mistaken.

00:16:12   I have not yet signed up for any of this in no small part

00:16:15   because I have not done anything Vision Pro related.

00:16:17   Like I have, I would like to do some of this.

00:16:19   I am enthusiastic about the idea of trying the Vision Pro,

00:16:23   but I have done literally nothing.

00:16:26   And so I don't know if I'm a particularly great candidate

00:16:29   for any of these things.

00:16:30   Perhaps if I can ever get my head above sand

00:16:32   or above water or whatever with regard to call sheet,

00:16:34   then maybe I'll apply for one if it's not too late.

00:16:37   But Marco, I assume you have applied for all the things?

00:16:40   - I have actually applied only for the dev kit,

00:16:42   only because my actual app for Vision Pro

00:16:46   is nowhere near ready because it is only my,

00:16:49   like the rewrite of my app, which at this point is,

00:16:52   I would describe it as maybe 20% or 30%, you know, done.

00:16:56   It's really not, you know, anywhere close to shipping.

00:16:59   And so I applied for the dev kit kind of optimistically.

00:17:03   And I even, you know, they have you explain

00:17:06   in like 200 words or so, like, you know,

00:17:08   why you should, why you want one

00:17:10   and why you should have one basically.

00:17:11   It's like a job application.

00:17:13   And I even wrote in there, I'm like, look,

00:17:15   this is not a visually compelling app.

00:17:18   This is a three column list view,

00:17:20   showing lists of podcast episodes.

00:17:22   And it's not like a super immersive experience.

00:17:24   So if that's what you're looking for,

00:17:25   no problem, no hard feelings, I understand.

00:17:28   However, what I'm looking for is basically,

00:17:30   I wanna know how the audio system works,

00:17:32   how background audio works.

00:17:33   I wanna know how my audio engine,

00:17:35   which is pretty low level, interacts with the hardware.

00:17:38   I wanna be able to play with different audio configurations

00:17:42   and options and things like that.

00:17:43   So that's why I wanna access to the hardware.

00:17:46   But it's not a super visually, you know,

00:17:49   massive immersion kind of app.

00:17:51   So I don't think I'm going to get one in all likelihood.

00:17:53   And frankly, I probably shouldn't get one

00:17:56   for all those reasons.

00:17:57   Like if they have a fairly limited number of them,

00:18:00   which just sounds like it's gonna be the case,

00:18:02   and if they wanna only give it to like really high impact

00:18:05   visual kind of apps, there is no way I should have one.

00:18:09   But if they happen to want to give one to a podcast player

00:18:14   that is showing a list of episodes

00:18:15   and you know, playback controls,

00:18:16   I would love to actually use one.

00:18:19   'Cause I think it's gonna be very difficult

00:18:22   to develop good apps for this platform

00:18:25   without actually having one.

00:18:26   Because we don't know how any of the controls

00:18:31   or the mechanisms or the conventions actually feel

00:18:36   and work and look and practice.

00:18:37   Like right now, I'm doing a whole bunch

00:18:39   of iPhone design work.

00:18:41   I'm doing, you know, 'cause I'm in the middle

00:18:43   of this rewrite, plus I'm working on my iOS 17 widgets

00:18:45   for my old code base that will,

00:18:47   I'm hopefully gonna have iOS 17 widgets ready shortly.

00:18:50   And so I'm doing a lot of design work

00:18:51   where like I'm laying out interfaces on the iPhone app.

00:18:55   And yes, I have the simulator,

00:18:57   but on my desk right now are three iPhones

00:19:00   because of various sizes and ages and things.

00:19:03   Because you have to feel it, you have to try it.

00:19:06   It's funny, I actually, I happen to have dug up

00:19:10   what I believe is my first ever podcast appearance.

00:19:15   Because they had Chuck Joyner on Mac Power Users

00:19:20   this past week.

00:19:21   And I remembered, I'm pretty sure his show

00:19:23   that I did in April of 2010, I think,

00:19:27   this was between the iPad's announcement and its release.

00:19:32   Which is kind of funny, like listening back,

00:19:33   I mean, first of all, it is not,

00:19:36   I was not good on this show.

00:19:39   I was, first of all, I was like calling in from a phone.

00:19:42   I sound terrible and I spoke extremely slowly

00:19:46   for some reason.

00:19:47   I don't know what has changed,

00:19:50   maybe I've just had a lot of coffee

00:19:51   in the intervening 13 years.

00:19:54   - New York working its magic.

00:19:55   - Yeah, right, I guess.

00:19:57   But anyway, I re-listened to this.

00:20:00   And it was interesting, I was listening back,

00:20:02   'cause this was the time period where we were,

00:20:04   we spent a big part of the show kind of talking

00:20:06   about our expectations of what the iPad would be like.

00:20:08   Because again, it was announced,

00:20:10   but it wasn't available yet.

00:20:11   And I was able to develop for it,

00:20:13   like they released the SDK before we all had hardware.

00:20:16   And by the way, and please don't,

00:20:17   if you listen to this, please know,

00:20:19   I'm not proud of, it's very dated in a number of ways.

00:20:23   I made a couple of assumptions about a male audience

00:20:26   a few times that I feel really bad about now.

00:20:28   Like, please be kind.

00:20:30   But anyway, it was a similar time period

00:20:33   where we had this hardware announcement

00:20:34   and they showed off the hardware, but nobody had it yet.

00:20:37   And we were all developing apps for it

00:20:39   without having access to the hardware yet.

00:20:41   The problem was that I was saying like,

00:20:43   we don't know how this is going to feel in our hands.

00:20:46   We don't know how certain things will work yet.

00:20:48   And what I ended up shipping for Instapaper,

00:20:51   which was the app I was using at the time,

00:20:52   which is what the interview was mostly about,

00:20:53   what I ended up shipping for Instapaper's first iPad app

00:20:57   was just a stretched out iPhone app.

00:20:59   And it sucked, it was terrible.

00:21:02   And I replaced it as quickly as possible

00:21:04   with a total redesign.

00:21:06   And I think, I fear that what's gonna happen

00:21:09   with Vision Pro is we're all gonna make these

00:21:12   versions of our apps in the simulator

00:21:13   between now and whenever we can get our hands

00:21:15   on a real one, probably early next year, at the best case.

00:21:19   And then we're gonna actually get it and realize,

00:21:21   oh, this is totally wrong.

00:21:23   'Cause you can tell, like, when I'm doing the iPhone work,

00:21:26   I can do this great design in the simulator

00:21:29   and the first time I run it on a device,

00:21:30   I can instantly tell, oh, that's wrong.

00:21:32   That's too small or that's too big or that doesn't work

00:21:33   or that doesn't look right or it doesn't feel right.

00:21:36   You really need to use the hardware

00:21:38   to really know how something feels.

00:21:40   And it doesn't need to be something super flashy

00:21:42   or involved or innovative to hit those walls

00:21:46   and to realize you've made a design mistake.

00:21:48   It can be a very simple table view app

00:21:51   and you can instantly know, oh, this doesn't work

00:21:53   right on the hardware.

00:21:55   And with this hardware in particular,

00:21:56   this is even more different than when we were going

00:22:00   from iPhone to iPad.

00:22:02   Because at least iPhone to iPad, at least first of all,

00:22:04   the interface looked and worked very similarly to the iPhone

00:22:08   and it was still a touch screen.

00:22:10   So it was far more similar than what we have now

00:22:15   going from literally anything to the Vision Pro,

00:22:18   which is controlled totally differently,

00:22:20   looks totally different, works totally different,

00:22:22   the app environment, like everything about it

00:22:24   is so different down to the fundamentals

00:22:27   of how you interact with it.

00:22:29   So I suspect this is gonna be a platform

00:22:32   where you really need the hardware to really design an app

00:22:35   that's worth using it all.

00:22:37   So that's why I applied to the developer kit.

00:22:40   And I kind of feel bad that even if I get one,

00:22:43   I'm gonna have very little to show in my app

00:22:46   for maybe six months.

00:22:48   Like that's, I think six months from now,

00:22:50   I could probably have a working version

00:22:52   with the new code base that actually has like

00:22:54   a useful amount of features that could be released

00:22:57   on its own.

00:22:58   But between now and then, I'm not gonna have much

00:23:00   to show for it.

00:23:01   So that's why I didn't even apply for the labs yet

00:23:03   'cause I have nothing to run yet.

00:23:04   I didn't apply for the please run my app

00:23:07   and tell me if it's broken test flight thing.

00:23:09   Because again, I'm not even to that point yet.

00:23:12   So anyway, I applied.

00:23:14   And then assuming they maybe possibly ever say yes

00:23:17   in the next three months, that'll give me time

00:23:20   to actually figure out how I'm gonna comply

00:23:21   with the security requirements.

00:23:23   - Indeed, okay, before we talk about that,

00:23:25   Jon, did you apply for any of these things?

00:23:27   I presume not?

00:23:28   - No, I don't have any Vision Pro apps.

00:23:31   They're working on none of my apps.

00:23:32   It's not relevant to my apps.

00:23:33   I don't have any ideas for Vision Pro apps.

00:23:35   I'm not gonna get one.

00:23:36   - Fair enough.

00:23:37   All right, so a friend of the show, James Thompson,

00:23:40   was tootin' on Mastodon when this all happened.

00:23:43   James said, "You know, needless to say,

00:23:45   "I applied to get the Vision Pro developer kit for PCALC

00:23:47   "and probably more interesting, DICE by PCALC,"

00:23:49   which is a DICE simulator you can use

00:23:52   for, say, role-playing games or whatever.

00:23:54   Then James continues, "The security requirements

00:23:55   "for keeping the developer kit safe read more

00:23:57   "like a PlayStation developer kit,

00:23:59   "and unlike anything else I've seen

00:24:00   "with pre-release Apple hardware,

00:24:02   "for example, the Apple Silicon DTK."

00:24:04   So this is a little bit long,

00:24:06   but I think it's worth reading.

00:24:07   This is now Apple's words as a part of the developer kit,

00:24:11   like signup or whatever.

00:24:13   Apple says, "You agree that all access to, usage of,

00:24:17   "and storage use of the developer kit

00:24:19   "will be in private, secure workspace accessible

00:24:21   "only by you and your authorized developers,

00:24:24   "for example, fully enclosed with solid doors,

00:24:26   "floors, walls, and ceiling, and locks that can be engaged

00:24:29   "when the developer kit is in use.

00:24:31   "You must ensure that unauthorized persons,

00:24:32   "including any family, friends, roommates,

00:24:34   "or household employees,"

00:24:36   household employees, my word,

00:24:37   "do not access, view, handle, or use the DK,"

00:24:40   the developer kit.

00:24:41   - Oh, my butler can't use it.

00:24:43   - Right, exactly.

00:24:43   Very, very, very Silicon Valley, am I right?

00:24:45   "When in use, the DK should be in your positive control

00:24:48   "on your person or within your direct line of sight

00:24:50   "at all times.

00:24:51   "You must ensure that the DK is passcode protected.

00:24:54   "Never leave the DK unattended when not in use.

00:24:56   "Turn off the DK and store it in its locked Pelican case

00:25:00   "in a locked space that only you have access to,

00:25:03   "for example, a locked room or closet,

00:25:05   "a safe or a locked drawer.

00:25:07   "The DK may not be moved from or taken away from

00:25:10   "its shipped to address by you or your authorized developers

00:25:13   "without Apple's prior written consent.

00:25:15   "If you will be away from your workspace

00:25:17   "for more than 10 days,

00:25:18   "consult with your Apple point of contact

00:25:20   "about how to keep the DK safe while you are away.

00:25:22   "You agree to restrict access to the DK

00:25:24   "to you and your authorized developers

00:25:26   "and take all reasonable precautions

00:25:27   "to safeguard the DK from loss or theft."

00:25:31   I mean, if I get one, my in-home office

00:25:35   does not have a lock that has a key.

00:25:37   - Yeah, you need a new house.

00:25:39   - And it has windows.

00:25:40   Like, does that mean I can't use it?

00:25:41   Like, what the lock?

00:25:42   - You just have to have solid doors, floors, walls,

00:25:44   and ceiling and locks that keep me engaged

00:25:46   when it's not in use.

00:25:47   I'm gonna go out and let him say--

00:25:48   - No, but no one else is allowed to view it.

00:25:50   So you can only use it when you have locked yourself

00:25:53   in the room.

00:25:53   - Right, right, right.

00:25:54   - I think pretty much zero people

00:25:57   are going to fully comply with this

00:25:58   'cause it's basically impossible human nature-wise

00:26:01   to fully comply with this,

00:26:02   even if you have the best of intentions

00:26:04   because it demands so much of you

00:26:06   that's out of the ordinary.

00:26:07   And the normal human mind will rebel against the absurdity

00:26:11   of these requirements for a product

00:26:12   that has already been announced and tried by the press,

00:26:16   although not us.

00:26:17   It's not like, you know, if before this was revealed,

00:26:20   I can understand something like this,

00:26:21   but it's just impossible to comply with this.

00:26:23   Like, unless you have a compliance officer there

00:26:26   who's checking all the time,

00:26:27   there's no way, even with the best of intentions,

00:26:29   you're gonna, like, it just requires too much.

00:26:32   So I'm not quite sure why.

00:26:33   Maybe this is just boilerplate they have

00:26:35   for when they, like, you know,

00:26:36   like Unity has been working on stuff for two years.

00:26:38   So before it was announced,

00:26:40   I can imagine agreements like this

00:26:42   being enforced in a big company.

00:26:44   But this developer kit thing

00:26:46   is open to anyone who wants to apply.

00:26:48   So individual developers who work from their home

00:26:51   are gonna get this device.

00:26:52   They can't comply with this.

00:26:54   Like, Unity might be able to

00:26:55   'cause they're a big company

00:26:56   and they actually have compliance officers and stuff,

00:26:58   and there's millions of dollars online

00:26:59   if they screw up or whatever,

00:27:00   but individual developers won't.

00:27:02   I think it is interesting

00:27:03   that they're being so super cautious about it,

00:27:05   but I do wonder if this is, like, leftover language

00:27:07   from, like, the before times before WWDC.

00:27:10   - Yeah, well, 'cause this is the level of security

00:27:12   that you would have if they're, like,

00:27:15   you know, if they're showing off some new hardware soon

00:27:18   and they go to your company a couple weeks ahead of time,

00:27:21   and like, here, try this new iPad, make your app for it,

00:27:23   we'll show it in the keynote.

00:27:24   Like, this is that level of security,

00:27:26   although this is actually, when that has happened,

00:27:30   it's been even higher in the sense that usually

00:27:31   they put it in some, like, tremendous enclosure

00:27:34   so you can't even really see what the device looks like

00:27:36   outside of the screen.

00:27:37   - Yeah, or sometimes they'll have you come to them

00:27:40   to work on it in a place that they control.

00:27:42   But all those situations that you're describing

00:27:44   involve companies, and companies have people whose job it is

00:27:46   to, like, comply with these things

00:27:48   and not get the company sued

00:27:49   because companies have a lot of money

00:27:50   and there's contract, like, that all makes perfect sense.

00:27:53   But, hey, individual developer,

00:27:55   come throw your hat in the ring to sign up for this thing

00:27:58   and we'll send you a developer kit.

00:27:59   Boy, this is overkill for that.

00:28:01   - Yeah, but that being said,

00:28:03   first of all, I fully expect that only companies

00:28:07   that have those kind of resources

00:28:08   are likely to get developer kits.

00:28:11   I think everyone else is gonna be told, come to a lab.

00:28:13   - Maybe not you, but I think individuals will get it.

00:28:15   There's enough individuals with interesting apps

00:28:17   that Apple wants to have a developer kit,

00:28:19   and I think they're gonna send it to 'em.

00:28:21   I think there will be individuals

00:28:22   who work out of their home who are gonna get a DK.

00:28:24   - Yeah, I mean, I genuinely believe, I really, really do,

00:28:26   that Underscore will end up with one of these,

00:28:28   as an example.

00:28:29   - Oh, yeah, he should, actually.

00:28:30   - And he should.

00:28:31   So, I would be surprised if there aren't at least

00:28:34   a handful of #blessed individuals that get them.

00:28:37   But the thing that struck me about this is,

00:28:40   again, I haven't even applied,

00:28:41   and I think I tend to be a straight shooter,

00:28:44   I tend to try not to break the rules,

00:28:46   and so I would probably do a best effort

00:28:48   on following these rules.

00:28:49   But leaving all of this aside,

00:28:51   like all things being equal,

00:28:54   if I got one of these, of course I'd be like,

00:28:56   "Aaron, you have to try this out.

00:28:57   "Why would she not?"

00:28:58   And it occurred to me, as I was thinking about this--

00:29:00   - Well, now you're never gonna get one.

00:29:01   - Oh, no, totally, right?

00:29:02   - No, you can make her an authorized developer.

00:29:04   - You already said on a podcast

00:29:06   where you identified yourself by name,

00:29:08   so they know which voice is which,

00:29:09   that you are not going to comply with this agreement,

00:29:12   so forget it, Casey, you're not getting one.

00:29:13   - Yeah, it's all your fault, Jon.

00:29:14   I was okay when they thought it was you.

00:29:16   But, no, anyways, it occurred to me

00:29:18   that there is every possibility for this thing to phone home.

00:29:23   And it's aware, presumably,

00:29:27   I don't know if it's like a retina scan

00:29:29   or whatever the scan was,

00:29:30   but to identify who's using it,

00:29:32   it hypothetically will know if somebody else

00:29:35   was put this thing on and has tried it.

00:29:38   And is it gonna phone home to Apple if you do that?

00:29:40   Oh, I was talking to my friend Brad about this,

00:29:42   and Brad had pointed out,

00:29:43   "Oh, if somebody walks up to you,

00:29:45   "is it gonna be like,

00:29:46   "'Uh-oh, somebody was in the presence of this thing,'

00:29:49   "you know what I mean?"

00:29:49   Like, I'm not sure--

00:29:50   - She's gonna self-destroy it on your face.

00:29:52   - Right?

00:29:53   Like, I don't think Apple is quite that evil,

00:29:56   vindictive, whatever-- - No, no, they're not.

00:29:58   - But it is hypothetically possible,

00:30:00   and that kinda creeps me out.

00:30:02   - I mean, look, and I'm sure in their terms,

00:30:05   I'm sure it says something like

00:30:06   they can do whatever they want,

00:30:07   but no, I wouldn't be worried about that.

00:30:09   I'd be worried about disappointing Dad.

00:30:12   That's kinda what I'd be worried about here.

00:30:15   'Cause in many ways, it's similar to,

00:30:18   there's been a couple of times in the past

00:30:20   where I've been trusted with pre-release review hardware.

00:30:23   That wasn't at all the same thing as this.

00:30:25   I mean, that was like,

00:30:27   hey, we have this MacBook Pro

00:30:28   that we're releasing in a week.

00:30:30   We've already announced it.

00:30:31   Here, you can take one to review for a week.

00:30:35   And that's very different from,

00:30:37   this is a brand new platform

00:30:38   that is unlike everything we've ever shipped before,

00:30:40   and it isn't shipping to the public

00:30:41   for seven or eight months, probably.

00:30:43   That's a very different situation, obviously.

00:30:45   So I would expect this to have a lot of security.

00:30:47   And the reality is,

00:30:48   what I should probably do is go to a lab,

00:30:50   and I'm sure I would have not that much trouble

00:30:52   getting a slot in a lab.

00:30:54   The problem is, I don't wanna fly all over California.

00:30:56   (laughs)

00:30:57   To fly all over California for this is,

00:30:59   that's a lot.

00:31:01   And so, look, I'll do it if I have to,

00:31:03   but certainly not yet.

00:31:04   I mean, I would wait until closer to release time

00:31:07   before I did that,

00:31:08   but that's a much larger thing for me.

00:31:13   If it happened in New York, I'd be there.

00:31:15   No question I'd be there.

00:31:17   - Right, that's the thing.

00:31:18   I was very surprised that it was,

00:31:20   left coast or get the hell out.

00:31:22   I really would have expected them to do something

00:31:25   in New York somewhere.

00:31:26   And I mean, I heard through the grapevine

00:31:28   that there is an Apple establishment in New York,

00:31:30   like where presumably this sort of thing could happen.

00:31:32   So I don't know.

00:31:34   I was very, very surprised that,

00:31:37   they're telling everyone to go to California or pound sand.

00:31:39   - I thought they had one of them,

00:31:41   maybe just the compatibility labs

00:31:43   in multiple cities across the world.

00:31:45   - There are, yeah.

00:31:45   But the only one in the US is in California.

00:31:49   - Oh, all right.

00:31:50   - London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo.

00:31:53   - There you go.

00:31:54   - Anyway, but yeah, this is quite amusing to me.

00:31:57   And I mean, in the defense of Apple,

00:31:59   I understand what they're going for here.

00:32:01   And certainly I think if I were in their shoes,

00:32:04   my approach would be,

00:32:05   let's put the fear of God into all these people

00:32:08   and make them think that they have to be super strict

00:32:10   with it, even if they really didn't care

00:32:12   and all they cared about was not having a video demo

00:32:15   or anything like that.

00:32:17   Don't go to YouTube, don't go to the Verge,

00:32:18   or whoever, who was it?

00:32:19   - Yeah, I mean, I think this is like a butt covering for,

00:32:22   what Apple doesn't want is someone posting a picture

00:32:25   of here's what the developer kit looks like, right?

00:32:27   'Cause that'll be a whole thing.

00:32:28   - Yeah, or they don't want people tearing it down

00:32:29   and doing the iFixit.

00:32:31   - And they don't want you to say,

00:32:32   well, I complied with your agreement,

00:32:34   but someone sneakily took a picture,

00:32:35   and I was like, look, if you comply with our agreement,

00:32:37   there'd be no way for someone to sneakily take a picture

00:32:39   of it because our agreement is so airtight,

00:32:41   so no matter what happens, it's your fault,

00:32:43   which is what lawyers do.

00:32:45   - Yeah, exactly, indeed.

00:32:46   The other thing too is like,

00:32:47   'cause I'm giving all these statements assuming

00:32:50   that it will be fairly hard to get developer access to this,

00:32:54   that's assuming there's a whole bunch of people trying.

00:32:57   And that's probably a safe assumption in absolute terms,

00:33:00   but in relative terms, I think this platform,

00:33:03   I think Apple needs developers to be interested

00:33:06   in this platform a little harder

00:33:09   than they normally have to push.

00:33:10   With the iPhone, they don't really have to push at all.

00:33:12   We come to them.

00:33:14   With the other platforms,

00:33:16   they have to do a little bit of pushing

00:33:18   'cause it's less compelling or less,

00:33:21   gotta have it for developers.

00:33:22   And I think Vision OS is gonna have,

00:33:26   as I mentioned before,

00:33:27   I think it's gonna have a pretty gradual start.

00:33:28   It's not gonna have a lot of unit sales to start.

00:33:31   It's not gonna be easy to get for a lot of people

00:33:33   for a while due to lots of things,

00:33:35   not least of which is the price of course,

00:33:36   but also the manufacturing and country availability

00:33:39   and stuff like that.

00:33:40   So it's gonna be a while before this platform

00:33:42   really ramps up with developer interest.

00:33:44   It might be the case that any of us

00:33:46   who are interested in making apps for it,

00:33:47   they might be like, "Yes, please, here!"

00:33:49   We don't know.

00:33:50   And yeah, I guess we'll find out.

00:33:51   It remains to be seen how competitive

00:33:54   these developer resources actually are.

00:33:57   I hope there's tons of people wanting to develop

00:33:58   for this platform because frankly,

00:33:59   I think it's pretty cool,

00:34:00   and I'm hoping to be a user of this platform,

00:34:02   and I'm wanting to have a healthy software ecosystem.

00:34:06   But I also, I've heard from a lot of people

00:34:08   who are kind of like in the wait and see camp,

00:34:10   and as I mentioned in my Vision Pro challenges segment

00:34:13   a few weeks back, I don't think a lot of big companies

00:34:17   are gonna jump on board quite yet.

00:34:19   So it's probably gonna be largely down to

00:34:21   independent enthusiasts and developers

00:34:25   like Underscore and possibly me,

00:34:28   and we'll see whatever Jon comes up with.

00:34:30   (laughing)

00:34:32   And hopefully in case you can port Call Sheet to it

00:34:34   and everything, but like, which actually I think

00:34:36   it'll be a pretty good use for it.

00:34:38   - Yeah, I do as well.

00:34:39   It's not lack of enthusiasm, it's just lack of time.

00:34:42   There's only one of me,

00:34:43   and I'm trying to get the damn thing out the door,

00:34:45   which we'll talk about here in a minute.

00:34:46   But yeah, I mean, I think Call Sheet does make sense for it,

00:34:49   but I can't, well, maybe I could,

00:34:52   but I am of the kind that I can't in good conscience

00:34:56   apply for a developer kit before I at least have

00:34:59   something to show for it.

00:35:01   Even if Apple doesn't necessarily care, I care.

00:35:04   I wanna have a little bit of my head around,

00:35:06   I wanna have my head a little bit around

00:35:08   what all this means, and I'm not there yet,

00:35:10   but hopefully I will be soon.

00:35:12   - Yeah, it doesn't really help that I have to rewrite

00:35:13   all my widgets first, and also they redesigned

00:35:15   all of watchOS, and like, all this other stuff

00:35:17   I have to get to first, really, for this fall.

00:35:20   But anyway, we'll get there.

00:35:22   - All right, and then a friend of the show,

00:35:24   Steve Troughton-Smith, also noted that

00:35:25   the Vision Pro loan period is until 90 days

00:35:28   after the launch of the retail product in the United States.

00:35:32   It would make sense for Apple to extend that period

00:35:35   in countries that have no retail launch of the Vision Pro,

00:35:37   unless it expects developers with in-progress apps

00:35:39   to either pause development or try to figure out

00:35:41   how to import one from the US.

00:35:43   That's a good point.

00:35:45   - Yeah, I mean, really, honestly, at this point,

00:35:47   as I was saying earlier, I think if you're gonna release

00:35:50   an app for this platform, you need to be trying it

00:35:52   on hardware first, and if you have no way

00:35:56   to get one of these afterwards, I don't see

00:36:00   how you continue to maintain an app on this platform.

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00:37:49   (upbeat music)

00:37:51   - I was on vacation last week, as was Jon,

00:37:56   which is why we recorded early.

00:37:58   And for the first time ever, we actually timed them

00:38:01   in parallel rather than serially.

00:38:03   So I was very proud of Jon and myself.

00:38:05   But nevertheless, that's neither here nor there.

00:38:06   So when we last left our hero, that hero would be me.

00:38:09   Hi, this is Casey.

00:38:11   When we last left our hero,

00:38:13   I had submitted Call Sheet to the App Store

00:38:16   with a build that I could release,

00:38:20   but I knew there were a few fixes left to be done.

00:38:22   The screenshots weren't exactly what I wanted.

00:38:24   I just wanted to get something across the finish line

00:38:26   before I left for vacation.

00:38:28   And I don't think I made it clear that that was the real

00:38:30   push when we spoke about this last a couple of weeks ago.

00:38:33   But I really wanted to get something through app review

00:38:36   before vacation.

00:38:37   So at least I could go on vacation,

00:38:39   not stressing about it, knowing, hey,

00:38:41   I've made it across the finish line at least once.

00:38:43   I have something I could release if I really wanted to.

00:38:46   Everything's kosher, everything's good.

00:38:49   As we discussed and as Jon got extremely fired up about,

00:38:52   which was very kind of both of you guys

00:38:55   to get my back like that.

00:38:57   But anyways, as we discussed last time,

00:39:00   which was two weeks ago, I got three different rejections.

00:39:03   The first was they want an unclickable URL

00:39:06   in the app description.

00:39:07   Fine, I did that.

00:39:08   Then I got a rejection for there being a video player

00:39:10   in the app that doesn't have a video player.

00:39:12   Fine, we clarified that.

00:39:14   Then I got a rejection for using Disney and Pixar copyrighted

00:39:20   material in the screenshots that I provided to Apple,

00:39:24   and I got rejected.

00:39:25   And so I wrote Apple because this

00:39:27   was happening as close to real time

00:39:30   as one could be with app review.

00:39:32   They would send something within a half an hour, 45 minutes,

00:39:34   I would send something back.

00:39:35   Within about an hour after that, they would send something back

00:39:37   and was going back and forth.

00:39:38   So in my ignorance, my naivete-- I don't know how

00:39:42   to pronounce that word, you know what I'm thinking of--

00:39:45   because I'm a dope, I thought, hey, let's just

00:39:47   get on the phone.

00:39:48   You call me, or I can call you, or whatever.

00:39:51   Let's just get on the phone.

00:39:51   Let's hammer this out in like five, 10 minutes.

00:39:53   We'll get it done.

00:39:54   It'll be fine.

00:39:55   And they said, sure, we'll call you back in three to five

00:39:57   business days.

00:39:58   Well, three to five business days

00:39:59   meant that when I was on the beach in Cape Charles,

00:40:02   I received a phone call from Apple.

00:40:04   So I ran to the dune, which was far away from all the people

00:40:10   and the music and all that.

00:40:11   You're supposed to keep off the dunes, Casey.

00:40:13   Yeah, well, I ran to the cutout through the dune

00:40:16   that you used to get to the beach.

00:40:18   And see, I forget with whom I'm speaking.

00:40:20   By the way, that was Marco, everybody,

00:40:22   that lives on the beach.

00:40:23   Hi, this is Casey.

00:40:24   I'm the chief interrupter.

00:40:26   I don't know if that's true.

00:40:27   It's definitely true.

00:40:28   But I spoke with a gentleman who only identified himself

00:40:31   as Richard, hand to God.

00:40:35   He was incredibly kind and incredibly patient

00:40:38   and incredibly chill.

00:40:39   Like, I cannot-- I probably shouldn't state this publicly

00:40:43   because it's mildly embarrassing.

00:40:44   But I cannot remember having a phone call that I was this--

00:40:50   maybe not scared, nervous, worried, just a ball of emotion

00:40:57   about.

00:40:58   Like, my heart was pumping a mile a minute.

00:41:00   In retrospect, I should have done a Apple Watch heartbeat

00:41:03   doodad.

00:41:04   You know what I'm thinking of?

00:41:04   Like, I actually read my heartbeat.

00:41:05   Did you get the alert that's like, hey,

00:41:07   your heart rate's a little off?

00:41:08   It looks like you're talking to App Review.

00:41:10   Right, exactly.

00:41:13   It's so true.

00:41:15   Do you want to begin a workout?

00:41:18   People are always doing those fake icons

00:41:20   for different kinds of workouts.

00:41:21   They should do a talking to App Review workout.

00:41:22   Someone work on that.

00:41:23   100% true.

00:41:24   So anyways, I cannot tell you how--

00:41:30   I was not really moving.

00:41:32   And I was, like, mildly out of breath.

00:41:35   I was so nervous for this phone call.

00:41:37   And truth be told, Richard was so nice and so chill.

00:41:42   And based on his demeanor alone, I really

00:41:46   didn't need to be this worked up.

00:41:48   I had built this up in my head.

00:41:49   I'd been stressed about it through the beginning

00:41:50   of our vacation.

00:41:51   And I'm just freaking the F out, right?

00:41:54   And he gets me on the phone.

00:41:57   And one of the first things he said,

00:41:59   which kind of made me chuckle--

00:42:01   and I don't remember the words verbatim,

00:42:02   but as close as I can remember, he said,

00:42:05   I just want to let you know that I have to tell you this call

00:42:07   cannot be recorded.

00:42:08   And I do not consent to it being recorded,

00:42:11   which I thought was quite funny.

00:42:13   I mean, that's an interesting sentiment

00:42:15   to express, even to those that aren't the exact words,

00:42:17   because cannot be recorded?

00:42:18   Well, Richard, I'm not sure you're right about that.

00:42:21   I'm pretty sure it can be recorded.

00:42:23   And I register your lack of consent.

00:42:25   But I happen to live in a state that requires only one of us

00:42:28   to consent, and I consent.

00:42:30   So where are we now, Richard?

00:42:33   But that's not a good way to start that call.

00:42:35   So I'm glad you didn't do that.

00:42:36   No, it is not.

00:42:37   No, it is not.

00:42:37   It's like, this call could be recorded.

00:42:40   It probably shouldn't.

00:42:41   You probably should not record.

00:42:42   As far as you know, I'm not recording this, Richard.

00:42:45   Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

00:42:46   If you recall, I did briefly look at the state laws--

00:42:49   the Commonwealth laws here in Virginia.

00:42:52   And as far as I can tell, it is a single-party consent state.

00:42:55   Now, California is not, if I remember correctly--

00:42:57   so I don't know how that would work out.

00:42:58   But it doesn't matter.

00:42:58   I mean, you can do whatever you want within the law.

00:43:00   But then also, Apple can just reject your app forever.

00:43:02   So think about that.

00:43:03   There's that, too.

00:43:04   I did not record it because I was standing on a beach.

00:43:07   So he gets me on the phone, and he basically says,

00:43:11   I've taken a look at your situation.

00:43:13   Your app is good to go.

00:43:15   Do you want me to release this one,

00:43:16   or do you want to send another bug fix through?

00:43:18   What do you want to do?

00:43:18   I want to pause you here, Casey, because one strain of feedback

00:43:22   we got after the show where I was complaining

00:43:25   about your rejection and how ridiculous it was

00:43:27   from people with experience with copyright

00:43:29   and dealing with IP law and ownership of stuff.

00:43:33   And many of those people were super-duper confident

00:43:36   that we were a bunch of dummies and just didn't understand

00:43:39   how copyright law worked.

00:43:41   And I think all of us were fairly deferential,

00:43:43   saying we're not lawyers.

00:43:44   We don't understand how copyright works.

00:43:45   But one thing we do know, and what

00:43:47   I tried to emphasize in that episode

00:43:48   is there are many apps like this on the App Store.

00:43:52   And there is no way that all of those apps, some of which

00:43:56   are made by individual developers like Casey,

00:43:58   have gotten all the clearances that these supposed

00:44:01   experts in copyright law think we need to get.

00:44:04   And I think Richard saying, oh, no, your app is fine,

00:44:08   pretty firmly puts the decision in our camp saying,

00:44:11   we were right.

00:44:12   You don't need contracts with every movie and television

00:44:15   production company in the world to produce an app like Casey's.

00:44:18   In fact, Apple said, it's fine.

00:44:21   Yep.

00:44:22   And we had-- I could look it up.

00:44:24   I have my phone next to me.

00:44:25   But I would say we had a five to 10-minute conversation.

00:44:28   But the TLDR, the short short of it was, it was fine.

00:44:31   And they were good to release as if I was good to release.

00:44:34   And so I genuinely have no idea if I got through because

00:44:41   of ATP, if I got through because John Siracusa was upset

00:44:45   and Marco Armond were upset.

00:44:46   I really don't think that's it.

00:44:47   I genuinely don't think it is.

00:44:49   I think the app is fine.

00:44:49   That's the whole point.

00:44:50   Exactly.

00:44:51   Because there are so many apps like this,

00:44:53   if just a single human who understands anything

00:44:55   about the App Store looked at it, they'd be like, oh, yeah,

00:44:56   there's tons of apps like this.

00:44:58   Does it do anything wrong?

00:44:59   No?

00:44:59   Then why are we stopping it?

00:45:01   Well, and also, I feel-- oh, by the way, this is Marco.

00:45:03   I feel like all that you need to know is it's now resolved.

00:45:07   That's it.

00:45:08   Don't dwell too much on why.

00:45:09   Just move on.

00:45:12   What is it?

00:45:12   Past performance has no whatever implications on future--

00:45:15   whatever they tell you about the stock stuff.

00:45:17   This doesn't mean that the app won't get rejected

00:45:18   for the exact same reason next time you submit it.

00:45:20   That's the magic of the App Store.

00:45:22   Yep, that is the magic of the App Store.

00:45:23   And I asked him a few things, not in a challenge-y way.

00:45:26   Like, hey, I think at one point I said, hey, for the future,

00:45:30   should I have handled this differently?

00:45:31   Did I do something wrong here?

00:45:33   And I was very deferential.

00:45:36   I was trying to say in so many words, look,

00:45:38   I don't want to waste your time.

00:45:40   Actually, I might have even said that to him.

00:45:41   I don't want to waste your time.

00:45:42   I think I know what you were trying to say,

00:45:44   but in a very nice way.

00:45:45   Exactly.

00:45:46   I was trying to say--

00:45:47   This whole process has been BS.

00:45:49   Yes.

00:45:50   I was trying to say this was a waste of everyone's time,

00:45:52   especially mine.

00:45:53   Yes, exactly.

00:45:54   What should I have done for the next time?

00:45:56   And again, he was very kind, very chill.

00:45:59   He said, no, no, no, you're good.

00:46:00   You didn't do anything wrong.

00:46:01   It's all fine.

00:46:02   And you should have said, and Richard,

00:46:03   what do you think you should do for next time?

00:46:06   Is there anything that you want to talk about that maybe you

00:46:09   could have done better?

00:46:11   Oh, that's very funny.

00:46:12   So anyway, so we were on the phone for five or 10 minutes.

00:46:14   And he said, OK, how do you want to proceed?

00:46:16   Do you want to release this one?

00:46:17   And it was all a pending developer release

00:46:19   once it gets through app review.

00:46:21   But I said, you know what?

00:46:21   No, I'd like to see this across the finish line.

00:46:23   Would you go ahead and send it through, please?

00:46:25   He said, absolutely, no problem.

00:46:26   I'll give you a call.

00:46:27   It'll probably be a couple hours.

00:46:28   We'll get it through.

00:46:29   This was somewhere to the order of 1 o'clock in the

00:46:32   afternoon Eastern time.

00:46:33   6 o'clock Eastern time comes around.

00:46:36   The app still hasn't passed review.

00:46:38   I know that it's in review because you can see the state

00:46:41   of things using App Store Connect.

00:46:43   And there's an app for that, I think, also called

00:46:45   App Store Connect.

00:46:46   There's a website, blah, blah, blah.

00:46:47   And I see that it's been in review for a couple hours now.

00:46:51   I am pooping my pants because the very kind Richard had told

00:46:54   me unequivocally it's good to go.

00:46:57   But I thought I was good to go before I even sent it to

00:47:00   review, and it turns out I was wrong about that.

00:47:03   So what's the deal?

00:47:05   And right around the time I'm spiraling into the depths of

00:47:08   despair, I get a phone call from Apple.

00:47:11   And it's Richard.

00:47:12   And he says, hey, you're probably

00:47:14   wondering what's going on.

00:47:15   I said, yes.

00:47:16   Yes, I am.

00:47:18   There's something wrong on our end.

00:47:20   I'm not entirely sure what it is.

00:47:22   But we're working on it.

00:47:23   And we'll get it through, I promise.

00:47:25   OK.

00:47:26   Are you sure?

00:47:27   Yep, yep, yep.

00:47:27   I'm totally sure.

00:47:29   Would you like me to give you a call when it's through?

00:47:32   Yes, please.

00:47:33   Because I'm really worried.

00:47:35   He said, no worries.

00:47:36   I will give you a call.

00:47:37   And then it was actually, of course, it was like 10 minutes

00:47:39   after that that it all went through.

00:47:40   He gave me another call.

00:47:41   All was good.

00:47:43   So sitting in the App Store right now, pending developer

00:47:47   release, is the very first release of Call Sheet.

00:47:51   All right.

00:47:52   Which I'm extremely excited for and I'm

00:47:54   extremely thankful for.

00:47:55   And actually, before I talk release plans,

00:47:57   I should back up a half step.

00:47:57   I'm sorry.

00:47:58   I should have reordered this in the show notes.

00:48:00   We got a lot of feedback from lawyers and people

00:48:04   with-- amateur lawyers saying, as John had mentioned a moment

00:48:08   ago, oh, it's absolutely copyright.

00:48:10   Apple cannot accept anything like that.

00:48:12   You're absolutely 100% going to have

00:48:14   to use stable diffusion to make fake poster art.

00:48:17   I actually had somebody reach out to me.

00:48:19   I wish I had their name in front of me.

00:48:20   But they said, hey, I'm a producer on such and such

00:48:22   and I am giving you permission to use this thing that I

00:48:24   have the rights to, which is very kind.

00:48:26   I really appreciate that.

00:48:27   It's hard to get--

00:48:27   Only 700,000 more people you need to get agreements from.

00:48:30   Right, exactly.

00:48:31   No, but I don't want to besmirch this fellow.

00:48:33   It was very kind of him to say that, genuinely.

00:48:35   But anyways, a lot of people said, of course,

00:48:38   this is never going to work.

00:48:39   And a lot of other people said, oh, I've been through this.

00:48:44   Here's what you need to do.

00:48:45   And so the most concise example of this,

00:48:47   and I think most easy to understand,

00:48:49   was Ibrahim Thameem, who wrote, I just

00:48:52   wanted to suggest something that might help with the App Store

00:48:54   rejection you talked about in the last episode of ATP.

00:48:56   I spent a lot of time with the same exact issue with my app

00:48:59   that used the Movie Database API.

00:49:02   What finally got them to accept the app

00:49:03   was to include a note below in the review information section.

00:49:08   It's weird, but this seems to be what they're looking for.

00:49:10   Since then, I've been able to get multiple similar apps

00:49:13   approved by providing this exact note.

00:49:15   The note is as follows.

00:49:16   As mentioned extensively in the app,

00:49:17   all imagery and metadata used in this app

00:49:19   is from the MovieDB.org API.

00:49:21   Therefore, any information regarding

00:49:23   permission to use the images or metadata, please refer to

00:49:27   and then hit the Movie Database Terms of Use URL, which

00:49:31   basically says, I am not a lawyer.

00:49:33   Look, everything that's been uploaded to us,

00:49:36   as part of uploading it to us, we

00:49:38   are asking those who are uploading it,

00:49:41   do you have the rights to this?

00:49:43   And they have attested yes.

00:49:44   So if they have the rights to it,

00:49:46   now we have the rights to it because they're

00:49:48   granting us rights, and now we're granting you rights.

00:49:50   So I think it's kind of like Spider-Man pointing

00:49:52   at himself sort of situation.

00:49:54   I don't think that's how it works.

00:49:56   I like the fact that Ibrahim put the little F-you

00:49:58   at the beginning, which is like, as mentioned extensively

00:50:01   in the app, which you may or may not have actually looked at.

00:50:06   I mean, it's kind of like uploading a web browser

00:50:08   and saying, just so you know, every web page this web

00:50:11   browser loads is on the web, and that content is not

00:50:14   part of our application.

00:50:15   And yet Apple will still say, I don't know.

00:50:17   I could browse porn, rejected.

00:50:20   I mean, there's lots of sort of superstition about do this

00:50:24   and they got my thing through.

00:50:25   But the problem is, it's such a random number generator,

00:50:28   like App Review.

00:50:30   Did I get through because of something that I did?

00:50:32   Or did it get through just because I was going

00:50:34   to get through no matter what at that point?

00:50:35   Like Richard said, Casey didn't need

00:50:37   to change anything about his app.

00:50:38   He didn't need to get agreements with every movie studio.

00:50:40   He didn't need to do anything.

00:50:41   His app as is was just plain fine,

00:50:44   which is what we all thought.

00:50:46   Because again, there are apps that are very similar

00:50:48   that I've been on the App Store for years and years.

00:50:50   And why wouldn't Casey's be fine?

00:50:52   It's all about, it's a bunch of humans.

00:50:55   And they make mistakes or they're

00:50:57   afraid to step over a possible line or whatever else.

00:51:01   And so as long as this system is human based,

00:51:05   it's going to have human problems.

00:51:06   It's going to be inconsistent.

00:51:08   It's going to be, they're going to mess up sometimes.

00:51:09   You're going to get crappy reviewers sometimes.

00:51:12   And if the system wasn't human based,

00:51:14   if it was AI based or something, we would have different problems.

00:51:17   We wouldn't have no problems.

00:51:19   So it's just part of being an iOS developer

00:51:22   is you got to play the system.

00:51:24   You have to know that, yeah, there's occasional landmines

00:51:27   you're going to step on.

00:51:28   You don't really know how certain things are going to go.

00:51:31   And you kind of just build that into your expectations.

00:51:33   And we can rage and we can fight against it.

00:51:35   And we can say app review sucks.

00:51:36   We can say we shouldn't need to do this, et cetera.

00:51:39   And that's all.

00:51:40   Sometimes we need to fight that fight.

00:51:41   But usually we just have to work within the system the way it is.

00:51:44   But here's the thing with the system.

00:51:45   You mentioned it being AI powered.

00:51:47   Like it could be worse.

00:51:48   It could be like no humans involved.

00:51:49   But we have the worst of both worlds.

00:51:51   We have fallible humans, but also we

00:51:53   don't have the humanity that comes with them.

00:51:56   What we would expect, maybe not in Casey's case,

00:51:58   but in other cases where people get angry about things,

00:52:00   is like in actual human relationships between humans

00:52:03   or even just relationships between companies,

00:52:06   a thing called reputation exists.

00:52:08   There is a level of trust that gets built up.

00:52:10   Like Panic, the software developer Panic,

00:52:14   should be treated differently by Apple than I am,

00:52:19   or than Casey is.

00:52:20   Because they have such a long history of such high quality

00:52:23   applications, there is trust built up

00:52:26   from literal decades of working with this company

00:52:29   and these same people.

00:52:30   When humans relate to each other, it's not all the same.

00:52:33   So app review, everybody's the same.

00:52:35   Everyone's supposedly treated the same.

00:52:36   That's supposed to be fair.

00:52:37   But what it doesn't allow to happen is to like,

00:52:40   let's give Panic the benefit of the doubt.

00:52:42   Let's assume that they're not secretly doing like--

00:52:46   let's not assume the worst of them.

00:52:47   Let's give them a review who actually looks at their app

00:52:49   and knows that it doesn't contain a video player.

00:52:51   You know what I mean?

00:52:51   Like there should be different treatment.

00:52:53   There is different treatment for Microsoft, Google, Adobe,

00:52:56   the big companies that are big competitors

00:52:58   or that Apple needs or whatever.

00:52:59   So that does exist, as we've talked about.

00:53:01   But I feel like the next level down,

00:53:03   like we want-- if it's humans to humans,

00:53:05   I want the advantages of it being a human powered process

00:53:08   in addition to the disadvantages.

00:53:10   Now I just feel like we just get the disadvantages

00:53:12   and there are no advantages.

00:53:13   And whether that's an advantage like, oh, Casey gets to talk--

00:53:16   you know, Casey assumed when he talked to a human,

00:53:18   he'd be able to work it out.

00:53:19   Because at that point, he's getting higher bandwidth

00:53:22   treatment.

00:53:23   And to Casey's point earlier, wouldn't it

00:53:25   have been easier to skip all that time

00:53:27   that we've wasted both of our time and energy

00:53:29   before this five second phone call?

00:53:31   This five second phone call, granted, it's not as scalable.

00:53:33   You know, people-- after you can't be calling everybody

00:53:35   on the phone or whatever.

00:53:36   But if Apple had put the amount of effort

00:53:38   they put into that phone call into one or two

00:53:40   of those earlier reviews, this whole problem

00:53:42   could have been avoided.

00:53:43   So I still feel like--

00:53:44   I'm not saying that they have to be perfect.

00:53:46   There's always going to be mistakes.

00:53:47   But if it's going to be human powered,

00:53:49   I want some of the advantages of human review.

00:53:52   And part of those advantages is the ability

00:53:54   to build up trust and a reputation over time

00:53:56   for good developers.

00:53:57   Which again, may not apply to Casey with his handful of apps

00:53:59   that he's put out.

00:54:00   But the other developers--

00:54:01   Are you saying he's a bad developer?

00:54:03   No, but I'm just saying like--

00:54:04   I understand.

00:54:05   Some developer-- he's not Panic, right?

00:54:07   He's not Adobe.

00:54:07   He's not Microsoft.

00:54:08   He's not one of those giant companies.

00:54:09   And he's also not a small developer

00:54:11   who has like decades and decades of-- you know,

00:54:13   he's not Underscore.

00:54:14   You know what I mean?

00:54:15   Those type of relationships built up over time saying,

00:54:18   has Underscore been sneaking bad stuff in there?

00:54:20   Is he stealing people's contacts?

00:54:21   Is he making gambling apps for children?

00:54:23   No, no, no.

00:54:24   He's not doing any of that.

00:54:25   So he should have a higher level of trust than, hey,

00:54:28   we've never heard of this developer,

00:54:29   and I have no idea what this app is.

00:54:31   Well, but on the other hand, though, I mean, look, again,

00:54:33   the system has a lot of flaws.

00:54:35   But I also love the fact that everyone

00:54:38   gets a similar level of BS.

00:54:40   [LAUGHTER]

00:54:43   That there aren't--

00:54:44   I mean, there is just for Adobe and Google and Microsoft.

00:54:47   Yeah, but like Facebook--

00:54:49   Netflix.

00:54:50   Facebook isn't able to break a certain rule much more

00:54:53   than we can.

00:54:54   But when they break it--

00:54:55   Facebook gets that in the other direction.

00:54:56   They get extra scrutiny.

00:54:57   Well, but when they break a rule,

00:55:00   they still can't release the app,

00:55:01   but they aren't kicked out of the developer program forever.

00:55:04   There is some big company privilege for sure.

00:55:07   And there have been occasional special deals made.

00:55:11   There was that rumor that seemed pretty well-backed

00:55:13   that Netflix was not paying the 30% for some time.

00:55:17   And again, as I've said many years in the past,

00:55:20   that's appropriate.

00:55:21   Apple should do that.

00:55:22   It makes sense to do it.

00:55:23   It would be dumb not to do that.

00:55:24   Anyway, so the system is not perfect.

00:55:26   But overall, it does work mostly the same for most people

00:55:32   most of the time.

00:55:34   And so that is a little more comforting.

00:55:36   And it's probably better than the alternative

00:55:38   of the big companies get much better reviewers,

00:55:42   and then the rest of us get only Casey's first level reviewer.

00:55:45   [LAUGHTER]

00:55:47   Right, so I think the point that Ibrahim and a few other people

00:55:51   have said who have also used the stuff from the movie database

00:55:54   is that they want-- I'm putting a lot of words

00:55:56   in a lot of people's mouths here.

00:55:58   But it seems to me that the general gist of it

00:56:00   is that Apple wants to be able to say, look,

00:56:04   this person or this company or whatever,

00:56:06   at least on the surface, seems to have some sort of rights

00:56:09   to the content that they're presenting.

00:56:11   And by using the movie database API,

00:56:13   they have granted me those rights.

00:56:15   And presumably on the ingestion side,

00:56:18   like I was saying a minute ago, whoever's uploading this stuff,

00:56:20   they're claiming to have these rights.

00:56:22   Doesn't mean they do.

00:56:23   But at least they're claiming to.

00:56:24   So the movie database feels like, for right or wrong,

00:56:26   they're in the clear.

00:56:27   I'm not saying that's factual.

00:56:28   I'm just saying that that's what they feel like.

00:56:30   And then Apple can say, well, look,

00:56:32   this app developer says they got the rights from there.

00:56:34   Don't sue me.

00:56:36   Don't sue Apple, Disney.

00:56:38   Sue either the movie database or this Casey List character.

00:56:41   Sue them.

00:56:42   Again, maybe this is just a circumstantial--

00:56:44   I think it was John that said that earlier.

00:56:45   Hi, this is Casey.

00:56:46   And maybe this doesn't have anything to do with it.

00:56:49   But enough people have said similar things

00:56:52   that it makes me think that that might be factual.

00:56:54   Yeah, these all sound like good hacks

00:56:56   for trying to get through those source reviewers

00:56:58   that you got who just aren't paying enough attention

00:56:59   to your app.

00:57:00   And you just need to find some way

00:57:01   to find some words that their eyes are going to fall across

00:57:04   and go, oh, that makes me feel better about it.

00:57:06   Because again, Richard didn't say

00:57:08   you need to add the statement.

00:57:09   Richard didn't say you need to get this agreement.

00:57:11   He didn't say anything.

00:57:12   He said, you're good to go.

00:57:13   Because he, I think, by the time he called you on the phone,

00:57:15   understood what your app was about.

00:57:18   As mentioned extensively in the app, as Ian said,

00:57:20   maybe you should have mentioned it more extensively

00:57:22   in your app.

00:57:23   Maybe your launch screen should be powered by TMDB API.

00:57:27   In any case, so what are the plans for launch?

00:57:29   So as we record, what is it today?

00:57:31   The 26th of July.

00:57:33   I'm not quite ready to hit the Go button.

00:57:35   But I think the plan is-- and this is just

00:57:38   between us ATP listeners-- I think

00:57:40   the plan is on Monday, the 7th of August,

00:57:43   that is the intention.

00:57:45   Monday, the 7th of August, the app will go live.

00:57:47   My intention is in the next 24 to 48 hours,

00:57:50   I am going to cut off the previous member-only perk

00:57:54   of the test flight.

00:57:56   But hand to God, this app is much better

00:57:59   because of all of the people that used it

00:58:02   before it went to app review.

00:58:04   And I'm really appreciative of all the people

00:58:06   that signed up to try it, that signed up at ATP.com/join.

00:58:10   I'm appreciative of all of you who have sent me feedback.

00:58:13   Almost all of it was extremely useful and extremely actionable.

00:58:16   Some of it was not.

00:58:17   But that's how it goes.

00:58:20   And it's been surprisingly pleasurable for me

00:58:26   to get all of this feedback and to work through problems

00:58:29   that I didn't see because I'm too close to it.

00:58:31   And if I'm completely honest, the reason

00:58:34   I did all this originally was because I was trying

00:58:36   to juice ATP memberships.

00:58:38   But it actually ended up working out really nice for me

00:58:40   in the sense that it worked out nicely for call sheets.

00:58:42   So I'm really thankful for it.

00:58:44   I appreciate if you spent any time looking at the app

00:58:46   and sending feedback and so on.

00:58:49   But yeah, on Monday, August 7th, that is the plan.

00:58:52   I plan to release then probably 9 in the morning Eastern.

00:58:56   But we'll talk about it when we get closer.

00:58:58   Or maybe I'll certainly be tooting about it on Mastodon.

00:59:02   Maybe I'll be threading it.

00:59:03   We'll talk about that potentially in a minute.

00:59:04   There are no precise app release times in the App Store.

00:59:07   Well, there's that too.

00:59:08   That's true.

00:59:09   But anyways, the idea is on Monday the 7th.

00:59:12   And genuinely, I'm really, really excited.

00:59:13   I'm really scared, but I'm really excited.

00:59:15   I hope the damn thing works.

00:59:18   And I'm really looking forward to it.

00:59:20   So on Monday the 7th, that's what's gonna happen.

00:59:23   - It works and it's gonna be great.

00:59:24   You'll see.

00:59:25   - I appreciate it.

00:59:25   All right, continuing on the followup that will not end,

00:59:28   and that's in no small part my fault.

00:59:29   Hi, this is Casey.

00:59:31   On upgrade 468, an anonymous Apple engineer

00:59:33   talked to the wrong podcast about Mac Pro stuff.

00:59:36   What the hell is this?

00:59:37   - I know, right?

00:59:38   - We are, I have endured hours of Mac Pro bullshit.

00:59:43   I mean content.

00:59:44   I have endured hours of it.

00:59:46   And I, the hell with you two.

00:59:49   I don't get the benefit of getting this feedback

00:59:51   to lord over these two jerks.

00:59:54   I quit.

00:59:55   Everyone's fired.

00:59:56   You're all fired and I quit.

00:59:57   Anyway, upgrade 468, which other than this moment

01:00:01   is one of my favorite podcasts, except right now.

01:00:03   I hate it right now.

01:00:04   But anyway, upgrade 468, an anonymous Apple engineer

01:00:08   working on the GPU team said the following,

01:00:10   I presume this was John that transcribed this.

01:00:12   Thank you, John.

01:00:13   The Apple engineer said, "The quad chip has been canned

01:00:16   with no plans to return.

01:00:18   For context, we are actively developing

01:00:20   what will presumably be the M5 chip.

01:00:22   And the quad chip was only ever spec'd for the M1

01:00:25   and removed late in the project.

01:00:26   There are no plans to create a quad chip

01:00:28   through at least the M7 generation.

01:00:30   My understanding is that the quad required too much effort

01:00:32   for too small a market.

01:00:33   Something interesting that may come in the M8

01:00:36   and future generations is called multi-die packaging.

01:00:39   This allows the CPU and GPU parts of the chip

01:00:41   to be fabricated on different dies and packaged together,

01:00:44   much like how two max chips make an ultra.

01:00:47   With this design, it's conceivable that we could have

01:00:49   three, four, or five, or more GPU dies

01:00:51   with one or two CPUs for a graphics powerhouse

01:00:54   or vice versa for CPU workstation

01:00:56   that doesn't need as much GPU grunt.

01:00:59   However, as far as I know, no such plans exist yet."

01:01:02   John, you have the floor.

01:01:03   - So some of this is old information.

01:01:06   We knew the quad was canned.

01:01:07   We knew it was only planned for the M1, so on and so forth.

01:01:09   So the new information is, "Oh, and by the way,

01:01:11   we talked in a past episode, so they could do the quad

01:01:13   in the M3 generation or something."

01:01:15   It's like, no, this rumor, again,

01:01:17   I want to emphasize that upgrade cannot and does not vouch

01:01:20   for this anonymous thing 'cause we get anonymous feedback.

01:01:23   It just, you know, this is what they say.

01:01:25   This is what they're claiming.

01:01:26   So just, I don't want to, if this turns out not to be true,

01:01:28   don't blame upgrade and don't blame us.

01:01:30   It's, you know, you just sometimes

01:01:31   you get anonymous feedback,

01:01:32   but this is what this thing, this person claims.

01:01:36   They said, "Not only is the quad not coming anytime soon,

01:01:39   there are zero plans for it up through the M7."

01:01:42   This, by the way, shows you how long the timelines are

01:01:44   and hardware stuff has to be planned out

01:01:45   years and years in advance for this stuff.

01:01:48   Plans can, of course, change,

01:01:50   but this really shows what Apple is thinking,

01:01:53   if this rumor is true, about the directions.

01:01:56   It's not like, "Oh, we couldn't do the quad.

01:01:58   It was too expensive, and, you know,

01:02:00   the M2 is not that different from the M1,

01:02:02   but we'll revisit this later."

01:02:04   It's more like, "We couldn't do the quad.

01:02:06   It's too expensive, and, by the way, forget about the quad."

01:02:09   Just forget about it.

01:02:10   We're just gonna plan out our chips.

01:02:12   We're gonna go M3, M4, M5, M6, M7.

01:02:15   We'll just plan out our long five-year,

01:02:17   six-year, 10-year plan.

01:02:18   Don't even worry about the quad.

01:02:20   It doesn't need to be anywhere on there.

01:02:21   We don't need it.

01:02:22   The multi-chip packaging,

01:02:23   we've talked about that back in the day

01:02:25   when we were originally talking about the, you know,

01:02:26   Jade 4C and everything, and chiplet architectures

01:02:29   in the city of chips and different ways

01:02:31   to put multiple dies in the same package.

01:02:33   This is before we knew about the Ultra, really,

01:02:35   but, yes, of course, that is a conceivable approach,

01:02:37   but if this rumor is true,

01:02:40   if this anonymous, you know, inside tip is true,

01:02:44   it tells you what Apple thinks

01:02:47   of the future of the Mac line,

01:02:49   and what it thinks is that it does not need

01:02:51   to have anything more powerful than the Ultra.

01:02:55   Obviously, you know, the M3 will be,

01:02:57   the M3 Ultra will be more powerful than the M2 Ultra,

01:02:59   and up to the M4, you know, they'll get faster over time,

01:03:02   but it seems like they think that class of chip

01:03:06   is all they're going to need.

01:03:08   What that says about the Mac Pro,

01:03:09   whether they keep shipping that big tower case,

01:03:11   or whether they don't, or whatever,

01:03:12   is not that important, unless you're one of those people

01:03:15   who really needs those PCI slots,

01:03:17   but what this really says to me is they think

01:03:21   that if you're doing something with a Mac right now,

01:03:24   or you have to wait for the computer,

01:03:25   they're not going to do anything to help you,

01:03:30   other than give you one that is incrementally faster

01:03:32   than you have now.

01:03:33   Like, there's not, they could get more performance.

01:03:36   Like, there is more performance to be had.

01:03:38   So in any realm, GPU or CPU, you could get a PC

01:03:42   that has more GPU cores, much bigger, you know,

01:03:47   more CPU cores, much bigger GPU,

01:03:49   that would do your task faster,

01:03:51   assuming it's a cross-platform app,

01:03:52   or there's some equivalent, or whatever.

01:03:54   But they're like, no, if you get a Studio or a Mac Pro,

01:03:56   which is basically the same, whatever speed that does it at,

01:03:59   I know you could get a PC that does the task twice as fast

01:04:03   because it has twice as many cores,

01:04:04   but we're never going to sell a machine that's like that.

01:04:06   So if you sort of look at the PC market and you say,

01:04:09   here is the sort of performance ceiling for CPU and GPU

01:04:12   for personal computers within some reasonable price ceiling,

01:04:17   Apple is always going to be a fairly significant step

01:04:19   below that, because they're just not going to build anything

01:04:22   that can compete with the high end,

01:04:24   because they're saying we're not going to build something

01:04:26   that's like a quad, which means they're gonna build,

01:04:28   the biggest thing they're gonna build is an Ultra,

01:04:30   and we kind of know the thermal envelope of the Ultra,

01:04:32   the machine they put it in.

01:04:34   This rumor is saying is basically,

01:04:35   it's like, look, if we can't fit it in the Mac Studio case,

01:04:37   we're not gonna make it,

01:04:39   because if we needed something bigger,

01:04:42   I really don't think they're gonna make an Ultra

01:04:44   that's too big to fit in the Mac Studio case, for example.

01:04:46   The M6 Ultra will fit in the Mac Studio case

01:04:49   because that's what that chip is designed for.

01:04:52   But you could build something with more cores

01:04:55   that would be faster, that would fit in the Mac Pro case,

01:04:57   and this rumor is saying Apple does not plan

01:04:59   to do that at all.

01:05:00   And that's fine for people who don't really wait

01:05:03   for their computers to do much of anything,

01:05:06   but if you're currently waiting on your computer

01:05:08   and you're like, boy, I wish this could be faster,

01:05:10   yeah, next year it will be faster,

01:05:11   but if you're like, but this could be twice as fast

01:05:14   as if I had twice as many CPU cores,

01:05:16   Apple's like, it could be,

01:05:17   but we're not gonna make that machine for you.

01:05:19   And that may be fine, because most people don't need that.

01:05:23   But it is disappointing on multiple levels.

01:05:26   Obviously it's disappointing to me,

01:05:27   and I think they should make that machine

01:05:28   because it's an exciting thing to pursue,

01:05:29   and so on and so forth.

01:05:32   But it does mean that a certain section of the market

01:05:35   that continues to think, well, maybe next year

01:05:38   they'll make one, and maybe this Mac Pro

01:05:39   is just an interim step.

01:05:40   This rumor turns out to be true.

01:05:41   Those people who don't listen to this podcast probably

01:05:44   are gonna be like, as the years pass, they're gonna be like,

01:05:46   huh, I guess Apple's just not gonna do that anymore,

01:05:50   and they'll be disappointed.

01:05:51   And I do wonder if we're not just going through

01:05:53   this cycle again that we've gone through

01:05:55   a couple of times where Apple sort of

01:05:57   loses interest in the Mac Pro level hardware,

01:05:59   and either stops making it or makes some

01:06:01   that's disappointing, and then Pro users get angry,

01:06:03   and then Apple apologizes and tries to make a new one.

01:06:07   That's not a healthy cycle, but the two alternatives are,

01:06:12   we're in that cycle again, and there's gonna be

01:06:14   some equivalent over the round table five years from now,

01:06:17   where there'll be some crisis and people

01:06:18   are gonna be complaining.

01:06:19   Or there won't be that crisis, and Apple is just

01:06:22   stepping back from that market entirely.

01:06:25   And I think stepping back from that market entirely is,

01:06:27   again, I think it's a bad idea, but it's also,

01:06:29   not for the reasons you think, like setting aside GPUs,

01:06:32   because I wanna set that aside for a second.

01:06:33   Just CPU, the Mac Studio is small,

01:06:37   and there's only so much CPU heat generation

01:06:42   you can put in that case.

01:06:43   Again, setting aside GPU, pretend the GPU is as small

01:06:46   as you could possibly make it.

01:06:47   You can make and use more CPU cores

01:06:50   for things that are highly parallel.

01:06:52   Maybe Apple doesn't care about those things,

01:06:54   like 3D rendering in Blender or whatever,

01:06:57   whatever tests that you have that can actually spread

01:06:58   across all the CPU cores.

01:07:01   Even something as simple as compiling.

01:07:02   If you have a huge application, I imagine,

01:07:04   if Xcode is doing its job, it could use 24, 48 cores

01:07:09   if you're building some gigantic thing, maybe.

01:07:11   I don't know what the best examples of multi-CPU things are,

01:07:14   but those applications exist, and Apple is basically saying,

01:07:19   even though you could use more CPU cores,

01:07:20   we're not going to sell them to you.

01:07:23   And you can get them from Intel,

01:07:24   'cause Intel will sell you something

01:07:26   with 56 cores right now, and you need a big case for it.

01:07:29   And we do have a big case, but we're not gonna put

01:07:31   any CPUs like that in there.

01:07:33   And that's always going to be disappointing and limiting.

01:07:35   The GPUs now, getting to them,

01:07:38   this is actually a separate issue,

01:07:39   because Apple could, at any point in the future, say,

01:07:43   oh, and by the way, we've decided to bring back

01:07:44   external GPU support, whether it's an Apple GPU

01:07:46   or a third party, like, that option is always there.

01:07:49   Even if it's just for compute or whatever,

01:07:51   they can always do that, but the CPU thing is actually worse,

01:07:54   because you can't add more CPU cores with a card.

01:07:57   So as long as Apple continues to make a thing

01:07:58   with card slots, at the M5 generation,

01:08:01   if people are complaining or they think there's some market

01:08:03   they need to go after, they can come back with the FPGA card,

01:08:06   like the afterburner, right?

01:08:07   But they can also say, hey, we have an external GPU,

01:08:11   or some machine learning thing, like,

01:08:13   those slots exist, Apple can use them.

01:08:15   There's nothing about the lack of a quad

01:08:17   that precludes that.

01:08:18   What the lack of the quad kills is big multi-core CPUs,

01:08:22   because where are the CPU cores gonna come from?

01:08:24   Now, the whole idea of being able to rebalance them,

01:08:26   let's make one with lots of CPUs and few GPUs or vice versa,

01:08:30   that's cool and all, but if you have to fit it

01:08:32   within the MacStudio thermal envelope,

01:08:35   there's only so much horse trading you can do there,

01:08:38   like, oh, I wanna have five more CPU cores,

01:08:40   but then I have to reduce my GPU, and you can't,

01:08:43   you can never put as much GPU as you want in there,

01:08:46   because there's just not enough thermal headroom,

01:08:49   and if you start pushing out the GPU for more CPU cores,

01:08:52   you can't push out all the GPU,

01:08:54   you have to drive the display somehow,

01:08:55   so I think that's interesting,

01:08:58   and I think if they actually use that technology,

01:09:01   they should use it to make, essentially,

01:09:03   the equivalent of the quad that's not actually a quad.

01:09:05   It would be an ultra, but there would be

01:09:08   two much bigger ultras with different ratios of stuff,

01:09:10   and then like a third-party GPU or something like that, so.

01:09:13   Anyway, we'll see how this goes.

01:09:15   I don't know how much credence to put in this rumor.

01:09:17   It is pretty definitive saying that

01:09:20   we're just not gonna do this for a long, long time,

01:09:23   but boy, if there's not, because there was pushback before,

01:09:26   like, why did they have the Mac roundtable?

01:09:28   The Mac Pro was a big part of that,

01:09:30   but part of what people wanted was make me a fast computer

01:09:34   and make it expandable and quote-unquote modular.

01:09:36   Remember the big discussion we had,

01:09:37   what the heck did they mean by modular?

01:09:38   I think what I thought they meant by modular,

01:09:40   I made it, said it as a joke, but also kind of serious,

01:09:43   was they mean the monitor is not part of the computer.

01:09:46   That's one definition of modular.

01:09:48   And Apple makes a modular computer,

01:09:50   multiple modular computers,

01:09:51   where the monitor is not part of it.

01:09:53   One of them is called the Mac Studio.

01:09:55   That does fulfill one of the things

01:09:57   that roundtable was about,

01:09:58   because people were kind of pissed at like,

01:10:00   I Mac Pro is an amazing computer,

01:10:02   but what if I don't want the screen

01:10:04   connected to the computer part?

01:10:05   Please make me a modular computer, and they did.

01:10:07   I mean, they made the trash can and that was modular too,

01:10:09   but that was also a problem, right?

01:10:11   That was before that.

01:10:12   But the Mac Studio does fulfill a lot of that promise.

01:10:15   But I do wonder if we're not just headed

01:10:17   for another collision of people saying, come on, Apple,

01:10:20   insert competitor name here, offers me an 87 core CPU,

01:10:25   and Nvidia is making this monster GPU

01:10:27   that you can't compete with,

01:10:29   but you offer me nothing that can do anything like that,

01:10:31   and I have to leave your ecosystem and use PC instead,

01:10:35   because you don't compete in that category anymore.

01:10:38   Maybe Apple will say, fine, see ya, I don't care.

01:10:40   We don't sell that many of those anyway.

01:10:42   But I do think that is probably a mistake.

01:10:44   Like I said, the Vision Pro uses a chip from a Mac,

01:10:47   granted a lower powered chip from a Mac,

01:10:49   but it does not use an iPhone chip.

01:10:51   So I really do think Apple should reconsider these plans.

01:10:54   It doesn't mean they need to make a quad,

01:10:55   'cause maybe that's the wrong approach

01:10:57   to making a Mac Pro caliber system on a chip or whatever.

01:11:01   Maybe trying to put four of them together is too much.

01:11:04   Maybe they want to revisit and say,

01:11:06   we're going to make the Ultra,

01:11:07   and the extreme will be basically two things

01:11:11   that are bigger than a Mac shoved together like the Ultra.

01:11:14   You know what I mean?

01:11:14   There are other potential options,

01:11:16   but that's not mentioned in these plans either.

01:11:17   But I'm just the idea guy, Apple, you gotta run with this.

01:11:21   My idea is don't do this,

01:11:23   because totally giving up the high end

01:11:25   is something that Apple has pretty much never done.

01:11:28   And every generation of Mac they've ever made,

01:11:30   they've at least sorta kinda tried

01:11:33   to be in the conversation on the day of release

01:11:35   with their high end computers to say,

01:11:37   whatever the biggest, baddest PC can do,

01:11:40   we can do some handpicks out of things better.

01:11:44   And I think it's going to be harder and harder

01:11:46   to be able to say that if they just say,

01:11:48   we are never gonna make anything

01:11:49   that can't fit in the studio case.

01:11:51   So this is a disappointing rumor,

01:11:54   and Apple should see me after class.

01:11:56   - Everything you can do, I can do better.

01:11:59   No, it was surprising even to me.

01:12:02   And as much as I like to give you two

01:12:03   a hard time about the Mac Pro,

01:12:05   I mean, I do want the Mac Pro to exist.

01:12:08   I think there's something to be said for Apple

01:12:10   having a no holds barred,

01:12:12   just all out incredible computer.

01:12:16   And I will sit here and debate with you, John,

01:12:19   whether or not you need that computer,

01:12:21   but nevertheless, I do think it should exist.

01:12:24   And it is a bummer that they seem to be letting it go.

01:12:27   - Yeah, and it'll be interesting to see how they market.

01:12:29   Like, you know how they market,

01:12:30   they're always like, oh, they have some graphs,

01:12:32   they show it against like old Intel Macs

01:12:33   and stuff like that.

01:12:34   But even the current graphs that they put against like,

01:12:37   PC GPUs are mostly fantasy,

01:12:39   but they're just gonna have to stop doing that entirely

01:12:41   because they're just gonna be like,

01:12:42   no, we're never going to compete with that.

01:12:45   But how can we?

01:12:46   Like, how can you compete on a, you know,

01:12:48   embarrassingly parallel CPU problem

01:12:50   when you have half the number of CPU cores?

01:12:52   Like no TSMC, you know,

01:12:55   fab advantage is going to let you compete with

01:12:58   twice the number of CPU cores or more

01:13:00   on a highly parallel thing.

01:13:02   And the same thing with GPU.

01:13:03   So it's very disappointing.

01:13:05   - Yeah, but I still, the more I think about this,

01:13:08   the more I think that my passing theory from last episode

01:13:11   about like, this is really just, you know,

01:13:14   the Mac Studio is the Mac Pro.

01:13:17   And what we now know as the Mac Pro

01:13:19   is just the Mac Studio in a PCI case.

01:13:23   The more I think about it,

01:13:24   the more I am comfortable with that theory.

01:13:26   - I mean, that is what they've shipped,

01:13:28   but it's also saying that like,

01:13:29   they're not going to make what was previously,

01:13:32   the Mac Pro is a slot in the lineup.

01:13:34   And what you're saying is,

01:13:35   that slot doesn't exist anymore.

01:13:37   Instead there's a Mac Studio and Mac Studio with a backpack.

01:13:40   - Sort of, except I would characterize it differently.

01:13:42   Those are the facts, but I would say that's actually,

01:13:45   not only unsurprising, but mostly fine,

01:13:50   in the sense that when you look at where

01:13:52   high-end computing is these days,

01:13:56   Apple doesn't have much of a role in it anymore.

01:13:58   Because Apple doesn't get along well with Nvidia,

01:14:01   and it hasn't for a long time.

01:14:03   And when you look at what kind of roles

01:14:05   do the Mac Studio and the Mac Pro not serve very well,

01:14:09   most of that market is in the high-end GPU market.

01:14:13   That's the biggest area where

01:14:15   they're really underserving, I think.

01:14:18   And I don't think Apple has been a major player

01:14:21   in high-end GPU computing for some time now.

01:14:24   - Yeah, but it's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

01:14:25   They keep making worse and worse machines

01:14:27   and eschewing the market,

01:14:29   then of course they're not gonna be a player,

01:14:30   and then you use, we've talked about this before,

01:14:32   then you use the fact that you're not a player

01:14:33   to say, well, we don't need to be in that market,

01:14:34   we're not really a player there anyway.

01:14:36   You can get out of any market

01:14:37   by slowly doing that to yourself.

01:14:39   - That's true, and that is what they've done.

01:14:40   However, I don't think this Mac Pro losing its GPU support

01:14:45   is as big of a change as we initially thought,

01:14:49   simply because that market has already largely left them.

01:14:53   And again, through their own doing, you're right,

01:14:55   but that market was already mostly gone.

01:14:58   So I think having the Mac Pro exist

01:15:00   as basically the PCI Express breakout box

01:15:04   for the Mac Studio, and having the Mac Studio

01:15:07   really be the current Mac Pro for most other needs,

01:15:12   I think not only is that clearly the case,

01:15:16   but I think that's fine.

01:15:18   It's not fine for everyone, but that is fine

01:15:21   for most of the market that the Mac Pro still had at all.

01:15:26   - Well, that's why I mentioned at the beginning,

01:15:28   do you in your work ever have to wait for the computer?

01:15:31   Because some people, that's not true.

01:15:33   People just don't have to wait for the,

01:15:35   and I'm not talking about network,

01:15:36   like this webpage is loading slow.

01:15:37   Are you waiting for the local computer

01:15:39   to grind through something using disk I/O,

01:15:42   using CPU, or using GPU?

01:15:43   And 99% of Apple's customers,

01:15:45   especially now Apple Silicon,

01:15:47   they don't wait for anything.

01:15:48   They're waiting for the network,

01:15:50   but they're not waiting for,

01:15:51   oh, the CPU is grinding over this, or the GPU.

01:15:54   Maybe game playing, you could say,

01:15:55   I wish I had higher frame rates,

01:15:56   but you're playing the game, it's fine.

01:15:58   But there are some people who are waiting for the computer,

01:16:00   and for them to be out there knowing

01:16:02   that this thing that takes them 15 minutes

01:16:04   could take them seven, right now,

01:16:06   not next year on a computer,

01:16:07   but right now it could take them seven,

01:16:08   because they could have doubled the CPU cores,

01:16:10   and their thing is using all the CPU cores,

01:16:13   and knowing that Apple quote, unquote,

01:16:16   could make that machine, and Intel does,

01:16:18   but they're not gonna ship it to them,

01:16:19   is gonna be frustrating to those people.

01:16:21   So we're gonna be losing a new section of people,

01:16:23   not the GPU people who already left,

01:16:25   not the people who wanted the stuff

01:16:26   that Apple hasn't offered in years and years,

01:16:28   but the people who pretty much up to this point expected

01:16:32   that Apple would be in contention with,

01:16:35   you know, again, with CPU power mostly,

01:16:37   and second, there's no GPU power,

01:16:39   to do whatever it is that they wait on their computer doing.

01:16:42   Now, a big part of that is video stuff,

01:16:44   where I feel like Apple still is in contention,

01:16:46   because they do have those dedicated units

01:16:49   inside the SOCs for doing video.

01:16:51   So I think the video people will actually be,

01:16:53   should be mostly happy,

01:16:55   because I don't think in a lot of those cases,

01:16:57   adding more of those video units would be useful to them,

01:17:00   'cause they're usually just like trying to encode one,

01:17:03   or maybe two videos at the same time,

01:17:04   but not like 20 of them at once.

01:17:06   But I do think there's another class of people

01:17:09   who wait for their computer to finish stuff,

01:17:12   who now are going to know that they could be waiting

01:17:15   half as long because their thing is parallelizable,

01:17:17   and that hasn't been the case before.

01:17:18   I try to think back, like, was there a time

01:17:20   when Apple was just opted out completely?

01:17:22   There have been dark times where they've done a poor job,

01:17:24   but never has there been a time where they say,

01:17:27   we're not even going to try to compete.

01:17:30   And to be clear, this rumor doesn't really say that,

01:17:32   because we don't know what the M6 looks like.

01:17:35   We're just assuming it's gonna have the same ratio

01:17:38   of CPU, GPU, power units, and efficiency cores

01:17:41   as they currently do.

01:17:42   We have no idea.

01:17:43   So I don't, even if this isn't true,

01:17:46   you may be reading too much into it

01:17:47   to think they're not gonna compete at all,

01:17:49   but it sure seems like that they subscribe to the idea

01:17:52   that, yeah, you'll wait a little bit,

01:17:54   but look, what are you gonna do, switch to PC?

01:17:55   Probably not, so it'll be fine.

01:17:57   - All right, Matt Rigby writes,

01:18:01   "This is in response to Marco's passing reference

01:18:03   "to having trouble with writing

01:18:04   "or mounting external drives on USB.

01:18:06   "In our somewhat extensive testing

01:18:08   "and troubleshooting at work,

01:18:09   "Apple Silicon Macs seem to have trouble

01:18:11   "with external USB-mounted SSDs

01:18:13   "that are larger than two terabytes.

01:18:15   "Specifically, we encounter these issues using docs

01:18:17   "that include the Asmodai ASM235 USB-SATA chipset.

01:18:23   "This unfortunately includes the very popular OWC drive doc

01:18:25   "and other iterations of the Blackmagic

01:18:27   "Rackmount SATA dock, among others.

01:18:30   "We haven't found any immediate solutions

01:18:31   "to this issue thus far,

01:18:33   "but we've had success with a variety

01:18:34   "of Nintendo-level plasticky docs from StarTech

01:18:37   "that don't utilize this chipset.

01:18:38   "So in short, Marco, you're not alone.

01:18:40   "There's definitely some chipset, driver,

01:18:42   "or Apple Silicon weirdness out there.

01:18:44   "Sorry, I don't have a solution."

01:18:46   - Yeah, my solution has just been

01:18:48   try to rely less on USB-connected drives

01:18:51   that are always connected.

01:18:53   So that's why I moved my time machine to Synology.

01:18:57   That was the big one, and it's just, yeah.

01:19:00   There's something weird with Apple Silicon Macs

01:19:02   and many USB drive enclosure type things or SSDs,

01:19:06   and I just, I gave up.

01:19:09   Like, I'm like, I can't keep dealing with this.

01:19:11   So just move that role to the network.

01:19:13   - I mean, you should check to see

01:19:14   if you have this chipset thing,

01:19:15   and because a lot of those enclosures are fairly cheap,

01:19:18   like you can get an enclosure for like 20 or 30 bucks,

01:19:20   you might wanna just try a couple different enclosures

01:19:22   and see if it solves the problem.

01:19:23   - The problem is it's intermittent.

01:19:25   So it might take me months of troubleshooting

01:19:27   to slowly figure that out,

01:19:28   and it's just, it's not worth the hassle.

01:19:31   - Indeed.

01:19:32   Wall Street Journal writes that Threads

01:19:34   is already losing its allure for users

01:19:36   adding urgency for new features.

01:19:39   This was, I think, a couple of days ago now,

01:19:41   but anyway, for a second week in a row,

01:19:43   the number of daily active users declined on Threads,

01:19:45   falling to 13 million, down about 70% from a July 7 peak,

01:19:49   according to estimates

01:19:50   from market intelligence firm SensorTower.

01:19:53   The average time users spend on the iOS and Android apps

01:19:55   has also decreased to four minutes from 19 minutes.

01:19:58   The average time spent for Android users in the US

01:20:00   dropped to five minutes

01:20:02   from a peak of 21 minutes on launch day,

01:20:04   according to SimilarWeb, a digital data and analytics company.

01:20:07   Meta executives have said

01:20:09   that they expected an eventual decline

01:20:10   after the app gained more than 100 million signups

01:20:12   within a week of its launching earlier this month.

01:20:14   They have signaled that they don't see the fall off

01:20:16   as worrisome and have said

01:20:17   that they are working on additional features,

01:20:19   meta aims to increase the number of users

01:20:21   and improve the experience

01:20:21   before trying to monetize the platform.

01:20:24   - I like that last sentence, 'cause it's like,

01:20:26   oh, don't worry, we're adding features,

01:20:28   so come back, they're gonna be really cool,

01:20:30   and then we're gonna crap it all up.

01:20:32   - Yep.

01:20:32   - We're waiting for you, trying to monetize.

01:20:34   So come back so we can put ads in your timeline.

01:20:37   One of the most fun things,

01:20:39   I think I mentioned this one when Threads first came out,

01:20:41   I said, obviously, no,

01:20:42   they didn't have a chronological timeline,

01:20:43   but it's obviously why they needed an algorithmic one,

01:20:45   because that's the right choice for most users,

01:20:48   and the developers of the application said,

01:20:51   oh, don't worry, chronological timeline is coming.

01:20:54   And I said, but will I have to re-enable it

01:20:57   every single time I launch the app,

01:20:58   like I have to in Instagram, and they didn't answer.

01:21:00   Well, guess what the answer was?

01:21:02   The answer was yes.

01:21:03   You will have to re-enable it every time you launch the app,

01:21:05   because why would we remember that setting?

01:21:08   Like, we want you to see the algorithmic timeline.

01:21:11   And yeah, it'll stay on the chronological one,

01:21:13   but if the app gets pushed out of memory

01:21:14   or you relaunch it, or 24 hours pass,

01:21:17   or whatever we decide, guess what?

01:21:18   You're back on the algorithmic timeline.

01:21:20   Just manually select the chronological timeline every time.

01:21:22   I don't see what the problem is.

01:21:23   Well, the problem is, that shows that you hate me.

01:21:26   So I don't like this app, but yeah,

01:21:28   so this is why, one of the reasons I'm very glad

01:21:31   that we picked the title from Marcos Ray's

01:21:33   100 Million Tire Kickers,

01:21:35   'cause they got all users real fast,

01:21:38   but you have to do something to keep those users,

01:21:40   and despite what the Wall Street Journal says,

01:21:42   and it's typical sort of financial business person thing,

01:21:46   they need to add features.

01:21:47   I'm not sure adding features,

01:21:49   lack of features is why people are leaving threads.

01:21:51   Like, they came in to kick the tires,

01:21:54   and I think what makes people stay

01:21:55   is a compelling experience, as they say in business speak,

01:21:59   and that has very little to do with the feature set.

01:22:01   People went to Twitter and continue to go to Twitter,

01:22:05   building their user base up to whatever it currently is,

01:22:07   several hundred million, or whatever the down to now,

01:22:09   but anyway, because of the experience on Twitter,

01:22:13   and Twitter had like no features for a really long time,

01:22:16   and granted the bar has been raised,

01:22:18   but like, it's not the lack of features

01:22:21   that's making people leave.

01:22:22   They're leaving, one, because I feel like

01:22:25   it's a fragmented market,

01:22:26   and two, they were just hopping in to check it out,

01:22:28   and they're not entirely sure if it's a place

01:22:30   where they're gonna make a home or whatever,

01:22:32   they're not sure how it fits into their life,

01:22:34   and they're not sure they are really enjoying it,

01:22:38   or there's something there that's making it sticky for them,

01:22:40   and I think that has nothing to do with lack of features,

01:22:43   lack of chronological timeline,

01:22:44   lack of editing, any of that stuff,

01:22:46   like, because lack of editing, for example,

01:22:49   didn't stop Twitter from being,

01:22:51   Twitter at its peak had no editing,

01:22:53   and that, you know, we complained about it,

01:22:55   but it didn't stop Twitter from becoming super important,

01:22:58   so I kind of agree with the meta executives who are saying,

01:23:02   like, we knew it would drop, and it's fine,

01:23:04   like, they can, you know,

01:23:06   what they wanna do is build it back up.

01:23:07   There's gonna be a big burst of interest,

01:23:09   and then people are gonna taper off

01:23:10   but it's not like they drop to zero,

01:23:12   and the advantage Facebook/meta has is

01:23:16   they have the money and time and maybe the will

01:23:19   to keep doing this and build it up,

01:23:22   like, it's not gonna go, you know,

01:23:24   the expectation that it would just say,

01:23:26   and soon it will be five billion people,

01:23:28   that's unrealistic, but they have time to make a go of it,

01:23:31   so I don't think this is a doom and gloom story,

01:23:34   but it does show how, you know,

01:23:37   what those tire kickers thought.

01:23:39   The tire kickers were, most of the tire kickers

01:23:41   were not particularly convinced

01:23:42   by the experience of using Threads,

01:23:44   which mostly has to do with what was it like,

01:23:46   like, what's there, what are you reading?

01:23:49   Are your friends there?

01:23:50   Is there interesting news there?

01:23:51   Are you seeing celebrities?

01:23:52   Like, do you find the content compelling?

01:23:55   Kind of like the same way that what made people stay

01:23:56   on Netflix, it's not the quality of the application

01:23:58   or the video player, it was, do you like the shows?

01:24:02   That's what would make people stay on Threads

01:24:05   or any sort of social media type service,

01:24:07   and then once you all get there,

01:24:09   then your thing will be filled with ads.

01:24:11   (laughing)

01:24:13   Before trying to monetize the platform,

01:24:15   before really making it just a miserable place to be.

01:24:19   - So I would like to do a temperature check

01:24:22   for the three of us.

01:24:23   Hi, this is Casey.

01:24:25   What is your Threads usage these days?

01:24:28   Because this happened for me and for Jon, at least,

01:24:31   it happened before vacation, and I was looking at it,

01:24:34   you know, like once or twice a day before vacation,

01:24:36   and then vacation happened, and I don't think

01:24:38   I've opened it since, and I'm not saying

01:24:40   that there's anything wrong with Threads,

01:24:41   I'm not saying that it's turned bad or anything like that,

01:24:44   but I just kind of forgot about it, so I'm curious,

01:24:48   and perhaps we'll start with my concurrent vacationer, Jon.

01:24:52   Are you using Threads at all?

01:24:54   Are you up, down, or about the same

01:24:56   from a couple of weeks ago?

01:24:57   - I still try to visit all the apps pretty regularly.

01:25:00   Obviously, Mastodon is my main one.

01:25:01   I have seen, like, so when Threads came out,

01:25:04   I saw a big decline in activity among the people

01:25:06   that I follow on Blue Sky.

01:25:09   All those qualifiers are important,

01:25:11   because my experience is not the same

01:25:13   as other people's experience, especially since I tend

01:25:15   towards chronological timelines and not algorithmic ones.

01:25:18   Threads, where I previously didn't even have a choice

01:25:21   of a chronological timeline, I saw the Threads activity

01:25:24   drop off after the initial burst as well,

01:25:27   and most of the activity I see on Threads

01:25:28   has nothing to do with anybody I follow,

01:25:30   because it's an algorithmic timeline,

01:25:31   and they're just throwing me random stuff in my face,

01:25:33   and I think the algorithmic timeline does an okay job.

01:25:36   It wasn't totally off the wall of things

01:25:38   I might be interested in.

01:25:39   It was a reasonable mix of sort of mass-market media stuff

01:25:44   plus, like, people that I could conceivably

01:25:47   be interested in following or whatever.

01:25:49   I will try the chronological timeline,

01:25:52   if I can remember to reselect it every frickin' time

01:25:53   I launch the app, because they hate their users,

01:25:55   and we'll see if that changes things,

01:25:56   but I definitely saw less activity,

01:25:59   like less posts from the people I follow,

01:26:03   even given the algorithm, less replies, less mentions,

01:26:07   less long conversations, right?

01:26:09   Just, and I feel like that's natural

01:26:11   after the initial burst of activity,

01:26:13   but the Mastodon experience, like,

01:26:15   the Mastodon had a big burst of activity,

01:26:17   and it kind of tapered down,

01:26:18   but the level it tapered down to,

01:26:20   my timeline on Mastodon is more active

01:26:25   and more interesting and more engaging to me

01:26:27   than my timeline on any other service,

01:26:29   but that's just me.

01:26:30   I feel like that is not necessarily true of other people.

01:26:33   I've heard from a lot of people

01:26:34   that they feel like blue sky is that for them,

01:26:36   that blue sky is where the interesting conversations

01:26:39   are happening, and even though there was a traffic decline

01:26:41   when Threads came out, still they feel like blue sky

01:26:44   is like their anchor of where, like,

01:26:45   the most interesting things are,

01:26:47   and I bet that's true of some people in Threads, too,

01:26:49   so I don't know how this is going to shake out yet.

01:26:52   I feel like Threads did get an important head start

01:26:55   on being a mainstream thing,

01:26:56   and certainly they still have way more than Mastodon

01:26:59   and way more than blue sky, which is still invite only,

01:27:01   but I still feel like it's anybody's game,

01:27:05   and obviously I'm rooting for Mastodon

01:27:06   to be like the slow and steady wins the race,

01:27:08   just, you know, no one can stop us

01:27:10   because it's open source software

01:27:12   and anybody can run a thing or whatever,

01:27:14   but, oh, and on that front, Threads continues to claim

01:27:17   that they're gonna federate with ActivityPub,

01:27:19   so if and when something happens in that area,

01:27:22   I'm sure we'll talk about it.

01:27:23   - Indeed. Marco, what are you doing with Threads?

01:27:25   - Oh, this is Marco, Marco Colon.

01:27:28   So far, I am mostly forgetting to open the app

01:27:31   because I've just been working a lot on my Mac,

01:27:34   which is what I am usually doing most of the time

01:27:36   in my adult life, and there is no Mac story yet,

01:27:40   and when, I think the most likely Mac story that they add

01:27:44   is not gonna be some nice app like Ivory,

01:27:47   it's gonna be a web version of the phone app.

01:27:51   - Yeah, they said that's coming.

01:27:52   - Right, which is, I mean, Instagram has that,

01:27:55   it's not great, even the phone app is clunky

01:27:58   because there's not multiple account support,

01:28:00   so if I wanna have, I have my personal account,

01:28:04   and then I have an account for Overcast,

01:28:06   and we have an account for ATP, well, on the Mac,

01:28:09   I have Ivory always in four column view.

01:28:14   I have my personal timeline,

01:28:16   then I have my personal mentions,

01:28:17   then I have ATP mentions,

01:28:19   and then I have Overcast mentions.

01:28:21   So I'm keeping track of my personal account

01:28:23   and my two work accounts all the time,

01:28:26   and I'm able to quickly and easily post from each one,

01:28:29   retweet from one to the other, or whatever the case may be.

01:28:32   That's how I used Twitter for a decade or whatever,

01:28:37   and this is how I now use Mastodon.

01:28:40   While Threads has way more people,

01:28:43   and in fact, many of the people on Threads,

01:28:45   as I mentioned before,

01:28:46   the community I have found on Mastodon

01:28:49   is wonderful for iOS developers.

01:28:54   It is not wonderful for diversity at all.

01:28:58   And there's a lot of people

01:29:00   who I would love to follow their content,

01:29:02   and Mastodon is feeling increasingly more strongly

01:29:07   like I'm using desktop Linux.

01:29:09   It's like there's only this one subset of nerds

01:29:12   that I'm finding here,

01:29:13   and again, this is probably mostly on me

01:29:15   in the sense that it's hard to find people

01:29:17   outside of your circles on the servers,

01:29:19   'cause it is less algorithmic,

01:29:20   and that's, again, I'm sure that's a lot of my fault,

01:29:23   but it feels like this is a chat room

01:29:26   for developers and nerds, and that's fine,

01:29:30   but there's also other people in my life

01:29:31   I wanna hear from and read their stuff

01:29:33   and interact with them,

01:29:34   and way more people of way more variety

01:29:38   that I wanna follow are posting on Threads,

01:29:41   and I'm not there most of the time

01:29:43   because I'm not browsing it on my phone most of the time.

01:29:46   I'm at my Mac.

01:29:47   That's where I consume things,

01:29:48   and I also don't find the Threads app

01:29:50   particularly a good fit for me, necessarily,

01:29:53   in the way it works and how it's organized,

01:29:55   things like that, so the way I get to Threads

01:29:58   is probably gonna end up being via Federation,

01:30:03   if that ever happens, and as we've discussed,

01:30:06   that's not likely to be a great experience

01:30:09   from either direction.

01:30:11   The way it's probably gonna work

01:30:12   is Threads is going to be very much like Instagram for me.

01:30:16   Instagram is an app that I can't use on my Mac,

01:30:20   and well, I guess I could use a web interface,

01:30:21   but it sucks, so it's an app I don't use on my Mac

01:30:24   'cause there's no third-party clients for it.

01:30:28   It can't fit into my workflow very well.

01:30:29   I have multiple accounts, but I barely use them,

01:30:31   and it's very hard to manage,

01:30:33   and that's an app that has a ton of people

01:30:36   who I'd like to follow, but I usually forget to check it,

01:30:39   and I end up checking Instagram

01:30:40   maybe once every week or two,

01:30:42   and there's a whole pile waiting for me when I get there.

01:30:44   I dip in, check a little bit,

01:30:46   and then I switch apps at some point,

01:30:48   and then I forget about it for the next two weeks.

01:30:50   That's probably how Threads is gonna go for me personally

01:30:53   for the foreseeable future

01:30:55   because Threads is not where I am.

01:30:57   It is on my phone, great, I'll check it sometime,

01:31:00   but it's not on my Mac.

01:31:02   - I totally agree with you, and I do look at Instagram

01:31:07   probably more than I should,

01:31:08   but I certainly don't look at it near as much

01:31:11   as I look at Mastodon now or Twitter in the past,

01:31:14   and in no small part,

01:31:15   that's because most of the day I'm at my computer,

01:31:17   and I wanna use a native app to look at these things,

01:31:20   and there isn't one for Instagram,

01:31:21   there isn't one for Threads,

01:31:22   and there is one for Mastodon, and it's great, so I hear you.

01:31:26   - Yeah, the fragmentation is a problem for the,

01:31:29   we're all looking for a quote-unquote Twitter replacement

01:31:32   or whatever, Twitter had everybody.

01:31:34   Twitter had the celebrities, Twitter had the tech nerds.

01:31:37   It was the only thing.

01:31:38   They got critical mass,

01:31:39   and there was no real competing services.

01:31:41   Now there's just, there's even celebrity fragmentation.

01:31:45   So Mastodon has the nerd-adjacent celebrities.

01:31:48   So like a sci-fi author, like a famous sci-fi author

01:31:50   is gonna be on Mastodon,

01:31:51   but like Tom Cruise is not gonna be on Mastodon,

01:31:54   Julia Roberts, whatever, who I respect random movie stars.

01:31:56   Like the big stars who are not nerd-adjacent in any way,

01:32:00   not on Mastodon right now.

01:32:02   Threads has a bunch of celebrities,

01:32:04   but those nerd celebrities who are on Mastodon

01:32:06   primarily use Mastodon, even if they're also on Threads.

01:32:10   So if they're having an interesting conversation,

01:32:13   it's probably gonna happen on Mastodon,

01:32:15   but only because they're nerd-adjacent.

01:32:17   But then they miss out on conversing

01:32:19   with the rock and roll stars who are on Threads

01:32:21   or on Instagram or are still on Twitter.

01:32:23   And so even just, even the mainstream is fragmented.

01:32:25   Like obviously the nerds are fragmented.

01:32:28   Like it makes lots of historical sense

01:32:30   why all the nerds are on Mastodon and everything like that.

01:32:31   And I am glad that I have a nerd community there,

01:32:34   but I do miss the feeling like,

01:32:38   okay, but either two things,

01:32:40   either the mainstream is at the same place where I am,

01:32:43   which is not currently the case,

01:32:45   or at least I know where to go to find the mainstream.

01:32:47   And I feel like when I go on Threads,

01:32:48   I'm not even getting all the mainstream

01:32:50   because I see the people who are still on Twitter.

01:32:52   I see the people who are primarily on Mastodon,

01:32:55   even though they're technically on Threads.

01:32:57   And this, I think is related to why people

01:33:00   might've checked out Threads and not be that interested

01:33:02   because they see the mainstream fragmentation too.

01:33:04   They're like, oh, this isn't as hopping as Twitter was.

01:33:06   Maybe if they find their little subset,

01:33:08   like a lot of people have found like a good,

01:33:10   like niche community on Blue Sky,

01:33:12   but Blue Sky doesn't have all the mainstream,

01:33:14   celebrity, important, famous people, politicians, companies.

01:33:17   Like no one service has that anymore.

01:33:19   And I think that like, oh, if you go here,

01:33:22   Delta Airlines is here and that funny Comcast account

01:33:26   and your favorite celebrity and your favorite sports star,

01:33:29   there is no one place where all of them are.

01:33:32   And having them all in one place

01:33:33   makes that really compelling to the common person.

01:33:37   And so now I can feel for someone who's like,

01:33:40   no, I tried it, but none of these places

01:33:41   are like Twitter used to be.

01:33:42   And Twitter is also not like it used to be.

01:33:44   So I guess I'll go look at TikTok.

01:33:47   That's where we are right now.

01:33:48   - I don't see that being resolved anytime soon.

01:33:53   I think we're gonna be in this weird fragmented world

01:33:56   for the foreseeable future.

01:33:59   - Yeah, I tend to agree with that as well.

01:34:02   All right, Marco, do you want to talk to us

01:34:03   about the Ubiquiti Dream Router

01:34:05   and why it's a piece of garbage?

01:34:07   - Yeah, so I mentioned the last of,

01:34:09   the end of last show.

01:34:11   This is Marco.

01:34:12   I mentioned that we purchased a new house

01:34:15   and that I'll be setting up networking gear and stuff in it.

01:34:19   And I was looking at Ubiquiti's new gear.

01:34:21   I mentioned in passing, I ordered the Dream Router

01:34:23   and I couldn't believe it was only 200 bucks

01:34:25   and it seemed like the successor to the Dream Machine,

01:34:28   which was their previous cylinder,

01:34:29   which I'm literally talking to you through right now.

01:34:32   Many people wrote in to point out that the Dream Router,

01:34:36   while it looks just like the previous cylindrical

01:34:39   Dream Machine, is actually like a cut down model.

01:34:43   That's why it's so inexpensive.

01:34:46   And in particular, it is apparently very slow

01:34:49   to process things and that its slow processor

01:34:54   limits its throughput on an internet connection

01:34:56   to roughly 700 megabits.

01:34:59   And I mentioned I'm getting gigabit fiber.

01:35:00   So everyone wrote in to tell me,

01:35:03   I should not use the Dream Router.

01:35:04   It is too slow and my gigabit fiber will oversaturate it

01:35:09   and I won't be able to get my full connection speed

01:35:11   and whatever else.

01:35:12   First of all, thank you everyone for telling me that.

01:35:13   I didn't know any of that.

01:35:15   This is great to know and I will try to return it,

01:35:18   although their website is currently broken

01:35:19   for returns tonight, so I'll figure that out some other time.

01:35:23   I love Ubiquiti stuff, but the problem is

01:35:26   it goes out of stock constantly

01:35:28   because everyone loves Ubiquiti stuff.

01:35:30   So the thing I was looking at instead of the Dream Router

01:35:34   is the Dream Machine Special Edition.

01:35:36   This is a 1U rack mount.

01:35:38   It includes a PoE switch like the Dream Router.

01:35:42   Doesn't have an AP, but I get separate APs usually,

01:35:45   so less important.

01:35:46   Has hard drive bay in case I wanna use security cameras.

01:35:49   I'll get to that in a little bit.

01:35:50   As far as looking at the Dream Machine Special Edition

01:35:52   as the alternative here, when I was looking,

01:35:57   it was in stock and then when everyone wrote in to tell me

01:35:59   I shouldn't get the Dream Router, I thought,

01:36:02   oh great, I'll just go order the other one I was looking at.

01:36:04   Sold out and it's remained sold out

01:36:06   for the entire week and a half since we last recorded.

01:36:09   Also during that time, the Dream Rider itself

01:36:11   went out of stock.

01:36:12   - Cool.

01:36:14   - I believe it came back in stock today

01:36:15   if anybody wants them, but this is the problem

01:36:18   with buying Ubiquiti gear.

01:36:20   They are frequently out of stock.

01:36:22   Just sold out and you don't know

01:36:23   when they're coming back in.

01:36:24   You can sign up for the notices

01:36:26   and they might come back in stock the next day

01:36:28   or the next month or never.

01:36:30   You don't know.

01:36:32   And there are, you can go on Amazon or eBay

01:36:35   and pay some scalper vendor some premium

01:36:38   over Ubiquiti's prices, which Ubiquiti stuff

01:36:41   is usually pretty affordable.

01:36:42   It's part of the reason they got so popular.

01:36:44   So you can go pay Cisco level prices for Ubiquiti gear

01:36:47   from some retailer somewhere who's ripping you off.

01:36:51   But it's very frustrating when you need Ubiquiti gear

01:36:55   now, now, now and you go to get it and it's just sold out.

01:36:59   But that is ultimately the reason they have this problem

01:37:02   is that they are very desirable and good for them.

01:37:06   I've used their stuff for a while

01:37:08   and I think they've earned their success

01:37:10   and there's a reason why I keep buying their stuff.

01:37:12   It's really good.

01:37:13   And it isn't perfect occasionally.

01:37:15   There's a dud, but usually their track record is very high

01:37:18   and for what you're getting it's usually

01:37:20   pretty remarkably affordable.

01:37:22   So all it is to say don't buy the DreamRouter turns out.

01:37:25   I'm gonna try to return mine and try to get myself

01:37:27   a Dream Machine special edition if I can get it in time.

01:37:29   But I probably can't, so I'm probably gonna be sticking

01:37:32   with the DreamRouter for a while.

01:37:34   - Did you see their like Powerwall thing?

01:37:37   I forget what it's actually called.

01:37:37   - Yes, the DreamWall, that's $1,000.

01:37:40   Otherwise-- - That's really cool,

01:37:41   but it was very expensive.

01:37:43   - Yes, the DreamWall is basically like,

01:37:46   it's similar to the Dream Machine special edition,

01:37:49   but it's this like wall hanging thing

01:37:51   that weighs like 25 pounds, hangs off your wall

01:37:55   and has a built in, I believe an 18 port PoE switch,

01:37:58   has a massive PoE switch built in.

01:38:01   And it's $1,000.

01:38:02   (laughing)

01:38:03   It's like okay, well, I see what this is for.

01:38:07   I don't need 18 ports even in any switch for the new house.

01:38:12   I think I'm gonna need something like six or eight ports.

01:38:15   I'm not doing like every room in the house.

01:38:18   So I'm just doing kinda key areas that I learned

01:38:22   are necessary and that's about it.

01:38:24   So anyway, the Dream Machine special edition

01:38:26   will be fine if I can get a hold of one.

01:38:28   And until then I'll use the DreamRouter and cry.

01:38:31   - All right, so Marco, you seem to be deep

01:38:34   into home security or maybe home automation

01:38:39   or I'm not even sure what's going on,

01:38:40   but you have some thoughts about Logitech,

01:38:43   Circle View cameras, HomeKit Secure Video and more.

01:38:45   What's going on?

01:38:46   - Yes, so as mentioned, I have cameras

01:38:50   on the outside of my house for various reasons

01:38:53   and I've used various ones over the years.

01:38:55   So I have the, time wise, my oldest cameras in use

01:38:59   are an original pair of Nest outdoor cameras.

01:39:03   These are probably something like seven years old by now.

01:39:06   They're fine and then I also have used

01:39:09   the Logitech Circle View HomeKit Secure Video cameras

01:39:13   for about maybe a year on those.

01:39:15   HomeKit Secure Video was announced a few years ago

01:39:18   or two years ago or something like that.

01:39:19   Still to this day, there's only, as far as I can tell,

01:39:23   two lines of cameras that work with HomeKit Secure Video.

01:39:26   I think it's only the Logitech Circle View

01:39:29   and they have a doorbell version and the one I use,

01:39:31   like the kind of standalone one,

01:39:33   and there's an Eve, there's a couple of Eve cameras,

01:39:35   one indoor and one hardwired outdoor one

01:39:39   and that's it as far as I can find.

01:39:42   As far as I can tell, there are no other

01:39:44   HomeKit Secure Video capable cameras.

01:39:48   The appeal of HomeKit Secure Video is

01:39:50   it sounds amazing on paper and so I kind of wanted

01:39:53   to give this update one year in of having this

01:39:56   be my primary video system for this house,

01:39:59   like how I've been using it and how it's been performing.

01:40:02   So the Circle View cameras, they're relatively affordable.

01:40:06   They're like I think about 150, $160 each,

01:40:09   something like that.

01:40:10   They are outdoor or indoor capable.

01:40:12   They have 180 degree field of view,

01:40:14   which is a blessing and a curse.

01:40:15   It's hard to see detail very far away

01:40:18   with that kind of perspective but you can put them

01:40:20   pretty much anywhere and have a reasonably wide view

01:40:22   of whatever you need to see.

01:40:24   The selling points of HomeKit Secure Video

01:40:27   are that number one, you don't need to pay

01:40:29   an additional cloud service.

01:40:31   Most of these cameras, like Nest and everything else,

01:40:33   you usually have to pay some kind of cloud storage

01:40:36   service fee, some new subscription every month.

01:40:38   Oh, you gotta pay 20 bucks a month for Nest Protect Secure,

01:40:42   whatever, that kind of stuff.

01:40:43   HomeKit Secure Video just uses your iCloud storage

01:40:46   and the number of cameras you can have on it

01:40:49   is related to whatever tier of iCloud storage you have.

01:40:53   I have the highest tier of iCloud storage

01:40:55   and I believe that entitles me to quote unlimited cameras,

01:40:57   I think, lower tiers.

01:40:59   I think you get two or three or four or something like that.

01:41:01   But HomeKit Secure Video is not continuous recording.

01:41:04   It only records motion events.

01:41:07   So if you wanna look back and see like,

01:41:09   oh, what were the leaves like 18 hours ago?

01:41:13   Unless there was a car driving by or a person walking by,

01:41:15   you're not gonna see that.

01:41:16   It only records motion events

01:41:18   and the few seconds around them.

01:41:20   So that's kind of how they get around

01:41:22   not having too much data being recorded.

01:41:24   By comparison, like my old Nest cams were continuous 24/7

01:41:28   with I think like a week or a month retention.

01:41:31   The upside of that is you have a huge record

01:41:34   of everything that happens around you.

01:41:35   Downside of that is it uses a ton of data.

01:41:38   Like the continuous streaming of that data to the cloud

01:41:43   to some data center in Google

01:41:45   uses a ton of your ISP local bandwidth.

01:41:48   So you need a pretty good connection.

01:41:49   You need no data cap really.

01:41:51   That's kind of the main differences

01:41:52   between those two systems.

01:41:54   In terms of actually using HomeKit Secure Video stuff,

01:41:57   the other advantage is that it does most or all

01:42:00   of its processing locally.

01:42:02   So any kind of like object recognition,

01:42:05   any kind of intelligence, it's doing all that locally

01:42:08   on your local network.

01:42:09   It does require you to have some device being a HomeKit hub

01:42:12   like an Apple TV or a HomePod, but it does it locally.

01:42:16   The great thing about HomeKit Secure Video

01:42:18   is that when things happen, they are fast.

01:42:22   And this is one thing I absolutely love about it.

01:42:26   We have like one on our, like the area

01:42:29   where we park our bikes here.

01:42:30   And every time someone comes home,

01:42:32   they usually come home on a bike.

01:42:34   When Adam's coming home from school,

01:42:35   I know because I get the tap tap on my watch

01:42:38   and I look and it says bike camera.

01:42:40   And I know like 15 seconds later,

01:42:42   he's gonna walk up to the door and boom, there he is.

01:42:44   And it's so fast.

01:42:46   And I know too, like when I go down there

01:42:48   to get my bike or when I show up,

01:42:50   I pull into the bike area and I feel the vibration

01:42:54   on my wrist like two seconds later.

01:42:56   I'm like, it's that fast, it's awesome.

01:42:59   What's also great about the HomeKit video

01:43:02   is that it is integrated with iOS very well.

01:43:05   So when I get that tap tap on my wrist,

01:43:08   I can look at my watch and right there on my watch,

01:43:11   it'll show a little thumbnail.

01:43:13   If I look at it on my phone and I long press notification,

01:43:16   just right there in the long press view for notification,

01:43:18   I get the video clip of the motion event right there.

01:43:21   It plays right there.

01:43:22   I don't even have to open any app or anything.

01:43:24   So it's really nice in the Apple ecosystem

01:43:27   to use HomeKit Secure Video when it works.

01:43:32   - Oh, here we go.

01:43:33   - Here's the downsides to the system.

01:43:35   The accuracy of the intelligence,

01:43:38   like does it recognize things properly?

01:43:40   Does it have false positives, does it have false negatives?

01:43:42   I have found the accuracy is usually pretty good.

01:43:47   It usually identifies people

01:43:49   when there actually are people there,

01:43:51   although sometimes it thinks a moth flying around at night

01:43:53   is a person, I don't know why.

01:43:55   But for the most part, it's pretty good recognition.

01:43:59   It is way better than my old Nest cams were.

01:44:01   I don't have new Nest cams to test.

01:44:03   I don't know how good the new ones are.

01:44:05   But it's way better than the old ones are.

01:44:07   Again, it's way faster to recognize

01:44:09   than the old ones are too.

01:44:10   And I love those notifications with the video clips.

01:44:13   That is great.

01:44:15   The problem is the Logitech Circle View Camera

01:44:17   is really mediocre.

01:44:19   It drops the connection all the time.

01:44:23   It'll have long spans where it disconnects.

01:44:26   And HomeKit hopefully alerts you

01:44:28   when your camera disconnects and reconnects.

01:44:30   So I see this happening all day long.

01:44:32   And I have, I should point out,

01:44:34   I have I think four of these in use on the network.

01:44:37   The one in the bike area is super reliable.

01:44:40   All the other ones are not.

01:44:42   And I don't know why.

01:44:43   Frankly, I don't really care why.

01:44:46   They're just, they're not.

01:44:47   And if you search the internet

01:44:49   for solutions on this problem,

01:44:51   you see people all reporting the same thing,

01:44:53   that their Logitech Circle View Cameras are super unreliable

01:44:56   and they drop off the network all the time

01:44:57   or they disconnect or whatever else,

01:44:59   everyone has solutions that basically amount to

01:45:02   turn it off and turn it on again,

01:45:03   and it works for a while.

01:45:04   - Oh, cool.

01:45:05   - If you reset the network in some way,

01:45:08   if you reset your router,

01:45:09   it'll force them all to disconnect.

01:45:11   When you turn it back on,

01:45:12   they'll stay connected for a few days,

01:45:14   and then they'll start flaking on and off again.

01:45:16   People say, oh, I signed a dynamic or a static IP,

01:45:19   did that, no change.

01:45:21   Put it on 2.4 gigahertz, did that, no change.

01:45:23   Like, you know, all these different things you can do

01:45:25   to try to debug a glitchy Wi-Fi device.

01:45:28   I've done them all.

01:45:29   I've had a year to do them all.

01:45:31   The Logitech Circle View Cameras are just super flaky,

01:45:34   super mediocre.

01:45:35   I will have spans of hours or days

01:45:39   where a camera will just say no response.

01:45:42   Something could be happening,

01:45:43   like somebody could be stealing my bike.

01:45:45   So I feel like it kind of defeats the purpose of cameras

01:45:49   if a lot of the time when you go to look at them,

01:45:52   so suppose we're away and a storm comes through.

01:45:57   I wanna know, like, what's going on around my house?

01:45:59   And maybe on my house,

01:46:01   or usually if a storm's coming through,

01:46:03   I'll put a camera in the house as well if we leave

01:46:06   so I can check and see, like, is there water coming in?

01:46:08   That's important stuff.

01:46:09   And these cameras are just so unreliable,

01:46:13   it's really hard to depend on them for anything.

01:46:16   Honestly, I'm torn here,

01:46:17   because when it works, it's really nice.

01:46:20   And I love all those integration features.

01:46:22   I love how incredibly fast it is when it's working.

01:46:25   But these cameras are garbage,

01:46:28   and no one except Eve makes any other ones.

01:46:31   And Eve only has one outdoor capable one,

01:46:34   and it requires it to be, like,

01:46:36   hardwired by an electrician.

01:46:37   You can't just, like, plug it into an outlet.

01:46:39   It requires, like, direct wiring,

01:46:40   and it has to mount onto a box.

01:46:43   And I actually have one sitting here.

01:46:45   I've had it for, like, six months,

01:46:47   and I haven't had an electrician

01:46:49   be able to come out and install it yet,

01:46:50   so, like, it's just sitting here waiting.

01:46:51   But it's like, that's not gonna work

01:46:53   for most of my use of these cameras.

01:46:54   Like, you know, obviously I use a lot of these around,

01:46:57   and anyway.

01:46:59   So there's basically no options except Logitech,

01:47:02   and there's one Eve cam.

01:47:06   And this, I feel like this is a problem

01:47:07   with so much HomeKit stuff.

01:47:09   It's a great system, but Apple doesn't make the equipment,

01:47:12   and they outsource it to someone,

01:47:14   and they make the equipment, and it's,

01:47:15   maybe it's okay, maybe it's not,

01:47:17   maybe it's buggy, who knows?

01:47:19   And that kind of defeats the purpose of the whole system,

01:47:21   because, like, it undermines the quality

01:47:23   of the whole ecosystem when we don't have good options.

01:47:25   So anyway, all this is to, to number one,

01:47:28   kind of warn everyone, I really don't recommend

01:47:32   the Logitech Circle View,

01:47:34   and therefore most of HomeKit Secure Video,

01:47:37   because it is really flaky and really unreliable,

01:47:40   and it's a shame.

01:47:41   The other thing is, I'm curious if anyone

01:47:44   has had experience with another system that's really good,

01:47:47   that actually is reliable.

01:47:48   I'm, in particular, I'm curious, like,

01:47:51   is the modern Nest camera good?

01:47:53   They've only seemingly updated it once,

01:47:55   since I've gotten the other ones, like, seven years ago,

01:47:57   it seems like.

01:47:58   - It's not Nest anymore, right?

01:48:00   So I have both of them, I have the old Nest,

01:48:02   and I have a new Post Nest, like, whatever it's called now,

01:48:05   Google Home.

01:48:06   - Yeah, the one that uses Google Home, yeah.

01:48:07   - Yeah, and I mean, my indoor one,

01:48:10   or so both of these don't have the speed thing

01:48:12   that you're talking about, like, they are,

01:48:14   they're network-based, and they're not speedy to,

01:48:18   they're pretty speedy with the,

01:48:20   hey, something has happened,

01:48:21   but when you wanna go look at it,

01:48:22   it's really dependent on your network connection.

01:48:25   It's not, I don't think it's gonna be as instant

01:48:26   as you thought it would be.

01:48:28   The, my outdoor one, I think I've had for about a year now.

01:48:31   So far, so good.

01:48:33   I mapped out its little area to ignore, like, passing cars,

01:48:37   but tell me about, like, you know,

01:48:39   things that are happening on my property

01:48:40   with the little mappy, you know,

01:48:41   those things that have where you just mask out areas.

01:48:44   That's been pretty reliable.

01:48:45   Also, its recognition, it has face recognition,

01:48:49   so it can know who people are,

01:48:50   and it also does, like, on its own,

01:48:52   it can say vehicle, animal, person.

01:48:55   All that is pretty much dead on,

01:48:57   like, when a rabbit goes by, it knows it's an animal,

01:48:59   and a person walks by or walks up the driveway,

01:49:02   they know it's a person,

01:49:02   and when a vehicle pulls into the driveway, like,

01:49:04   it's pretty good about that,

01:49:06   but I feel like the interface to the data

01:49:09   that it has collected is fairly impoverished.

01:49:11   It is continuous recording,

01:49:12   and I do have all this footage that I can go through,

01:49:14   but the ability to navigate it isn't great.

01:49:16   Like, I do wish it was, in some respects,

01:49:19   I wish it was local, like you were saying,

01:49:20   like, well, not that iCloud is local, whatever,

01:49:22   but processing local would be great,

01:49:24   and storage local, like on Synology or QNAP

01:49:26   or the other ones would be great,

01:49:27   but on the other hand, I love that everything is remote,

01:49:30   so that if someone hits the camera with a baseball bat,

01:49:33   I'll still have footage of them,

01:49:34   or like, if the house burns down,

01:49:36   I'll have footage before the house burns, whatever.

01:49:38   It is nice that it's continuous recording

01:49:40   to a cloud thing that, yes, I pay for,

01:49:41   but the annual fee for me to have my two cameras

01:49:45   is not too onerous, and it's basically 24/7

01:49:47   continuous recording inside and outside of my house,

01:49:49   which I have found very valuable,

01:49:51   even just to see what the dog is up to, you know what I mean?

01:49:54   And I can compare, because the indoor ones

01:49:56   also have face recognition

01:49:58   and supposedly know who everybody is,

01:50:00   and it's pretty good, it tells me, dog barking,

01:50:03   Alex has entered the kitchen, you know,

01:50:04   like it knows people, it knows where they are,

01:50:06   it knows what's going on in the house when we're not home,

01:50:09   but sometimes it's like, unknown person in the living room,

01:50:12   like, oh, come on, it's just Alex again,

01:50:14   it's the same person, like they're not unknown,

01:50:16   and the indoor ones do that more than the outdoor ones do,

01:50:19   so I think they have come a long way,

01:50:22   and I think my indoor one is even newer than yours,

01:50:24   the outdoor one seems to do a pretty good job,

01:50:26   and I like the strategy of the outdoor one,

01:50:29   to be a tiny standalone computer on its own,

01:50:31   it makes them bulky and expensive,

01:50:32   and you gotta pay for the service,

01:50:34   but I don't have a home hub to worry about,

01:50:37   it doesn't interact with iCloud in any way,

01:50:39   and I'm pretty sure, I don't have an Apple Watch,

01:50:40   but I see my wife, when she gets the alerts,

01:50:42   she sees a little thumbnail of like, you know,

01:50:45   we noticed a person in your kitchen,

01:50:46   and it shows them the person in the kitchen,

01:50:48   are they as timely as yours?

01:50:50   Probably not, but they, you know,

01:50:52   and I think she can tap on it

01:50:53   to see the little video clip too,

01:50:55   if the cell data wins are right,

01:50:58   so I don't think,

01:51:00   I don't think the modern Nest ones

01:51:02   have all the advantages you just described,

01:51:05   but in terms of reliability,

01:51:07   I can pretty much always connect to the camera,

01:51:09   and there has been no point

01:51:11   where it has not been recording,

01:51:12   occasionally if I can't connect to it,

01:51:13   it's because my network connection is flaky wherever I am,

01:51:16   but it's not like the camera didn't record that,

01:51:18   when I get back home,

01:51:19   I can use the awful interface to scroll back through

01:51:22   to find that footage,

01:51:24   so I mean, this is not a satisfying answer,

01:51:26   yes, they've gotten better,

01:51:27   but I mean, it's hard for me to recommend this

01:51:30   over what you have,

01:51:30   because it's just a different set of trade-offs.

01:51:32   - Yeah, so I just checked,

01:51:34   so it turns out I actually have six of the circle views,

01:51:36   not four, my mistake,

01:51:37   so I have six circle views,

01:51:39   currently two of them say no response,

01:51:42   earlier today I checked,

01:51:44   and four of them said no response,

01:51:45   and they were a different set,

01:51:47   (laughing)

01:51:48   so it's just,

01:51:49   they're unbearably unreliable,

01:51:52   but I just,

01:51:54   yeah, maybe I will try the Nest again,

01:51:57   but anyway, I also,

01:51:58   I'm curious too if the listeners know,

01:52:00   I know Ubiquiti has their own cameras,

01:52:02   and they record locally,

01:52:04   but you can access them remotely,

01:52:06   and they record onto either one of their

01:52:08   network video recorders,

01:52:10   or the hard drive slot in the router I'm trying to buy,

01:52:13   but can't,

01:52:14   (laughing)

01:52:15   so I'm curious if anybody has experience,

01:52:18   I've never used Ubiquiti's cameras,

01:52:21   I know Synology also has a built in

01:52:23   surveillance station feature,

01:52:25   where you can have stuff recorded onto that,

01:52:27   I've never used that either.

01:52:28   - So let me briefly interject here,

01:52:30   so I have never used surveillance station,

01:52:33   I know almost nothing about it,

01:52:35   it's the second thing on the list of to-dos

01:52:38   after CallShe gets released,

01:52:39   and the first thing is the fiber project

01:52:41   that will probably never actually happen,

01:52:43   but nevertheless,

01:52:44   I do wanna put a couple of cameras around the house,

01:52:46   and perhaps one in the house,

01:52:47   to see what Penny is doing when we're not here,

01:52:50   but anyways,

01:52:51   my parents have a Synology,

01:52:54   a very, very small,

01:52:55   I think it's 204 based Synology,

01:52:56   I think it's a 2-Bay,

01:52:58   and they use surveillance station,

01:53:00   and I have seen it used a handful of times,

01:53:04   I know very little about it,

01:53:07   but my dad seems pretty satisfied with it,

01:53:11   now I don't think he's,

01:53:12   I mean he's very savvy,

01:53:13   but I don't think he's to the level

01:53:15   of any of the three of us,

01:53:16   and I don't know what the notification situation's like,

01:53:19   I do know that everything is recorded locally,

01:53:22   I think it's processed locally,

01:53:24   as far as I'm aware,

01:53:26   so I think it would get you pretty close to what you want,

01:53:30   and I think the way it works is,

01:53:32   you get like one or two cameras,

01:53:34   "personology" for free,

01:53:36   but then you have to buy like licenses

01:53:38   for additional cameras or something like that,

01:53:39   again, I'm talking very well out of turn at this point,

01:53:43   but I believe that is a solution

01:53:46   that you should at least investigate,

01:53:48   it may not be the right istancer for Marco,

01:53:50   but I would at least take a look,

01:53:52   because my parents have been using this for literally years,

01:53:54   and they seem really satisfied with it.

01:53:56   - I'm hoping that the Ubiquiti ones are good,

01:53:59   because most of them, maybe even all,

01:54:02   but I think most of them at least

01:54:03   are powered via Power Ethernet,

01:54:05   I love PoE stuff.

01:54:07   - Yeah, that's the way my parents is as well.

01:54:08   - Yeah, like, first of all,

01:54:10   it's way more reliable,

01:54:12   because it hard wires the network connection as well,

01:54:16   it also saves on cables,

01:54:18   like then I don't have to have all these

01:54:20   USB extension cables with sealed boxes

01:54:23   to protect them from the weather,

01:54:24   running from these outlets

01:54:25   that themselves have to be sealed,

01:54:26   it just makes everything better,

01:54:27   and then it's easy too,

01:54:29   then they have power backup,

01:54:30   because all my PoE hubs are tied into my main UPS system,

01:54:34   backed up by Tesla Powerwall batteries,

01:54:36   and solar powered in an emergency,

01:54:40   so all my networking gear,

01:54:42   I have on redundant power,

01:54:44   and so I can count on it, even if say,

01:54:47   a hurricane comes through,

01:54:48   I'm not here and I wanna see how my house is doing,

01:54:51   I can probably do that,

01:54:53   unless the fiber goes out,

01:54:55   that's a different story,

01:54:56   but for the most part,

01:54:58   I love PoE stuff for lots of reasons,

01:55:00   and that also allows me to then,

01:55:03   part of the problem with the Logitech CircleViews

01:55:04   is that they, as mentioned last episode,

01:55:07   they come with this roughly 10 foot USB power cable,

01:55:12   and so you can only have it 10 feet

01:55:14   from either an outdoor outlet,

01:55:18   or some kind of sealed box

01:55:20   that you can put some kind of extension,

01:55:22   or surgical strip or whatever into,

01:55:23   that can protect that joint from the weather,

01:55:26   and that's annoying too,

01:55:28   whereas I can just buy a 100 foot ethernet cable,

01:55:32   and just run it from the insulated inside,

01:55:36   to the camera, seal it at the camera end,

01:55:38   with an enclosure or some kind of goop or whatever,

01:55:42   and be done, and that's it,

01:55:44   and so I think that's ultimately

01:55:46   what I will probably try next,

01:55:49   but I kinda just wanna know,

01:55:51   are Ubiquiti's cameras good?

01:55:52   Is Ubiquiti's interface for accessing them good?

01:55:55   Are the apps good?

01:55:55   Are they reliable?

01:55:57   Does it play well with iOS?

01:55:59   Do I have to use one of those homekit bridging kind of apps,

01:56:02   like either Homebridge or Hoobs,

01:56:04   or whatever, I've never used those before,

01:56:07   but do I need to use those,

01:56:08   or can I get away without them?

01:56:10   If I do use those, are those good?

01:56:12   Are those reliable?

01:56:14   It's such a big topic,

01:56:15   and so anyway, I hope to get some good tips from people,

01:56:18   so thank you in advance for whatever you can tell me.

01:56:22   - Yeah, just very quickly with regard to Hoobs,

01:56:24   Homebridge and Home Assistant

01:56:25   is the other one you'll hear a lot about.

01:56:27   I did try to use Home Assistant literally years ago.

01:56:30   It's unquestionably more powerful than Homebridge,

01:56:34   without a doubt.

01:56:35   It also was one of those things

01:56:38   where the way it thought and operated

01:56:41   was the antithesis of the way my brain thinks and operates,

01:56:45   and I'm not saying it's bad by any means,

01:56:47   and again, everyone who I know

01:56:49   that can wrap their head around it,

01:56:51   Merlin as an example, swears by it,

01:56:54   but I just could not get my brain

01:56:56   to click with Home Assistant.

01:56:57   Homebridge is what I use,

01:57:00   and it's extraordinarily reliable.

01:57:03   I do almost nothing to it.

01:57:04   I run it in a Docker container.

01:57:06   I think we should probably start talking about those

01:57:08   at some point, Mr. Marco,

01:57:10   but anyways, I really do encourage and endorse Homebridge.

01:57:14   It's very, very good, pretty straightforward, pretty simple.

01:57:17   It didn't used to be, but now it is,

01:57:19   and I don't know barely anything about Hoobs

01:57:21   other than I know that it's a thing that exists.

01:57:24   - Very helpful, thank you.

01:57:25   - Indeed, you're welcome.

01:57:26   - And yeah, and I should clarify too,

01:57:28   the reason why I like having a bunch of cameras

01:57:30   around my house, it's not just because I'm,

01:57:33   I'm not paranoid about crime.

01:57:35   I have found many uses for these

01:57:39   where it's useful to know.

01:57:40   For instance, if you're away for the weekend

01:57:42   and someone drops a package on your porch,

01:57:45   that's really good to know,

01:57:46   so you can ask a neighbor,

01:57:47   hey, can you please bring it in or something.

01:57:50   There are lots of checking on your house during storms,

01:57:53   checking on John's dog.

01:57:55   There's lots of occasions in real life

01:57:57   where like, oh, if you happen to have

01:57:59   remotely accessible cameras in your house

01:58:01   that are reasonably private, or not in your house,

01:58:03   but like around your house, occasionally in your house.

01:58:05   I don't put cameras in my house when I'm home,

01:58:08   but if you're gonna leave for the weekend

01:58:11   and there's a storm coming, you put a camera in

01:58:12   and you can check on stuff, like that kind of thing.

01:58:14   I love having those abilities.

01:58:17   They have proven useful many times.

01:58:20   It isn't just to scare away people from peeing under my deck

01:58:22   it is also high utility.

01:58:25   So anyway, thank you in advance for anything.

01:58:27   You can send me listeners,

01:58:29   and if you happen to recommend Ubiquiti's stuff,

01:58:31   hopefully it'll be in stock.

01:58:33   So thank you very much to our sponsor this week, Notion,

01:58:38   and thank you to our members who support us directly.

01:58:41   You can join us at atp.fm/join,

01:58:44   and we will talk to you next week.

01:58:46   That was Marco, by the way.

01:58:47   (upbeat music)

01:58:50   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

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01:59:00   ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:59:02   ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

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01:59:47   ♪ So long ♪

01:59:50   - So over the last couple of weeks,

01:59:51   I've had some interesting troubleshooting adventures.

01:59:54   I wanted to quickly detail them in part

01:59:56   so if there's anyone who ever runs

02:00:00   into either of these situations,

02:00:01   they can learn from my mistakes,

02:00:02   and partly 'cause I thought they were funny and/or weird.

02:00:05   First of all, when we were, where were we?

02:00:07   We were gone for some reason.

02:00:08   It was not the beach trip that just happened.

02:00:10   It was a couple of weeks ago.

02:00:12   I forget where we were,

02:00:13   but we were away from home for a few days.

02:00:16   I think we might've been at my parents,

02:00:17   and a really bad storm came through Richmond,

02:00:21   and it took out,

02:00:24   it's a long story why, which we can get into,

02:00:26   but it's not interesting,

02:00:26   but suffice to say it took out the,

02:00:29   it's not the ONT, it's like the power supply for the ONT.

02:00:31   It's the thing that's in my garage,

02:00:33   not the thing that the fiber comes into

02:00:34   in the back of the house.

02:00:35   It's the thing that's in my garage

02:00:36   plugged into a regular outlet,

02:00:38   and I believe, like I said,

02:00:39   it's the power supply for the ONT, for the FiOS.

02:00:43   It took out that outlet, like that outlet is GFCI outlet.

02:00:46   It tripped for whatever reason,

02:00:47   and so the FiOS connection to the house

02:00:50   was down for several hours.

02:00:52   And a couple of days later,

02:00:54   after I'd come home and reset all that,

02:00:55   and so on and so forth,

02:00:56   a couple days later, I was somewhere,

02:00:59   I forget where I was, maybe a library or something,

02:01:01   and I was trying to use my WireGuard VPN.

02:01:05   WireGuard is really, really good, and I like it a lot.

02:01:08   It has a couple of features that keep me stuck to it.

02:01:11   In the past, Tailscale has sponsored,

02:01:14   and Tailscale, and they did pay us to say this a while ago,

02:01:17   but legit, Tailscale's really good,

02:01:19   and it's a lot less fiddly than WireGuard.

02:01:22   So I have Tailscale as a redundant system

02:01:25   in case WireGuard fails, which it was doing

02:01:27   at this particular point in time.

02:01:29   I couldn't figure out for the life of me what was going on.

02:01:32   And I don't know if you happen to know anything

02:01:35   about WireGuard, but do you guys know,

02:01:37   do you know how WireGuard works, either of you, by chance?

02:01:39   - Nope. - No idea.

02:01:41   - Okay, so apparently, and I am also getting

02:01:43   outside of my comfort zone here,

02:01:44   but apparently it all works via UDP.

02:01:46   So what this seems to mean, from my limited understanding,

02:01:51   is that the WireGuard client software will often tell you

02:01:55   that you are connected when you are not, in fact, connected,

02:01:58   because it's just sending packets out into the ether

02:02:00   and assuming that they're getting

02:02:01   to where they're supposed to be getting.

02:02:03   It took a lot of troubleshooting for me to figure out

02:02:06   what the issue was with my WireGuard,

02:02:08   which would connect, but would do nothing.

02:02:12   I couldn't reach the internet, nothing was going on,

02:02:14   it was dead in the water, except it said it was connected.

02:02:17   - Was it IPv6?

02:02:19   - No, very good guess, and you're kind of close.

02:02:22   As it turns out, what had happened was,

02:02:25   I use a host name off of Casey, a host off of CaseyList.com

02:02:29   as my house's IP address.

02:02:32   And so I can go to mainstreet.caseylist.com, if you will,

02:02:37   and I can get to, that will push me over

02:02:42   to the house's IP address.

02:02:44   Well, when the file sits down for several hours,

02:02:46   you know what changes?

02:02:47   Your house's IP address.

02:02:48   But because Tailscale is this weird UDP thing,

02:02:52   or at least I think that's why,

02:02:53   it thought it was connected,

02:02:55   God knows where it was connected to,

02:02:56   but when it actually tried to get any response

02:02:59   from the WireGuard server, did I say Tailscale a minute ago

02:03:01   and meant WireGuard, I'm sorry.

02:03:03   Anyways, when it tried to get any information

02:03:05   from the WireGuard server, it wasn't listening

02:03:08   'cause it was at the wrong IP address.

02:03:09   So it turns out, fixing--

02:03:10   - You said you got a new IP address from Verizon

02:03:12   is what you're saying. - Correct, yes, yes.

02:03:14   - I mean, someone else probably has your old IP address, so.

02:03:16   - Yeah, exactly, exactly right.

02:03:18   And so it just, it took me forever to figure this out,

02:03:20   including tearing down my whole WireGuard installation

02:03:24   on my Raspberry Pi, which is the server,

02:03:26   and rebuilding it from scratch,

02:03:28   trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

02:03:30   And it turns out I just never updated

02:03:32   my mainstreet.caseylist.com IP address.

02:03:35   - Why don't you, that's what DNS is for.

02:03:36   Why don't you have a dynamic DNS thing for that?

02:03:39   - Well, because this is all running through Hover,

02:03:41   and I don't have anything that I've automated

02:03:44   to report into Hover that mainstreet.caseylist.com

02:03:47   needs to be updated.

02:03:49   - I've been using this free dynamic DNS thing for,

02:03:53   I don't know, at this point it's like a streak,

02:03:55   like a contest, so that, it's a free service

02:03:57   that gives you a dynamic IP address.

02:03:59   You just, you pick the host name and they say,

02:04:02   you like, something on your network

02:04:03   will ping them occasionally, and it'll let them know

02:04:05   what your IP address is, right?

02:04:07   And it's free, but they really don't want it to be free.

02:04:10   They want me to pay for whatever the next upsell thing is.

02:04:14   - Yes, this was, I was using dyndns.com.

02:04:17   - Yeah, I think that's what I'm using.

02:04:18   - Which now is dyndns.com, and years ago,

02:04:21   it became clear that they wanted nothing

02:04:25   to do with free users, and so I just abandoned it

02:04:27   at that point.

02:04:28   - That's my concern with Cloudflare, by the way.

02:04:30   Cloudflare, they give a lot for free,

02:04:34   or for, even their $200 a month plan

02:04:38   gives away a lot of unlimited this, unlimited that,

02:04:41   but they are always pushing very, very hard

02:04:44   for the upsells, for all the paid stuff

02:04:47   that is not only not free and definitely not unlimited.

02:04:52   It's extremely expensive and extremely,

02:04:55   you pay by the everything for the upsell stuff.

02:04:58   And I worry, Cloudflare right now,

02:05:01   a lot of things on the internet right now

02:05:03   are only affordable to their owners and hosts

02:05:08   because of Cloudflare, and I feel like

02:05:11   they're one bad quarter away from ruining a lot for people.

02:05:15   - I think they're doing okay.

02:05:16   But the free service that I used back in the,

02:05:18   well, first it was just free,

02:05:19   back in the good old dot com days,

02:05:21   and then it was like, oh, they would send me an email

02:05:23   every once in a while that said,

02:05:24   visit this webpage to let us know you're still using it,

02:05:27   so of course I just automated that

02:05:28   and had a system that just, you know?

02:05:30   And then eventually, in the more modern age,

02:05:33   they said, oh, well, now there's a CAPTCHA on it, right?

02:05:36   And at the point they added the CAPTCHA,

02:05:39   I'm like, well, it's not worth my time

02:05:41   to automate this anymore, so for the past,

02:05:43   it's gotta be a decade, I should look it up.

02:05:45   For the past at least five years,

02:05:47   maybe possibly 10, maybe more, once a month,

02:05:50   I get an email that says, go to this webpage

02:05:52   and click this I am not a robot box or solve this CAPTCHA

02:05:56   to let us know that you're still using this IP address.

02:05:59   And I've been doing it once a month.

02:06:02   For real, it's like a, what do you call it?

02:06:04   A game of chicken, I'm like, I'll do this forever.

02:06:07   Like Captain America, I could do this all day.

02:06:10   I have paid zero dollars to this company ever

02:06:13   and I'm getting a free IP address that's always up to date

02:06:15   with my IP of the thing, right?

02:06:17   And they just constantly are saying,

02:06:19   you sure you don't want to upgrade?

02:06:20   I'm like, yeah, no, I'm sure.

02:06:21   Yep, I'm human, no, I'm sure.

02:06:23   Yeah, I'm sure this month too.

02:06:24   I'll be sure next month too.

02:06:25   And I just like, this has gotta end.

02:06:28   I wonder if someone inside the company is like,

02:06:30   this person has been on our free plan for 16 years.

02:06:32   Can we do something about this?

02:06:35   Like, no, I'm just gonna keep solving the CAPTCHA.

02:06:37   So, I mean, this is not probably a good use of my time,

02:06:39   but like I said, I don't want to break the streak,

02:06:41   but you could run DNS yourself, you know, run your own DNS.

02:06:44   This is the old dream of the internet.

02:06:46   Back in the old days, I'm gonna run a Linux server,

02:06:48   I'm gonna have my own DNS,

02:06:49   I'm gonna run my own mail server

02:06:50   and that's so distant from us.

02:06:52   But things like Fastly and Cloudflare

02:06:53   actually do bring some of that back,

02:06:56   and AWS do bring some of that kind of back into reach

02:06:59   in exchange for selling a small part of our soul to the man.

02:07:02   But, you know, it is what it is.

02:07:04   - Indeed.

02:07:06   The other one I can't,

02:07:08   this story is gonna have to be really quick

02:07:10   because I don't remember the details,

02:07:11   but I was having a different networking issue

02:07:13   inside the house.

02:07:14   The call was coming inside the house

02:07:15   for the second time I made that joke this episode.

02:07:17   And I found that I think the Wi-Fi

02:07:22   was working fine if memory serves,

02:07:26   but ethernet wasn't working at all.

02:07:29   And I could not for the life of me figure out why.

02:07:31   I'm pretty sure that was the circumstance.

02:07:33   And this started because I was downstairs trying out,

02:07:37   I think, a dongle for my laptop

02:07:39   before we went to the beach in case I, you know,

02:07:42   but because I bring an ethernet adapter everywhere

02:07:43   'cause I'm a weirdo.

02:07:44   And I just wanted to verify that this dongle

02:07:46   that I had still worked, and it wasn't working,

02:07:49   and I was like, "Well, that's weird."

02:07:49   Then I tried a known good dongle,

02:07:51   you know, USB-C to ethernet dongle, that didn't work.

02:07:54   Uh-oh, this ain't right.

02:07:55   So then I move upstairs.

02:07:58   I was doing this downstairs,

02:07:59   and the situation downstairs is, you know,

02:08:01   ethernet to switch to mocha bridge to coaxial cable

02:08:05   that runs eventually up to the office

02:08:07   to a different mocha bridge

02:08:08   to the main switch for the house.

02:08:10   It's a total nightmare mess of possibilities for issues.

02:08:14   It's been pretty much rock solid for years,

02:08:17   but in the troubleshooting mindset,

02:08:20   it's a pile of what-ifs that I needed to eliminate.

02:08:23   So I come upstairs with the known good dongle.

02:08:26   I plug it into my main switch, it's a 16-port,

02:08:28   you know, gigabit switch in the house.

02:08:30   I forget who makes it, I think it's D-Link.

02:08:32   It's been, again, rock solid for years.

02:08:35   And I plug it into the switch, still not working.

02:08:37   And then I plug back into my desk setup

02:08:40   with my beloved CalDigit TS4,

02:08:42   that has ethernet running into that, still not working.

02:08:45   I think I rebooted my Eero once or twice,

02:08:48   trying to get that to work, that didn't work.

02:08:50   Nothing is working.

02:08:52   Would you care to guess either of you

02:08:53   what the issue was and how I fixed it?

02:08:55   - Is it IPv6?

02:08:56   - Nope, good guess, but no.

02:08:58   - Is there a USB SSD plugged into something?

02:09:01   - No, no.

02:09:03   You know what I had to do to fix it?

02:09:04   I had to restart my switch,

02:09:07   which is something I don't think

02:09:08   I have ever said before in my life.

02:09:10   - Oh my God, I've never had to do that.

02:09:12   - Right?

02:09:13   - With any switch ever.

02:09:14   - I was gonna say you had to replace your switch.

02:09:15   I don't think I know how to restart any of mine,

02:09:17   but I have replaced a switch before.

02:09:18   - I pulled the power from it, counted to five,

02:09:22   put it back in, everything's been fine since.

02:09:24   - I think, actually, I think if we had a power failure

02:09:27   a couple of years ago, one of my switches--

02:09:29   - And this was what started it, I think.

02:09:31   - Yeah, one of my switches was freaking out,

02:09:33   the lights were all going crazy on it,

02:09:34   and I banged the plug on it, that helped.

02:09:36   I did look this up, how long have I been freeloading

02:09:40   on this dynamic IP?

02:09:41   The answer, based on the oldest email that I have

02:09:45   telling me that I need to go somewhere,

02:09:47   like your free DNS is gonna expire

02:09:49   unless you go to this thing

02:09:50   and tell us you're still using it.

02:09:52   The oldest one of those emails I have

02:09:54   is from 17 years, two months, and 21 days ago.

02:09:57   That's how long I've been freeloading.

02:09:59   Once a month for 17 years.

02:10:02   I feel like I'm really competing with Casey

02:10:06   on the cheapskate scale here.

02:10:07   It's free, like why would I pay for this thing?

02:10:11   It does everything that I need it to do.

02:10:13   The price I pay is, and at this point,

02:10:15   because of the captchas, like remember your IP

02:10:17   and everything, I just have to click a link,

02:10:19   click I'm not a robot, and I'm done.

02:10:21   (beeping)