Here I Am, I’m a Battery
John:
Oh, the only question is, are we going to make Brent Simmons angry with the comma splice?
John:
And here I am on my battery.
John:
You can make it a semicolon.
John:
You can make it a period.
John:
If you leave it as a comma, it's a comma splice.
John:
But I feel like it's an informal.
John:
And since it is someone speaking, you could consider it someone speaking.
John:
Sometimes people speak in things that are not sentences.
Marco:
I definitely would not do a semicolon because that just is wrong.
Marco:
I mean, I know it's grammatically right, but I just hate them.
Marco:
You just hate it?
Marco:
Like on principle, like ever?
Marco:
Not never, but it takes a lot for me to use a semicolon.
Marco:
What does it take?
Marco:
It needs to be really, really worth it.
John:
What does it take?
Marco:
it has to really be the right thing to use there and like there have to be no good alternatives like that's why but i really rarely use semicolons because i don't like them so then so that'd be period here i am period i'm but anyway i just leave it as a comma like well but it has to be two periods it has to be here i am period i'm a battery period yeah but we don't put periods in the title so yeah so we'll just leave the comma in there we'll just dare brent to yell at us about it go ahead come and get us
Casey:
The entire internet wrote in to tell us that there is already a lightning to headphone jack adapter, which is not at all useful if you're anywhere other than your desk.
Casey:
But in the defense of the entire internet, we were talking mostly about using this sort of adapter at work as you listen to podcasts or music all day long.
Casey:
Apple sells a lightning to headphone jack adapter with pass-through lightning for charging.
Casey:
It's the $40 lightning dock, which I believe came out recently, didn't it?
John:
But that's got like a DAC in it, and that's for like the digital, the headphones that take digital audio over the lightning port.
John:
Like that's not really relevant to what we were discussing, which was if they replaced the headphone jack with the lightning port and still wanted to support regular plain old analog headphones with an adapter that did not require, you know, any signal conversion or anything that would just, you know, be a metal pass through to the audio pins of the headphone.
John:
And that's not what the lighting dock does.
Casey:
So how would you describe Lightning Dock instead then?
John:
I mean, it is basically a thing to let you both plug in the current crop of Lightning-compatible headphones and also a charger at the same time.
Casey:
Fair enough.
Casey:
One way or another, this is not the sort of thing that we would expect one to take running around with them as they're trying to use it to adapt lightning to a regular headphone jack.
Casey:
This would serve the purpose for desk use, but not for mobile use.
Casey:
And that's mostly what we were talking about last episode.
Casey:
But yes, we wanted to publicly acknowledge on behalf of the entire Internet who wrote into us that we are aware that this exists.
Casey:
So Eric Michaels-Ober had a little bit of feedback with regard to why else you would want to use the lightning port for audio.
Casey:
He pointed out that noise-canceling headphones don't need their own battery or any other charging mechanism because they can just draw power right off the lightning port, much like the Apple Pencil does.
John:
Which you may or may not want.
John:
Do you really want your noise-canceling headphones sucking power from your phone?
John:
Maybe, maybe not.
John:
Well, you know, we have all this extra battery power on the phones.
John:
Might as well use it for other purposes.
John:
So I'm just practically bursting out of the phone.
John:
There's so much battery power.
Casey:
Well played, sir.
Casey:
We'll get there.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And then I have no idea who we're attributing this to.
Casey:
MX.
John:
Good old MX.
Casey:
Okay, and he or she said that USB Type-C already supports analog audio.
Casey:
Check out Appendix A in the spec, and we will link to the spec in the show notes.
Casey:
John, I believe you've bolded some passages here.
Casey:
Would you like to share that with the group?
John:
Yeah, the spec, by the way, is a PDF.
John:
Like, we're linking to the page that has the PDF on it, so you can just download the PDF and find this.
John:
But in Appendix A... Sounds fun.
John:
Yeah, you will find out that the reason this comes up is because last time or like I said, one of the advantages of lightning is that if Apple wants to add support for plain old analog audio, either by adding those two weird side contacts that I seem to remember seeing somewhere and I still can't find.
John:
or just by repurposing the pins because the whole deal with lightning is you can use the different pins for different purposes it's not sort of uh hardwired so to speak to do a particular thing uh that apple has the flexibility they don't have to wait for the usb committee or whatever to agree but it turns out usbc already supports analog audio i should have figured that since it's an old standard
John:
um if you have your uh usbc connector in audio adapter accessory mode it just takes a certain number of pins in the usb and uses them for the same exact signals that go over 3.5 million or headphone jack so that's already supported in usbc and by the way the other thing i found out about usbc relevant to our conversation last time about whether apple was all in lightning or whether they were going to eventually switch to usbc uh usbc is bigger than lightning this shows how many usbc devices i have in my house i'm
John:
pretty sure i have zero maybe i have one i don't know about it somewhere but anyway i've never i don't have an idea of what they're like but looking it up online afterwards usbc is slightly bigger and that pretty much dooms apple to ever switch to it um because they're going to be like well uh lightning is smaller so why would we ever switch to that thing um so i think we're in it for the long haul for lightning even though usbc apparently already supports analog auto and you could definitely make that passive connector thing for old style headphones if you were using usbc
Casey:
Excellent.
Casey:
Speaking of USB, and in this case, USB 3, we are now getting USB 3 speeds from the new lightning test SD card camera reader that came out just in the last couple of days as we record.
Casey:
And for the iPad Pro, you get USB 3 speeds on that.
Casey:
And that's pretty exciting.
Casey:
I've never actually used one of these.
Casey:
Do you guys have one of them?
Marco:
I have the USB one, which I use for like audio purposes, which is actually, it's like this totally undocumented thing that it can do.
Marco:
You can plug in a lot of USB audio interfaces to it and have different sound inputs or outputs for your iOS devices.
Marco:
And that actually has worked on iPhones and iPads basically forever.
Marco:
But my father-in-law used the SD card one for a little while on his iPad.
Marco:
It was fine.
Marco:
It was okay.
John:
The thing that interests me most about these USB 3 speeds on the iPad Pro is for people like me, maybe I'm raring this, who still hook up their iOS devices to one of their big computers and do an encrypted local backup instead of just relying on the iCloud backup.
Yeah.
John:
It takes so long to do it at USB 2 speeds.
John:
So if I could get USB 3 speeds when doing a local backup to my computer through iTunes, I would really appreciate that, even for my dinky 32 and 64 gig devices, let alone if it got like a 128 gig iPad Pro.
John:
So I'm assuming you have one, Marco.
John:
I'm assuming if you were to hook it up to your Mac with the USB cable, it would still be USB 2 speeds.
Marco:
um as far as i know because i think all the existing lightning to usb cables i think are all usb 2 cables yeah so i i don't think that's doable yet but hopefully over time that'll be solved just in time for people to stop ever syncing their things to their computers well i don't know if you want to ever stop because like as people who have ever restored from icloud can attest it's such a super pain
John:
oh yeah i will still do it and tiff will still do it but you know i i think we are we are already in the extreme minority there anyway that's the accessory they need to release forget about this whole you know like the whole exciting thing was like wow the lightning port supports usb3 speeds but only on the ipad pro and you know surely that will trickle down and that'll be great but i don't want an sd card reader i want a thing that plugs into my computer for it
Casey:
Yeah, for what it's worth, I actually put this on my Christmas list for this year.
Casey:
I don't know if I would necessarily... You know, it's a great gift because it's the sort of thing I wouldn't necessarily buy for myself.
Casey:
But hey, if somebody handed it to me, that'd be pretty awesome.
Casey:
And the reason I want one is because there are probably going to come times when I'm traveling with our Micro Four Thirds camera...
Casey:
I didn't decide to bring a laptop with me, and I only have my iPad.
Casey:
And I could connect the camera to the iPad by way of Wi-Fi, but it's actually surprisingly slow to do it that way.
Casey:
And so I think it would be a lot easier to just pull the SD card out of the camera and attach it to the iPad or phone, for that matter, and suck some pictures off of there that way in order to post on Instagram or maybe just send to friends or family or what have you.
Casey:
So
Casey:
I'm curious to see if I end up getting this for Christmas, and if I do, I'll report back.
Casey:
But I agree with you, Marco, by and large, that it's not a lot of people that would want this, but I kind of want one because I think it would be useful.
John:
It's kind of a testament to the crappiness of wireless.
John:
We talked about the last show about, like, is Wi-Fi above the level of flakiness, but how many people use Wi-Fi syncing to iTunes?
John:
Maybe that's not – you can't blame Wi-Fi for that.
John:
You can just blame iTunes because there's so much –
John:
But even like with cameras, you know, like so many cameras have Wi-Fi or remember that stupid iFi thing, like it was the SD card with Wi-Fi built in or whatever.
Marco:
And then it's like desktop Linux, like the next, oh, this one, the new model we just made is finally the good one.
Marco:
And it never is.
John:
For the cameras, for the cameras that have built in Wi-Fi support, like that's what you want.
John:
You want that and you also want it to work, but.
John:
You want it until you try it.
John:
Yeah, I know, but what's the problem?
John:
Wi-Fi itself, technologically speaking, is an okay technology.
John:
We all use wireless devices all around our house, and they more or less maintain the connection, and we get reasonable speeds based on what we think the signal strength is, and yet when we have...
John:
a super expensive camera 30 inches away from a super expensive ipad the only way the best way we have to talk to them is to open up the camera in a little waterproof or water resistant compartment pull out this tiny little card plug this little thing into the lightning port shove the little it's just you're right there guys you both have radios you both like what's what's the problem here is it because camera manufacturers don't know how to do wi-fi stacks i don't i don't know what the deal is but it's sad
Marco:
Well, they all have their own apps, basically.
Marco:
It's like my camera has built-in Wi-Fi finally.
Marco:
It took me years to finally get one that had that.
Marco:
But in order to use it, I have to install Sony's dumb app on my phone, which works about a third of the time.
Marco:
And when you do finally get it to work, you kind of regret that you got it to work because it's just so mediocre and so slow.
Marco:
It actually would have been faster to just take the car out of the camera and shove it into this thing than it is to do the Wi-Fi thing.
John:
Yeah, but that feels barbaric, though, taking things apart and putting them together.
Casey:
I feel like I'm using a VCR, but it's faster.
Casey:
I completely agree.
Casey:
My Olympus, the app is relatively reliable, but it is astonishingly slow to transfer pictures between the camera and the phone or the iPad.
Casey:
And it's very, very frustrating.
Casey:
Now, the app is nice in that for general things, like it'll let me geotag based on what the phone is doing.
Casey:
So it'll take a log of all the places I go and all the timestamps and whatnot.
Casey:
And then it'll send those to the phone and then geotag all the pictures on the phone, or excuse me, send those to the camera.
Casey:
And it'll geotag all the pictures on the camera, which I really like on the occasions where I'm not just staying put somewhere.
Casey:
And it also lets you do a remote viewfinder sort of thing.
Casey:
So much like you can with the watch and the phone, it'll let you take pictures remotely, which is really nice if you're too socially awkward to say to somebody, hey, can you take our picture?
Casey:
But I cannot say enough how awfully slow it is to transfer pictures.
Casey:
And because of that, I agree with you, Marco.
Casey:
I just end up taking the damn card out of the camera and putting it in a computer.
Yeah.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And we have some good news this week.
Casey:
Our long national nightmare is over.
Casey:
And we now have an Apple remote app for iOS that works with the new Apple TV, which would be more exciting to me if I had a new Apple TV.
John:
Well, we don't have...
John:
My understanding, I haven't tested this, but my understanding is it's not as if they released a new version of their remote app that works with Apple TV.
John:
It's the opposite.
John:
They released a new version of the Apple TV OS that makes the existing remote app work with it.
John:
Is that correct, based on your understanding or experimentation?
John:
Oh, I didn't try it.
Casey:
I thought that was correct.
John:
I mean, I think they did eventually release a new remote app as well.
John:
But I think before they even released a new remote app, what I read was that if you just updated the tvOS, your remote app would work with it even before they released the eventual remote app update.
John:
Yeah, that was the idea.
John:
Yeah, it's too late for all of us for the setup stuff.
John:
And there's still promises of like the real remote app that's going to, you know, let you swipe around on your phone like the touchpad and use the accelerometers and just basically be a...
John:
replace a full-fledged replacement for the new apple tv mode rather than just please for the love of god give us an on-screen keyboard that we can type on with our fingers instead of having to swipe back and forth on the number line or the letter line or whatever the hell we're calling that thing so interestingly for whatever it's worth uh we uh recently bought a ps4 meaning yesterday
Marco:
So I got a chance to try, you know, what is a current, well, recent-ish effort at a regular on-screen keyboard by using Sony's little dumb thing.
Marco:
Before I wrote that you could just plug in a USB keyboard about halfway through the process, I realized that.
Marco:
But for the first half of the process, I was just using their little built-in thing.
Marco:
And just using the built-in keyboard with their controller and the D-pad and a couple of buttons and the shoulder buttons to do, like, you know, done and delete and stuff...
Marco:
My God, it's so much better.
Marco:
Like, I was able to enter text so much faster in this regular on-screen keyboard using a regular D-pad that I had never used before than I still am today on the new Apple TV that I've been using now for like a month or something.
John:
Let me give you a pro tip.
John:
Do not use the D-pad.
John:
I can't believe you suffer through like a barbarian using the D-pad to pick from the keyboard.
John:
You get one finger or thumb on the touchpad on the PS4 controller and one finger or thumb on the X button to select.
Marco:
Wait, there's a touchpad?
John:
Way, yes.
John:
Way faster.
John:
Oh my God, is it so much faster?
John:
Wait, is that the big gray rectangle in the middle?
John:
yeah it's the big it's the big thing in the middle of the controller i had no idea that was a touchpad it yeah you'll find out in games that it is as well but anyway no i won't tiff might it is it is so much easier because like it's not a great trackpad it's like the one on casey's dell like you know it's a crappy one but it's so much better than going down down right right up up down down because you could basically just go mousing around to a tap tap tap tap it just feels so much more freeing than being constrained by like the grid like you're in a tron game trying to play light cycles to get around the keyboard
Marco:
Well, honestly, I think what made it so much faster for me, rather than the way the Apple TV one has done, besides the fact that it had more than one row, Apple, but I think what made it so much faster is that when you have this digital input method of the D-pad, you can just know, all right, go over four, up two, and you can just do it.
Marco:
It's so precise.
Marco:
that I was able to flip through things really quickly on that and way more accurately.
Marco:
I think I made one mistake in the entire setup process.
Marco:
On Apple TV, I constantly hit the wrong letter, constantly.
John:
Yeah, and the other good thing is they're sort of smart auto-suggestion stuff, kind of like the stuff from Android that Apple copied in iOS.
John:
Above the keyboard, a series of words appears.
John:
When I'm sending messages to people related to Destiny, I basically type the first letter of a word
John:
and it knows which word i'm trying to write and then i just select it from the pre-selected things and type the next verse letter and then select it from the pre-selected setup because i don't send a lot of messages it is i should just hook up a keyboard because it's so painful to try to do it with the pad but the audio uh correction thing when you don't say a lot through the interface
John:
the seven words you do say are always the first suggestion so it's it's it's pretty good but you definitely do uh check out the touchpad it's a little bit awkward to hold it so you're like wait so i have my thumb on the touchpad and then my other thumb on the x button just like the key isn't that kind of weird and how do i hit the shoulders but trust me it's really great
Casey:
Fair enough.
Casey:
And then you have a correction, I believe, John, from last episode.
John:
Yeah, I made an offhand mark about Swift and Foundation and getting rid of the NS prefix, how currently a lot of the APIs you can...
John:
use swift strings and ns strings and they will convert between each other and i referred to that as like a free bridging thing or toll free bridging or a zero cost bridging or whatever there's not zero cost swift swift and foundation bridging is not toll free i was thinking of the toll free bridging between core foundation and foundation too many freaking words have foundation but anyway just to clear that up
Marco:
We're sponsored this week by Backblaze.
Marco:
computer problems corruption just human error there's all sorts of problems that can affect you that you need backups and if you're gonna have backups you should have more than one backup you know my my preferred solution here is to have one or two local backups time machine is a great example time machine is very useful so it things like super duper clones but there's always a need for something off-site something that is automatically sending your files somewhere else somewhere secure and that is what backblaze offers
Marco:
I have tried many other cloud backup providers.
Marco:
I've always come back to Backblaze as being the best I have seen by a long shot.
Marco:
They have over 150 petabytes of customer data backed up.
Marco:
They've restored over 10 billion files to their customers.
Marco:
And you can access your data anywhere.
Marco:
So I actually recently did this because this is online backup.
Marco:
They have an online copy of all your files.
Marco:
You can do things like...
Marco:
Retrieve a file when you're on vacation.
Marco:
If you need to get to a file that's only on your computer at home, you can use Backblaze to get it wherever you are by using their mobile app for iOS or Android.
Marco:
It is a fantastic service.
Marco:
I use it.
Marco:
My wife uses it.
Marco:
My mom uses it.
Marco:
So many people use Backblaze.
Marco:
It is fantastic.
Marco:
I highly recommend it.
Marco:
All this, you get online backup with all those features, all the security, all the peace of mind that online backup can provide for just $5 a month per computer.
Marco:
And no matter how many files you have, this is truly unlimited.
Marco:
Five bucks a month.
Marco:
I have, I think, three terabytes from my computer.
Marco:
My wife has something like five terabytes from hers.
Marco:
It is incredible.
Marco:
All this unlimited storage, any directly connected drive is included in your backup for just five bucks a month.
Marco:
And it's unthrottled upload speed.
Marco:
They'll take your files as fast as you will let them take them.
Marco:
It is great.
Marco:
Love Backblaze.
Marco:
Go to backblaze.com slash ATP for the best online backup I've ever used.
Casey:
Excellent.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So, Apple released a thing this week, and everyone's upset about it.
Casey:
I kind of am, too.
Casey:
I kind of am, too, you guys.
Casey:
They have released the iPhone 6S Smart Battery Case Panamera.
John:
This is unfair to the Panamera because the Panamera has a fairly continuous curve over the back of the car.
John:
It's big and it's awkwardly shaped in profile, but it's not as if this is closer to the bangle trunk on the 7 Series.
Marco:
Remember that one?
Marco:
Yeah, that's fair.
Marco:
That's fair.
Marco:
this looks like they just shipped an engineering prototype yeah it kind of does they were assigned hey can you make this like this weekend just make something that works and somebody got the wrong memo and shipped it as a real product all right so let's describe this for people listening to the show far disconnected in time imagine an iphone 6s with apple silicone case on it with 20 battery life because it's three o'clock in the afternoon
John:
give it a chin so so take the the battery case and extend it downwards a little bit and so like that it's that it's got a an extra chin hanging off it don't worry about why for now and then on the back of the phone take like i don't know maybe seven eight now maybe 15 playing cards from a deck of cards put it in there and then slather it with silicone again so
John:
so in other words there's a lump on the back of this phone shaped like a rectangle like a rounded rectangle that is smaller than the back of the phone it is both narrower than the phone and significantly shorter than the phone so there are edges of what look like just a plain old iphone 6s in a silicone case with a chin poking out all around this thing
John:
um and it looks very strange because most other battery cases mostly third-party battery cases that i've seen try to put like a sort of smooth hump on the back of the thing either they try to just make it to be really thin and make it look like is that actually a battery case or is that just like a really thick case and you can't even tell or you can totally tell it looks like a bar of soap but it's essentially a smooth curve over the entire back surface of the phone top to bottom left to right edge
John:
and this is the first battery case i can think of to see that does not do that that does not try to make a big curve over the back and also doesn't try to be so thin it looks like it's not a battery case it looks like there's there's a rectangular thing hiding inside the back of your iphone case yeah it's bad so so when you guys say it's bad what you're saying is uh it's ugly is that what you're basically getting at
Marco:
Well, yeah.
Marco:
I mean, if somebody would have told you ahead of time that, hey, Apple's going to make a battery case, what you would imagine in your head would be very different than this.
Marco:
Because we expect Apple stuff to be...
Marco:
At minimum, decent looking, oftentimes at the expense of functionality these days, which is unfortunate.
Marco:
But obviously, you expect thinness.
Marco:
You expect smooth lines, nice curves, minimal design aesthetic.
Marco:
And this is none of those things.
Marco:
It doesn't look anything like Apple designed it.
Marco:
If you would have seen this in a weird store window on the streets of Manhattan, you would have assumed it was a knockoff.
John:
like it they were it does not look like an apple product and in in the world of battery cases there is no option in a battery case that doesn't look like crap in some way they all look like crap in some way what about the really thin ones the ones that are like that you can't even tell their battery case practically it just looks like it might just be a thick regular case i think those look pretty good with one exception that i'll get to in a second when i tell you about what i think of the aesthetics of this thing but but
Marco:
i think it's you can't say that they're all ugly like a lot of them do make the phone bigger but the really thin ones that just give you like a little bit more battery i think some of them look pretty good yeah i would agree with that right and by the way those usually give more battery than this but anyway there are some that look okay in amazon pages like there's an anchor ultra slim that like in if you look in the wall street journal by a review of this by joanna stern she there was a picture of three of them next to each other there was the apple one there was one from anchor and i think there was a mophie or there was some other one in the middle
Marco:
And you would think that in the review of the Apple battery case, in a comparison photo next to these way cheaper, way higher capacity cases from these brands that are not known for great design, especially like Anker, known for being very utilitarian and being good value, but not exactly for stunningly good design...
Marco:
you would assume that the Apple option in that photo should obviously be the best-looking one.
Marco:
And you'd probably assume that it would be the most expensive, and you'd be right.
Marco:
You'd probably assume it wouldn't have the best capacity, and you'd be right.
Marco:
But to see it not even be the best-looking one, while also being the most expensive and having the worst capacity, I think is disappointing, to say the least.
Marco:
And that's not to say that you can't – that isn't to say that they could have done a massively better job as a battery case with their goals in mind.
Marco:
And we'll talk about their goals in a minute because we've gotten a little bit more information since things were released.
Marco:
It sure does seem like they, I don't know, they were given a hard problem, but it seems like a very disappointing output to that hard problem.
Marco:
And all of this is underscored by my base level frustration of this shouldn't even be necessary for most people.
Marco:
Like...
Marco:
Because the capacity that it has, I think it's roughly 1,800 mAh.
Marco:
So by most of the reviews, it can charge the phone about 80% of the way, maybe.
Marco:
So it isn't a full additional charge, but you can drain the phone down most of the way, and then you can charge it back up most of the way back up.
Marco:
Honestly, when I need an extra battery, I don't usually need more than that.
Marco:
Like that is a good amount for me.
Marco:
But people who buy battery cases today, that's like the smallest you can get.
Marco:
And there's a lot of much bigger options where you can get like two to four times the battery capacity in other battery cases.
Marco:
So it depends on how you're using the phone.
Marco:
If you're doing like GPS all day as part of your job, then I could see you needing a lot more.
Marco:
But honestly, I like in my use, I complain a lot about the iPhone having not quite enough battery life and being too thin and then seemingly prioritizing thinness and lightness over usable batteries.
Marco:
But the difference between what the 6 and the 6S has, have, has, the difference between what they have and what I need is not that big.
Marco:
I would be very, very happy if they took the battery of the 6S and just made it like 25 or 30% bigger, at most 50% bigger.
Marco:
You know, like that's all it needs.
Marco:
It doesn't need to be three times as large, you know.
Marco:
It needs almost what it has, but just add 25% to 50% more.
Marco:
That's what it really needs for me.
Marco:
And from people I've seen in real life, people I've talked to, it seems like that would cover way more people's needs than getting anything giant or the status quo.
Marco:
Now, obviously, Apple has way more data than I do, although, honestly, I question the metrics they collect and how well that covers the real-world usage.
Marco:
But anyway, that's a different discussion.
Marco:
I'm just very sad that
Marco:
Apple's response to the 6S having clearly having poor enough battery life for enough people that this was necessary to make and release, that they take that indicator and they say, well, the right answer here is that.
Marco:
That case is the right answer to this problem.
Marco:
Rather than if you just put in a battery that's like 25% bigger to begin with, then the additional mass and complexity and efficiency of using that extra battery power is a tiny fraction.
Marco:
of the bulk and the mass and the complexity of this case because you don't have an extra casing around it you don't have extra framing for rigidity in the middle section you don't have the whatever the heck that passive antenna thing is they're talking i have no idea what that is you don't have that you don't have the charging circuitry the discharging circuitry like the reporting back to the phone of your battery level and having two different battery bars and notification center to worry about it's so much simpler if you just make the battery 25 bigger in the phone and you cover so much more with that kind of approach
Marco:
And I know they don't do that because they want it to be thinner and lighter.
Marco:
And they think they're making the right decision.
Marco:
And maybe they are.
Marco:
But it's frustrating to be on my side of it when you think they're not.
Marco:
And this is their solution to that.
Casey:
Yeah, I completely agree.
Casey:
You know, I was thinking about it.
Casey:
And do you remember that sort of cheesy but also sort of entertaining video they showed before WWDC 2013 with like the dancing blobs of ink?
Casey:
And it was a thousand nose video.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Well, I went and found a copy on YouTube, which we'll link in the show notes.
Casey:
That video starts as follows.
Casey:
If everyone is busy making everything, how can anyone perfect anything?
Casey:
I feel like I have nothing more to say now.
Casey:
That's a mouthful.
Casey:
Well, it is a mouthful, but I mean, we've been talking a lot about how spread thin we assume Apple to be these days.
Casey:
Now, I think we're generally referring to software when we're talking about that, but there's a lot more products in Apple's portfolio today than there were in 2013.
Casey:
And
Casey:
And I feel like this is just an example of somebody just phoning it in.
Casey:
And maybe I'm missing the boat, but geez, this thing looks just ugly.
Casey:
It's not smooth.
Casey:
I mean, it's smooth, but it's not.
Marco:
It's bulbous, and it's just... I mean, honestly, if I were to get a battery case...
Marco:
I would consider this one simply because I like the feel of Apple's first-party cases.
Marco:
Especially the silicone ones.
Marco:
I like their feel over the buttons, the sleep-wake and the volume buttons and everything.
Marco:
They do feel good over the buttons.
Marco:
And they do fit well.
Marco:
And all the other ones look pretty good.
Marco:
This one, not so much.
Marco:
But I appreciate the value of Apple's cases most of the time.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
For me, honestly, especially when you look at cost, the first time you buy one of these battery cases, you're like, oh, yeah, this will make sense.
Marco:
I'll use it every other day and it'll be great.
Marco:
And then as soon as the next iPhone comes out and it's a different size and you can't use it anymore, you're like, oh.
Marco:
why did i buy that hundred dollar battery case that now is worthless to me and after that you typically just buy like the little usb blocks or bricks or you know other other ways to boost your battery after that because you realize like oh that was kind of you know not a great use of my money um so now i've moved on to these little battery bricks and thin little rectangles and stuff that have battery power in them
Marco:
um i'll link to my favorite one in the show notes it's 25 bucks and it has more power than the apple thing uh by i think twice as much and fits in your pocket anyway i don't know i i just i feel like these things are just admitting failure and i also feel like if you look at them cynically it's very easy to look at this and say you know i think they just made this to get a hundred dollars more out of people and they buy phones that were previously going to third party makers like like mophie and anchor and everyone else like
Marco:
It seems like Apple just wants to capture more of the iPhone accessory revenue for themselves.
Marco:
So, John, what do you think of this?
John:
You guys are too new to the Apple world, I think, to get the obvious.
John:
Let's go back and find something that Apple said in the past that makes them look foolish in the present.
John:
You were close when you were going back to the, you know, let's not make too many things, but you have to go back farther to the, what I call the flower iMac, not the flower power one, but...
John:
The one that was on the cover of Time Magazine that basically looks like a little hemisphere with a metal arm poking out of it and the screen floating on the metal arm.
John:
You guys remember that one?
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
All right.
John:
So at the introduction to that, Steve Jobs was like, we wanted to make a flat panel iMac because flat panels look cool and they're the future.
John:
And we were trying to come up with designs.
John:
And I don't know if this was in the keynote or an interview or whatever, but the story was basically...
John:
We thought about taking a flat screen and shoving the guts of the iMac onto the back of it.
John:
And that just seemed ridiculous because it was like this big lumpen thing jammed onto the back of the screen and it wasn't elegant.
John:
And so look at the solution we came up with.
John:
This was, I think, maybe the first let every element be true to itself thing.
John:
Like the base is the base.
John:
It hugs the ground.
John:
It's low to the ground.
John:
It's a semicircle.
John:
It's like, boom, there, you're the base.
John:
uh and the screen we like flat screens because they're flat they're thin and light so let the screen be true to itself be light and airy like floating in the air you can reposition it because it's on this cool arm that arm totally was cool i love that arm um and it's super thin because i mean not by today's standards like if you look if you look at the uh
John:
the screen on a macbook pro they didn't even know what thin was but anyway this is a long time ago look how thin it is and it doesn't have all the gut strapped to the back of it of course today you know when they eventually did like the imac g5 and the big uh the white flat screen thing eventually they did shove the innards of the imac to the back of the screen when they got to the point where they felt like they could shove the innards on the back and not have it look like like a big you know hunchback type thing right so here we are with the battery case and
John:
uh and unfortunately there's not really any place for the any place else for the battery to go you can't put it on the front you can't really put it on the sides or the bottom so it's kind of got to go on the back um but i when i first saw this what i tweeted about it was the the sort of johnny ive steve jobs explanation for this still kind of fits with the let each element be true to itself right so the phone is one element and the battery is the other and it's like let's not hide the fact that we're jamming a battery on the back of a phone so the phone is this skinny little thing and
John:
we're going to put a battery on the back of it and the battery is this other thing but it's a separate thing so rather than trying to blend them together and make you think these are all one piece we're going to it's either you can decide it's like in script writing parlance hang a lantern on it or in the johnny ive steve jobs parlance let each home be true to itself so this lithium ion battery pack on the back of this this phone is being true to itself by going here i am
John:
i'm a battery i'm sticking out here uh say hi to me and you know like aesthetically because that's what it comes down to aesthetically speaking you can decide that that looks ugly um maybe because it looks different than the other things maybe it's just like i don't want you to declare yourself to i don't want you to be true to yourself battery i want you to minimize yourself i don't want to know you're there i want to pretend instead that i have marco's phone that he talked about that's actually just an iphone 6s that has a little more battery power
John:
And by calling attention to itself in this way that some people find ugly, it's like, oh, it's really rubbing it in that I have this extra thing shoved to the back of my phone that used to be nice and elegant, and now it's like a little hunchback thing.
John:
That's kind of gross.
John:
So I could see arguments on both sides of that, but my opinion of this case started to fall two things.
John:
One, when I saw that it had a chin, because I thought surely the company that can make this without a chin is Apple, right?
John:
Because the chin is really, I find that substantially,
John:
alters the feel of the phone more than making it thicker once you start making it longer and wider i don't like the chins um the chins come with compromises as people have found out if you buy a beats headphone you cannot plug it into the chin of this thing without an adapter because the little headphone jack is just too deep to go through the little adaptery things it's not just beats john there are other headphones i know but i'm just saying i'm pulling out beats because it's like apple makes those right so it's the worst it's not like oh third party headphones nope for essentially first party headphones also don't fit the earpods fit right but not
John:
uh you know headphones with longer jacks on they had to make the little tunnel for the sound come out which is i'm glad they did that and the little you know the little holes and tunnels they have to make to get the stuff that's on the bottom of the phone to come out but there are i think there are third-party battery cases that don't have chins am i wrong in thinking that i feel like i've seen them i was able to find one uh when i looked for battery cases a few months ago um and there was one let me look it up it's uh i forgot the name but i found it yesterday
John:
But anyway, I feel like Apple, not having a chin is something Apple could do, but the real kicker to me was all that story I just gave you about the backpack being true to itself and having the extra capacity or whatever.
John:
When I found out that Apple's battery case actually has less battery capacity than the ones that try to hide the fact that there's a battery, that really killed it.
John:
Because it's like, if you're going to have a big backpack and be true to itself...
John:
and say here i am i'm a battery at least make that battery really high capacity right at least say yeah it's a little bit chunkier looking than other batteries but boy it's got a lot of capacity but it doesn't it has less capacity than those other ones it looks like it should have more because it calls attention to itself it is prominent and yet the actual battery in there is smaller and so then i feel like you know the battery case that i would have liked uh now that i'm in the market for battery case but the one that i would have liked is either one that was just
John:
had massive capacity and was really high quality or the one that had no chin and made the battery so thin that you don't even know that it's there they gave you only a little bit more maybe more than marco's 25 maybe 30 maybe 40 battery and that apple can make a super thin one that's like you don't even know it's a battery it just looks like a little bit case but it gives your it gives your phone a boost right
John:
Both of those products, I think, would be nicer products as far as I'm concerned.
John:
Now, I don't think the existence of a battery case means that either Apple is admitting the 6S has bad battery life, and I actually don't think the 6S has bad battery life.
John:
It really depends on for you.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Because that's forcing you to say, hey, if you want more battery life, Apple makes a phone for you.
John:
Also, it's the size of a freaking tablet.
John:
And I feel like there's a place in their line for just a... And I feel like the 6S is that place, actually.
John:
Like, if they come up with a 4-inch phone, that one should be super thin and small.
John:
And then the 6S should be a little bit thicker to have more battery.
John:
And then the 6 Plus should be the way it is.
John:
Or maybe add something in between there.
John:
Like, I think there's a place somewhere in their lineup for a thick phone that is not gargantuan.
John:
But they don't want to make the phone.
John:
They want to keep making these skinny things.
John:
And if you need more capacity from it, you put this case on it.
John:
And I see tons of people with battery cases in real life on all on, you know, all sizes of iPhones, the 5S size, 4S, the 6, the 6S, lots and lots of battery cases because those people know like I'm going to use my phone all day and I can't use it without the battery case.
John:
The battery case essentially becomes part of the phone.
John:
um i also don't fault apple for making a case i don't think they're spreading themselves too thin marco was like oh they just want to get 100 more dollars out of people of course they do why would they not like are they are they somehow morally obligated not to make an accessory which they should make access you know it's weird to have a manufacturer not make accessories it's like honda not making bras for your car it's not like they want you to put a bra on your car but they're sure as hell gonna make one because you want a bra like honda's like we'll sell you one here you go like maybe that's a bad example of a car bras but i'm just going back to neutral days but uh
John:
but yeah no apple should totally sell every accessory why allow only third parties to make an accessory that a huge number of people buy what was the status of something like apple according to apple's own statistics or something like 70 something percent 78 percent of people put a case on their iphones of course apple should sell cases and if some of those people want better of course they should make them in fact apple should make three battery cases like i i have no objection to them doing that i think they absolutely should if only like to raise the game of the the third party manufacturer so
John:
um while this is a little bit of a disappointing product there are some explanations for it that we'll get to in a second um but i think they should totally make a battery case uh i i can come up with a plausible explanation for the aesthetics of this case even if but if you think it's ugly you think it's ugly like you know it's your opinion is your opinion right i mean we all see people with cases that we think are ugly but somebody loves them um
Marco:
and if anything i wish apple would just make more battery cases so this i think this is a good first run at a battery case and at the very least it's got us talking about it and it's interesting it is not boring let's give it that yeah by the way the case i was thinking of and i couldn't remember it before was the sola memo i don't think i'm pronouncing that right um there's there's a couple of them there's there's a new version and the old version on amazon for like 50 bucks each
Marco:
And the old version, this is the only battery case I've ever seen that has no chin.
Marco:
And it basically has an internal lightning port that plugs in kind of up the bottom of the phone and like moves the real connector down slightly.
Marco:
And it uses its additional thickness of being a battery case to give you a lightning port that's just like down lower than like just below the real one.
John:
Does it really give you a lightning?
John:
Because that was I thought that was one of the claims of this.
John:
Like it wasn't this from it was in the Mashable Arb, I think the first battery case to have a fully featured lightning connector.
John:
That was a claim I read somewhere about the Apple lighting.
Casey:
Well, yeah, but the keywords there are fully featured because you're both right.
Casey:
This does take a lightning connector, but it doesn't put the battery status and notification center and stuff like that that only the first party case can do.
John:
Well, is that a fully featured lightning connector?
John:
That's a feature that, granted, Apple can only do because they're the only ones who can change the OS.
John:
But is the lightning connector fully featured on that one?
Marco:
Anyway, like... The first version of this one had a big problem, according to the reviews, of blocking cell signals because it had a metal frame.
Marco:
And everyone said that it blocked your signal.
Marco:
And this updated version now says, it's updated now, new design that absolutely will not interfere with your signal.
Marco:
So I just ordered one.
Marco:
I'm going to try it.
Marco:
I'm going to... I'll report back and see, like...
Marco:
If that actually is true, because it's extremely thin relative to most battery cases, and it has no chin.
Marco:
So the bulk of it is significantly reduced.
Marco:
And if this is actually good and works and doesn't block the cell signal meaningfully, then I would say it's kind of embarrassing for Apple.
Marco:
But I'm guessing there's going to be some problem with this.
Marco:
There has to be some reason why no one else makes cases like this.
Casey:
Is there any other color besides white?
Casey:
I'm not trying to be funny.
Casey:
I'm really asking.
John:
There's a black one.
John:
No, but the black one's the old version.
John:
Oh, I thought you meant the Apple one.
John:
Yeah.
John:
The Apple one only comes in black and white, which is kind of boring, too.
Marco:
Yeah, that's also true.
Marco:
But yeah, we'll see.
Marco:
We'll see if they actually sell.
Marco:
I mean, I'm sure they're going to sell.
Marco:
Also, one thing to consider that is even more cynical than they just made it to get accessory money.
John:
But why is that?
John:
You always say that they just made it.
John:
That's what they make products for.
John:
I mean, they want to make great products, blah, blah, blah, but they just made it to make money.
John:
How can you say that is a bad thing?
John:
I guess that's true.
John:
I'm trying to think.
John:
Is there a situation where you could say this was just a money grab?
John:
I guess you could say it's a money grab if they put out a product...
John:
that it that they put like minimal effort into just to get the money based on their name and i don't think that's that's this because you know you may think it's ugly and may disagree with the compromises they made but it looks like it's up to the standards of all apple first party cases in terms of fit and finish and the thoughtfulness of the features again whether you disagree with them or not like it doesn't look like a piece of junk so i think that's maybe that's how you could call it a money grab if they put out something
John:
that was just look like a piece of junk that it didn't feel good it didn't look good it didn't fit right uh maybe the only thing i think of there is like the ipad one case you could say that about like they just put this out to make money because because that looked like a piece of crap and it looked like it was slapped together because we might as well say they just made a small laptop as a money grab for people who want a small laptop well yeah it's for people who want a laptop you know
Marco:
no that's that's all fair but okay so carry this on to its logical conclusion then and then we have a problem because now they now have an incentive to not improve the iphone battery life to keep it to being almost sufficient for enough people but just painful enough that a large portion of their of their customers will want to buy this additional hundred dollar part it's just like the 16 gig problem
John:
yeah i don't know if a large portion of people are gonna buy like no i'm saying like but now they have the incentive to keep the status quo incentive to do what they're already they're already doing that like i think the the six plus has given them a little bit of cover on this to say you always said you wanted a phone with more battery capacity well we made one you're like yeah but it's so big oh you want everything now it has to be exactly the size you want with exactly the battery capacity our testing shows the blah blah blah i mean
John:
As someone who uses a 6 all day and the battery, I mean, I don't use it all day, but I use it every day and the battery is totally fine for me.
John:
But I also know people who can't get through half a day with their 6 and we all have the same phone.
John:
It just depends on your usage pattern.
John:
So there's such a variability in usage pattern.
John:
It's very difficult to say whether they've over or undersized anything.
John:
If this battery case gives them cover, I don't think so because battery cases existed already.
John:
So whatever cover that you think they're getting by having a battery case, they already had that cover because there's this huge market for battery cases that I see everywhere for the people who torture their phones who need to have a really long, you know, so I don't think they needed to make this case to get that cover.
Marco:
No, I think that's fair, but I think this dramatically increases that cut for them because now they can point to this and they can say, well, you know what?
Marco:
If you don't like the battery life of your 6 or whatever the new mainline iPhone is, if you don't like the battery life of that, it isn't our problem to fix.
Marco:
We offer you these battery cases for an extra $99.
John:
Like...
John:
It was better when they could say, if we don't like the battery life, it isn't our problem.
John:
Buy one of these less than $99 battery cases that offer more capacity.
John:
If anything, this weakens their story because now they're going to always be pitching theirs first, which has lower capacity and a higher price.
Marco:
The problem here is that this at least, by having a first party option that they believe is good, this gives them permission internally when making these design decisions to no longer really think about giving more battery life to people built into the phones.
John:
I think they'll still think about it exactly the same amount.
John:
I mean, as I've said for many years back to the old Hypercritical episode about Naked Robotic Core, this seems to be the strategy they've been pursuing for a long time.
John:
A lot of people tweet and say, oh, this is the Naked Robotic Core theory.
John:
It's finally come.
John:
Not it's finally come.
John:
It's been here the whole time.
John:
It's not a new thing.
John:
like the thing that they've been doing is make it as thin and light as possible as you can to be useful to you know to somebody to a lot of people and then allow people to add to it and as marco has pointed out many times then you gotta have seven extra layers of uh of you know basically essentially filler between there because you gotta have walls between your batteries and the batteries have to be inside cases and there's gonna be case on the outside and it's inefficient so they're gonna keep dancing around in that line it
John:
i really think that none of us would be discussing this if they made a thicker iphone 6 like maybe even also keep the thin one make a thicker one for like for you know all day use or on the go things it's all about diversifying the product and they really have diversified it a lot they just can keep going maybe they consider this a diversification but i think this is more of an accessory occasion accessorizing occasion whatever anyway they're adding accessories which is one way to go to make your line more diverse but it is no substitute for actually making your line more diverse
Marco:
And it isn't that ridiculous to think of them making another iPhone model that still is the same size as their mid-range one that just has a bigger battery.
Marco:
Because this is their most important product.
Marco:
They make more of them than anything else.
Marco:
And they have all sorts of such customizations in their other product lines.
Marco:
So it wouldn't be that ridiculous of a concept.
John:
Yeah, if the 4-inch phone comes back, then you'll see it's ripe for that.
John:
Because if a 4-inch phone comes back, it's like, see, Apple is not afraid to make sure.
John:
Because with the iPhone being such an important product,
John:
There's one thing where they want to have economies of scale, but the other thing is you want to make sure you get as much of the market as possible.
John:
It's the whole reason they made bigger phones.
John:
It was like, well, a lot of people do want bigger phones, so let's make a bigger phone.
John:
In fact, let's not just make a bigger phone.
John:
Let's make two bigger phones because if we make it one size, it's not going to be big enough for the people who want the huge one.
John:
But if we make just the huge one, people are going to flip out because they want the not-so-huge one.
John:
and like i said if they make the four inch that will show that like we understand that people want all different sizes and then maybe someday like they either either have to make a thicker phone someday or someday eventually the innards will take up so little power that this will be a moot point and we'll just cross the 24 hour barrier and then we won't have to worry about it again until people start wanting their phone to last a week instead of a day
Marco:
We are also sponsored this week by Casper.
Marco:
Go to casper.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses for a fraction of the price.
Marco:
Now, the mattress industry has always forced customers into paying notoriously high markups.
Marco:
Casper has revolutionized the industry by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms and passing that savings along to you.
Marco:
Now, mattresses can cost well over $1,500, but Casper mattresses start at just $500 for a twin, $750 for full, $850 for queen, and $950 for king.
Marco:
Now, if you look at any high-quality king mattress, $950 for a king is an incredibly good price.
Marco:
I would say that's about half of what you'd be likely to pay for anything of similar quality.
Marco:
Now, Casper understands that buying a mattress online sounds kind of risky, so here's how this works.
Marco:
First of all, they give you a really great mattress.
Marco:
It is a hybrid of latex foam and memory foam to give you better nights and brighter days with just the right sink and just the right bounce.
Marco:
This is an obsessively engineered mattress at a shockingly fair price.
Marco:
Now, if you don't like it, no big deal.
Marco:
This is a risk-free trial and return policy.
Marco:
So you get to get your Casper in your house and sleep on it for up to 100 nights risk-free.
Marco:
This is way better than trying something in a showroom for five minutes.
Marco:
you get to actually sleep on it in your home for over three months.
Marco:
And if you don't like it, they will arrange for a free painless return for you.
Marco:
Delivery is also free.
Marco:
It comes in a really small box that you can get it upstairs and stuff before it expands.
Marco:
It's a very practical online experience and it's risk-free.
Marco:
And Casper mattresses are all made in America.
Marco:
So we have a special offer for you.
Marco:
If you use our code, if you go to Casper.com slash ATP, use code ATP, you get $50 off any mattress purchase.
Marco:
Terms and conditions do apply.
Marco:
Check this out today.
Marco:
Casper.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Use code ATP for $50 off any mattress.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to Casper for sponsoring our show.
John:
i was gonna say we actually have some uh useful information here uh apple in another strange turn of events is actually talking to the press about about the of all things about the little lump on the back of their thing which like when did this come out like earlier in the week i guess yesterday i think
John:
Yeah.
John:
And then Apple already is talking again, talking to the tech press and saying, we would like to talk to you about the mean things people are saying about our battery case.
John:
They had, you know, I'm not going to say some excuses.
John:
Let's say some explanations about what is the deal with the case?
John:
Why the hell is it like that?
John:
Why doesn't one question is that lump on the back?
John:
fine you want to have a lump on the back you don't want it to be smoothed over that's an aesthetic decision why doesn't the lump on the back go all the way from the top to the bottom of the phone why does it look like a band-aid where it's like there's the lumpy part in the middle and the flat part um and marco already talked about this like and uh the their explanation is it's about cellular reception that if you put the battery over the top and the bottom of the you know over the whole thing
John:
The antenna lines on the success are in the top and the bottom.
John:
You don't want to block the antenna with a battery because it's not radio transparent.
John:
And so they're keeping the battery away from the radio parts.
John:
And that gives better reception, which I can kind of understand.
John:
That's something you have to deal with.
John:
If you really do coat the entire back of the phone with a battery, it's going to hurt reception.
John:
People who have battery cases that are not that do hurt their reception know that it happens and it can be annoying.
John:
So they avoided it just by not putting the battery there.
John:
did you have to stay so far away from the things could you made it again like i say if you if you're going to put the big lump why not make the lump thicker like when i go out and have more capacity it really is depressing to me taper it maybe yeah well i mean i guess at a certain point it comes down to an aesthetic decision like you could have left the battery the same exact size and filled in the part with like essentially a radio transparent taper it's not battery that's covering the things it's just taper but i think the taper comes down to aesthetics um
John:
And the other thing is, I don't know if this is a legit complaint, but this is Apple story that a lot of the battery cases like the movies and stuff are two piece things that are hard to get the phone in and out of.
John:
And at the Apple one, because the battery doesn't extend all the way up to the top, the top is like bendy and you could just bend the top back.
John:
And then slide the phone out.
John:
I think Apple has a video of this.
John:
And they're very excited and proud about the fact that it's easy to get the phone in and out.
John:
I don't know how many people are taking their phones in and out of battery cases a lot.
John:
Maybe it's because they're so hard to get in and out of those really tight-fitting battery cases.
John:
But I guess it's okay to say, hey, we made it really easy to get the phone in and out.
John:
But I just don't see someone coming home every day and taking their phone out or putting it in.
John:
It doesn't seem like a frequent activity to me.
John:
But that's true of any case, not just a battery case.
John:
I never take my cases off my phone.
John:
And you shouldn't because you'll find all the weird dust and stuff that collects up there and it's gross.
Casey:
Well, it's funny you say that because I typically use the Apple leather case for my iPhone because, like Marco was saying earlier, I happen to like the feel of it.
Casey:
It is a little bit exorbitantly expensive.
Marco:
Not anymore.
Marco:
When we bought our sixth generation ones, it was like $60.
Marco:
Now they're $45.
Casey:
Oh, is that right?
Casey:
I didn't know that.
Marco:
Yeah, yeah.
Marco:
They dropped it with the S generation.
Casey:
Oh, I didn't know that.
Casey:
So that's not quite so bad.
Casey:
But anyway, the only time I use battery case, though, which I do have, I have a Lenmar one, which I really liked until Marco showed me this one that we were talking about a minute ago, which I kind of am blusting over now.
Casey:
But anyway.
Marco:
Well, let me get it.
Casey:
first and I'll tell you if it sucks yeah exactly but I have this Lenmar battery case which is just a cheaper knockoff of the Mophies and it works really well and I really like it but the only time I ever use it is either a conference or when I'm at a football game when I'm not going to be around you know wall power for hours and hours and hours and hours
Casey:
Other than that, I never, ever use this case.
Casey:
And so getting my phone out of the Apple leather case and into the Lenmar case is useful to have that easier.
Casey:
But I by and large agree with you that it's not the sort of thing that I'm doing daily.
Casey:
I'm doing it like once a week during the fall and then maybe daily during WWDC.
Casey:
But that's it.
John:
that's frequent enough that i would say easy in and out would be good although i do have to wonder especially with the things like the more times you take the thing in and out the more loose it kind of yeah you possibly get and the more you could trap things between that's another thing they talk about this on the apple website i like that they have the microfiber on the inside that it's cleaning your phone when you put it in there it's like it's no getting around the fact that if you happen to get like three pieces of sand in there you shove your phone inside it's microfiber or not you're
John:
gonna make scratches um the other things about the lump i mean apple has talked about like grippability and stuff and how it's supposed to be better for that and gruber said he actually rather than putting his thumb his pinky on the bottom like you guys do with the lump you can put your pinky under the lump instead of under the very bottom of the phone which probably helps because the chin is making the very bottom of the phone go even lower down so resting your pinky underneath the lump
John:
could be a comfortable way to do it like i having never held one of these i can't really think about how it would feel would it feel awkward or will it would it feel better like giving you an extra place to grip like a handhold that lump on the back uh but the silicone apple silicone case is nice uh my wife has one on her iphone and the lump thing i don't know uh like what i keep coming back to is many of our discussions about past apple products and
John:
have been that they favor form over function i've talked about the macbook one and the single port and how everything has to be so skinny and how the phones are skinny and everything has to be so you know like just made like a sculpture the apple mouse the tiny keyboards the half-size arrow keys form over function form over function too much you know they can't make it ugly for one little bit of extra functionality they just said no can we just make it beautiful and do the best we can with the mask constraints
John:
and one thing you can say about this case is that it absolutely does not put form in front of function right nope right so because not because not necessarily because it's ugly but because like look it has a job to do and it doesn't really spend a lot of time figuring out how to how to make it like it look like a beautiful piece of sculpture right it you know and again getting back to it being true to us i think that old imac design i love that imac design so much like i just i felt like that imac design had both in that
John:
They said, you know, let the function dictate the form.
John:
We can't figure out a way to get these internals on the back of the screen and have it look decent.
John:
So don't even try.
John:
Have the screen and have the screen be free by itself and have it.
John:
You can move it anywhere.
John:
You can twist it around.
John:
You can move it up.
John:
You can move it down.
John:
It stays where you put it.
John:
it was it was awesome right and the base it also looks beautiful but it's also totally stable stays right there it's small uh the base of that imac was actually a lower lower amount of volume i believe than the the mac power mac g4 cube so it's actually smaller than you thought it was like that is what you want is a beautiful blending of it but this one when it came time to choose should we like smooth this thing over and try to hide all this stuff and uh you know and
John:
Make it look like a beautiful piece of sculpture, perhaps sacrificing something of utility, like maybe not having a good lightning pass through or maybe having ridiculously low battery capacity to make it completely invisible and not useful to people except for Marco, who wanted more than an extra 20%.
John:
they didn't and they made a different choice and when they make a different choice what their reward is a million articles saying you have too much function and you should have paid more attention to form because i think what you made is ugly and i guess that's because people think the ugliness is a result of them not paying enough attention to looks right if they just made something that was ugly like say they made the macbook one that had one port and everyone was pissed about one port
John:
and it was ugly on top of that you couldn't say well you said you wanted form or you know function over form so you would say no no they screwed up both it is both not useful because it has one stupid port and it's ugly as sin instead they made this beautiful thing that has one port and then you could simply say well they wanted to make it beautiful and thin and then making a statement with this one port and the scalped batteries and all this other stuff like they spent so much all this technology and effort to make this beautiful thing
John:
And we agree that it's beautiful.
John:
So we say, yes, you did that, but you did the wrong balance in this one.
John:
We don't agree that it's beautiful.
John:
We feel like you have not made it beautiful.
John:
So we're going to say that you didn't go for form.
John:
Instead, you must have gone for function.
John:
And you look at it functionally like, well, it's easy to take in and out.
John:
It has a battery in it, has lightning pass through.
John:
Uh, the only thing you could maybe ding them on is if you really wanted to go with the form over function, you would have made the chin even bigger so you could fit the long headphone jacks in it.
John:
Um, but this, this does feel to me like a different balance than usual of form over function from Apple.
John:
If only because we all disagree about the, the form being beautiful.
John:
and i want to encourage that because half the time all we're saying is don't make your things beautiful sculptures because then you end up in absurd situations like the harpoon turtle mouse think more about form and they think more about form and we all yell at them so i you know apple i can i can empathize with apple feel like we can't win with these guys
Marco:
Well, I mean, the right answer here is to recognize that if it is truly not possible to make a really good external battery case for an iPhone that also looks good and good looks are important to Apple, then the answer is to reduce or remove the need for external battery cases.
John:
yeah like reducing it that's where it comes down to like how much if you added 10 capacity how much do you reduce the need 20 capacity like when do you get to the point where you're actually reducing the need because i think the people who need like those big mophies their apple should never make a phone as big as those big mophies or like even like 80 is big like say take one of the big mophies cut out all the intermediary plastic
John:
and merge that that those milliamp hours into the phone that's too big for apple to make right but people have those needs and so there's always going to be a need for some battery packs and i just don't know what the ratio is of like of all the people who need a battery packs how many people could get away with just adding 20 30 right
John:
So that's kind of what the third party battery manufacturers are doing.
John:
And if Apple is not privy to that information because their surveys or focus groups don't work, that is a motivation for Apple to make seven different sizes of battery packs.
John:
And then, hey, Apple, you'll have your own information about exactly how much more capacity people need.
John:
And you can use that to decide how thick to make the next phone or, you know, what target battery life or whatever.
Marco:
But now it's a severe disincentive to ever do so because that'll reduce the iPhone ASP.
John:
uh you know i i think by making one case if they can make this will give them some information some real firsthand information about what people want out of battery cases and if they make more battery cases that will give me more information like they're always making that calculus how big do we make the battery in this phone should we going for a target battery life like the ipad we just go for 10 hours all the time we think we're okay with that
John:
i don't know what do you think their target is for the iphones they seem to vary more someone did a chart recently they seem like it was kind of consistent but a little bit lumpy yeah the ipads were more of a straight line and the iphone history was a little bit lumpy up and down here and there but maybe they're just holding their breath and saying if we just wait a little bit longer and we get intel to manufacture the a11 for us at whatever insane feature size that they're up to at that point uh and we make everything so low power and
John:
eventually this will just be a moot point we just need to get across that finish line it's already a moot point on ipads they're already on ipads like saying let's fill that space with empty space of the speakers like 10 hours is fine and we pretty much all agree like for the most part 10 hours so far is fine for the ipads for the phones they're always on the ragged edge of we don't want to make it really big and thick but we also want it to last kind of all day and we know we can't really make it last all day because that would just be way too big so you know just
John:
I don't know, like every year I think they're going to get closer and every year they just put a more powerful CPU and GPU in there or make the screen bigger so that that sucks even more power.
John:
And it just seems like we're not really making progress on battery life.
John:
But I have to think somewhere out there in the not do this in future, we're going to start crossing over, like give me like one or two or three more hours and then all this stuff.
John:
starts to fade into the background and just be applicable to people who need to be able to like uh you know play games on ios for nine hours in a row and not lose their battery or whatever the hell people are doing to to use those giant mophies all day
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
A couple of quick notes about the positives to the battery case.
Casey:
One of the things that appeals to me about this is that it does have that lightning pass through.
Casey:
It sounds like there are other cases on the market that have this, like the one Marco just Impulse bought a few minutes ago.
Casey:
But having this Lenmar case that I do like, but also having to carry one micro USB port just for that, and I pretty much have no other devices that use it, is kind of annoying because
Casey:
So I like that it has lightning pass through.
Casey:
And then it also has some phantom passive antenna help, which, I mean, if you guys have something to say about that, we can.
Casey:
But finally, the other thing that I think is appealing is when you drop down in Notification Center to see what your battery life is on your phone and possibly your watch, this will appear in Notification Center as well, which I think is really nice rather than having some stupid blinking lights on the back of the thing.
Casey:
Apparently, there is a blinking light on the inside of the thing for when you're charging, but that's obviously not terribly useful if the phone is in the case.
Casey:
I think those are all positive.
Casey:
I think that's good.
Casey:
And actually, I never thought about putting your pinky there.
Casey:
I've not held one of these yet, but that actually sounds really appealing, too, because maybe that can shimmy my pinky up a bit so I can actually reach the top of my already too big phone.
John:
that's another policy decision speaking of like os integration uh what are the policies i don't have battery cases i don't know what battery cases do uh this but what is the policy in terms of if you plug either a terrible micro usb or a lightning cable or something to the bottom of your phone that's inside a battery case does it charge the battery case first does it charge the phone first when you put a phone into a battery case does the battery case immediately begin charging the phone up to 100 and then stop charging when it goes that or does the battery case
John:
charge the phone up to some percentages like 75 or 80 and just try to keep it there as you use the phone like how do you how does the software in the battery case i guess uh decide what to do with power um and there is an argument to be made for the battery case not charging the phone up to 100 and keeping it that way because keeping lithium-ion batteries at 100 charge all the time shortens their life versus keeping them at like
John:
I think optimal is like 40% or some crap like that.
John:
But at any rate, keeping it charged at max all the time is not great for battery life.
John:
Even though it's 10 at this point, like does that thing where it like lets your battery drain down like 99, 98, 97% and then cranks you back up like it's, it's not good to keep it 100% all the time.
John:
And I've heard that some battery cases try to keep your phone around 75 or something.
John:
to to extend uh the battery life on it or whatever but those are those type of decisions are things that can be adjusted i guess in software or maybe in firmware does the battery case have firmware i don't know some cooperation between the device with the software on it and the battery case would be good here and it's a perfect opportunity to
John:
try to do something that you couldn't do as a regular person because as a regular person without a battery case you have to charge 100 before you leave the house you're not going to charge your phone to 70 to preserve the battery life because you're just going to maybe run out before the end of the day so you're always charging to 100 people with battery cases can maybe i guess maybe they're frying their battery case keeping it charged to 100 but
John:
So I'd be more comfortable doing that than the thing that's inside the phone, because it's probably still cheaper to get a new battery case than it is to replace a battery inside the phone.
John:
And certainly you don't have to worry about opening up your phone and doing all that other stuff.
Marco:
Well, also, if there is integration between the battery case and the phone, which in Apple's case, there is their software integration at the phone level, and no one else will be able to get that.
Marco:
There's one more thing you can do that's smart that is unfortunate that other cases can't do.
Marco:
iOS has a number of changes that it does, behaviors that it does, heuristics that it does, when it thinks it's plugged into AC power.
Marco:
It will more readily download things in the background.
Marco:
It'll pull apps more often.
Marco:
It'll use more power when it thinks it's plugged into AC power.
Marco:
If Apple makes a case that integrates in the software...
Marco:
I think a smart thing to do would be for the battery case to communicate to the phone, hey, I'm also a battery.
Marco:
This is not really AC power, even though I'm charging you.
Marco:
And for the phone to continue operating as if it was running on battery power.
Marco:
I don't know if Apple's case does that.
Marco:
I do know that third-party cases can't and don't do that.
John:
yeah it might also be neat to see uh like what the policy decision is about low power mode uh i guess maybe you'd never get into low power mode if the if the battery case is always charging the phone and if you did reach it it would be legit turned on but what if you had a battery case that was like withholding its charge from the phone until the phone dipped to a certain level and then it triggered the low power warning i don't know this this is yet another reason why uh
John:
actually increasing the capacity of the battery inside the phone removes all these complexities you know how to make all these weird policy decisions exactly how you share the battery and all that stuff but bottom line is official support for everything we just discussed is a good idea because no matter how big you make the battery in the phone someone's always going to need something that's the size of a bar of ivory soap and there's going to be battery cases exist and if battery cases are going to exist the os should really have support for them like there should be a made for iphone program
John:
to be compliant battery case to get all the features we just described even if apple's the first one to do them like why why withhold that i'm was surprised to learn that i read the same thing that like that as far as iphones are concerned they think they're attached to ac power and attached to a battery case because battery cases have been around for a really long time and you would think by now apple would have official support for hey if you're making a battery case do this and that and have these resistances on these pins and we'll let us know that you are a battery case and we'll treat you the right way
Marco:
We are a bunch of programmers who listen to the show for the most part.
Marco:
If you aren't a programmer and you're listening to the show, you probably at least know programmers.
Marco:
Many of us know how to make websites in other ways.
Marco:
Most of us shouldn't be making websites in other ways.
Marco:
Now,
Marco:
I'll tell you a secret.
Marco:
I really don't like making websites.
Marco:
I am a programmer.
Marco:
I'm a web programmer.
Marco:
I hate making websites because it just seems like my time is better spent solving different problems, not solving the same problems that people like Squarespace have already solved in ways that are better than anything I can do.
Marco:
And Squarespace sites take so little effort.
Marco:
Do yourself a favor.
Marco:
Next time you need to make a site for something, whether it's a podcast, a blog, maybe you're making a site for somebody else.
Marco:
They're asking you to make a site.
Marco:
Try it on Squarespace first.
Marco:
Give it an hour or two.
Marco:
You can probably get done 90 to 100% of what you need for that site on Squarespace in less than two hours.
Marco:
And then you're done.
Marco:
You don't have to build it.
Marco:
You don't have to support it.
Marco:
That's a big one.
Marco:
Squarespace takes care of all of that for you.
Marco:
Squarespace sites are beautifully designed.
Marco:
Your sites look professionally designed regardless of your skill level.
Marco:
No coding is required.
Marco:
Although if you want, you can inject custom code.
Marco:
These are all intuitive, easy to use, what you see is what you get tools.
Marco:
Get a free domain if you sign up for a year up front.
Marco:
Start your free trial site today.
Marco:
Really, next time you have a project, start on Squarespace.
Marco:
See how far you get in two hours.
Marco:
You'll be shocked how good it is.
Marco:
Start your free trial today.
Marco:
No credit card required for that free trial at squarespace.com.
Marco:
When you do decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to use the offer code ATP to get 10% off your first purchase.
John:
squarespace build it beautiful one more bit on the uh the smart battery case there was a story of the verge about uh does apple smart battery case look weird because mophie has a ton of patents on battery cases well mophie does have a ton of patents on battery cases some of them involving a two-part case which it snaps over the thing and just you know tons of dumb patents
John:
Is that why Apple's case looks like this?
John:
Apple says no.
John:
In their strange communication with the tech press that they are doing nowadays, they apparently have said through channels unequivocally no.
Casey:
That's not entirely surprising since this Lenmar case that I have operates the exact same way that the supposed Mophie patents would prohibit.
Casey:
But to be fair, Lenmar is a much smaller target than Apple would be.
Casey:
So I'm not sure anyone cares.
John:
I think Apple, like, the reason I believe this story that Apple says that they didn't make the case that they did because of patents is not because I think Apple, you know, Apple could have made the case and not infringed on Apple's.
John:
I think if Apple made a case that infringed on Mophie's habits, Apple wouldn't care because they've got a bazillion dollars and Mophie doesn't.
John:
like like if if it seemed like apple is about to lose the case they would just buy mophie i mean seriously giant companies like apple are not afraid of small companies like mophie when it comes to infringing patents because they could just tie them up in litigation until the company goes out of business um not that they're like willfully infringing patents but as i've said many times everything is patented everything there's tons of dumb patents there's nothing you can do in the technology sector that is not violating someone's patents
John:
So every single thing Apple does is violating somebody's patents.
John:
And that's true of every technology company.
John:
It's just the cost, the stupid cost of doing business.
John:
And so Apple is not going to have some sort of meeting before designing their iPhone battery case.
John:
Let's take a survey of all the patents that are held by people who have patents on iPhone battery cases and make sure whatever we do doesn't come close to one of those.
John:
They're just going to make the case that they want to make.
John:
like that's if they didn't they would be paralyzed like it's like you know we're adding a feature to ios please spend six months trying to search for every super dumb patent that applies to what we're planning they're just going to do it they're just going to do it and they're going to wait for somebody to sue them because that's the way business works in the stupid world that we have here in the united states
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Anything else on the case?
Marco:
I can't believe we talked for so long about a battery case.
Marco:
Have you met us?
Marco:
Of course we did.
John:
Did anyone, by the way, did anyone order this?
John:
I mean, we all have six.
John:
Well, actually, I only have a six.
Marco:
I assume it fits a six, right?
Marco:
It does.
Marco:
Yes, it does.
Marco:
It doesn't fit the pluses, but it does fit the regulars.
Marco:
No, I mean, I can see why people would choose this one.
Marco:
You know, it does have some integration, but
Marco:
It does feel probably pretty good if you want a rubberized silicone case feel for grit purposes.
Marco:
It is probably good for that, although I don't know whether the bulge in the back would be more comfortable, less comfortable.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
But I see why people would choose this one.
Marco:
But I think anybody who... This sounds so stupid.
Marco:
Anybody who really cares about their battery case, I think would find many better options.
John:
It depends on what you care about.
John:
This may look rugged to some people.
John:
I'm not sure how the aesthetics will be received by people who are not as obsessed with the Apple aesthetic as we are and perhaps the people listening to this podcast are.
John:
because apple's design is a particular aesthetic and it appeals to us obviously because we like apple products and we buy them and stuff but it's not necessarily appealing to everybody it's kind of like uh you know the aston martin aesthetic versus the corvette versus ferrari like just historically speaking those are three very different styles and some people really like aston martin and think corvettes are ugly and some people really like corvettes and mustangs and think aston martin don't appeal to them and you know the same thing with ferrari like
John:
not every style appeals to every person.
John:
And when I look at the style, I try to say, is this a style that would appeal to somebody?
John:
And I think, what I think of is like Power Tools, you know, or maybe a combination of like L.L.
John:
Bean and like DeWalt Power Tools or something.
John:
Like there is a sort of rugged, rubbery, grommedy kind of thing
John:
aesthetic here that might actually be appealing to some people and maybe there's more of them than there are of the people who want everything i would say apples and car manufacturer analogy is closest like aston martin but people do like corvettes and mustangs and they have bulges and flares and nostrils and all sorts of weird rude things so i'm not entirely sure if this is actually uh even though it is so different than the aesthetic that we like from apple is it really unappealing to everybody i mean at the very least your your phone will sit flat on the table
Marco:
Oh, God.
Marco:
First of all, I think if DeWalt designed a battery case, they might have.
Marco:
I don't even know.
Marco:
But if they did, it would be way better looking than this.
Marco:
Secondly, I would far rather have a Corvette than this.
Marco:
And even though I don't like the way Corvettes look, usually.
John:
Have you seen the back of the current one?
Marco:
Yeah, it's pretty rough.
Marco:
But have you seen this?
John:
I mean, have you seen the battery case?
John:
I have to say it's growing on me.
John:
It's growing on me.
John:
This one, I look at the back of this now, I start thinking it looks like the interior of a space station set from a 1970s movie.
John:
wow wow like take a bunch of these if you can do this in miniature like take a bunch of these erase the apple logo and line them up to make like a hallway like these are the walls of the hallway yeah oh my god i can see that that that is from a sci-fi movie they're like they're like little bulging around and but what i've heard from i think this was in the mashable article like don't get the white one people i know you know we've already talked to casey about this but like white looks good in some time some things but for something you're gonna hold
John:
it's going to get dirty and gross really fast like there's no avoiding it we we handle our phones all the time we put them in pockets we put them in purses we put them down on tables do not get the white one unless unless you're okay with the fact that it's that it's going to not look like apple's product shots for more than like a week yeah was it christina's who said like it was discoloring after like one day yeah i mean how can it not like it is it is it is magical bright white you know johnny ives white world white nothing will stay if you touch it nothing will stay that color sorry
John:
like even like porcelain like even if it was made of fine china i feel like it would eventually get ugly but this is this is silicone it will not stay that color yeah uh what else we have to talk about we had a lot of updates all the things got updated do we care no we could enumerate them and see everything to see about them we got ios 9.2 is there anything noteworthy there i updated my devices and did not notice anything and didn't recall seeing anything significant in the change notes
John:
uh weren't you was it you that was very upset about the done button in safari safari view controller uh not upset like they keep moving stuff around like i don't know if it's better or worse than the other place it still hasn't fixed the actual thing that drives me nuts about safari view controllers is as soon as you scroll it scrunches up and hides and then you have to do something else to make it appear again before you can dismiss it that is the maddening thing i don't really care
John:
where the button is because the argument can be made either side it's like depends on what hand you're holding the thing with or whatever like there is no right position for the done button and maybe like i was thinking why did they move it maybe they were like well that's like where the back button is like on the left side and even though this isn't a right to left navigation the thing that makes it go away should be on the left and not the right i don't know what the thing was but the bottom line is that it still disappears as soon as you start scrolling a web page
John:
And that is the real criminal act of iOS 8 and 9 and not the position of the done button.
John:
But yeah, that's the only thing I've noticed so far.
Marco:
I mean, I've heard from a couple Apple people here and there that these were all pretty substantial bug fix updates.
Marco:
And that's good to hear.
Marco:
I kind of like when there is a significant update that appears to contain nothing new.
Marco:
basically, because that usually means a lot of bug fixes.
John:
I would have liked to see that in the change notes, though.
John:
Like, that's what I was looking for.
John:
Like, yeah, show me all the bugs, but they didn't show anything.
Marco:
No, it improves performance and stability.
Marco:
I mean, you know, they're not going to tell you, like, here's 500 bugs that we fixed in these releases because they're not going to make themselves look bad.
John:
They do say some things.
John:
Like, they, you know, fix... I forget what change notes, but like, you know, fix the bug that could cause whatever in whatever application.
John:
Something really obscure.
John:
It's like, if you're going to list that,
John:
are you not listing the other things that are equal in obscurity i don't i don't quite understand the political uh machine uh that that determines what makes things be in release notes because i do see stuff that sometimes it's not just like performance enhanced bug fixes there's like some very specific things in there which makes me think is there nothing else of that same specificity that's in this release surely there is i don't know
Marco:
Yeah, I think it's very like PR massaged to be, you know, like very first of all, very passive, like, you know, fixes an issue in which certain people were affected by a certain, you know, weird behavior.
Marco:
It's the used worrying and phrasing to be just very passive, very like this just kind of happened to us.
Marco:
You know, it wasn't like it's yeah, it's PR.
Marco:
It's all PR.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Yeah, I would agree, John.
Casey:
I didn't notice anything.
Casey:
I've updated my iPad and my iPhone and Aaron's iPhone updated my watch.
Casey:
Haven't noticed anything there.
John:
So, yeah, we got the OS 10, 10, 11 to update, which those release notes also like they're like, hey, we added some fix for some bug in mail or something.
John:
But I saw you, Marco, asking on Twitter and to the void.
John:
Did they fix like USB audio fix USB stack specifically related to audio?
John:
And you got... Did you get any answers about that?
Marco:
Yeah, Tipster said that it... Because there are a lot of problems in LCAP so far regarding the USB stack and as it relates to audio devices, where a lot of times... And I've talked to a few other people.
Marco:
I know this happens to them too.
Marco:
It isn't just me.
Marco:
Where a lot of times I will have...
Marco:
my audio device that i'm like playing music through or whatever just stop working completely just like music just stops playing if you hit play in itunes the time doesn't even advance like it's not even getting to the point of sending the buffer out um and then you try to like select different different sound output devices and like it fails or you can't select one or just disappears for a while and oftentimes it's fixed by just waiting like 10 minutes and
Marco:
oftentimes it's fixed by rebooting very very strange apparently the uh the u the usb stack had a lot of changes done on lcap and uh so i've heard from various people including including atp tipster that uh that has been now fixed in the dot 2 release so i'm excited to try it out i haven't actually installed yet but i'm getting installed after the show
John:
do you have these problems only on your computer which is festooned with german audio equipment and usb things like because i i'm wondering if it's like the like because you're exercising both the usb subsystem and the audio component of that more than i am but i've i've had zero usb problems but i also do almost zero things involving usb all i do is like a
John:
and that's it everything else is not i'm not unplugging and plugging things i don't have any other usb audio gear except for this mic and i've had no problem so i'm wondering if it's because like you feel like you're actually using uh using the usb stack in a much more uh thorough way than i am that you're running into these problems and i guess your control group would be like tiff's computer if she's not messing with
Marco:
maybe she has maybe you got all those mics hooked up to her computer too like can you tell if it's because you are actually doing usb and audio stuff that's causing this the problem is the bugs aren't easily reproducible it just like kind of happens out of nowhere you know maybe once a week or every few days so like it's there's never any one thing that seems to trigger it uh so i have no idea but hopefully it's fixed and yeah i'm looking forward to to seeing if it is fixed
Marco:
Because other than that, LCAP has been very good for me.
Marco:
It has not had any other real problems to speak of.
Marco:
But that's been a pretty annoying one.
John:
Yeah, I think I've seen more people, like every once in a while, someone will come across my Twitter stream or something I'm blogging already.
John:
I'm like, Apple should do a Snow Leopard release where they just fix things or whatever.
John:
And it's like, didn't they just do that?
John:
Like, 10.11 is very, as we talked about, very Snow Leopardy where they didn't spend a lot of time on big new features.
John:
they tried to do bug fixes discovery d kind of messed that up a little bit but here we are at 10 11 2 not too long after 10 11 by the time the 0.2 release comes to have dealt with the discovery which granted which was a hangover from yosemite see that one's like oh they didn't fix that one very quickly it took a long time for them to fix it but anyway by the time 10 11 2 comes down if we're kind of saying that
John:
The major problems that were in 10, 11, 0 perhaps seem to have been addressed.
John:
That's a reasonable timeline for OS X releases.
John:
By the 0.2, 3, or 4, most of the stuff should be shitting out.
John:
And the 0.4 is like back in the day when it was 18 months or two years between releases, but...
John:
if if it turns out that 10.11.2 got the really big issues aside from all the iCloud stuff which really has more to do with the server and the architecture and they can't actually fix by updating the os which is sad but anyway aside from that if they really have shaken everything out that i feel like that is fully on a snow leopardy type schedule people forget that snow leopard had some weird ass stuff in 10.6.0 as well like every release does so
John:
I've been very happy with LCAP so far.
John:
I upgraded everything on the day it was released.
John:
I immediately apply all of the point updates.
John:
I haven't regretted it.
John:
I have experienced no weirdness anywhere, again, other than iCloud stuff, which I really, like anything that involves servers, I don't blame the OS entirely for that.
Marco:
And really, I mean, honestly, for a while, the Mac kind of felt neglected because iOS was taking all the glory and all the time and all the new stuff.
Marco:
And then Apple started doing these massive changes to the Mac, trying to make it more like iOS, like in the Lion era and forward from that.
Marco:
And it just started getting really weird and really bad.
Marco:
And then you had, like, I think Yosemite was kind of the peak of Apple not only having mediocre ideas on a lot of the Mac stuff, but also starting to have really bad execution of a lot of it, where it was just so buggy and so many problems.
John:
Leopard and Lion both had bad implementations of everything too.
Marco:
That's true.
Marco:
Fair enough.
John:
Maybe it's just the odd releases.
Marco:
Maybe.
Marco:
But I feel like now we're getting to the point where the neglect in favor of working on iOS is actually helping the Mac
Marco:
Most of the time, because now it's like you can leave us alone and stop touching things and let us do our work on this pretty stable platform and you can go have your fun on iOS.
Marco:
And the only thing we have to watch out for is when they do one of these like...
Marco:
kind of drive-by rewrites.
Marco:
Discovery D was one.
Marco:
This USB subsystem in LCAP seems to have been one.
Marco:
Certainly, the disk utility in LCAP is one.
Marco:
They kind of do these drive-by rewrites where they, for some reason, they decide something needs to be dramatically rewritten or refactored or redesigned or whatever, and they do an 80% job of it, and then they just move on to other things, and it leaves this subsystem broken for a while.
Marco:
As long as we can minimize those times where that happens...
Marco:
and they're leaving us mostly alone on the mac i'm okay with that i because like this is where we get our work done you know because well those of us who aren't using ipad pros but this is where this is where we get our work done please don't mess it up please just leave us alone let it keep working please stop updating it every year and please stop trying to do major like massive shifts on it just please
John:
well like i said they're not doing those major rewrites for their health like they're doing them for a reason and the only difference is they just have to actually execute well on them like i two examples i gave launch d as an example in the past of like why the hell are you replacing a nit it's perfectly fine like every unix uses it why do you think you have to have your own thing it's like second system syndrome you screen it but launch d is awesome
John:
right and launch d was buggy at first too but they did it and they did it because the existing thing that filled that role didn't have the features they needed launch d does they they executed it well enough that they didn't have to roll it back i know that's a low bar but they did it well enough they didn't have to roll it back most people didn't even notice it except for the fact that i wrote about it one of my old os 10 reviews and we're like oh launch d what's that uh but i can tell you that the original version of launch d had tons of bugs but
John:
they got it done well enough and they moved forward another example is icon services which has had bugs i don't know how for how many freaking years like they're mostly cosmetic and maybe that's why they didn't get fixed but icon services would like corrupt its caches in some weird way and all your dock icons would show up all crazy and pixelated for just years and years and years and it's like obviously this isn't a quick bug fix obviously there is something architecturally wrong with icon services and someone needs to go in there
John:
with a big wire brush and say all right what the hell is going on icon services let me deal with this let me fix it and that took so many years to happen and honestly i wish they had tackled that sooner sometimes you have a subsystem that either because it's super old and crusty and it's not even yours and maybe it's like bsd code left over from god knows when or because the first guy i took a pass at it did a crappy job and and you know you want to take another a second run at it and do a better job that's what you have to do that's the job of basically the core os group i want them to continue doing that i just want them to do
John:
a better job like and i think they do a good job almost all the time and a lot of my old os 10 reviews i've applauded the core s group as a great example of see guys core s is rewriting major components and doing a good job and improving things and fixing their bugs and year over year making things better and adding features why doesn't everybody else like say on the gui team or whatever do that you know and the answer is like that they have other other stakeholders let's say like people who care about aesthetics and marketing and branding whereas people doing launch d
John:
have nobody worrying about aesthetics or uh branding or anything like that but anyway um i'm totally in favor of them continuing to look at their os decide which subsystems are really due for either a really thorough spring cleaning or maybe a complete replacement with something new you just you just have to do it well enough that you don't have to roll it back when vint surf complains about it like six months later like i feel like that's a that's a low bar and
Marco:
But that isn't a given, though.
Marco:
I mean, I think modern Apple, with this incredibly relentless annual release schedule of everything, all these different product lines that keep expanding into even more product lines and having the engineering resources spread incredibly thin and constantly moving around between things—
Marco:
I feel like what we keep seeing from Apple is that they don't seem to be incredibly good anymore at doing these big rewrites of subsystems or big new initiatives.
Marco:
Their record is pretty bad.
John:
What have they screwed up besides Discovery D?
Marco:
Apple Music is a big one.
John:
The USB one, I would say, is a success, especially if this .2.
John:
If you have a big refactoring and big changes to a major subsystem and you get all the kinks worked out of it by .2, that's probably pretty much all you can hope for.
John:
That's a pretty good job.
John:
I still have faith in those groups to be able to do this.
John:
The yearly schedule, you can debate about that, but really...
John:
if they're competent and i think they mostly are all yearly schedule does is push uh push features that take more than one release out farther because every release has a certain amount of overhead associated with it and the more releases you have it's like say you want to do a feature and it's like i know this feature is too big to fit into one release i'm not going to say file system but you know you can think of something else i know this feature is too big to fit into one release
John:
how do i do this project at apple and apple would say you can do that project just fine you just have to have be on a multi-year plan if your thing takes a year and a half we're not going to cut a release in a year and a half for you you're just going to be on the two-year one so you know there's the overhead of each release that adds to just you know it's just overhead just adds to the work everybody has to do um and then your schedules just get pushed out really yearly releases is simply a matter of
John:
you know good management of software organization what's above the line what's below the line what fits in this really what what doesn't and if you do a good job about keeping things in and booting them out i mean you could even say discovery d was the problem of that not as if they did a bad job on discovery d but during the meetings when they say what's in and what's out for 10 10
John:
someone should have said we really wanted to do launch d in this uh discovery d in this one but it's it's not it's not up to snuff yet it booted to 10 11 booted to 10 12 you just keep kicking it down the road like that is the exercise you could have until you get down to a certain point where the overhead dwarfs the amount of dev time you have you could have six month releases if you wanted it's all just a matter of how you draw the line for you know in sort of project management parlance what's in and what's out for this release what's ready to go what's ready to go and what's not ready to go
John:
So I think having an organization that is disciplined in that way, and I think, like, I don't know if you contribute to Craig Federighi or whoever, like, they went from the sort of loosey-goosey, artistic, we'll release the OS when it's ready, Steve Jobs kind of, let's figure it out type of thing, to a much more regimented, we're going to put ourselves on a yearly schedule, we're going to be disciplined, right?
John:
about it that is that is much more sort of you know business 101 uh like we should be able to do this if we are an efficient good organization it shouldn't be like well i don't really know when the next os is coming out it's whenever it's done and you know oh well the iphone is taking some time away so leopard's going to be a little later it's like no we're doing a release every year and if your stuff doesn't make it it doesn't make it but you know the train is leaving the station with or without you i think uh doing that inside apple was a really good decision
John:
They're just working on what needs to fit in it and not fit in those releases.
Casey:
All right, what else got updated?
John:
WatchOS got updated.
Casey:
Big news.
Casey:
Actually, that is sort of big news.
Casey:
Real-time follow-up for myself.
Casey:
I didn't notice any WatchOS updates, except I went to kick off the workflow I have to tell Aaron I'm on my way home.
Casey:
So this is using the workflow app, and it will figure out the driving time from where I am to the house and then queue up a text message for Aaron saying I'll be home in like 15 minutes or whatever.
Casey:
It used to be on the watch that I would kick off that workflow and then I would have to do handoff to actually send the text message.
Casey:
But now I can run that workflow and it is capable of sending the text message from the watch, which is super exciting.
Casey:
I know you're both really happy that that has changed.
John:
Why did the watch updates take so long?
John:
That's my question.
John:
It's such a small device.
John:
It has such a little store.
John:
What is it doing?
Marco:
Honestly, I think it's because the watch is just really slow.
Marco:
I mean, CPU-wise, it seems to be roughly on the level of an iPhone 3GS.
Marco:
And if you look at, like, Geekbench iOS benchmarks, by Geekbench standards, the iPhone 3GS is about 16 times slower than an iPhone 6S.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
If you think about, like, the kind of thing it's doing, it's running on a processor that's 16 times slower than what we're accustomed to.
Marco:
Now, granted, it's a simpler OS.
Marco:
I'm sure the patching process is simpler, etc.
Marco:
But keep that in mind as the baseline of, like, everything that it does that has to patch with that CPU is going through something 16 times slower than an iPhone 6S.
John:
I wonder if the storage has got to be slower, too.
John:
I wonder what the bottleneck is.
John:
Is the bottleneck the CPU?
John:
Is the bottleneck storage held?
John:
Maybe the bottleneck's RAM, for all we know.
Marco:
yeah i mean it could be and it could be the wireless connection of receiving the update for who knows what it's a lot of things but i think primarily it's because the cpu is just so incredibly slow in it but we'll see honestly like you know thinking about like there's there's been rumors of of the second watch coming out possibly even as soon as the spring which shouldn't be that ridiculous since the last one came out last spring um and and there there's been rumors about what it might be
Marco:
The biggest one is that it might have a FaceTime camera, which sounds terrible to me, honestly.
Marco:
It sounds like you wouldn't want to be on either end of that conversation.
Marco:
But what is a little bit disappointing is that I haven't heard anything about it being faster.
Marco:
All the rumors are about FaceTime cameras and Wi-Fi abilities.
Marco:
And I hope they can make it faster because I've had a lot of trouble figuring out how to really use the watch beyond the watch face.
Marco:
Anything involving apps or even glances on the watch, I have gotten very little into.
Marco:
And part of it is because it's just so incredibly slow to do pretty much anything.
Marco:
So if the watch gets a lot faster over the next few years...
Marco:
I think that will change what we can do with it dramatically.
Marco:
I think it will really make it a lot more useful for a lot of different third-party app abilities, where right now, you do anything on the watch right now, and it takes so long that you're like, well, I might as well take out my phone for that.
John:
yeah that's kind of sad that the watch like if the watch had come out in an era before like the iphone 6 caliber devices that are just so much faster maybe wouldn't have as much to compare to but i was i was going to make the comparison to the iphone one remember the iphone one came out and it was so responsive but was it really compared to i know people do these videos of like here's an iphone one versus an iphone six and what's more responsive and they really did do an amazing job at keeping the iphone one responsive but it seems like they they couldn't they couldn't get that kind of
John:
perceptive you know perceived responsiveness in the watch just because you're always constantly comparing it to your iphone 6 which is a bazillion times more powerful and yeah and especially watch kid in the first time doing like the remote app thing that just made it even worse so you're right the watch does the watch feels slow although when i think of like oh the next version of the watch i know we talked about this at length before but like what does the watch need to be as far as i'm concerned other than software being faster i don't have to be thinner
John:
like i know this seems like this should be an apple's wheelhouse like they're good at making things thinner right and inevitably it will be but as we've discussed many times maybe not in the next version right um but eventually it'll be thinner so we can look forward to the the the apple watch 4 that is thinner and faster and now now we're really starting to talk and it still doesn't necessarily mean you know having spent all this time with this watch and everything i still am not entirely convinced
John:
that there is a way, you know, no matter how fast it was, that there is something useful you can do with the watch that is appy in the same way that phone things are appy.
John:
I mostly think of it as I would like to go near a device or into a room or into a place or at a certain time and have the watch look and behave differently based on that.
John:
So I don't have to mess with it.
John:
mostly the thing i do is look at the watch and when i look at it because of where i am or what time it is or what has happened somewhere else it shows me something that is useful right whether it's i sit down in front of my tv and pick up my wrist and i can talk into it uses a siri remote so i don't have to find the remote or
John:
like when it's time to go if i just look at my watch and it tells me the proactive traffic thing like i'm not what i'm getting at is i'm not touching my watch i'm not swiping on it i'm not using the digital crown i'm not pushing buttons or even if i'm just pushing buttons like you know like i said the one interaction that i really like with it is double tap and use it as the to do apple pay because i don't really have to look at the watch then i can feel for the button double tap like half the time it's still underneath the sleeve of my coat i can't even see it but i still apple pay with it all right so far that is the most convincing interactions for the watch for me
John:
And I, like you, Marco, I'm never, like, I'm never using that interface with, like, as if it's a tiny phone, even for, like, three seconds.
Marco:
No, I mean, to me, I agree with everything you basically, almost everything you just said.
Marco:
It's like...
Marco:
whenever i'm using the watch it is mostly about quickly glancing at it for the watch to tell me something i am hardly ever touching the watch to interact with it on any level really and if i am it's maybe one tap or something it's you know very little because if you're going to use the watch for more than about three seconds to do anything it feels like a failure like it feels like oh i i kind of regret this i should have gone to my phone for this
Marco:
oftentimes you still need to i mean oftentimes one of the things i like so much about the watch is getting notifications on it but a lot of times i have to take out my phone anyway to act on those notifications or to even like read the whole thing or something so it's a little bit of a mixed bag like it is nice in theory and sometimes it really is really nice but in practice i have to keep taking my phone out anyway
Marco:
The more the watch can do faster for you without you touching it or doing anything to it.
Marco:
And if you do need to touch it, the more it can do in very fast response to that touch, the better it is as a product.
Marco:
And it doesn't feel like an app platform in a traditional way at all.
John:
um it feels like apple tried to wedge an app platform onto it um and maybe they just didn't realize how it wouldn't really work yeah i think you have to give it those capabilities even if those apps like with all the things we're talking about could be powered by apps if those apps are given sufficient power so i think it's kind of like you just have to make the apis and see if someone you know they don't know what's going to be it's kind of like with the iphone you don't know what kind of apps people make could could apple have predicted like
John:
an angry bird style game would be such a big hit because of touch controls and pulling back the little slingshot and everything you just have to kind of i think it's smart to make it a platform because whether you can figure out what's going to be the apps that work on it or not the more capabilities you give people you know they'll try everything the things that don't work like it's no skin off your back someone tried it it failed like it's good to have a big open space to experiment it could be that it ends up that none of those things work
John:
Or it could be that Apple hasn't exposed the right capabilities to the apps.
John:
Like if you can imagine a much more powerful watch that gives apps awareness of like where you are, if you're near an Apple TV or like sort of background type processing so that third party apps could do any of those things that I just described, then third party apps would have the capability to figure out what people do and don't want from it.
John:
And, you know, like I think if you don't make it a platform,
John:
then it's incumbent on apple to figure out every possible thing you could do with useful if you do make it a platform everybody can try all sorts of things most of which will fail and eventually we'll figure out what it's good for and i think so i think it was smart to make it a platform but so far everything people have tried including apple it's been like yeah no that's not it keep keep trying the custom complications i think was a fairly big success because those are things that you know you glance at and they tell you stuff but that's that's a very small success so we're still kind of waiting
John:
yeah my update on by the way not being a watch person i you know i just don't like things on my wrist and like winter has made it worse because now i have like a uh you know heavier coat that like kind of interferes with you know the the heavier coat sleeves and oh yeah anything long sleeved is not that pleasant with a watch to be honest
John:
and and gloves and over it and like it's just making it more annoying and so i had a couple of days over the past few weeks where i realized i never looked at my watch i put it on in the morning to go to work i took it off when i came home from work and during the entire time at work it never vibrated i never looked at it i guess i ignored the stand things or maybe i didn't feel them or i don't know um
John:
And I'm like, why did you even put it on today because you didn't look at it?
John:
And so now I have, it feels really uncomfortable with a winter jacket and my gloves.
John:
And I know I've had days where I haven't looked at it at all.
John:
So now a few days I've decided, you know what, I'm not wearing it today.
John:
So I don't know if I'm slowly like, you know, again, it doesn't take much to make me not want to wear it because...
John:
I am so not a watch person.
John:
So I may.
John:
That's my new thing now.
John:
Now, instead of putting on every time I remember, sometimes I remember to put it on and I choose not to.
John:
So that's, you know, I'm not going to say it's bad for the watch because, again, I was not a watch person and the Apple Watch did not make me a watch person.
John:
I still think it looks nice.
John:
I still like wearing it sometimes.
John:
If I was going to go out on the town or walk around the city, I would definitely wear it because I think it would sort of earn its keep then.
John:
But for days when I just commute into the office and sit in front of my computer all day and come home, sometimes it doesn't earn its keep.
Marco:
yeah i'm i'm gonna see i i mentioned i'm i'm getting a mechanical watch this christmas and i'd like i'm gonna try wearing that day to day for a while and just see like you know am i i i do like having a watch a lot now but i don't i don't know if i like it just because i like the fashion ability and time aspects of it the time aspects you're staring at like you look in the upper right of your screen all day the time is there unless you're hiding the menu bar in os 10 you're not doing that are you
John:
no but i'm not always at my computer i wish i was but you aren't somehow i think you're i always picture you where is marco right now sitting in front of his computer i wish well you're you're in line for chicken salad sometimes i understand it's new york i'm online yeah that's true yeah but no i mean it's yeah the reality is you know i have a life i'm up and around i have a family i have a house and i drive to get chicken salad every day so and you need to know what time it is
Marco:
Yeah, I'm out around a lot.
Marco:
And I have been totally converted now.
Marco:
I love having the time on my wrist.
John:
What a great idea.
John:
Who thought of that?
Marco:
Yeah, right.
Marco:
It's a totally new idea.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So I love that now.
Marco:
But I'm going to see because there's also a lot about the Apple Watch I don't really care for.
Marco:
And so I'm going to see like, you know, am I a watch person or am I an Apple Watch person?
Marco:
So we'll find out.
Marco:
Anyway, I don't know.
Marco:
Is that it for this week?
Marco:
This has been a weird episode.
Marco:
Yeah, I think we're good.
Marco:
Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Backblaze, Casper, and Squarespace, and we will see you next week.
Casey:
Now the show is over.
Casey:
They didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental.
Casey:
Oh, it was accidental.
Casey:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental.
Marco:
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-E-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
Marco:
It's accidental.
Casey:
They did it.
Casey:
i'm going to assume marco you did not get like a 40 timex what is it speed master whatever it is that i used to wear no you know that would be the more intelligent thing to do if you wanted to just try out wearing a watch no he likes the jewelry yes he's shopping at like tiffany's for things you know it's jewelry and it also or jewelry as people tell me i mispronounce it maybe that's long i don't think too i don't know anyway
John:
um yeah like you're you're mostly shopping for a lot of your shopping for watches like i find these watches ugly so you're never gonna buy an ugly one you're gonna find one that looks nice to you and and then after that it's like okay it looks nice but is it terribly uncomfortable when i wear it and so on and so forth but yeah and honestly i i have found very few watches
Marco:
The big brands like Rolex, Amiga, there have been very few of those that I've seen that I've thought I would like that.
Marco:
For whatever reason, most well-respected mechanical watches, their design aesthetic just does not mesh with me at all.
Marco:
I don't get it.
Marco:
It doesn't do anything for me.
Marco:
a lot of them they seem like they're like made for like diving it's like i there's so many of these big of these like well-known mechanical watches that are just like made for like racing and diving and stuff like that or boats that are really made for that well but they all look like that made for people who would like to think of themselves as someone who might go racing or diving but never actually will
John:
right but then they have all this garbage all over the face uh all these and it's like i don't i don't want that like i want something that just like looks nice and simple it's like the non-functional hood scoop on cars everything has a car analogy of course like it's a hood scoop but it's not connected to anything it was like if you had something that needed you know to have fresh air forced into it that might make your engine more powerful you don't have one of those but we can put a hole in your hood anyway and you'll feel cool
Casey:
So the watch that I was referring to, the cheapo watch that you should get, is not the Speedmaster.
Casey:
I'm sure I'm going to get angry emails about that.
Casey:
It's the Timex Weekender.
Casey:
And I will put a link into the chat in the show notes.
Casey:
This is what I used to wear.
Casey:
Not this band, but it was the same face.
Casey:
This is what I used to wear before I got my Apple Watch.
Casey:
It's a delightful, simple, classic watch.
Marco:
Honestly, that's nice.
Marco:
I like that.
Casey:
Yeah, it's $25.
Marco:
I don't like the band.
Casey:
No, the band is terrible.
Casey:
I had a different band.
Marco:
But yeah, the face is nice.
Marco:
It's a nice watch.
Casey:
So you could try out your newfound love of something else that's expensive and frivolous with this $25 watch.
Casey:
But no, because it's Marco, you're going to get something expensive and frivolous.
John:
that's right all those big expensive watches especially like you said uh casey that like the style for men's fancy watches has just been to like to be like just giant hunks of metal like it's like i already find anything on my wrist uncomfortable and you're just gonna make it worse by just being filled with really heavy like hard jagged lumpy metal oh just
John:
just i can't can't even think about and and i have thin wrists and i have weird shape wrists and yeah watches are not for me i would sooner buy a pocket watch you know what i would buy a pocket watch shaped like the omni which is another reference you guys don't get i would buy that but i would not buy a regular watch
Casey:
I mean, we all have our vices, and I guess, Marco, you're in need of another one.
Casey:
Did you figure out headphones now?
Casey:
You figured out coffee.
Casey:
You figured out headphones.
Casey:
Now you need something else to work on?
John:
He's still on the hunt for headphones.
John:
Never satisfied.
John:
When a new one comes out, he always thinks there's a promise.
John:
Maybe this will be the one that is lighter than my other headphone, but also sounds as good, but has a better cord that doesn't flake out, but this, but that.
John:
It's like me and toasters.