Who Did It Firster?
Casey:
Let's just dive right in.
Casey:
Let's start with something hugely important.
Casey:
Let's talk about my sonology.
Casey:
A lot of people have written in and asked me with regard to my computer woes, and I'm putting woes and humongous air quotes there.
Casey:
Why is it I'm so preoccupied with having a computer that will be good at running Plex when I have a Synology, specifically a DS1813 Plus, sitting right next to me as we speak that can host Plex?
Casey:
Why am I complaining and moaning about having a computer to do that?
Casey:
Well, the reason is that
Casey:
At least as of six months or maybe a year ago now, when I was running Plex on my Synology, what ended up happening was anytime I tried to do a live transcode of just about anything, it just ground to a screeching halt.
Casey:
And it couldn't keep up with the transcode.
Casey:
Now, it could be that things have gotten better over time.
Casey:
It could be that I didn't have my settings squared away.
Casey:
Because to Marco's point, generally speaking, Plex is pretty maintenance-free.
Casey:
But it can get a little fiddly on occasion.
Casey:
So it very well could be user error.
Casey:
But one way or another, my experience with the 1813 Plus running Plex...
Casey:
is that it just cannot transcode quick enough, and thus I need a full-bore computer to do it.
Casey:
Now, there are other Synology models that absolutely can transcode really well on the fly.
Casey:
The one that I have, in my experience anyway, was not it.
Casey:
Now, the other question is, okay, well, why do you have to transcode in the first place?
Casey:
Why don't you just have MPEG-4 video or whatever it is all over the place?
Casey:
Well, let's just say that not all of my media...
Casey:
is consistent, and I'll leave it at that.
Casey:
I could take Don Melton's scripts and transcode everything, but that takes a long time because I don't have a trashcan Mac Pro, and I'm too darn lazy.
Casey:
So that is why I'm not using Plex on my Synology.
John:
I have the same Synology, and it's not—I mean, it's a fairly wimpy CPU in there.
John:
It's not great at transcoding, but I haven't really run Plex on it.
John:
I use Synology's native video serving thing.
Casey:
Is that any good?
John:
It transcodes fine.
John:
Like, either it can't transcode it at all, which very rarely happens, but does occasionally happen where it just can't make heads or tails of it, and it says, like, you know—
John:
file unreadable or whatever.
John:
Some error message is basically like, I can't make heads or tails of this.
John:
But most of the stuff that I find, some pretty weird stuff, you know, weird MKVs of unknown origins, right?
John:
It transcodes them.
John:
1080p, you know, you can't do anything fancy like
John:
scrub around in the video like don't like all you can do is play from the beginning essentially but it can keep up it doesn't drop frames um so it could just be plex is not taking advantage of the hardware in the same way that the thing that comes with synology is and in general when i've looked at like plex and all the other sorts of things synology is like i think they call it ds video they have an ios app they have a they have a little server thing um my tv with no software installed just the the quote-unquote smart
John:
uh features of my tv uh it sees it just as a dlna server it's not fancy it's not pretty it doesn't show you the cover art for your things and have a bunch of metadata and do all the stuff that plex does but it has a fairly high rate of being able to play the video in a straight line from beginning to end as long as you don't touch anything
Casey:
Oh, well, maybe I'll have to try that out.
Casey:
I mean, I freaking love Plex with all my being.
Casey:
I do like all the metadata it gives you.
Casey:
I do think, despite what Marco's experience has been, that it's very, very easy 99% of the time.
Casey:
The only problem with Plex is that you really have to name things the way they expect you to name things.
Casey:
But if you do and you're okay with that, then you don't ever have to look at the names of anything because it's all...
Casey:
With the cover art and with the full metadata, just like you were saying, John, I really love it.
Casey:
But it may be worth giving this thing a try just to see.
Casey:
And I think it's the Play series, the DS214 Play is the one I can think of off the top of my head, that the Synology makes that I believe has some onboard hardware to do some of this transcoding, but our Synologies do not.
Casey:
So just something to consider.
John:
I have one of those play ones, too, and it does claim to have hardware stuff and you can turn it on.
John:
But I think when you turn it on the hardware decoding, like it reduces the amount of things that it's able to transcode on the fly.
John:
Like the hardware decoding is like, you know, understands some particular formats and some particular bit rates or whatever.
John:
That's I don't know if that's true, but that's been my impression.
John:
Because when I check that checkbox, all of a sudden a bunch of other stuff doesn't play.
John:
um and when i uncheck it uh everything still plays fine and so i don't see what the advantage is it's not as if checking it makes something that i couldn't previously play play better everything plays fine in software mode so i just leave the hardware thing unchecked if only the new apple tv played mkv files natively
Casey:
we'll get to that i tell you what though if there is a uh if there's a plex app for the apple tv which i've got to assume there will be i'm gonna have to that's that genuinely that will probably make me buy one although i will say that i do love my fire tv stick it does work really well yeah well put the note so you don't forget to to crush your uh plex dreams for apple tv later
John:
All right.
John:
Follow-up, since you went to the last follow-up item first.
John:
Now we're a little out of order here.
John:
So we'll go to the first follow-up item.
John:
Second from Michael Hammond.
John:
He was the first person to point out that last show when I was trying to talk about the things that Apple is not going to do when they do the S revision of their phones.
John:
Like, it's not a total hardware redesign.
John:
It's just like the previous phone, but S-ier.
John:
The example I gave was they're not going to do something like Touch ID, but of course Touch ID did debut on an S phone.
John:
Brain fart, sorry.
John:
So...
John:
never mind that example uh neither one of you caught it either um nope yeah we forget oh i just i wanted to see if you knew oh i mean i knew as soon as it was pointed out to me like duh yeah that was a stupid example then i then of course the dad did i actually say that and then you listen back to michelle and say yeah i did stupid anyway uh michael hammond won the race he was the first one um
John:
And then a million other people told me, which is fine.
Casey:
Oh, this next piece of follow-up is me.
Casey:
We've talked on and off about the crescent moon on the front of the iPhone 6 and maybe even 6 Plus.
Casey:
I wanted to remind everyone, I tweeted about this a little while ago, that your warranty if you did not buy AppleCare probably runs out in the next 10 or so days if you got a launch day iPhone 6.
Casey:
Um, I have scheduled a genius bar appointment for this coming Sunday, uh, I believe about midday.
Casey:
And so I'm going to go into the genius bar to see about them replacing either the screen or the entire phone.
Casey:
Um, I have heard from numerous people through the internet, um,
Casey:
I've heard that they will completely give you a new phone, which I think is actually refurbished, strictly speaking, but they'll give you a phone that's new to you.
Casey:
I've heard that they'll give you or repair the screen, like give you a whole new screen assembly.
Casey:
And I've heard they'll tell you, well, it doesn't affect the pictures, so screw off.
Casey:
And I don't know.
Casey:
I guess every person's experience is a little bit different.
Casey:
I will report back on what my experience is, but I will find out Sunday.
Casey:
Additionally, I'm told as per Lane W that to get this fixed out of warranty is $109.
Casey:
I don't know if that is inclusive of AppleCare or not, but it's something to think about.
Casey:
So if you have one of these Crescent Moon iPhone issues, I would strongly suggest you go and get that checked out in the next week or so.
John:
uh ashish gandhi uh gave some clarification on the whole thing about the svg icon for the pin tab and safari 9 um why were there two different uh instructions i think we put them both in last week's show notes
John:
It turns out that there's only one.
John:
One of them is old.
John:
One of them is new.
John:
It's difficult to tell which was which.
John:
We'll put links in the show notes that clear it up.
John:
The real one that Apple wants you to use now is the one that says link rel equals mask hyphen icon.
John:
That is the real one.
John:
That is the good one.
John:
That's the one you have to put in.
John:
I have to go to my site and delete the other one now that I know which one is fake.
John:
And there's also a link to a thread in Apple's developer forums and mailing list archive on one of the what WG mailing lists from the W3.
John:
uh explaining the evolution of this thing but anyway it's link rel equals mask hyphen icon in case you were wondering all right our first sponsor this week is cards against humanity and rather than reading a normal sponsor read they asked john to review a toaster syracuse are talking about toasters more exciting than a roller coaster will it fit on its countertop i hope the reviews never stop
John:
John, what is this week's toaster?
John:
I had a weird one this week, because I've never heard of this brand before, and I think this is the first one we've ever had of this brand, you guys can tell me.
John:
This is Rosewill, all one word, no capital W. This is the R-H-T-0, oh no, I guess it's got to be an O. R-H-T-O, yes it is an O, hyphen 1-3-0-0-1.
John:
Another name with O's and Zeros in it, but at least they're separated by hyphen.
John:
This is, I think, the biggest toaster I've ever tested.
John:
It is really, really, really big.
John:
It is bigger in all dimensions than what I thought was my pretty big Breville 650XL toaster.
John:
They sell it on Newegg.
John:
I don't know where it comes from.
John:
They just arrive at my house.
John:
And in particular, it is really, really tall.
John:
And I don't understand why it's so tall.
John:
It is the tallest toaster I've ever seen in my life.
John:
It is taller than any toaster I've ever seen in a store.
John:
It's taller than the really big Breville.
John:
i don't understand why it's so tall the the manual that it comes with is very thin um it doesn't give any reason for it to be so darn tall in it you would think like oh it's you so you can fit an entire chicken in there like vertically maybe like why why is it so tall like i think the proportions of all the other toasters like if you have a chicken that is too tall to fit in one of the other toasters i've tested
John:
It's not going to fit lengthwise, you know, like the proportions.
John:
Anyway, it is inexplicably tall and it just dominates the counter that it's on.
John:
All right.
John:
So that's the first weird thing about it.
John:
Some standard things about it.
John:
It's another three knob toaster, three knobs that all have to be in the right position for anything to happen.
John:
You've got a temperature knob on top.
John:
that goes from zero to 450 although the manual says that has a max setting it doesn't it just stops at 450 anyway turn it all the way to the right then you've got a function knob with toast on one end and like a warming function the other and then you've got a timer knob that turn to the right for a little ticking timer and turn to the left for the stay on mode
John:
I don't know who decided this three knob arrangement is a good idea, but it appears to be the most common.
John:
And it's terrible because it's like, you know, all three knobs have to be in the right position for you to do anything right.
John:
And it will gladly like you'll turn the little toast knob to, you know, whatever to try and toast.
John:
if you don't have the other knobs in the right position it will gladly just sit there and take away the lights on does nothing tells you that it's not actually toasting your bread until you come back two minutes later and go why isn't this bread getting brown uh or actually in this case for four and a half minutes it's about four and a half minutes to toast which is pretty good considering the cavern that you have to put the bread into it's like it's so lonely there uh this has three positions for the rack and it has a u-shaped rack that you can flip over uh but the u-shape like is only like a centimeter difference between up and down maybe two centimeters anyway
John:
again what what difference does two centimeters up or down make in this giant toaster that's like a foot tall i don't understand it's got two uh unguarded elements on the bottom two unguarded elements on the top um a crumb tray slides out reasonably well the door the massive massive door has a weird curve to it it opens all the way it doesn't feel like it's bending or breaking the whole thing here's the here's the the thing that i'm still puzzling over about this toaster
John:
The whole toaster feels like it's not high end.
John:
So it's not like trying to be shiny or glossy or like have the controls feel good.
John:
But it's not chintzy either.
John:
Like nothing wiggles when it shouldn't.
John:
You know, it's like exactly middle of the road.
John:
Very sort of straightforward Fisher-Price competent.
John:
Every part of it is...
John:
Not loose, but like it just it has an air of like competence to it.
John:
Then I don't know.
John:
I'm associating with this Rosewill brand that I've never heard of.
Marco:
By the way, it's apparently Newegg's generic brand.
Marco:
Just please don't email us.
John:
Yeah, that makes some sense, like a Newegg-style thing, where if you buy something from Newegg, it's like an off-brand.
John:
They're like Monoprice, you know, where it's like, it's not really name-brand, but it's also not terrible.
John:
I don't know.
John:
It's very strange.
John:
So the knobs, they feel kind of gritty and a little bit stiff, but they don't feel like they're going to fall off in your hands.
John:
They do their knob job well.
John:
They have a little marking.
Yeah.
John:
They have little markings on them so you can see where they're pointing.
John:
They're just standard knobs.
John:
They don't do any of the terrible mistakes the other ones try to do.
John:
The door feels a little bit too big and too loose, but it doesn't wiggle.
John:
It doesn't twist in its thing.
John:
It just opens and closes fine.
John:
I still think the toaster is just way too big.
John:
And four and a half minutes is like the sort of the average, a little bit too slow toaster.
John:
I think that's just too long to wait.
John:
But if you like to toast really big things, I guess really tall stuff,
John:
it it does an okay job like for for a giant toaster like i it just feels like a waste of space to me but i can't find anything terribly wrong with it in terms of the big toasters to take a long time to toast bread it seems okay i didn't look at the prices i always forget to look at the price because they just arrive and i don't know like it's 100 bucks
John:
whoa all right now i've changed my opinion on this thing this is not a hundred dollar toaster do not buy this toaster for a hundred dollars i'm gonna be like it was like 50 or 60 fine hundred dollars i would get the smaller uh black and dicker three knob thing or something well the hundred dollar price does match up with what you just said about how it's kind of in the middle between low end and high end where you know the high end toasters like your breville are like 180 and then we've had a lot of good ones that are like 40 or 50
John:
Yeah, but I feel like the best $50 one we had is better than this because it's just so big and so slow.
John:
I just felt like the quality of it was, it felt like using a monoprice toaster.
John:
It's not name brand.
John:
It's not quite right.
John:
It's a little bit off.
John:
the plastic is a little bit of the wrong material and like i said the really long toast time if you're going to use it mostly for toasting things this is not the toaster for you it's all black which i think is reasonably tasteful after some of the weirder toasters that we had um yeah i don't know maybe you see it on sale see it at woot.com for 80 bucks pick it up but but really take the measurements first you know go into your kitchen and measure it out and see if it'll even fit underneath your countertop
John:
because underneath your cabinets because it is huge do you think maybe this is for somebody who wants to toast an entire dozen of bagels at once vertically like just stacking like you know it has so much space but it doesn't give you any like holders or anything to use that space it also comes with a circular thing like for pizza or whatever which is weird because it doesn't even have much of a bump
John:
on the back of it uh and the trays that it come with are also sort of similarly middle of the road it comes with a lot of accessories got the big tray that's got the thing that goes inside the tray then it's got the circle thing uh i don't know this this is inscrutable i mean i think we'll have to get more of these roseville ones to see to get the number of this manufacturer but
John:
$100 seems steep to me.
John:
And honestly, I don't understand a person, maybe a giant person, maybe like someone who is like an NBA player or an NFL player who's just much bigger than regular people, that this is a proportional toaster for them.
John:
And they just buy very tall bread.
John:
I don't know.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring our show this week once again.
Casey:
Okay, so some things have happened today.
Casey:
We are out of August, and news is happening once again.
Casey:
We have made it through the dark days, and now we are back in the light.
Casey:
So there was an Apple keynote today, and it was a busy one.
Casey:
There was a lot going on.
Casey:
How long was it all told?
Casey:
Like two and a half hours, something like that?
Casey:
I mean, it's a long and busy keynote.
Casey:
And so I guess the understanding is that this is the last keynote we're going to see from Apple this calendar year.
Marco:
Yeah, I think it's interesting.
Marco:
I mean, like John Gruber was predicting beforehand that this doesn't make sense, it's too much stuff, they always have two, or they have for a long time, and that was correct.
Marco:
I think one thing that is very clear from this is that they didn't want to relegate anything to a secondary keynote.
Marco:
And one thing that didn't make any appearance at all is El Capitan and anything about the Mac.
Marco:
I think there was some Easter egg somewhere where on a screenshot on one of the demos, it said that it's coming out on September 30th.
Marco:
But that was it.
Casey:
Yeah, that was an email in Federici's iPhone.
Casey:
And he was doing the, I already forgot the term, but he was doing the quick look for the message.
Casey:
And it said, oh, it's coming out on the 30th.
Casey:
P.S.
Casey:
Top Secret.
Marco:
Right, exactly.
Marco:
But other than that, there was really no mention of the Mac in today's keynote because, honestly, there wasn't room for it.
Marco:
And I think maybe we keep waiting for Skylake, right?
Marco:
And we keep hearing Skylake is coming soon-ish.
Marco:
Anytime between now and six months from now, everyone keeps saying.
Marco:
I think this is kind of confirmation that either we're not going to see any Skylake stuff from Apple for the rest of the year, or it'll be so minor that it'll just be like a website update, you know?
Marco:
so I wouldn't expect much on the Mac front for the rest of the year besides the release of El Capitan.
Marco:
Maybe this 4K iMac comes out, but honestly, in this event, there was no room for that.
Marco:
The 4K iMac is not a big deal.
Marco:
It's a mid-range product.
Marco:
It isn't a high-end product.
Marco:
It's not even really a redesign, as far as we know.
Marco:
The Mac is conspicuously missing here, but I think that's...
Marco:
I think Apple really wanted to give a boost to their other things that aren't the iPhone.
Marco:
They talked a little bit about the watch.
Marco:
We'll get to that.
Marco:
They wanted to launch the new iPad Pro and the new Apple TV.
Marco:
These are major new product launches that, as far as I know, I will have to ask people who have worked for big sites.
Marco:
As far as I know, the iPhone event every year is always the biggest event audience-wise.
Marco:
It seems like way more people watch the iPhone event every year than the other Apple live streams.
Marco:
And so if Apple wants to give things the best chance, this is like going between Friends and Seinfeld.
Marco:
This is the slot that you can put anything in front of the iPhones at this event, and it'll get a lot of exposure, even more so than Apple's usual stuff, which is already a lot of exposure.
Marco:
So, you know, they wanted to give the iPad Pro, the Apple TV, and the Watch the biggest boost they can leading into the holiday season.
Marco:
So it makes sense that they did it this way.
Marco:
However, I mean, I don't know about you guys.
Marco:
I am totally overwhelmed by this.
Marco:
I don't even know.
Marco:
I mean, I guess we can just go chronologically, but we're not going to be able to cover all this even in one show.
Marco:
I mean, our podcast is shorter than the keynote.
John:
uh occasionally yeah well i think we'll hit all the the highlights i think we'll come revisit a lot of these things because again recording this the day the keynote happened i don't know about you guys but i didn't have much time to research all these things because the keynote ended and you know picking kids up and making dinner like i didn't you know so this is the same thing we do after wwc get overwhelmed with a bunch of information see a big thing and then talk about it so i'm sure well i think we that's why i put them all in the notes i think we'll be able to hit all of them
John:
And then towards the end, once we've gone through all of them, we can get bogged down in details and follow up on that next week.
John:
As for the Mac stuff that you were mentioning, I think it's understandable because the only Mac thing they could possibly have to announce was LCAP, which we've seen a million times before.
John:
I don't think there are any surprises there.
John:
And even if they had any new hardware, it would be exactly the kind of thing to get cut for space.
John:
And they had tons of other stuff and they're only doing one show.
John:
And so that stuff gets cut.
John:
It's not much of a slight because all they would have been doing is demoing things we've already seen and showing us hardware that does not surprise us in any way, which would be nice.
John:
You know, it's a nice announcement.
John:
Oh, look, the new Macs are out and here are their features.
John:
And I wonder which chips they put in them.
John:
I wonder what the prices are.
John:
But other than that, there's nothing like, you know, one of the Macs comes with a pencil or something, you know, so that's it.
John:
If you just rank things in priority order and cut off it to the two-hour mark, all the Mac-related stuff happens to fall off the bottom, which I think is fine.
John:
I think the Mac got a lot of screen time at WWDC, disproportionate to the amount of money that it makes Apple and the amount of Macs that they sell, and all out of proportion with everything else.
John:
This was not the show for the Macs.
John:
This is the shows for the other stuff, so I thought it was fine, and I didn't think the Mac got slighted in any way.
Casey:
All right, so let's start with the watch.
Casey:
New Apple Watch stuff.
Casey:
Yeah, there's some new colors for the Apple Watch.
Casey:
I was actually hugely disappointed that the rose, well, no, not rose gold.
Casey:
What are they called?
Casey:
Yeah, rose gold, the pink one.
Casey:
That that wasn't a thing when the watch came out because I think Aaron would have loved that.
Casey:
That being said, when I tried to quickly rewatch the keynote this afternoon, Aaron seemed very unimpressed by it.
Casey:
So I'm not sure if she really would have loved it.
Casey:
But typically she likes that kind of pink, that very like soft pink.
Casey:
She loved her pink razor, which I think we've talked about in parts in the past.
Casey:
Not to say that pink is only for girls, but the girl that I know best happens to really like pink, and so that's why I bring it up.
Casey:
There's the new bands by Hermes.
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
I believe it's Hermes.
Casey:
Yeah, you're right.
Casey:
You're right.
Casey:
Sorry, I was trying really hard to remember, but that's okay.
Marco:
I didn't know that before today.
Marco:
Neither did I. I would have said Hermes until today.
Casey:
Yeah, so there's new bands.
Casey:
Clearly not targeted to me because I think the one that wraps a double around your wrist looks absolutely ridiculous, and it seems like it would be a pain in the butt to put on.
Casey:
So obviously not for me.
Marco:
Pain in the butt to put on has no bearing on fashion.
Marco:
That's true.
Marco:
Second of all, yeah, I've been told by my expert wife that that is very much in fashion right now.
John:
yeah well as have you see did you see the giant cuff for men you see that yeah i don't understand that it's like you're being shackled to your watch like this watch the strap is not enough to hold it to my wrist i need something bigger well yeah i mean yeah this is this is this is way beyond our understanding because this is high fashion and we are not high fashion maybe maybe it blocks bullets is that a wonder woman reference that is oh look at me guys are too young for that show
Casey:
Yeah, well, there's that.
Casey:
Okay, so new colors, new bands, brief mention of watchOS 2.
Casey:
I got to tell you, as quick aside, I'm really freaking stoked for custom complications or third-party complications.
Casey:
I actually am intending to write a blog post about this if and when I ever have a chance to breathe.
Casey:
But I can think of a handful of apps that I would love to have custom complications for.
Casey:
And what is the face that has no analog portion to it, the modular face?
Marco:
Yeah, I believe so.
Casey:
So the modular face, I think it's aesthetically hideous.
Casey:
But if the right set of complications came out, I would probably switch to that.
Casey:
I am really, really stoked for watchOS 2.
Casey:
Have you done much with Overcast for watchOS 2?
Marco:
i i really i don't know if i should say this or not i literally haven't started well you're gonna have a busy fall i'd say yeah i mean because it's mostly because the more i use the watch and i don't want to go too far into this now because we have a lot we have a lot of other stuff to talk about but basically the more i use the watch the less interested i am in running apps on it uh i like and i really like the watch and i use it
Marco:
I use it every day.
Marco:
I'm always wearing it.
Marco:
I love the activity tracking.
Marco:
I love notifications.
Marco:
I love so much about the watch in reality, but I don't love the apps on it.
Marco:
And I don't think I'm alone in that.
Marco:
I think this is a very common opinion of it where, you know, people keep going on and on about how the watch is going to replace... Well, before the watch came out, people went on and on about how it's going to replace phones.
Marco:
And I was a little skeptical about that.
Marco:
And I think my skepticism has proven to be correct that...
Marco:
I don't think watches can replace phones.
Marco:
I think anyone who has one of these smartwatches will probably agree with that, that it isn't an issue of like, oh, just wait a couple years and the hardware will be so much better.
Marco:
It's literally just like the ergonomics and the physical sides of things just don't work out that well.
Marco:
The watch is really cool for a lot of things, but being a general purpose at platform isn't one of those things as far as I'm concerned.
Marco:
Now,
Marco:
There are a lot of things that could be done better that would improve the situation.
Marco:
With watchOS 2, custom complications, I think they're making a lot of headway into that.
Marco:
But I also think that when Apple designed the watch, I think they made a bunch of mistakes with the UI and the software structure.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
I would have made it a lot simpler, honestly.
Marco:
I don't want to get too far into this.
Marco:
We'll talk about it on another show.
Marco:
But I would have basically done only the watch face, complications, and notifications, and glances.
Marco:
And not have the home screen.
Marco:
Not have apps that are like these navigation hierarchy trees or that are really meant to do anything beyond a few seconds long.
Marco:
So anyway, I haven't started to work on Overcast for the watch in part because...
Marco:
it isn't a high priority for me as a user of Overcast, that the Watch app I have now works okay.
Marco:
When I get a chance, I'm going to do the WatchOS 2 app.
Marco:
I'm not going to tackle trying to play things directly from the Watch with no phone nearby anytime soon, because I looked into it at WVDC, and it's basically extremely limited in what you can do, extremely challenging, and I think, honestly, it would kind of suck, just the reality of moving these files back and forth.
Marco:
Like, you know...
Marco:
how many people do you know now with the watch who sync music over to it and listen on bluetooth headphones while they jog like i don't know anybody i mean i know you can do that and i know people want that but i don't know anybody who's actually tried it and has wanted to do it more than once just because it's so it's so um cumbersome to transfer data back and forth and
Marco:
I mean, I barely even know enough people who have Bluetooth headphones who could even do it at all.
Marco:
But anyway, so I've been focused with Overcast on streaming, streaming, streaming, and getting 2.0 out the door.
Marco:
And so I'm working on that.
Marco:
The reality is...
Marco:
almost all of overcast customers are using it on an iphone very few of them even have an apple watch very few of them use it on the ipad and none of them have an apple tv yet that matters um so that's where i'm focusing my efforts on the iphone app right now and then once i finished 2.0 which should be very soon then i can branch out to these other platforms and start figuring out what might make sense there but for now i haven't even touched it
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Well, that's surprising.
Casey:
But I am curious to see how that goes once you start really digging into the OS2 version.
Casey:
And I'm going to call it OS2 forevermore because I want to.
Marco:
I mean, honestly, I hardly ever launch the Overcast app on my watch.
Marco:
I almost never use it.
Marco:
And I think that's kind of a problem for me as a developer.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
I hear from people, when I ask people who use the app, I hear from them similar things that it just isn't as useful as we thought it would be for that kind of role.
Marco:
Now, for all the other things, like for the things I mentioned, notifications, time stuff, watch face complications, glances...
Marco:
It's very good at those things, except glances.
Marco:
It's very good at the other parts of those things.
Marco:
If that's all it ever does, that's still a really nice device for a lot of people, myself included.
Marco:
I'm still very happy I bought it for all those reasons.
Marco:
If it never runs an app in the typical go back to the honeycomb screen, find the icon, launch the icon, do some things in the app.
Marco:
If I never do that again with the watch, I'll be fine with this product.
Casey:
That's interesting.
Casey:
There's not a lot of watch apps that I use, but the ones I use I do quite like.
Casey:
I really like Fantastical.
Casey:
I really like this Baby Connect app that we're probably not going to be using much longer because Declan's getting quite a bit older now.
Casey:
Dark Sky is good.
Casey:
Yeah, that's about it.
Casey:
When I'm traveling, there's some others that I use, but that doesn't happen terribly often.
Casey:
John, are you using any third-party apps for your watch, really?
John:
I don't use apps much either, but I find myself still forgetting and being frustrated by the fact that the watch is so much less useful without the phone.
John:
Like, if I don't have my phone in my pocket and I'm just wearing my watch, oh, that's right, I'm not going to get text messages.
John:
I'm not going to see when, like, you know, a new calendar, well, I guess I'll see the calendar once if they synced, but, like,
John:
the communication like that it does all its communication through the phone and that once you are if you leave your phone at your desk and you go to a meeting uh i will not see if my wife texts me something and and i forget that that's the case i forget that the because you start using it for those for those roles where it's like you're sort of on the wrist tapping you notice notifications of things going on you start to believe that the watch is its own thing you're like i just need my watch i don't need to take my phone out of my pocket but then you're like i don't even need my phone and you do
John:
Um, so I, I'm looking forward to seven years from now when it can do all those same things that Marco described, but not rely on the phone for all of them.
John:
And maybe it'll be more than seven years.
John:
Um, because, because for those functions, for that functionality, a lot of the times that's all I need out of it.
John:
I don't need to be launching apps on my phone or surfing the web.
John:
I just need to make and receive phone calls and texts and have an up-to-date synchronized calendar and maybe, you know, do some basic lookups of, of contact information.
John:
that can all fit on the watch because then, you know, I'm not like I'm typing on the watch.
John:
I'm speaking into it.
John:
I'm either using the speech to text or I'm sending audio things to people or I'm doing phone calls over the tinny little thing.
John:
Like it's just for two-second little spurts of things.
John:
So that's the place where I feel the watch has room to grow.
John:
That and also the thing that they've done here, getting back to the announcement, is I'm glad to see that they are –
John:
branching out aesthetically like that they're not going to you know here's a bunch of watches you can get and then you know a year from now or two years from now when we make the next version the watch will be a different fashion like that they're willing to play with it that they have you know more colors more styles more watch faces and i think they should do even more of that in particular the watch faces where they kind of like oh if you get this special band you'll get the special watch face
John:
I guess they have to do that for branding purposes because they probably own the designs of these.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Anyway, I think that's the next area that needs to open up is watch face, third party watch faces, because all this type of customization makes people feel more of a connection with this thing.
John:
Like there are so many varieties you can get now and so many colors and so many bands.
John:
And I think they should let people have third party watch faces as well, because that is an area like Marco's like he's not really enthused.
John:
about uh making a watch os app because he doesn't find himself using apps but everybody uses the watch face and if you were a designer i bet you'd be really jazzed about a chance to make your own watch face or even you know so much so that even marco might make one with like a uh watch hands that move out of the way so you can see the little date complication you know whatever like it just seems like a fun thing to do and uh play to the strengths of the watch right now apps are not the strength of the watch but who knows with the watch os 2
John:
Maybe more people will find more apps.
John:
Casey's found a few.
John:
I found basically zero.
John:
Marco's found zero.
John:
If watchOS 2, after six months of development, can get me and Marco to have one app that we use all the time, that will be a victory for the platform.
Casey:
Yeah, I think that's fair.
Casey:
All right, anything else about the watch?
Marco:
Well, do you guys think... So, obviously, the big news with the watch today is that they added a ton of bands and new body colors.
Marco:
So, you mentioned they added the rose gold sport.
Marco:
Also, the gold sport, right?
Marco:
Oh, yeah, you're right.
Marco:
I believe that's right.
Marco:
I think, yeah.
Marco:
So, they just doubled the number of colors in the sport line for the watch body.
Marco:
Plus, they added the Hermes line.
Marco:
Plus, they have, like...
Marco:
they have like 10 new sport band colors it's this massive number of new colors there it's like more than triple it's like triple the number of sport band colors that we have plus there's now a the they they totally remade the classic buckle uh now it's it looks like it's a little bit thicker it's two-tone leather on the black and they also added a brown version which is very nice uh at least in the picture so far uh they basically just added tons of new watch options but
Marco:
only a few months after the watch was released, obviously leading into the holiday season.
Marco:
Do you guys think this is a sign that they're kind of a little bit desperate to boost the sales of the watch?
John:
No, I think they're just hitting their production ramp.
John:
Like, it was supply constrained in the beginning, and now they have the capacity and have worked out the manufacturing, and they can just start branching out.
John:
And with any fashion accessory, you want to have more varieties.
John:
Like, in the beginning for the launch, it's just you have to necessarily keep things...
John:
somewhat narrow and now they can branch out and offer people more variety and i and i think it's really just about people who are like when the big rush to get the watches like oh i don't know if that's any good i'm not gonna bother i don't want to fight the crowds now you'll be able to get one and the holiday season is coming up if you are interested in a watch
John:
you know maybe you looked at the the previous models and you didn't want to deal with the rush and none of them really appealed to you and now you're casually wandering into a store and you should be struck by the fact that oh i didn't like any of those ones that i saw pictures of before but i would like this color with this thing like it's a it's a good timing for them for the holidays to just have more variety and i don't think it's a desperation thing because like the product hasn't changed it's the same watch it always was all they're doing is
John:
giving people more variety and a night and it coincides nicely with watch os 2 which you know regular people don't know the difference between watch os 1 and 2 or whatever like this this watch for this holiday season in this variety as far as the casual public who has been who had been dismissing the apple watch is concerned this is how the apple watch always has been and they'll take an interest in it and they'll think this is how the watch was from day one but it's not so i think they're just getting a product line that's more appropriate for the holidays
Casey:
Yeah, I think it could be indicative of Trouble in Paradise, but I do agree with John that I think it's just that they're hitting their production ramp and just getting their feet under them, so to speak.
Casey:
So I'm not too worried yet.
John:
Yeah, and also, like, the watch is still a phone.
John:
You can't get one of these unless you have an iPhone.
John:
right and so it's never it's not going to be like oh we got to worry about watch it's always going to be a subset of iphone sales and in the beginning it's going to be a really small subset so it's not as if apple was expecting the watch to be a breakout product like that's why they said before they even released the watch we're not going to break out the numbers for you and everything because they know like it's not going to be big in the beginning it's always going to be until they break it free of the iphone if they ever do like i said seven years now or something
John:
But it's something they want to do.
John:
No one has really said this, but in the wake of the Apple TV thing, you could kind of consider Apple Watch their new hobby.
John:
That's interesting.
John:
We don't know the numbers, so you can't say number-wise it is or whatever, but...
John:
It looks a lot like a hobby, doesn't it?
John:
It's a cool accessory that you can get for the phone, which is their meat and potatoes.
John:
And you do lots of fun, interesting stuff with it.
John:
And you don't break out the numbers for people.
John:
And it's not as if there's any sort of platform that lives or dies based on the sales of the watch or anything like that.
John:
It seems hobby-ish to me.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Maybe I'm totally wrong.
John:
Like, the people who know the real numbers or who can, like, back-solve for them, like, of course they do or whatever, can tell me that they sold more watches in the first 24 hours than all Apple TVs ever sold, which is probably true.
John:
And the watch's margin's got to be much better than the Apple TVs.
John:
So it could be, you know, I could be way off on this.
John:
But it strikes me as, because it is a subordinate product, because it is basically the world's fanciest iPhone accessory,
John:
And it's still in that infancy.
John:
Remember when only weird people had iPhones or had smartphones at all?
John:
That's the stage Apple Watch is at now.
John:
Well, the iPhone was never at that stage.
John:
It was.
John:
When the first iPhone came out and it was like $600 or whatever, only weird people had iPhones.
John:
If you look at the little ramp of how many cumulative number of iPhones sold, it started out pretty slow.
John:
It was just like the people who really believed and people wanted it, but it seemed expensive because every other phone didn't look like the iPhone at that point.
John:
And smartwatches, I still think, are in that early phase.
John:
So I'm willing to give the watch a pretty long time to go through its 3G, 3GS, 4 phase before the rest of the world starts to wake up and look at it.
John:
And maybe then it will...
Marco:
get out of the realm of uh potentially a hobby product for apple yeah i don't know i i i honestly i have a little bit of worry here for the apple watch uh only because it does seem like i i can't imagine they were planning all along to launch all these things this fall uh for like all these all these new hardware varieties so soon after the launch of the first watch
John:
but it's just it's just color changes like they made a bunch of plastic bands and now they can make the plastic in different colors and like the anodized stuff like they're already doing it for the phone they already have the process it's probably the same like it's very straightforward stuff uh and it just it just seems to me that why would you not do this then you don't there's a reason not to do it on launch which is just you really have to concentrate on a few models and get the kinks worked out or whatever but once you've got all the kinks worked out you're not designing a new watch it's the same old watch just color stuff differently
John:
And it's so easy to do, and it makes people happy.
John:
And if you have enough manufacturing inventory to make sure you always have one in the color and the size that people want, why would you not do it?
Marco:
The most obvious answer to me is, why not wait until version 2 to do some of these things?
Marco:
They don't do this with the iPhone.
Marco:
The iPhone sells in way bigger volume.
Marco:
It's very important to the company.
Marco:
It makes them way more money.
John:
But it's not as much of a fashion accessory.
John:
I think when the watch two comes out, it will be reconstrained to a smaller set of styles and colors again.
John:
And then it will do the exact same thing where the watch to like, assuming they don't do like a two S or whatever, the next watch that is different, a different shape and size, right?
John:
We'll have a limited set of colors, similarly limited to the first one.
John:
And then we'll branch out again, because I just don't think you can launch a brand new product in this, um, this, in this variety of colors and sizes and shapes and finishes and bands and all the other stuff.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I mean, there is the possibility.
Marco:
So when Tim Cook, on the last earnings call, said that the Apple Watch is selling well, and there was this report a couple days before that from some survey company that said there was a huge spike of pre-orders, and then it dropped, and then it was not selling well anymore.
Marco:
What he said did not actually contradict that report, because what he said was counting them when they ship to customers, not when they are ordered by customers.
Marco:
could have been true while that report was also true so this could all still be the case where what he said you know back then it was selling well the you know it was selling by like stock inventory standards of like when it ships that's when it's charged that's when it's sold that's when we book the that's when we book the revenue
Marco:
OK, so now leading into the holiday quarter, you know, another quarter is coming up.
Marco:
He's going to, you know, if it isn't selling well, they're going to have to explain why, because someone's going to, you know, people are going to look at these numbers.
Marco:
They're going to be able to figure out in this this other category.
Marco:
Oh, crap.
Marco:
This is kind of bad.
Marco:
And hopefully the Apple TV is in there to help boost it up there.
Marco:
What if this, and again, this might not be the case.
Marco:
This is the cynical take on this, right?
Marco:
Or the skeptical take on this.
Marco:
What if all these new bands and everything are not only an attempt to juice new watch sales earlier than they planned, but also an attempt to get more money sooner out of existing watch owners who are buying additional bands, just trying to juice the watch quarter numbers for, you know, in the short term, just to get them until a future point where they think that the sales will make up for it.
John:
I don't know how many extra bands are going to sell to existing watch owners.
John:
I feel like it's the same with the original iPhone.
John:
iPhone came out.
John:
Everyone who wanted one got one.
John:
Then a bunch of other people just stood back and watched for a while.
John:
And this has the advantage of the holidays where it's like the watch came out.
John:
Everyone who wanted to watch got one.
John:
Everyone else just sat back and watched curiously this whole watch thing.
John:
And the holidays come along, it's like, well, I mean, that's the type of thing.
John:
Well, buy somebody something they wouldn't buy for themselves.
John:
Someone might have been curious about the watch, but they're not going to spend that money.
John:
They don't know if it's a big deal.
John:
They don't even know if they're going to like one.
John:
Someone will get it for them as a gift.
John:
That's what the holidays do.
John:
That's why a holiday is a big shopping season.
John:
People who are considering watches or wanted to get for themselves or whatever, like I think it will still be a small thing because I think of how many people, how many people owned in the entire world ever own the iPhone one super small number.
John:
This is the iPhone one.
John:
This is the first watch.
John:
uh just with different bands in different colors um so i don't expect there to be a huge number of people who have this watch if the product's going to be successful we have to look forward to the fourth iteration of this and then see and again it's always going to be capped by the number of iphones so all you're looking at is what is what makes a successful watch what percentage of iphone owners have to buy an apple watch for it to be a successful product one percent two percent ten percent uh i think now it is much less than one percent and i think that's just to be expected so
John:
I'm not worried about the Apple Watch.
John:
I don't think Tim Cook is worried about the Apple Watch, especially since tech-wise and manufacturing-wise, their investment and what they've done so far, they can cruise for a few years making progressively slightly better iterations of this watch without breaking the bank.
John:
I'm sure they've already made back their money that they invested in developing this product.
John:
I don't think they're worried about that.
John:
I think they're willing to just continue to chase this category wherever it leads, and it will be fine.
Marco:
Yeah, that's fair.
Marco:
Also, one more thing I think one of the reasons they might have been doing this also is that when compared to other smartwatch vendors out there, Apple already had, I think, way more options for bands, colors, and sizes, and materials than anyone else.
Marco:
And now they've really taken a massive lead on that.
Marco:
They already had the lead.
Marco:
Now it's a way wider lead where...
Marco:
competitively if you look at the Samsung Galaxy S whatever versus the LG whatever versus the Motorola 270 whatever then Apple like anyone who's actually comparing these side by side which I don't think honestly is a big number but anyone actually comparing them side by side would would be blown away by just how many choices they have from Apple's side and it's more likely that they can find something they like on Apple's side
John:
Yeah.
John:
And they're staking out the high ground.
John:
Like Apple always wants the most profitable section of any business.
John:
And so the way you do that in anything that's remotely related to fashion is make sure you're the one that's seen as the like, oh, we we are partnering with this this fashion company whose name regular people can't pronounce it.
John:
I've never heard.
John:
uh samsung isn't right or like they're apple is trying to make sure that when all the dust settles when someone thinks of what is that fancy smart watch that all the fashion people are into that the answer to that is apple and so they're like that's why they're doing you know that's why they have the really super expensive gold one that's why they're doing these partnerships with these fashion companies regular people don't care about that no one's going to buy those super expensive like
John:
but it's all for positioning.
John:
So they end up with the most profitable customers.
John:
They end up with the one with the most cache, with the one that is seen as a status symbol.
John:
Even after everybody had like the iPhone, remember when the iPhone was a status symbol, like celebrities would have an iPhone.
John:
Now nobody cares.
John:
Everybody has an iPhone or some other smartphone.
John:
It's not a big deal.
John:
I think what they're doing with this, this fashion partnerships and stuff is trying to make sure that even after everybody has a smartwatch five years from now, no one cares.
John:
It's not a big deal.
John:
And they come in cereal boxes and,
John:
that through these silly partnerships where someone sells you a strap of leather for a thousand dollars because it's got a particular name on it that that is still seen in the same way that regular fashion is who cares about these shoes or this dress or whatever like fashion is always going to be a status symbol and it's not tied to technology it's tied to you know uh you know
John:
And exclusivity and who's got buzz and what's in style and Apple's just trying to stay on top of that.
John:
They seem so much more dedicated to it than everyone else who's making smart watches right now.
Marco:
Our next sponsor is Casper.
Marco:
Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses for a fraction of the price.
Marco:
Go to casper.com slash ATP and use code ATP for $50 off any mattress at checkout.
Marco:
Now, the mattress industry has inherently forced customers into paying notoriously high markups.
Marco:
Casper is revolutionizing the industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and mattress showrooms and passing that savings directly on to you, the consumer.
Marco:
Casper mattresses provide resilience and long-lasting supportive comfort.
Marco:
Their mattresses are one of a kind.
Marco:
This is a hybrid mattress technology that combines premium latex foam with memory foam.
Marco:
So it has the benefits of both.
Marco:
You have the nice soft support of memory foam, but the latex foam blended in reduces the memory foam's downsides that a lot of people cite, like that it's too hot or it doesn't feel right, it doesn't bounce right.
Marco:
So you get the benefits of both.
Marco:
Just the right sink and just the right bounce.
Marco:
This is obsessively engineered to provide this balance.
Marco:
Now, this is also at a shockingly fair price.
Marco:
Mattresses can usually cost well over $1,500 for a good one.
Marco:
If you've ever bought a mattress before and tried to get something good, you will recognize these prices as pretty much insane.
Marco:
Casper mattresses cost $500 for a twin, $750 for full, $850 for queen, $950 for king.
Marco:
They even have a twin XL for $600 if you want it in there.
Marco:
Now, Casper understands that buying a mattress online can have you wondering how this is all possible.
Marco:
And, you know, do you even want to buy a mattress online?
Marco:
This is obviously a big question.
Marco:
They know this, right?
Marco:
So they've made it completely risk-free.
Marco:
They have free delivery and easy returns within a hundred-day period.
Marco:
It's that simple.
Marco:
Now, lying on a bed for four minutes in a showroom has no correlation whatsoever to what is the right bed for you.
Marco:
Now, they know this.
Marco:
You can try this in your home for 100 days, totally risk-free.
Marco:
They know that truly trying it out in your home is really what matters.
Marco:
That's what you need to know to know whether it's right for you.
Marco:
So check it out, casper.com slash ATP.
Marco:
risk-free trial and return policy, try for 100 days, free delivery, free returns.
Marco:
These mattresses are obsessively engineered for just the right sink, just the right bounce, and they're made in America.
Marco:
So check it out today, casper.com slash ATP and use code ATP at checkout for $50 off any purchase.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to Casper.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Federico Vatici's time has come.
Casey:
The iPad Pro.
Casey:
I believe I heard screaming from the mountaintops of Italy when this was finally announced.
Casey:
I am really intrigued by it.
Casey:
There is no damn way I'm going to carry around a 13-inch iPad.
Casey:
As someone who actually prefers an iPad mini...
Casey:
I just don't see myself wanting a 13-inch iPad.
Casey:
That being said, it is intriguing if for no other reason than it's a remix of all the things that came before it.
Casey:
It's a remix of the paper app, it's a remix of the paper pencil, and it's a remix of the Surface.
Casey:
But we have in the show notes the A9X, so I assume, John, you'd like to start by talking about that.
John:
really that's what we're talking about first i just threw it in there like you know it's it's our way into talking about the a9 and it's just that apple continues to uh rev its cpu lines in in ways that were only we were accustomed to on the desktop and laptop years ago and now these low power tablet and phone chips are following the same trajectory and i think a lot of regular people are wondering like
John:
why is the iphone and ipad cpu like getting twice as fast every year but my macbook cpu does not get twice as fast every year uh and the answer is that the iphone and the ipad cpus are playing catch up they start out way way way slower than your macbook and they're catching up to it once they do catch up with it they will not be doubling anymore like there's no magic here um
John:
there's a little potentially a little bit of advantage of apple controlling all this stuff and that's something we'll get to in another show uh related to that that we'll talk about but uh but that's why they're doubling um but anyway uh apple continues to put out those graphs like look how much faster our cpus and gpus have gotten in our ipad and it is impressive like they're
John:
the gpus are better and you know it's like 22x cpu increase and 360x gpu speed they started out so darn slow like that's the magic of that graph like because if you just look what the axes are labeled and look how slow it was yeah so anyway they're still getting faster
John:
The interesting thing that Apple didn't compare the iPad Pro to and didn't compare the A9X to at all was any of its own laptops.
John:
Because at this point, I feel like this thing has to be faster than at least some laptops that Apple sells.
John:
Don't you think like in both CPU and GPU or some kind of synthetic benchmark that you come up with that this thing is going to be faster than like an 11 inch error or something?
Marco:
Well, and also, I mean, compare it to its most obvious alternative, the MacBook One.
Marco:
I mean, I would guess it has to be faster than the MacBook One at certain things.
John:
That might be a horse race, depending on what you're testing.
John:
Maybe in GPU speed.
John:
I don't know.
John:
But anyway, that aspect of it certainly fulfills the Pro aspect.
John:
The 8x was pretty darn fast anyway, and the A9x, like, this is...
John:
this is a worthy processor i think for the ipad pro is it the first one that would have been powerful enough because here's the two things about this um they're pushing so many more pixels and remember what happened when we went first one written on the ipad it was a problem uh on this thing i mean it's already written it's just a bigger screen they're pushing more pixels and they keep talking about oh we can have this many 4k video screen streams and stuff like that you have to have a
John:
pretty beefy gpu in there just to do basic things with this many pixels look at what happened with the iphone 6 plus where it seems like it was just a little bit underpowered and they had like the weird double size screen that they shrink down to fit in the number of pixels and stuff i'm hoping they avoided all those compromises with this thing just because they have so much more room to do everything in here so the cpu gpu part definitely seems pro to me
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot about it.
Marco:
To me, this is a very confusing product, honestly.
Marco:
And it's probably just because it's not for me.
Marco:
I really don't think this is for me.
Marco:
And I honestly am not sure I know anybody who it is for, but I'm sure a lot of people will be very happy about it.
Marco:
It's just not me and the people I know.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
this is a really first of all it's huge i mean i guess you know if you can permit me to talk about the physical parts for a minute um it's massive and it's heavy it weighs more than the ipad one and it's larger uh the macbook one you mean sorry no no no i mean the ipad one it weighs less than the macbook one
John:
with the keyboard thing?
Marco:
Oh, maybe.
Marco:
I didn't look at that.
Marco:
It's a bigger screen than the MacBook One.
Marco:
This is 12.9.
Marco:
The MacBook One, I think, is 12.0.
John:
Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.
John:
This is not like... This is a coming-in generation of terror.
John:
It's exactly what makes it an iPad Pro.
John:
It's not like, well, I would bring a laptop, but I want something smaller, so I bought the iPad Pro.
John:
It's like Tim said on the stage, I think someone tweeted, he reemphasized for the millionth time
John:
as i've said on past shows as well uh that the ipad is the future of computing as far as apple's concerned they're just pressured by their inability to make it happen but they really believe that that this this kind of platform is the future of computing not a not a continuous slow steady evolution of plain old desktop computers uh and they haven't proved that in either the market or to the customers and
John:
But finally, they're making forward progress again after many, many years of just making differently sized but equally boring, very large phones.
John:
So the keyboard, the stylus that we'll get to, it's not a stylus, it's a pencil, and all the other things shows that they're finally moving in that direction again.
John:
Are they right?
John:
I don't know.
Yeah.
John:
But you have to see this thing through.
John:
If you really believe that this is the way that most people will be doing most of the things they do with computers in the future, then you have to make products that prove it.
John:
And so this is the first attempt.
Marco:
As we talked about a couple weeks ago, I think this is going to face a lot of the same challenges that every iPad has faced.
Marco:
And just from the physical side, it is going to be tough because...
Marco:
Where iPads have been strong before, things like casual reading in bed or couch use and stuff like that, for a lot of those things, this is actually going to be uncomfortably large and heavy now for a lot of people.
Marco:
It's actually taking a step backwards in some of those areas in order to achieve the big screen and everything else.
Marco:
And I don't think they could have done a lot better with that.
Marco:
I think this is just the physical realities of a device that has a screen this large.
Marco:
So there's going to be some challenges there.
Marco:
But also, ergonomically, obviously this is made to be used with the keyboard probably frequently, I would say.
John:
I don't know about that because it has... Didn't they emphasize the full-size on-screen keyboard as well?
John:
Well, yeah, they gave it
John:
a couple seconds but i know also this that's a piece of follow-up that we skipped this week but someone saying that uh i think it was a teacher saying the students prefer the on-screen keyboard because physical keyboards don't have the same sort of i think he's saying they don't have the same sort of autocomplete type stuff whatever i like i think a generation of people who grew up tapping on glass to type uh it may not be that crazy they would prefer the on-screen keyboard i this getting to like the physical uh things that you're talking about this i mean we'll talk about this in the end but like whether i'm gonna buy one or whatever
John:
Even though I've been so gung-ho for the iPad Pro, and I think this is a great product, and it's going to be artists and other people who really need a big screen and want the pencil and everything, and people who write applications for those people, it gives them their first real shot to sell pro apps to pro people using pro hardware.
John:
It's still kind of two things in one here.
John:
The two things are, first, make a bigger iPad so people don't feel so constrained.
John:
For the people who want a big screen to do things, you need more pixels, you need more detail, and with a precision-pointing device,
John:
And second, let the iPad do more complicated things with the keyboard, with the split screen or whatever.
John:
And in this product, they are tied together.
John:
It's gargantuan.
John:
It's way too big for most people.
John:
It's not going to sell well because it's just too darn big, like Margo said.
John:
But all the features that are in this, if you put them on the iPad Air 2 size device, equally valuable to people who like that size device.
John:
And I think you can shrink even all of them down maybe to the mini if you make it a little bit bigger except for maybe the keyboard.
John:
Like I feel like everything that is staked out by this product, all the functionality, even the little side port thing and all the OS features and all the software that's going to be written to it, that is all valuable at sizes less than gargantuan.
John:
Unfortunately, this first product or fortunately for the people who are interested, this is gargantuan plus all the fancy features.
John:
And I think every single one of these fancy features can and should trickle down to the extent possible allowed by the sizes.
John:
And I think that will eventually solve most of the problems that you're talking about, Marco, because I agree with you.
John:
This thing is really big.
John:
I want an iPad Pro.
John:
I want this product.
John:
I don't know if it's too big for me.
John:
I don't know.
John:
like if i got this i'd be like then i need a smaller ipad for like my other active you know what i mean i'll have to and the weight i mean i'm using an ipad 3 now which is massive anyway but i'm gonna have to try it out but you have this is the right move i think because this is staking out the high end it's like if anybody's gonna want this pro it's got to go pro pro pro big big big pencil thing fine arts keyboard people on the go doing typing go to the microsoft service thing this is
John:
this is huge this is like you know it's clearly pushing in the high end type of product but i really really hope they don't year after year rev the ipad pro and keep all these features to the big one because i want all these on all the ipads uh you know to to the extent possible
Casey:
Yeah, I agree.
Casey:
You know, I was thinking that I would really kind of like to have a keyboard cover for my iPad Mini, which kind of disgusted me because... Trust me, you don't.
Casey:
Yeah, it kind of disgusted me because I realized that's a terrible idea.
Casey:
But that was my gut reaction was, man, that would be kind of convenient for like when I'm traveling because occasionally...
Casey:
I'll travel and not want to bring a 15-inch MacBook Pro, but want something that I can type on to write emails or something like that.
Casey:
And so occasionally when I travel, I'll bring my Mini and my Apple wireless keyboard, which if I really think that through is kind of ridiculous, but that's occasionally what happens.
Casey:
And so I agree with you, John, that having a lot of these features for even the smaller devices, I think that's fairly compelling.
John:
Yeah, or even like the split screen stuff, which they're confining possibly for CPU reasons, possibly for RAM reasons.
John:
Like just everything about this, you know, it's still two gigs of RAM, I think.
John:
I don't know if that's been determined.
John:
But anyway, the fact that it used to just be the Air 2 that had two gigs of RAM and that extra RAM really makes the existing boring pre-iOS 9 iOS experience so much better just because your crap isn't all gone when you switch applications.
John:
Like those type of hardware-based compromises are...
John:
are going to leave on the high end first are they're gonna you know this cpu and gpu can be faster and hotter and bigger and they could put a huge battery in here and this can have the most pixels and it can handle the whatever they're doing for the the pencil stuff and all like all those things should trickle down as eventually the ipad 2 ipad air 2 class machine can also handle all that and eventually the mini class machine can handle it maybe the mini will get a little bit bigger and maybe the keyboard will be bigger than the device because you can't have a keyboard that small because it's insane
John:
And I think the most exciting thing about it is... Well, I would say the most exciting thing is the addition of a rotation lock button, but I don't think that's there.
John:
But anyway, the fact that Apple actually went in the opposite direction for once.
John:
Instead of slowly removing every possible button from the device, they added a new thing.
John:
They added... It's not really a port, kind of, but they added three little buttons on the bottom.
John:
It's a new connector.
John:
It's like, that's a pro feature.
John:
You can connect other stuff to the thing with the thing.
John:
You know, baby steps here, right?
John:
They didn't add USB ports, right?
John:
There's no SD card slot.
John:
But if this is the future of computing, they have to eventually figure out in what ways are we going to allow this to be expanded and hardware accessorized.
John:
If you let it be expanded every way that a PC can be expanded, you're just repeating the sins of the past and just recreating the PC in a different form.
John:
And I don't think Apple wants to do that.
John:
So they're being cautious, but I like seeing them move in that direction.
John:
I like this not just being a Bluetooth accessory, right?
John:
Why is it not Bluetooth?
John:
because the bluetooth accessory is crappier the bluetooth thing has to have batteries and you got bluetooth flakiness and it's like this we don't have to worry about that it's powered by the thing we have a giant battery in there you know we don't we can make the the cover itself thinner although it still looks kind of like a hunchback when you close it because it's like thick on one end and kind of gross but anyway
John:
generation one product i i you know but i i am excited i was that was most exciting part of the reveal thing was when they showed three little dots on the side i'm like that's a new port you know that's they didn't show a rotational lock which is disappointing i guess there just wasn't enough room along the edge of the device they needed room for those giant empty chambers around the four speakers
Marco:
One of the big things about this, I think, besides the size, obviously, I'll keep harping on forever, the price is interesting.
Marco:
If you look at how this is positioned, how other iPads were positioned before, and now how this is positioned against their other laptops, this is really a laptop replacement.
Marco:
Some people, obviously, idiots like me will buy them and use them as toys that also have every other kind of device, but
Marco:
I really think most people are not going to be spending $1,000 on a tablet that is not going to replace a laptop.
Marco:
For it to be this big and this expensive, it has to replace laptops for most of its customers, I would say.
Marco:
And maybe that proves to be wrong.
Marco:
Who knows?
Marco:
But that's probably how it's going to go.
Marco:
I would also expect a much more laptop-like replacement cycle, although I think we're seeing that in most iPads, actually.
Marco:
So the big thing to me is software-wise, are there a lot of people, I know this is not going to be all, but are there a lot of people for whom this can replace a laptop better than any other iPad?
Marco:
You know, obviously some people can get by with the other iPad just fine.
Marco:
The people who couldn't, how many of them will this be good enough for where the other iPads weren't?
John:
i'm thinking of this replacing a desktop for the first customers uh because it's gonna be i'm thinking again of the pencil which we haven't talked about that much but like that the type what's the first it's a chicken egg thing so you need the hardware before you can make the software but what is the easiest market for if you're going to sell an expensive application that costs a lot of money to develop and you're you're not going to sell a lot of copies but you're going to sell them for a lot of money like and these days you know 99 dollars
John:
it's an application it's it's a design or art application that let somebody use this thing and the pencil assuming it works as advertised and it's all impressive and great and everything to do their main function like their actual work not on the go but at their desk at their job like this is a little a miniature cintiq um and i know most people would say
John:
Like, for example, someone who's using the Surface to do that today, that's great and all, but if it doesn't run Photoshop, it's pointless to me because what am I going to use that stylus for?
John:
I'm going to use my Surface, I'm going to run Photoshop, and I'm going to get my work done because that's what I need to get my work done.
John:
So Apple does have a huge software gap here, but...
John:
The history of the iPad leading up to this has been if Apple doesn't make pro hardware, no one's going to make pro software and everyone's waiting for someone to go over.
John:
So Apple went first.
John:
And I think Apple is desperately hoping that somebody, probably not Adobe, is going to try to be the Photoshop of the iPad Pro and get people to use this thing.
John:
as their actual computer at their desk at their work as like a desktop replacement.
John:
And you can also read your email and check Twitter and have a little YouTube video playing in the corner and listen to your music and also be scribbling away with your $100 Johnny Ive blessed pure white Apple pencil.
John:
That, I think, is the vision for this product.
John:
It's not a reality, because if you buy this thing, there's no application you can buy to do that stuff.
John:
But, you know, Apple wants there to be, and they showed AutoCAD and all these other things.
John:
So I'm hopeful, and I see where this product can go.
John:
Uh, but I expect like, I expect not a lot of people to buy this.
John:
I expect people to buy it and be bewildered by it.
John:
Um, and, uh, I just hope that everything in this product embodies more power, more Ram, more ports slowly spreads to the rest of the iPad line, because that will finally, that will finally differentiate.
John:
What is the difference between an iPad and an iPhone?
John:
Is an iPad just a big iPhone?
John:
This is not a big iPhone.
John:
This is like the farthest thing from a big iPhone ever.
John:
So yeah,
John:
uh kudos to apple for doing this and uh i i hope the next few years is uh as encouraging as uh as this announcement is to me and vatici and maybe five other people oh goodness so what do we think about this this pencil um i do feel bad for the folks at uh what is it 53 yeah um
Casey:
So there's been a lot of Sherlocking going on in that direction.
Marco:
Well, look, when you choose a really generic name for your product, you run the risks like this.
Casey:
Oh, absolutely.
Casey:
But I was expecting to be very blasé about the pencil.
Casey:
And again, it doesn't really speak to me because I don't do the sorts of things that would require a stylus.
Casey:
I'm a terrible artist.
Casey:
I can't imagine what else I would need it for.
Casey:
However...
Casey:
I thought it was a very clever piece of hardware.
Casey:
I like that you can tilt it to get like a kind of side of a pencil stroke, which I guess that just occurred to me.
Casey:
That's why they call it a pencil and not a pen or anything like that.
Marco:
Wait, pens can do that too.
Marco:
Please don't email us.
Casey:
Sort of.
Casey:
But I like that you can do that.
Casey:
Obviously, the pressure sensitivity, I think we all saw that coming.
Casey:
It's a very clever piece of kit, but I don't know.
Casey:
I wish there was something that spoke to me, but there's nothing that speaks to me yet.
John:
I think it'll be fun for, well, here's where it helps.
John:
If you're not someone who is a designer or a fine artist or someone who just noodles around and sketches, and by the way, you should just get one of these for Tiff because she'll love it to do her little art snacks things with.
Marco:
Well, so far, Tiff, before this event, I was asking her, you know, she was interested in a larger iPad for video and game use.
Marco:
And once she saw the event, we watched the event together, she now says she's no longer interested and it's too big.
John:
Yeah, well, as I said, the style, a stylus is a perfect example of something that could fit perfectly well on an iPad or a mini even like no problem on a mini because the thing doesn't fit inside the iPad.
John:
It's just an accessory.
John:
It's just that all those things don't have the screen for it.
John:
So give it a year or two.
John:
That stuff should trickle down.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, it's this is one of those things like I have no opinion on the stylus because I have never been a paper and pencil or paper and pen person for anything.
Marco:
I'm not a graphic artist at all in any sense.
Marco:
I'm not a note taker.
John:
That's why I was getting it for the old fogies thing, like setting aside all the people this is actually aimed at.
John:
The other kind of person this can appeal to, and we all know people like this who are like usually older people who are actually more comfortable taking notes in their own handwriting.
John:
Which seems, you know, totally ridiculous to those of us who grew up being excited by the fact that we can press a key on a keyboard and a perfect letter A appears and we don't have to be subject to our own handwriting.
John:
Right.
John:
I was like, that's that is the dream of these people like, you know what, I would rather do my shopping list in my own little scroll.
John:
And they just want a notes application.
John:
Let's them write things.
John:
and they want to do it with their little pen.
John:
I mean, we've all seen people using, like, the Galaxy Note and stuff.
John:
People using very large phones with a stylus.
John:
Some people just like it.
John:
My own mother has used... I've seen her do it.
John:
An iPod Touch, the small one, with a stylus.
Casey:
Oh, yeah.
Casey:
I've seen some family members use styli with their phones because they just prefer it.
Casey:
I think it's insane, but that's what they prefer.
John:
Yeah, and so they're not going to buy a $1,000 iPad or whatever.
John:
Again, it's a trickle-down thing.
John:
Years... Eventually, when this stuff gets...
Marco:
spreads down the product line you know will they ever sell an apple pencil for the iphone probably not but if they did my mother would use it today yeah i mean there no question i think there's a lot of people who want to use this as i said i'm not one of them however uh you know i disagree john that that note taking is mostly mostly or only for old people i i think there's there's a lot of kinds of note taking for which yeah well no no
Marco:
I think there's a lot of kinds of note-taking for which I would prefer a pen to a keyboard and mouse.
Marco:
You know, if you're trying to dictate what somebody is saying, then yeah, a keyboard is the way to go.
Marco:
But for so many other kinds of note-taking, brainstorming, design, like there's so many things.
John:
Oh yeah, like that's like wireframing like UIs.
John:
Obviously it's better, right?
John:
But you would actually write down text with it?
Marco:
well it depends like like when i in my limited time trying to take notes as a as the terrible student that i was in college i never even tried in high school in college i the terrible time i tried um like math i would definitely take math notes using a pen not a keyboard um you know and and because that's not typing you got to do it's like practically drawing right that's what and and there's like even computer science i think i would probably like there's so many like note taking to me is different from just transcribing what somebody is saying you know that's
John:
yeah so you're doing that note taking is not not typing but like like you see people when they have conference talks they'll try to like summarize the conference talk as it's going on they'll draw little pictures and put words and you know it's it's a multimedia thing like yeah i see i see what you're getting at though i think you probably have better handwriting than i do because i feel like when text is involved at all like i need the eat up martha feature i needed to turn my scrawl into actual readable text so i never have to see my handwriting again
John:
yeah and and i don't think we did they mention any handwriting recognition at all i don't think they did they didn't it's in os 10 right now if you if you hook up a tablet you can go use it uh and and it is still basically eat up martha caliber uh so you know baby steps like this is not what this is aimed at it wasn't even mentioned i was probably not even in there but many years from now kind of like speech to text and text to speech eventually
John:
It just gets good enough that it's like, why not edit every handwriting recognition is not at that stage yet, but it will be eventually.
John:
And I think they showed it in the Microsoft thing, like people who are familiar with the Newton are like, oh, so I draw a rough shape and it makes a nice shape for me.
John:
Where have I seen that before?
John:
like that is this is not new technology but it still feels like magic to me when he he draws the little scroll of an arrow in the office application it becomes the little thing it draws the circles and they become circles it's kind of the bad kind of magic and you can never tell really what it's going to do and half the time it doesn't work but
John:
That's like a, that's a glimpse of the magic future that someday if that worked as reliable as speech to text us now, I mean, when I was a kid, I could never imagine that speech to text would be so boring that we just, that like, did anyone see, we'll get the Apple TV in a little bit, but like the Apple TV Siri demo and like, there's no way it's going to understand my voice like that.
John:
We've all used Siri.
John:
Like it's not,
John:
great but it is complete magic by the by the standards like you know a kid of the 80s like when we were like imagine if just like every device with any amount of computing power like you can talk to it your watch for crying out loud you can talk to it and it will do a passable job of figuring out what you said and putting it in text that is amazing and that is the magic of like the cost of that feature going down to zero
John:
Uh, handwriting recognition should also get to that stage.
John:
Eventually people who use the Microsoft products may say it's already there because they have this thing where it will let you write in your own little chicken scratch handwriting, but under the covers translated into text, but leave your chicken scratch there so that it knows what you wrote.
John:
So you can full text search for it.
John:
Like it's already happening in the Microsoft side.
John:
I feel like that is flakier than speech to text is on most platforms these days, but it's close.
John:
I think we're at the cusp.
John:
So again, maybe three revisions from now, uh, the new version of the notes application and, and, uh, are they still going to call it iOS?
John:
I got to think of what the new name is going to be.
John:
yeah i guess so uh in ios version 13 or 14 it's like and the new version of the notes application lets you write with the the apple mini pencil uh and it will also do full text search and they'll do a demo of it and it will be like microsoft did that five years ago what are you doing apple but everyone will love it because it will be all white
Marco:
So that's another thing to quickly point out here.
Marco:
Normally, the people who are not Apple fans, people who are really fans of other platforms, whether it's Windows or Android or both, let's face it, nobody uses Linux anymore.
Marco:
Usually, every Apple event, there's a couple of things where those people get really mad about because Apple did something, they copied someone else or they did something that other people have done before.
Marco:
Maybe that's just because there's so many things announced here, but this event seems like there was a higher than normal percentage of those things.
John:
But all of them the Newton did first.
John:
It's like, yeah, oh, sure, Microsoft Service did it first, right?
John:
But who did it first-er?
John:
And even the Newton is like, well, then what about the grid pad?
John:
You just keep going back in time.
John:
Everyone's done these things before.
John:
We don't care who did it.
John:
We care who did it best or did it in a way that...
John:
That was convincing to people.
John:
We don't know if this is going to be convincing.
John:
Like people who use a surface, as we've heard from them, love their surface, but they're not selling a lot of them.
John:
I don't think they're going to sell a lot of these pros either.
John:
But I think because Apple does sell a ton of iOS devices and people do want to use a pencil like thing with iOS devices that Apple has the potential to sell more of these silly hundred dollar.
John:
Hopefully that price goes down pencil things in the next five years than Microsoft does.
Casey:
You know, I agree with you, Marco, that a lot of this felt like everything is a remix.
Casey:
And to build on what John just said, we should probably talk about pricing and then move on to some of the other stuff in the keynote.
Casey:
Starting at $800 for 32 gigs, yay, 32 gigs.
Casey:
$950 for $128.
Casey:
And interestingly, the only option for Wi-Fi plus cellular is the $1,080 device.
John:
128 gig uh ipad i thought that somewhat surprising because for all the other ipads you can get cellular on any size you want but for this if you want cellular you're going whole hog and that's the end of the meeting i think i think my ipad 3 was close to a thousand dollars like all in so like i'm looking at these prices maybe i'm crazy but i'm looking at these prices and thinking you know what for a 13 inch thing with four 13 inch ios device with four gigs of ram
John:
That doesn't seem crazy to me.
John:
I feel like I'm getting my money's worth.
John:
I'm getting a lot of pixels.
John:
I'm getting a lot of power.
John:
I'm getting new features that the other devices don't have, and it's quote-unquote only $1,000.
John:
I would rather have this than a MacBook Air 11-inch.
John:
I don't know about you guys.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, it depends.
Marco:
I mean, it's... You know, like, price-wise, it is expensive.
Marco:
I mean, you're right.
Marco:
Like, if you decked out an iPad before, if you got the max config before of the full-sized iPad, it was always $929.
Marco:
But the fact is, over time, I think the average selling price of iPads, I think, has gone down.
Marco:
I think we even have numbers for that.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
They've been dropping the price.
John:
But, like, I'm just saying, like, if...
John:
People offered you, someone came to your house and said, I will either give you a new decked out 11-inch Air or a new decked out iPad Pro.
John:
I know you don't want either one of these devices, but which one do you, you're going to get it for free.
John:
Pick one of them.
John:
Wouldn't you all pick the iPad Pro just because it's more interesting?
Marco:
yeah probably but but we're but we're not normal i don't know i mean it's certainly cooler it's certainly and and for it's certainly more specialized and that's the problem like i mentioned last last episode of the one before um how i was i was kind of disappointed that a lot of apple's products keep getting more specialized and that it used to the answer to the question of who is this for for most of their products and like you know five years ago the answers to that were very broad uh whereas all
Marco:
almost everybody could use almost any of their computers for almost any purpose, and it would work pretty well.
Marco:
The definitions were more broad, whereas now I think we're seeing a lot more specialization from Apple products, and by nature that is exclusionary.
John:
It's not like this is... It's not exclusionary, though.
John:
It is making more different products for more different people.
John:
Instead of saying we make
John:
Three computers and the entire world is going to pick one of our three computers.
John:
They're like, some people don't even want a computer.
John:
Some people want a phone.
John:
Some people want a small phone.
John:
Some people want a big phone.
John:
Some people want a tablet.
John:
Some people want a small tablet.
John:
Some people want a big tablet.
John:
Some people want a tablet with a stylus.
John:
And so each individual product is more narrowly focused.
John:
You're right.
John:
But I think they're covering more of the spectrum.
John:
This is just, you know, it's the whole, as the cost of compute drops to zero, like that becomes less of a factor.
John:
And it's just like...
John:
What are the needs of the customers and how can we meet them with lots of different products?
John:
Nobody needs all of these products.
John:
It's the same thing with the big phones.
John:
Some people just wanted a big phone.
John:
Some people have a big phone and like, you know what?
John:
I don't need a PC or a laptop.
John:
Everything I do is fine on my big phone.
John:
I do all my web browsing on it.
John:
I do all my buying.
John:
I do all my things.
John:
I watch my Netflix on it.
John:
I don't need a computer anymore.
John:
Does that mean that, you know, that phone is for fewer people than the laptop was?
John:
Yeah, kind of, because if you just sold everyone a PC and it was this general purpose thing, you can do everything on a PC that will, you know, suit everyone's needs.
John:
But some people would rather just have a really big honking phone.
John:
And so I think this is this diversification is natural.
John:
Like, are you uncomfortable because you feel like.
John:
Any individual product now has a narrow range of people that it appeals to and you still would rather than make a smaller line of products that appeal to a wider range of people?
Marco:
Well, okay.
Marco:
So stepping back, I think I agree with you.
Marco:
You're right.
Marco:
This is not exclusionary.
Marco:
So you're right.
Marco:
Having more products that covers more of the market, that's a good thing for inclusion.
Marco:
However...
Marco:
I have two worries here.
Marco:
Number one, I do worry that Apple is very much a fan of pushing things forward and killing old things or ending support for old things.
Marco:
And so if I see them launching major products in a direction that is really at odds with my own needs, I get worried from that point of view that the things that serve my needs are going to be ended at some point in the future.
Marco:
So anyway, besides that, though...
Marco:
I do think there is a, I think they have a severe problem right now of that their product lines are just really big.
Marco:
There are so many different models of everything.
Marco:
There's so many little and big variations that you can order with any product line.
Marco:
There are so many product lines now.
Marco:
So this has a number of challenges.
Marco:
One of them, obviously, is that they are stretching their resources really thin in a lot of areas, especially things like engineering and quality.
Marco:
They stretch these things very, very thin.
Marco:
They don't have as big of a staff as everyone would assume a company of that financial resource would have.
Marco:
And it seems like they're waging a war on all fronts with relatively small resources.
Marco:
So I'm a little worried about that.
John:
I think they're being kind of smart with the sharing because it's kind of like, you know, the restaurant where you realize everything they serve is a combination of five different ingredients.
Casey:
Right.
John:
Even though they have 27 dishes, you're like, wait a second.
John:
This is just ingredient A plus ingredient B plus ingredient C and different combinations.
John:
i think they're doing a pretty good job of sharing because i mean for a long time they did too much sharing where the ipad really was just its ios and it's a device and it's a bigger screen but like the the core os darwin the kernel being shared across all their stuff and then up the stack objective c swift uh the fact that they're you know the mac is a little bit of the odd man out at these times because everything else is kind of like an ios variant and although they're trying to put a brave face on like you know tv os watch os and the
John:
They're giving it different names, but that's basically the same OS.
John:
They've done a pretty good job of having a core technology stack and a core manufacturing stack.
John:
We make solid aluminum-backed machined things with lithium-ion batteries and screens on the front.
John:
How many...
John:
It's like, wait a second.
John:
All these devices are just different combinations of the same things in different sizes.
John:
And even the Macs are kind of, you know, the Macs were the first ones to be big CNC milled out blocks of aluminum with lithium ion batteries and the keyboards and the dome switches are in these like in the same keyboard covers and the same keyboard was on all the laptops and that same keyboard is on their desktop Macs.
John:
And like, I think they're being like, I think it's how they can get away with this.
John:
A, being the biggest company in the world and having a million bazillion dollars, right?
John:
And B, being smart about
John:
like sort of working on this is unlike all their services where they don't seem to work in infrastructure they work in infrastructure of like can we get really good at machining aluminum and polishing and finishing it if we can do that everywhere do it on the watch do it on the desktops do it on the tablets do it on the phones do it on the big phones small like just everywhere right and little cameras and lcd screen technology every time they try to get good at something like that
John:
it pays dividends across the entire product line so i think hardware wise they're doing well there software wise you have a point with like the uh sort of rushing out to get to a platform all the engineers run over here and concentrate on that and everything else languishes and gets a little fidgety or whatever so i'm hoping lcap is a return to form and i hope they learn their lesson to try to rein things back in tv has had a long time to get super crappy without people paying attention to it i'm hoping this is the time when it's like
John:
the stored up, uh, you know, sort of potential energy from all those years when Apple TV got crappier and crappier now is going to come, but it could also be that they, that you're right, that they overextended themselves in the new Apple TV is super flaky and buggy.
John:
Uh, and it's like what we waited all this time for this.
John:
So none of us have the device yet and we can't tell, but I think some of your fears are founded, but when I look at their hardware, uh, product design, uh,
John:
I'm amazed at how much bang they get for their buck in figuring out these few core things and combining this small set of ingredients to make a fairly large variety of products that I think has the potential to appeal to more people.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, I guess you can look at it, you know, similarly to like Google is so good at large engineering projects, especially things involving big data and artificial intelligence type things that like, you know, Google seems to have incredibly wide bandwidth and throughput of engineering resources.
Marco:
And so they can solve problems better than almost anybody else, but that are solvable by tons of engineering work.
Marco:
Whereas Apple, it seems like Apple's core competency is in making the hardware, all these aluminum and glass things.
Marco:
So Apple can solve challenges in the market and can be more competitive by throwing massive amounts of this kind of hardware at it.
Marco:
So Apple actually can.
John:
And also the OS, don't you think?
John:
The frameworks, they're pretty good at that, making sure their software is responsive, making sure their frameworks are performant.
John:
trying to share frameworks across like av foundation things across ios and the mac and those same things are on the phone or on the watch like that is also a good and clever use of resources once you get into the software you could say oh yeah but their actual applications are crappy or yeah but the people writing code against those frameworks are doing a bad job but i think in general like compared to google google took a long time to get android sort of up to snuff where apple started out in terms of prioritizing responsiveness of the ui and
John:
making it look nice and and having a consistent and understandable uh interface paradigm and all that stuff so apple has strengths in that area too it's just sort of towards the edges when you get into okay you've got good hardware you've got a pretty good platform your you know language and ide and everything seems pretty solid your frameworks look okay except for the first year one of them comes out then all the frameworks are crappy but the second year they're all good um but then what are you writing with what applications do you write on top of it
John:
And then you're like, well, Apple's apps are kind of crappy and don't get any better.
John:
And third party apps aren't allowed to do interesting things.
John:
And you get into complaints in that realm.
John:
But I think Apple strengths are pretty broad, definitely in hardware.
John:
I think definitely in OS and kind of in frameworks and in applications is like the edges where things are fraying at this point.
Marco:
Our final sponsor this week is Fracture.
Marco:
Fracture prints your photos in vivid color directly on glass.
Marco:
Go to FractureMe.com to learn more and use coupon code ATP15 for 15% off your first order.
Marco:
Now, Fracture prints are awesome.
Marco:
I have a bunch of them around our house here.
Marco:
I've sent some to friends.
Marco:
I just recently sent one as a gift.
Marco:
They are so great.
Marco:
So basically what it is...
Marco:
is it's a really, really thin, lightweight piece of glass.
Marco:
On the backside of it, shining through to the front, is printed, your photo, in vivid color, right on the glass.
Marco:
So it looks like your photo is printed on glass, but it has the nice gloss from the front glass right in front of it.
Marco:
So it's really, really nice.
Marco:
And it's thin and lightweight, bonded to a little bit of foam board, so you can mount a picture hanging nail in there.
Marco:
So you don't have to worry.
Marco:
I know Gruber was talking on his podcast this week.
Marco:
I have the same stresses of, I don't like hanging large, heavy, framed pictures on my wall because I'm always afraid they're going to fall off and tear the wall out and shatter and make a big hole everywhere and make a big mess.
Marco:
um fractures are very thin and light and so i don't have that worry with fractures and you don't need a frame you don't you don't put a frame around these they are a finished product you get them from fracture and you hang them on your wall there's no messing with frames or paying a lot for custom framing uh there's nothing like that uh you just get it it's a finished product hangs on the wall prints edge to edge directly on glass and it looks fantastic uh and john you got some fractures right
John:
yeah my wife had this idea and it was a good one uh i don't have any applications like marco because marco's got his app icons on fractures up on his walls uh but i'm on a bunch of podcasts and so she said uh podcast artist square why don't you get little fractures of all the podcasts you're on and so i did uh and they're cute and i have them on my wall and i have six of them six seven of them actually because one that uh that marco and tiff sent me is a gift it's a picture of us a live recording atp um
John:
so this is i mean i guess i'm just buying gifts for myself and you know i've got pictures of my family on my desk and everything but the thing you don't think to do is you know like marco's done if you're if you have like a work room uh put pictures of your accomplishments up on the wall and it's like i would never do it if i had to like make prints of all these then go to a store and buy frames and hang the frames the fact that i could just go to a web forum upload a bunch of pictures click click click and know that something would come that i don't need to frame that's ready to hang on the wall
John:
That's what made me actually do this, and it was super easy, and it was great.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, fracture, it is so good.
Marco:
We always get compliments on the fracture prints we have on our wall.
Marco:
Anybody who comes into my office always says something, oh, are those the fractures, or what are those?
Marco:
They look great.
Marco:
Everyone loves these things.
Marco:
Check them out.
Marco:
Get your pictures out of the Instagram feed, out of the Facebook feed.
Marco:
Get them actually printed on a real physical object.
Marco:
You will love it, and give it as a gift.
Marco:
I just gave one as a gift.
Marco:
People love these things.
Marco:
It's great.
Marco:
give your photos back the analog printed beauty they deserve.
Marco:
So anyway, go to fracture me.com prices started just $15 for a five by five inch square.
Marco:
That's, that's what most of our little squares are that we use for artwork.
Marco:
They also have non-square.
Marco:
I believe they're four by three or three by three too.
Marco:
I forget which, but they have non-square aspect ratios available.
Marco:
But I love little square ones for all these app icons, podcast artwork, and then I use the rectangles for photos.
Marco:
Check it out.
Marco:
It is the thinnest, lightest, and most elegant way to display your favorite photos.
Marco:
15% off your first order with coupon code ATP15.
Marco:
FractureMe.com.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to Fracture, long-term sponsors of our show.
Marco:
all right so the apple tv is new and it's called apple tv it's called the new apple tv it's like an ipad 3 move it's it's this is just the new one and then you know next year they will they will retcon this one the apple tv 4 and they'll make a new new apple tv they were always just called apple tv right like they were the numbers yeah we knew we knew the numbers internally but there was never in the branding i think
Marco:
Well, it never mattered before.
Marco:
Now that it's an app platform, it will start to matter.
Marco:
I think now the specs will matter more.
Marco:
People will know the specs more.
Marco:
They will advertise the specs more.
Marco:
And when new generations come out, they will push what is new about them and they will give them, I think, numbered names of some kind.
Casey:
Yeah, we'll see.
Casey:
So this thing has an A8.
Casey:
It has, as far as we know, two gigs of RAM, 32 or 64 gig storage.
Casey:
And it has this new fancy remote that has like a little mini touchpad on it and is also a Wiimote all in one.
John:
Can we just complain for a second about no gigabit Ethernet?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Seriously?
John:
Yeah.
John:
What year is this?
John:
Like, it's so tall.
John:
There's so much room in there.
John:
10-100, because then you're like, oh, I got to make sure I don't hook it up to, you know, a hub or a switch that downgrades everything.
John:
I know video is never going to be 100 megabits anyway.
John:
This is the principle of things.
John:
Like, they did the whole alphabet soup of Wi-Fi, and they gave it reasonable storage.
John:
There's no 16 gig model.
John:
Starts at 32, unlike some other products we might mention later.
John:
Mm-hmm.
John:
You know, two gigs of RAM, A8, looks great.
John:
10100, is there anything?
John:
Like, I hope, like, people stop supporting 10100, so Apple will be forced.
John:
Anyway, fine.
John:
Right.
John:
It's better.
John:
It's taller.
John:
It's good.
Marco:
Yeah, anyway.
Marco:
So yeah, the remote, I think we can talk a lot about this remote.
Marco:
First of all, upsides.
Marco:
I am very happy to see both RF instead of IR, so you don't need line of sight, you don't need to keep the box out and make sure the IR gets there.
John:
finally as they say exactly and i'm very glad to see some kind of universal remote capability i'm not sure how does that work through hdmi signaling or something or is there yeah the existing apple tv has this i'm assuming it's just the same feature your existing apple tv goes in the other direction where you can use any remote you want with your apple with your apple tv like the previous generation oh yeah i do this this is you can use this remote it's like it's exactly the same functionality but the reverse where you can have this thing
John:
control your other devices by training it to say... Basically, it's got an IR thing.
John:
It's got to have an IR thing in it.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
I think you guys are all wrong on this.
Casey:
So my understanding of the way this works is it's a Bluetooth remote, and then using some protocol... Shoot, I took a note on this.
Casey:
Let me stall for time.
Casey:
The CEC thing?
John:
Is that how it controls your volume?
John:
Oh, please don't let that be true.
Casey:
Yes, no.
Casey:
They mentioned it.
Casey:
I just assumed it would have IR for the TV.
Casey:
No, no, no, no.
Casey:
Schiller said CDC to control...
John:
I know it has a CEC to control the other stuff to change your input or whatever and all the other stuff.
John:
Tipster says it has IR for the volume up-down.
John:
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
John:
It's got to be for the volume, all right?
John:
So that's just got to be.
John:
But all right, so that's a separate thing.
John:
It's a learning remote.
John:
You can teach it.
John:
What does your TV expect you to spray at it in IR to make the volume move up and down?
John:
For everything else that they mentioned, like, oh, it can change your input on your thing to this, and it can control your other devices and make sure your TV is turned on, it's using CEC, which is some HDMI standard, which is a piece of crap.
John:
I don't know if the standard is a piece of crap or every single product in the entire universe that implements the standard is a piece of crap.
John:
It doesn't matter.
John:
uh well you said hdmi that implies all of that yeah exactly right and so oh it is so bad all right so this comes under a million different names if you buy panasonic stuff it's called like veracast you buy samsung it's a different name this is all the same standard and i you know i don't know again i don't know who to blame for it but i tweeted about it and a million people were like i have this on my sony television hooked up my sony receiver with my sony remote and it's still nothing works
John:
I've got a mix stack here with Panasonic and I forget about Yamaha receiver or whatever.
John:
Like, here's the thing about CEC.
John:
It almost works.
John:
You hook it all up and you're like, hey, this is great.
John:
All these different manufacturers who, you know, they're cooperating on this standard and I can hit this thing and it will do all this stuff or whatever.
John:
But then it stops working and then you don't know why.
John:
And then everything freezes.
John:
Like one person said I had a brownout once and CEC has never worked again.
John:
like it's it's inexplicable it's like scuzzy termination for the really old people terminating scuzzy chains that black magic that's what cc is like but worse because with your tv you just expect to work so well i i played with this stuff extensively when i got redid my computer my television setup twice i tried it i tried it once and i said maybe it's not ready i tried it several years later
John:
I got it all working, but there were just enough flakiness and just enough failure weight.
John:
The solution, if you're dealing with CEC, if you have a television receiver or anything, you will make your life better.
John:
Turn that off on every single one of your devices.
John:
Don't leave a single one with CEC enabled because it will screw up everything.
John:
Just turn it off everywhere.
John:
Turn it off on your receiver.
John:
Turn it off on your TV.
John:
Turn it off on your remote.
John:
Turn it off on your Blu-ray player.
John:
Turn it off everywhere.
John:
Turn it off on your game console.
John:
then you will have a slightly more annoying system but you got to turn different things on but everything will actually work so what does cdc stand for cec it's like oh cec it never goes by that name because every manufacturer has a different name for it it's supposed to let your other devices talk to each other that when i had pressed this one button that it knows to turn the receiver on and change the input to and turn the television on and turn the volume to this and do it like it's supposed to be so they can all communicate with each other and it and it
John:
almost works it almost does but it is just so incredibly frustrating that it just seriously so it's i guess it's nice that apple includes this there's a chance it could work fine for you that chance seems slim it seems really slim like i i'm i would encourage people who i'm asking for feedback like if you have a television setup with a bunch of cc enabled devices and it just works all the time and never any problems i've not i've heard from zero of those people so i'm asking if that if that happened to you
John:
send us an email or a tweet and say i use cc i've been using it for years and i never have a problem with it i don't think we'll get any emails but who knows i didn't think there were many tactical inquisitors out there all i know all i know is when i when i mentioned it on twitter all i got were replies from people i said cc's the devil and everyone's like yes
John:
It is the devil.
John:
And they just had horror stories about it.
John:
So that's not to say that Apple shouldn't have included it.
John:
It's fine.
John:
Go ahead and include it.
John:
But if you have grand plans that you think this is going to save you, this is not an Apple technology.
John:
This is a quote unquote industry standard technology, and it's a piece of crap.
Casey:
Real-time follow-up, I apologize to the both of you.
Casey:
There is an IR transmitter on the remote as per the spec page on Apple's website.
Casey:
I'm still not clear if it's a learning transmitter or not.
John:
The volume will work.
John:
That part will totally work for you.
John:
If you're buying this and you expect to use the volume control, that will work on your TV.
Marco:
That's honestly all I want because that's the only reason I had any of the remotes out.
Marco:
Although turning the TV on and off would be another thing.
Marco:
But is that what CEC is supposed to do?
John:
yeah and even for that don't just don't use it okay i won't don't worry use a separate thing to turn it's fine you will you'll survive i guarantee you my tv is too old to support it yeah probably all right so i'm done being angry about cc and i can be angry about this remote because the other thing about this is like the thing i kept thinking of looking at this remote which always this is better than the previous apple tv remote which everyone hates and gets lost in your silver cushions right um is it
John:
yeah okay go ahead anyway uh it's better because it has more buttons more actual buttons on it and it's got the little touchpad thing it's got to be better um anyway the tivo remote is the one i always think of tivo was the first sort of big mass market company i think because it's you know television remotes every year you buy you know the tvs come with a differently shaped remote and there are trends in remote shapes and trends and what the buttons look like and how they're shaped and like
John:
There's no sort of one theme.
John:
But because TiVo was a singular thing and kept its remote design for a long time, people know what a TiVo remote looks like.
John:
If you say, what does a Sony remote look like?
John:
Well, what year, what decade did you buy your TV?
John:
So that's why I'm singling out TiVo here.
John:
And I think TiVo is one of the first companies in this sort of singular, identifiable way that designed a remote around two things.
John:
Around actual human hands that hold things...
John:
and also around an interface design that recognized the most common things people want to do.
John:
Now, TiVo remotes have a million buttons on them.
John:
I totally acknowledge that.
John:
It's not appropriate for Apple.
John:
I'm not saying Apple should have made a TiVo remote.
John:
But the things that the TiVo remote got right was, like I said, they made a shape that is not shaped like a rectangular solid or like a piece of art or like something.
John:
It is shaped like something that is meant to be held in your hand.
John:
It's meant to be easily scooped up off a hard surface or a couch and...
John:
and meant to be held comfortably in your hand.
John:
It's shaped kind of like, if you don't know what the remote looks like, it looks kind of like a bone.
John:
It's like two bulbous ends with a thin thing in the middle.
John:
It feels good to hold in a way that a rounded rectangle, or a sharp cornered rectangle, or any kind of rectangle, or even like a Wii remote,
John:
The TiVo remote is a much better fit for gripping human hands.
John:
And the second thing, if I pick up any TiVo remote, dead center in the middle on the sort of neck of the thing is a gigantic, big, brightly colored, largest button on the remote, which is the pause button, the play, because that's the big feature of the TiVo.
John:
Like, oh, you can pause live TV or whatever.
John:
And just above it is the play button.
John:
And again, there are a million buttons around it.
John:
I'm not saying that's what Apple should have done.
John:
But it's a testament to the TiVo's design that the million buttons on the TiVo remote are all shaped in distinct ways, are put in clusters of related functionality.
John:
that anyone's had a TiVo for years, you can grab that thing and find the buttons you want without looking at it in a sea of a huge number of buttons.
John:
You can find the directional pads.
John:
I don't need to look at my TiVo remote.
John:
I can hit all sorts of buttons all over the thing with hand shimmies and all this other stuff without ever looking at it because every button is distinct.
John:
You can feel it.
John:
It's not just a bunch of little tiny rectangles.
John:
It's not a bunch of uniform circles in a grid.
John:
And the buttons are different sizes, and the larger ones are more common, and the smaller ones are more obscure.
John:
And again, related functionality is localized.
John:
It is a brilliant remote design.
John:
They've tweaked it a little bit over the years.
John:
Again, not appropriate for Apple.
John:
What I want to see is that philosophy.
John:
That philosophy of acknowledging those things, that human hands are going to hold this, is not going to be placed as a piece of art in the Museum of Modern Art.
John:
And Johnny Ives is going to look at it and scowl, right?
John:
It's going to be held by human hands.
John:
It's going to be on couches.
John:
It's going to be on surfaces where people have to pick it up.
John:
And some functions are more common than others.
John:
So every single button shouldn't be the same size.
John:
Related functions should be grouped together.
John:
And it should basically...
John:
work more like people expect it to and less like a designer wants it to look.
John:
This looks like still too much form over function, not enough function dictating form.
John:
Still better than the little tiny silver thing with the stupid little directional circle that you can never tell which direction you're putting.
John:
And I like the touch thing and voice is the ultimate thing.
John:
We don't have to hit buttons at all and I agree with all of that, but...
John:
This is, in the grand scheme of remote design, this is not a great remote design.
Marco:
I kind of like the old one, honestly.
Marco:
But, you know, this, I mean, this looks fine.
Marco:
I'm looking forward to trying it.
Marco:
I kind of miss with the old one that there was, like, the big center button.
Marco:
Like, you could just pick it up without looking at it, and you could operate everything without ever looking.
Marco:
This, I think, is going to take some getting used to because, like, the play pause is like this.
Marco:
It shapes just like all the other buttons, and I don't know.
John:
but i think you'll use it i think the idea is that you can get away with using the swipey stuff and by the way did you i i put some of the notes in the thing but if you looked at the little guide of like the apple television human interface guidelines they show an animation not with fingers but with dots showing the things you can do and they say swipe fine i know what a swipe is you swipe across the little touchpad right then they show both a click and a tap which are supposedly distinct things and
John:
How the hell are they distinct?
John:
How is a click different?
John:
There's no button, right?
John:
I don't understand this.
John:
Who knows?
John:
Like the click is more intentional.
John:
It's like, do you press harder?
John:
Do you have to bend the remote in half?
John:
Is it the force you strike it with?
John:
Are there force sensors in it?
John:
I have no idea.
Casey:
I mean, is this not tap to click all over again?
Casey:
You know, there's a click and then there's a tap and they're two different things.
John:
I don't understand.
John:
I mean, we haven't touched the device, so we can't tell.
John:
So I can't tell whether this is good or bad.
John:
But anyway, I like the idea that I can pretend that the buttons don't exist.
John:
But even if you just pretend the buttons don't exist, I think this thing is too low profile, too thin and too small to be comfortable to hold.
John:
That's why like they sell those wooden holsters for the old Apple TV remote for people to turn into something that's large enough that A doesn't get lost and B feels good in your hand.
Casey:
Yeah, I don't know.
Casey:
We'll see.
Casey:
Now, I was just looking at the Apple website, the specs site, and it says in the box for the new Apple TV, Apple TV, Siri remote, power cord, lightning to USB cable.
Casey:
Is that going to be the same one we always have?
Casey:
And if so, that's ever so slightly presumptuous because the only USB on this is USB-C.
Casey:
So is that a lightning to USB-C cable?
Casey:
Or is that just a regular lightning to USB cable?
Marco:
Yeah, because presumably it's to charge the battery, right?
Casey:
It's to charge the remote, I would imagine.
Casey:
And so it seems a little weird to me that they would include a cable that you can't plug into the device in order to charge the remote you need for the device.
Marco:
I think it's kind of funny, honestly, that this is the second Apple device to have a USB-C port.
Casey:
That's a good point, actually.
John:
I didn't think about that.
John:
It seems appropriate because it's kind of like the first device to be totally redesigned in the USB-C era, discounting iOS devices, which I guess are sticking with Lightning.
Marco:
I guess.
Marco:
But yeah, that's a good point, Casey.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I think the whole thing, you know, charging through lighting, that should be fine.
Marco:
It does seem to have, you know, based on, what did they say?
Marco:
Like, oh yeah, it said like providing months of battery life.
Marco:
Now, the old Apple TV remote seemed to provide years of battery life to the point where I think I buy a new Apple TV.
Marco:
I think I've only had to replace the battery in an Apple TV remote, I think twice.
Marco:
And I've been using Apple TVs since the first one.
Marco:
i've never had to replace mine because i don't use it there you go so you know this this is going to have an interesting problem where it's going to be hopefully it'll warn you ahead of time when it's running low it's it's it's a good battery life of quote months uh that you will generally never have to charge it except one night when it dies yeah but it's such a small battery it'll charge so fast it's like kind of like the pencil where they're like 15 seconds of charging gives 30 minutes of use like that's the advantage of small batteries is
John:
Yeah.
John:
And because it's Bluetooth, it will be able to tell the thing, hey, your remote is low and you'll plug it in and you'll plug it in for a half an hour and you'll be good to go for like another month or something.
John:
So I think it'll be fun.
Marco:
And by that rationale, the new iPhones charge really fast.
Casey:
Oh, goodness.
Casey:
We're not getting there yet.
Casey:
Not getting there yet.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Let's talk about Siri on the TV because apparently, John, you wanted to talk about that.
John:
Yeah, everything like that demos well, especially when you don't actually do a demo, but you just so can movies.
John:
Like, oh, show me all the James Bond movies, only the ones with Sean Connery, blah, blah, blah.
John:
Although if you say only, it might not work.
John:
You might have to say just, and it becomes like a text adventure.
John:
Anyway, anything is better than trying to enter text.
John:
with a remote control we all agree on that so i think there's a lot of leeway for people to struggle with siri before it becomes as painful as trying to type things into a search box uh so this is what we all wanted if it works as designed like if you've all tried the amazon fire i think well marco has one and i don't know if casey's tried it but like
John:
put a microphone in the remote let me speak some stuff when it works it's useful when it doesn't it's kind of annoying but again there is a long gap before is like is this more annoying than trying to type things on a keyboard especially that keyboard is not qwerty but is an alphabetical order on the screen or something crazy like that uh i hope i really hope it works like they show it working uh like but you know someone tweeted a joke which it was a joke but it shows like the immediate limits you run into
John:
uh show me with the shopping thing show me all the headphones that marco likes but only the ones that are you know under eight hundred dollars they don't know who marco is they should he's in your contacts can you figure like it's a human would be able to do it but siri can't and so you know that's unfair obviously you know siri's not artificial intelligence but once you can talk to something and start being conversational with it as soon as you hit those limits and we all know the limits are there as soon as you hit them
John:
It breaks the illusion and it becomes a little bit frustrating.
John:
But hopefully the benefits of never having to use an onscreen keyboard to do stuff far outweigh the downsides of bumping into the invisible walls that constitute the current limits of AI.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And what impressed me a lot about Siri was that, especially in the Apple TV demos they did, it seemed to do better with context than it's ever done before.
Casey:
And I know one of the features of Siri pretty much since launch was, oh, we understand context and it's conversational.
Casey:
But like you were saying, oh, show me an action movie.
Casey:
Oh, show me the James Bond movies.
Casey:
No, show me the James Bond movies with
Casey:
sean connery and i i'm actually misstating this it's not show me the james bond movies each time so okay show me james bond movies no show me the ones with sean connery and so that context is captain and it looked impressive now we'll see how it actually works but in principle it certainly demoed really well and i mean i'm looking forward to trying it if i end up getting one of these which knowing me i probably will
John:
I worry that it will work well for programmers who think procedurally, who think of it as like a series of filter operations.
John:
But if you give it to a regular person, like you see little kids do it with Siri all the time, like on your phone, they just start talking to it like a person.
John:
If you're a programmer and you're thinking of it as like,
John:
I understand this.
John:
This is a series of filter steps, and there is probably some leeway in the syntax, but what you're doing is you're holding in your head as a programmer what you know to be the context state, so that when you say just the ones with Sean Connery, you understand that there is a context of your previous search, and that mental model does not exist as the user model in most people's brains.
John:
They can be trained to figure it out, to figure out how do I have to talk to my Apple TV to get it to do stuff, which is fine.
John:
Again, better than an on-screen keyboard, but...
John:
And what happens initially is people are amazed by the first demo and they just start talking to it.
John:
And it's like, no, like show me the James Bond movies.
John:
Actually, I want something with Julia Roberts.
John:
And then it shows zero movies because there are no James Bond movies with Julia Roberts because they didn't understand that you said actually.
John:
And you were just resetting the whole thing.
John:
And you know what I mean?
John:
But a human like, boy, it's tough.
John:
It's a tough problem.
John:
I just want efficient speech to text without having to get up.
John:
And a little microphone, the remote does that.
John:
So kudos.
Casey:
All right, tvOS.
John:
Actually, before we get to that, in the realm of remotes, I don't know if you guys saw this, but in the same documentation that I pasted in the link to, they have game controllers shown.
John:
We talked about gaming, or Apple talked about gaming a little bit, and they tried to show games...
John:
being used with the little accelerometers and your little tiny thing and trying to use like a d-pad on the touch screen all this terrible stuff and so apple does have support for game controllers they have a picture of an actual game control in their documentation it has it's a steel series on the top of it i don't know if there's an existing uh game controller for like ios devices or it's just a prototype or it's coming up for apple tv but apple defines the buttons and controls that should be
John:
on a game control again this may not be new because i haven't been kept up with like they might have already defined this for ios but anyway this is the definition for for apple tv possibly also the old definition for ios but this is the first time i've seen the documentation it defines uh two shoulder pads two triggers a d-pad two thumbsticks uh a menu button and four face buttons a b and xy which are in the mirror image uh arrangement of the snes which i think is a weird one i just go
John:
with the exact arrangement of the snes anyway um and then they give you the the expected behaviors they want them to do where they're like you know uh b goes back in the menu system a activates an item uh the shoulder buttons like if you're using them in an app like left shoulder navigates left navigates right and then expected behavior in a game varies for all these things but anyway
John:
this shows a little bit of gaming ambitions.
John:
It's like, we're going to define a controller interface and a set of buttons.
John:
And it's kind of up to the controller people, how they want to arrange the buttons.
John:
They can put those Fortman's that neither where they wanted.
John:
They can put the thumb sticks anywhere they want or whatever, but at least they're in game console style saying, uh, trying to say, anyway, you should have four face buttons.
John:
They should be a, B and X and Y. And here's the expected behavior.
John:
So if someone gets one game and the, uh, you know,
John:
when they're going through the menu system to go into the next menu in your game, they hit a and to go back, they hit B. But then if another game person doesn't reverse, it drives you crazy.
John:
So I'm happy to see them trying to pin down the user.
John:
Every console does this like a PlayStation or whatever.
John:
X is the button to go in and like a Nintendo B is the button to go back in the menu.
John:
So like every game console has to do this.
John:
Otherwise you will just get very frustrated trying to use a game because your muscle memory, even just navigating the menus or whatever, or if I'm like, what's going to, what's probably the jump button and what's probably the fire button, right?
John:
For, for genres of games or, or if I think of the menus because every game has menus and it's the most frustrating.
John:
If some game reverses the, uh, this button goes deeper into the menu.
John:
This button goes back in the menus.
Um,
John:
So that doesn't, you know, there was some rumors about like Apple TV taking on game consoles or whatever.
John:
People got their fun trying to write those stories beforehand.
John:
That was not how Apple TV was presented.
John:
That is not what Apple TV is.
John:
Never was going to be that.
John:
That's fine.
John:
What it is going to be is a way to play iOS style games from your couch.
John:
If the game developers can figure out some way to make the game work without touch controls.
John:
And that I think is the biggest challenge.
John:
And that gets back to the remote and that gets back to the controllers.
John:
And that gets back to universal applications where you can write a single game and have it work on the iPhone, the iPad, and on the Apple TV.
John:
Again, if you can figure out some way to control the thing without letting people touch your screen.
John:
Because on the television, they can't touch the screen.
John:
Or if they do, nothing will actually happen except I'll get angry.
John:
I don't want to delay the tvOS discussion, but I think gaming is the part of this that I'm more interested in.
John:
What do you think about
Marco:
playing games on this they did the multiplayer crossy road demo and people seemed excited about that but what what do you think the prospects of this as a platform for buying and playing games honestly i i'm i'm disappointed that apple doesn't just have a controller like a game controller you know i i mean in reality i'm not surprised by any of this
Marco:
But I am disappointed that this is basically relegating games that will actually use controllers to this obscure side business.
Marco:
It's like making... There were like 11 or something games that could take advantage of both A32X and a Sega CD at the same time because nobody had both A32X and a Sega CD.
Marco:
I think this is going to be like that where like...
Marco:
The number of people who buy the new Apple TV is going to be low for a while because it's new and it's more expensive.
Marco:
So it's going to be low for a while.
Marco:
Combine that with the number of people who are going to have the new Apple TV who are also going to buy a game controller for it that is not from Apple.
Marco:
Right now, there's the SteelSeries Nimbus thing.
Marco:
We'll put the link in the show notes.
Marco:
This is a real controller.
Marco:
So they have this thing.
Marco:
There's no price listed.
Marco:
You can pre-order it or something or let me know when it's ready, that kind of thing.
Marco:
uh it's probably going to be like 30 or 40 bucks i would assume uh maybe more who knows how many people are actually going to have these controllers to make it worth game developers putting any effort into actually taking advantage of them and and if you if you're a game developer how can you justify writing a game for the apple tv that that requires one of these things you know like it's
Marco:
If a game controller or if a suitable enough game controller came with every Apple TV, then you could assume it's there and you can write for it.
Marco:
Now, as an optional hardware add-on, I think it's going to get very little support.
John:
The control is the biggest challenge with this thing.
John:
If you have an iOS game, tons of iOS games are out there.
John:
Lots of fun to take advantage of touch controls.
John:
Games that would be harder to play with a traditional controller are easier to play with touch like flight control.
John:
Who would want to play flight control with a console controller?
John:
uh controller it would be extremely frustrating it's super natural and fun to use your finger that is an ideal touch game how do you bring flight control to the apple tv you absolutely don't you just can't like i you could make people swipe around on a little tiny pad it would be terrible right so there's a different class of games you have to make for the apple tv
John:
can you make a game that works on apple tv and with touch devices maybe if it's a type of game like flappy bird where you just have a single input which is a big red shiny button that you press periodically right that probably works fine on all of them because it's like tap anywhere on the screen tap anywhere on the remote everything's fine
John:
But once you start getting even a little bit complicated, like even like Alto, it has enough complicated stuff in it that I don't know if you can play Alto with that.
John:
I suppose you can if you start using the accelerometers.
John:
But coming up with one good control stream is hard enough.
John:
Coming up with two good control schemes for a single game that someone buys once on multiple platforms seems like a tall order.
John:
So I have to think...
John:
uh that either if you're lucky enough to have a game that has a dead simple interface like crossy road it just like just makes the cut where it's like tap and a couple swipes fine you're good um then you can get away with it uh if you have a more complicated control screen you can go apple tv only but then you have to make sure it's playable with the remote which is probably not a great experience and like marco said is anyone going to make a game that is just terrible to play with the remote but it's really meant to be played with a controller that no one's going to own
John:
maybe if it's shovelware i guess maybe it's like a shovelware port like everyone's like you know when is the inevitable port of thomas was alone but i think thomas was alone would actually be kind of okay with uh with the little controller because it's just kind of like four directions and a jump anyway uh the remote in addition to being what i think is a not very good remote is a terrible video game controller uh it'll be fine for taps and swipes but for everything else i don't know
Marco:
Well, this is why, like, I, and, you know, again, none of this is really that big of a surprise.
Marco:
But I think going into this, a lot of people were saying, oh, yeah, well, Apple's going to make a big deal with games here.
Marco:
And this is going to be a big game story.
Marco:
And, you know, again, unless it shipped with a decent gaming controller, that was never going to be the case.
Marco:
And I think we all knew Apple was not going to do that.
Marco:
And ultimately then, I don't see this being a major game story.
Marco:
I think most games are going to be better on the iPhone and iPad than they're going to be on this TV because there is no standard.
John:
Well, most iOS games will.
John:
What you're thinking of is iOS games, right?
John:
Games that work well with touch interfaces.
John:
Obviously, they'll be better with touch interfaces.
Marco:
yeah oh yeah no but i'm saying like most games that will actually be made for this you know because i because i don't see a lot of games being made for it that that will actually like you know game games that will do well with a d-pad or with button like i don't see that being made for this so who is going to do that and i keep saying shovelware which is the i guess the wii era popular is that word of like say you're a game maker and you have a game
John:
uh and you've already got the game and it's available on like 17 different platforms and it's not too much effort to hire some contractor to point it to the apple tv nah why not like you have to just do the math you're like the game already exists it's already done it's already qaid we just want you to do a port of it and then just retest it and then send it out
John:
um and it's a popular game and it's like a popular franchise and it's a well-known name or whatever can we make a apple tv part of it even if it's not the best part in the world you know they do the math and they say you know what yes we can that's shovelware there's a slim chance of that that doesn't make anything into a great console um
John:
is there a chance like ios that someone can make a game that plays to the unique strengths of the apple tv like because ios is like you know who's going to write games for a phone that's stupid but you know if they can flight control and those early breakout games like oh you know what there's a whole class of games that people haven't really investigated before that are great with touch controls and those games would be terrible on a console and they'd be terrible on a pc but they're great on your phone and they're great on your ipad and there have been a lot of big success stories uh related to that is there an equivalent for the apple tv
John:
I don't think so, because anything that would be super great on the Apple TV would also be super great on any game console and would probably also be super great on iOS.
John:
Like, I don't know if there's a place for games that are uniquely good on the Apple TV that...
John:
in ways that there wouldn't be good on either ios devices or consoles or pcs so i think it's uh going to be a tough road for that type of game for apple tv the open question i think i have is will ios games which you know are super popular and ios the breakout ios games make a lot of money and one of the biggest selling categories of software for in the app store are games
John:
Will that translate to Apple TV?
John:
Will enough of those games be portable enough to the Apple TV and be ported to the Apple TV to make Apple TV as successful a game platform as phones and iPads are?
John:
I think there's a...
John:
chance of that maybe not as successful but like you know proportion wise obviously they'll sell far fewer apple tvs than they'll ever sell iphones uh right but uh proportion wise will most people who get an apple tv buy and download a couple of one or two dollar games
John:
I kind of think they will.
John:
And, like, Crossy Road was the perfect game to demo because that'll be fine on the TV.
John:
And multiplayer will be fun.
John:
I still think there's a barrier of, based on my kids and the other people I've seen, there's a barrier to actually turning on the TV to do this.
John:
Like, it seems like more of a ceremony than just taking out your iPad or your iPod Touch or your phone and tapping out a few games of Crossy Road to actually go to the room with the TV and turn it on and sit down and turn on the Apple TV and do a lot of the stuff.
John:
Maybe too much of a barrier to make that
John:
a thing that happens but uh i guess we'll see we haven't had another game platform like this to be as successful as this is probably going to be except for maybe the amazon fire tv i don't know are there games for the fire tv there oh yeah i i have them they they they even sell a game controller for i think 30 bucks that doesn't come with it one of the games is crossy road
John:
I'm assuming Apple's going to sell more of these than Fire TVs, but I don't know.
John:
Do we not know how many Fire TVs sell because there's another Amazon thing where they don't tell you?
Marco:
Yeah, but I mean, first of all, what you just said I think is a very, very important factor of this is, you know, as I always say, don't bet against the smartphone.
Marco:
uh this is going against smartphone in that most of the games that will be decent and compelling on the apple tv will be iphone and ipad games and and so you're asking people to play them on a tv instead of playing them on an ios device which they probably also have uh that i think is i don't i think it's going to be very few games played on very few occasions where that's going to
Marco:
um secondly so you know so the games i mean you know usually i think it's actually going to be worse on the apple tv because you don't have the touch screen and most people aren't going to have a game controller so you have it's actually worse control
John:
on a larger but crappier display that you can't touch that is going to you know it's it's going to be it could be more communal that's why i think multiplayer across the road because doing multiplayer across the road when people are gathering around a single ipad and both fingers are stabbing at the screen like that's and i even think that little i don't know any any game that has a spectator aspect of it or a communal aspect of it like maybe people who make game shows and party games for it uh then i guess you get into the thing of like can i buy more of these remotes or do i have to use my phone or my ipod touch and
Marco:
and all those other factors i don't know like there there is a market for a couple of breakout hits for this but i don't think any of them are going to break out in the same way that ios games did right and so then to close this out for for now i guess uh do you think this this will sell well so you know if you think about it this is priced at 149 and 199 for 32 and 64 gigs and it is
Marco:
As Casey mentioned earlier, pretty comical that this, for $150, has more memory in it than the new iPhones for way more money.
Marco:
But we'll fight that fight another day, I think.
Marco:
And today also.
Marco:
This, you know, you look at the Amazon Fire TV, that's what, $100 for the good one?
Marco:
Do we even know?
Marco:
So it's about $100 or maybe $150 for the good Fire TV.
Marco:
Again, no game controller included.
Marco:
You got to pay $30 more for whatever.
Marco:
I don't think the market for these set-top boxes is in an upwards price climb here.
Marco:
I think what we've seen over the last couple of years is these little cheap $40 stick versions of the boxes are selling very well.
John:
The size of the remote.
Marco:
Yeah, or smaller.
Marco:
Things just plug into an HDMI port and then they never show you the little USB cable it needs for power.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Those are selling very well, it seems.
Marco:
Whenever I talk to people who are buying TV boxes, they always talk about those things.
Marco:
It seems like people really love those things.
Marco:
They're very cheap, they're basic, but they're fine for stuff like Netflix.
Marco:
The kind of stuff that most people are actually using these boxes for so far.
Marco:
And Plex.
Marco:
Yeah, and Plex, sure.
Marco:
You and your Plex.
Marco:
I love me some Plex.
Marco:
You'll fight the Plex fight.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
So you have that whole part of the market where I don't see them wanting to suddenly spend $150 on something to solve that kind of need.
Marco:
So I think the low end and the common case of watching Netflix and stuff and Plex is going to be solved perfectly well by everything else that's not this box.
Marco:
I think looking at Amazon is a worthy example here.
Marco:
Do you think Amazon actually sells a good number of the expensive Fire TV box, the good one that has a fast CPU and can run apps and games, the one that I bought, which is, you know, it's fine.
Marco:
It's not amazing, but it's fine.
Marco:
It is very fast.
Marco:
It does have some games that I played once and never again because they're terrible.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
I think this is going to be a slow climb up the sales ranks for the Apple TV because it is coming into a very cheap market with a relatively expensive offering compared to the other things.
Marco:
And again, they've done this before.
Marco:
Apple has done this before.
Marco:
However, in this case, what makes it so much better, I think, is going to be this whole app story that they're betting big on
Marco:
But I'm not sure that's going to actually play out.
Marco:
It doesn't seem like I mean, I'm sure, you know, people like us, you know, most of us are probably going to buy something like this.
Marco:
We'll talk about our podcasts and everything.
Marco:
But do you see like regular people wanting this, you know, not not just a TV connected smart box that can play Netflix, but wanting this one and being willing to spend this amount of money for it?
John:
Tim said it on the thing.
John:
The future of TV is apps like the other shoe hasn't dropped for this yet.
John:
And there's lots of stories leading up to this announcement.
John:
We talked about this.
John:
Like this is the box.
John:
This is the hardware.
John:
And they showed the software and the cross service search and all sorts of things that other boxes have as well.
John:
The other shoe is.
John:
Hey, Apple, is there something I can pay for a monthly subscription to get basically TV without going through a cable company?
John:
And the answer right now is no.
John:
But the rumors have been for years and years that that's what Apple is trying to provide to you.
John:
They're going to try to find a way where you can pay some monthly amount of money that is less than your current cable bill and you can get quote unquote TV in addition to Netflix and Hulu and whatever else you subscribe to and all these other services and Apple things and blah, blah, blah.
John:
But also TV.
John:
You'll be able to watch your baseball games on the MLB app and your NFL games, the NFL app.
John:
you'll be able to see local news and you'll be able to see all the channels that you want to see and and hbo and showtime and espn and apple doesn't have that yet like they we keep hearing that they're trying to work work on it uh that is the other shoe for this this is the hardware is ready for it that will make this a way more compelling thing because like marco was saying you know if you just want something to stream netflix every tv does that now
John:
And if you have an old TV, you can buy one of these boxes or one of these sticks, or you can search across Amazon.
John:
And how many people actually subscribe to Amazon, Hulu, and Netflix who can search across it?
John:
Most people don't.
John:
They just subscribe to one of them.
John:
Hopefully, this is a better box than those little sticks or whatever.
John:
But that just, you know, it's just high-end customers.
John:
Like, oh, I just want something better.
John:
And they're like, oh, well, the Chromecast is fine.
John:
It lets me watch my stuff.
John:
But this is not a fully-fledged customer solution yet.
John:
So we're still just waiting for Apple to get its deals worked out.
Casey:
Yeah, I agree.
Casey:
And a lot of the regular people that I know that have one of these sort of Apple TV boxes or equivalent, a lot of them are swearing by Chromecast.
Casey:
That works for them.
Casey:
It's all they need.
Casey:
To go back just very quickly, I think that...
Casey:
I don't really find anything that compelling about this other than that it's a new Apple toy.
Casey:
I think for it to really get popular, either it needs to replace cable, like you were just saying, John, or depending on maybe one of a couple of different things, if, say, for example, that MLB app existed but for the NFL –
Casey:
That would be a big darn deal.
Casey:
So if there was some sort of exclusive Sunday ticket style, which is exclusive to DirecTV, if there was a way that I could buy an Apple TV and then pay a little extra to get basically Sunday ticket in an app that didn't stink, you know, in an app written by the MLB's media arm or whatever it is,
Casey:
I would go berserk for that.
Casey:
I would love it.
Casey:
And if it's not the NFL, if you're rolling your eyes about another American talking about stupid American football, then fine, soccer.
Casey:
Or fine, F1.
Casey:
And there might be F1, some fancy F1 app on this thing.
Casey:
Who knows?
Casey:
But having something hugely popular, and I'm concentrating on sports, but isn't exclusively sports, but having something like that, I think would really drive a lot of adoption.
Casey:
But
Casey:
Without either the TV service being replaced by the Apple TV or something that I care or you care really, really strongly about being on the Apple TV and a really, really great experience like that MLB app looked like.
Casey:
I just I don't see huge adoption.
Casey:
Not yet, anyway.
John:
Yeah.
John:
If you're just augmenting your existing TV or you're like a weirdo cord cutter who thinks they can get along without, quote unquote, real TV, then you're still in like the in the small category.
John:
You're never going to get the mass market until you can fully replace TV for those people.
John:
And once you can get in, like you said, like people who are really into a particular sport, of course they want the thing, but they're probably going to get that in addition to their other thing.
John:
Right.
John:
And all the exclusive deals are a problem there.
John:
That is still kind of like a an enthusiast market to get to the mass market.
John:
You have to say this can be how you watch TV and you have to you have to say it covers your television watching needs like the old boring way.
John:
Right.
John:
And then once you've got them on board, you can say, oh, and by the way, the future TV is apps.
John:
And if you're really interested in one particular thing, if you're really interested in knitting or you're really interested in F1 or whatever the thing is really interesting, by the way, there's an app for that kind of television or movies or videos or whatever.
John:
And the app does more than just let you hit play and watch a movie, which, again, that's the bar that current Apple TV is not crossing.
John:
Right.
John:
But.
John:
We're imagining here that these apps are all great and this product is good.
John:
The apps can really add to areas of interest.
John:
And I think everybody who subscribes to television in some way has some area of interest that potentially someone could make an app for that would make them interested in that experience.
John:
It's another chicken-egg thing where...
John:
No one's going to make those apps if no one buys the box.
John:
No one's going to buy the box if it can't replace their TV.
John:
And this can't replace their TV because Apple hasn't done the deals and blah, blah, blah.
John:
So really, it's still just an augmenters box.
John:
And what we're all hoping is that this is a better augmenters box than the existing crappy Apple TV or than any of the other things.
John:
But for regular people, like I said, they're just like, well, Chromecast can watch YouTube and it can watch Netflix and it's fine.
John:
And like I said, every single modern TV can all do Netflix already and probably Amazon video.
John:
Like, why do I need a box?
John:
My television does that natively, and it probably does it fine, even though it's really slow and hinky and takes a long time to launch.
John:
You're never going to convince them that this is better because it launches faster and smoothly.
John:
Really, for this to work, like Tim said, the future TV really needs to be apps.
John:
And you can start with the early adopters and the enthusiasts.
John:
You can start with the people who, like, I found this kind of hilarious, but also I totally understood it.
John:
Like, the people who really do want to watch two baseball games at once.
John:
I understand those people.
John:
I know they're out there.
John:
How can you watch 2Biz?
John:
It's a thing that happens.
John:
I've seen it happen.
John:
I mean, talking to my kids, I think I got a picture of this most recently.
John:
My son was sitting on the couch watching, air quotes, television, playing his Nintendo DS with a YouTube movie playing on his iPad with a headphone from his iPad going into his ear.
John:
And I was like, can I turn the TV off?
John:
He's like, no, I'm watching that.
John:
I'm like, you're watching it, you're playing Pokemon in your DS, and you're also watching a YouTube video, but you're really just listening to it.
John:
No, no, it wasn't even a YouTube video.
John:
He was playing music.
John:
And there was a video playing, just...
John:
Anyway, he would love to watch two baseball games at once.
John:
That's nothing.
Casey:
Oh, hey, every college football season, at one point or another, there'll be enough games on simultaneously that I will typically have two televisions and one or two computers all in my family room so I can bounce my eyes between all the different games all at once.
Casey:
Also, I can hear Marco rolling his eyes.
Casey:
Yeah.
John:
baseball nothing happens for such a long time that is really not you can just like i'll pay attention to this game then i'll pay attention to that game and you didn't miss anything you just missed like a couple of butt scratches over there so you have time to time slice it but in a fast pace like can you watch two basketball games at the same time i don't think you can but i'm sure people i'm sure people can all right let's talk about tv os because we still have some iphone to talk about at the rate we're going we're going to be longer than the damn goodfellas podcast
John:
there's a tv js framework i have not looked into any of this so seeing this in the show notes is the first news i had yeah there's a way for you to do if you don't want to write like a full-fledged app like say you're someone who's got a bunch of video like you are the knitting channel right and you i got a bunch of knitting videos and i've got them organized into categories and i've got like shows and and i've you know got tutorials and stuff and i want to i want to be an apple tv i want people to be able to launch it but i don't know how to write an app and i don't know how to want to hire ios developers and really all it is is just a bunch of categorized bins of video that you can start playing
John:
right how can i get that up and running as fast as possible i don't know much about this because i've just looked at the pages briefly but it seems like they have a way to do that with web technologies with html5 video and javascript to slap something together with web style technologies to give you an application that has a bunch of thumbnails of video with player controls i mean we've all seen this all seen html5 video players youtube's html5 video player at this point
John:
where you can have a kind of a customized UI and it plays video just fine.
John:
You can sort through them and you just make essentially web pages and iframes and all sorts of other things you're expected to do with a simple JavaScript API.
John:
And I think it's a good way to, you know, to make the barrier to entry for people who have a bunch of video and want to make it available in an app on the Apple TV quickly and easily.
John:
Seems like a reasonably good idea.
John:
I hope it's not terrible because we've all seen terrible HTML5 video players and longed for like actual native controls for video.
John:
But I'm guessing that because the problem domain is small, bunch of thumbnails of videos that you play, I think it should probably be fine.
John:
But anyway, this is after reading like three sentences on the web pages.
John:
If I'm entirely wrong about what TVJS and TVML kit are, I'm sure we'll find out in follow up.
John:
All right, and tell us about local storage.
John:
Oh, yeah, there's the other snippets I just pulled out of that thing.
John:
There is no persistent local storage for apps on Apple TV.
John:
This means that every app developed for the new Apple TV must be able to store data in iCloud.
John:
That is a direct quote from Apple's documentation.
John:
No persistent local storage.
John:
So it's great that they have 32 and 64 gig models.
John:
If you write an app, you can't use any of that.
John:
I mean, you can, incidentally, in the course of running, but there is no persistent local storage.
John:
Say you've got a bunch of files and you want to download them and store them automatically.
John:
On the Apple TV, you can't.
John:
You can put them in iCloud.
Marco:
Well, no, no, no.
Marco:
Wait.
Marco:
You can download them, but it's all considered temporary purgeable files so that you can download them.
Marco:
Yeah, you can download them, but next time you launch, they might be gone.
John:
Right.
John:
It's non-persistent.
John:
It's like, yeah, it's going to download stuff.
John:
It's going to put it on the storage, but you can't have any guarantee that it's going to be there next time you run.
John:
You can't store stuff there.
John:
So it is just there temporarily and presumably if something more important having to do with actual video watching comes along it will wipe all your crap and it will be gone the next time you're launched.
John:
So like you can't save documents there for example.
John:
So if you're thinking of making an Apple TV app that I don't know it's like a drawing program lets you draw like with a magic wand with the remote.
John:
You can't save the user's drawings on the Apple TV because next time you launch, they could all be gone.
John:
You must use iCloud, which shows that I guess they need all.
John:
I mean, I guess they need a lot of storage for those high definition screensavers, right?
John:
Like they can put stuff on there permanently, but your apps can't.
John:
And the second thing, speaking of storage constraints, the maximum size of an Apple TV app, as in the size of the app bundle itself, like that you download from the store, is 200 megabytes.
John:
Anything beyond this size needs to be packaged and loaded using on-demand resources.
John:
We talked about it at WWDC shows about app thinning, which will help make your app smaller, and on-demand resources, where you don't ship the resources with the app, it downloads them on-demand.
John:
I'm not sure how the on-demand resources I didn't even read into this the on-demand resources in iOS it's like you get your app from the app store and it's small and when it needs stuff it downloads it but then it keeps it right do you know if on-demand resources are purgeable Marco I don't know I haven't looked I would guess they probably are but either way it sounds like they probably are for the Apple TV
Casey:
To my recollection, they were on any platform.
John:
Like, yeah, you download it on demand.
John:
But again, the same deal, like maybe something will come through and clean them up.
John:
So the next time you launch, you'll need to download them on demand again.
John:
But anyway, this is pretty constraining, which means no one like you're not going to have the equivalent of single app.
John:
Remember the single app ebooks on the early days of iOS, whereas like a single book would be an app for ninety nine cents.
John:
No one is going to be able to sell Apple TV apps that are like three hours of video.
John:
you just download it and it's like you know like no that's not going to happen because it's got to be 200 megs and they'll probably reject you if you try to do that anyway for other reasons um yeah so and for games that basically means all that on-demand stuff that they showed you that's like mandatory for games unless you have something like uh crossy road i don't even think crossy roads probably fix under 200 megs i don't know maybe it does it's a it's no textures in it it's just flat shaded i think um
John:
But yeah, if you're thinking of making a game, again, if you had any illusions, I love those articles that are like, Apple TV is going up against PlayStation and Xbox.
John:
Mm-hmm.
John:
Yeah, with no local storage and a 200-meg limit thing.
John:
No, forget it.
John:
Anyway, those are pretty tight, and it makes me wonder...
John:
what they think they need all that storage for i mean the easy answer is to to spool up hd video i guess but i'm not complaining like i love the fact that the storage is generous but to go from what is the apple tv3 it's like eight gigs or something crazy like that and this is not 4k video this is the same resolution there's room for way more video to stay on the device which i i applaud but if you're an app developer boy this seems pretty harsh they do not want you using any of that flash storage on this device uh permanently
Marco:
yeah and i mean and you know even just as a customer trying to buy this device they offer it in two capacities 32 for 150 and 64 for 200 and how do you as a customer like i mean obviously they're gonna they're gonna figure out some bs way for the employees to explain it in the stores and and half the employees are gonna mess up the explanation and do it their other way it's anyway um it's like it's like the way they try to explain ram on the computers oh boy anyway um
Marco:
how is a customer you supposed to know which one to buy because it's you know it the the actual benefit is most likely to just be that well when you hit a purge request it kind of sucks it's like it's like when you're in safari and your page get kicked out of memory on ios and you gotta like reload the page next time you go back where if you have a whole bunch of really big apps and games on your new apple tv
Marco:
and you go to one you haven't used for a while, and its data has been purged since you last used it, then that's going to have to re-download stuff, and you're going to have to wait a second while I re-download stuff.
Marco:
So getting the bigger one would make that happen less often, or possibly never for you, depending on how many things you have on there.
Marco:
So that is the reason to buy the bigger one.
Marco:
How many people are going to know that, though?
John:
They might also say, speaking of things that Apple Store employees would say, oh, you can download more apps, which is strictly true.
John:
But you know how many 200 meg apps you would have to download to make a dent in the extra 32 gigs of memory you get?
John:
Like, do that math.
John:
It's a lot.
Marco:
And so what they're probably going to say is, if you're going to be playing games on it, you should get the big one.
Marco:
That's probably how they're going to message you.
John:
Yeah, because you can download one gig levels, I guess, if you're, you know, something...
John:
with lots of textures, you could get a 200 meg game that on slowly on demand loads a huge number of levels.
John:
And if you play that game a lot, it will be nice that it doesn't have to redownload it.
John:
But again, how many, I guess you could fill it with games.
John:
I guess I'm trying to think, what is it?
John:
Is it, what is it video or on demand resources?
John:
You know, on demand again, they're purgeable, blah, blah, blah, or whatever.
John:
But,
John:
are there enough big games that you're going to be annoyed that like if i play this game and then i play that game and i go back to the previous game one of the levels gets purged maybe i don't know i i think this thing based on what we know now about what the storage is going to be used for i think the 32 is probably big enough for most people and it's great that i can say that about the smallest capacity apple device in any product category
Marco:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
And it all depends really on how much games actually take off on this thing.
Marco:
And like that, because, you know, as we said earlier, like there's so many hurdles for game developers to jump through to get on here.
Marco:
Now, one of the additional hurdles is you're going to have to adopt this app thinning model and this download on demand resource and stuff.
Marco:
So like, again, it's adding more work to what this is.
Marco:
uh i i think it's going to be a tough sell for a lot of game developers especially when the install base is starting at zero um but uh if this all comes together but that's a big if but if this all comes together to the point where they sell enough of these things and that apps are compelling enough and good enough and useful enough on them that there can be a vibrant app market and that's a huge if but
Marco:
But if that happens, and there is a vibrant app market that forms in those conditions, then this will be really cool.
Marco:
Because I do like the idea of TV becoming appified.
Marco:
I think the way Tim presented it on this is why we are going this way, I think you can look at it partly and say, well, that's BS because they couldn't make content deals in time.
Marco:
But I think they honestly do believe that.
Marco:
I think that really is where they think this should go, where they think it is going.
Marco:
And that's right.
John:
Well, the content deals would be the same thing, though, wouldn't they?
John:
Like, content deals would just be more apps, right?
Marco:
Presumably, yeah.
Marco:
You know, because it seems like... I mean, who knows what they're planning with some kind of TV plan or whether it's just getting a bunch of apps on here.
Marco:
Regardless, you know, they now have the groundwork laid for it to go either way.
Marco:
So they have the most options open.
Marco:
And I think if you look at how people watch TV on iPhones and iPads, it is the app model.
Marco:
Apple does not sell a TV package for your iPad, even though lots of people watch TV shows on iPads.
Marco:
Instead, if you want to watch TV shows on your iPad, you go download the apps for those shows or download Netflix or whatever.
Marco:
So that's going to be good.
Marco:
This also gives them, hopefully, if Amazon makes an app for Amazon Video, then this gives them a way to get Amazon Video on the Apple TV without whatever competitive sucking up of their pride they couldn't do on the previous Apple TV, whatever that was.
Marco:
So I think this is a great model if it works.
Marco:
But there are these big challenges to getting it to work that I do have doubts.
Marco:
I think if it does work, it might be a very slow launch just because, again, starting from zero customer base.
Marco:
And I think the story to customers of why they should spend $150 on this new box for their TV is...
Marco:
You know, it's not terrible, but it's not like this gotta have thing that I have to go buy this immediately.
Marco:
I don't think a lot of people are going to feel that want, that desire, that lust to go get this right now.
John:
Well, don't worry, because by next summer, Apple TV will be built into 50% of the television sold in the United States.
John:
remember that one was it 50 or was it 100 i don't remember eric schmidt yeah speaking of uh of apps like television as apps the current version of that actually has a lot of crappy sides to it like the the crappy side of apps like when i was on vacation i watched uh mr robot and humans and uh i think was it uh
John:
mr robot is on usa and humans is on amc there's an amc app for ios and there's a usa app right now of course there's also the website so i think maybe that was the first thing i tried i went to the website on my ipad and it's got html5 video and it kind of plays but it was it would like start playing but then sometimes like it would go to the commercial break and not resume the show i'm like oh i should get the app that'll be better
John:
Uh, and it wasn't, uh, the apps were, looked like they were kind of cruddy web views inside there.
John:
And like when I was trying to watch humans very often, first of all, it was like my, you know, all the things I described before where you can't scrub from one place to the other.
John:
So I would start watching the show and if I closed the iPad or had to come back to it later, it wouldn't pick up where I left off in the app.
John:
It would not pick up where I left off.
John:
And it would start at the beginning again.
John:
And so I have to try to move the scrubber to the part where I went.
John:
But if I scrub past one of the little dots that indicated a mandatory commercial break, it would move the scrubber back and replay that same ad.
John:
And then sometimes when I got done with the ad, it would automatically jump back to the beginning.
John:
One point, I believe I spent over the course of a day, four hours on and off trying to get back to the point where I was watching the program.
John:
Like I try every once in a while, I would let it spin.
John:
I would let it go through a thing.
John:
Sometimes I just let it play to try to get up to the point.
John:
Four hours, I think, I spent on and off trying to get to the scene where I left off in like a 45-minute television show.
John:
So I think the app model, like, hey, we'll make the – I forget this was the AMC or the USA app.
John:
I'm sorry for whichever network I am –
John:
uh throwing under the bus that actually didn't have a problem they were both pretty crappy honestly but the one i spent a really long time with was like the mandatory commercials and not letting me pick up where i left off uh that's just unforgivable and that was an app that was not a web thing that was an app so if the future tv is apps god i hope they're better apps than these because these these raps these are apps made by big television networks with a
John:
terrible and that that is not acceptable no one is going to let you replace their tv with something like this right like just no one no one will accept that like tv has to be tv i have to turn it on and it has to play and has to be it and then better tv is like tivo and that's for like a you know a small category of weirdos who want to spend a lot of money in this box but but bottom line is it's got to play and if you try to play and it doesn't play that's not tv throw this thing away
John:
uh so i really hope that whatever apple's eventual content that's what we're talking about like is the content deal just more apps or is it some different thing that apple works on that does apple provide some kind of quality guarantee would they not let the amc or usa apps ship as part of their apple television subscription deal because they're just not good enough quality they shouldn't because they're not um
John:
Yeah, we'll wait until next year to see if Eddie can sling those deals.
John:
One more short button off.
John:
He'll pull it off.
John:
God, please no.
John:
Please no.
John:
See his belly button soon.
Marco:
You know, you're right.
Marco:
Like as we move towards this era of everything has its own app and every network has its own app.
Marco:
I mean, we see the same thing happening in podcasts, which kind of scares me just for the not only from the future of my app kind of perspective, but also as a listener.
Marco:
Because it does suck to have to go to different publishers' apps to watch different shows, and then the apps are of very different quality.
Marco:
And so not only can you not use one good app to watch everything, but you have to go to all these different crappy apps to watch everything.
Marco:
And that does suck in a lot of ways.
Marco:
However, I think looking at where we are, looking at how iOS has developed in this way with TV content and movie content, how iOS has developed in this way...
Marco:
The situation the Apple TV has been in, obviously Apple has tried very hard to get some kind of normalized deal thing going, and we don't know if they've succeeded.
Marco:
So far, it seems like they haven't.
Marco:
But either way, we really...
Marco:
I think this is kind of just like the best solution that we have, given the modern reality of the content producers and the content landscape.
Marco:
I don't think... Who knows?
Marco:
Apple could prove this wrong in six months and release such a plan where everything's standardized and you just pay them.
Marco:
But it seems like this is probably the best they could do, given the reality of the market.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So we have iPhones to cover, but this is a natural stopping point.
Casey:
And we do not have a fourth sponsor in the strictest sense for this episode.
Casey:
But I thought or we thought it would be a good idea to take a quick moment and just call attention to a friend of the show, Stephen Hackett.
Casey:
He's trying to raise some money for St.
Casey:
Jude's Children's Hospital, and he has a long and, well, fortunate but unfortunate history with St.
Casey:
Jude's.
Casey:
His eldest son, Josiah, has been diagnosed with cancer, and he has had a long struggle with it.
Casey:
Stephen and his family has probably received millions of dollars worth of medical care for free because of donations to St.
Casey:
Jude.
Casey:
Stephen didn't ask us to do this.
Casey:
We just thought it was the right thing to do.
Casey:
So if you've made it this far and have a couple of bucks to spare...
Casey:
We'll put a link in the show notes in the sponsor section for where you can go to donate a little bit of money.
Casey:
And I think it would mean a lot to us and it would mean a lot to Stephen and it would mean a lot to children really all over the world because St.
Casey:
Jude's does accept patients from all over.
Casey:
It would mean a lot to all of those people if you could, you know, scrape together a couple bucks and send it their way.
Casey:
So if you're feeling kind this September and have...
Marco:
any money left over from any purchases you might be making these days uh please think of throwing a few bucks their way yeah it's really it's a fantastic organization i mean saint jude like what they do uh i'm fortunate that that that my family has not needed this but i'm so so glad this exists in case we ever do and for all the people who do uh this is the kind of thing like you want a place like this to exist it really does help society in such a big way and
Marco:
They just, you know, they just do such great work there.
Marco:
And the fact that, you know, it's hard enough if you need to go to a child cancer hospital.
Marco:
That's never a good thing.
Marco:
But the fact that, you know, imagine if people had to pay for this and if they had to then, you know, deny care because somebody couldn't afford it or whatever.
Marco:
I mean, that's just horrifying.
Marco:
So the work they do is amazing.
Marco:
Go support St.
Marco:
Jude.
Marco:
You know, donate to St.
Marco:
Jude.
Marco:
It's fantastic.
John:
That's just like an example of like the most important blanket rule.
John:
Like you think, well, you know, they're all kind of the same, different doctors, baby show here.
John:
Like the most important thing is like the blanket rule, like doesn't matter if you have enough money.
John:
Like just take that off the table.
John:
Is that because that that is the ultimate, you know, like you just you just can't think about it.
John:
Like don't work like that was the most I think it's the most important rule to find this thing.
John:
Does not matter how much money you have, period.
John:
Everything else you're going to have plenty to worry about.
John:
That's one of the things you don't have to worry about.
John:
And that one rule, I think, defines this entire place as like a place of safety and a good place.
John:
And maybe strangely enough, that type of thing makes me want to give money.
John:
right knowing that if i give money it's going to go to help pay for kids to get better right that that they're you know that kids are going to be accepted here period how can they do that because people give them money so you have to give them money so they can do this exactly and september is national childhood cancer awareness month which is why uh steven's doing all this fundraising he does it every september and this is a really great cause so check it out we'll put the link in the show notes or just go to 512pixels.net and you can find the link there
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So iPhone 6S.
Casey:
And if you're one of those crazy kids in the plus club, iPhone 6S Plus.
Casey:
A9, Taptic Engine, 3D Touch, better camera, which I had for a fleeting moment.
Casey:
I was very scared that the better camera had more megapixels than my fancy pants Micro Four Thirds camera.
Casey:
It does not.
Casey:
I still have probably one more year before that's the case.
Casey:
Obviously, there's a lot more to a camera than just how many megapixels it is, but I did get very scared just for a moment there.
Casey:
Anyway, this looks pretty good to me.
Casey:
more feature-packed than I think most S years have been.
Casey:
It also has a new version of Touch ID, which supposedly is a lot faster.
Casey:
I'm really interested to play with the 3D Touch.
Casey:
I think that...
Casey:
It's interesting.
Casey:
I have mixed feelings about it.
Casey:
I think I'm going to love it.
Casey:
And it certainly is very clever and different.
Casey:
But it also adds another layer to an operating system and a piece of hardware that I think has been getting considerably more complex over the years.
Casey:
If you think about... I joined the iPhone... I got my first iPhone when it was a 3GS.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
That, by comparison, was unbelievably simple.
Casey:
I think we were on iOS 3 at that point, if memory serves.
Casey:
I'm probably wrong about that.
Casey:
But it was so simple by comparison to what we have today.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
And it's interesting to me that we are getting closer and closer with all these options and gestures, gestures from the bottom, gestures from the left, gestures from the right, gestures from the top.
Casey:
And now we have, well, did you touch or did you really touch or did you really touch and hold?
Casey:
All of these different interaction mechanisms and paradigms, I'm not saying they're a bad thing.
Casey:
I'm not saying that this isn't the march of progress.
Casey:
I'm not saying this isn't good in the grand scheme of things.
Casey:
But I don't know.
Casey:
I've just had this weird feeling all day long after seeing the keynote that things are getting more and more complex.
Casey:
And this device that was kind of like this haven of cleanliness and simplicity...
Casey:
just doesn't seem so simple anymore do you guys feel the same way like like marco do you feel like this is getting more and more complex or am i being crazy here
Marco:
No, I've actually thought that way for a while about many of Apple's products.
Marco:
I mean, so just the other day.
Marco:
So I've had an Apple Watch since day one.
Marco:
I discovered about three days ago that you can swipe down to dismiss a notification rather than just scrolling to the dismiss button and trying to tap it in a way that isn't interpreted as a scroll.
Marco:
The fact that I've had a watch all this time, and I follow this stuff so closely, and I didn't know that until recently, just shows you there's so much hidden stuff, hidden shortcuts, hidden features.
John:
I think that shows they're doing a good job, don't you?
John:
Because the trick is to add the deep functionality...
John:
without making it more complicated for people who don't know or care about it so the fact that you could have a watch for a real long time and not know that shows that a you didn't need to know that to dismiss notifications uh and b uh not knowing that it was there did not interfere
John:
with like it didn't it didn't weigh on your mind you didn't have a button that was in your face you weren't like i mean maybe you accidentally triggered it like that's the whole trick with all these things like am i accidentally triggering i think some of the stuff on ios uh lurches into that area like the notification center i've seen people accidentally bring that down and go what the heck is that right or double tapping the home button they don't know what that is because they've never seen it before and they just did it by accident that's what you don't want to happen but for the most part apple has been a pretty good job of having all that advanced stuff there and
John:
But if you don't know about it and don't want to deal with it, it's not in your face.
John:
And I think a lot of the iOS 7 simplification of getting controls out and trying to make things look simpler, while at the same time hiding much more functionality than any of the little buttons, it's walking kind of a fine line.
John:
And I'll have to try this 3D Touch thing to see what side of the line it goes on.
John:
But it seems like the same type of thing.
John:
If you don't know that it's there, maybe it won't bother you.
John:
But when they showed those demos, I just had to think that, like,
John:
There's at least two or three things that I think once people figure out that it's there and it becomes part of their vocabulary, and I think it's perfectly within the realm of everybody to have this become part of the vocabulary, whatever it's called, long pressing, force touching or whatever on an icon on your home screen and picking one of the three common things.
John:
like even just to take a selfie, which I showed like 17 times, that's a good feature that people will use.
John:
It's better than launching the app.
John:
It is not so complicated.
John:
I think people can't do it.
John:
And once somebody does it once, the phone's going to feel broken.
John:
If you can't do that on, they're going to, if you take someone, take a teenager with a phone with iOS nine, who's used to like two of those features on two apps, that's it.
John:
Just two apps in their home screen that they use that thing all the time and put them back to iOS nine.
John:
They'd be like, my phone is broken.
John:
Throw this junk away.
John:
Right.
John:
And that alone, like the doomsday scenario that Marco was like, well, what about every app?
John:
You got a long press and hard press and a million things are sprouting out.
John:
You didn't mean it like you don't want that to happen.
John:
But I think the additional functionality provided by this, and I'm hoping it is better than long pressing would be because I hate long pressing.
John:
I think it's worth it.
John:
I think we're ready for the next step in the interface.
John:
And this functionality, I think you can put in applications in the right way to provide shortcuts and extra functionality for people who want them without getting in the way of people who don't.
John:
A lot of the stuff they demoed is already kind of pushing against the line, like the whole thing of pressing hard on the little Harry Potter photos where they start moving.
John:
Is that really a great use of force press?
John:
Or would I rather just have a button for that?
John:
I don't know.
Marco:
Harry Potter should smile more.
John:
there was an adobe demo not apple but then again apple vets everything that's in these things so we'll hit them with the blame for it as well yeah anyway the 3d touch uh thing i'm mostly optimistic about it and i was i found a lot of their demos very convincing and a lot of their demos very very silly so i guess we'll all just have to try it ourselves and see like here are the tests for it
John:
if you pretend that this feature doesn't exist does it ever bother you and i'm hoping the answer is no like you know we could get all get these phones start using an ios 9 i'm not getting this phone probably but anyway marco will get it probably casey poor casey in that that yearly plan i felt for casey when they put that thing out i'm like no aaron was like no anyway uh
John:
If you pretend 3D Touch does not exist, does it impact your life at all?
John:
And I'm hoping the answer is no.
John:
And the second thing is, now pretend it does exist, did you find anything useful for it?
John:
And I think the answer is definitely going to be yes, even if it's just for two or three things.
John:
And then the final answer is...
John:
uh is every single place that some apple developer buried 3d touch useful and that's definitely no like even apple even the stuff they demoed i'm like that's a little bit too much pressing really hard into my phone screen apple but you know it's like the you know 80 20 rule or whatever uh people are going to use 20 of the functionality but that's not even the 80 20 rule anyway everyone will use a different 20 so i am optimistic about 3d touch i like the new little vibrate thing
John:
The little taptic engine.
John:
I'm a little bit scared of how much battery space that's taking up, but I guess you get some space savings.
John:
Didn't they say they did a shrink on the A9 in Apple parlance?
John:
In not so many words, but yes.
John:
Well, they shrunk the battery a little bit, too.
John:
That's what I'm saying.
John:
Yeah, they shrunk.
John:
They had to.
John:
The taptic engine is gigantic.
Marco:
Yeah, and the screen is thicker.
John:
I'm excited by the taptic engine.
John:
i'm assuming the battery life will be similar because it's an s generation you get the benefits of everything else using less power and having better parts and blah blah so it's probably break even we didn't even mention that by the way the ipad pro that they have this massive device with four speakers uh and they have all this room for battery but they said you know what 10 hours it's the ipad rule of the law the hard and fast ipad rule but it's gigantic it's 30 i said 10 hours what should we do the rest of the space i don't know add more speakers
Marco:
well because i mean weight is the biggest problem there you know like i mean is it a problem like i said just make as heavy as you want it's well it's already yeah it's already heavier than the first ipad and it's bigger so i mean i i already think yeah i already think it's going to be well keep in mind a lot of people still want their ipad to be this thing they hold up in bed and hits them in the face when they fall asleep like this is going to do some damage 13 inches coming down on you
Marco:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
That's why I really don't think they could have added more weight.
Marco:
Believe me, I am all for adding battery life.
Marco:
But I also know the batteries are very heavy.
Marco:
And in the case of the iPhone 6, I think it should have a bigger battery.
Marco:
In the case of the iPad Pro, though, if it's already that heavy with the battery it has, I don't think they can afford to put more in there.
John:
Can I hear 11 hours or 12?
John:
Anyway, I'm sure it's fine.
John:
I don't have a problem with iPad better.
John:
Like 10 hours has always been an honest 10 hours.
John:
Not really when gaming, but it's still like I don't ask it.
John:
I don't ask my iPad to do the type of stuff.
John:
I think you're right about weight becoming a factor.
John:
But like if anything is going to be a gigantic thing, like this is it.
John:
This is the one.
John:
This is the one that's going to be super heavy.
John:
It already is super heavy.
John:
Make it super heavier.
John:
The fact that they use that space for like baffles for the speakers to make them sound better.
John:
I think it's kind of a good idea because that's kind of a pro feature.
John:
And if you are like, I do all my television watching on my iPad and I do it all on my couch and on my bed, this is the one to get because the sound is going to be way better and the screen is going to be gorgeous.
John:
It has way too many pixels to show 1080 video, but what do people care?
John:
Maybe you can do picture in picture and browse Twitter while you're doing it, whatever.
John:
Anyway, we got off on the iPhone 6 thing.
John:
I agree with you that on the 6, battery life, they didn't say anything about it, did they?
Marco:
I don't think so.
Marco:
They said it was the same.
John:
Yeah, I mean, like, that's what they're going for.
John:
It will probably be same-ish.
John:
A lot of friends have been asking me, hey, is this iPhone 6 a good phone to get?
John:
And especially people upgrading from, like, fives and stuff, it's like, yeah, like, it's, you know, the S generation is usually great to get.
John:
If you haven't had a phone with Touch ID, Touch ID is awesome.
John:
You should totally get it.
John:
The S generations usually have fewer weirdnesses than the first one in terms of, like, they've made phones this size and shape before.
John:
uh but this one has more internal changes than usual and so i guess the battery is a question and maybe the taptic engine is a question based on the wonkiness of the taptic engine in the uh the initial watches sometimes now when i feel my taps on my wrist i'm like is that feeling lighter than it used to but i think i might just be imagining things anyway i have the same problem
John:
yeah we're just getting uh tap numbness on our wrists um the camera's a little bit better like it has the 3d touch uh this seems like a really great phone to me the only uh reservations i have are i guess battery life and then i
John:
guess maybe 3d touch could go horribly wrong and be accidentally activated all the time and make you hate the phone but that's about the only bad things i can even worry about in the slightest about this phone otherwise it just seems like a really good phone to me and actually this is my first time guys my first time feeling bad that now i don't have the good iphone and i felt it i totally felt it i'm like oh this is what everyone's been talking about this sucks
John:
Because I want one.
John:
I want to do all this stuff.
John:
Because they never updated the iPod Tux.
John:
You never had to worry about that.
John:
Yeah.
John:
When they did, I just bought it.
John:
I always just bought it, right?
John:
But I looked at this and I'm like, oh, I shouldn't buy this.
John:
I'll just wait for the seven.
Marco:
But you can have one now for starting at $27 a month or whatever.
John:
I think that all that deal, they should, by the way, Casey, to talk you out of doing this deal, I'm pretty sure that deal is a worse deal than just buying yourself a new phone every year.
John:
I think it's just like a sophisticated way to loan money and pay interest.
John:
I just looked at it for two seconds, but I think that's what it is.
Casey:
Yeah, I haven't done the spreadsheets or anything.
Casey:
I think that's right.
Casey:
I think you stand to make a little bit of money, so to speak, if you were going to get AppleCare and going to upgrade annually.
Casey:
Then you may shave a few dollars, you know, a little bit of money.
John:
I don't know about that.
John:
I saw a bank's name associated with it, so it makes me think that for people who have cash flow problems, it's just a loan.
John:
You make these payments.
John:
It is more expensive in the long run than paying for it all up front.
John:
But if you don't have the cash to pay for it all up front and break your contract or whatever, do this.
John:
It seems like someone's making money off of this.
John:
It does not seem like something that would be done out of the goodness of anyone's heart to let you get a new phone every year for less money.
John:
It's got to be either the same money or more money.
John:
uh which i'm not saying it's a good idea people have cash flow problems and they want to have a new phone every year uh or even just for convenience for people who have plenty of money like the groupers of the world who just are gonna get a photo every year and don't want to have to think about it uh but for me what i thought about is what if i really like the 7s and the 8 comes out and i don't like it then like i'm you don't have to get the i can keep going through the thing but i just feel like i'm on a i'm on a program i would
John:
I would stay away from and just, you know, reserve the right to keep a phone for like four years if I really hate a certain round of iPhones.
John:
But again, I say this just being someone who was sad that my phone now sucks because it's not a success.
Casey:
Yeah, isn't that terrible?
Casey:
So you're not going to get yourself a 6S?
John:
No, I'm not going to.
John:
My Mac is eight years old for crying out loud.
John:
I'm pretty good.
John:
What I use is the promise of the as-yet-undefined non-existent 7.
John:
I have no idea what the 7's going to be like, but it could be amazing, and that will keep me.
John:
The fantasy of the 7.
John:
Yeah, I mean, you're going to want that next year.
John:
Well, I'm going to get the 7.
John:
My wife will get the 6S.
John:
I won't get it, so it'll be fine.
Marco:
I'm actually, as much as I've ragged on it, I actually am looking forward to the, sorry, 3D Touch.
Marco:
I was going to say Force Touch.
Marco:
Did Apple just realize it's a creepy name and just stop using it?
John:
CFED said Force Touch in the keynote.
John:
So it's probably been forced touch until the marketing people decided three weeks ago that it was going to be 3D Touch.
John:
And so Federighi and everyone else at Apple keeps calling it forced touch.
Marco:
Well, forced touch is always a terrible, creepy name.
Marco:
But anyway, so whatever we're calling those shortcuts, 3D Touch, whatever they are, I'm looking forward to that as a user.
Marco:
Because A, that cuts down on having to reach for edges and corners, which makes larger phones more usable, including both the 6 and the 6 Plus for people whose hands are normally sized.
Marco:
uh so i'm looking forward to that uh just as a user just like you know let me try these things and of course as a developer i think you know usually every developer myself included rationalizes hardware purchases unnecessarily by saying well i need this for testing so i can make my app better and you know
Marco:
Sometimes that's true.
Marco:
A lot of times it's not.
Marco:
I think in this case that actually might be more true than usual just because if this 3D touch thing takes off, which it probably will because it's a really convenient shortcut on the most frequently used computer most of us use.
Marco:
So if it takes off and it doesn't suck the way John, you know, you said it could theoretically flake out and be unreliable.
Marco:
But if it's good and if it works, I think it's going to be a pretty big deal for app design.
Marco:
And so I think developers should be paying attention more than usual for an iPhone release to this.
Marco:
But we're probably all going to buy it anyway.
John:
Oh, that's one question I didn't see.
John:
Maybe I didn't pay enough attention.
John:
Does the iPad Pro have 3D touch?
John:
And if not, why not?
Casey:
I don't think it does.
Casey:
They didn't mention that at all.
John:
I mean, it's just like the stylus, the pressure sensitivity is in the stylus, right?
John:
It's not in the screen.
John:
Yes.
John:
That's my understanding.
John:
But on the phone, the pressure sensitivity seems to be in the screen.
John:
So maybe the iPad Pro just doesn't have the hardware for it.
Marco:
Yeah, it seems like it is not there at all.
Marco:
But anyway, it doesn't really matter.
Marco:
I mean, they can achieve it through the pen anyway.
John:
But they can't achieve it through your finger, though, is what I'm getting at.
John:
If you buy an iPad Pro and you press really hard on an icon on your home screen on your iPad Pro, nothing happens, right?
John:
Oh, that's a good question.
Marco:
Yeah, because if you get used to that, it's like that one year where they had Touch ID on the phone, but they didn't have it on the iPad yet.
John:
Yeah, and you just kept resting your finger on these little concave home buttons and nothing would happen.
John:
You're like, this thing is broken.
Marco:
Yeah, like once you get accustomed to that on one iOS device, yeah, if you can't do it on the other one, that's a problem.
Marco:
Yeah, well, hey, next year, they got to make all the people buy a new iPad Pro every year, just the same way they buy a new MacBook every year for the same price.
Marco:
i don't know we'll find out uh yeah so i don't know it'll be interesting to see how this how this all shakes out i am a little disappointed also i uh tweeted about this earlier i'm a little i wouldn't even get really a chance to talk about the keyboard case much but i am disappointed that it seems like there's nowhere to put the apple pencil anywhere in the ipad or in the case where you can put it oh wow to quote to quote steve that steve jobs thing that i maybe i just imagined but i still always think about
John:
What should I do with this?
John:
I'll show you what you can do with it.
John:
Oh, man.
John:
You just plug it into the lighting board.
John:
It's super convenient.
John:
It just sticks out on this tiny little metal thing that's easy to break off and stabs you in the belly button.
Marco:
That's going to, yeah.
Marco:
Thank God it has allegedly very good battery life and charges very quickly because that is a recipe for just breaking those things off everywhere.
John:
yeah or just it's another recipe for people to make artisanal handcrafted wood carved like from driftwood found on a beach holster is for your pen that it has a lightning connector built in and it'll be kickstarter for it in 10 minutes don't worry yeah they're gonna sell a lot of those pens it's a pencil not a pen sorry pencil concentrate we're on the phone now what are we talking about oh yeah good grief you too it's been a long show they just added an s in a box anyway it seems like something you want to talk about about the phone casey
Casey:
They are moving to 4K video, and that's kind of exciting and also scary since it's still being sold in 16 gigs.
John:
Someone should do the math and say, after you have the OS and all the standard apps installed, how much 4K video can you record before the thing fills up?
Marco:
It depends on the bitrate, but I can tell you it's probably on the order of about 10 minutes.
Casey:
I thought somebody did the math and said 30, but that wasn't inclusive of the OS.
Casey:
Also, since I'm talking real-time follow-up, it is a sapphire crystal lens cover as per the specs page.
Casey:
Nice.
John:
All right, so never mind that person.
Marco:
There you go.
Marco:
I mean, and yeah, 4K video is huge.
Marco:
I mean, the fact is, like, you can look at the entire rest of their lineup where, like, the iPhone, their flagship product that makes them the most money, has the stingiest storage pricing
Marco:
and not the lowest prices to start by the way like you know this is still like a 600 device uh the the stingiest storage uh out of the whole lineup and there there is no other explanation for this you like i heard like i was talking to uh to a friend of the show renee richie he wrote he just wrote a an article about this we'll have to find it linked in the show notes of like
Marco:
why are they still or why might they still use 16 64 128 and there's some kind of like like a difference in ram types uh in like the flash ram type uh that's available for like one of them's cheap one of them's expensive and it's not available in these capacities or whatever um so that that that could be a reason you know with the iphone they have to do things in such large volume compared to the other products
John:
Oh, the easy reason is because the 6 did.
John:
That's the answer.
John:
Why does the 6s do it?
John:
Because 6 did.
John:
And then you ask, why did the 6 do it?
John:
And then you can get into the RAM types and the sizes and all that other stuff.
John:
But it's a shame either way.
John:
In the grand scheme, it's not our problem.
John:
It's Apple's job to figure out how the hell to make products that aren't crappy.
Marco:
And they sell lots of 32 gig flash products at very cheap prices.
Marco:
So it is not like they can't do it.
Marco:
And I think the real reason here is just because they know that it drives up the average selling price of their most profitable, most successful product.
Marco:
That has to be the answer.
John:
Do they know that though?
John:
Because they never break that down for us.
John:
like we assume it does like with the whole anchoring and it's like well I don't want the small one I don't want the big one I want the middle one but the middle one you know like the whole anchoring thing is it's surely a thing Apple probably does know but I don't think we can know unless maybe again Horace knows because he does some crazy algebra to solve a simultaneous series of equations to figure out exactly how many 16s but like I don't know what the mix is like the 16 just seems like I want an iPhone and I want to get out I want the cheapest iPhone possible it used to be you guys were Mac users in the days when
John:
Or even iPhone uses.
John:
The best-selling product in any Apple product line used to be the most expensive one.
John:
It's kind of like, I remember when the Phantom Menace trailer was downloaded, Apple was like, and most people downloaded the biggest version of the trailer.
John:
Like, well, no duh.
Yeah.
John:
star wars fans given a choice of what size would you like to see the trailer for this new star wars movie you waiting your whole life for the biggest is the answer and so it used to be what's the best selling apple laptop the most expensive model not counting the 17 this was pre-17 but that changed many years ago when apple became more of a mass market thing and now i don't know if that's the case maybe it still is like remember it used to be like well the 5s is obviously the best selling phone uh but that doesn't get into capacities
John:
is the 16 are people like i really want an iphone 6 and the cheapest way i can get it is 16 like i worry that that that size is sucking people in because they really want the the new iphone and that's the cheapest way they can get it and that's just that's just not a good product i feel like app thinning aside on-demand resources aside that product gives a persistently bad experience in ways that are super frustrating to regular people 16 gigs is not appropriate
Casey:
I couldn't agree more.
Casey:
And this is all anecdotal, but I feel like more and more regular people that I know have lamented to me just in general or because I'm that Apple guy they know about how Apple has written terrible software because they can't upgrade their OS and their phone is always full and everything's always broken and it's all Apple's fault.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
explaining to them that they bought a cheap phone doesn't usually end well.
John:
And it is Apple.
John:
Here's the thing.
John:
Every phone is going to run out of space eventually if you fill it with stuff.
John:
But we know the failure mode is so bad, and we know regular people have no idea what to do.
John:
And the iCloud thing is another example of that.
John:
This dialogue box keeps on telling me I can't back up.
John:
All those failure modes are really bad.
John:
You just got to try to find a sweet spot where most people fit within it.
John:
And 16 is not.
John:
16 is just too low.
John:
I mean, they keep making the 4K video, the size of the pictures, and now your still pictures are also videos.
John:
Forget it.
John:
Like, 16 gigs.
John:
Just, it's terrible.
John:
I understand why.
John:
They were probably kind of stuck with it with the 6s.
John:
and i kind of understand that the ram thing too because if they're making the battery smaller that's not the time to add more ram they really need to fix this in the seven i really hope that i'm super excited about the ipad pro having four gigs like that shows that maybe someone you know because they didn't have to like i think you'd maybe get away with it with with two gigs you know but like four gigs after the ipad air 2 had two that's a positive trend i really hope they sort it out with it i know we're mixing ram and memory kind of like
John:
Who was it that did that in the keynote?
John:
Phil Schiller or somebody?
John:
Ram and storage.
John:
But anyway, on both those fronts, they've both been problematic for different reasons.
John:
16 gigs uh friends don't let friends buy the 16 gig uh iphone 6s they should have like a a fund just a giant pool or tech nerds who will lose sleep if people they know have 16 gig phones just put money in a giant pot and every time someone goes to an apple store and buys a 16 gig 6s the apple person will say oh and by the way even though you've chosen the 16 gig model we're about to give me your credit card i can pull money out of this giant jar and give you the 32 because no one should own the 16.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So the only other thing that I thought was, well, that I thought at this hour of the night was really interesting about the six S's is this live, what do they call them?
Casey:
Live photos?
Casey:
The Harry Potter photos.
Casey:
Yeah, the Harry Potter photos.
Casey:
I can't decide if this is freaking brilliant or the cheesiest animated emoji thing that I've seen since animated emoji.
John:
I think it's nice.
John:
I mean, especially I found this, too.
John:
I find myself not regarding how many pictures I've taken of my kids, but wishing I had more video.
John:
Video just seems more onerous to me.
John:
And this is a nice sort of compromise that like I would use this feature if I had it because I like to have a little bit of I like to see them in motion and hear what their squeaky little voices sound like.
John:
You know, I have video.
John:
I have plenty of video, but I feel like I wish I had more video.
John:
uh and i think i've got them photographically covered but i wish i had more video and if this is a way to get more people to take more video you just need a few seconds to like what was your kid like when he or she was five or two or seven uh and this gives enough of a flavor of it i feel like especially since there's sound uh involved in it i don't think you'd take every picture like this especially if you have a 16 gig phone
John:
But it's cute.
John:
I don't like the fact that you have to press hard and it goes all blurry and comes back in.
John:
I don't like that whole interaction for doing this.
Casey:
Yes, I agree.
John:
But I like the idea that it takes video.
John:
It's one of the fun things you can do when you have a really fast processor in your phone, right?
Marco:
they they said a couple times i'm pretty sure this is the case that those are 12 megapixel videos which is higher resolution than 4k uh so they're actually like that that little video clip you're getting there is better than what you can get in 4k that's a feature that they on on actual expensive dedicated cameras for a long time it was you know a high-end feature to be like and while you're shooting video you can shoot stills in the middle of the video like it's not you know
John:
phones have crappy processors or whatever but at a certain point even the crappy processors and dedicated phones were fast enough and surely the a9 is plenty fast enough to do this for limited amounts of time blah blah blah so it's perfect for this feature like they've got the camera they've got the capacity they're not it's not like it's taking like oh then your photo is going to be like 720p or whatever you're even 4k full res the whole time but for a short period of time i think it's i think it's cute
Marco:
And honestly, before the event, based on just the rumors we had heard, I was not that excited about the iPhone 6S.
Marco:
And I was actually thinking about not getting one for the first time.
Marco:
It would be the first iPhone I've ever skipped.
Marco:
Delusional.
Casey:
Yeah, but... You know, I also am not going to buy a watch.
Marco:
Right, exactly.
Marco:
And you're not going to buy an Apple TV or an iPad Pro.
Casey:
Well, one of those I think will be true.
Casey:
I'm not sure which one.
Casey:
I think Casey's not going to buy an iPad Pro.
Casey:
I'm not even sure if I'm going to buy one.
Marco:
You're probably going to buy a Mini 4.
Casey:
That is very, very likely.
Marco:
Isn't it weird, by the way, that this is the first year where the 10-inch sized iPad did not get an update and also didn't get a price drop?
Marco:
It did get a price drop, didn't it?
Marco:
No, the Air 2 is the same as last year.
Marco:
Is it?
Marco:
And it's still the same price.
John:
Anyway, the Air 2 was so over-specced when it was introduced that it has more headroom.
Marco:
It's interesting that we're now back to the point where we were when the Retina Mini was first launched, Casey's beloved RetinaPad Mini.
Marco:
We're back to the point now where the only difference between the Mini and the big one is size and $100.
John:
That's as it should be, I feel like.
John:
And the same thing.
John:
I think it's appropriate for the 6S to have two gigs of RAM.
John:
And I think if that's true, everything's coming up Milhouse.
John:
Even the color.
John:
We're like, oh, it was going to be pink.
John:
And look at these pink screenshots.
John:
So it's not going to be pink.
John:
Well, we're right and wrong.
John:
It's not pink.
John:
It's rose gold.
John:
But the rose gold looks pink.
John:
What the hell to make of that?
Marco:
Trying to wrap it up.
Marco:
Based on what we've seen today, what are you guys planning on buying out of these products?
Marco:
Casey?
Casey:
I am pretty sure that I'm going to be getting a new retina pad mini.
Casey:
I might try to hold on until I can play with an iPad pro just so I know that I'm making the right decision, but I will, I will be stunned if I decide, no, no, no.
Casey:
I want a 13 inch iPad.
Casey:
Um, I absolutely will be getting Aaron and I both a success.
Casey:
We are not crazy people, so we are not getting it.
Casey:
and I'm 50-50 on the Apple TV.
Casey:
Sitting here now, I'm going to say no, which means yes, I just haven't realized it.
John:
john i'm definitely getting the apple tv 100 uh the ipad pro i can see myself getting it i really have to try it and see i what i really again i'm totally going home for the ipad pro i want this product to exist i'm just not sure i'm going to be the one to buy it i would love every single feature on that ipad pro in an ipad air 2 size device with a thicker border around the screen for me to grab with my big fat thumbs
John:
But that product doesn't exist, so I'll have to evaluate the iPad Pro.
John:
I might get it because my iPad 3, it's getting a little longer to do it.
John:
These days, I do a lot more on my phone because it's just so much faster.
John:
So I will definitely check it out.
John:
No new watches for me.
John:
No success for me.
John:
My wife will probably get a success.
Marco:
And I will be buying a new Apple TV.
Marco:
Tiff and I are both going to get the 6S.
Marco:
And the iPad, I mean, I think I'm going to skip it.
Marco:
It looks really interesting for people who aren't me.
Marco:
And it is a lot of money.
Marco:
I think if I'm going to have a small device with a medium amount of battery life that has a crappy keyboard that's really portable, I think I'd get another MacBook One.
Marco:
uh i think i that would fit me better because i i really am more of a mac person than an ios person for getting quote work done you know the kind of stuff i do really is better on a mac even even a small slow one with a bad keyboard i'd rather have that i think than an ipad so fair enough
John:
I forgot to crush Casey's Plex streams and I realized maybe I don't need to crush them.
John:
But what I was going to crush them was like I was assuming that you would want to store the video on there and apps can't have local storage.
John:
But if you just use it as a client and all the video was on your Synology and you just were transcoding on the Apple TV, maybe I won't crush your dreams.
Casey:
Yeah, we'll see.
Casey:
I mean, my assumption is that the Plex stuff would work basically as it is now, which is I just stream from my Synology, and that's all I need.
Casey:
But we'll see what happens.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Cards Against Humanity, Casper, and Fracture.
Marco:
And don't forget to check out the St.
Marco:
Jude donation that we talked about earlier for September being Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to our three sponsors and that, and we will see you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin, cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental, oh 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.
Marco:
They didn't lose.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Tech podcast.
John:
So long.
John:
I like who did it first there.
John:
because i think that that covers a lot of the whole i mean i didn't hear a lot of this complaining maybe because i'm not traveling these circles but like like i saw someone post like an old comic when the surface came out of showing like yeah the new ipad with the keyboard cover like guys keyboard covers existed for the ipad like you know it's not can you believe apple did a thing like this yep i can totally believe it everybody can believe it it is not a surprise
John:
And if anyone is out there complaining, was Apple be like, we are the first people to make it?
John:
No, they didn't.
John:
They didn't say that at all.
John:
They didn't even do their normal thing of like, we think this is the best one ever and past ones and other ones people made it crappy.
John:
They didn't even say that.
Casey:
Oh, no, they said that.
Casey:
They did.
Casey:
They did.
Casey:
They did not say this is the first time you've seen it, but they did say this is the best one you've ever seen or something like that.
Yeah.
John:
I promise.
Casey:
I promise.
John:
I mean, they just said the best thing they've ever made.
John:
Anyway, whatever.
John:
It just seemed like that was not a big angle.
John:
And if people are angry about it, I didn't see them in my theater.
John:
People really getting angry.
John:
Like, people have made pens before.
John:
Apple's like making it like they invented the pen.
John:
No, they weren't.
Casey:
I think the thing is it was just so egregious and so obvious.
John:
But it's not egregious.
John:
Again, who did it first?
John:
The freaking Newton, for crying out loud.
John:
It's another company.
John:
It's the same company.
John:
It was Apple.
John:
Apple did that.
Casey:
It was them.
Casey:
It's like – take Touch ID as a great counterexample.
Casey:
Touch ID was taking the same idea and making it better or better-er, if you will.
John:
This might not even be better.
John:
It's just a keyboard cover.
John:
Logitech's been making them for years.
John:
No, no, that's my point.
Casey:
Yeah, you're making my point, which is Touch ID was like – remember the little swipey thing like I had on my keyboard?
Casey:
Yeah, they're terrible.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
It was like that, but they made it better.
Casey:
Whereas what they've done looks like a straight rip of the Surface Keeper.
John:
But it's not a straight rip.
John:
It's like this is the time when they're going to add these features to their product.
John:
It's not as if they didn't think these features were possible before.
John:
They weren't not adding them because they weren't possible.
John:
Apple's had this stylus patents going – like how many years ago have we seen stylus patents?
John:
Like it's just like when is the right time to do this?
John:
It's not like we can't figure out how to do it or whatever.
John:
It's them deciding –
John:
what is the appropriate appropriate feature set for our products and then doing it.
John:
So I, you know, I, I didn't see that complaining, but a little tiny bit bubbled up.
John:
I'm like, seriously, is this what people are on about?
John:
Cause I didn't get that vibe at all from the keynote.
John:
It was more, it was more like iOS eight where like some people couldn't get over the fact that Android had these features when everyone else is like, yeah, but now iOS has them and we like iOS.
John:
So we're excited that we get them.
John:
And we've been saying for years they should have them and they should be like, well, you're copying Android.
John:
That, I think, is even more of a case of, like, Android, you know, or Palm OS or WebOS, for crying out loud, had a lot of these ideas with the card metaphor and the multitask.
John:
Like, it's just ridiculous.
John:
The whole idea of worrying about who did something first in these basic functional things, like, I can't make a computer with a mouse.
John:
Someone already did that.
John:
No, just put a mouse on it.
John:
It's fine.