And on That Bombshell…
John:
i think it's a bad reason for a couple of reasons our first bit of follow-up john it's about pronunciation so you're in charge of it well i don't know why that's the case but i did put this in there dan uh from twitter wrote us to tell us the correct pronunciation of mkbhd's name it is apparently marquez
John:
Not Marcus or any other thing that we tried to mumble our way through on the last show.
Marco:
See, I'm annoyed by this because back when we first talked about him in his video when he got the alleged iPhone 6 screen cover with the possible Sapphire, I guessed that it would have been pronounced Marquez.
Marco:
And so I said Marquez and I heard from a few people saying, that's wrong.
Marco:
So that's why I didn't try to pronounce it that way again.
John:
We don't know if this is right either.
John:
Anyone can type anything into a box on the web.
John:
But I believe this person.
John:
His typing seemed authentic.
Marco:
I still would like to have a video of Marquez saying his own name just so I can hear it from him.
Marco:
Yep, that would be good.
Marco:
There probably are a thousand hours of that video, but we don't know because we don't watch his channel.
Marco:
But he always calls himself MKBHD.
Casey:
Wait, that's what he calls himself like in his own videos?
Marco:
Yeah, he says, hey guys, this is MKBHD.
Marco:
Really?
Marco:
Yeah, that's the first place I looked for pronunciation assistance.
Marco:
It's like Madonna, but way longer.
Casey:
Real time follow up from underscore, who is my favorite person to have in the chat, because he is like our entire research squad in one character, which is underscore.
Casey:
Anyway, he has found a link to Marquez pronouncing his name.
Casey:
And it's a video.
Casey:
So I haven't listened to it.
Casey:
But he has confirmed that it is indeed Marquez.
Marco:
My name is Marques Brownlee.
John:
Skylake.
John:
No sooner have we talked about Skylake.
John:
Maybe Apple won't even use Broadwell because Skylake is coming so soon.
John:
Broadwell was delayed because they had a lot of trouble with the 14 nanometer process.
John:
Skylake is a new architecture, but on the same process.
John:
So maybe Apple just skipped right to that.
John:
And now...
John:
Just before the show, I got a link to an article that posts some rumors about Skylake possibly being delayed.
John:
Now, it's from Digitimes, so take it with a grain of salt.
John:
But supposedly, they're delaying it until August.
John:
And the article...
John:
we linked to here from it world i think tries to say that they're delaying it just to space out their products not for any particular reason like they would be ready but they want to space it out to give room for broadwell to sell i don't know what to think but anyway uh betting on intel delaying something is always a safe bet
Marco:
Well, the law of Intel delays and release dates is that every Intel release will be late, except for the one that comes right after whatever you buy.
John:
Anyway, as a question mark on this bit of follow up, this is not a definitive thing.
John:
It is just a link to a rumor from Digitime.
John:
So we'll see how it goes.
John:
But I'm thinking that Apple's going to ship Broadwell machines no matter what.
John:
Even if Skylake was available for sale now.
John:
I think it's too late.
John:
Apple's already got the Broadmel machines designed, ready, manufacturing.
John:
I think they're just going to ship no matter what.
Marco:
Yeah, I think you're right.
Marco:
Having Skylake come so soon after Broadmel was already pretty suspicious.
Marco:
And so now, if there's any hint that it might actually be delayed, that's extremely plausible.
Marco:
I agree.
Marco:
I think we're going to see Broadmel this summer on the 15-inch, and that'll be that.
Marco:
And we'll see Skylake next year.
Marco:
And we also heard some interesting information that possibly explains limitations of the new MacBook.
Marco:
So one thing I had complained about initially was that it only has 8 gigs of RAM.
Marco:
That's not configurable to anything higher.
Marco:
We heard from a number of people, and these are publicly documented on Intel's site and stuff, that the Broadwell Core M chipset that is used in the new MacBook to get that low-power 5-watt fanless design...
Marco:
The max RAM it supports is 8 gigs.
Marco:
So that's it.
Marco:
There's no more RAM that the chipset can support.
Marco:
So that's why 8 gigs is what it is.
John:
Yeah, I tried to look that up rather than just taking these people's word for it.
John:
If you go to Intel's site, it says the limit is 16, and you can see machines with 16 gigs with the same processor.
John:
So what the person who wrote to us under the name K period says is that the limit, yeah, you can put 16 on it until site says 16.
John:
But if you want the RAM to be soldered to the circuit board, not like a DIMM or anything like that, that the core RAM only has two channels and it's four gigs per channel for RAM that's soldered onto the board and thus the limit of eight.
John:
And on Intel site, it did say, you know, maximum RAM.
John:
And then it said in parentheses, depending on type.
John:
I could not dig my way to whatever document gives the more verbose explanation.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Depending on type.
John:
What does that mean?
John:
Like that leads you to leave.
John:
Maybe.
John:
Yeah.
John:
If you have dims, you can do 16.
John:
But if you have soldered to the board, you're limited to eight.
John:
I'm inclined to believe these people.
John:
I just couldn't find the documentation to back it up.
John:
But it makes sense.
John:
You know, like this is the smallest of the small, low powered, you know.
Marco:
chipsets for laptops and apple definitely is soldering their ram to a board and we do see machines out there with 16 with the same chip but maybe they're not soldering it to the board so it's entirely plausible makes sense to me yeah and and you know looking at it from intel's point of view this is a really low-end chip i mean it's gonna it's going in some really like you know sexy laptops that we all want but the reality is these are low-end parts these are slow they're very very low power that's that's why they're slow they have to be really low power
Marco:
They're going into these very physically small designs with very few chips.
Marco:
And this leads us very well into our next follow-up point on this, which is, John, you've been begging for a long time, months, years, on somebody to give you a good reason why there is only one USB port on this machine.
Marco:
Let me stop you there, because this is old follow-up, and I don't consider it.
John:
You can go continue to explain it, but I've seen this before, and
Marco:
like i said i gotta see i gotta see the technical docs i gotta see the sourcing otherwise it's just you know anyway go on well so so we got we got two possible explanations here uh the first one which i think is a little bit less uh solid is um from chris jones who says that the the pch which is what i think that used to be called the south bridge uh the platform controller hub or whatever it's called
Marco:
That's the chip on the motherboard, for those that don't know, that controls most of the IO stuff, especially the slower IO stuff.
Marco:
So not like RAM and GPUs, which is all, I believe, now directly controlled by the CPU and the entire lineup.
Marco:
But now it's like USB stuff, basically.
Marco:
And so the PCH integrated into this chipset by Intel provides four USB 3.0 connections.
Marco:
A typical MacBook uses one USB connection internally for Bluetooth, one for the keyboard and trackpad, and one for the FaceTime camera, leaving one connection left for the USB Type-C port.
Marco:
And for Apple to add more ports, if they wanted them to be USB 3, would require them to add a separate USB controller, which would be another chip on the board.
Marco:
So that costs board space, that costs power, that costs money.
Marco:
So all these costs to that, they probably chose not to do it.
Marco:
Now, this might be a little bit unreliable of a reason because... And as Chris points out, the USB 2.0 ports are counted separately.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
I checked on my MacBook Pro, which is, granted, three years old, but I checked on that, and the keyboard and Bluetooth controller are plugged into the USB 2 bus on mine.
John:
That's what I was going to get at.
John:
I remember back in the day, I think some internal components on PowerBooks then were on ADB.
John:
Wow.
John:
They're going to use the smallest, lowest...
John:
cost connection possible for the internal component so why does the track made do you need usb3 versus usb2 you know and same thing for a 480p camera um so that's why this is kind of like you have to use connections for these things you kind of like it just it just doesn't make sense to me like why would you use usb3 connection for uh the camera right
Marco:
yeah and the keyboard too i mean like yeah especially the keyboard like there's not a high bandwidth device yeah so i this is a good theory i'm not sure that it that it applies here though um but the the better reason i think this is worse but go on okay the better reason as pointed out by k period is that uh due to limitations of the integrated intel gpu in this fanless low power chipset
Marco:
It is not possible to drive two external displays at very high resolutions along with the internal panel.
Marco:
So anything I believe past 1080p, it's considered a high resolution.
Marco:
It can't drive two externals.
Marco:
It can only do one external at those resolutions plus the built-in panel.
Marco:
And so if there are multiple USB-C ports, and assuming you could plug a display into a USB-C port, then only one of them could reasonably drive a display.
Marco:
And so there would be this weird situation where you'd have these two identical ports, only one of which can drive a high-resolution display, but both of which possibly might be able to drive low-resolution.
Marco:
It'd be weird.
Marco:
So that, I think, is a pretty good reason.
John:
i think it's a bad reason for a couple of reasons one we already established when we were trying to figure out if it had mirroring remember like oh can it do mirroring or can do extended display and i think you looked it up and said oh it says right here on the specs page it has mirroring and also dual display dual meaning two this machine supports two displays that's what the apple specs say that's what the machine does if you have it with two identical ports you plug a monitor into one then you get a second monitor and you plug it into the second one you're like what the hell the second monitor isn't working it only supports two displays it says it right there on the spec page there's no ambiguity would you be like
John:
enraged or confused by the fact that you can't support three displays, the machine only supports two.
John:
For years, laptops only supported two displays.
John:
It's not like you just keep plugging displays in willy-nilly.
John:
It only supports two displays.
John:
Having another USB port puts 17 USB ports in there.
John:
People are like, now I can have 17 displays.
John:
No, you got to go to the tech specs page and say, how many displays can I drive from this thing?
John:
So that makes no sense to me.
John:
Like the people will somehow be confused or angry or disappointed that the machine that clearly says supports dual displays can only support dual displays.
John:
well okay i disagree that's a valid reason but i at least we can we'll have to agree to disagree on this which is a phrase i hate so you so what do you think like they they would say well we could put two usb ports in this thing but we can only support two displays so we better get rid of that port like that makes sense to you that's that's the kind of reasoning you would support
Marco:
Well, what I see here are a bunch of smaller reasons that potentially, if you add all these reasons up, might be enough justification.
Marco:
And by the way, we heard a theory from a few people that I want to address.
Marco:
People saying that Apple is artificially only giving one port.
Marco:
That way they can sell an upgraded model next year or whenever with two ports and people will buy the upgraded model.
Marco:
What do you mean by upgraded?
Marco:
Like just the next revision of the machine?
Marco:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
That doesn't make any sense.
Marco:
right exactly we hear this theory a lot whenever there's any limitation we usually hear from from a handful of people like this or like well they're just artificially keeping that down so they can release it next year and have everybody upgrade and i don't think i mean i don't i don't know how apple works internally with regard to decisions like that but that's not how any business works i was like going to a sandwich stop let's give them a little bit crappier sandwich today so tomorrow we can sell them the better one they're not going to come back if you sell them a product doesn't satisfy them they're not going to say
John:
Well, I, now I have to buy the new one next year.
John:
Like if you, if you get a car and it's not a great car, you, maybe you look at a different car maker next time you're going to say, damn it.
John:
They just did this.
John:
So I'll buy the better Honda next year.
John:
No, you're just not going to buy a Honda.
John:
If you get a product, you get a product that's not satisfactory.
John:
They're not, they're not intentionally handicapping their products.
John:
With the goal of, oh, we'll get them next time.
John:
That'll make them buy a new computer sooner.
John:
It just doesn't make sense to me.
Marco:
Exactly.
Marco:
I mean, there's so many reasons why products, you know, have limitations in one generation and the next generation they're lifted or they're high or things are faster or better or whatever.
Marco:
And usually it's regards to reasonable, justifiable reasons like availability or costs or, you know, things like that or just, you know, not being feasible yet or not or having having major tradeoffs, major downsides.
Marco:
So that's you know I don't think anybody and by the way most people don't buy every generation of a product and most people don't follow things so closely that they would even know like most of Apple's customers if they buy this machine and one comes out next year with two ports they're not shopping for a computer then they don't know.
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
Like, they won't know until that computer dies or gets too slow to be usable or the battery starts wearing out really badly.
Marco:
And they go in two or three years or more and look at a new computer.
Marco:
Like, that's when they're going to see what's available then, which might be totally different.
Marco:
Usually much more.
John:
It's not like... Phones, if you're lucky, they go every two years.
John:
But some people feel like, oh, my contract's over.
John:
Now I have this freedom period or whatever.
John:
But Macs, people just use them...
Marco:
you know i don't know what the upgrade cycle is max but i think it's way longer than any other thing and certainly not one year i mean even even marco doesn't buy new macs every year no i just said i'm using i'm using a three-year-old macbook pro as well the imac and the mac pro is that's true i think that was a special case though before that i let my things lasted pretty long because i kept buying mac pros john is your is your mac pro hit a decade yet or no well seven years it's hanging in there god that's a closer answer than i expected if i'm honest
Marco:
The funny thing is, I took a trip last week to England, and I was using my laptop very heavily.
Marco:
And every time I used my laptop, I realized, you know, with the exception of the screen retention, which I could get fixed for, I think, like $400.
Marco:
Somebody told me it would be about that.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I'm probably not going to get it fixed.
Marco:
Probably not worth it.
Marco:
But, like, this machine I got was the base model, the 1999 model, the base model that came out three years ago.
Marco:
It was the first Retina 15-inch.
Marco:
And I was looking just out of curiosity.
Marco:
I was looking like, you know, if I wanted to replace this today, you know, if it broke or if I want to replace it this summer with Broadway, what would I replace it with?
Marco:
What configuration?
Marco:
And looked at the configurations that are available today and I would get the base model again.
Marco:
It's like the specs are so good.
Marco:
Now it's 16 gigs of RAM.
Marco:
Mine is eight.
Marco:
It's a faster CPU.
Marco:
It's same, same disk space, but I don't need a lot of space because it's not my primary computer.
Marco:
And so it's no big deal.
Marco:
So like,
Marco:
I think I would, you know, I think if Broadbuck comes out this summer, like I said, you know, I have a family member who I kind of need to hand this down to pretty soon.
Marco:
So if Broadbuck comes out this summer and it's a reasonable update, I'm going to buy the base model again, probably.
Marco:
If I didn't have a good reason to upgrade, I would keep using this one for another year or two at least.
Marco:
I mean, I would guess the average duration of a Mac owner, you know, between upgrading the computers is probably three years or more.
Casey:
I mean, I've had my work computer for three years.
Casey:
I've had my personal computer for three-ish years.
Casey:
I probably will be getting a new machine for myself sometime soon.
Casey:
And I know work is on a three-year cycle.
Casey:
So I might be rocking two different new Macs this year.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
We'll see what happens.
Casey:
But yeah, I mean, a three-year cycle is not unreasonable.
Casey:
And
Casey:
I think most people would actually go on an even longer cycle.
Casey:
And especially for those like myself who have machines that have spinning platters in them, you know, even just an SSD can make a tremendous difference.
Marco:
Our first sponsor is Cards Against Humanity.
Marco:
Now, once again, they have not given me any script to read.
Marco:
And instead, they have sent John another toaster to review.
Marco:
So, John, what toaster do you have this week?
Marco:
And what are your thoughts on it?
John:
This week, I have the Hamilton Beach 31230.
John:
They have the idea of taking letters out of their model number, which I don't know if it makes it worse or better.
John:
I guess probably better.
John:
It can't be that much worse than the other ones we've been seeing.
John:
Yeah, they all have like a name like, you know, set it and forget it, toaster oven, you know, like there's some word that's on the cover.
John:
That's not the name of the product.
John:
It's the model number.
John:
Anyway, this is a big one.
John:
This is a very big toaster.
John:
It's the inside is about the same size as my Breville 650 XL, which is a pretty big toaster.
John:
You can usually fit four slices of bread in it.
John:
But the outside of this thing, like first of all, the left and right side and back have curves on them.
John:
So it's wider than you think it is.
John:
Like you look at it from the front and you think just the brightly colored rectangles aside, but it has bulges like big metal bulges.
John:
So that adds a couple inches on either side and in the back.
John:
And the thing to the right of the toaster where all the buttons are is pretty thick.
John:
So I think this is probably as big as the Breville version of mine that has convection.
John:
And I think that's probably what makes this thing larger is that this also has convection.
John:
So it's just the price you pay for convection, you get a much bigger toaster.
Marco:
Well, it's showed in the Amazon pictures as containing what appears to be either a very large chicken or a very small turkey.
John:
Yeah, that's like a smallish chicken.
John:
It's the same size inside as my Breville, but the outside is bigger.
John:
So the interesting feature this has, and you can see it in the picture, is this thing comes with a probe thermometer that's attached to the toaster in a very poorly designed little door that you shove the probe into, like a slot, and then you wad up the rubber-coated wire for the probe, and then you try to close this little door.
John:
It's terrible.
John:
Anyway, it does have a probe attached to it for food temperature, so you can...
John:
put the probe into your food and close the door yes close it on your rubber surrounded thermometer wire thing like the door will close all the way with the wire sort of shoved and pinched through there which is weird and it also means there has to be kind of a gap around the entire door to the toaster anyway you stick the probe in and you can you know pick the desired temperature of the food and you just turn the thing on and it will turn itself off when your food hits the correct temperature
John:
And it's got the government food safety temperatures for different kinds of food, like printed on the door of the toaster in case you forget.
John:
And I just take this time to remind everybody that the government food safety temperatures for food are often crazy.
John:
Like they say, you should cook pork to 160 to 170 degrees.
John:
I invite everyone listening to this to cook a pork chop to 170 degrees and then tell me how it tastes to them.
John:
It tastes like sawdust.
John:
you cannot cook pork to 170 degrees they do that for like you know prevention from trigonosis or whatever anyway all i'm saying is the the government food safety temperatures for food are super conservative yeah you it will kill every german that food it will also kill the food and it'll be tasteless and terrible so god please email john about this if you die of trigonosis don't blame me but i'm just you know feel free to cook your pork to 170 but that's no way to live just don't eat pork then
John:
Oh my God, we're going to hear from everybody on both sides of this argument, you realize.
John:
No, everyone who knows anything about cooking pork will say, yes, of course you can.
John:
Have any of you ever cooked pork to 170?
John:
I've never cooked pork.
John:
Oh, you guys don't cook.
Casey:
Yeah, the only time I ever cook pork is bacon, and that's a whole different ballgame.
John:
Both of you don't cook.
Casey:
No, I cook, just not that.
Marco:
All right, just not that.
Marco:
Never in your whole life, ever?
Marco:
I mean, like Casey, I've cooked bacon, but I don't really like eating pork chops, so I don't cook them.
Marco:
No pork roast?
Marco:
Nothing?
Marco:
No, not even big hams.
Marco:
No, I'm not.
Marco:
I'm not really a huge pork fan.
Marco:
All right.
John:
Well, now you get angry letters from the pork friends.
John:
Anyway, the toaster as a toaster.
John:
I tried to do my typical toast off versus mine where you put, you know, cold toaster, put a piece of bread in each one right in the middle, start toasting, see who wins.
John:
That's how, you know, I've been timing them all.
John:
uh that the toast off was thwarted by the fact that this thing is humongous and my other toaster is not particularly small and i tripped the circuit breaker in my kitchen halfway through the toasting process trying to toast bread and this is a 1400 watt toaster oven uh i flipped the breaker and tried again when the toasters were cooled one at a time this is a slow toaster for toasting bread it is slower than my breville it's the slowest one i've had it's large it's cavernous and it's got the uh
John:
I just think it's like resistive heating elements.
John:
They're not the quartz ones that are like shiny and thick and light up quickly.
John:
These are skinnier and dark and they slowly start to glow red.
John:
It is really slow to toast.
John:
I don't know if I could tolerate trying to cook toast in this thing because it's just really slow.
Marco:
Now, do you have like a minutes measure?
Marco:
Like what do you consider really slow?
John:
I did time it in a stopwatch, but I just did the math for the subtracting from my toaster.
John:
It's like 30 seconds slower.
John:
I think it's like over three minutes, maybe four minutes.
John:
Like...
John:
And I don't know if this one is smart like my toaster because my toaster, as soon as you hit toast, it will tell you how long it's going to take and how long it will take depends on the ambient temperature inside the toaster.
John:
So the second piece of toast is way faster than the first one.
John:
Right.
John:
That's what's making a smart toaster.
John:
Anyway, this one has no readout like that.
John:
Yeah.
John:
So speaking of the readouts, like there's not great choices for all the stuff that you touch and you see on this toaster, like the dials, buttons and displays.
John:
There are no dials.
John:
It's all buttons.
John:
The the display is like one of those multi segment displays.
John:
It's not a seven segment because it can make letters as well.
John:
So it's not just the numbers and stuff.
John:
And, you know, because I just I think it has like the diagonal line for like the letter N and stuff.
John:
i don't know maybe that's a 7 8 9 10 11 12 segment display but it lights up and it tries to do this scrolling stuff like when you hit toast it says c n t r blank r a c k blank c n t r blank it's trying to tell you center rack uh and this is something people our age or my age anyway might not realize that modern toasters
John:
have a movable rack and they expect you to have the rack in the middle of the toaster like height wise not at the bottom of the toaster not at the top of the toaster directly in the middle which looks really weird for people like me who grew up with the black and deck toaster where the rack was always at the bottom but it makes sense from an even toasting perspective because you want to be equal distance from the heating elements if you're right against the bottom heating elements the bottom is going to cook way faster than the top anyway that little display doesn't tell you anything useful it doesn't tell you how long it's going to take doesn't give you a countdown timer it just says it's you know toasting and uh
John:
The buttons in the thing are membrane buttons.
John:
I think this was brought up on a podcast I listened to recently.
John:
Maybe it was on Back to Work.
John:
The Atari 400 membrane keyboard.
John:
You guys don't remember that.
John:
But do you know what I'm talking about when I say a membrane keyboard?
John:
Yeah.
John:
It's like bubbles of plastic that are just held up over the surface.
John:
The entire set of buttons that control this entire toaster are all membrane buttons.
John:
And every time you press one, it feels like you're pressing the entire membrane down.
John:
It is not...
John:
an expensive feeling thing the the rack doesn't pull out when the door opens the the rack is flimsy the tray comes with their flimsy if you want to use it as like a this is more like a miniature oven less like a you know i know they're all like that yo it's a miniature oven but this performs so poorly on like toaster related things where it's a frequently used appliance and you're going back to it again and again to cook lots of toast in the morning and to do stuff like that this is more like like what they show on the cover if you want to cook a chicken and put a prop them around and it's like a smaller version of an oven then you're not bothered so much by the button business
John:
The UI isn't terrible.
John:
The buttons, you basically don't need to read the manual.
John:
You can look at the buttons and figure it out, but there's lots of waiting for everything.
John:
You press a button and it says center rack and you're like, are you waiting for me to move the rack?
John:
Are you going to start toasting?
John:
And there's no countdown to tell you when it has started.
John:
Very often I've had to open it up and stick my hand inside to see if it's starting to get hot because there's no visual indication that it is doing what I asked it to do, pushing the little membrane buttons.
John:
uh yeah not not a fan wow so how do you really feel john it's not i mean it's not terrible it's a good little oven like for cooking small things in an oven but i would not use this as a toaster and it's just it's just humongous and weird
Marco:
Now, it looks like in their picture, so you said they've selected a misleadingly sized chicken for the top picture there with the probe, and then I see their bread showing that it's a six-sliced toaster.
Marco:
That is a very strange proportion that those bread slices have, where they look really small and thickly cut.
Marco:
It's like Texas toast or something.
John:
You could not fit six slices of regular sandwich bread on this thing.
John:
It's a four-sliced toaster.
John:
First of all, you do have to have some space around the toast, otherwise it doesn't, you know...
John:
crisp up around the edges and second of all i don't think i could wedge three pieces of bread in this thing side by side just regular sandwich bread you know it's not it's not that big
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
Well, thank you, Cards Against Humanity, for giving us that toaster extravaganza one more time.
Casey:
Yay, yay.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So back to the follow-up.
Casey:
Do we want to talk about what it's like to build RAM?
John:
Oh, actually, right before that, hopefully the final thing on the MacBook limitations.
John:
I think a lot of our questions will be answered when the new MacBook Pros come out.
John:
uh you know because we assume they'll all have usb type c connectors on them and we also assume they're not going to have one port right so all these questions about what it takes to have more than one port and how apple handles these the possible confusion of like oh can you power it from both of them can i put four monitor in because there's four usb type c ports you know like all those things
John:
will be answered not by seeing whether Marques is right about the next version of this new MacBook having two ports, but by seeing what they do to the MacBook Pro.
John:
I mean, if they put one port in the MacBook Pro, it is not illuminating.
John:
But I'm assuming they're not going to have one port in the MacBook Pro.
John:
And then we're going to see all, you know, all these questions about possible confusion.
John:
How does Apple answer them with a product that they basically have to have more than one USB Type-C port on it?
Marco:
That's a fair point, but I think a lot of these reasons really only apply with this, with the chipset and stuff like that.
Marco:
I'd say about half of the reasons that we've been sent in.
John:
Yeah, I just mean the confusion reasons.
John:
Like, oh, you can't charge for more than one, or it's confusing, I don't know what I can plug in.
John:
And if it has more ports, then it supports monitors, because maybe it supports three monitors, but it has four ports.
John:
Right, right.
John:
That's fair.
Marco:
All right.
John:
Finally, RAM.
John:
Yeah, last show I made an offhand comment talking about... We were talking about Skylake and the process sizes and everything.
John:
And I said that when they do a new process size, they fab RAM first because it's very regular and it's easier to fab than the complicated logic in a CPU.
John:
And Joel wrote in to say that...
John:
Either that information was always wrong or at the very least it's not true anymore because apparently fabbing RAM is actually harder than pure logic chips these days because the RAM has more capacitors in it and yield and reliability problems in DRAM are almost always due to the manufacturing problems with the capacitors, which are very tightly packed.
John:
have high aspect ratios whatever that means uh he wrote in a very detailed explanation that i found very convincing that that is not the case anymore they don't in fact the ram is often fab that uh one to two generations behind what logic is fabbed out these days i tried to do some googling to see where did i get this idea that they used to fab ram first on a new process size to get the kinks worked out of it and i just did not know what the hell to google for i'm pretty sure it's true but it could be knowledge from like the 80s for all i know so so much has changed in in uh silicon chip making these days that it's probably just outdated info
John:
By the way, if anyone does know what the hell I'm remembering, if I am remembering something, please do send in the link so I can see if I'm crazy.
Marco:
See, I don't even have to say, like, please only one person send that to us because I know the number of people who are going to send that.
Marco:
It's going to be between zero and one.
Marco:
Anybody who read Byte Magazine in the 80s probably knows it.
John:
Goodness.
Casey:
Okay, so a little bit about the new trackpad.
Casey:
Apple apparently has updated some apps to use it, including iMovie.
Casey:
I don't know which one of you entered this in the document, but I know almost nothing about this.
John:
I entered in there.
John:
You didn't read these stories like they updated like a bunch of their apps to, you know, to support the new force touch trackpad.
John:
But the most interesting one I thought was iMovie where they updated it.
John:
So like when you're dragging along the clips, you can like feel when you hit the end of the clip.
John:
Like dragging the little slider along the, you know, in iMovie they showed it.
Casey:
Yeah, I've heard that phrase, but like how?
Casey:
What are you feeling?
John:
So here's the thing about this using force touch for the UI.
John:
This is a very, it's almost a one-dimensional output device.
John:
All it does is vibrate.
John:
Maybe it can vibrate different amounts or different, you know, different amplitude and possibly different frequency, but this is not...
John:
You're not actually feeling anything.
John:
It is very, very limited.
John:
It's kind of like, you know, when they added the rumble back in Star Fox 64, where I was like, well, all it does is rumble.
John:
Yeah, you can kind of make it rumble different amounts, rumble very, you know, in bursts or whatever, but it is a very limited feedback device.
John:
All of it has to kind of be in simulating some kind of bump, right?
John:
So if you want to feel when you're scrubbing a little cursor along a clip, when you've hit the end, it goes and like, and vibrates slightly, I'm assuming.
John:
I haven't tried this in person.
John:
I've just read the articles, but this is a new, I don't know what you would call it, a new...
John:
not dimension a new vector for output from the device you've got visual you've got sound and now you've got it can make you feel something under your finger not very complicated things basically just some kind of vibration of a different uh you know strength and timing but that's not nothing and it's the type of thing where like you know we all just assume force touch will come to all the ios devices and everything
John:
And forced touch, by the way, on the watch, it's only one way, right?
John:
What do you mean?
John:
You press on the watch of varying amounts, and it senses how much you're pressing.
John:
It does not press back on your finger, right?
Casey:
Well, no, but see, this is why the nomenclature is so peculiar, because...
Casey:
And the Taptic engine does.
John:
God, I just had on the tip of my tongue and I lost it, but it'll tap you like vibrates on your wrist, but not in response to you pressing it.
John:
Right.
John:
It's not like you're scrolling through with your finger on the phone, like swiping through screens and the screen and the phone vibrates to make you feel like you feel something under your finger.
John:
I think that's correct, but I don't know.
John:
Whatever the case, on the MacBooks, they are trying to make it as a way so that you can sort of feel stuff on the screen in a very limited way.
John:
But even just in a very limited way, it's like, well, if you're going to put a horse to a trackpad and everything...
John:
And this is so easy to do.
John:
And they have a very simple API for it.
John:
And it adds just a little bit of... It's the type of thing where if you have any kind of tactile feedback, it is another... What the hell is the word I'm looking for?
John:
Another input channel.
John:
Dimension?
John:
No, it's not dimension.
John:
Another input channel for your experience that...
John:
once you get used to it being there as long as it's not annoying the lack of it will feel wrong to you in the same way that suddenly if you had to use a mac with closing your eyes or closing your ears and the same way they did things with sound like user interface sound it has to be done in a limited way if every time you scrolled a a scroll bar or a scrolling view it made some whistle noise you'd be like all right turn that off immediately and
John:
i think most i think most mac users turn off the thing that makes a sound when you're done most sort of like people listening to this podcast i think turn off the finder sounds that like crumple up paper when you empty the trash or make a ding when you copy a file from one place to the other i don't know maybe i'm crazy nope i don't neither do you leave those on yes oh my god i don't know what you guys are doing
John:
how many files you're deleting that it's such a big problem it doesn't matter just like that i don't want that to happen on my computer ever like just empty the trash don't make a noise i mean let's talk through the grouch coming out and singing me a song i don't want to see it no i mean it's
Marco:
It's useful for me because usually, because I don't know, does it do it?
Marco:
I know the trash does, but does it do it when you're moving files if it's just like a really quick, immediate thing?
Marco:
Because I know it does it after long operations.
Marco:
If you just copy, does it go bing?
Marco:
I don't even know what the sounds are, but I immediately turn them off.
Marco:
But anyway, like... Well, it's useful feedback because when you have, like, first of all, somebody like me, I very rarely empty the trash.
Marco:
I just forget to do it.
Marco:
So when I do empty the trash, it's a pretty big set of trash in there.
Marco:
And, you know, if I'm doing a big file move, it might take a while.
Marco:
So the sounds provide feedback to tell you when it's done.
Marco:
Yeah.
John:
Anyway, I'm getting as it has to be done in a subtle manner, like there's a right amount of sound for you to beeping for things or, you know, something like that makes sense, but maybe not have a sound every time you have the cursor.
John:
You know, all that type of movie sounds.
John:
It has to be.
John:
And so the same thing with the Taptic Feedback.
John:
If you just get it when you hit the bump stops in a clip in iMovie, that's fine.
John:
But if you got it every time you scrolled, it like vibrated under your finger in any app, that would be too much.
John:
So people will have to find the right balance here.
John:
But I think once they do find that balance and once it comes to every Apple device, it's just a gimme that it's like this.
John:
This makes the experience richer, even if it's so incredibly primitive at all.
John:
This is like vibrate a little bit.
John:
Just think of like if you if your phone didn't have a vibration motor in it.
John:
how much worse a device would be just for that one little wiggly piece of metal inside it and how much they can do with that.
Marco:
I'm a little worried about developers overusing this for a while and Apple also overusing this for a while.
Marco:
I did finally get a chance to try one of these in a store this week, so I was very happy about that.
Marco:
I also initially didn't believe that it was that trackpad.
Marco:
I thought, oh, this must be the old model because it clicked.
Marco:
It does feel different
Marco:
But it's like a softer click.
Marco:
And I know it's a setting, and I tried the whole range of settings they have there.
Marco:
It is still a softer click.
Marco:
It's less clicky, less feedback than you got from the old one.
Marco:
But it still feels like a click to me, and so it's great.
Marco:
My worry, and when you do the double, the deeper forced click, or whatever they're calling that one,
Marco:
That one is interesting.
Marco:
It feels fine.
Marco:
My worry with that is that now we have three different kinds of clicks.
Marco:
It's kind of like Swift.
Marco:
It looks simple and it seems simple, but it's actually just hiding complexity.
Marco:
It's not hiding complexity.
Marco:
Oh, God.
John:
We'll talk about Swift another time.
Marco:
Right, yeah.
Marco:
I'm sure we will.
Marco:
So, you know, it appears by the trackpad, it appears as though you have one button, right?
Marco:
Like the main click.
Marco:
But we all know in reality, you have a secondary click, a right click, a control click, whatever you want to call it.
Marco:
The right click menu often does important things.
Marco:
So you often need to know about it.
Marco:
So in reality, you pretty much need to know two different clicks.
Marco:
The force click is now a third one.
Marco:
It's not just a right click.
Marco:
I think it would be better if it was just a right click, but it's not.
Marco:
It's now this third thing that, like, sometimes it does a dictionary pop-up.
Marco:
Sometimes it does quick look.
Marco:
Sometimes it does other things.
Marco:
And so now it's this third level of stuff that we have to either accidentally trigger and be surprised by, which is annoying, or that we have to learn, which is, you know, possibly tricky because now it's this third thing.
Marco:
And by the way, it's completely inconsistent as to what it does on different things.
John:
or we have to ignore it in which case it's a waste so like i i wish they would have just kind of made it a right click and and just kept it simpler i don't want it to be right click just because i'm i'm concerned about how much force it's going to take to do a force click i wouldn't want to do it as a routine it's not much you know and that's the other concern if it's not much i hope it's adjustable somewhere if it's not much then i don't want people who are slow in doing a click who are very deliberate in doing a click to accidentally trigger a force click because then you have to end up turning it off for them because like i'm they're just kind of they're like
John:
i tried to click on something but a dictionary definition came up it's like well you just held it a little bit too long right and so that then you just have to disable it for them i'm hoping that you're able to disable it it would be better if there was like a delay and you could just crank the delay up so that the one time a month i have to do a force click they'll just sit there and hold their finger down pressing for like three seconds then the dictionary definition come up they'd be happy with that like i can see someone getting used to that and using that because if you try to teach them command option shift d nobody remembers it whatever the hell that that thing is
Casey:
What it reminded me a lot of was on automatic BMWs, and I think most German cars are like this, but certainly BMWs, you can floor it, and the pedal stops, and then you can kind of push through what appears to be the floorboard, and then there's a little bit more depth of the pedal.
Casey:
which is i think they call it a kickdown mode or something like that which is which is you telling the car no really freaking go and that's a lot what this um force click whatever it's called felt like you know you would click and then push a little bit harder and then you would get a second click out of it they're just telling the does it tell the the car to just downshift is that what it's trying to do in an automatic yeah it'll tell it to downshift as much as possible so what does it do in a manual
John:
i don't have one in my car nothing right it's just it's just a placebo yeah what i brought i still have not tried the force click trackpad and i really want to but what it brings to mind to me of course is the uh and uh if john roderick ever listens to this podcast he can correct me but he doesn't so he won't haha uh the uh the flight stick in the f-16 uh doesn't move i believe as in it's like force touch type thing it does not move around you just apply forces to it uh and
John:
that may seem like how can you like how can you fly a plane with a with a stick that doesn't move at all it's either this f-16 or the fd-18 perhaps it's both someone will send us the the correction uh but it's i imagine it's like the force touch trackpad where you just get used to the fact that the thing doesn't move i don't even think it has any haptic feedback it's just like that's the way you you do this thing by applying force to different directions to a thing that doesn't move so
John:
sitting there applying varying amounts of force to a glass surface that never moves and probably doesn't even flex that much seems weird but as long as there's some kind of visual or tactile feedback that you are accomplishing what you meant to do people just get used to it
Marco:
Our second sponsor this week is Automatic, your smart driving assistant on your smartphone.
Marco:
Go to automatic.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Automatic is basically this little thing that plugs into your OBD2 port.
Marco:
This is a little diagnostic port that's usually in the... Is it the driver's side footwell or the passenger?
Marco:
Drivers.
Marco:
Yeah, driver's side footwell.
Marco:
It's a little Bluetooth thing that plugs into that port, and it connects your iPhone or Android phone to your car, basically.
Marco:
So they have apps that run on iPhone and Android.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And it talks to your car and it can tell you where you've driven, how efficiently, even as you're driving.
Marco:
It can monitor real-time stats.
Marco:
It can monitor your fuel usage.
Marco:
If you want to, say, make a little ding if you're accelerating too hard to train yourself to save gas, it can do that for you.
Marco:
It can also, of course, it can track your overall economy as you're taking trips and everything, and you can see pretty graphs and everything, and you can see, oh, well, my average this week is pretty bad, or my average this week is doing great, give you all this great feedback.
Marco:
It could also call emergency services for you in a serious crash.
Marco:
That is pretty cool, and that could be a serious benefit there.
Marco:
Also, because it's plugging into the diagnostic port, it can diagnose your engine light.
Marco:
If you have a check engine light, any kind of error code in your car, it can tell you what the code means in more detail usually than what your car is telling you.
Marco:
It can also help clear the code.
Marco:
If it's some one-time thing, some cars, the code won't clear itself.
Marco:
If one time you left the gas cap a little loose, sometimes it won't clear itself after you fix it.
Marco:
automatic and clear it for you it also helps you remember where you are parked because again it has the smarts of your car plus your phone so it knows where you are and when you're whether your car is turned off so it can tell you where you parked it also has hooks with the nest learning thermostat that has a whole api now a lot it has integration with ifttt and so one of the many things it can control is a nest thermostat and
Marco:
And this lets you do things like turn on your heating or AC as you're heading home from work automatically.
Marco:
So that by the time you get home, it's the right temperature.
Marco:
And all the rest of the day, it was saving energy.
Marco:
So this is really great stuff.
Marco:
The whole API, you can do quite a lot with this thing.
Marco:
Go to automatic.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Now normally, this sells for $100.
Marco:
And this is great because there's no monthly fee.
Marco:
It's just you buy the thing for $100 up front.
Marco:
And that's it.
Marco:
You get all the services that it offers for the life of the device.
Marco:
And so again, no monthly fees, just $100 up front.
Marco:
We have a special offer now.
Marco:
It's 20% off.
Marco:
So if you buy it through automatic.com slash ATP, our special link, it is just $80.
Marco:
That includes free shipping, free two-day shipping.
Marco:
And you have a 45-day return policy.
Marco:
So if you end up not liking it for whatever reason, you have 45 days to figure that out and return it.
Marco:
So really, it's no risk.
Marco:
So go to automatic.com slash ATP, 80 bucks, free shipping, no monthly fees, 45-day return policy.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to Automatic.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So speaking of the Force Touch trackpad, apparently there may be or may not be a missing three finger drag.
Casey:
And not that I was planning on buying a MacBook, but I am thinking, like I said, of buying one of the other machines that may have this trackpad.
Casey:
And I rely on three finger swipes to do spaces, which I love.
Casey:
And I'm assuming, John, you hate because you hate anything moving anywhere on your computer.
John:
That's not why I hate spaces, but I do hate them.
Casey:
Why do you hate spaces?
Casey:
Because if I don't ask, I'm going to wonder the rest of the episode.
John:
Well, the animation is an annoyance, but I also could never get a workflow set up where I didn't wonder on which screen window.
John:
Well, I could never figure out, like, this is going to be the screen for X and this is going to be the screen for Y. Or if I tried to make a decision like that through using the system, I would...
John:
inadvertently violate that by like accidentally opening a web browser in this in the session in the space that is not for that web browser like it just never i just don't have a system for it so it just ends up making it making me have to look for stuff in two places and maybe it's just me maybe it's the way spaces work of course spaces have changed how they work over the years but it's a simplification i really just same reason i don't have two monitors i just want one big monitor and that's it
Marco:
I must say, though, I am surprised, you know, because you are such a such a window person and you're so into spatial organization of your windows.
Marco:
It does surprise me that both you don't want a second monitor and that also you don't want more space with spaces.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Like it's the idea is I want everything to be within reach.
John:
And if I have to, like, do a gesture and it's also I don't use trackpad like what Casey was saying.
John:
Like, I think having that be only just when I use a very small laptop, I
John:
I'm more likely to both go full screen in apps and use spaces.
John:
Because if you have that sort of swipe over to find something, that is more natural.
John:
But I don't use a trackpad on my desktop.
John:
And so then it's like control left or right arrow or whatever.
John:
Yeah, it's a pretty easy shortcut.
John:
I know, but it just makes it feel like things are farther away from my reach.
John:
It's like putting things in a folder in the iOS home screen.
John:
It makes things feel farther away from me, not close.
John:
I'd rather have them all in the same screen in a big jumbled pile than spread out on two different monitors.
Casey:
And this is the same reason why I can never use any mouse but the magic mouse, because on the magic mouse, it's a two finger swipe to do the same action.
Casey:
And and so from what I'm being told and from what I've seen in the chat just a moment ago, apparently it's still possible, but it's moved into accessibility preferences, which is weird.
Casey:
You saw it in the chat, did you?
Casey:
As well as the notes.
Casey:
Yes, the notes.
Yes.
Casey:
Didn't I just say that?
John:
I know, but you were like, it may or may not be.
John:
The notes say unequivocally with a link to a screenshot showing you where this option is in the accessibility prefs.
Casey:
Well, I'm sorry I didn't do enough homework, John.
John:
I know.
John:
You've got to look for the question mark.
John:
Question mark was there.
Casey:
Breaking news.
Casey:
Breaking news.
Casey:
This is absolutely factual that this is in the accessibility preference pane.
Casey:
My sources are telling me that that is absolutely true.
John:
Your sources.
John:
Anonymous tipster telling you, look at the screenshot in the show notes.
Casey:
Wow.
Casey:
Oh, goodness.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Last piece of follow-up.
Casey:
Port motivation.
Casey:
Sent in by Mila.
John:
Yeah, this is another philosophical thing, and it ties into Skylake, which we kept pushing off and we talked about its delay, but we'll talk about it a little bit later.
John:
This is from Apple's website, I believe.
John:
The most efficient way to charge a notebook is by connecting to a charger port.
John:
As long as we're going to include a port for charging the new MacBook, we wanted to make sure it was the most advanced and versatile one available.
John:
This ties into also Schiller during the keynote saying, you know, when's the most convenient time to plug into a cable?
John:
And this is a quote.
John:
He says, that's when you want to charge quickly.
John:
What do you mean charge quickly?
John:
What do you mean the most efficient way to charge a notebook?
John:
Isn't it the only way to charge a notebook?
John:
Charge quickly versus what?
John:
Is there a slower way to charge a notebook?
John:
That's it.
Marco:
You plug it in, right?
Marco:
So people are saying this is an indication of possible future inductive charging.
Marco:
Let me offer an alternative interpretation of those lines.
Marco:
I think the most efficient way to charge a notebook is...
Marco:
possibly related to power efficiency he made you know they made a point phil said it's the most energy efficient laptop i think in the world right now at least that's what that's what they said so it could just be you know because induction charging i believe is i we know it's slower i believe it's also less efficient like energy waste wise um feel free to correct me if i'm wrong but um so you know it could be related to that so you think it's like the opposite like where they're saying other people may have wireless charging but the most efficient way to charge a notebook is by plugging it in is that what you're saying
Marco:
it's very possible that was what he meant.
Marco:
And also, when you want to plug it in and charge quickly, might have just meant to kind of reinforce the idea that A, the battery life is so great that you're not going to need to spend a lot of time charging this.
Marco:
B, you're going to not be plugged in most of the time so that you're going to be unplugged and wireless and free like using iPads.
Marco:
And C, when you do plug in, he didn't want to make it sound like a burden.
Marco:
So I think that's where those quotes were coming from.
Marco:
I don't think they were foreshadowing a future of wireless charging notebooks, which I still think, for the most part, are not a good idea.
Marco:
Because you have to set... My electric toothbrush charges inductively.
Marco:
And it can do that because it is sitting on the charger the vast majority of its existence.
Marco:
The vast majority of every day it's on the charger and it's a really low power device.
Marco:
A laptop does not fit that profile.
Marco:
So for a laptop to be able to be inductively charged, you have to be able to get a ton of current in there relative to most inductive charging systems.
Marco:
You just have to get a ton of current in there from what, some giant pad you stick it on?
Marco:
I mean, then you have to carry around a giant pad.
Marco:
It's one of those things that sounds cool in theory, but in reality, I don't think it ever will hit that for laptops, at least not for a very long time.
John:
Well, this wireless charging business is and wireless stuff in general is part of Intel Skylake initiative that, you know, they always have some technologies they're pushing along with their new chips or whatever that aren't really related.
John:
Technically, sometimes there's some support in the CPU for something or other or the chipset.
John:
But anyway, because this is part of their push, it probably means that PC makers are going to roll this out to some degree.
John:
And maybe they'll be the ones to figure out, like, is this... Are we at a point where this is something that people want to actually use, yes or no?
John:
I don't know what to read on Apple's choice of words here.
John:
All of your interpretations that you said, Marco, could be true.
John:
I think the one that...
John:
probably seems the truest is the idea that they are not planning on doing wireless charger and they are preemptively poo-pooing the idea by saying you know plugging in is way more efficient you don't want that crappy wireless stuff we're all about plugging in you're going to want to plug in uh and that's why but it's like when you want to charge quickly like that's when you want to plug in a cable i don't know that i that interpretation rings the most true to me that they are
John:
because they know they don't have wireless charging available for sale now and pc makers will and they probably if if they don't if skylight comes out and every pc maker says oh and also charges wireless or whatever and apple doesn't have it
John:
Apple will want to emphasize the fact that they don't have it because it sucks.
John:
Like we could have made it, but it was not good enough for us.
John:
That's why we don't have it.
John:
Plugging in is way better.
John:
Right.
John:
Nobody wants to watch a video on an iPod size screen.
John:
Right.
John:
And like, but if it is, if they can get it to work better.
John:
And this is the other things is what I have.
John:
We're skipping out of the follow up and jumping right into the topics here.
John:
Skylake's.
John:
uh tech that they're promoting is not just wireless charging but also this y die which is not new uh wireless display and y gig for faster shorter range display and y gig hubs for usb and ethernet so like the idea is that you just put your computer down on your desk and there'll be a box on your desk with an ethernet cable connected to it and a bunch of usb things going into it and you don't have to plug anything in it's the ultimate docking station you just put your laptop down next to it
John:
And your monitor lights up with the picture from your laptop and all your USB devices that are there mount on the thing.
John:
And you switch from from Wi-Fi to Ethernet.
John:
That is something that Apple would love that I think everyone would love.
John:
And unlike wireless charging, I don't see anything stopping these things from being any worse or particularly worse than having to plug in a USB or a Thunderbolt cable.
John:
As long as the bandwidth is there and the technology works, you know, that is an experience that office workers, I think, would love and would not want to go back to clipping their stupid PC into a docking station or even even plugging in a single USB cable.
John:
It's more it's a nicer experience just to sit down at your desk, put your thing down.
John:
As long as it's within five feet of that little box, you're good to go like that.
John:
That seems like the future to me.
Casey:
Oh, I agree.
Casey:
Every time I think about a Thunderbolt display, I get jealous because I still have a regular old Samsung display at home.
Casey:
We have a litany of random displays at work and it would be amazing to just have one Thunderbolt.
Casey:
thing that i plug everything into and then that plugs into my computer or like you're saying john maybe no plugs at all it would be phenomenal and i gotta gotta be honest every time i see somebody just slam their dell into one of these docking stations and suddenly they have ethernet and displays and power and everything else i get a little jealous i really do
Marco:
See, I would say like the no wires thing is so much more difficult and has so many potential issues and shortcomings.
Marco:
I would say the ideal scenario here is the one wire method, which we are now getting with USB-C.
Marco:
So, I mean, I think we're pretty much, you know, we're there.
John:
Why do you think the no wire solution has problems?
John:
It's like super short range.
John:
It's like even shorter range than Bluetooth.
Marco:
Well, because then you have the issue of powering it.
Marco:
So you can have everything else except power.
Marco:
So then how are you powering?
Marco:
Are you powering with some kind of induction?
Marco:
Oh, no.
Marco:
Yeah, not the power I'm talking about.
Marco:
I'm talking about everything but the power.
John:
I'm talking about just... But that's a big thing.
John:
I don't think it's that big a deal because I think the signals... Sending wireless signals to these devices is not going to be any... It's going to be less power than Wi-Fi because it's shorter range, right?
John:
So the power is not a concern for the transmission and receiving end on the computer side.
John:
And if you're just worried about the fact that, well, now when I'm sitting at my desk, I'm not charging my Mac...
John:
That is the whole idea of like all day battery power.
John:
You just charge it at the end of the day.
John:
And I think that will that will cure it.
John:
It already has cured itself for the bigger laptops that even just want to talk about that 13 inch MacBook Air that gets, you know, you can you can work on it for an entire day.
John:
You do not have to plug it in.
John:
And if if they can get the new MacBook up to that level, which now it's probably borderline, but it's close, then that's not an issue anymore.
John:
Like your entire working.
John:
The only time you would plug it in is when you leave for the night.
John:
You know what I mean?
Marco:
I get that that's the dream.
Marco:
I think reality is going to be different for a long time.
John:
I think the modern laptops can make it through a day.
John:
Like I see people going to meetings, bringing the laptop.
John:
I mean, a lot of people I know don't plug it in during the day.
John:
If you have it at your house and you're not going anywhere, then why not just plug it in?
John:
So maybe this isn't attractive.
John:
But for business, all I see all day are people with stupid docking stations are constantly plugging in or unplugging their thing to the display is the big one.
John:
Because when they sit at their desk, they don't want to use the little laptop display.
John:
They want to use the big one, right?
John:
Or the multiple displays.
John:
And the constant plug-on plug, to be able to just plop it down and use it, their battery will last an eight-hour workday easy.
Marco:
Well, unless they have to run Photoshop or Xcode or Flash.
Marco:
And there's a list that keeps growing of the apps that make your CPU suck.
John:
Yeah, Photoshop, I don't know if people are running back and forth in meetings with Photoshop all the time.
John:
But I'm also just seeing people who are typing all day.
John:
So maybe that's just the bias of being around a bunch of developers, right?
John:
That they're web browsing and typing all day.
John:
And they're not even compiling code because it's like the code is on the server, right?
John:
So it's just a bunch of SSH windows or whatever.
John:
Anyway.
John:
I think the wireless display and wireless hubs like that are very attractive to me, even for at-home use.
John:
Hell, I would use it with my gigantic 50-pound Mac Pro just so I wouldn't have to have all these stupid wires going all over the place.
John:
That is a luxury that I'd be willing to pay for.
John:
For my USB hub, if that could be connected with YGIG and I don't have to figure out how to fish all these wires all over the place, I would buy that for a computer that never moves.
Marco:
yeah but then you'd have to upgrade your mac pro which would never happen so i know i just i just attach some crazy ass don hey i've got pci slots free i can just put it in there yeah i'm sure that i'm sure that this technology will come in in pci express desktop slot format yeah there's plenty of room in there who knows i have a whole daughter card hang i can put a mac mini inside my mac pros case and just use that you can fit many mac minis inside your mac that's right i just got to get rid of these two optical drives have plenty of room in there
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Is there anything else on Skylake or do we want to jump backwards in the notes to model lineup?
John:
Yeah, that's a quickie left over from last week.
John:
I think we can jump backwards to that briefly.
John:
I put that in there to remind me.
John:
This is kind of like a on the eve of the actual Apple Watch release to the general public.
John:
Tim Cook's first big new product category that, you know, that everyone cares about.
John:
His first big test sort of getting out from under the shadow of Steve Jobs.
John:
He's no longer the steward of the company taking control over it.
John:
i started thinking back on like what what does tim cook's apple look like and how does it differ than steve jobs's apple and one particular way that i've seen a lot of people bringing up lately and has been thinking about as well is what is tim cook's philosophy about the model lineup versus steve jobs and a lot of people talked about oh the model lineup is getting more complicated and
John:
and Steve Jobs loved to have a simplified product line.
John:
And Tim Cook, even though he goes on shows and says, all of Apple's products can fit on this table, when people post pictures of the Apple website and say, just look at all these freaking options.
John:
It's not like Dell.com yet, but there's a lot more products and a lot more options.
John:
Granted, a lot of that has to do with the fashion and the watch bands and selling laptops in different colors.
John:
It's not really that big.
John:
But what made me think about it the most was when they introduced the new MacBook,
John:
They didn't get rid of the errors.
John:
In fact, they revised them.
John:
And the history of Tim Cook's Apple of introducing new models, but keeping the old ones around both as part of like the overall iOS strategy, but also like for the Macs and stuff.
John:
A Steve Jobs style move would be to introduce the new MacBook and get rid of the errors.
John:
And why would he do that?
John:
because the the airs are crap even if they were upgraded they wouldn't be as good this new one is the future of laptops this is what you should be using this is the replacement for the airs you know we'll sell out the inventory we have but this is the future and people would complain because they would say but but but it doesn't do what the airs do here and that and there's no 11 inch model and this 11 inch model had thunderbolt and all these things uh and the steve jobs philosophy was always when they come out with a new thing
John:
Everyone get on board.
John:
The new thing is the new thing.
John:
I can't even look at the old thing, and I can't even look at that old computer.
John:
It was so disgusting to me that we just need to get it out of line.
John:
And Tim Cook's philosophy is not like that.
John:
Tim Cook's philosophy, as far as I can tell, is much more pragmatic to say, although we think this is the best one and people should buy this,
John:
There's no harm in keeping the other ones around until we have replacements.
John:
In fact, we can revise them and make them a little bit better.
John:
And yeah, they're probably going to be phased out.
John:
But in the meantime, let's just keep selling them.
John:
Basically, if people are buying them, keep selling them.
John:
Why are we taking away models that people want to buy and trying to force them to buy the model that we think they should buy, right?
John:
And that I think, if I'm even close in this, and I don't have like huge reams of supporting it, and it's just a general feeling from seeing the different model lines is...
John:
One of the first things I've seen that is a difference between Tim Cook's Apple and Steve Jobs Apple, besides things like obviously their demeanor and the the charitable contributions and all that other stuff that's kind of extracurricular, like talk about the products and the product lines themselves.
John:
Tim Cook's Apple seems much more like a regular business in that they're not going to leave money on the table, but pulling products that people still want to buy, where Steve Jobs' Apple would pull products that people still want to buy, basically for philosophical reasons, because he can't stand to look at the old ones because the new one is better.
John:
And that's just what he wants to do.
John:
And that is the strongest...
John:
Thing I felt about the Tim Cook's Apple differs from Steve Jobs's Apple, I think, in history of all the little things that we've ever talked about.
John:
And I don't want to know if you guys like, do you feel that as well?
John:
Or am I crazy?
John:
And Steve Jobs did exactly the same thing as Tim Cook is doing.
John:
I'm just misremembering.
Casey:
No, I think this seems different during my tenure as an Apple fan.
Casey:
I wonder if this has to do with Tim being a supply chain guy and not fearing that.
Casey:
Not to say that that's what motivated Steve, because I think you're right.
Casey:
I think Steve is motivated by this is the new hotness.
Casey:
You will like it or you will screw off.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I think with Tim, it's it's a little like you had said, John, well, what's it going to hurt?
Casey:
And I think it's a lot of well, I know it's not going to hurt anything because I used to do this.
Casey:
And I know how the supply chain works.
Casey:
And I know that this we can handle this.
Casey:
I mean, does that sound reasonable?
John:
It's not like that supply is like being counting, but that's that's a pejorative.
John:
Like it's not, you know, oh, we can make a few extra cents here because like Apple did keep old models around when they had to.
John:
People in the chat room point out like they would they would often say this model will still be available, but only for education purposes.
John:
Like Steve Jobs wasn't totally out of touch with the needs of the customers.
John:
If there's some big important customer base, which used to be education back in the day was saying like, well, education really needs this.
John:
So we're going to keep selling it, but we're only going to sell it to education rather than selling it to everybody.
John:
And that
John:
You know, I'm sure there have been cases where Steve Jobs did not immediately wipe out the new model with the old models with the new.
John:
But when he could, you could tell that.
John:
I mean, just you felt from him that he wanted you to like this new one as much as he does.
John:
And part of helping you along that path would be to take away the old one.
John:
So your only choice is the new one.
Right.
Marco:
I mean, I think this is kind of a combination of factors.
Marco:
Part of it is probably the Tim Cook method or Tim Cook's principles coming up, where this is the way he chooses to run things.
Marco:
I think, though, this did start under Steve.
Marco:
And it might have just corresponded with the rise of Tim Cook's authority and power in the company.
Marco:
And as Steve started having more severe medical issues in his last few years, as Tim ran more of the company...
Marco:
So it might have been that overlap.
Marco:
I think it's also a sign of Apple just maturing as a company.
Marco:
They now have way more customers than they did before.
Marco:
They have products that span much larger price ranges.
Marco:
The old small product lines were all expensive.
Marco:
Now they have products that start at moderate prices and go into expensive.
Marco:
So they have more product lines.
Marco:
And also...
Marco:
A lot of the technology really has slowed down.
Marco:
I mean, the phones keep advancing pretty aggressively, although even that's starting to slow down a little bit.
Marco:
But if you look at the MacBooks, or the Mac in general, advancement in PCs has been... And I'm including Macs in that.
Marco:
Advancement in PCs...
Marco:
has been pretty slow in the last five or ten years.
Marco:
The SSD transition was the big thing that happened.
Marco:
And Retina is happening mostly, but it's happening more slowly.
Marco:
Well, both of those are happening slowly.
Marco:
But once you go Retina and SSD, those are two big jumps.
Marco:
And then CPUs have kind of gone nowhere in the last few years.
Marco:
They've made very small improvements at best.
Marco:
um you know everything's kind of like not at a standstill but certainly slowing down uh and so you know hardware that was perfectly fine a few years ago is still perfectly fine today uh the difference between between like the performance of the macbook air versus the performance of the 15 inch matters a lot less uh today you know for what most people do so there's all these like
Marco:
It just seemed like the hardware has gotten so good that you don't need to be in as big of a rush to get rid of the old stuff.
Marco:
And the new stuff isn't so dramatically much better that everyone is forced or everyone is strongly encouraged to buy it instead.
Marco:
There's still room in the lineup.
Marco:
And so by keeping old lines around or by keeping more lines around than the original Steve Four Boxes thing...
Marco:
I think it allows them to serve way more customers in a way that doesn't necessarily hurt anybody.
Marco:
It's not really that confusing for the most part.
Marco:
Occasionally, there's some weird overlap, but usually that's resolved within a couple years.
Marco:
I just think for the most part, this is just a sign of both the PC industry and Apple maturing.
John:
I don't know if it's a maturing thing, but like the because I don't I can't decide which is which is particularly better, which which shows more maturity, because this the type of thing of keeping products around is just like lots of business always does.
John:
Like it's not it's not a new phenomenon.
John:
It's not.
John:
a sign of a young or an old company all companies do it because it's basically smart from a business perspective like people want to give you money for a product keep selling it to them until it doesn't make sense for you to sell it to them because not enough people buy it like the 17 inch macbook or whatever whatever it was called when it went away didn't go away i'm assuming for a philosophical reason when right because not enough people buy them right that's you know it's why the mac bro didn't get updated for a long time you know like
John:
volumes can make you discontinue a product line but when you have something like this where the new macbook comes out uh and like it basically obsoletes all the other the airs like it should have just been called it like people expected to be called an air and wipe out all the airs but it's like this is this is a discontinuity in the same way that the first air was a discontinuity and the first unibody was discontinuity in their laptop design is clearly this is the spearhead of the new design philosophy for laptops like
John:
There's been generations where they just get revved, revved, rev, and then Retina.
John:
And then, you know, then this is like, I would say it's like, you know, aluminum, aluminum unibody, first air, you know, aluminum.
John:
And then I guess the first air was the first unibody.
John:
So that's two in one.
John:
And then and then this and this is like totally removing ports, slim at all costs.
John:
Retina like has has the screen of the pros, but the the power and size of the airs.
John:
And, like, it's such an overlap.
John:
Like, why keep... You understand keeping, like, maybe an old thing around or a cheaper thing around or the non-retina one around because it's cheaper.
John:
But, like, the overlap with the Ares is insane with this thing.
John:
Like, it's like, what do you... It doesn't send a clear message.
John:
Are you saying this is the future of things, but you can still buy these other ones?
John:
Why would I buy these other ones?
John:
When you go into an Apple store...
John:
How will they explain to you to choose between the I guess it's like the crappy screen versus non crappy screen, but why keep around with the one with the crappy screen?
John:
Like, I totally believe not that again, not this makes it good or bad, but I totally believe that Steve Jobs would have gotten rid of the heirs like he would have sold out the inventory.
John:
And the new MacBook would have come out and that would have taken the spot in the line.
John:
And for a while, their line would not be correctly proportioned, but eventually they would all convert and everything would be fine.
John:
Instead, the Tim Cook model line philosophy is, of course, you keep selling the Airs.
John:
Eventually, we won't.
John:
Eventually, they'll go away.
John:
Obviously, we're not going to keep...
John:
revving that line probably or if we do they're going to they're going to transform to be things that have one or zero usbc ports on them right like no one expects the airst the next revision of the airst to still have thunderbolt ports on them right like they're going to all look like the new macbook and so will the pros eventually in terms of the port layouts and everything like that is the new design philosophy and it's just weird to see them co-existing i think the the jobs philosophy is bolder and sort of expresses the intent of apple like their vision of technology out into the world and
John:
in a way, in a stronger way, in the same way that it annoys people because you take away their products, it sends the message to everyone else that like, this is our vision of the future and we are leading, right?
John:
And the Tim Cook way is more sort of
John:
This is our vision of the future, but we understand if you're not ready for it yet, we also have another product that's actually pretty darn good and you can still buy it.
John:
Eventually they'll go away.
John:
It seems more chill and it's less exciting to me as an observer.
John:
It's probably better for the business, business-wise short term.
John:
I don't know if it's better long term if taken to its logical conclusion.
John:
where you just sell models forever until people stop buying them.
John:
Because I think people will continue to buy models that they quote-unquote shouldn't for a really long time.
John:
And sometimes you have to sort of herd them along to the new model by taking away the old model at the same time you bring in the new ones.
Marco:
Yeah, that's fair.
Marco:
I mean, I think maybe a lot of it might have to do with how much of a compromise in certain ways the new one is versus the old one.
Marco:
Like, the greatest example, I think, of Steve killing off an old product when the new one came out was the iPod Mini going to the iPod Nano.
John:
uh that was like the canonical example of like and he even said on stage it's like the ipod mini was like our best-selling ipod ever and we're discontinuing it today and people would have kept buying the mini if they kept selling it it came in more colors people loved it the form factor and everything even though you'd look at it be like who the hell would buy this thing when the nano is out even though the nano scratches like hell right but who the hell would buy this thing when the nano is available people would keep buying them because they first they came in you know yellow and pink or whatever they came in gold right the first gold thing right and they'll like
John:
By making that decision, it wasn't just bold and showing their vision of the future.
John:
It was forcing the world to move on faster than they would have otherwise, which is upsetting to some people.
John:
But it has, you know, it's the advantage that Apple has that they can sort of herd their customer base along at a faster clip than everybody else because they're not afraid to take away products the customers still like.
Marco:
Well, but in that example of the iPod Mini to Nano, the ways the Nano was worse than the Mini or more limiting were very small.
Marco:
It had less capacity, but not by a whole lot.
Marco:
I think it was like 6 gigs versus 4, something like that.
Marco:
So it was a relatively small drop in capacity.
Marco:
It was a first-gen product that got scratches all over it.
John:
I mean, that's the whole thing.
John:
If you're saying this is the bold new vision and if your first gen project has some sort of problems like, oh, well, I'll just buy the old one.
John:
Oh, wait, I can't.
John:
They took that one away.
Marco:
Well, but for the most part, you know, I don't think people are doing that kind of calculus of like, oh, well, let me just, you know, wait till the problems surface and buy the old one.
Marco:
Like, I don't think anybody except you puts that much thought into that.
Marco:
But like that was an easy transition to force because the new one was a lot better in some really critical ways.
Marco:
And the ways in which it was worse than the old one or more limiting were fairly minor.
Marco:
Whereas when you look at something like now, the new MacBook versus the MacBook Air, the ways in which it is worse or more limiting than the old one are pretty big still.
Marco:
It's pretty substantial.
Marco:
The port differences are massive.
Marco:
The keyboard might be significantly worse.
Marco:
We don't know yet.
Marco:
We'll see.
Marco:
And then in these new ways, it is way better.
Marco:
It is thinner, lighter, somewhat longer battery life, at least compared to the 11-inch probably.
Marco:
It's also, although unfortunately, it's also probably a lot slower CPU-wise.
Marco:
So this one, I think you can look at the easy transition of the iPod Mini to Nano.
Marco:
That's a no-brainer.
Marco:
The MacBook Air to new MacBook, I think forcing that on people, not leaving that old option behind until some of the stuff shakes out and matures, that would be, I think, a lot more damaging, especially because the MacBook Air line, maybe not the 11, I don't know, but probably the 13,
Marco:
That's probably their best-selling computer.
John:
Well, that's the Tim Cook reason not to get rid of it because people are still buying a ton of them.
John:
And like the Steve Jobs would be like, I don't care.
John:
Again, the iPod Mini, people are buying a ton of them.
John:
I'm thinking of even a more boring one like when the, I forget what you want to call it, but the iMac with the big metal arm with the first flat panel iMac.
John:
Remember that one?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Right.
John:
So the previous iMacs with the CRTs with all the pretty colors, people would have kept buying them too, especially if they were slightly cheaper or got slightly cheaper when the thing came out.
John:
um or well apparently we're not going to get to again this week but the apple tv is another example uh do you think they'll keep selling the 69 dollar one when the new one comes out maybe it's i think they've already told us they will it's a tim cook kind of thing to do right but a steve jobs thing is this is the new apple tv and the old one is gone this is the new iMac and the old iMac is gone right
Marco:
Well, I believe the whole thing everyone's jumping on about how they said the Apple TV starting at 69.
John:
I think that tells you right there that I don't think you need to see that to know that a new Apple TV is come.
John:
Look, if they're going to do the Apple TV as a product, they have to revise it sometime.
John:
And when they drop them, they drop the price on the old one.
John:
Of course, they're going to.
Yeah.
Marco:
No, but I'm saying that, I think, indicates that this isn't just going to be for sale at this price for six months or whatever and then be discontinued.
Marco:
I think it's just going to be the bottom of the line.
Marco:
It's going to keep being sold forever.
Marco:
We're going to have A5.
Marco:
Look, they're still selling the freaking iPod Touch.
Marco:
Last updated in, what, 2012?
Marco:
I know, I know.
John:
Yeah, I mean, like... That's what I'm saying.
John:
This type of philosophy, the Tim Cook's Apple philosophy...
John:
And maybe the tail end of Steve Jobs' Apple philosophy was you keep selling products as long as people keep wanting to buy them within reason.
John:
Like, you know, eventually not enough people want to buy them or there's no place in your product line for it.
John:
But if there's still a place in your product line, we'll just, you know, like the iPod Touch.
John:
Why do the iPod Touch still even exist?
John:
Well, I mean, they don't sell a lot of them.
John:
We see their sales number.
John:
It's not as if tons of people are selling them, but enough people are buying them that it's like, well...
John:
why not whereas at this point i think steve jobs would have lost faith in the ipod touch as a product and just canned it i mean they're still selling the uh the non-retina macbook pro with this with the dvd rom drive i know i know with the optical drive again because like optical drives we're taking the optical drives away soon they'll be gone from all our products except this one thing will linger on forever because we know there's somehow enough people who want to buy it with an optical drive it's not just educate like education is another thing like corporate sales or education where it's like we demand this and we're a big customer you know they've always been able to
John:
you know as we said in the past shows apple used to make specific products just for education like that's how important education was as a customer now they'll just keep all the ones around but they're just you know having the one with the cd drive in it or having non-retina macbooks still for sale or having the air still for sale it's
John:
It's not so much that it confuses the line, but it is definitely not like Apple clearly speaking out and saying, this is the future.
John:
These are our products.
John:
And I think Tim Cook's table where he keeps all the products is going to have to be a pretty darn big table pretty soon.
Marco:
yeah i mean that that that that big glass watch box takes up probably half the table now yeah the watches you can put in a jumble in a pile but you gotta have all those different all those different varieties of macbooks and the and the the big iMacs and yeah i guess you can put the two mac pros anyway does each color of like the ipads and everything does that does each color counts although if you if you line ipads up like a bookshelf like on the on their ends and like just you know stick them between exactly you stack them yeah they're stackable but
John:
yeah i guess you could stack the laptops too i think that's a strategy it's the 3d strategy start stacking all of our products fold flat except for i guess the imac and the tubes we can kind of stack like cordwood so you can get them on the table someone should do that someone who had too much money should say how big a table do you need to put all the products apple sells in and i mean all of them i want all the colors all the bands for all the watches all the different models of ipads with different wi-fi and and you know the colors for the ipads too anyway yeah
John:
That was my thought on the Model Line philosophy.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
We good?
Marco:
Before we forget, since it's been an entire show plus an entire hour since the Nintendo thing was announced and we still haven't talked about it, let's talk about the Nintendo thing now.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So, John, who did Nintendo sell to?
John:
Nobody insult anybody.
John:
They did a partnership deal with DNA, which is spelled capital D, lowercase E, capital N, capital A, instead of Dana, which would be better.
John:
I've been saying Dina in my head.
John:
I guess that you're what makes a lot more sense.
John:
It's DNA.
John:
And it's a partnership with them.
John:
They're a company that makes mobile games.
John:
And this is basically Nintendo saying...
John:
we don't know how to make mobile games uh we need mobile games quickly we don't have time to learn how to make mobile games therefore this company that we're going to partner with will make mobile games for us using our intellectual property i would imagine that nintendo is still in a position strong enough to make this partnership the way they usually do which is
John:
You will make a game for us, but we will tell you that your game is crappy and tell you how to change it.
John:
Sort of like when Retro Studios made Metroid Prime.
John:
Oh, Retro Studios, they're making Metroid Prime, right?
John:
Yeah, they're making Metroid Prime.
John:
And then Miyamoto comes and tells them how their game sucks and how they have to change it.
John:
And they repeat that process over and over again until Miyamoto is satisfied.
John:
And then you get to release what you call Metroid Prime.
John:
And it's like...
John:
We want you to do the part that you're good at, which is we have no idea how to do this mobile development stuff.
John:
But I would imagine that Nintendo is still in the same kind of position Apple's in with its suppliers.
John:
We are Nintendo.
John:
We'll tell you when you've done a good enough job.
John:
This partnership deal heavily favors us, but it is a partnership deal.
John:
This is not a strength move.
John:
This is a weak, a sign of weakness, a sign that
John:
We need money.
John:
Our products aren't selling because we made bad choices when we designed them.
John:
We need games.
John:
We need revenue.
John:
We can't ignore mobile.
John:
We also can't make mobile games on our own.
John:
I think partnering is probably a good idea because
John:
Nintendo has shown they are fairly incompetent in all the parts of making games except for the part where you play the game.
John:
Like networking, friend systems, the equivalent of Xbox Live type stuff, app stores, trying to digitally buy games from Nintendo is like pulling teeth.
John:
It's like, have they never, you know, the joke is always like that.
John:
all nintendo's employees are never allowed to use any other game system nor are they allowed to have smartphones they're probably not also allowed to use the internet and that's why they have no idea how the rest of the world works so you know if you find yourself entering friend codes or trying to buy something from the e-shop and going through 8 000 steps or trying to transfer your stuff from one of nintendo's platforms to another and taking a million steps for that involving swapping sd cards or realizing that your games are tied to your hardware not to use your account which is just mind-boggling in its wrongness and craziness and
John:
being out of step with the rest of the industry.
John:
All that leads me to believe that they made the right move by partnering, um,
John:
but it's not a strength move.
John:
It's kind of a sad situation, and I'm not quite sure what's going to come of it.
John:
A partnership deal doesn't mean anything.
John:
They haven't announced any games.
John:
All they said is all of Nintendo's intellectual property is up for grabs, and hopefully some fruit will come from this in the future.
John:
They've also said, by the way, they're not porting their games, which means that this company is going to be making new games, so don't expect insert your favorite Nintendo game here is going to appear on your mobile phone because it's not.
John:
They are absolutely not porting any of their games, which means they have to make new games, and those new games, I think...
John:
are not going to be what Nintendo fans want.
John:
It's not like, oh, I would love it, a 2D side-scrolling Metroid on my phone.
John:
I'm thinking that's not what you're going to get.
John:
I'm thinking you're going to get something more like the Pokemon shuffle game they made for the I think it was for the 3DS.
John:
It's like it's a simpler mobile style focused game using Nintendo intellectual property, but it is not.
John:
Let me just take what I think of as a typical Nintendo console or handheld game and shove it onto a mobile phone because A, that wouldn't work.
John:
And B, that's just not what this partnership seems like it's about to me.
Marco:
Well, I don't think that's as big of a problem as some people are going to say because Nintendo's fans are already buying their stuff.
Marco:
This is not to attract Nintendo's fans to suddenly start playing Nintendo games on their smartphones.
Marco:
Because if you're a Nintendo fan, you already have one of their systems, or at least one of their systems, and you're already buying all their little plastic accessories and everything, and you're fine.
Marco:
This is trying, I would assume, this is trying to attract new customers who aren't yet Nintendo fans.
Marco:
And this, I think, is going to be a real uphill battle for them.
Marco:
I really don't see this succeeding.
Marco:
I mean, I could be wrong.
Marco:
I'm wrong about a lot of things, but...
Marco:
I think this is going to be tough because the risk of the games being crappy, or at least nothing special, is very high.
Marco:
As you said, it sounds like Nintendo is basically... I mean, they bought a chunk of DNA, so they're serious about it, but I think these are basically just going to be DNA games that happen to include Nintendo characters in them.
John:
Well, that's where I was getting into Miyamoto coming and scolding them because their game's not good enough.
John:
Because I imagine this partnership, whatever the deal is, they buy 10% of the company.
John:
Nintendo is the senior partner here by a lot.
John:
And so they have a lot of control over how...
John:
Because they're saying you can use any of our IP, I think Nintendo is still going to be very protective of its IP and not inclined to release a game that's terrible.
John:
And I think you're right about this is aimed at... It's money that's been left on the table saying, look, these people are never going to buy a Nintendo console, but they would totally willingly buy...
John:
a one dollar ios game featuring mario why are we not taking their money it's not even like we expect them to go out and buy a 3ds or reu it's just like they will buy this ios game it won't cost us that much to make it why are we not making it for them it's not like we're saying oh we're going to make this game instead of instead of a new real mario game we're going to make this game instead of a new console metric no
John:
They're going to still make all those games.
John:
But why are we not taking these people's money or looking at the nicer way?
John:
Why are we not giving them some cute little, you know, mobile game featuring our characters to play?
John:
Why not?
John:
What is, you know, and the reason was because we have no idea how to do that.
John:
And we're really bad at making those parts of the games.
John:
But
John:
We don't need to build those expertise in-house.
John:
We don't need to distract our engineers from their, you know, working on our next generation handheld slash console project.
John:
We can just partner with this and then we can drive this partner who is the junior partner to make sure that they are respectable or intellectual property and release a game that is at the very least
John:
a good game and is competent.
John:
Is it going to set the world on fire?
John:
Is it going to be great?
John:
Maybe it won't even sell as much as Crossy Road, but it will... I think they'll be profitable, right?
John:
Because DNA, like you said, already has the ability to make these games.
John:
The intellectual property is the real valuable thing, and that's what's going to make someone buy this game versus, you know...
John:
any other random game with less recognizable characters and the secondary effect is possibly it could have the effect of scrubbing at least the iOS store clean of the million games that have pictures of Mario and Zelda in them well so the idea that that people will value these games higher because they have Nintendo IP in them
Marco:
I'm not sure that's a given.
John:
Oh, it's a given.
John:
They will buy them more.
John:
I don't know if they'll value them higher, but they will be more likely to buy them.
Marco:
Well, some people will be more likely to buy them, but I would bet the vast majority of people who buy games on iOS have never heard of Mario.
Marco:
Everybody's heard of Mario Wii.
Marco:
More people heard of him than Mickey Mouse.
Marco:
I would bet that the average age of iOS game buyers is low, first of all.
Marco:
Lower than, you know, 35.
Marco:
So, you know, lower than us, basically, by a significant amount.
Marco:
And that if the people they're trying to attract are new fans who don't already have Nintendo allegiance, they've probably never owned a Nintendo system.
John:
It's not that they're new fans, it's that they are people who... It's like the same way that you're aware of Mickey Mouse, maybe you never go to Disney World.
John:
It's like...
John:
I'm never going to buy a Nintendo console because I'm an Xbox guy.
John:
But I heard all the Nintendo characters, and I will buy a $1 game, and I'm more likely to buy the $1 game that has Mario in it.
John:
In fact, the Mario $1 game is more likely to be advertised, to be featured, for my friends to have bought it.
John:
It's just, it's...
John:
it is the intellectual property drives this and as you said before it could drive it in a way that you it makes people buy crappy games i'm hoping the games at least be reasonable but it's it's not like you're trying to convert them and it's not like you're going to find people who've never heard of mario you're finding people who yeah i've heard of mario but i'm still never going to buy a nintendo console but you will tap the button for 99 cents
Casey:
Also, you forget, Marco, that consoles, at least the way I define them, aren't necessarily tied to a TV.
Casey:
I mean, there are a gazillion handheld Nintendo devices out there.
Casey:
And as far as I knew, even reasonably little kids today are still using like 3DSs and things like that.
Casey:
I don't know, John, you could probably tell me better than...
John:
The 3DS has been more successful than the Wii U, which is not saying much because the Wii U has been very honest.
John:
And the rumors of the next generation project there, these are old rumors, so who knows what the hell's there now, is the idea that they would be unifying their platform so that they are not so different to develop for.
John:
Whether that means they're going to release something that works as a handheld system but can also hook up to your TV or whether it just means that they're going to use the same underlying technology so there's not this gulf.
John:
So they have to develop a game twice because the, you know, in the same way that desktop and laptop performance has been becoming closer now, handheld performance.
John:
And at least in the use case, you can imagine Nintendo making a single writing a game that runs both on their TV connected console and on their handheld one, whether those are two separate devices or not.
John:
Basically because handheld consoles have good enough graphics now that you wouldn't be embarrassed to see them on the TV.
John:
Many years ago, that was not the case.
John:
They've been converging towards each other.
John:
That has little to do with this.
John:
I think this has entirely to do with
John:
What about the people who are never going to buy or play any of those type of games?
John:
They will only ever buy games on their phone.
John:
Why are we not selling them something?
Casey:
Right, right.
Casey:
No, I'm responding to Marco saying nobody knows who Mario is in so many words.
Casey:
And I think that a lot more people know who Mario is, even today, even young people than you would suspect.
Casey:
Another thing that I don't think we're considering is...
Casey:
I've got to imagine that if Nintendo released a game in the App Store, that Apple will fall all over them and they'll be featured and there'll be all sorts of App Store marketing.
Casey:
And I suspect that you will definitely see that all over the App Store.
John:
Yeah.
John:
you know keyword trolling and it's got nintendo electoral property in the freaking icon and in the game and that is like on the app store right now yeah underscore tweeted that earlier yeah i was like it's fantastic i mean i know it's not apple's responsibility to police these things but no it is you would think that nintendo would would wake up like nintendo can hire one person all day just to go through the the ios store and just send cease and desist letters and like because you know they'll apple will take them off the store in a second
John:
Well, they used to.
John:
Oh, they will.
John:
They will take, I mean, all they need, it's bureaucracy.
John:
All you need is your own bureaucrat to communicate with their bureaucrats and bureaucraties and everything else.
John:
it would be great if nintendo could could get the sweet deal that uh that uh music uh and video copyright owners have with youtube where youtube does the policing for them and just takes down anything that has that looks like it might be copyrighted in any way it like preemptively takes it down well that's partly because i mean youtube was a platform that was created and thrived on completely ripping off everything from everybody i mean i know it's different now but that's like that's its origin and
John:
But the fact that they'll do it preemptively and on behalf, like Apple system is one actually that makes sense.
John:
It's like, look, it's not our job to police your intellectual property.
John:
If you see someone violating your intellectual property, tell us.
John:
And even then, Apple will favor, will assume that you are right and take it down, I think.
John:
But like YouTube, the big thing is like, who is it?
John:
It does the every frame of painting channel on YouTube, which is great, by the way.
John:
uh he puts up videos you know that talk about scenes from films and of course you know all the videos have scenes from different movies but it's fair use because it's like he's using it to talk about film right he's not putting the entire movie up but there is a scene from the movie in the video and his videos always get taken down they just automatically get taken down for copyright violations and then he has to go through this bureaucratic process where they tell him you have to take it down and he has to fill out a form and say it's fair use and then they deny him and you go back and forth and back and forth eventually they go back up after like three days a week a month uh
John:
it's terrible that like you are presumed guilty and have to prove your innocence and it's not even proving because it's just a big machine sending out like we notice that you're using copyrighted stuff we take you down immediately if you think this is an error please fill out these 18 forms and fight with this record company muvu studio or whatever until they give up like and the movies that are really cared they can just say we're taking this all the way to court and then you then they win because you can't afford to hire a lawyer but for the most part it's just a matter of filling out forms repeatedly to get youtube to bring it back up but
John:
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that Nintendo should at least have somebody looking at the freaking store and filling out the forms, right?
John:
Instead of just letting them linger there.
John:
Because, you know, this shows that this was Nintendo's blind spot.
John:
Why are you pretending mobile games don't exist on phones?
John:
Why can't you put something there?
John:
Which is very different than the idea, Nintendo, you should stop making consoles, you should stop making handhelds, you should stop making games that work on consoles and handhelds.
John:
And concentrate entirely on making games that work on mobile devices, which is not what they're doing.
John:
But the fact that they have to go do this, it's basically for the survival of the company.
John:
It's to say there is money available out there that we're not taking and we need to take it because we're not doing that hot because nobody's buying Wii U and not many people buying 3DSs.
John:
That's kind of sad.
Marco:
Yeah, but I don't, I mean, we'll see.
Marco:
Again, I'm wrong a lot, but I don't think this is going to solve that problem.
John:
Well, they still have, I mean, their root problem is still the same.
John:
You need to, you know, again, as I've said many times in the past, if there exists a market for devices that mostly pay games, it is possible for Apple or Apple, for Nintendo to do well in that market.
John:
It's not guaranteed, but it is possible because they have all the skills necessary to do well in that market, minus a few that they can kind of learn if they get their act together, right?
John:
But if we ever get to the point where there is no way to do that, where you cannot be a company that sells things that mostly play games, they're screwed because they can't field a phone platform or they'd have to go Sega and say, all we do now is make software for other people's platforms.
John:
ios android whatever else are out there and that worked out great for sega exactly right and so it's you know but it's right now there's definitely a market for home consoles the xbox one playstation 4 are doing well nintendo's not doing well because they made a bad product that people don't want so oh well do they have a second chance next is there going to be a next generation of consoles will there be a playstation 5 and xbox i don't know what the hell they're gonna name the next one that's their problem whatever if there is a next generation of products xbox 10
John:
Yeah, why not?
John:
Why not just skip to 10 like Windows?
John:
Nintendo may have a second shot at this, right?
John:
And that's with the NX thing.
John:
Are they going to make the same stupid mistakes with their next shot?
John:
Hopefully not.
John:
Hopefully they will learn from their past mistakes.
John:
that's that's their root problem it's like this is kind of keeping the boat afloat and maybe getting some money uh and maybe you know try i mean you can imagine like if they do this well like there can be interactions where there's an ios game that interacts with the game that is available on the wii u for like companion apps type of things they do that for like mac apps where there's a companion ios app or websites where there's a companion ios app like that's a potential market as well but this is all just kind of like let's keep the lights on and fund our next thing but the real the real proof of whether nintendo's gonna
John:
go the route of sega or be resurgent is is there a next generation of consoles and if there is does nintendo do a good job and the rumors are that nintendo is because the wii u is doing so terribly is going to be like uh yeah yeah wii u will make the games we said we were going to make for it but we're kind of in a hurry to sort of shuffle the wii u off the stage and show you our next thing like that they will be the first ones out of the gate that the ps4 and xbox one will go link go on many many years after nintendo has already revved to do the next generation console but
John:
We'll see.
John:
They still have to make a good console.
John:
They still have to make good games that people want to play.
John:
They have to make the right choices.
John:
That's what the future of the company is staked on, not so much this deal.
Casey:
So before we go, out of curiosity, if you had to pick one existing piece of IP to be made into an iOS game, what would that be?
Casey:
And the obvious answer is Zelda because I know you love it so much, but I'm not sure if perhaps you think something else would translate better.
John:
I don't think Zelda would translate particularly well either.
John:
The problem is all the intellectual property that I really care about from Nintendo.
John:
I like because of the games they were featured in.
John:
And most of those games are console games and console games tend not to translate well to a touchscreen or to like iOS type gaming.
John:
You know, there's a reason that the genres that do well on iOS are what they are.
John:
Like they're not the same genres that do well on consoles or on PCs because it's just a different play environment.
John:
Like the infinite runners, tower defense, board games, all those genres work on a tiny little touch screen.
John:
None of those genres are the genres that, you know, Metroid or Zelda or even Mario, like platforming doesn't work that well on handhelds either.
John:
Like it's the genres that become popular on each platform become popular for a reason.
John:
So I think.
John:
There's no particular intellectual property that I think would translate really well.
John:
Maybe Star Fox because there are some sort of flying around games.
John:
But honestly, I think it's it's more like what Marco was saying, only not quite the cynical version where it's like they're going to make a game.
John:
I'm not going to say this is a silly example, like make a match three game, but put Nintendo characters in the little things.
John:
Right.
John:
That's that's the silly, cynical example, like not that bad, but similar.
John:
some kind of infinite runner some kind of tower defense game some kind of board game with a bunch of nintendo faces on things but actually done well because all those genres can be done when well and poorly look at alto's adventure it is kind of like an infinite runner but if you do a really really good job with it it can stand head and shoulder above the other games that do similar things right same thing with all the other the genres that are popular in mobile so
John:
i'm my ties to nintendo intellectual property have almost nothing to do with the characters and everything to do with the games they appear in because those games have been exemplary that is what that's why sonic is not valued anymore no one cares about sonic if he repeatedly appears in crap games then you're like you know what sonic sucks science doesn't suck the games featuring him sucked why do people care about mario who cares he's a freaking plumber he's not a you know but because they make awesome games they respect that that ip so much they do not allow mario to be
John:
Again, he's in a real Mario platform game.
John:
They polish the hell out of that game.
John:
That's why, you know, Super Mario 3D World and Mario Galaxy and everything.
John:
That's why people still love Mario because they know when I see him in a game and it's a real Mario game and it's a platformer, it is going to be an amazingly good game.
John:
Whereas when you see Sonic in a game, you're like, why even bother?
John:
It's going to be crap.
John:
And it is.
Marco:
My worry for Nintendo is, you know, you keep saying, which I think is a good argument, that as long as they can do well, they can still survive as long as there is a market for dedicated console things, basically.
Marco:
My worry is that the things that they are not good at, what you were saying earlier, you know, like all the social and online and app store kind of thing, if you look at what the people who still buy consoles today...
Marco:
What do they value?
Marco:
What's important?
Marco:
What succeeds among the kind of consoles that sell well today?
Marco:
I think that Nintendo has really suffered in so many of those areas that matter a lot today.
Marco:
And so much of what Nintendo used to have a total monopoly on, which was like...
Marco:
like kind of nerd high quality and casual gaming so much of that has moved to mobile and so what you're left with on the console side is people who like first person shooters a lot and people who really want online play and online app stores and stuff like that so like the console market still exists but
Marco:
But it has taken itself in a direction where Nintendo really sucks at, and the parts of gaming that Nintendo's always been very good at, I think a disproportionate amount of those have moved to mobile for casual gaming.
John:
That's part of the DNA deal, actually.
John:
That's the part I highlighted in this final thing, like...
John:
Nintendo has tried at various times to implement what I think is everyone like they should ask their children.
John:
How do online accounts work?
John:
How does that work when you buy things under an account?
John:
It's like, listen, dad, you have an account where you buy things attached to the account.
John:
That's it.
John:
No matter what device you buy, you sign in with your username.
John:
All the stuff you bought is there.
John:
That's how it works everywhere else in the world.
John:
Right.
John:
So having, you know, they got rid of this club Nintendo membership thing in this Nintendo network thing, and they're replacing it with
John:
a sane online account system like iTunes, like everything else you can possibly name, like Netflix, like whatever, like all your stuff is attached to your account.
John:
That's how it works.
John:
DNA is going to give that to them because, of course, DNA, like every other company that's on the Internet, has such a system and can make one for them, probably to their specifications, probably to the blah, blah, blah.
John:
But they've proven that they can't make that thing.
John:
And part of this partnership deal is
John:
You know how to make one of those things, right?
John:
Make one of those for us and, you know, OK, they will do it.
John:
So they're they're at least recognizing the parts where they're weak and trying to dig themselves out of it.
John:
I think Nintendo can live on in the same way that sort of indie game studios live on.
John:
Like you don't have to make Call of Duty to be successful.
John:
There is a market for sort of.
John:
I call them artsy-fartsy games on the incomparable, but, like, games that connoisseurs appreciate.
John:
People who appreciate the fact that a really good Zelda game is not the same as just any random adventure game, or that a really good Mario game is not the same as just any random platform, or that Nintendo is still the best in the world at these few things that it does.
John:
They're just bad at the surrounding stuff.
John:
And...
John:
when you're playing games like even though you know mario kart you're driving the cart most of the time mario kart 8 is an amazing game when you're driving every time you're not driving it is not an amazing game because they even can't even handle doing the menu systems that well same thing with super smash brothers same thing with uh the new mario games they are amazing when you are playing them nintendo is still the best in the world at doing that type of game uh
John:
can they survive with just that skill they need ancillary supporting skills but i think they can survive like you know people like make fun of like a lifestyle business where like you're just making enough money to support yourself and you're whatever i think nintendo could be like a lifestyle console business as long as anyone's buying any any kind of consoles
John:
If the only games available on them, this is practically the case with the Wii U. It's like first-party Nintendo games and like five other games that you could possibly care about.
John:
That's basically what it is in the Wii U. And the Wii U was not successful, but it didn't put the company out of business.
John:
Like...
John:
Nintendo could live on past sort of the... They could probably live on past the extension of dedicated consoles.
John:
Just continuing to sell to the people who appreciate how much better the best in those games can be.
John:
You're right that there's not as many of those because most people either want casual games or they want Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto.
John:
And, you know, Nintendo is not going to make Grand Theft Auto and they're not going to make Call of Duty.
John:
And, you know, for the iOS games, they're going to take a little bit of the money, but their their expertise is in those type of things.
John:
You know, and I think we talked about this before, I think, too, like Miyamoto is not going to live forever.
John:
What happens to the company and the people he taught will not live forever?
John:
Like when the generational turnover happens, do they have enough shared culture?
John:
Nintendo could to continue to
John:
To continue to make games like the ones they have made in the past several decades at the same level they've been making them when all the people who originally sort of brought them to that high are gone.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Cards Against Humanity, Automatic, and Backblaze.
Marco:
And we will see you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin.
Marco:
Because it was accidental.
Marco:
Accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental.
John:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
Marco:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Marco:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
Marco:
It's accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
They didn't mean to.
Casey:
Accidental.
Accidental.
Casey:
so do we want to talk about this uh top gear fracas kerfuffle you do disaster i do i do i'm sad guys i'm sad yeah i uh mourned the passing of top gear last night by uh
Casey:
simultaneously with underscore watching um the race to verbia i forget the episode number offhand i think that was series five episode eight and the race across japan uh i totally forget the episode number there but um we watched it simultaneously and we're i'm messaging back and forth like a couple of uh children watching um i don't know some stupid children's show anyway uh you can make it when harry met sally reference but i think margo hasn't seen that either
Casey:
I haven't either.
Casey:
Is to explain that Clarkson is a jerk and he should rot in, you know, whatever the opposite of heaven is in your particular belief system.
Casey:
So inclusive.
Casey:
So I don't understand that perspective in that I don't understand why this is binary.
Casey:
Why can't I think that Clarkson is a jerk?
Casey:
And yet enjoy the TV show that he is a part of.
Casey:
Like, why does it have to be all or none?
Casey:
And regardless of the answer there, the fact of the matter is, I liked Top Gear.
Casey:
You can think I'm a jerk if you'd like.
Casey:
You can think that I'm supporting things that Clarkson stands for, which I'm not really sure how you make that leap, but fine.
Casey:
Go ahead.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
In the end of the day, I loved the show.
Casey:
I still love the show.
Casey:
I'm sad that it's ended.
Casey:
Maybe something will come from the ashes, and maybe there will be something even better.
Casey:
But I'm sad that it ended.
Casey:
I'm pissed off that Clarkson decided that a lunch or dinner or whatever it was was enough to punch somebody over and ruined it for all of us.
Casey:
But it is what it is, and I'm sad.
John:
I think I can explain why people...
John:
can't uh square the idea of you liking the show but agreeing that the guy's a big jerk uh because like everyone has their limit of what you're willing to support like mel gibson is another example like you know anti-semitic remarks sexist remarks like i think that's a pretty different level but yeah right but i'm just saying like simple what i'm trying to get at is that there's a continuum like at a certain point the person you're a fan of is
John:
supports an idea or does something that puts them over the line it's like an actor is actually it's an even bigger line because it's like well i can still enjoy the movie they're in because they're not them they're being an actor right whereas clarkson is like essentially himself he's not playing a role in you know in a formal sense right so there's more of a close connection so
John:
Like, just just put it this way.
John:
What would Clarkson have to do for you to not be able to enjoy him on Top Gear anymore?
John:
Like, obviously, there's there's a line that, you know, what is your personal line?
John:
And the reason why people can't square it is that he crossed their personal line, possibly crossed it already with like, you know, racist remarks when they were in Thailand or whatever.
John:
Right.
John:
And this just confirms their previous beliefs.
Yeah.
John:
And I find that uncomfortable as well.
John:
We talked about this on an episode of The Incomfortable with like authors like Orson Scott Card, who, you know, everyone loved Ender's Games, but think his, you know, terrible bigotry about homosexuals is just, you just can't stand it.
John:
It's like, can you like the book Ender's Game while also hating the guy who wrote it?
John:
And again, I think authors, it's easier to do that too, because they've made this work of fiction.
John:
You love the work of fiction, but you hate the guy.
John:
Clarkson is the guy on the show.
John:
So,
John:
It's probably pretty the line for him to cross for people not to be able to enjoy the show anymore.
John:
It's just much closer than it is for authors and actors and stuff.
John:
And I just feel like he's crossed the line for a lot of people and not even with this one event.
John:
Now they're just, you know, gleefully saying he crossed the line and I didn't like him already.
John:
And he now he got what he deserved.
John:
So that's why I think.
John:
And, you know, he obviously hasn't crossed your line and not saying that your line is wrong and other people's lines are right.
John:
But that's why so many people are surprised by the fact that you can still separate the two, because I think it is much harder for people to separate the two when the guy is the guy on the show, you know?
Casey:
Yeah, that makes sense.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
It was just very frustrating because when when the BBC finally made their statement and they said, you know, we're not going to renew Clarkson's contract.
Casey:
And I had tweeted about, oh, you know, that sucks.
Casey:
I'm sad.
Casey:
i i don't recall my initial tweet having been you know this is wrong i didn't say that that he didn't deserve it i just thought this sucks and this is sad and oh my god i mean welcome to the internet casey but everyone came out of the woodwork was like oh he's a jerk i friggin deserves it oh how could you support this dill hole and blah blah it's like dude can i just be sad did they say dill hole no
Casey:
But, you know, can I just be sad for like 30 seconds that my favorite TV show is ending?
Casey:
Is that really that egregious to the entire Internet?
John:
What's egregious is not that you're sad that the show is ending, but that it was still your favorite show, despite this guy being like that's because it was over the line for them.
John:
And they're saying, how could you even still watch the show in good conscience?
John:
And so it's not so much that you're sad that the show is ending.
John:
It's like the whole other rest of the time when you were enjoying the show.
John:
That's the time they thought you were a bad person because you're still enjoying and watching the show and still supporting the show because, you know, like that's that's what it was.
John:
And then it's just.
John:
This is just making them come out and remind you that the whole time you were enjoying the show, they thought you were a bad person because they hate him so much.
Casey:
Well, you know what?
Casey:
Then I'm a bad person.
Casey:
I mean, whatever.
Casey:
I really don't care if people want to judge me because I like a television show about cars.
Casey:
Whatever.
Marco:
No, and you know what?
Marco:
And I've also been tweeting about this because I feel similarly to you that, you know,
Marco:
I was always enjoying the show.
Marco:
I'm very sad the show is ending.
Marco:
I do recognize that Clarkson ended the show like this was his fault.
Marco:
I like I'm not denying that at all.
Marco:
Like his actions here were way over any line.
Marco:
And like the last in a series of things.
Marco:
It's not like this is a one time incident.
Marco:
You know what I mean?
Marco:
Like.
Marco:
I'm not that familiar with all the behind-the-scenes drama that has happened in the past of the show.
Marco:
I'm really not.
Marco:
I've watched the show, but I have not followed the controversies.
Marco:
I wasn't even aware there were so many controversies until this started coming up.
Marco:
But looking at...
John:
his general attitude on the show the the style with which he says things the style with which he does things he is like a lovable ass on the show like that's his character on the show i don't know what he's like in real life is his character also a conservative racist bigot on the show or is that just a side effect of the actual person like this that's where you know like it's one thing to be a curmudgeon is the other to secretly think they they harbor regressive notions that they know enough not to the voice publicly
Marco:
And so with that, again, I don't know.
Marco:
I don't know the guy personally.
Marco:
The way I interpreted it over time, as I was watching the show, and he would say off-color things, I interpreted it as pushing the line or stepping over the line for comedy purposes.
Marco:
And so comedy is a tough thing.
Marco:
When you try to define the appropriate relationship between comedy and sensitive topics or hurtful topics...
Marco:
It's always a blurry line and different cultures and different groups of people define that line differently.
Marco:
And what is over the line and what is part of humor?
Marco:
Everyone defines that differently.
Marco:
And so I think by me and Casey being so surprised at how many people just really hate Jeremy Clarkson, I was shocked by that.
Marco:
Because I've always interpreted the way he talks on the show to be for the sake of good humor.
Marco:
And even when it is a little bit over the line, a little bit uncomfortable, I've always assumed that the intention there was to provoke a laugh, to be funny, and not to be actually mean-spirited and to intend harm.
John:
I think there's a different political dynamic in the UK that we don't understand.
John:
Their left and right range is unfamiliar to us, mostly because all of them are way to the left of the crazy right wing here in America.
John:
But I think we're not connected to that dynamic.
John:
And
John:
Therefore, I think we don't have a good read.
John:
All we see is Jeremy Clarkson on the show.
John:
Right.
John:
And we don't have a read of like because I don't know about you, but the only time I ever saw him is on the show.
John:
Like I didn't see interviews with him off the show.
John:
I didn't see him doing press.
John:
I didn't see it like whereas I get the impression that the people who watch the show in the UK are
John:
know him from outside the show.
John:
They see him on other programs.
John:
They know about him as a person.
John:
And so the things he says in the show, rather than seeming like just being cheeky, it's like that is the tip of an iceberg with which we are all too familiar.
John:
Right.
John:
And that he represents some continuum in the political spectrum that I know his support of Canada X shows me, you know, like
John:
I don't I don't know his background like that either, but it's so clear that when the people that don't like him see him, they they they see the whole person and we just see the part that's on the show and the part that's on the show is necessarily, you know, trimmed down and can be interpreted, especially by I think an American audience is not familiar with the political climate there.
John:
as just being witty and interesting.
John:
And as someone pointed out in the chat room, the terrible racist right wing bigots in the United States are usually not as charming as Jeremy Clarkson.
John:
You know what I mean?
John:
Like, I don't know if that's just a divide, like, you know, so I feel like I don't know him either.
John:
Um,
John:
And I think I was watching Top Gear for reasons that are different than both of you.
John:
I like the part where they talk about cars and review cars.
Marco:
You must have hated the show.
John:
I did not like almost any other part of it, but I enjoyed the show, but I know absolutely nothing about any of those people outside of the words they said on that television program.
John:
And even just within that, with the few incidents that Clarkson has done, I find myself not hating him, but...
John:
It's kind of like, you know, the Bill Cosby stuff like, oh, you wish you didn't know this because now your opinion must necessarily be drastically changed for somebody that you previously didn't.
Marco:
you know just liked as an entertainer and now like it starts to cross the line for me where like i can't separate this person the entertainer from the things he he does elsewhere you know what i mean yeah yeah and that's that's you know like the like the the big disappointment for top gear fans is that he really did something really bad here and and you know now like his his image is tarnished for everybody and he he killed the show like he ended the show by his actions so like that sucks
John:
And it seems like he's a troubled person, too, don't you think?
Marco:
Like, that's not... Yeah, I mean, anybody who would assault someone over a meal at the end of a shoot, I don't care what kind of bad day you've had, that's, like, that's a problem.
John:
But that's a deeper problem.
John:
It's not like he just has tempered... Like, I don't know what his deeper... That's the whole thing.
John:
We don't know what his deeper problem is.
John:
What are you so upset about?
John:
You're rich, you get to drive fancy cars all the time?
John:
Like, obviously, there is some deeper...
John:
problem here with him personally or with the show dynamic or whatever it is it's not about the stupid you know food right that's not what the the fight is about and so that makes me sad too because it shows that you know whatever it is that's troubling him is deeply troubling him because the stakes were high here he knew he was like on you know final notice from all the other stuff that's like he should have been on his best behavior and yet whatever the hell is bothering him
John:
came up to the point where it caused that and that's just like yeah i don't it may you know you expect like oh when i'm rich and famous i will be happy and then you see all the movies that say well actually when you're rich and famous you'll be sad because you'll be lonely and isolated and it's like don't you want to think that it works out for somebody can somebody have a dream job and be ridiculously wealthy and drive around in a lamborghini or ferrari and actually be happy apparently not jeremy clarkson well you just don't hear about those people
Casey:
Well, I mean, I think Hammond seems like a reasonably happy guy.
Casey:
I think May.
John:
I don't know anything about them either.
John:
You're right.
John:
They do.
John:
I'm just I don't know.
John:
And I don't you know, it's like I don't need to know celebrities lives or whatever.
John:
You just want to you want to believe the fantasy.
John:
You want to believe that, like, I don't know anything about your life.
John:
I don't want to know anything about your life, but I believe you are well adjusted and have a happy life because what you do for a living looks really fun.
John:
Right.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And the thing is, I agree with you, John, that that maybe my line is just further away than other people's.
Casey:
That doesn't mean I'm right.
Casey:
It doesn't mean I'm wrong.
Casey:
But my line hasn't been crossed yet.
Casey:
But the thing is, I mean, if you watch the first time they go through America where they went from Miami to New Orleans.
Casey:
They completely eviscerated all of America, and they seemed to go out of their way to find some of the worst portions of America.
Casey:
And as an American, I found that really hard to watch, really hard, because they antagonized Americans for the purpose of getting them to show really disgusting behavior.
Casey:
But you know what?
Casey:
That's part of America.
Casey:
And that's unfortunate, but that is part of our country.
Casey:
And there are people in our country, fellow citizens, that act that way.
Casey:
And just because I don't like it doesn't mean it's not a representation of America.
Casey:
It may not be the most fair representation of America.
Casey:
I think there are a lot of Americans that are a lot...
Casey:
less stupid as they portrayed us all to be.
Casey:
They obviously make fun of us always for us being fat.
Casey:
Don't forget cheese.
Casey:
We put cheese on everything.
Casey:
And cheese.
Casey:
Yeah, we put cheese on everything.
Casey:
And those jokes, they kind of sting, but good God, they're jokes on a TV show about cars.
Casey:
Like,
Casey:
Maybe, again, maybe my line is just further away than other people's.
Casey:
And like you said, John, and like you said, Marco, I don't get to see the other parts of Clarkson.
Casey:
The only parts I see are the parts on the show.
Casey:
And yes, he's offensive.
Casey:
Yes, he's an ass.
Casey:
But whatever.
Casey:
That's the shtick.
Casey:
That's the whole idea.
Casey:
That's why he was there.
John:
But it's not just being an ass.
John:
I'm not trying to push you closer to your line, but I think your line is probably the same as us.
John:
It's just that you are not...
John:
you're not forced to confront the realities of the things that this person really believes which i'm not saying you should be forced to confront and you should not seek this information out but if you truly knew it was in the heart of hearts of many people that you admire you would admire them less and things that come out that reveal like that you know whatever regressive notions someone actually holds really dear about whatever people of a different race about women about anything
John:
you do not want to be confronted with that.
John:
You, you know, making jokes, being a jerk, being silly, being cheeky, doing that, you know, using stereotypes for humor.
John:
Fine.
John:
But then saying, but really, I believe in my heart of hearts that women can never be president because they're too emotional.
John:
Like if someone like, no, seriously, I really have to have a serious conversation about you.
John:
Why women should never be president.
John:
Like you can't have that conversation with someone you admire and not be like, just, just crumble and just go, Oh God, I didn't know.
John:
And now it's like,
John:
oh no can I you know that's that's not that I think he's you know I'm just making this up like make up a bias that you would that if someone really truly believed it in deep in their fiber you'd be like
John:
you just check out and you'd be like, man, just, I can't, I can where you are going.
John:
I cannot follow.
John:
I now know too much about what is in your heart and it is terrible.
John:
And then you have to like, try to reconcile.
John:
Like if you wrote a really good book, can I still enjoy the book?
John:
If you were an actor in a movie, can I still enjoy the movie?
John:
But if you're on a TV show as yourself playing yourself, boy, that's tough.
Casey:
You know, and somebody brought up in the chat, it's like Adam Baldwin.
Casey:
I think that the actions that he has taken are deplorable, disgusting, and terrible.
Casey:
And him somehow energizing the whole Gamergate movement and coining the term, that is revolting to me.
Casey:
I find that absolutely disgusting.
Casey:
But you bet your butt I love Firefly.
Casey:
And I think it's a tremendous television show.
Casey:
And I love the Serenity movie.
Casey:
Like,
Casey:
Again, maybe my line is different from others, but I... But I think that's different.
John:
Don't you think it's different with actors?
John:
I feel the same way.
John:
He's terrible, but I can still enjoy his role as an actor.
John:
And, like, the only place it comes across is, like, if he's, like, an actual criminal or murderer and you don't want to do anything that could possibly give him money, right?
John:
But that's not, you know, he's just...
John:
He holds terrible ideas, right?
John:
But can you still watch and enjoy Firefly?
John:
I still can, despite sharing your opinions about Adam Baldwin.
John:
I can still enjoy the show because he's an actor.
John:
Could I enjoy a talk show where he interviewed celebrities?
John:
I could not.
John:
That's the difference, I think.
Marco:
See, I can't even make that distinction.
Marco:
To me, if I find out that an actor is really a pretty severe jerk, I can't even really enjoy their stuff they're acting in anymore.
John:
It helps that he helps that he played a jerk in Firefly, too.
John:
I got to admit, it does help that if he was the hero of Firefly, if he was Mal, it would be a big problem.
John:
But he's not.
John:
He's Jane and Jane is pretty terrible on the show.
John:
So it kind of like matches up.
John:
You know what I mean?
John:
Like it wasn't really acting.
John:
He really is terrible.
Casey:
Oh, goodness.
Marco:
So anyway, back to Top Gear.
Marco:
I think, trying to close it out here, anyone who's watched the show on a regular basis knows that it was probably pretty close to the end anyway.
Marco:
Every new season that came out, or series in British parlance...
Marco:
Every new series that came out, I was always a little bit surprised.
Marco:
Like, oh, they made another one.
Marco:
Every time that they announced there would be another one, that was always pleasantly good, surprising news.
Marco:
Because I was always just assuming that the current season was always going to be the last season.
Marco:
And a lot of it was getting worse over time.
Marco:
A lot of the bits were getting more and more contrived.
Marco:
More contrived?
Marco:
Is that possible?
John:
I know you don't share my hatred of the bits, but God, I hate them so much.
John:
i understand i understand that that casey enjoyed them i don't begrudge anyone their enjoyment is just not my that's not why i was watching the show and that's that's the thing right there john is that people begrudge marco and i enjoying the show and that's what i find so bothersome but but only because the the they don't like the person like i don't think anyone cares that you like their stupid fake bits right it's just whatever whatever floats your boat and you know sometimes i get a chuckle out of them too but like you know it
John:
There the thing the thing about top gear is that first of all to talk about the show itself The production quality was high, but we can all agree on that.
John:
Oh, I don't know how much the show cost to produce everything was shot well
John:
It was, you know, there was not a lot of flab to it.
John:
The production quality was high.
John:
And they did car reviews and they did car reviews, I think, in a very interesting way.
John:
I think even more interesting than a lot of the more YouTube things.
John:
So if you wanted to see car reviews with wit and humor and not taking itself too seriously, they're the best I've ever seen.
John:
They were like, you know, three minutes long sometimes, but...
John:
And they were not like it's not like reading.
John:
It's not like reading an article in a car magazine about a car where you read the seven preview articles to the first drive article, the review, the comparison.
John:
Like that is a different thing.
John:
They the form they were working in.
John:
I don't know if they define this form or not, but they were excellent at that form for doing what they did.
John:
And they also had this stuff where they did a bunch of fake stuff that made you think they were going on a big journey through some country or whatever.
John:
But.
John:
They did what they did well.
John:
And so that's what is the reason the show is insanely popular, right?
John:
In the face of things like all the people doing car reviews in YouTube, in the face of Motor Week, Owings Mills, Maryland, 211, 17.
John:
Like there have been other car things on television, but Top Gear was head and shoulders above them in the area that it decided to define.
Casey:
Yeah, I don't know.
Casey:
I'm just sad.
Casey:
I'm sad that it ended.
Casey:
I'm sad it's Clarkson's fault.
Casey:
I'm sad that I'm not allowed to be sad about it, apparently, according to half the Internet.
Casey:
You know what?
Casey:
Screw those guys.
Casey:
Be sad about it.
Casey:
I agree.
Casey:
And I am sad about it.
Casey:
And I mean, I wouldn't have said I was sad if I was that worried about what they're saying.
Casey:
I'm sad.
John:
I'm sad that the show has forced us all to say Top Gear, putting emphasis instead of saying Top Gear.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Top Gear.
John:
It's the British way to say it.
John:
Top Gear.
John:
We all just say Top Gear and it drives me insane.
John:
And when people say series, it also upsets me greatly.
Casey:
yeah i agree with that so that is i think that is the sad legacy of top gear oh goodness no but i don't know we'll see what i mean you never know what will happen they they they may have so i assume the show will be back do we all assume the show will be back because the name the name is too valuable yeah i think it will be i well i'm sure it'll be back with some people in it i don't think it'll continue i'm just saying there will be a show called top gear
Marco:
Yeah, but already there's a couple shows called Top Gear and most of them suck.
John:
American Top Gear, I agree.
John:
That manages to remove all the parts that I like from real Top Gear.
Marco:
That's the thing.
Marco:
If you take it back to it just being a car show and you don't have these characters in it, it's a lot less interesting.
Marco:
American Top Gear isn't a car show.
John:
They try to do all the same bits.
John:
It just doesn't gel.
John:
And I feel like the production quality is way lower.
John:
I don't know.
John:
I think it's possible to have, in the same way that the Daily Show, I remember, oh, Craig Kilbourne's leaving the Daily Show.
John:
Well, that show is over.
John:
Well, not quite.
John:
Like, it could be reborn.
John:
I'm fully willing to believe that another set of interesting charismatic people who really have passionate opinions about cars could make that show work again.
John:
And then, so I assume none of these three guys are going to be back.
John:
Where do they go off and do something?
John:
I'm sure plenty of people are willing to hire them to do a car show for them, call whatever the hell they want to call it.
John:
So I think you will still be able to see these people talking about cars and you'll probably still be able to see a show whose name is Top Gear sometime in the future.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I think the same things that were making it get worse over time and get kind of played out, I think those same things apply to any people you put in the show.
Marco:
It isn't that these people were necessarily played out.
Marco:
It's that I think the show did everything it could do in the way we know it today.
John:
Well, it's like The Daily Show with Greg Kilbourne.
John:
Like the format changed when Jon Stewart came.
John:
The focus, the format, the way the show worked changed.
John:
It wasn't like a show where we make funny jokes making fun of celebrities.
John:
It became basically like a news commentary show.
John:
And that was Jon Stewart's doing because that came from him.
John:
A new set of people can take the show in a totally new direction.
John:
That's what I'm talking about with new people.
John:
Like it's not going to be just the same show with different hosts.
John:
Whatever is inside those people who take over the show, they can define the direction that the show goes.
John:
What is it going to be like?
John:
I don't think it's going to be like the Top Gear that we're familiar with.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And we'll see what happens.
Casey:
And I suspect the three of them are going to stick around and do something different.
Casey:
And, you know, there's been rumblings about them going to Netflix.
Casey:
We'll see.
Casey:
I wouldn't be surprised if they do the direct-to-video thing that Clarkson has done many times in the past.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
They're also they're also pretty old, right?
Casey:
I mean, yeah, what is Clarkson, like early 50s, May is early to mid 50s.
John:
And I think a certain point, I think they're more limited in the types of things they can do, even if they wanted to keep doing this kind of show for someone else.
John:
You know, you can't have a 65 year old going through Bolivia in a four by four.
Yeah.
Marco:
And also, the show they've been making so far had, as you said, a pretty sizable budget.
Marco:
Anywhere else they could go, they might be forced to dramatically reduce the things they do.
Marco:
And that might just not work for them or might not work for anything we want from them.
Marco:
But we'll see.