ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm so frustrated with this MixPre3.

00:00:01 ◼   ► I tried plugging it into different USB-C ports,

00:00:04 ◼   ► 'cause right now, and the way it's always been,

00:00:06 ◼   ► is I go via the CalDigit

00:00:08 ◼   ► and then the CalDigit to the computer,

00:00:10 ◼   ► then I tried going via the monitor,

00:00:11 ◼   ► I tried going via the computer directly.

00:00:13 ◼   ► And what the behavior is,

00:00:15 ◼   ► is that when I hit record on the MixPre3,

00:00:17 ◼   ► which is the interface that goes from XLR to USB,

00:00:21 ◼   ► when I hit record on that,

00:00:23 ◼   ► and started a couple of months ago,

00:00:25 ◼   ► Audio Hijack will be like,

00:00:26 ◼   ► "I'm sorry, what microphone, what MixPre3?

00:00:29 ◼   ► "That doesn't exist anymore."

00:00:31 ◼   ► And then if I hit stop on the MixPre3,

00:00:32 ◼   ► then everything's good again.

00:00:33 ◼   ► And I just don't understand what's going on.

00:00:35 ◼   ► And it very well could be user error.

00:00:36 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's not user error,

00:00:38 ◼   ► but for the life of me, I don't know what's happening.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I even tried going old USB, so it was a USB-A to C,

00:00:44 ◼   ► and I tried one of those cables just to see

00:00:46 ◼   ► what if the USB-C port is funky some way, somehow, nothing.

00:00:50 ◼   ► So I don't know what's going on, it's driving me bad.

00:00:51 ◼   ► - You have such a setup there.

00:00:54 ◼   ► So one of my formative computing experiences,

00:00:58 ◼   ► one of my best friends growing up in high school,

00:01:01 ◼   ► we had this group of friends,

00:01:02 ◼   ► and we would all build each other tower PCs

00:01:05 ◼   ► and work on our PCs together and stuff like that.

00:01:07 ◼   ► And one of my friends had a computer

00:01:10 ◼   ► that just never really worked right.

00:01:13 ◼   ► There was always some weird, flaky, or not working thing.

00:01:17 ◼   ► - Now, hold on, don't you put that bad energy on me,

00:01:19 ◼   ► Ricky Bobby, this computer has been fine.

00:01:22 ◼   ► It's just this, I've had it for 70 months.

00:01:27 ◼   ► I've had it since October.

00:01:28 ◼   ► - Part of the reason why my friend Ben's computer

00:01:32 ◼   ► was always having problems, I think,

00:01:35 ◼   ► and we certainly thought this at the time,

00:01:37 ◼   ► was that he insisted on having

00:01:40 ◼   ► a thousand different peripherals and carts in it.

00:01:43 ◼   ► He had five hard drives, he had a thousand cards,

00:01:48 ◼   ► so it was just this massive conglomeration

00:01:51 ◼   ► of just tons of stuff.

00:01:52 ◼   ► And theoretically, yes, the motherboard,

00:01:57 ◼   ► supported that many drives.

00:01:58 ◼   ► Yes, it had that many card slots,

00:02:01 ◼   ► but we just know in practice with computers

00:02:04 ◼   ► that the more stuff you add to a PC,

00:02:08 ◼   ► the more likely you are that some weird little thing

00:02:11 ◼   ► might go wrong sometimes.

00:02:13 ◼   ► It just happens with complexity of a setup.

00:02:16 ◼   ► Now, what you just said, Casey,

00:02:18 ◼   ► was that you had something like five different ways

00:02:20 ◼   ► you could have plugged this thing in,

00:02:22 ◼   ► and including a hub, a monitor hub,

00:02:26 ◼   ► and by the way, those monitors are not great monitors.

00:02:29 ◼   ► Like, there's all sorts of complexity in your setup.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - The studio display, come on, it's not that weird.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - Well, but it's connected to the same computer

00:02:36 ◼   ► as two LG Ultra finds, plus a Thunderbolt hub.

00:02:40 ◼   ► Like, there's all sorts of stuff

00:02:42 ◼   ► that could introduce weirdnesses or unreliabilities

00:02:46 ◼   ► because you have what sounds like

00:02:48 ◼   ► a fairly complicated setup.

00:02:50 ◼   ► - I don't know, man.

00:02:54 ◼   ► First of all, this worked for literally years.

00:02:56 ◼   ► I mean, this is the same setup I've had

00:02:57 ◼   ► since I left the iMac Pro, and that was--

00:03:00 ◼   ► - But literally, every time we start the call

00:03:02 ◼   ► for the podcast, you're like, oh, wrong mic,

00:03:05 ◼   ► oh, something went wrong, it's not just my USB interface.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Like, there's always something wrong.

00:03:09 ◼   ► - But that's only, that's true,

00:03:10 ◼   ► but that's only been for the last couple of months.

00:03:13 ◼   ► It's up until then, it was rock solid.

00:03:15 ◼   ► - I can't believe you don't have your microphone

00:03:17 ◼   ► directly connected to your computer.

00:03:18 ◼   ► I can't believe you're going through anything,

00:03:19 ◼   ► monitor, hub, anything.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Like, why is it not--

00:03:22 ◼   ► - Well, it's never been a problem before,

00:03:24 ◼   ► and I tried again tonight, still didn't matter.

00:03:26 ◼   ► - But it's been a problem for two months.

00:03:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, anyway, that's not the actual preshow.

00:03:30 ◼   ► That's the bootleg special preshow,

00:03:32 ◼   ► which is the thing that we-- - That's the preshow.

00:03:34 ◼   ► That's the preshow, that's it.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - All right, fine.

00:03:36 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:03:38 ◼   ► Matt Rigby writes with regard to Marco's review and repair,

00:03:42 ◼   ► here's an R1S dent and repair bill

00:03:43 ◼   ► that's almost identical to Marco's

00:03:45 ◼   ► on the Becky and Chris YouTube channel,

00:03:47 ◼   ► and I did watch a couple of minutes of this.

00:03:49 ◼   ► This appeared to be a, like, hey,

00:03:52 ◼   ► here's what we think several months later

00:03:54 ◼   ► about their Rivian, and they noted that,

00:03:56 ◼   ► apparently, when you are in off-road mode,

00:03:58 ◼   ► and I think, Marco, you might have said this as well.

00:04:00 ◼   ► - Yes. - Anyway,

00:04:01 ◼   ► when you're in an off-road mode,

00:04:02 ◼   ► the proximity sensors are turned off,

00:04:04 ◼   ► which I both get and think is absolutely bonkers.

00:04:07 ◼   ► I can make a strong argument either way.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And they bumped into the tree,

00:04:11 ◼   ► not dissimilar from the way Marco did,

00:04:13 ◼   ► and the repair bill was something like 40 grand.

00:04:15 ◼   ► The difference, though,

00:04:16 ◼   ► is that they went to a paintless dent repair,

00:04:19 ◼   ► or whatever it's called, PDR place,

00:04:21 ◼   ► and they had it fixed, and it looked almost good as new,

00:04:25 ◼   ► which, although I think the wrap that they did around it

00:04:27 ◼   ► probably helped in that department,

00:04:28 ◼   ► and they spent considerably less than $40,000

00:04:31 ◼   ► to whatever your bill was.

00:04:32 ◼   ► - No wrap required.

00:04:33 ◼   ► None of this slamming PDR.

00:04:34 ◼   ► PDR can make it as perfect as it can be,

00:04:37 ◼   ► as that's what they show in these videos.

00:04:39 ◼   ► They're old love, showing the closeups

00:04:40 ◼   ► with the bright light shining on it,

00:04:42 ◼   ► so you can see that it's not just sort of okay.

00:04:44 ◼   ► It's perfect.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Good as new.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it turns out, Marco,

00:04:48 ◼   ► you didn't have to spend $40,000

00:04:50 ◼   ► of your insurance's money.

00:04:51 ◼   ► You could've spent a lot less.

00:04:52 ◼   ► - In all fairness, it was 20, but also, yeah.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Oh, sorry, my mistake.

00:04:56 ◼   ► - It was what insurance told me to do.

00:04:58 ◼   ► That's it.

00:04:58 ◼   ► I went to insurance, I said, "Hey, here's my problem,"

00:04:59 ◼   ► and they said, "Okay, go to a body shop.

00:05:01 ◼   ► "This is what they'll do."

00:05:02 ◼   ► I figure at that point, it's in their hands

00:05:05 ◼   ► how they choose to do it.

00:05:06 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:05:07 ◼   ► Then Marco was kind enough to share his final bill

00:05:11 ◼   ► from the body shop privately with John and I.

00:05:14 ◼   ► We will not be sharing this publicly,

00:05:16 ◼   ► unless Marco's feeling particularly forthcoming,

00:05:17 ◼   ► which I doubt. - Nope. (laughs)

00:05:19 ◼   ► - John, I presume, was the one who decided

00:05:21 ◼   ► to go through with a fine-toothed comb

00:05:23 ◼   ► and come up with a few figures.

00:05:25 ◼   ► So, John, can you take us through this, please?

00:05:27 ◼   ► - Sure, I asked last time.

00:05:28 ◼   ► I wanted to know what the parts and labor breakdown was,

00:05:30 ◼   ► and I got that breakdown.

00:05:31 ◼   ► So parts was 39% of the total cost,

00:05:34 ◼   ► and the top four most expensive parts on there

00:05:39 ◼   ► were the RT Uni-Side Assembly Quarter Panel for $2,751,

00:05:43 ◼   ► which is pretty good.

00:05:46 ◼   ► That panel, which we'll get to in a little bit,

00:05:49 ◼   ► that's a low price.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Like, I've seen tiny pieces of sheet metal

00:05:52 ◼   ► on expensive cars cost four times that much.

00:05:54 ◼   ► So, hey, not so bad.

00:05:56 ◼   ► The bumper cover coming in at number two at $940.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I don't know what that is,

00:06:01 ◼   ► but it sounds like too much for a bumper cover.

00:06:03 ◼   ► RT Tail Lamp Assembly, $630,

00:06:06 ◼   ► and finally, RT Quarter Glass.

00:06:08 ◼   ► I didn't even know they would replace the quarter glass,

00:06:09 ◼   ► so maybe it doesn't, I guess it's part of the body panel.

00:06:11 ◼   ► Maybe it doesn't come out and go back in like a windshield.

00:06:13 ◼   ► They just have to break it or just, it gets chucked.

00:06:15 ◼   ► But anyway, that was $537.

00:06:18 ◼   ► So those are the top four things.

00:06:20 ◼   ► And so parts was about 39%.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - So is RT not right?

00:06:24 ◼   ► Isn't that right, Tail Lamp Assembly, right?

00:06:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, probably right, probably right.

00:06:27 ◼   ► I'm trying to expand the things.

00:06:28 ◼   ► I was confused by the fact that it's like, you know,

00:06:31 ◼   ► Rivian truck, RT, RT1, R1S.

00:06:35 ◼   ► I don't know, you're right.

00:06:36 ◼   ► It's probably right and left, I'm being silly.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Although it is all caps, which is weird.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, so those are all right,

00:06:42 ◼   ► right, Uni-Side Assembly.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Uni-Side, what a word.

00:06:46 ◼   ► 53% labor, so the majority of the cost was labor

00:06:50 ◼   ► and then miscellaneous and taxes was 8%.

00:06:52 ◼   ► So that's the breakdown.

00:06:53 ◼   ► Surprisingly inexpensive parts,

00:06:55 ◼   ► although there were a lot of them, a lot of labor,

00:06:58 ◼   ► including I think part of that 53% labor

00:07:00 ◼   ► was like 1300 bucks to calibrate everything

00:07:03 ◼   ► after they reassembled it.

00:07:04 ◼   ► - It's a lot of money, it's a lot of money.

00:07:06 ◼   ► And then John, you provided just to really, you know,

00:07:09 ◼   ► rub Marco's face in the pee stain that he left on the carpet

00:07:13 ◼   ► to use the dogism.

00:07:15 ◼   ► You included three different videos

00:07:17 ◼   ► where they talk about the magic of PDR.

00:07:19 ◼   ► - You should never do that to a dog, first of all.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And second of all, if you're wondering what

00:07:23 ◼   ► Paintless Denver Fair is like, I provided three videos.

00:07:25 ◼   ► Two of them are Rivian videos, one is a different vehicle,

00:07:28 ◼   ► but the person explains the process

00:07:30 ◼   ► with some terrible backing music behind it.

00:07:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:07:33 ◼   ► Watching it be done, it does look like,

00:07:38 ◼   ► it looks like it's impossible, it looks like a trick,

00:07:40 ◼   ► but I assure you, you can just Google or search YouTube.

00:07:43 ◼   ► There are so many of these videos,

00:07:45 ◼   ► all of these people aren't scam artists.

00:07:47 ◼   ► They're obviously good at what they do,

00:07:49 ◼   ► they're making YouTube videos of it.

00:07:50 ◼   ► I'm sure it's difficult to find someone

00:07:51 ◼   ► who's as good as these people in the channel,

00:07:53 ◼   ► but they somehow managed to painstakingly restore

00:07:57 ◼   ► these pieces of sheet metal to looking like new

00:08:01 ◼   ► by hitting it with things and pulling it with things.

00:08:03 ◼   ► It's fascinating.

00:08:04 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:08:07 ◼   ► All right, and then why don't we talk about that side panel?

00:08:10 ◼   ► 'Cause here's the thing.

00:08:12 ◼   ► I genuinely am enthusiastic that there are entries

00:08:17 ◼   ► into the automotive market.

00:08:19 ◼   ► 120, 150 years, whatever it's been since the car

00:08:23 ◼   ► has really been a mass produced thing.

00:08:25 ◼   ► It doesn't matter how many years, a long time.

00:08:27 ◼   ► And Tesla started and showed us that yes,

00:08:30 ◼   ► some plucky upstart could make a car company

00:08:33 ◼   ► and then have a Nazi turn out to be at the helm,

00:08:36 ◼   ► but that's neither here nor there.

00:08:38 ◼   ► But they weren't the greatest at putting cars together,

00:08:42 ◼   ► certainly at first, maybe they're a little better now,

00:08:44 ◼   ► but they also made a lot of really weird choices

00:08:47 ◼   ► and it looks like Rivian is following

00:08:48 ◼   ► right in their footsteps because what the hell is this?

00:08:53 ◼   ► - This is the R1S side panel.

00:08:55 ◼   ► We'll provide a link to the Rivian forums website

00:08:57 ◼   ► where someone posted this picture.

00:09:00 ◼   ► You can't tell from the picture

00:09:01 ◼   ► whether this is actually a series of parts

00:09:03 ◼   ► that are put together in the factory into one large part

00:09:05 ◼   ► or whether it really is one large part.

00:09:06 ◼   ► Presumably it's welded together from smaller pieces,

00:09:09 ◼   ► but the picture shows a whole bunch of these pieces of metal

00:09:13 ◼   ► hanging in a factory.

00:09:14 ◼   ► So this is clearly like a single thing

00:09:17 ◼   ► that gets attached to the car.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And presumably when Marco got his repair,

00:09:21 ◼   ► this is what they had to remove from his car.

00:09:22 ◼   ► And then they ordered one of these from the factory

00:09:25 ◼   ► and put a new one on the car.

00:09:27 ◼   ► And when you look at this

00:09:28 ◼   ► and think about where his dent was

00:09:29 ◼   ► and think about this is the size of the piece

00:09:31 ◼   ► that they have to replace,

00:09:32 ◼   ► think of all the things that are attached to that piece,

00:09:34 ◼   ► including the rear quarter window, the roof,

00:09:36 ◼   ► both of the doors, the rear bumper,

00:09:39 ◼   ► like the whole nine yards.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Makes sense why it would cost so much.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Now, again, I think it's a bargain to pay $2,700

00:09:46 ◼   ► for this piece of sheet metal 'cause it's huge.

00:09:49 ◼   ► So you're really getting your money's worth there,

00:09:51 ◼   ► but yeah.

00:09:51 ◼   ► - Really makes the pro stand seem like a poor value.

00:09:55 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:09:57 ◼   ► There's at least three or four XDR stands inside

00:10:01 ◼   ► and sheet metal in this thing.

00:10:02 ◼   ► So yeah, check out the picture if you really wanna see

00:10:05 ◼   ► a visualization of what they had to remove

00:10:07 ◼   ► and then replace and repaint on Marco's car.

00:10:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's basically disassembling

00:10:12 ◼   ► the entire right half of the car.

00:10:14 ◼   ► When you see the size of this piece

00:10:18 ◼   ► and how much of the car it represents,

00:10:21 ◼   ► it makes a lot more sense.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Now, I think you can make a good argument,

00:10:25 ◼   ► maybe this is a poor design.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Like, talk about design for repairability,

00:10:31 ◼   ► this is definitely not designed for repairability at all.

00:10:35 ◼   ► This is like the total opposite.

00:10:38 ◼   ► This is like what is the least repairable design

00:10:42 ◼   ► we can possibly make?

00:10:43 ◼   ► Let's do that and let's make it include

00:10:45 ◼   ► one of the most commonly dented parts of a car.

00:10:48 ◼   ► Great.

00:10:49 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:10:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I really wonder what the trade-off is there.

00:10:52 ◼   ► Maybe it's faster to assemble,

00:10:53 ◼   ► maybe it's more sturdy because there are fewer joints.

00:10:55 ◼   ► I have to think this is made for multiple pieces

00:10:57 ◼   ► that are welded together in the factory,

00:10:59 ◼   ► but still, I think this is the part that you buy.

00:11:01 ◼   ► I don't think you can buy any other part.

00:11:03 ◼   ► Like, if you just wanted the back part,

00:11:05 ◼   ► you can see certain parts of it

00:11:07 ◼   ► are clearly just one piece of metal.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Maybe the roof and the other things are welded to it,

00:11:11 ◼   ► but if this is the part they sell you,

00:11:12 ◼   ► this is what you have to buy.

00:11:13 ◼   ► - It looks like the whole thing

00:11:14 ◼   ► might just be stamped out in this shape.

00:11:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I thought.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - It looks like one solid panel.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - That would be a huge stamping.

00:11:21 ◼   ► I think it has to be multiple pieces.

00:11:23 ◼   ► But either way, I've seen this,

00:11:24 ◼   ► there's other Rivian videos you can see

00:11:26 ◼   ► where someone will buy one of these pieces.

00:11:28 ◼   ► In this case, it was like a pickup truck.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And they'll cut a piece off of it.

00:11:31 ◼   ► They'll buy the whole piece.

00:11:32 ◼   ► You gotta buy the whole thing.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Then they'll cut a piece off,

00:11:34 ◼   ► and they'll cut the same shaped piece

00:11:35 ◼   ► off of their dented car,

00:11:36 ◼   ► and sort of fudge them back together.

00:11:38 ◼   ► That gets back to what I was saying before

00:11:39 ◼   ► about insurance companies want you to make it like new.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Right, in the end, it should look just like a new one.

00:11:45 ◼   ► So you can't cut and paste pieces of pieces.

00:11:49 ◼   ► And also, the insurance company doesn't want it

00:11:51 ◼   ► to be reliant on the artistry of a craftsperson doing PDR,

00:11:56 ◼   ► because that is a highly skilled thing.

00:11:59 ◼   ► And it's not, I mean, not that it's saying

00:12:00 ◼   ► that doing bodywork isn't highly skilled as well,

00:12:03 ◼   ► but it seems even more dependent on the expertise

00:12:07 ◼   ► of the person than regular bodywork,

00:12:10 ◼   ► which is, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong about this.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Someone who does bodywork let me know.

00:12:14 ◼   ► Is PDR actually harder or easier than regular bodywork,

00:12:16 ◼   ► or is actually regular bodywork harder

00:12:18 ◼   ► because you have to do all the filler and everything?

00:12:21 ◼   ► But either way, I kind of understand both sides of this.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Even this single piece, like we'll get to in a second,

00:12:27 ◼   ► I think a lot of car manufacturers do this

00:12:29 ◼   ► because you don't want to have your robots welding

00:12:32 ◼   ► 800 different things on the assembly line.

00:12:34 ◼   ► You want to just take the big one piece,

00:12:35 ◼   ► put it on, weld it in five places, and be done with it.

00:12:38 ◼   ► Fewer squeaks and rattles, better structural integrity,

00:12:40 ◼   ► better stiffness, fewer parts, like it all makes sense

00:12:44 ◼   ► until you get a tiny ding, and then it makes far less sense.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - And then apparently it's not just Rivian.

00:12:52 ◼   ► Blaine wrote in with regard to similar stories.

00:12:55 ◼   ► So Blaine writes, "I was recently hit

00:12:57 ◼   ► "by a large lifted truck while my 2019 Jaguar,"

00:13:00 ◼   ► sorry, I was just in Britain, Jaguar F-Type.

00:13:03 ◼   ► "His bumper hit right where my door

00:13:04 ◼   ► "and rear quarter panel came together,

00:13:06 ◼   ► "denting them and then scraping along the side

00:13:07 ◼   ► "above my wheel well.

00:13:08 ◼   ► "Because the panels are aluminum

00:13:10 ◼   ► "and glued together for rigidity,

00:13:11 ◼   ► "cutting out the dented bit and patch wasn't an option,

00:13:13 ◼   ► "so both had to be fully replaced

00:13:14 ◼   ► "for a total cost of $32,588.84."

00:13:21 ◼   ► Holy crap.

00:13:22 ◼   ► - I have to think a lot of that

00:13:24 ◼   ► is the increased cost of the panels.

00:13:25 ◼   ► When I mentioned more expensive cars

00:13:26 ◼   ► where the panels cost a lot more than the 2,700

00:13:28 ◼   ► that the whole side of Marco's car cost,

00:13:30 ◼   ► Jaguar would be one of those examples of a brand.

00:13:33 ◼   ► Your body panels are gonna cost more.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And to be fair, this had,

00:13:36 ◼   ► if you look at the size of this dent,

00:13:37 ◼   ► it does span two big body panels.

00:13:38 ◼   ► It's basically the whole side of the car.

00:13:41 ◼   ► But yeah, it's not just Rivian.

00:13:43 ◼   ► It's basically any modern car

00:13:45 ◼   ► with like aluminum U-to-body instruction.

00:13:46 ◼   ► I think the trend has been towards fewer and fewer pieces,

00:13:50 ◼   ► towards fewer larger pieces,

00:13:52 ◼   ► presumably 'cause that's less expensive for manufacturing

00:13:55 ◼   ► and increases stiffness and everything.

00:13:57 ◼   ► - Yep, at the expense of your insurance rates.

00:14:01 ◼   ► Thanks to people like me.

00:14:02 ◼   ► Sorry.

00:14:03 ◼   ► - Yep, thanks Marco.

00:14:05 ◼   ► All right, so we got a fair bit of feedback

00:14:07 ◼   ► with regard to, I think it was an Ask ATP question

00:14:09 ◼   ► about hey, where should EV chargers,

00:14:12 ◼   ► the ports onboard the car, where should they be?

00:14:15 ◼   ► And the answer, according to a bunch of Europeans

00:14:18 ◼   ► in particular, is the curb side.

00:14:21 ◼   ► So this is best exemplified by Craig Ritchie who writes,

00:14:24 ◼   ► when you were discussing optimum EV charge socket position,

00:14:26 ◼   ► you didn't discuss the possibility of charging

00:14:27 ◼   ► when parked at the side of the road

00:14:29 ◼   ► in a parallel parking position.

00:14:31 ◼   ► This may not be as much of a factor in the US

00:14:32 ◼   ► as it is in the UK,

00:14:33 ◼   ► but as we all move inevitably towards EVs,

00:14:35 ◼   ► it is likely many will charge their cars

00:14:38 ◼   ► outside their homes on the main road.

00:14:40 ◼   ► And so there you go.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, this was really interesting.

00:14:42 ◼   ► 'Cause we had said the passenger side is the worst side.

00:14:45 ◼   ► Because it is true that when you are charging

00:14:48 ◼   ► in your own garage or at a fast charger

00:14:52 ◼   ► on a long highway trip, that is the less convenient side.

00:14:55 ◼   ► But this was a really good point that like,

00:14:58 ◼   ► if you happen to have curb side charging

00:15:00 ◼   ► and you park on the street,

00:15:02 ◼   ► which is I think very unusual in most of the US,

00:15:05 ◼   ► but is much more common in places that are more sensible,

00:15:08 ◼   ► then it actually does make sense to have charging

00:15:11 ◼   ► on the passenger side of the car

00:15:13 ◼   ► 'cause that is the side next to the curb.

00:15:15 ◼   ► So interesting option.

00:15:17 ◼   ► I think it's still, I think for US-based vehicles,

00:15:20 ◼   ► for North American vehicles, I would say still driver side

00:15:24 ◼   ► because there is just not anywhere near enough

00:15:28 ◼   ► curb side available charging here in the US.

00:15:30 ◼   ► It just doesn't exist here.

00:15:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've never seen it.

00:15:33 ◼   ► Like the idea of having curb side charging things,

00:15:37 ◼   ► we have a picture here that shows like a cord

00:15:38 ◼   ► seemingly coming from a tree to charge an EV.

00:15:40 ◼   ► It's as fantastical in our country as protected bike lanes

00:15:45 ◼   ► and like reliable train travel and stuff.

00:15:48 ◼   ► Like we just do not have things

00:15:49 ◼   ► that the rest of the world has

00:15:50 ◼   ► and curb side charging is definitely one of them.

00:15:53 ◼   ► I'm sure it exists in the US, but so many people wrote in,

00:15:56 ◼   ► this must be so much more common elsewhere than it is here.

00:15:59 ◼   ► I've literally never seen it in my life.

00:16:01 ◼   ► - Neither have I.

00:16:02 ◼   ► I've driven an EV for a long time now

00:16:04 ◼   ► and a lot of places on the Eastern Seaboard,

00:16:06 ◼   ► never seen this available anywhere.

00:16:08 ◼   ► - It makes sense in cities

00:16:09 ◼   ► where people don't have parking, right?

00:16:10 ◼   ► Like you don't have a garage or driveway.

00:16:13 ◼   ► Like it makes total sense.

00:16:13 ◼   ► We just like so many things that make total sense,

00:16:15 ◼   ► we don't have it.

00:16:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's one of the things

00:16:18 ◼   ► that is hardest for EV adoption

00:16:21 ◼   ► and in a lot of places for a lot of people

00:16:23 ◼   ► is what if you live in an apartment

00:16:25 ◼   ► and you don't have a garage or you know,

00:16:27 ◼   ► there's like you have to, you park on the street

00:16:29 ◼   ► as your main parking spot, how do you charge your EV?

00:16:32 ◼   ► It's a great question.

00:16:34 ◼   ► It's a huge barrier to adoption for lots of people.

00:16:36 ◼   ► It's a very important thing that we need to solve,

00:16:39 ◼   ► but we have not even begun to solve it in the US

00:16:41 ◼   ► and it seems like nobody cares to.

00:16:43 ◼   ► And it's the kind of thing that like culturally speaking

00:16:46 ◼   ► in the US, I can't see us getting our act together

00:16:51 ◼   ► to do this.

00:16:52 ◼   ► I see it being a very much like, you know,

00:16:55 ◼   ► this is my land, get off my land,

00:16:57 ◼   ► you're not gonna use my power kind of thing.

00:16:59 ◼   ► Like there's all sorts of problems with it

00:17:00 ◼   ► that I think in practice with US culture

00:17:02 ◼   ► that I think would make it very difficult

00:17:03 ◼   ► for us to adopt it anytime soon.

00:17:05 ◼   ► - Like protected bike lanes and streets made for people

00:17:09 ◼   ► and not cars and all that good stuff.

00:17:11 ◼   ► It only takes one, you know, high profile city

00:17:13 ◼   ► to actually do this and to see the massive return

00:17:16 ◼   ► on investment that they know they'll get from it

00:17:18 ◼   ► based on every place else in the world

00:17:19 ◼   ► that has ever done this and studied it.

00:17:21 ◼   ► To be a story to say, hey, I visited City X

00:17:24 ◼   ► in the United States and you know what,

00:17:25 ◼   ► it was really pleasant and they had curbside charging

00:17:27 ◼   ► and you could walk on the streets and not get run over.

00:17:29 ◼   ► And you know, there was fewer cars driving back and forth

00:17:33 ◼   ► and mass transit, like it just takes one or two examples

00:17:37 ◼   ► to get the ball rolling.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Hopefully we can get there eventually,

00:17:39 ◼   ► but we are very, very far behind the rest of the world.

00:17:41 ◼   ► So fingers crossed there.

00:17:43 ◼   ► I don't think it's an impossibility,

00:17:44 ◼   ► like municipal broadband is another great idea

00:17:46 ◼   ► that's happened in a few places,

00:17:47 ◼   ► still hasn't quite caught on.

00:17:49 ◼   ► But some kind of citywide charging network,

00:17:52 ◼   ► probably run by some private company

00:17:54 ◼   ► that takes all the profits

00:17:55 ◼   ► and doesn't maintain the machines.

00:17:56 ◼   ► Anyway, we'll see what we can do.

00:17:59 ◼   ► On this topic, also, one other person pointed out

00:18:02 ◼   ► slash surmised that I was mentioning like,

00:18:05 ◼   ► Honda's have the gas filler on the driver's side.

00:18:09 ◼   ► - The gas hole, John, it's called the gas hole.

00:18:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, the notion that that filler is actually

00:18:14 ◼   ► on the passenger side because Honda is a Japanese company

00:18:17 ◼   ► and they do right hand drive

00:18:19 ◼   ► and they just don't bother changing where the gas goes in

00:18:21 ◼   ► when they sell it in America.

00:18:22 ◼   ► So they move the steering wheel,

00:18:24 ◼   ► but they don't move the gas filler.

00:18:26 ◼   ► So I don't know if there's any truth to that,

00:18:27 ◼   ► but it is interesting to think about.

00:18:29 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure if you buy a Honda in Japan,

00:18:32 ◼   ► the gas filler is still on the same size

00:18:34 ◼   ► that it is on my car, but the steering wheel is not.

00:18:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so David Barber wrote in,

00:18:39 ◼   ► "I brought a Subaru Ascent a few years back

00:18:42 ◼   ► "and I recall wondering why they would put the gas port

00:18:43 ◼   ► "on the passenger side.

00:18:44 ◼   ► "After a bit of digging around,

00:18:45 ◼   ► "it seems this is a safety feature.

00:18:47 ◼   ► "Say you run out of gas on a busy highway or road.

00:18:49 ◼   ► "If you pull off the road and return with the gas canister,

00:18:51 ◼   ► "you'll find yourself on the side of the car

00:18:53 ◼   ► "farthest from traffic."

00:18:55 ◼   ► That's clever.

00:18:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm not sure if that's the reason.

00:18:57 ◼   ► It's definitely a consequence of the decision,

00:18:59 ◼   ► but I'm not sure that running out of gas

00:19:02 ◼   ► and having to go get a gas can is common enough

00:19:04 ◼   ► to dictate the side of a car that the gas port is on.

00:19:07 ◼   ► But who knows, maybe that's where the trend started

00:19:09 ◼   ► back when this was more common.

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00:21:15 ◼   ► - All right, so we have a series of reports

00:21:20 ◼   ► and we didn't record for two straight weeks

00:21:23 ◼   ► 'cause I was overseas, so apologies.

00:21:25 ◼   ► But apparently, as per, what is this, the 28th of July,

00:21:29 ◼   ► so just a few days ago as we record,

00:21:31 ◼   ► Apple Intelligence is reportedly delayed

00:21:33 ◼   ► until iOS 18.1 in October.

00:21:35 ◼   ► This is reading from Bloomberg.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Apple Inc's upcoming artificial intelligence features

00:21:40 ◼   ► will arrive later than anticipated,

00:21:41 ◼   ► missing the initial launch of its upcoming

00:21:43 ◼   ► iPhone and iPad software overhauls,

00:21:45 ◼   ► but giving the company more time to fix bugs.

00:21:47 ◼   ► The AI features will arrive a few weeks

00:21:49 ◼   ► after the initial iPad OS 18 release is planned for September.

00:21:54 ◼   ► The release plan for Apple Intelligence

00:21:56 ◼   ► presents the possibility that the first iPhone 16 model

00:21:58 ◼   ► shipped to customers this year

00:21:59 ◼   ► will lack the new AI features

00:22:01 ◼   ► and require software update weeks later.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Even when Apple Intelligence launches with iOS 18.1,

00:22:06 ◼   ► iPad OS 18.1, it will be missing some features.

00:22:09 ◼   ► That includes some of the most significant changes to Siri,

00:22:11 ◼   ► such as the ability to use on-device data

00:22:14 ◼   ► to help find queries and for the system to use

00:22:16 ◼   ► what is on a person's screen

00:22:18 ◼   ► to provide context for answers.

00:22:19 ◼   ► The company's planning to roll out its full set

00:22:21 ◼   ► of Apple Intelligence features via mobile updates,

00:22:23 ◼   ► excuse me, multiple updates to iOS 18

00:22:26 ◼   ► across the end of 2024 through the first half of 2025.

00:22:29 ◼   ► When I first saw the story, I was confused.

00:22:31 ◼   ► I'm like, wait a second, Apple has always said

00:22:33 ◼   ► that Apple Intelligence features are gonna be delayed.

00:22:35 ◼   ► And in fact, I thought they were gonna be delayed

00:22:36 ◼   ► until iOS 18.4.

00:22:38 ◼   ► So what is this story about?

00:22:39 ◼   ► But from what I've been able to gather since then,

00:22:42 ◼   ► I believe what it's saying is that the original plan was

00:22:45 ◼   ► iOS 18 ships, let's just use iOS 18

00:22:47 ◼   ► for this placeholder for all the other OSes,

00:22:48 ◼   ► iOS 18 ships, and it comes with some of Apple Intelligence,

00:22:52 ◼   ► and then later in iOS 18.4 or whatever,

00:22:54 ◼   ► you get the rest of it.

00:22:56 ◼   ► And now it seems like the story is iOS 18 ships,

00:22:58 ◼   ► you get none of Apple Intelligence.

00:23:00 ◼   ► You wait for 18.1, you get some of Apple Intelligence,

00:23:03 ◼   ► then you wait for 18.4 or whatever,

00:23:04 ◼   ► and you get the rest of it.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Which is not great, because Apple's gonna be selling

00:23:08 ◼   ► new phones, and it would be great if they could advertise,

00:23:10 ◼   ► hey, buy an iPhone 16, and get the amazing

00:23:13 ◼   ► new Apple Intelligence, but if the phone doesn't ship

00:23:16 ◼   ► with that, and also, that OS isn't out

00:23:18 ◼   ► when you buy the phones on day one,

00:23:20 ◼   ► harder to make that ad, isn't it?

00:23:22 ◼   ► So it's not great for Apple, but on the other hand,

00:23:24 ◼   ► like I'd much rather have them not ship the software

00:23:26 ◼   ► if it's not done, like I don't, you know,

00:23:28 ◼   ► it's not a big deal, but like, this probably

00:23:31 ◼   ► will make the role less dramatic.

00:23:34 ◼   ► On the other other hand, being able to launch the iPhone

00:23:38 ◼   ► without the risk of Apple Intelligence being terrible

00:23:41 ◼   ► also simplifies matters.

00:23:42 ◼   ► - Mm.

00:23:43 ◼   ► - And it's just like, you know what,

00:23:44 ◼   ► the iPhone 16 is gonna live or die on its own merits

00:23:48 ◼   ► without worrying about some embarrassing, high profile,

00:23:52 ◼   ► AI-related flub that becomes a big story

00:23:54 ◼   ► with the launch of the iPhone.

00:23:56 ◼   ► We'll wait until 18.1 to have that happen.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - That actually, honestly, that actually might be

00:24:00 ◼   ► a really good reason in itself to not have it be too tied

00:24:03 ◼   ► to the launch, 'cause look, like, as far as like using

00:24:07 ◼   ► Apple Intelligence to sell the iPhone 16 line,

00:24:11 ◼   ► they have a whole year to promote the iPhone 16 line,

00:24:15 ◼   ► and they're going to, you know, they,

00:24:16 ◼   ► throughout the whole year, they use different

00:24:18 ◼   ► marketing techniques to push the new phone,

00:24:21 ◼   ► or the current generation phone,

00:24:22 ◼   ► as they need to throughout the year.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Not every massive, big press thing is pulled out

00:24:28 ◼   ► at the very beginning, and in part,

00:24:31 ◼   ► because not everybody buys phones all at once at lunch day.

00:24:35 ◼   ► Many people wait until certain payment plans are up,

00:24:38 ◼   ► or they're up for credits at the carrier or whatever.

00:24:42 ◼   ► Also, they have supply constraints.

00:24:45 ◼   ► You know, they can't necessarily,

00:24:47 ◼   ► in recent years, the iPhones have not been hard to get,

00:24:49 ◼   ► but sometimes, like, if there's like a really hot new color,

00:24:53 ◼   ► you know, that might be back ordered or whatever.

00:24:55 ◼   ► So, they do have to try to spread the love for the iPhone

00:24:59 ◼   ► across more of a time span,

00:25:01 ◼   ► across hopefully the entire year.

00:25:03 ◼   ► So, I think, you're right, John,

00:25:05 ◼   ► like, I bet they really shouldn't probably

00:25:08 ◼   ► bind these things together in, you know,

00:25:10 ◼   ► too closely in people's minds that like,

00:25:11 ◼   ► Apple Intelligence is a feature of this new phone,

00:25:13 ◼   ► that they probably shouldn't do that,

00:25:15 ◼   ► in part because it's not actually true,

00:25:16 ◼   ► it's gonna work on the 16 or the 15 Pro as well, but--

00:25:19 ◼   ► - Well, it is, it's not true,

00:25:21 ◼   ► but it's truer than it has ever been,

00:25:23 ◼   ► because Apple Intelligence literally only works

00:25:25 ◼   ► on the new phones they're introducing

00:25:27 ◼   ► and last year's Pro phone only, right?

00:25:31 ◼   ► So, that is the narrowest it's ever been.

00:25:33 ◼   ► - It is, but like, a lot of people buy the Pro phones.

00:25:36 ◼   ► So, it's not that narrow, but it, you know, it is,

00:25:39 ◼   ► you're right, it is the narrowest it's been.

00:25:40 ◼   ► But anyway, I do think it's wise to not tie

00:25:44 ◼   ► the fate of the iPhone in people's mind, PR wise,

00:25:48 ◼   ► with the launch of a bunch of LLM based features

00:25:51 ◼   ► that are gonna be brand new and shipping

00:25:54 ◼   ► around the same time.

00:25:55 ◼   ► So, this makes total sense to like,

00:25:57 ◼   ► separate this by a few weeks.

00:25:58 ◼   ► Like, you know, get this out, get the new phones out,

00:26:01 ◼   ► get all the reviews of the new phones

00:26:03 ◼   ► with Apple Intelligence not on those phones,

00:26:06 ◼   ► and then later in the year, start pushing this more heavily,

00:26:10 ◼   ► once you can roll it out with reasonable scale

00:26:13 ◼   ► and once you've ironed out the biggest of the problems

00:26:15 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:26:16 ◼   ► So, this makes total sense to me.

00:26:18 ◼   ► - I think they will actually, when it comes time

00:26:20 ◼   ► to pitch the Apple Intelligence things,

00:26:21 ◼   ► for simplicity's sake, just pitch it as a feature

00:26:25 ◼   ► of the iPhone 16, because yes, we know

00:26:27 ◼   ► that you can run it on the 15 Pros or whatever,

00:26:29 ◼   ► but that's such a complicated message to get across.

00:26:32 ◼   ► Just say, you know, Apple Intelligence on the new iPhone 16.

00:26:35 ◼   ► It doesn't say that it's only on the iPhone 16, right?

00:26:40 ◼   ► But like, if you just keep saying Apple Intelligence

00:26:42 ◼   ► on the iPhone 16 as the tagline you're at or whatever,

00:26:44 ◼   ► people will get the idea that, oh, I want one

00:26:46 ◼   ► of those Apple Intelligence phones.

00:26:47 ◼   ► I think that's the iPhone 16, which is true, it is,

00:26:50 ◼   ► but also, you know, 15 Pro.

00:26:52 ◼   ► And presumably they'll stop selling the 15 Pro and Pro Max,

00:26:55 ◼   ► right, like they normally do with the Pro phones.

00:26:57 ◼   ► You won't even be able to buy them, so it'll be kind of true

00:27:00 ◼   ► unless you're gonna buy a used one.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Anyway, every review will say,

00:27:04 ◼   ► in part of their minuses column, like, oh, it's a shame

00:27:06 ◼   ► that Apple Intelligence isn't out,

00:27:08 ◼   ► but they're all just gonna say,

00:27:08 ◼   ► and we'll see how that turns out, right?

00:27:10 ◼   ► It's, obviously, ideally, Apple Intelligence

00:27:13 ◼   ► would be 100% ready and it would roll out all at once

00:27:15 ◼   ► and it would be amazing, but that's not the world

00:27:17 ◼   ► Apple has been living in for the past many years.

00:27:20 ◼   ► Even though they've been having, quote, unquote,

00:27:22 ◼   ► annual OS releases, every WWDC, it's like,

00:27:25 ◼   ► and here's the features that'll be out on launch,

00:27:27 ◼   ► and here's the ones that'll be there later this year

00:27:29 ◼   ► or this spring, you know, like, there's always

00:27:30 ◼   ► some later stuff, and at a certain point,

00:27:35 ◼   ► it becomes kind of a farce to say they have annual releases,

00:27:38 ◼   ► because it's like, well, this is the headline feature

00:27:40 ◼   ► and it's not going to be in the .0,

00:27:42 ◼   ► and it's not even gonna all be in the .1,

00:27:44 ◼   ► it'll probably all be in the .4.

00:27:46 ◼   ► All right, anyway, I mean, it's not at the farce point now,

00:27:51 ◼   ► because really, there are major releases

00:27:52 ◼   ► and each new OS does bring a ton of things with them,

00:27:55 ◼   ► but it's getting to, like, when we talk about the OSes,

00:27:58 ◼   ► it's not like, oh, on launch day,

00:27:59 ◼   ► we get to try out all the new features.

00:28:00 ◼   ► I was thinking about this for, like,

00:28:01 ◼   ► future shows and topics, like,

00:28:03 ◼   ► when should we talk about feature X?

00:28:04 ◼   ► It's like, when will that even be on our phones?

00:28:07 ◼   ► When will it be in the betas?

00:28:09 ◼   ► It's harder and harder to look at this

00:28:13 ◼   ► as a annual giant bundle of goodies that drops on our head.

00:28:16 ◼   ► It's a giant bundle of announcements

00:28:18 ◼   ► that gets dropped on our head at WWDC,

00:28:20 ◼   ► but the goodies trickle out over the year.

00:28:21 ◼   ► And like I said, I'd much rather have software

00:28:23 ◼   ► be held back until it's ready,

00:28:25 ◼   ► but it does get a little bit frustrating

00:28:28 ◼   ► to announce it all at once,

00:28:29 ◼   ► but then dole it out a little piece at a time,

00:28:33 ◼   ► especially when it's almost impossible

00:28:35 ◼   ► to keep track of which pieces

00:28:37 ◼   ► are being doled out at which time,

00:28:39 ◼   ► especially with Apple intelligence,

00:28:41 ◼   ► certain features that people think are Apple intelligence

00:28:42 ◼   ► aren't actually Apple intelligence,

00:28:44 ◼   ► and there's been 50 stories about

00:28:46 ◼   ► which features of Apple intelligence are in the 18.1 beta.

00:28:49 ◼   ► We'll be in 18.2, 18.4,

00:28:52 ◼   ► and those stories will keep coming because it's confusing.

00:28:54 ◼   ► It'll be great when we get over this hump and say,

00:28:56 ◼   ► finally, all the features of Apple intelligence are out,

00:28:58 ◼   ► and that'll happen probably around WWDC 2025.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Have any of you tried the betas of anything

00:29:05 ◼   ► with Apple intelligence?

00:29:06 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:29:07 ◼   ► - I haven't tried any of the betas of literally anything

00:29:09 ◼   ► this year, not yet, because I've been traveling

00:29:11 ◼   ► and I didn't wanna mess with it.

00:29:12 ◼   ► - I also have not tried any of the 18 betas

00:29:15 ◼   ► because I was like, I'm doing this big overcast thing.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I wanted to get that done and not be distracted

00:29:22 ◼   ► or sidetracked by beta stuff for this fall.

00:29:25 ◼   ► So I'm like, you know what, it's not that big of a year

00:29:27 ◼   ► for most API-based things that we can actually use yet,

00:29:31 ◼   ► 'cause developers still can't do anything

00:29:35 ◼   ► with Apple intelligence at all.

00:29:37 ◼   ► There is no API we can use, even for us to expose

00:29:41 ◼   ► our app intents to the system, that's not even being

00:29:44 ◼   ► indexed yet by Apple intelligence.

00:29:46 ◼   ► So there is literally nothing for developers to do

00:29:49 ◼   ► involving Apple intelligence at all.

00:29:51 ◼   ► So the iOS 18 summer for developers is pretty light.

00:29:56 ◼   ► Make sure your icon works with the new icon theming stuff

00:29:59 ◼   ► and not much else, maybe control center.

00:30:02 ◼   ► - And find out what broke.

00:30:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's not that much.

00:30:06 ◼   ► Also, we all know as developers that if anything breaks,

00:30:11 ◼   ► we will know on WWDC Monday because our customers

00:30:15 ◼   ► will install developer beta one on day one

00:30:19 ◼   ► and then will tell us what's broken.

00:30:21 ◼   ► So yeah, so I have a good reason.

00:30:25 ◼   ► And I think Casey had a good reason too,

00:30:26 ◼   ► because you don't wanna travel internationally

00:30:28 ◼   ► running a beta if you can help it.

00:30:30 ◼   ► - Yep, yeah, and I have some more travel coming up

00:30:32 ◼   ► in September, which I'm sure we'll talk about on the show,

00:30:35 ◼   ► but not quite yet.

00:30:36 ◼   ► And so because of that, I don't think I'm gonna be running

00:30:39 ◼   ► the betas, certainly not on my phone, maybe on my iPad.

00:30:44 ◼   ► Typically I'll crumble toward the end

00:30:46 ◼   ► of the public beta cycle, even though I do have

00:30:48 ◼   ► obviously access to the developer betas.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Typically I don't like messing with those

00:30:52 ◼   ► in the last couple of years.

00:30:53 ◼   ► And so maybe in the next one or two public releases,

00:30:56 ◼   ► I'll put it on the iPad just to see.

00:30:58 ◼   ► But no, I haven't messed with any of it.

00:31:00 ◼   ► And honestly, I think maybe I'm just getting old and crusty.

00:31:03 ◼   ► I don't--

00:31:05 ◼   ► - I don't, I get it, right?

00:31:07 ◼   ► First of all, unnecessary, second of all, accurate.

00:31:11 ◼   ► - I'm no better.

00:31:12 ◼   ► - But anyway, no, I think it's just, it doesn't,

00:31:16 ◼   ► living on the bleeding edge in that regard

00:31:19 ◼   ► doesn't really rev my engine like it used to.

00:31:21 ◼   ► But John, I think Marco and I haven't given you a chance

00:31:23 ◼   ► to answer your own question.

00:31:24 ◼   ► What's your situation?

00:31:25 ◼   ► - Well, I have actually installed the,

00:31:27 ◼   ► so they split the beta.

00:31:29 ◼   ► There's like the, whatever it is, 18.0 betas,

00:31:34 ◼   ► and there's a beta train, 18.0 beta four,

00:31:36 ◼   ► whatever they're on.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Then there's also the 18.1 beta train, which is separate.

00:31:41 ◼   ► So you could, they're releasing new ones

00:31:43 ◼   ► in each of the trains at the same time.

00:31:45 ◼   ► So on my Mac, which is running Mac OS 15,

00:31:48 ◼   ► there's the 15.0 beta and then the 15.1 beta.

00:31:51 ◼   ► And the 15.1 beta is the one that has

00:31:54 ◼   ► some Apple intelligence stuff in it.

00:31:56 ◼   ► So I installed the 15.1 beta, not on my real machine,

00:31:58 ◼   ► but on an external drive, and discovered

00:32:01 ◼   ► that there's a wait list to try Apple intelligence stuff

00:32:05 ◼   ► in all the OSes.

00:32:06 ◼   ► You have to like click a button that says,

00:32:07 ◼   ► join the wait list for Apple intelligence.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And I clicked that button on my Mac,

00:32:11 ◼   ► and it seemed to do nothing.

00:32:13 ◼   ► It didn't disable the button.

00:32:14 ◼   ► It didn't tell me that I'm on the wait list.

00:32:15 ◼   ► It literally did nothing.

00:32:17 ◼   ► So I clicked it a few more times and then gave up.

00:32:20 ◼   ► - Is it, wait, is it in the settings app?

00:32:23 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:32:24 ◼   ► - There you go.

00:32:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:32:26 ◼   ► - Anyway, I did that.

00:32:27 ◼   ► I don't know if it did anything.

00:32:29 ◼   ► I hope I'm on a wait list if I'm not on a wait list.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:32:33 ◼   ► Also there was someone else posted something that like,

00:32:35 ◼   ► some certain Apple, oh no, it was code completion.

00:32:37 ◼   ► Like the Apple intelligence powered code,

00:32:39 ◼   ► whatever thing in Xcode does not work

00:32:42 ◼   ► if you are running Sequoia beta from an external drive.

00:32:46 ◼   ► Like there's a tool tip to that effect

00:32:48 ◼   ► that someone posted a screenshot of.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Bottles to mind.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm not installing Sequoia beta on my main drive.

00:32:55 ◼   ► So I will just, you know, continue to monitor the betas

00:32:58 ◼   ► to see what's in there.

00:33:00 ◼   ► But yeah.

00:33:01 ◼   ► Oh, and by the way, the other thing that developers

00:33:02 ◼   ► could be doing over the summer for the new OS releases

00:33:05 ◼   ► is they could be doing Swift 6 stuff,

00:33:07 ◼   ► which we've talked about in a whole big interview show

00:33:09 ◼   ► that you can listen to.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - All right, let's do some other topics.

00:33:13 ◼   ► So I flew over to the UK on, what day was that?

00:33:16 ◼   ► It was Tuesday the 16th in the evening,

00:33:19 ◼   ► you know, arrived midday the 17th.

00:33:21 ◼   ► And it was two days later.

00:33:23 ◼   ► So impeccable timing from me.

00:33:26 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Two days later, we got the Y2K bug

00:33:30 ◼   ► presented slightly differently and 24 years late.

00:33:33 ◼   ► But we were in the UK,

00:33:38 ◼   ► I forget exactly what we were doing that day,

00:33:39 ◼   ► but somebody asked if I was like paying attention

00:33:43 ◼   ► to the CrowdStrike thing.

00:33:44 ◼   ► And I was like, I'm sorry, what?

00:33:45 ◼   ► And the name rang a bell and I couldn't figure out why

00:33:48 ◼   ► until later that day I saw images of the Mercedes F1 team,

00:33:52 ◼   ► which is sponsored in a part or no small part

00:33:55 ◼   ► by CrowdStrike.

00:33:56 ◼   ► I saw their pit wall setup, establishment, whatever,

00:34:00 ◼   ► with a bunch of blue screens of death on it.

00:34:01 ◼   ► I don't think this is a Photoshop.

00:34:03 ◼   ► I think it was an actual photograph.

00:34:05 ◼   ► But anyways, apparently most Windows machines

00:34:09 ◼   ► owned by corporations, maybe that's an exaggeration,

00:34:10 ◼   ► but a lot of them. - It is.

00:34:12 ◼   ► - Were in a blue screen of death loop for a while

00:34:15 ◼   ► and may still be for all we know.

00:34:18 ◼   ► - First of all, I was laughing my butt off

00:34:20 ◼   ► when I published this episode of our show last week

00:34:23 ◼   ► when I had started it by saying, please tech companies,

00:34:26 ◼   ► don't make any big news while we're off.

00:34:29 ◼   ► And then this happened.

00:34:31 ◼   ► - I'm sure CrowdStrike wishes that they listened to you.

00:34:33 ◼   ► - Yes, it's like one of the biggest computer stories

00:34:37 ◼   ► that will probably be of the year.

00:34:38 ◼   ► Happens like right as Casey's on vacation

00:34:44 ◼   ► and we can't record a show.

00:34:46 ◼   ► - It's all my fault and I'm sorry.

00:34:49 ◼   ► But anyway, so yeah, so reading from The Verge

00:34:51 ◼   ► on the 19th of July, thousands of Windows machines

00:34:54 ◼   ► are experiencing a blue screen of death issue at boot today

00:34:57 ◼   ► impacting banks, airlines, TV broadcasters, supermarkets,

00:34:59 ◼   ► and many more businesses worldwide.

00:35:01 ◼   ► A faulty update from cybersecurity provider CrowdStrike

00:35:03 ◼   ► is knocking affected PCs and servers offline,

00:35:05 ◼   ► forcing them into a recovery boot loop

00:35:07 ◼   ► so machines can't start properly.

00:35:09 ◼   ► The issue is not being caused by Microsoft

00:35:10 ◼   ► but by third party CrowdStrike software

00:35:12 ◼   ► that's widely used by many businesses worldwide

00:35:14 ◼   ► for managing the security of Windows PCs and servers.

00:35:16 ◼   ► So I'm gonna jump a little bit ahead

00:35:19 ◼   ► in our internal show notes

00:35:21 ◼   ► and there was another Verge blog post

00:35:24 ◼   ► this time on the 23rd that talks about--

00:35:26 ◼   ► - Don't jump ahead, the order is intentional.

00:35:28 ◼   ► So intentional.

00:35:30 ◼   ► - How dare you question John's show notes?

00:35:32 ◼   ► - I would like to file under protest this order

00:35:34 ◼   ► but carry on John, tell us about Windows 3.0.

00:35:36 ◼   ► - I'll explain why the order for the bootleg people.

00:35:38 ◼   ► The reason the order is because the next item

00:35:40 ◼   ► leads into all the rest of the items with the Apple angle

00:35:43 ◼   ► and once we go off into the Apple angle,

00:35:45 ◼   ► we'll never come back so that's why I wanted

00:35:46 ◼   ► to insert this fun item here.

00:35:48 ◼   ► - Well we don't even know what happened yet.

00:35:49 ◼   ► I haven't even told the people what happened.

00:35:51 ◼   ► - The Verge summary covers the basics of it, right?

00:35:54 ◼   ► - I am doing this under protest.

00:35:57 ◼   ► I would like to formally state.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - All I'm saying is it wasn't an accident.

00:36:01 ◼   ► It was thought out this way.

00:36:02 ◼   ► - Your protest is noted, please proceed.

00:36:04 ◼   ► - Thank you.

00:36:05 ◼   ► All right, so I'm apparently needing to tell you next

00:36:07 ◼   ► that Windows 3.1 saved Southwest Airlines

00:36:12 ◼   ► but I don't remember what news broke first,

00:36:16 ◼   ► whether it was how Southwest's entire infrastructure

00:36:20 ◼   ► is apparently run on Windows 3.1.

00:36:21 ◼   ► That's not a joke, 32 year old operating system.

00:36:23 ◼   ► - Doesn't Windows 3.1 predate Southwest as an airline?

00:36:27 ◼   ► - No, I don't think so but I'm not confident

00:36:28 ◼   ► I'm right about that.

00:36:29 ◼   ► - It might, I mean you can run software

00:36:31 ◼   ► that was released before you founded your business.

00:36:32 ◼   ► - Well, okay, yeah.

00:36:34 ◼   ► - Well either way, when was it,

00:36:35 ◼   ► 57 years ago as Air Southwest in 1967.

00:36:41 ◼   ► So it was closer to the genesis of Southwest

00:36:46 ◼   ► than it is today, Windows 3.1 was,

00:36:48 ◼   ► or at least based on my mental math.

00:36:49 ◼   ► So anyways, so yeah, apparently Southwest,

00:36:53 ◼   ► which made news as well separate from this

00:36:55 ◼   ► because the way Southwest works is

00:36:57 ◼   ► you just get a boarding number, not a group but a number

00:37:00 ◼   ► and you get in line based on your number

00:37:02 ◼   ► and you run to whatever seat you want

00:37:03 ◼   ► and that's your seat, there's no assigned seating.

00:37:05 ◼   ► And they announced recently that they're going to start

00:37:08 ◼   ► doing assigned seating and all the Southwest nerds

00:37:10 ◼   ► are very upset about it, which I thought was funny.

00:37:11 ◼   ► But nevertheless, reading from digitaltrends.com,

00:37:14 ◼   ► nearly every flight in the US is grounded right now

00:37:16 ◼   ► following a CrowdStrike system update error

00:37:18 ◼   ► that's affecting everything from travel

00:37:19 ◼   ► to mobile ordering at Starbucks.

00:37:21 ◼   ► But not Southwest Airlines flights,

00:37:23 ◼   ► Southwest is still flying high baby,

00:37:25 ◼   ► unaffected by the outage that's plaguing the world today

00:37:27 ◼   ► and that's apparently because it's using Windows 3.1.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Yes, Windows 3.1, an operating system that is 32 years old.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Southwest along with UPS and FedEx

00:37:34 ◼   ► haven't had any issues with CrowdStrike outage.

00:37:36 ◼   ► In responses to CNN, Delta, American, Spirit,

00:37:39 ◼   ► Frontier, United and Allegiant,

00:37:41 ◼   ► all said they were having issues.

00:37:43 ◼   ► But Southwest told the outlet

00:37:44 ◼   ► that its operations are going off without a hitch.

00:37:46 ◼   ► Major portions of Southwest systems are reportedly built

00:37:48 ◼   ► on Microsoft Windows 95 and Windows 3.1,

00:37:52 ◼   ► which is something the company has come under fire for

00:37:54 ◼   ► in the past several years.

00:37:55 ◼   ► It should go without saying

00:37:56 ◼   ► that Southwest needs to update its system,

00:37:57 ◼   ► but in this case, the ancient operating system

00:37:59 ◼   ► seems to be doing the airlines some favors.

00:38:01 ◼   ► - So when this thing happened,

00:38:03 ◼   ► I was also away on vacation and I saw the story go by

00:38:06 ◼   ► and I saw the Windows 3.1 thing,

00:38:07 ◼   ► I was like, "Ha ha, that's funny."

00:38:09 ◼   ► I absolutely did not think this was real

00:38:11 ◼   ► 'cause it's such a typical joke of Southwest

00:38:14 ◼   ► being the weird backwards airline,

00:38:15 ◼   ► they don't even get to pick your seat,

00:38:16 ◼   ► although in this case, you know that they're changing this.

00:38:18 ◼   ► They're running 3.1.

00:38:20 ◼   ► And I'm like, "I refuse to believe this."

00:38:22 ◼   ► I kept following,

00:38:22 ◼   ► "Can I find a more reputable source for this?"

00:38:25 ◼   ► It's not like an onion story that's been reprinted.

00:38:28 ◼   ► As far as I can tell, this is a real thing.

00:38:31 ◼   ► The Southwest line says running Windows 3.1.

00:38:34 ◼   ► Now we've all heard the stories of like,

00:38:35 ◼   ► "Oh, eight inch floppy drives

00:38:37 ◼   ► control the whole transit system for some subway system."

00:38:40 ◼   ► 'Cause they updated it sometime in the '70s or '80s

00:38:44 ◼   ► and they haven't updated it since.

00:38:46 ◼   ► Like those are all things that happen,

00:38:47 ◼   ► but Southwest is a pretty big airline here in the US.

00:38:49 ◼   ► And it just boggles my mind that there are people

00:38:53 ◼   ► that they pay to keep their systems running

00:38:55 ◼   ► and what they're keeping running

00:38:56 ◼   ► is something that runs on Windows 3.1 and Windows 95.

00:38:59 ◼   ► And the reason this article says

00:39:01 ◼   ► it goes about saying that they should update

00:39:03 ◼   ► is they're like, "Hey, if it works, why would they change it?"

00:39:05 ◼   ► Because those operating systems

00:39:07 ◼   ► have massive known security flaws in them

00:39:11 ◼   ► and are generally less secure and less reliable

00:39:13 ◼   ► than the things that they replace.

00:39:15 ◼   ► And yes, once in a blue moon,

00:39:17 ◼   ► your bot's gonna be saved

00:39:18 ◼   ► 'cause you're running something really old,

00:39:20 ◼   ► but you're also much more vulnerable on a day-to-day basis

00:39:23 ◼   ► to someone breaking in and destroying everything

00:39:25 ◼   ► and stealing all your data and all that good stuff,

00:39:27 ◼   ► which again also happens with modern software.

00:39:28 ◼   ► But I would say in general, it's not a good idea

00:39:31 ◼   ► to continue to run Windows 3.1 forever and ever and ever.

00:39:34 ◼   ► It is not perfect.

00:39:35 ◼   ► It is not complete and flawless or anything like that.

00:39:39 ◼   ► It is just a really old piece of software

00:39:41 ◼   ► that is not getting any better ever.

00:39:43 ◼   ► It's also not getting any worse,

00:39:44 ◼   ► but it is probably getting harder

00:39:46 ◼   ► to find systems that will run it.

00:39:48 ◼   ► So I would suggest they change things.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Assuming this story is real, does anyone wanna play "Spats"?

00:39:53 ◼   ► Is this a real story?

00:39:53 ◼   ► Does "Southwest" run on Windows 3.1?

00:39:56 ◼   ► Please say it's not real.

00:39:57 ◼   ► - I don't know. (laughs)

00:39:59 ◼   ► - It wouldn't surprise me.

00:40:00 ◼   ► I mean, I also was like, "No way,"

00:40:02 ◼   ► but it wouldn't surprise me.

00:40:03 ◼   ► - And what does it mean to run it?

00:40:05 ◼   ► Does that mean they have one computer somewhere with it?

00:40:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like one computer that does their payroll.

00:40:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's very different from all of our systems.

00:40:13 ◼   ► Like, can you even still buy hardware

00:40:17 ◼   ► that runs Windows 3.1?

00:40:18 ◼   ► Or is it all being run under emulation?

00:40:20 ◼   ► There's so many questions.

00:40:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, or Windows 95 is the updated version.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:40:25 ◼   ► Like I said, again, please don't send us all the stories

00:40:27 ◼   ► about all the things that are running off floppy disks

00:40:28 ◼   ► and tape drives and especially military stuff

00:40:30 ◼   ► or government stuff.

00:40:31 ◼   ► We all know that exists,

00:40:32 ◼   ► but for a large, successful, well-known private company

00:40:37 ◼   ► or commercial company anyway,

00:40:39 ◼   ► it seems somehow less excusable

00:40:42 ◼   ► than like a government thing or whatever,

00:40:43 ◼   ► or some obscure, smaller obscure thing.

00:40:46 ◼   ► Anyway, Southwest, get your act together.

00:40:48 ◼   ► And as for the signed seating versus unassigned seating,

00:40:50 ◼   ► I have no opinion.

00:40:51 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:40:52 ◼   ► I've only flown Southwest a couple of times,

00:40:54 ◼   ► and I think I didn't care for the unassigned seating

00:40:57 ◼   ► in no small part because it's unfamiliar to me.

00:41:00 ◼   ► I'm not used to flying Southwest

00:41:02 ◼   ► because I've only done it a couple of times,

00:41:03 ◼   ► and it just seemed odd.

00:41:05 ◼   ► Plus then there's like people who are saving seats,

00:41:07 ◼   ► but you're not really supposed to do that.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And then you get into like all sorts

00:41:10 ◼   ► of unnecessary confrontations about,

00:41:13 ◼   ► you can't save seats and blah, blah, blah.

00:41:14 ◼   ► And I don't know.

00:41:15 ◼   ► I don't think I care for it,

00:41:17 ◼   ► but I do not have strong feelings about it.

00:41:20 ◼   ► - I already asked people not to send us things.

00:41:21 ◼   ► The chat room was filled with 747s running off floppy drives,

00:41:25 ◼   ► German railway running on MS-DOS,

00:41:27 ◼   ► New Jersey needing COBOL programmers

00:41:29 ◼   ► to fix the unemployment system.

00:41:30 ◼   ► We get it.

00:41:31 ◼   ► We know they exist.

00:41:31 ◼   ► It's just shocking that something as big as Southwest.

00:41:34 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:41:35 ◼   ► What was it that Chuck E. Cheese was running on?

00:41:37 ◼   ► It was running on floppy disks or something like that,

00:41:39 ◼   ► or Palm Pilot or something?

00:41:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:41:41 ◼   ► The music show was all on floppy disks.

00:41:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, Palm Pilot.

00:41:44 ◼   ► You're thinking of the IMAX Palm Pilots.

00:41:46 ◼   ► - That's why I'm conflating the two.

00:41:48 ◼   ► You're right, you're right.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:41:50 ◼   ► - Can you imagine like a worse programming job though?

00:41:52 ◼   ► Like all these other ones running COBOL,

00:41:54 ◼   ► running Palm Pilots,

00:41:55 ◼   ► like those are all kind of like,

00:41:57 ◼   ► you know, COBOL,

00:41:58 ◼   ► there was a lot of COBOL programmers at one point.

00:42:00 ◼   ► So, you know, maybe some of them are retired

00:42:01 ◼   ► and you know, want something,

00:42:02 ◼   ► little side project to do.

00:42:04 ◼   ► Palm Pilot was like, you know,

00:42:05 ◼   ► a fun thing people loved.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Nobody loved Windows 3.1.

00:42:09 ◼   ► I know that was my first operating system as a computer user.

00:42:12 ◼   ► It was fine.

00:42:13 ◼   ► No one loved it.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Can you imagine today having to go work

00:42:16 ◼   ► on a Windows 3.1 software package,

00:42:19 ◼   ► like for your job?

00:42:20 ◼   ► Like, I need to go update this because you know,

00:42:22 ◼   ► it's still being used to run an airline,

00:42:25 ◼   ► a big airline apparently.

00:42:27 ◼   ► Oh my God.

00:42:28 ◼   ► That would be soul crushing.

00:42:29 ◼   ► - Well, so now we have the real time follow up

00:42:31 ◼   ► for the debunking story from Kotaku.

00:42:33 ◼   ► No, Southwest Airlines isn't using Windows 3.1 in 2024.

00:42:37 ◼   ► So my instincts seem to have been on the right track here.

00:42:40 ◼   ► We will put the link in the show notes.

00:42:41 ◼   ► - That's probably for the best, but.

00:42:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, 'cause I saw it in reputable publications.

00:42:45 ◼   ► I'm like, this cannot be true.

00:42:46 ◼   ► This has to be a made up thing.

00:42:48 ◼   ► But anyway, so we will put the Kotaku debunking link

00:42:52 ◼   ► in there as well.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Sorry for besmirching your good name, Southwest.

00:42:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:57 ◼   ► In any case, all right, so going to the verge again,

00:43:00 ◼   ► this time on the 23rd of July.

00:43:02 ◼   ► Inside the 78 minutes that took 10 millions

00:43:04 ◼   ► of Windows machines.

00:43:05 ◼   ► At 1209 a.m. Eastern on July 19th,

00:43:09 ◼   ► cybersecurity company CrowdStrike released a faulty update

00:43:11 ◼   ► to the Falcon security software it sells

00:43:13 ◼   ► to help companies prevent malware, ransomware,

00:43:14 ◼   ► and other cyber threats from taking down their machines.

00:43:17 ◼   ► Whoops.

00:43:18 ◼   ► CrowdStrike's update was supposed to be

00:43:19 ◼   ► like any other silent update,

00:43:20 ◼   ► automatically providing the very latest protections

00:43:22 ◼   ► for its customers in just a tiny file, just 40 kilobytes.

00:43:25 ◼   ► That's distributed over the web.

00:43:27 ◼   ► CrowdStrike issues these regularly without incident

00:43:30 ◼   ► and they're fairly common for security software,

00:43:31 ◼   ► but this one was different.

00:43:33 ◼   ► And I don't think we have anything

00:43:35 ◼   ► in the show notes about this,

00:43:36 ◼   ► but I thought it was funny that apparently,

00:43:38 ◼   ► like New Zealand and Australia started sounding the alarm

00:43:41 ◼   ► because they got these updates first.

00:43:43 ◼   ► And I think under the radar, certainly,

00:43:46 ◼   ► you've talked about this, Marco,

00:43:47 ◼   ► and I think we've even talked about it here

00:43:48 ◼   ► from time to time, that generally speaking,

00:43:50 ◼   ► when you release software to a worldwide audience,

00:43:53 ◼   ► it is common, it's like a good rule of thumb

00:43:57 ◼   ► that you don't wanna release it to everyone all at once.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Obviously, there's exceptions and gotchas

00:44:01 ◼   ► and catches and whatnot, but generally speaking,

00:44:03 ◼   ► you wanna kinda dole it out in little bits and pieces.

00:44:05 ◼   ► And a few years ago, Apple started allowing developers

00:44:09 ◼   ► like us to say, "Yes, I would like incremental release,"

00:44:12 ◼   ► where I think they release it to like 1%

00:44:14 ◼   ► then 2% then 5% or something along those lines.

00:44:16 ◼   ► It doesn't matter what the specifics are.

00:44:18 ◼   ► And that's what I always choose.

00:44:20 ◼   ► Even when I'm completely confident

00:44:21 ◼   ► that something's good to go,

00:44:22 ◼   ► I always choose the incremental rollout

00:44:24 ◼   ► 'cause you never know.

00:44:25 ◼   ► And apparently CrowdStrike did not do that.

00:44:27 ◼   ► They just said, "Screw it, baby, we'll do it live."

00:44:29 ◼   ► And they released this thing to everyone.

00:44:31 ◼   ► And the people at the beginning of the day

00:44:33 ◼   ► in New Zealand and Australia started saying, "Uh-oh,"

00:44:37 ◼   ► and it was already too late.

00:44:38 ◼   ► - As the sun races across the earth,

00:44:40 ◼   ► destroying people's computers, yeah.

00:44:42 ◼   ► - Yep, we're gonna get to it in a second

00:44:45 ◼   ► from this Verge story about what can be done

00:44:48 ◼   ► to prevent this, but that, like Casey,

00:44:50 ◼   ► that is my number one take-home point,

00:44:52 ◼   ► which is anytime you're releasing software

00:44:55 ◼   ► that's on critical systems

00:44:57 ◼   ► and that you are a critical part of this,

00:44:59 ◼   ► and we'll get to the criticality part in a little bit,

00:45:01 ◼   ► you do it incrementally.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Casey's releasing an app that lets you

00:45:03 ◼   ► look up stuff about movies and TV shows.

00:45:05 ◼   ► He's doing it incrementally.

00:45:06 ◼   ► No planes fail to take off if Casey messes up his app.

00:45:10 ◼   ► And still, why would you not do it incrementally?

00:45:12 ◼   ► This is just like basic software best practice.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Again, I worked in healthcare, which was similarly critical.

00:45:18 ◼   ► You'd never release to everybody all at once

00:45:20 ◼   ► if you could possibly help it.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Even if you do something incredibly primitive,

00:45:23 ◼   ► but they have a pool of guinea pigs

00:45:26 ◼   ► who you pay money to be your guinea pigs,

00:45:29 ◼   ► knowing that if there's any problem,

00:45:30 ◼   ► they're gonna see it first,

00:45:31 ◼   ► and you give 'em a discount on the thing

00:45:33 ◼   ► that you're selling or something.

00:45:35 ◼   ► But if you're something like CrowdStrike

00:45:36 ◼   ► that's used all over the globe,

00:45:38 ◼   ► and I forget what the percentage was,

00:45:39 ◼   ► but it's a fairly high percentage.

00:45:41 ◼   ► I think it was maybe 15, 20% or whatever,

00:45:44 ◼   ► but still, it's a large number of machines.

00:45:47 ◼   ► It's like 1% of Windows PCs,

00:45:50 ◼   ► but it's a very important 1%.

00:45:53 ◼   ► - Oh, it was actually, was it 1%?

00:45:54 ◼   ► Anyway, whatever it is, it's millions of machines.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And why would you not have a strategy?

00:46:00 ◼   ► It's not like they're a new company

00:46:01 ◼   ► that is just now coming on the scene and releasing software.

00:46:05 ◼   ► This is their business, this is their main business,

00:46:07 ◼   ► this security software,

00:46:08 ◼   ► and their regular release procedure

00:46:11 ◼   ► is push out to everybody all at once.

00:46:13 ◼   ► I can understand having that ability,

00:46:15 ◼   ► 'cause if there's some critical vulnerability

00:46:16 ◼   ► and you need to get the fix out there ASAP,

00:46:18 ◼   ► but I hope that one of the things they take away from this,

00:46:21 ◼   ► and we'll put a link in the show notes

00:46:22 ◼   ► to their preliminary post-incident review,

00:46:25 ◼   ► so where they go over what they think happened.

00:46:27 ◼   ► One of the internal takeaways is we need to have a way

00:46:30 ◼   ► to release our updates incrementally,

00:46:32 ◼   ► not incrementally via the sun, right, via time zones,

00:46:36 ◼   ► but incrementally as in we release a percentage

00:46:40 ◼   ► and then we monitor.

00:46:41 ◼   ► That's the key thing.

00:46:42 ◼   ► You have to, releasing a little bit at a time

00:46:45 ◼   ► only works as well as your feedback loop,

00:46:46 ◼   ► and that's kind of the flow on Apple's system

00:46:48 ◼   ► where you just sit back there

00:46:49 ◼   ► and wait to hear complaints from users or whatever,

00:46:50 ◼   ► but ideally what you want is some kind of way to tell,

00:46:54 ◼   ► has this update hosed our customers?

00:46:56 ◼   ► Right, support call volume, feedback email address,

00:47:01 ◼   ► like some kind of connection with your customers

00:47:03 ◼   ► where you have a monitoring thing,

00:47:04 ◼   ► you're always monitoring this.

00:47:06 ◼   ► What is our incoming support volume?

00:47:08 ◼   ► How many crash reports are we getting?

00:47:11 ◼   ► This should be on a graph with thresholds and alerts, right?

00:47:14 ◼   ► So you release to your tiny, tiny little guinea pig pool

00:47:17 ◼   ► and then you watch, and then you release a little bit more

00:47:20 ◼   ► and then you watch.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Like just doing it incrementally and going home

00:47:23 ◼   ► doesn't help you because you'll just release to everybody

00:47:25 ◼   ► without even watching, right?

00:47:27 ◼   ► Oh, CrowdStrike, anyway, sorry.

00:47:30 ◼   ► - And this also, can we talk yet about what technically

00:47:34 ◼   ► the kind of update this was?

00:47:35 ◼   ► Because to me this is fascinating.

00:47:40 ◼   ► So it's running in kernel mode,

00:47:42 ◼   ► so that's like already, and there's all these politics

00:47:45 ◼   ► around kernel extensions and security companies

00:47:48 ◼   ► with Windows and everything, but this is a driver

00:47:52 ◼   ► that runs in the Windows kernel, fully executable code

00:47:56 ◼   ► in the Windows kernel, okay, that's already something

00:47:59 ◼   ► that used to be commonplace in the computing business

00:48:00 ◼   ► but is very much not commonplace anymore

00:48:02 ◼   ► for most applications for lots of good reasons.

00:48:06 ◼   ► And also in the kernel, what these updates were,

00:48:12 ◼   ► were not just data files, it was not like,

00:48:17 ◼   ► the kernel driver wasn't like, all right, here's,

00:48:19 ◼   ► what I'm gonna load from this data file is a list

00:48:21 ◼   ► of signatures of known bad malware binaries, no.

00:48:26 ◼   ► What it was loading from those files was executable code.

00:48:31 ◼   ► Like, so all those updates, they basically seem

00:48:34 ◼   ► to be making basically like an interpreter in the kernel

00:48:36 ◼   ► and they download these data files with, again,

00:48:40 ◼   ► no staging environment, no slow rollout,

00:48:43 ◼   ► seemingly not much production testing, okay.

00:48:46 ◼   ► They download these data files and then execute them

00:48:51 ◼   ► in the kernel, so you have, you are directly sending code

00:48:56 ◼   ► from an all-at-once non-staged rollout

00:49:00 ◼   ► directly into Windows machine's kernels to execute.

00:49:05 ◼   ► So if there's any crash logic in there,

00:49:08 ◼   ► it will crash the kernel, which will crash the machine

00:49:12 ◼   ► and cause a reboot or a blue screen.

00:49:14 ◼   ► That like, that is bonkers to me.

00:49:17 ◼   ► Like, the fact that like, that they even built

00:49:19 ◼   ► the system at all, okay, that's risky enough.

00:49:21 ◼   ► To have a system in the kernel that reads arbitrary

00:49:26 ◼   ► executable code from outside the kernel and just runs it,

00:49:28 ◼   ► that's already terrifying on a lot of levels.

00:49:31 ◼   ► But then to also have it be these like,

00:49:34 ◼   ► quickly deployed downloadable things,

00:49:36 ◼   ► we're just gonna deploy this code out there

00:49:38 ◼   ► and just run it in the kernel and just go, have fun.

00:49:40 ◼   ► That is, this was a powder keg, just waiting to explode.

00:49:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know the specific technical details

00:49:48 ◼   ► of their update mechanism, but I have worked with

00:49:52 ◼   ► and built myself lots of systems that are like this,

00:49:54 ◼   ► and the reason people do stuff like this is because

00:49:57 ◼   ► you always want the ability to sort of, you know,

00:50:02 ◼   ► fix the airplane while it's flying, right.

00:50:05 ◼   ► You don't wanna have to reboot, you don't wanna have

00:50:07 ◼   ► to restart anything, you wanna be able to just say,

00:50:10 ◼   ► at any point I can push this update in real time

00:50:13 ◼   ► to the running system and it updates itself.

00:50:14 ◼   ► And that leads you down the path of doing things like,

00:50:17 ◼   ► okay, well, we'll just watch this directory for files,

00:50:19 ◼   ► and when a file appears here, we'll load it

00:50:21 ◼   ► and we'll shove it into, we'll interpret it

00:50:22 ◼   ► and shove it into the memory image

00:50:23 ◼   ► of the already running problem.

00:50:24 ◼   ► Like, I totally understand why they made a system like this.

00:50:28 ◼   ► It's just that if you do make a system like this,

00:50:30 ◼   ► you have to know what incredible risk you're taking

00:50:32 ◼   ► and be like, as conservative as you can possibly be to say,

00:50:36 ◼   ► if there's anything even remotely strange about this,

00:50:40 ◼   ► do not update it, do validation on every single thing

00:50:43 ◼   ► we can think of, and I think part of the problem is they,

00:50:46 ◼   ► you know, the thing was loading code and not validating

00:50:48 ◼   ► anything about it and it was invalid or whatever,

00:50:49 ◼   ► but like, I understand why they, kind of why they do this,

00:50:52 ◼   ► but yeah, the kernel mode thing is an issue,

00:50:54 ◼   ► that's what this next part is about.

00:50:56 ◼   ► - All right, so reading from The Verge,

00:50:58 ◼   ► just despite not being directly involved,

00:51:01 ◼   ► Microsoft still controls Windows experience

00:51:02 ◼   ► and there's plenty of room for improvement

00:51:04 ◼   ► in how Windows handles issues like this.

00:51:06 ◼   ► If Windows determines that a driver is crashing the system

00:51:08 ◼   ► at boot and forcing it into recovery mode,

00:51:10 ◼   ► Microsoft could build in more intelligent logic

00:51:12 ◼   ► that allows the system to boot without the faulty driver

00:51:14 ◼   ► after multiple boot failures.

00:51:15 ◼   ► - I think Mac OS does this, by the way.

00:51:17 ◼   ► I think there is a system where if it boots,

00:51:20 ◼   ► maybe wrong, but like, obviously people manually do this,

00:51:23 ◼   ► but like, I think there might be an automated one

00:51:25 ◼   ► that's like, hey, we tried to load this driver

00:51:26 ◼   ► and it crashed last time, so now we're not loading it

00:51:29 ◼   ► or we're loading it in safe mode.

00:51:30 ◼   ► And again, booting in safe mode is probably

00:51:33 ◼   ► not the solution here because you probably still

00:51:34 ◼   ► couldn't remotely update the machines without it,

00:51:36 ◼   ► but that was part of the problem is that they're crashing

00:51:38 ◼   ► on boot and because they're crashing on boot,

00:51:41 ◼   ► they never can get to a runnable state,

00:51:42 ◼   ► so you can't push your update to them automatically.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Like, people think of companies running computers

00:51:48 ◼   ► just like a person running a computer,

00:51:50 ◼   ► but that's not how it is.

00:51:51 ◼   ► There are thousands upon thousands of computers

00:51:54 ◼   ► and a very small number of humans who have to manage them

00:51:57 ◼   ► from far away, often very far away.

00:52:00 ◼   ► So nobody, like, there's not like you have physical access

00:52:02 ◼   ► to these thousands of computers.

00:52:04 ◼   ► Somebody does somewhere eventually,

00:52:06 ◼   ► but there's not enough people out there to go

00:52:09 ◼   ► and manually fix computers.

00:52:10 ◼   ► That was why this was such a problem.

00:52:11 ◼   ► It's like, well, so what, they made a boo-boo,

00:52:13 ◼   ► just push out the new version of the software.

00:52:15 ◼   ► Well, you can't push software to a computer

00:52:16 ◼   ► that hasn't booted and none of these computers could boot,

00:52:19 ◼   ► so someone had to physically go to them

00:52:21 ◼   ► and physically like boot them into safe mode

00:52:23 ◼   ► and repair them and this is not something

00:52:25 ◼   ► you can be done remotely or whatever,

00:52:26 ◼   ► so it was a big problem.

00:52:28 ◼   ► So, you know, it was a bad situation,

00:52:32 ◼   ► but there is room for improvement here.

00:52:37 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:52:38 ◼   ► - Well, on Microsoft's side, I'm like,

00:52:38 ◼   ► but again, it's not Microsoft's fault.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Like, Microsoft didn't write the bad software,

00:52:43 ◼   ► but Windows needs to defend itself against bad software

00:52:47 ◼   ► because in the end, Microsoft took some of the blame

00:52:50 ◼   ► for this probably unfairly.

00:52:51 ◼   ► Microsoft deserves some tiny part of the blame

00:52:54 ◼   ► for making Windows not as resilient as it could be

00:52:59 ◼   ► in this, like, in this basic way.

00:53:00 ◼   ► Like, again, this is the verge,

00:53:01 ◼   ► not some deep technical analysis,

00:53:02 ◼   ► knowing it's like, hey, if you've tried to do something

00:53:04 ◼   ► and it's failed a bunch of times,

00:53:06 ◼   ► don't keep trying to do it.

00:53:07 ◼   ► - Continuing from the verge,

00:53:10 ◼   ► but the bigger change would be to lock down

00:53:11 ◼   ► the Windows kernel access to prevent third-party drivers

00:53:13 ◼   ► from crashing an entire PC.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Ironically, Microsoft tried to do exactly this

00:53:17 ◼   ► with Windows Vista, but was met with resistance

00:53:19 ◼   ► from cybersecurity vendors and guess who?

00:53:22 ◼   ► EU regulators.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Microsoft tried to implement a feature known at the time

00:53:27 ◼   ► as PatchGuard in Windows Vista in 2006,

00:53:29 ◼   ► restricting third parties from accessing the kernel.

00:53:32 ◼   ► McAfee and Symantec, the two big antivirus companies

00:53:34 ◼   ► at the time, opposed Microsoft's changes, geez why,

00:53:37 ◼   ► and Symantec even complained to the European Commission.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Microsoft eventually backed down,

00:53:41 ◼   ► allowing security vendors to access the kernel once again

00:53:43 ◼   ► for security monitoring purposes.

00:53:45 ◼   ► - So this example of applying pressure,

00:53:46 ◼   ► I'm gonna mostly blame the virus vendors and not the EU.

00:53:49 ◼   ► It's not like the EU said,

00:53:50 ◼   ► so a lot of people are reporting this and saying,

00:53:52 ◼   ► well, the EU told Microsoft that Microsoft,

00:53:54 ◼   ► because you have access to the kernel,

00:53:56 ◼   ► you have to give all third parties access to the kernel,

00:53:58 ◼   ► otherwise it's not fair,

00:54:00 ◼   ► otherwise you're giving yourself an advantage

00:54:01 ◼   ► that they don't have,

00:54:03 ◼   ► which is not a thing that they said, first of all,

00:54:06 ◼   ► and second of all, is mostly kind of silly

00:54:07 ◼   ► because Microsoft writes the kernel.

00:54:09 ◼   ► They write code in the kernel,

00:54:11 ◼   ► and no, other people can't write code in the kernel.

00:54:13 ◼   ► Now, Windows does have a kernel extension feature

00:54:17 ◼   ► that is available to third parties,

00:54:18 ◼   ► and also Microsoft itself can also write kernel extensions,

00:54:22 ◼   ► but it would be ridiculous,

00:54:24 ◼   ► and again, I don't think this is a thing that the EU did,

00:54:26 ◼   ► to say that because you have kernel extensions,

00:54:29 ◼   ► you must forever have kernel extensions

00:54:31 ◼   ► because forbidding third parties

00:54:32 ◼   ► from making kernel extensions

00:54:34 ◼   ► doesn't stop the need for kernel extensions from Microsoft.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Many things in Windows are implemented in the kernel.

00:54:40 ◼   ► Some of those are packaged as drivers

00:54:42 ◼   ► that come with the operating system.

00:54:44 ◼   ► That is probably never going to go away.

00:54:46 ◼   ► If a kernel exists,

00:54:48 ◼   ► it makes sense to have parts of it modularized

00:54:50 ◼   ► into a driver system,

00:54:52 ◼   ► even if that system is not accessible to third parties.

00:54:54 ◼   ► So the idea that you could say,

00:54:56 ◼   ► well, either everybody gets to write kernel extensions

00:54:59 ◼   ► or nobody does, doesn't make any sense

00:55:01 ◼   ► because the company that makes the operating system

00:55:04 ◼   ► will almost certainly continue

00:55:06 ◼   ► to need to make kernel extensions to its own kernel

00:55:09 ◼   ► as part of making the operating system,

00:55:11 ◼   ► but again, I think throwing the EU under the bus here

00:55:13 ◼   ► is just part of the whole big regulatory thing.

00:55:15 ◼   ► I'm sure they did complain to the European Commission,

00:55:18 ◼   ► but the EU did not come to Microsoft and say,

00:55:20 ◼   ► you are not allowed, like issue a decree,

00:55:22 ◼   ► if you're going to have kernel extensions in Windows,

00:55:25 ◼   ► you must allow everyone access to it.

00:55:27 ◼   ► What did happen is the virus maker said,

00:55:29 ◼   ► hey, all our software uses kernel extensions

00:55:31 ◼   ► if you stop using it. - The virus makers?

00:55:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, the antivirus.

00:55:35 ◼   ► Antivirus makers. - There's a thin line there.

00:55:38 ◼   ► There's a very, very thin line.

00:55:40 ◼   ► - Sometimes the malware is coming from inside the house.

00:55:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that they applied pressure

00:55:46 ◼   ► kind of the same way that like Microsoft

00:55:48 ◼   ► and Adobe applied pressure to Apple to say,

00:55:49 ◼   ► hey, if you ship a new version of macOS

00:55:53 ◼   ► that Photoshop and Office don't run on,

00:55:55 ◼   ► that doesn't include a good way to port our apps,

00:55:57 ◼   ► we're not gonna support it

00:55:58 ◼   ► and you're not gonna have Office and Photoshop, right?

00:56:00 ◼   ► I think McAfee and Symantec said,

00:56:02 ◼   ► if you ship Windows Vista,

00:56:04 ◼   ► without our software's ability to run on it,

00:56:07 ◼   ► we're gonna be super mad and you're not gonna like it

00:56:09 ◼   ► and Microsoft backed down on that.

00:56:12 ◼   ► And Windows Vista was a while ago, right?

00:56:14 ◼   ► So this is kind of older history,

00:56:16 ◼   ► but anyway, I'm gonna say that I don't blame any of this

00:56:18 ◼   ► on the EU really, although I'm not putting it past the EU

00:56:22 ◼   ► to come up with a wrong-headed notion like that,

00:56:24 ◼   ► but I'm pretty sure that they didn't in this specific case.

00:56:27 ◼   ► - All right, continuing from the verge,

00:56:28 ◼   ► Apple began locking down its macOS operating system in 2020

00:56:31 ◼   ► so that developers could no longer get access to the kernel.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Quote, "It was definitely the right decision by Apple

00:56:35 ◼   ► "to deprecate third-party kernel extensions,"

00:56:37 ◼   ► says Patrick Wardle,

00:56:38 ◼   ► but the road to actually accomplishing that

00:56:40 ◼   ► has been fraught with issues.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Apple has had some kernel bugs or security tools.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Running in user mode could still trigger a kernel panic,

00:56:46 ◼   ► as Wardle says.

00:56:47 ◼   ► Apple, quote, "Has also introduced

00:56:50 ◼   ► "some privilege execution vulnerabilities."

00:56:53 ◼   ► Ooh, that's a mouthful.

00:56:54 ◼   ► And there are still some other bugs

00:56:56 ◼   ► that could allow security tools on Mac

00:56:57 ◼   ► to be unloaded by malware.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - Yep, so in our neck of the woods,

00:57:01 ◼   ► kernel extensions were a thing in macOS 10

00:57:03 ◼   ► for a very long time.

00:57:04 ◼   ► It's how a lot of software installed its quote-unquote drivers

00:57:07 ◼   ► to work with hardware peripherals and other random stuff.

00:57:11 ◼   ► And in 2020, Apple said, "You know what?

00:57:13 ◼   ► "Kernel extensions are going away."

00:57:16 ◼   ► Over the course of several years,

00:57:18 ◼   ► in cooperation with our vendors

00:57:19 ◼   ► that have things based on kernel extensions,

00:57:20 ◼   ► and the vendors would say,

00:57:21 ◼   ► "But our software needs a kernel extension to do its job.

00:57:24 ◼   ► "How are we supposed to ship our software?

00:57:26 ◼   ► "We literally, we need kernel extensions."

00:57:28 ◼   ► And Apple's answer was, "Whatever things you need to do,

00:57:32 ◼   ► "we will provide a way to do in user space,

00:57:34 ◼   ► "as in, in a process that is separate from the kernel,

00:57:37 ◼   ► "so that if your code crashes,

00:57:39 ◼   ► "it's not inside the kernel,

00:57:40 ◼   ► "and the kernel keeps running,

00:57:41 ◼   ► "and the operating system stays up."

00:57:43 ◼   ► And bit by bit, piece by piece,

00:57:45 ◼   ► Apple has been rolling out user space versions

00:57:47 ◼   ► of things that used to require kernel extensions.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And what Patrick is saying here is,

00:57:51 ◼   ► sometimes Apple rolls out those things and they're bad,

00:57:53 ◼   ► and they have bugs,

00:57:54 ◼   ► and still you can end up crashing the kernel

00:57:56 ◼   ► because there's something on the kernel

00:57:58 ◼   ► talking to the user space thing,

00:58:00 ◼   ► and if the thing in the kernel that Apple wrote

00:58:02 ◼   ► has a bug in it, it can take down the kernel.

00:58:04 ◼   ► It's a long, slow, painful process.

00:58:07 ◼   ► Third parties don't like it,

00:58:08 ◼   ► especially third parties that have kernel extensions.

00:58:10 ◼   ► They may say, "You know,

00:58:11 ◼   ► "back when we had a kernel extension,

00:58:12 ◼   ► "we had really smart people on our team,

00:58:14 ◼   ► "and they wrote a really good kernel extension,

00:58:15 ◼   ► "and we debugged it over the course of 10 years,

00:58:17 ◼   ► "and we think it's a bulletproof,

00:58:19 ◼   ► "and now our choice is to use this user space thing

00:58:22 ◼   ► "that Apple is offering

00:58:23 ◼   ► "that connects to Apple's own little thing in the kernel,

00:58:25 ◼   ► "and their thing in the kernel sucks and has bugs

00:58:27 ◼   ► "and is brand new this year?

00:58:28 ◼   ► "This is a downgrade."

00:58:29 ◼   ► So people are angry.

00:58:31 ◼   ► But Apple is taking its lumps and causing disruption

00:58:36 ◼   ► with its eyes on the prize

00:58:37 ◼   ► of no more third-party code running inside the kernel.

00:58:41 ◼   ► And that's, you know, we make the joke about courage

00:58:45 ◼   ► with Phil Schiller,

00:58:46 ◼   ► with the getting rid of the headphone port or whatever,

00:58:47 ◼   ► but in some respects,

00:58:49 ◼   ► it does take courage to essentially endure the pain

00:58:54 ◼   ► and the justified anger of your developers

00:58:58 ◼   ► if the goal is a future that is better

00:59:00 ◼   ► for everybody involved.

00:59:01 ◼   ► It's better for users, surely.

00:59:03 ◼   ► It's better for Apple.

00:59:04 ◼   ► And in the end, hopefully,

00:59:05 ◼   ► it will also be better for third-party developers

00:59:07 ◼   ► who don't have to write that super high-risk code

00:59:09 ◼   ► that runs inside the kernel.

00:59:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:59:12 ◼   ► It's a tough nut to crack, right?

00:59:15 ◼   ► And everyone has both, you know,

00:59:17 ◼   ► selfish and unselfish motivations for it.

00:59:20 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:59:21 ◼   ► But apparently there is a official,

00:59:23 ◼   ► like we were saying, an official API for this,

00:59:26 ◼   ► and there is even a WWDC video from 2020.

00:59:30 ◼   ► The API is Endpoint Security.

00:59:32 ◼   ► And this is reading from Apple's developer site.

00:59:36 ◼   ► "Endpoint Security is an API for monitoring system events

00:59:38 ◼   ► "for potentially malicious activity.

00:59:40 ◼   ► "Your client registers with Endpoint Security

00:59:42 ◼   ► "to authorize pending events

00:59:43 ◼   ► "or receive notifications of events that have already occurred.

00:59:46 ◼   ► "These events include process executions,

00:59:48 ◼   ► "mounting file systems,

00:59:49 ◼   ► "forking processes, and raising signals.

00:59:52 ◼   ► "Develop your system extension with Endpoint Security

00:59:54 ◼   ► "and package that in an app

00:59:55 ◼   ► "that uses the system extensions framework

00:59:56 ◼   ► "to install and upgrade the extension from the user's Mac."

01:00:00 ◼   ► - So that's the equivalent of,

01:00:01 ◼   ► if CrowdStrike existed for macOS,

01:00:04 ◼   ► it would use Endpoint Security,

01:00:05 ◼   ► which is a user space API that connects to a thing

01:00:08 ◼   ► that Apple wrote inside the kernel.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And that's how every, going forward,

01:00:12 ◼   ► that's how every sort of anti-virus, anti-malware,

01:00:14 ◼   ► anti-whatever thing made by third parties on macOS

01:00:18 ◼   ► must use Apple's Endpoint Security system,

01:00:21 ◼   ► which is new and has bugs,

01:00:23 ◼   ► and is not as good as when you could write

01:00:24 ◼   ► your own kernel extension.

01:00:25 ◼   ► But in the long run, it's better to have, in theory,

01:00:29 ◼   ► one vendor, who is the vendor

01:00:30 ◼   ► that makes the operating system,

01:00:32 ◼   ► writing the thing inside the kernel

01:00:34 ◼   ► that everybody else, all the third parties, talk to,

01:00:37 ◼   ► and they're out there in user space.

01:00:38 ◼   ► So all those third parties, if they crash,

01:00:41 ◼   ► they don't take down the operating system.

01:00:43 ◼   ► But if Apple crashes, it's that they do.

01:00:45 ◼   ► That's the theory behind it.

01:00:46 ◼   ► Again, it's not always a smooth road to get there

01:00:49 ◼   ► because people complain that the thing Apple wrote

01:00:50 ◼   ► is not as good as the thing that they wrote before,

01:00:52 ◼   ► and for a long time, they're going to be right about that.

01:00:55 ◼   ► But the thing is, there's many third-party developers

01:00:58 ◼   ► in just one Apple, and hopefully, eventually,

01:01:00 ◼   ► Apple iterate and iterate on its Endpoint Security thing

01:01:03 ◼   ► and all the other stuff they have inside the kernel,

01:01:05 ◼   ► talking to those user space processes.

01:01:07 ◼   ► And once it gets ironed out,

01:01:09 ◼   ► that makes it better for every antivirus program

01:01:12 ◼   ► and every Mac user.

01:01:13 ◼   ► You don't have to wait for every individual third party

01:01:15 ◼   ► to get up to snuff or whatever.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - Finally, Microsoft does what you would expect.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It calls for Windows changes and resilience

01:01:23 ◼   ► after CrowdStrike.

01:01:24 ◼   ► Reading from a new article on The Verge from the 26th,

01:01:27 ◼   ► Microsoft wants to reopen the conversations

01:01:29 ◼   ► about restricting kernel-level access inside Windows.

01:01:32 ◼   ► Quote, "This incident shows clearly

01:01:34 ◼   ► that Microsoft Windows must prioritize change and innovation

01:01:37 ◼   ► in the area of end-to-end resilience," says John Cable,

01:01:40 ◼   ► Vice President of Program Management

01:01:41 ◼   ► for Windows Servicing and Delivery,

01:01:43 ◼   ► in a blog post titled,

01:01:44 ◼   ► "Windows Resiliency, Best Practices and the Path Forward."

01:01:47 ◼   ► Cable calls out a new VBS enclaves feature

01:01:50 ◼   ► that does not require kernel mode drivers

01:01:52 ◼   ► to be tamper resistant,

01:01:53 ◼   ► and Microsoft's Azure Attestation service

01:01:56 ◼   ► as examples of recent security innovations.

01:01:58 ◼   ► These examples use modern zero trust approaches

01:02:01 ◼   ► and show what can be done to encourage development practices

01:02:03 ◼   ► that do not rely on kernel access, says Cable.

01:02:06 ◼   ► We will continue to develop these capabilities,

01:02:07 ◼   ► harden our platform, and do even more

01:02:10 ◼   ► to improve the resiliency of the Windows ecosystem,

01:02:12 ◼   ► working openly and collaboratively

01:02:14 ◼   ► with the broad security community.

01:02:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Microsoft is working on the same things

01:02:20 ◼   ► that Apple has done,

01:02:21 ◼   ► which is let's make users-based equivalents

01:02:22 ◼   ► of all the stuff that used to require kernel access,

01:02:25 ◼   ► but they apparently have not gotten to the point

01:02:27 ◼   ► where Apple has a flat out forbidding kernel extensions,

01:02:32 ◼   ► or making it extremely, extremely difficult

01:02:34 ◼   ► for them to load, and requiring all sorts of hoops

01:02:36 ◼   ► to jump through and all that other stuff.

01:02:38 ◼   ► And a real-time follow-up, someone in the chat room said

01:02:40 ◼   ► that CrowdStrike does exist for the Mac, so there you go.

01:02:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Linux too, I believe, actually.

01:02:44 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:02:45 ◼   ► - So then, you know what, it's all good,

01:02:48 ◼   ► all is well that ends well,

01:02:51 ◼   ► because CrowdStrike is taking care of their customers.

01:02:54 ◼   ► They are doing what's right.

01:02:56 ◼   ► They are offering them a $10 apology gift card

01:02:59 ◼   ► on Uber Eats for the Apple.

01:03:00 ◼   ► - When I saw this, I'm like, this has to be fake.

01:03:04 ◼   ► Like, there's no way this is a real story.

01:03:06 ◼   ► - Just like the Windows 3.1 thing, this has to be a joke.

01:03:08 ◼   ► But this is in TechCrunch, so I'm gonna click on it again.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Have they updated and say this is a joke?

01:03:13 ◼   ► I think this is real.

01:03:14 ◼   ► - Oh no.

01:03:15 ◼   ► - As far as I know, it's real.

01:03:16 ◼   ► - 'Cause they have like first-party sourcing.

01:03:19 ◼   ► So it was, you know, one person said that they received it,

01:03:21 ◼   ► and so did somebody, I think, at TechCrunch or whatever.

01:03:26 ◼   ► - $10 gift certificate is not gonna cut.

01:03:28 ◼   ► I think, we don't have the links in here,

01:03:29 ◼   ► but I think Delta's like suing them for a billion dollars.

01:03:33 ◼   ► I should have put that, I did have it somewhere

01:03:36 ◼   ► in the notes, I just didn't get to it in time,

01:03:37 ◼   ► but I think it's Delta Airlines, is suing CrowdStrike.

01:03:40 ◼   ► And I think that is actually interesting,

01:03:42 ◼   ► because as anyone who has used software for a long time

01:03:45 ◼   ► knows, there's a thing called end-user license agreement,

01:03:49 ◼   ► and surely something that is equivalent

01:03:51 ◼   ► in enterprise software sales,

01:03:52 ◼   ► that usually says in all caps somewhere,

01:03:55 ◼   ► words to the effect, we don't guarantee

01:03:58 ◼   ► this software does literally anything.

01:04:01 ◼   ► We know, like, whatever you think this software does,

01:04:04 ◼   ► you're paying us money, and we're saying,

01:04:06 ◼   ► we are not promising that it will do that thing at all,

01:04:08 ◼   ► ever, under any circumstances.

01:04:11 ◼   ► - Right, and furthermore, if we break your stuff,

01:04:13 ◼   ► if we delete your data, if our software does anything

01:04:17 ◼   ► to harm you, you agree it's not our fault,

01:04:20 ◼   ► 'cause we couldn't possibly be held

01:04:22 ◼   ► to the standard of making working software.

01:04:23 ◼   ► - Right, now again, I'm not a lawyer,

01:04:25 ◼   ► and I know there are certain things

01:04:26 ◼   ► that you cannot put in a contract

01:04:28 ◼   ► and sign away all your rights or whatever,

01:04:29 ◼   ► so the courts in our country will figure out

01:04:32 ◼   ► whether Delta is owed billions of dollars

01:04:33 ◼   ► from CrowdStrike or not, but I do have to say,

01:04:36 ◼   ► this is a fun test, because normally,

01:04:38 ◼   ► these things don't get tested,

01:04:39 ◼   ► 'cause we click through the end-user license agreements,

01:04:41 ◼   ► 'cause we're like, yada, yada, yada,

01:04:42 ◼   ► there's nothing we can do about it anyway,

01:04:43 ◼   ► what are we gonna do, sue Microsoft, sue Apple?

01:04:45 ◼   ► Like, we don't have that kind of money, right?

01:04:47 ◼   ► But Delta Airlines does.

01:04:48 ◼   ► So Delta Airlines versus CrowdStrike

01:04:51 ◼   ► will be another interesting test

01:04:54 ◼   ► of end-user license agreements.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Can CrowdStrike make Delta Airlines agree

01:04:59 ◼   ► that they pay X amount of dollars per year

01:05:01 ◼   ► for essentially nothing, right?

01:05:02 ◼   ► For saying, you know, we're giving you money,

01:05:05 ◼   ► and we're signing a contract that says,

01:05:06 ◼   ► in exchange, we expect nothing from your software.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Whatever you're telling us it does,

01:05:11 ◼   ► if it doesn't do that, we're saying that's okay,

01:05:14 ◼   ► because that's what all the end-user license agreements say,

01:05:17 ◼   ► because lawyers put it on there early on,

01:05:19 ◼   ► and they got away with it, and we all just ignored it,

01:05:21 ◼   ► and I'm sure there have been other tests

01:05:22 ◼   ► that have tested EULA's,

01:05:23 ◼   ► I don't know what the law precedents are or whatever,

01:05:25 ◼   ► but this is a fairly high-profile one,

01:05:26 ◼   ► so I think, when this, I mean,

01:05:28 ◼   ► I'll assume they'll just settle,

01:05:29 ◼   ► so there'll probably no precedent set here,

01:05:30 ◼   ► 'cause what's gonna happen is,

01:05:31 ◼   ► Delta's just gonna extract a bunch of money,

01:05:32 ◼   ► and they'll settle out of court,

01:05:33 ◼   ► because that's what they'll do.

01:05:34 ◼   ► But it would be fun if it actually went to court,

01:05:37 ◼   ► and actually established some of these old precedents.

01:05:38 ◼   ► If someone, if a listener knows

01:05:40 ◼   ► what established legal precedents

01:05:41 ◼   ► on enforceability of EULA's is, please let us know,

01:05:43 ◼   ► but I imagine a lot of these cases get settled,

01:05:45 ◼   ► because in the end, Delta just wants some money

01:05:47 ◼   ► to make up for all the money that they lost.

01:05:49 ◼   ► I saw a graph somewhere of like,

01:05:51 ◼   ► takeoffs per minute per airline, right?

01:05:54 ◼   ► And as you can imagine, during CrowdStrike, it went down,

01:05:57 ◼   ► but Delta's graph was so much worse than everybody else's.

01:06:00 ◼   ► I don't know why it was so much worse,

01:06:01 ◼   ► maybe there's a lot of Delta flights or whatever,

01:06:03 ◼   ► but I mean, there was a dip in the overall global takeoffs

01:06:06 ◼   ► per minute, but Delta was like,

01:06:09 ◼   ► plummeted to almost nothing, it was terrible, so.

01:06:11 ◼   ► Good luck, Delta, getting some money in that settlement.

01:06:14 ◼   ► - The whole CrowdStrike thing here,

01:06:17 ◼   ► I think the bigger story here is like,

01:06:20 ◼   ► first of all, that this company, I think,

01:06:22 ◼   ► was doing things in a pretty reckless way.

01:06:24 ◼   ► But second of all, you have to, as a company,

01:06:29 ◼   ► as a computer user, you really have to weigh

01:06:31 ◼   ► the value of malware prevention software,

01:06:36 ◼   ► or like malware defense software, against the malware.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Like, what likely outcomes are they

01:06:45 ◼   ► actually protecting you from,

01:06:47 ◼   ► and how can the malware itself go wrong?

01:06:51 ◼   ► - The anti-mal, the anti-mal, you did the same thing I did,

01:06:53 ◼   ► the anti-malware software,

01:06:55 ◼   ► how can the anti-virus software go wrong?

01:06:57 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yeah, sure, that is what I meant, you're right.

01:06:59 ◼   ► But like, when you look at what the malware,

01:07:03 ◼   ► what the anti-malware software has to do,

01:07:06 ◼   ► it does a lot of the same things that malware has to do.

01:07:10 ◼   ► It has to hook into your system at a very low level,

01:07:12 ◼   ► which introduces tons of risks and possible instability

01:07:16 ◼   ► and possible performance problems.

01:07:18 ◼   ► If you look at what malware does,

01:07:20 ◼   ► malware hooks into your system at a very low level.

01:07:24 ◼   ► It can potentially see all your data

01:07:27 ◼   ► and potentially have problems with that.

01:07:29 ◼   ► It can potentially cause instability of your system

01:07:32 ◼   ► and performance problems, and can rob your resources,

01:07:35 ◼   ► and can introduce weird risks.

01:07:39 ◼   ► Well, anti-malware software does all of those things,

01:07:43 ◼   ► all of them.

01:07:43 ◼   ► So, granted, the anti-malware companies

01:07:45 ◼   ► have very different incentives,

01:07:46 ◼   ► and they have, I think, a better track record

01:07:48 ◼   ► of not actively trying to hurt people.

01:07:51 ◼   ► But when you are trying to combat the risk

01:07:56 ◼   ► of dealing with malware,

01:07:57 ◼   ► you are trading a possible bad experience

01:08:03 ◼   ► with a guaranteed bad experience.

01:08:06 ◼   ► Like, when you install anti-malware software,

01:08:08 ◼   ► in a lot of ways, you are guaranteeing

01:08:10 ◼   ► that you will have mediocre performance on certain levels,

01:08:13 ◼   ► you're introducing more risks, more moving parts,

01:08:16 ◼   ► more potential for instability, and stuff like that.

01:08:18 ◼   ► And so, you have to have a really good reason.

01:08:22 ◼   ► And you have to really choose that software very carefully.

01:08:25 ◼   ► And I think what I hope the CrowdStrike problem,

01:08:30 ◼   ► I hope a lot of learning goes on here.

01:08:32 ◼   ► - Well, the thing is, the motivation,

01:08:35 ◼   ► the reason why you have to be very careful

01:08:37 ◼   ► and decide what you're doing,

01:08:39 ◼   ► companies have a very strong motivation

01:08:43 ◼   ► to buy this software, because it's required

01:08:45 ◼   ► for compliance reasons.

01:08:46 ◼   ► And they have a very strong reason

01:08:47 ◼   ► to go with a company like CrowdStrike,

01:08:49 ◼   ► because CrowdStrike will sell you a thing

01:08:51 ◼   ► that will cover all your compliance needs.

01:08:53 ◼   ► They have gone through all the certifications,

01:08:56 ◼   ► and they can say whatever things you need to comply with,

01:08:58 ◼   ► if you buy and install CrowdStrike,

01:09:00 ◼   ► you will be compliant with all of them,

01:09:02 ◼   ► because we went through the certification procedures.

01:09:04 ◼   ► That's what, like most enterprise software,

01:09:06 ◼   ► that's what they're selling.

01:09:08 ◼   ► You company, whether you want this or not,

01:09:09 ◼   ► you have to have some solution to this.

01:09:12 ◼   ► Are you gonna roll your own

01:09:13 ◼   ► and go through your own certification to deal with that?

01:09:15 ◼   ► Or are you just gonna install our product

01:09:16 ◼   ► and we cover all the bases for you?

01:09:18 ◼   ► And nowhere in that scenario is there any kind

01:09:21 ◼   ► of consideration for the quality of that software.

01:09:23 ◼   ► And on a smaller level, not on the big blue screen of death

01:09:26 ◼   ► and no one can get on their planes level,

01:09:28 ◼   ► but on the smaller level, we've talked about this,

01:09:30 ◼   ► like I've talked about it back in my jobby jobs,

01:09:32 ◼   ► of having what I called corporate malware

01:09:34 ◼   ► installed on my laptop.

01:09:35 ◼   ► Like you were saying, Marco, it makes the laptop worse.

01:09:38 ◼   ► Not in a way that it crashes and it blue screens

01:09:40 ◼   ► and people are getting their stuff encrypted

01:09:43 ◼   ► and asking for a ransom.

01:09:44 ◼   ► It just makes every corporate laptop a little bit worse

01:09:48 ◼   ► than it would be if it didn't have that installed.

01:09:50 ◼   ► When the thing grinds over your whole system,

01:09:51 ◼   ► this is even worse back in the days of hard drives,

01:09:53 ◼   ► looking for whatever it's looking for,

01:09:55 ◼   ► scanning every file that's run or causing weird bugs.

01:09:59 ◼   ► It's just a tiny little tax that's paid

01:10:01 ◼   ► by every person using a corporate laptop.

01:10:04 ◼   ► And it's probably lesser a case for the servers

01:10:06 ◼   ► and stuff like that because there's no human

01:10:07 ◼   ► experiencing that, but the risk is still there of like,

01:10:09 ◼   ► hey, what if the company that you paid all this money

01:10:12 ◼   ► to get for your security compliance,

01:10:14 ◼   ► what if they're not particularly careful?

01:10:15 ◼   ► What if they do a bad job?

01:10:17 ◼   ► You're not particularly monitoring them.

01:10:18 ◼   ► That's what you're paying them for,

01:10:19 ◼   ► so you don't have to worry about it.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Now maybe lots of companies will be looking

01:10:23 ◼   ► at other vendors, but CrowdStrike was a pretty popular one.

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01:11:44 ◼   ► There's been some rumors going around,

01:11:50 ◼   ► and this one in particular with regard

01:11:52 ◼   ► to forthcoming hardware is very unusual.

01:11:56 ◼   ► They're talking about iPhone 17,

01:12:00 ◼   ► not 16, but 17 slim rumors.

01:12:03 ◼   ► - iPhone 16, who cares about iPhone 16?

01:12:05 ◼   ► That's old news.

01:12:06 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:08 ◼   ► We're talking about iPhone 17,

01:12:09 ◼   ► I think didn't we even talk,

01:12:11 ◼   ► no, we talked about it in overtime,

01:12:12 ◼   ► I think we talked about like making thinner laptops

01:12:14 ◼   ► and stuff or making slimmer products.

01:12:16 ◼   ► So even we were talking about it, yeah.

01:12:17 ◼   ► The hot rumors are all about iPhone 17.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Forget about iPhone 16, it's not even gonna come

01:12:21 ◼   ► with Apple intelligence on launch.

01:12:23 ◼   ► iPhone 17 is where it's at.

01:12:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:12:26 ◼   ► - Or so it seems.

01:12:27 ◼   ► So John, can you tell us what's going on here?

01:12:30 ◼   ► - So there's a bunch of stories about the iPhone slim

01:12:33 ◼   ► and related stories about the iPhone Ultra.

01:12:37 ◼   ► So here's an example headline.

01:12:39 ◼   ► Ultra Thin iPhone 17, see what they did there?

01:12:41 ◼   ► To feature A19 chip, shocking, single rear camera,

01:12:45 ◼   ► semi-titanium frame and more.

01:12:47 ◼   ► This is from Ming-Chi Kuo, shared a specification

01:12:51 ◼   ► for a new ultra thin iPhone 17 model

01:12:52 ◼   ► rumored to launch next year.

01:12:53 ◼   ► Kuo expects the device to be equipped

01:12:55 ◼   ► with a 6.6 inch display with a current size dynamic island,

01:12:58 ◼   ► a standard A19 chip rather than an A19 Pro,

01:13:01 ◼   ► a single rear camera and an Apple designed 5G chip.

01:13:04 ◼   ► He also expects the device to have a titanium aluminum frame

01:13:07 ◼   ► but with lower percentage of titanium

01:13:08 ◼   ► than those used for the 15 Pro.

01:13:10 ◼   ► So this is the current or a recent mutation

01:13:13 ◼   ► of the iPhone slim model.

01:13:15 ◼   ► And the whole idea, you know, as the name says,

01:13:17 ◼   ► it's an iPhone, but it's slim.

01:13:19 ◼   ► So what sacrifices do you have to make to get it slim?

01:13:22 ◼   ► Well, it's only gonna have one camera.

01:13:24 ◼   ► It doesn't have an A19 Pro.

01:13:26 ◼   ► It's rumored to have the Apple designed 5G chip

01:13:29 ◼   ► that they've been working on for years and years.

01:13:31 ◼   ► iPhone 17 in 2026, this is the year for the 5G chip

01:13:34 ◼   ► and it's gonna come in an iPhone slim.

01:13:37 ◼   ► And then there's also the rumor that the iPhone SE4

01:13:40 ◼   ► will also have the 5G chip, right?

01:13:42 ◼   ► And Ming-Chi Kuo has a reasonable track record

01:13:45 ◼   ► and sources and, you know, supply chain and stuff like that.

01:13:48 ◼   ► So other than just vague rumors of an iPhone slim

01:13:51 ◼   ► or an ultra thin phone or an iPhone ultra,

01:13:53 ◼   ► there's like, okay, some parts suppliers

01:13:55 ◼   ► are think that this conglomeration of stuff equals a phone.

01:13:59 ◼   ► And if it does, it's a weird one

01:14:01 ◼   ► because there is no current phone

01:14:03 ◼   ► that is known for being slim.

01:14:05 ◼   ► There's no separate slim model.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And this sounds like a strange device.

01:14:10 ◼   ► It's not a pro model but has a single rear camera.

01:14:14 ◼   ► Apple hasn't done that in ages on any of the phones

01:14:17 ◼   ► that are like exclusive or expensive

01:14:19 ◼   ► and presumably the slim would be.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - See, I love this rumor and I hope they do something

01:14:24 ◼   ► really out there with this.

01:14:27 ◼   ► I mean, well, you know, for Apple.

01:14:29 ◼   ► It's not gonna be that out there 'cause it's Apple.

01:14:31 ◼   ► But this sounds like a lot of fun to me

01:14:34 ◼   ► because if you look at what the iPhone line has been,

01:14:39 ◼   ► it's been so good, but it's been so good

01:14:44 ◼   ► in fairly predictable ways for a long time.

01:14:48 ◼   ► We don't really get a lot of surprises in the iPhone line.

01:14:51 ◼   ► We don't get a lot of like seemingly

01:14:54 ◼   ► like high risk experiments in the iPhone line.

01:14:56 ◼   ► It's just a really good product line.

01:14:58 ◼   ► They deliver every year with these wonderful,

01:15:01 ◼   ► often incremental, sometimes bigger improvements.

01:15:03 ◼   ► And it's just a really like solid all around

01:15:06 ◼   ► like predictable thing.

01:15:06 ◼   ► I've been having the same phone, like the same size

01:15:10 ◼   ► and approximate weight class phone for years now

01:15:14 ◼   ► just as so many other iPhone customers have

01:15:16 ◼   ► through multiple models here and there