Siri in a Can
Casey:
We're going to have this exact same conversation about the goddamn Mac Pro whenever that gets refreshed.
John:
We're going to have much more conversations.
John:
It's not going to be a new Mac Pro.
John:
It's just going to be a fancier iMac.
John:
It'll be a short conversation.
John:
It'll be fine.
John:
We'll buy one anyway, and that'll be that.
John:
I agree with most of what you just said, except it'll be a short conversation.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Thank you, Marco.
Casey:
Completely agree.
John:
It'll last a show or two.
John:
I'm just saying.
John:
It's not like we're going to be obsessing.
Casey:
A show or two.
Casey:
It'll last a month or two.
John:
Well, I guess what we'll do is we'll go back to talking about the Mac Pro and they're like, okay, fine.
John:
So they did this iMac thing, but now let's complain more about why they should actually do a real Mac Pro.
Casey:
Remember when they used to sell a professional computer 15 shows later?
Casey:
So I think we finally wrapped that up.
John:
But we won't be talking about the iMac.
John:
The iMac Pro we'll take care of in a show or two.
John:
That's true.
John:
And then one more show and we all get ours.
John:
But then mostly we'll go back to complaining about it.
John:
seriously you're not really making the mac pro anymore especially if they don't say they're not making and they keep selling the old one that'll be awesome they come up with the new iMac at WWDC and it's got a Zeon in it but they keep selling the old mac pro it'll be like what are you doing what is going through your head here's a question do you think on January 1st 2018 the 2013 mac pro will still be for sale
John:
no absolutely not i vote yes i i would if i had to pick i would vote no but it's not as big of a it's not as sure of a thing as i would hope it would be as i think about it you want to bet five bucks i'm not betting you any money i'm guessing january 1st 2018 it's still for sale
Casey:
I'll take your $5 bet.
Marco:
Yeah?
John:
All right.
John:
It's a deal.
John:
Because I think it's close.
John:
That's why it's an interesting bet.
John:
Because I think they'll introduce an iMac Pro, and they'll be like, and this is the replacement for the Mac Pro.
John:
That's how I think it will be positioned, and it will finally give them cover to can that stupid machine, to can the can.
Marco:
So my primary bet is that this is still for sale.
Marco:
The 2013 Trash Jam Mac Pro is still for sale on January 1st.
Marco:
My secondary bet, which I guess I probably won't put money on, but my secondary bet is that during the entire year of 2017...
Marco:
they won't actually address this issue publicly.
Marco:
They won't even say anything of substance about any kind of future pro desktop hardware.
Marco:
That basically, like, this year will come and go with no changes to the Mac Pro in either the product line or in announcements.
John:
But what if they make an iMac Pro, does that count as them saying something?
Marco:
I think only if they discontinue the Mac Pro.
John:
But what if they say, this is our new version for Pro hardware, blah, blah, blah, but then also keep selling it for the same reason they keep selling everything because somebody somewhere wants to buy it?
Marco:
Well, I'd still win the primary bet in that case.
Marco:
The secondary bet of whether they, like, have done this, I guess would depend on, like, it'd be a little bit vague.
Marco:
It'd be like, is it just, like, the same processor lines, like, you know, like the Intel, like, 6700K, whatever?
Marco:
If it has the word Pro in the name.
Marco:
It's clear what they're talking about.
Marco:
But if it's still pretty much an iMac, it would need a Xeon.
Marco:
And not an E3.
Marco:
The E3 does not count as a Xeon.
John:
Is there an 8-core non-Xeon Intel thing?
Marco:
No.
Marco:
In the future, I think Tipster said a while, but one of the various lakes, coffee or whatever, one of those, they're supposed to be a six-core variant in the series.
Marco:
But if there is like a, quote, iMac Pro, but it still has the same consumer processor line, that doesn't count to me.
Marco:
That's just an iMac.
Marco:
Because the iMac is fine.
Marco:
The iMac is great.
Marco:
I'm using one now.
Marco:
There's a lot of reasons to have an iMac.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
They can tack Pro on the end and sell it in space gray and charge more, but if it doesn't have a Xeon E5 in there, that's not a Mac Pro.
Casey:
We'll argue about it later, but I'm going to bed.
Casey:
You Mac Pro'd him out.
Casey:
That's it.
Casey:
Yep, I am tuckered out on the Mac Pro.
Casey:
It doesn't take much, to be fair.
Casey:
No, it doesn't.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
This is a long time ago, from what I can tell.
Casey:
So in Alan's defense, this UI was modern at the time.
Casey:
Looking at it now is mildly alarming.
Casey:
But there are things that are multi-window on the iPad that exist either in the past or today.
Casey:
So does that change how you feel about things in any way, shape, or form, John?
John:
no because everyone knows there's always things on the app store that violate guidelines like that's that's the whole point of the app store guidelines if you try to say if you try to do the little kid thing but why did my sister get to have a lollipop like it's just yes there are going to be applications that that somehow got by that didn't get flagged and yours gets flagged like your argument is always with with the rule system and not with like people who happen to have skated by i mean
John:
pick a guideline i guarantee you can find multiple applications on the app star that violate that guideline that's just the way it is but anyway i like seeing these examples of applications that actually shipped in this way and you know the world didn't come to an end and also apparently it was not a ui paradigm that was copied by lots of other applications so i'm not quite sure how successful it was but i like the idea that a few of them snuck through i like this better than the idea than uh of millions of apps that send you uh spam push notifications sneaking through quote unquote
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And then a friend of the show, Stephen Trouton-Smith, has put together a Swift Playground that will let you try the floating keyboard on an iPad.
Casey:
So you would use the Swift Playgrounds app on the iPad and run the code that he has put on GitHub, I believe.
Casey:
I intended to try this and then completely forgot about it.
Casey:
But anyway, you can download this, drop it in Swift Playgrounds, and give it a shot.
Casey:
Have either of you tried this?
Nope.
John:
yeah see i really wish i had but it slipped my mind john this is what they get for adding uh anything resembling a programming environment to ios because someone's like you know what you can do with a programming language you can write programs and you know what those programs do they execute on your device without going app review just as if i had uploaded them from xcode but i don't have to do that because i don't have xcode i just run this playgrounds file and so this is all of apple's worst fears coming true oh no selector swizzling and private apis what will happen nothing will happen that's the answer
John:
i suppose you could probably you think you could probably uh you know trigger a bug to you know i guess you could crash the app obviously but uh well crashing playgrounds may not be such an achievement but could you bring down the whole os by uh finding some kind of bug or doing something nasty to it anyway
John:
uh that's what programming is and this is this is a fun way for people to try it to see if this little keyboard is worth anything it's kind of weird because you'd want to use it with thumbs like you would on a phone but you can't reach it with both your thumbs on an ipad like that's the whole deal that it is a tiny little floating keyboard that you can move where you want it to where you want to put it so it can be out of the way and not take up so much screen space but you can't type on it with two thumbs
John:
uh there's no maybe if you put it in the corner i don't know there's no way to use it there's no way to use it like you use it on your phone although i know a lot of people myself included who frequently type with a single thumb on the on their phones you ever do that where you like your one hand is occupied and you're texting something with a single thumb it's i'm i'm okay at it yeah i wish i was the swipe keyboards i haven't used one in a while in fact i just took that keyboard off my phone because i use it so rarely but
Casey:
The swipe-style keyboards, and I think Google's keyboard, Gboard, or whatever it's called, supports this.
Casey:
The swipe-style keyboards are very good for one-handed use, but I find that I don't use it often enough that I just made it go away.
John:
I think I might have inappropriate thumb friction for a swipe keyboard because every time I try them, I can't find the right balance of enough pressure to be swiping correctly, but not too much pressure that I'm, like...
John:
rubbing my thumb against the like it just i i need to tap i'm i'm not a swiper i remember seeing demos of this keyboard like wow this is awesome look at that little line darting from key to key but then when it comes time for my big meaty thumb to do that there's it's it's hopeless so more power to you if it works for you but i cannot get the swiping to work for me oh my word i don't even know what to make about this all right we should just move on uh john can you tell us about apple and education
John:
Got a lot of feedback from people, basically people in education, people who are either teachers or school administrators or people who do IT in education.
John:
I tried to pull a few salient points out because a lot of people had, you know, very complicated detail stories about their one situation.
John:
But I'm trying to generalize here.
John:
So one theme I saw in a lot of the email was the recent, in recent years, push for one device per student, which was not a thing when any of us were in school.
John:
Like that, not just in the super rich schools, but then in all schools, the ideal is...
John:
when we're going to buy any kind of computing hardware for students, we want to have one for every single student, which was just not an option in our days because you'd have a computer lab and each classroom would have one iMac or two iMacs or something like that.
John:
One computer for every student.
John:
That wasn't really feasible when computers came with gigantic CRTs and took up a huge amount of room.
John:
But now that they're all really small and portable and cheaper...
John:
You can pull that off.
John:
So the one device per student accounts for an increase in overall volume of computing things that schools buy, which is good for Google in this case because they're selling most of them.
John:
We had one report of technology getting more funding than less sexy areas like music and arts, which are perennially underfunded because tech is sexy.
John:
I think one of you brought this up in the last show, like the idea that
John:
There's money to buy computery stuff because everyone agrees that computers are the future and our kids need computers.
John:
And like, I mean, obviously, they're the present now.
John:
But when we were kids, it was like, oh, everyone's going to learn computers because it's the future.
John:
And if we get computers in our school, everyone feels good about it, even though we're not entirely sure if these computers make education better in any possible way.
John:
But hey, at least kids will know computers.
John:
There's still some of that in there.
John:
And it's exciting for all the kids in your school to, you know, get iPads or get laptops or anything like that.
John:
um and we had a couple people uh tell us that although apple no longer makes education only models like uh the big ugly tooth and the uh the emac the emac and stuff like that they do have special configurations of existing devices uh that like you can't buy in the store but only available for education and they also do a thing where
John:
They continue to sell devices in education even after they're no longer for sale to consumers.
John:
I think the last time I remember them doing that in a big way was the iPad 2.
John:
It was like gone for everybody, but education can still buy it.
John:
So they're still trying to do what they can to give education...
John:
There's no real nice way to say this, but like the cheaper, crappier models, because every even the education only models, like how are they different from the regular ones?
John:
They were cheaper, which is important, but they were also crappier because how do you get them cheaper?
John:
You make them crappier.
John:
And it always struck me as like a weird bargain because.
John:
do you want to give a ram starved computer to a school is is a school the best equipped to wrangle a computer that is constantly running out of ram especially in the bad old days without it without even any virtual memory on on max or without a good virtual memory system anyway that's less of a concern these days but just to down spec so badly and then put those machines into an environment where
John:
the people available to like baby them and coax every ounce of performance out of them like it's not that they don't have time for that it's much better to give them a computer that sort of works without anyone having to mess with it and if you decontent a computer to use car parlance that's a bad situation but that's what they want they want it to be as cheap as possible so apple will wouldn't make them
John:
very cheap models and now apple will keep selling you devices long after no person should ever be using them but i guess schools will i mean again i look at like the laptop cart in my kids elementary school filled with ice books how old are those how old is that you know the white plastic ibook that's an old machine like it was a great machine when it was available and apparently it was good for education because they aren't all dead right i don't know how sturdy i mean i'm assuming they're all like terribly yellowed and stained and gross from you know kids touching them because it was plastic but
John:
You know, computers last as long as until they break, because why would you get rid of them?
John:
And they could just continue to try to find something useful to do with them.
John:
And on that front, by the way, in terms of tech funding and everything, I live in a place full of rich people.
John:
And we have high taxes and we vote ourselves.
John:
We have like the laws in the books that say we can't raise taxes more than X percent per year.
John:
And every year they have a vote to say, if you really want to raise taxes on yourself, vote for this.
John:
And every year we vote for it to like to bypass the thing, to raise our taxes even more.
John:
And despite all that,
John:
Our public schools, you go into them and, you know, from the standards of my own childhood, they are woefully underfunded in every single aspect, large class sizes, facilities all falling apart.
John:
And the vast majority of the computing technology that arrives in the school on a yearly basis is paid for entirely out of the pocket of parents giving money to the school, like voluntarily themselves, just funding like that.
John:
So that's more that says more about the state of education.
John:
public education funding in our country than it does about things in tech.
John:
But it's comparing it to my childhood when there was like a computer lab with a small number of computers and like my kids experience in school where there are more computers, but that all of them had to be bought by their rich parents of the students who go to the school.
John:
It certainly doesn't seem like we are in an age where it is accepted that schools will have like one device per student.
John:
Everyone will have at least an elementary school will have computers for everyone available.
John:
It's like, oh, you'll have computers if you live in a place where all the parents have enough disposable income to each give hundreds of dollars to the school each year.
John:
It's the same way we got a new playground, by the way.
John:
Oh, collect money from all the rich parents.
John:
And, you know, we're glad to do it because our kids are going there and we have the money and we pay for it.
John:
But it seems like the wrong way to fund public education.
John:
Anyway, that's really off topic.
Casey:
It's funny.
Casey:
I probably have told the story once before, but to just reiterate how terrible public education is, even in relatively affluent areas.
Casey:
I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut, which at the time, because of other areas of the county, was, I believe, the most affluent county in the entire country.
Casey:
I lived in a very unremarkable part of it, so it was not quite the same for me, but certainly it was a fairly homogeneous, relatively affluent area.
Casey:
And every year, probably about three quarters of the way through the year, our copier paper, our Xerox paper, was perforated in a very weird way.
Casey:
And curiously, every single page we got said Danbury Hospital Radiology Department on the bottom of it.
Casey:
And that's because the only way we could have copier paper, the only way we could afford it is if the local hospital donated it to us.
Casey:
And it was, I guess, their leftover that they had perforated in a particular way for their particular use.
Casey:
But we just rolled with it because what other choice did we have?
Casey:
And unlike you guys, who are, I guess, better than we were at the time, we would beg to raise taxes just the teeniest, littlest bit to give the schools a little breathing room.
Casey:
And every time it was shut down, and even as a kid, it drove me bananas.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
Marco, you're only like a year away from dealing with this, right?
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, kindergarten starts this fall for our kid, so here we go.
John:
For preschool or for daycare, probably not because that's privately funded, but kindergarten, to see if this is a nationwide thing or just in certain areas, I was surprised when I first could enter kindergarten that one of the things that teachers would ask for is...
John:
paper towels and tissues and things like that that seem like staples of the classroom like hey parents like when i was a kid when the teachers asked the parents for anything it was hey parents have your kids bring in some canned food for a food drive for the needy right instead my experience with my own children it's hey parents please bring in boxes of tissues because if you don't there will be no tissues in the classroom because we have no money for them
John:
which is like seriously like these are not frills that's still a thing like oh we want to buy a fancy new iMac every year it's like we need literal tissues for kids with boogery noses in kindergarten and there is no money to pay for them like we can we can put a building that keeps the rain out and we can keep the temperature vaguely within human habitable range but beyond that you know you're on your own so it's time to everyone to pitch in and make sure that we have uh tissues and paper towels for kids in the class
Marco:
Yeah, teachers still buy a lot more than most people know or expect.
Marco:
Teachers still buy these kind of supplies out of their own pocket.
Marco:
It's kind of horrible.
Marco:
Teachers all know this, and families of teachers all know this, but most people don't, and it's kind of sad and
Marco:
Because it's not like teachers are paid a lot to begin with.
Marco:
So you have these jobs that are already not paid what they're worth.
Marco:
And then you have the teachers having to buy basic supplies for their classroom out of their own pockets.
Marco:
That seems so incredibly wrong to me.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
For those that don't know, Erin was a high school teacher in a reasonably affluent area of Richmond until she had Declan.
Casey:
And it was expected that at all grade levels, every single teacher, and so this is every high school teacher you have, will send home a list.
Casey:
And there was a term for it.
Casey:
And for the life of me, I can't remember what the name of it was.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
They would send home a list of supplies that every student was expected to get.
Casey:
So every student was expected to bring Aaron like one pack of tissues and one set of like whiteboard markers because they didn't have blackboards.
Casey:
They had whiteboards and like a handful of other things.
Casey:
And this was not unusual.
Casey:
This was expected.
Casey:
And our schools, as far as I can tell, are reasonably well funded.
Casey:
I mean, it's not the utter disaster that is happening in many, many, many parts of the country.
Casey:
There's so big a discrepancy between what teachers need and what teachers can provide and what the schools can provide that they would have the parents bring all this stuff in too.
Casey:
It was totally bananas, but it's what they had to do.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Casey:
There was a video that came out, I don't know, at this point, it was probably almost a month ago, maybe it was a couple weeks ago at the very least.
Marco:
ATP, bringing you cutting-edge news.
Casey:
As we always do.
Casey:
And this is at apple.com slash iOS slash home.
Casey:
There'll be a link in the show notes.
Casey:
And this is the HomeKit-like...
Casey:
demo promo commercially video thing.
Casey:
And I watched it once when it first came out and I haven't seen it since, but the general gist of it was there's a young woman who wakes up and, and has her breakfast, which is all automated and leaves the house, which is all automated.
Casey:
And then eventually comes home, which is all automated and watches a movie, which is all automated and reads in bed, which is I guess reading in bed and then turns off her lights, which is automated.
Casey:
And it's all amazing and perfect in every way.
Casey:
And as someone who doesn't really do any of the robots in a cylinder sort of thing, this looked pretty impressive to me.
Casey:
It looked cool.
Casey:
I can't say that I have the faith.
Casey:
I mean, I don't know where I would even get a HomeKit powered thing.
Casey:
As far as I'm concerned, they're still all but vaporware.
Casey:
But apparently they exist because they're all in this lady's house.
Casey:
So I don't know.
Casey:
There's been a little bit of chatter about this.
Casey:
Do you want to tell us about it, John?
John:
This is a tweet from Scott McNulty on Twitter.
John:
I'm not sure if he has all these devices.
John:
I know he's got a million Kindles, but I'm not sure if he has all this other stuff.
John:
But anyway, he's tweeting about this new website that Apple has to promote, HomeKit.
John:
It was a nice website, but the film just showcases to me how much easier it is to tell Alexa to do all the same things.
John:
Because the video shows, for the most part, the person touching big rounded rectangles on iOS devices, whether they be iPads or phone, to do things.
John:
hey good morning at the very beginning speaking to your phone that's on your nightstand and having it set your thing up for the morning and also later speaking directly into the tiny horrible apple tv remote to say okay it's movie time to start a movie although i'm not quite sure what it does if you just say it's movie time does it pick a random movie anyway um those those are both examples of speaking good morning it's 9 27 p.m
John:
what i knew i shouldn't have activated that thing that i just said but i did activate it on my phone i have never had a hoi telephone enabled until very very recently uh and now i'm going to try and
John:
this is all stayed in by the way this is totally stayed in anyway why do you turn that on i turned it on to see if i turned it on to as an aside i turned it on like a week or so ago because i'm like look everyone else has this on on their phone and i've had it all exactly for exactly the reason you would think you would have it off because i never wanted to accidentally activate but very frequently this gets to the point of this thing um i have a cylinder that listens to me in my home now
John:
and i like the idea that i can just say things into the air and i'm like you know what maybe that kind of relationship with my phone is just there waiting for me and i've been too stubborn by keeping this feature off since it was introduced and like literally never turning it on never even trying it because it just sounded awful to me so i should really give it a chance and in this week or two that i've had it on i have used it consciously about once and now i have triggered it accidentally once that's the first time i've ever accidentally triggered it because what occasion do i have to say that with my phone nearby um
John:
But for this video, speaking not to the air, but to a device that you know is nearby, whether it's a remote in your hand or a phone on your nightstand, is to me...
John:
different than just yelling into the air not yelling or just speaking into the air the way you do with the cylinders and all the other things that are in this video and of all like a lot of using the home kit thing on on control center the third screen over whatever the hell it is maybe it's the second i don't know um and pressing those rectangles to say i'm here i'm doing this i want to do that change to this mode we're just fine like it's good to have buttons for all this stuff
John:
But like Scott McDulty says in his tweet, anybody who has cylinders that listen to you when you talk in the air, like, that is the killer feature.
John:
To be able to just stroll around and just say something and have it do things.
John:
Whether it's asking it to set a timer, or asking it what the weather's gonna be tomorrow, or telling it to turn lights on or off, or whatever phrases you enter into the thing.
John:
Like, just getting used to being able to say that.
John:
And even for our thing, like, the stupid stuff of asking it how to spell things and multiply and divide numbers, like...
John:
or or define things or say something in a particular language i don't have to wonder is my phone in this room uh will it hear me from that distance will i be able to hear it uh you know or if multiple phones in the room and they all have that feature whose name i'm not going to say activated on it will they all wake up and start trying to answer at the same time and everything like that the cylinders simplify all of this
John:
And so this video, I kind of feel the same way.
John:
This video basically says, hey, we at Apple have home automation.
John:
It's massively less convenient than the cylinders you talk to, but it exists.
John:
And if you like tapping buttons, boys, it's a thing for you.
John:
And I feel like they're really missing the boat on this type of home automation.
John:
And it makes me think, once again, that as silly as these little cylinders are, everyone who gets one...
John:
ends up liking it for something like they they end up liking it more than they thought they would because it certainly seems pretty dumb and even if they only use one tiny corner of the functionality that tiny corner functionality becomes an important part of their life and that i think shows a successful product so i think apple not having something like this
John:
For such a long time, either because they're coming up with the super duper uber awesome one that's going to be way better than everybody else's and cost twice as much, or because they just think it's a dumb idea, I think they're missing the boat.
John:
And this website is like a giant advertisement for them missing the boat.
Marco:
Yeah, because as more people get these devices too, timing to the market is kind of important here.
Marco:
There is a significant first mover advantage because once you have a couple of these cylinders in your house from one of the brands that sells them, if Apple's comes out and is just a little bit better, no one's going to buy it.
Marco:
It has to be massively better to get people who have already bought into these systems to convert over.
Marco:
And right now, I have the Amazon ecosystem.
Marco:
I have a short cylinder in my office and a tall cylinder in the kitchen.
Marco:
And when the Google Home came out,
Marco:
i you know i heard what most people said about and i i was initially interested uh but then once everyone once all the reviews came out and basically said like yeah it's fine it's just about as good as the amazon echo it's not you know massively better or worse uh it's about the same uh better in some ways worse than others but about the same overall uh then i immediately lost any interest in ever trying it because i thought well you know
Marco:
I already have one.
Marco:
It's all set up.
Marco:
I have all my integration set up.
Marco:
I'm habituated to saying its commands and using it to control stuff in my house and play music and stuff.
Marco:
So why would I switch if the other thing is not massively better?
Marco:
And so if Apple comes out with their version of the Amazon Echo or Google Home or whatever else, and it's Siri in a can, then it has to be way, way better for me to care and for anyone who's bought any of these devices to care.
Marco:
And I think the chances of that are just not that great.
Marco:
Seeing how Siri actually is and has been today in the competitive landscape and seeing Apple's recent accessory hardware in the $200 range, like the Apple TV or them killing the airport base stations.
Marco:
Seeing their efforts in this kind of area recently, it just doesn't fill me with confidence that...
Marco:
if they do one of these things, that it's going to be massively better than what we already have.
Marco:
So it's probably just going to be roughly the same, if not worse.
Marco:
And as you said, twice as expensive, probably.
Marco:
So I don't really see that going anywhere.
Marco:
I think the typical Apple, the pattern of sitting back and kind of waiting until everyone has like version two and then rolling out the amazing Apple one,
Marco:
that might not work here.
Marco:
I think that might just be more like what we see with the Apple TV, which is some people buy it, you know, the really devoted Apple fans buy it, but it doesn't have mass market success because it's just, you know, more expensive than everything else, but not better enough and possibly even not better.
John:
The one thing by all accounts that Apple is doing better than its competitors is security.
John:
Like being very careful about who they partner with and having very strict requirements on security and privacy.
John:
Surely they are better on privacy than Google and Amazon are.
John:
Although there was that case where some law enforcement agency was trying to subpoena audio recordings from Amazon Echo or something.
John:
And Amazon, I think this was Amazon, did fight them on it and said, no, you can't have our stuff.
John:
And they're trying to like get...
John:
get that audio classified in a way that it makes it not available without a warrant and all these other things, right?
John:
But there are a lot of security implications to all these devices, which at this point you just have to accept that you are compromising security in some way by using any of these things.
John:
And Apple with HomeKit seems to be trying to avoid silly situations where a vendor integrates with you and does something...
John:
extremely lax when it comes to security and, you know, has some obvious flaw that either makes devices in your houses into botnets or into spy devices and stuff like that.
John:
And that's good, like good in general with Apple tends to be good on security and privacy.
John:
But so far,
John:
consumers have shown no willingness to value privacy in their purchase decisions like that is not a differentiating not enough of a differentiating factor uh you know even even in the phone space like apple is is very good on privacy and security with its phones but i don't think that's why people are buying iphones like they're buying them because they like iphones and it's a nice to have and it's a perk or whatever but
John:
like people are voting with their wallets by buying you name it light bulbs televisions cylinders that you talk to with terrible security and privacy that like literally intentionally spy on you and record everything you say and do and then sell it to people and everyone's like oh well whatever tv works looks nice
John:
you know like so it's not that that's how the market is working right now and what can you do if people don't value don't value it do we need to change something for people to value it do we need a new generation of people in the aftermath of some terrible privacy related thing to uh deal with this are we are we just happy to leave it to the legal system to say like well people get hacked and hacking is illegal and if it happens you know someone will stop them someone someone but blah blah blah
John:
big sky theory no one cares about what i'm doing anyway so i'll just buy this vizio tv and get spied on or whatever it is you know um and it's true it's true of the google cylinder that i have it's probably true of the amazon ones and it's you know we we accept it for the trade-offs even marco uh famous paranoid uh privacy advocate who won't put pre-compiled binaries into his application is willing to trade a devices in his house constantly recording him for the convenience of saying something and have his lights go out at night
Marco:
Well, and to be fair, I'm risking my own personal privacy with that one.
Marco:
And then, you know, it's very different from risking the privacy of my entire customer base of my app.
John:
You're trading the thing that you can't trade, but it seems like a fair trade to you.
John:
You're like, well, no one really cares about me and whatever.
John:
And I get this convenience and you weigh them and you're like, well, convenience wins in this case, right?
Casey:
You know, I don't have any of these devices in the house, like I said earlier, and I've only interacted with them a couple of times, and I don't think I get it.
Casey:
Like, it's neat, I suppose, but I don't know.
Casey:
I don't...
Casey:
This is like the old man portion of the show, and I'm surprised it took us this long to get here, but I don't really see how getting up and walking a few paces to turn a letter is so terrible.
Casey:
I know that makes me an old man.
Casey:
I know that makes me backwards and ridiculous.
Casey:
I understand that.
John:
You can't write a letter on a piece of paper and walk into the mailbox.
John:
Is the mailbox too far away?
John:
You got to have those electronic messages?
John:
I completely agree with you.
Casey:
And if the roles were reversed, I would be saying the exact same thing to you.
Casey:
I know I say this a lot, and I'm always wrong, and so I'm sure this is another time, but this fills a need that I don't feel like I have.
Casey:
Fast forward to six months from now, I'm going to have probably an Amazon cylinder, a Google cylinder, and maybe even an Apple cylinder, and I'll love all of them in their own special way.
Casey:
They'll be my children at that point.
Casey:
But sitting here now, there's no integration.
Casey:
There's no...
Casey:
thing that i that i can see today that makes me want one of them and and i bet you anything if if one showed up at the house i would end up loving it but it's just it's even this video i i watched it and thought well yeah that's cool but i i don't it's not it's solving problems i don't think i have
John:
It's like any of those things where you don't know you have the need until you have it.
John:
And it's not going to be like a life-changing thing like the iPhone was.
John:
But I feel like everyone who has one, like we use ours less than I thought I would because basically I was betting on Google making their product better faster than they actually are.
John:
So, oh well, better me.
Marco:
If only you had friends who told you beforehand to pick the other one.
John:
I don't think I would use the other one anymore because I think it's basically a watch at this point.
John:
But anyway, here's...
John:
Because it is really good at the things that it does do.
John:
But eventually, once you realize these things are there and start to get into the mindset, what was it?
John:
Ours is within earshot when we sit down to dinner.
John:
And we're sitting down at dinner trying to think of...
John:
talking about some songs that someone heard and because i subscribe to google play music another reason by the way that i wouldn't want an apple one is that i would it would make me have to subscribe to apple music to do what i'm about to describe we're having some discussion about a song and i can just say into the air i can just request into the air for that song to be played almost any song to be played and it just starts playing it
John:
Because we were having a discussion of what the lyrics were and how it sounds and the kids wanted to hear it.
John:
And no one has to get up from the table or pull out their phone and try to search for the song.
John:
I just say something into the air before you can even get your phone out of your pocket and the song is playing.
John:
And that is a weird future world thing that I think is awesome.
John:
And is it a big deal?
John:
And is it a need?
John:
No, it's not.
John:
But for the $110 or whatever I paid for the stupid cylinder to be able to say words into the air and have the song that I requested play immediately, I think that's worth the price of entry.
John:
uh even if i only do that once every week and a half and the rest of the time my kids are just asking how to say things in foreign languages like this is all this is all bonus now it's not again not a life-changing thing but once you get used to the idea that something is constantly listening in your house and can conceivably do things that you find useful
John:
It's hard to go back to the idea that nothing is listening and you have to actually pick something up and hit it with your fingers because there is a big difference in how it feels to do something.
John:
It's kind of like the difference between how it feels to pull out your phone and look something up versus how it would feel to get in your car and drive to the library and look something up.
John:
And now this is, you know, that's interesting.
John:
it's like uh you know it's an exponential type thing where like obviously the library on is way longer than the looking at the phone but now like how much how much longer is uh saying something into the air to your phone it's probably like a couple seconds a couple minutes but man it feels it feels so different and you just can't go back to the other way and if you wanted to go full home automation everything and hook stuff up to it and do all stuff like that
John:
i feel like you're starting to get into tech gadget land at that point but but that can be awesome too especially if it's like a hobby to have a house where you can just say things and have it do stuff and work with your rhythms um there's i i think these devices can be enjoyed at many levels and as we said last time we discussed this most importantly they're all freaking cheap in the grand scheme of things like
John:
they're not three dollars but they're also not two thousand dollars like a new macbook right you can get one of these you can buy all of these you can put them what is the dot one what is the short cylinder marco it's like it's like 40 bucks 40 bucks yeah it's really cheap you can get one of these things you know on a whim just to see if you might like it and throw it somewhere and if you never use it you're like oh well it's 40 dollars it's like a nice meal for one person like whatever
Marco:
To answer your earlier question, Case, you don't see why it would be a big deal to have faster light switches or something.
Marco:
The answer is that there's one thing that gets most owners in the door.
Marco:
And for most people I've talked to and been around and seen BeConverted, including myself, that one thing is music.
Marco:
It's like what John said.
Marco:
It really is awesome to be able to just say, Alexa, play Phish.
Marco:
And have that just work for all of our listeners.
Casey:
You did that on purpose, you terrible, terrible troll.
Marco:
Not the first time.
Marco:
And you can say, hey, Cylinder, play rock music from the 90s.
Marco:
It's just really, really nice.
Marco:
to have that like there's a reason why like places like Sonos are having trouble now like anything that is involved in the high end audio scene for tech geeks that is not voice controlled is having problems right now because it's once once you get into the voice control music
Marco:
It is so awesome.
Marco:
Especially if you're having friends over for dinner or something else and you just have it playing and anybody can just say next song or pause or volume up or whatever else.
Marco:
Or people can call out their own requests.
Marco:
It's fun.
Marco:
It becomes a pretty cool thing.
Marco:
The Echo is not a great speaker.
Marco:
It's only an okay speaker.
Marco:
Literally, like in my house, it is sitting right next to a Sonos speaker that is way, way better sounding.
Marco:
And the Sonos speaker almost never gets used anymore because it is just so much more convenient to use the Echo for music purposes.
Marco:
And so anyway, what gets someone in is usually one cool thing that they see or hear about and they're like, oh my god, I want it for that.
Marco:
But then once you already have the cylinder in your house and set up and everything, then when Black Friday comes around and the switchable outlets go on sale for like $20, you're like, hey, let me try one of those.
Marco:
And then you try one and you're like, oh, that ends up like there's that one lamp.
Marco:
It's the total other side of the room and I turn it off every night and every night I have to walk over there and turn it off.
Marco:
And what if I didn't have to walk over there?
Marco:
I'd save like five seconds a night and that could add up.
Marco:
And then next time they're on sale, you get three or four more of them because you realize how useful they are.
Marco:
And then all of a sudden, you can say, turn off everything and all of your lights turn off.
Marco:
And when you're going up to bed and you have a glass of water in one hand and maybe some laundry or a dog in the other hand, and you don't have any hands to go hit all the light switches before you go upstairs, you can just say, hey, turn off everything.
Marco:
And five things turn off at once and you just walk upstairs.
Marco:
and it becomes pretty cool and so it's that's how you get into this it's it is not that you can't walk over and hit a light switch but once you have one of these technologies for some other reason like music then it's and you know as all the like you know home automation things just start getting really cheaper you know like you know you can when you can go on go and get these switchable outs for like 20 bucks or whatever or or you can have other integration through web services through like if to and various services like that and
Marco:
you know warm up your car or you can you casey you have your garage door thing you can like open and close your garage door by voice like once you are in the system for some other compelling reason like music you will start having these other things trickle in and you'll be like wait a minute this is kind of awesome and none of it's necessary like you could operate your house without these things
Marco:
But once you have a taste of this, it's just really nice.
Marco:
Again, it's not a must-have.
Marco:
We can all send letters to the post office if we want to.
Marco:
But once you have something nicer, it is pretty great.
Casey:
Yeah, it's funny you bring up, both of you bring up the music thing, because when I tried Apple Music during the free trial when it first came out, the one thing I deeply missed about Apple Music was being able to say to Siri, you know, play MuteMath or whatever the case may be and just have it happen.
Casey:
And that was super cool.
Casey:
And it was almost enough to get me to pay for Apple Music rather than Spotify, which I prefer for reasons that are irrelevant.
Casey:
But all the other things that I preferred about Spotify were enough to keep me away from Apple Music.
Casey:
And I guess that's the difference is with the garage door opener as an example, I immediately understood why having an internet connected garage door opener could work.
Casey:
immediately improve or improve maybe a strong word but but i can't think of a better one improve my life whereas the cylinders i don't doubt that they would make things better in all the ways you described but there's less of a visceral tangible need that i can see sitting here now and i'm sure the time will come that i will get one and i'm sure i'll be on this show saying by god what was i thinking of course i wanted this but uh sitting here now ignorance is less
John:
Wow.
John:
You know, it does take some time to actually figure out what you think is going to be good for after you just play with it and find the limits of the thing.
John:
And I think it really is situational.
John:
It's not as if you have to, like, every day I'm going to do this thing and I'm going to use this thing to do the thing, like getting a new device into your life and incorporating it into some task you have to do.
John:
For me, that's not my experience of having this thing.
John:
It's more like...
John:
developing an awareness that this thing is there so that when a need comes up that you reflexively satisfy in other ways, eventually you come to remember, I don't have to do that.
John:
I can just say this question into the air and get an answer.
John:
Even if it's like dividing two numbers or converting like teaspoons into cups or whatever, like...
John:
All those things are things I've done my whole life.
John:
And you're like, oh, I don't remember the convergence.
John:
Let me check or whatever.
John:
And you can always pick up your phone or ask someone in the house who you think knows the conversion or all these other ways you have to solve this problem.
John:
Eventually, the most important thing you need to have is...
John:
You know, a deep grain instinctive awareness that I can say this thing into the air and get an answer.
John:
Right.
John:
And that's the hardest part, because you will find yourself pulling out your phone and typing into Google, you know, how many teaspoons in a cup.
John:
And you'll do that and maybe do that without even realizing you could have just asked that question.
John:
But eventually it sinks in.
John:
It sinks in after some incidents of, like, arguing about the lyrics to the song over dinner and realizing we can settle this in 30 seconds.
John:
I can just request that song by title.
John:
It will immediately start playing and we can all listen to it together, right?
John:
Or not remembering who, you know, what year someone was born or what album this thing was on or whatever.
John:
Like...
John:
We can all take out our phones and look it up.
John:
We all know how to do that.
John:
It's like you could do that or you could just like put a little trigger phrase that I'm not going to say in front of that same question you were just asking each other and instantly get some kind of answer.
John:
And it can go too far where, you know, we have the recent rash of the Google.
John:
What is it?
John:
The Google answer thing where it tries to answer the question definitively at the top of search results and it just throws out bogus stuff that has no foundation in truth.
John:
Right.
John:
And all these devices, again, there are security concerns and privacy concerns and everything.
John:
But.
John:
it is a glimpse of the as yet unperfected unrealized future and like all gadget tech geeks we all like to sort of see what that future is going to be like and try living it even if it is pretty rough at this point just because we think there's value in it and whatever form it takes in the future i think this type of interface has proved its worth that it has to be part of
John:
the various ways we interact with technology and networks, right?
John:
All the other ones have proved their worth and they're not going to go away and be completely replaced with this.
John:
But this I feel like has definitively proved its worth.
John:
It's just a question of how it fits in with all the other ways that we, you know, use computing devices and connect networks and stuff.
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Casey:
So YouTube also, almost a month ago now, has announced YouTube TV, which means for $35 a month, subscribers get all four major networks, ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, and around 30 of the biggest cable channels.
Casey:
And that price covers six accounts, so each member of the house can have a personalized account that offers recommendations tuned to their taste.
Casey:
I'm reading mostly from The Verge's coverage of this.
Casey:
It will be missing channels from Viacom, including big names like Comedy Central and MTV.
Casey:
It also won't have programming from Turner, which means you won't get CNN, TV, STNT, AMC, Discovery and A&E.
Casey:
But this as someone who is not really looking to cut the cord, this does sound pretty compelling to me.
Casey:
I don't really have a good feel for what the landscape is for cord cutters because I'm not even really considering it at the moment.
Casey:
But this sounds really good.
Casey:
Marco, I know you're not really that into broadcast TV, but I believe you've cut the cord.
Casey:
So are you interested in this at all?
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, the last time I had cable was about 10 years ago.
Marco:
And I don't say that's to super brag in the hipster way possible, just a fact.
Marco:
Since then, I've gotten into the habit of just not having these TV channels.
Marco:
I do...
Marco:
get and buy TV content in other ways, like through iTunes and stuff.
Marco:
Although, honestly, I cannot leave Apple TV purchasing fast enough.
Marco:
As Top Chef wrapped up on one more season...
Marco:
I still can't believe how bad buying TV series on Apple TV is and then watching them and all the different things that don't work or that work poorly or that actually spoil the show, like the auto-generated thumbnails of The Last Chance Kitchen.
Marco:
But I've kind of gotten into the world now of not having cable.
Marco:
And so to buy access to all these channels, to me...
Marco:
it doesn't really sound that appealing because I kind of don't need them anymore or I've trained myself not to have them anymore.
Marco:
So the idea of buying access to all these things so I can watch broadcast TV and sports, not with a bunch of asterisks and stuff like that, it is advertising a collection of services that I have gone without for 10 years.
Marco:
This is not something I really am that excited about for myself.
Marco:
I do think it is a good idea for people who have been maintaining a cable subscription all this time for one of these things or for multiple of these things.
Marco:
Lots of people have... For example, sports fans.
Marco:
A lot of sports fans or people who just like to watch live news or who like to watch some shows that are on one of these networks that just aren't available easily or affordably elsewhere online, at least legally...
Marco:
So for those people, this is a good idea.
Marco:
It seems like a pretty reasonable price, $35 a month for all this stuff.
Marco:
Now, I'm curious, what form does this take?
Marco:
Is it like just a TV stream and therefore you have to skip commercials and crap?
Marco:
Or is it more like on-demand where you just pick what you want to watch and there's no commercials?
Casey:
I'm not sure.
Casey:
The way I read this was it's that it would basically exist within YouTube, but I could have that dreadfully wrong.
Casey:
I'm not entirely sure.
Marco:
Yeah, because like they make mention of things like a DVR style recording with unlimited storage space in Google's cloud and the ability to skip over ads.
Marco:
So that kind of sounds like it's more like watching a broadcast and you just, you know, it's kind of like a broadcast with DVR style controls, but you'd still have to like fast forward through the ads.
John:
so it's kind of weird to see youtube as the company sort of uh i don't know if they're very first out of the gate but one of the first of the big names to do what everyone's been referring to was uh this is the skinny bundle thing where it's a subset of the stuff that you can buy in cable with the idea that people who pay for cable nobody wants all those channels like everyone just wants a subset of it so if we could sell you a subset of it for a cheaper price uh
John:
um then that would be a more desirable product for you and we could get you onto our platform and stop you paying for cable or stop you paying for cable stop you paying for television programming for cable because once again the whole cord cutter thing makes about as much sense as debating which parts of a game engine are done in software and in hardware doesn't really mean anything when you look at the phrasing because oh i'm cutting the cord i'm going to get all my video content over a cable that comes to my house that delivers data but it doesn't count because it's internet and not cable television
John:
and oh it's you know totally different thing anyway um comcast would still sell you your internet access or verizon or whoever sell your internet access but you were just like no thanks i don't want to pay for your cable television bundle i just want the internet i'll pay you for that and then over the internet i will get things like youtube tv but anyway it's ironic that youtube is doing it because as far as my children are concerned youtube is television
John:
They barely watch television anymore.
John:
They watch YouTube on their iOS devices because that's what they have.
John:
If they didn't, they were watching anything else.
John:
Television, like I don't think they know what ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC are.
John:
I don't think they recognize those sequence of three letters.
John:
We put them in sequence and say, what are these three letters?
John:
they would not be able to identify they have no idea like they watch they watch enough television they sure have seen enough television shows in their life but their entire interface of television a is through my tivo so there is no you know again trying to trying to explain to them or young children the concept of live television is extremely difficult the the task of modern parenting right to explain to your to your toddler what live television is and why you can't like
John:
fast forward or pause or anything like that like no this is happening now this is live like or we can't watch this because it hasn't aired yet like it's going to come on at seven it's like what are you even saying dad i don't understand like i don't understand these words like and they're like no dad let me explain it to you you just go like this and you tap over here and but just why isn't it working i think it's broken i'm like no it hasn't hasn't aired yet it's it's difficult anyway this is a difficult thing to explain right
John:
So YouTube, it seems, has the future locked up, and yet they are the ones out of the gate to say, we're going to try to get the olds by giving them something that makes them feel more comfortable, and you pay us $35 a month, and we will resell you this content with a nice kind of interface that makes it look like you have a TiVo, but you don't.
John:
And, you know, some fashion of on-demand type stuff and also with, you know, ad skipping and so on and so forth.
John:
But like all these deals, like the reason it has always been said that Apple hasn't had this deal, hasn't had a deal like this despite them pursuing it for many years now is that they could never...
John:
they can never get you know presumably according to apple satisfaction an arrangement of content and price that they that apple like that apple said yes that's what we want to go to market with so they've come to market with nothing and all these things if you look at them it's like oh well you got all this stuff we don't have all that stuff is that is this the right price and the combination of content like if you got this and you'd be like i'm gonna replace cable and then you just realize like i'm trying to think of a show that's on amc
John:
like madman used to be what's on amc now um how the americans is the americans fx anyway if if you get this and you're like this will be just like cable we can just pick the channels we want but you realize you can't get some of these things at any price oh uh the walking dead is on amc uh better call saul um you realize you can't get them at any price that can be a deal breaker if you know it's like well i guess we'll just stick with cable because cable despite the fact that cable is making you pay like you know three dollars a month for espn that you never watch or whatever the hell the number is these days
John:
you have access to everything, essentially.
John:
Because cable is a mature industry, and everything is resold through cable subscriptions, and if you're willing to pay enough money, you can get everything.
John:
To get a skinny bundle, like, okay, well, I'll skinny bundle for this, and then I will just...
John:
pay on itunes for the walking dead the day after it comes out or i'll watch game of thrones on hbo go or now and hope that it doesn't get overwhelmed by people and like that's the other thing with these skinny bundles you can be really sad if game of thrones premieres and you can't watch it because of some networking thing whereas if you had cable it would have quote unquote just worked right because it's broadcast versus you know uh database television which has all the problems of any uh you know database solution um
John:
So I don't know if they're striking the right balance.
John:
And honestly, I think YouTube shouldn't care that much if they're striking the right balance because they sure as heck seem to be the future of television as far as any of my children are concerned.
John:
And honestly, I'm watching more YouTube than I used to.
John:
Yeah, same here.
John:
As in subscribing to channels and looking for content to come on them.
John:
so they i think this is a good move for youtube it's like we are already at the forefront of this new thing and you know we can scrape up some of those old things and they're not so picky about oh we can't we can't go to market with this skinny bundle because not enough people will buy it because it doesn't have cnn and tbs like or a and e and amc or whatever like
John:
They're just like, whatever, we'll go for it.
John:
We'll see how it goes.
John:
If it doesn't, whatever, we're the future.
John:
We'll be fine.
John:
Whereas Apple is still waiting for this beautiful, perfect deal that has extremely low prices and the right amount of control for Apple and can provide the right experience.
John:
And so they just have nothing.
John:
They just have nothing to offer.
John:
They have this TV app that looks like it's a ghost town.
John:
And you can kind of see a glimmer of what it was supposed to be.
John:
But what it is now is nothing compared to YouTube, nothing compared to YouTube TV.
John:
So...
John:
apple is is not doing well here and netflix and amazon and youtube definitely seem to be the future of video content for an entire generation of people whether they be you know young children or millennials or whatever who just accept that you know the content they want probably isn't on tv unless it's you know live news or sports stuff like that and even even that like those will be the last ones to come over but
John:
the future looks dim for the old model of television in all aspects and these skinny bundles entirely seem like a a transitional thing to get people over the hump to the to the new system um and the more of them that are out there the more people they'll pull over and like marco eventually like once you do it and realize the world doesn't come to an end and you just get used to that kind of lifestyle and accept whatever the limitations may be during the transitional period it's hard to go back like you rarely hear about people
John:
who cut the cord, try it for a year, and then immediately go back.
John:
I mean, maybe they do if there's a disagreement in the House about how important local live sports are and a misprediction of what a blackout would really mean to your life.
John:
But beyond that, I feel like the people who...
John:
unsubscribe from cable television especially in tech nerd circles they find alternate uh arrangements and are are happy with it eventually like that it's that it is a successful transition it's kind of like the people by the cylinders you're not quite sure what's going to work out but you get it and in the end it's better than you thought it would be
Marco:
One thing that is somewhat appealing to me about these new digital-based services, though, is that there's no equipment and you could probably pretty easily start and stop your service.
Marco:
In the past, if there was a big event of some kind, like watching a presidential election return or a really important news event or a really important TV show that I was super into that I couldn't get any other way...
Marco:
It would be kind of a bummer to not have cable for brief periods in my life.
Marco:
And I would occasionally think maybe we should just get it again and just never use it.
Marco:
But the idea of having to call up a local cable company or whatever and have them...
Marco:
you know, schedule an appointment and have them come to the house during this eight hour window that usually becomes more than that.
Marco:
And they come at the very end of it, except for that one time where they came early.
Marco:
So you can't really plan for it.
Marco:
And then they install this giant box that may or may not work.
Marco:
If you want any kind of DVR functionality, you need to deal with either another giant box like the Syracuse method, or you just deal with their crappy giant box with their crappy DVR.
Marco:
You know, learn all the controls all over again.
Marco:
You got another remote hanging around the house, this giant box and this, you know, all this overhead stuff.
Marco:
of starting and then later stopping that service like you want to stop that service you got to call them on the phone which i will do quite a lot to avoid call them on the phone talk to some customer service rep convince in the case of some of these morally bankrupt companies like comcast convince them to please for the love of god let you cancel your service which you may or may not succeed at that may or may not take a very long time to convince them uh
Marco:
Then have that whole process in reverse.
Marco:
Scheduling, dealing with the equipment, whether you got to drop it off somewhere or have them come pick it up and disconnect the wire.
Marco:
It's a big pain in the butt.
Marco:
And then they probably have restrictions on how often you can sign up or disconnect your service again.
Marco:
There's all this basically BS involved in starting and stopping cable TV service.
Marco:
So to have these internet-based ones where it's probably just like clicking a few buttons and entering a credit card into the YouTube app.
Marco:
And then when you want to stop it, you go through some screens and there's probably an all-digital way to do it where you probably don't have to talk to anybody on the phone.
Marco:
that is actually probably a really good thing for the cable industry.
Marco:
It's not good in the sense that it becomes easier to stop your service, but I think it is good in that for people like me who don't have it most of the time, but occasionally have some reason why we might want it, I think you're more likely to win people like us over because the barrier to entry is now lower than it was before.
Marco:
So that, I think, is a big, new, good feature of this.
Marco:
However, that being said...
Marco:
What John said about the channel availability is a big deal.
Marco:
It includes the big broadcast networks.
Marco:
But for $35 a month, that's like a basic cable plan.
Marco:
And it does not include Comedy Central, MTV, CNN, TBS, TNT, AMC, A&E, Discovery.
Marco:
It's like this huge...
Marco:
huge list of channels that come in pretty much every standard cable bundle in the u.s for like 20 years uh and they don't come with this and that kind of thing like in the regular cable market like whether when you're like you know choosing between like uh in one of the various satellite companies like like direct tv or dish or whatever if you have like if you choose between like that or like comcast or files or whatever your local cable thing is
Marco:
uh oftentimes like one of these networks will be missing from one of these services and that'll be enough to get people to choose the other one so to have this many things missing that's really a pretty big uh problem i think so this specific service at this specific time with this specific set of deals that they made uh having such limited channel options that's gonna really hurt them i think
Marco:
But the idea of this kind of bundle, I think, is strong.
Marco:
If anybody can get all the deals in place, or even just some of the deals, just get more than what YouTube got.
Marco:
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Casey:
Now we enter the hardware portion of the program.
Casey:
So I don't know which one of you wants to kick this off, but Intel is going 14 nanometers one more time, apparently.
John:
Remember when they had the TikTok strategy and we talked about that?
John:
And it became TikTok thud or whatever?
John:
They changed it to this TikTok... Well, I forget what the other thing is.
John:
It's not TikTok anymore.
John:
It's like... It's like PAO or something?
John:
Process Architecture Optimization?
John:
right uh and it was because basically like oh we used to you know we do we do a process shrink then we do an architecture and then we do a process shrink then do an architecture and it was kind of on a yearly basis but either way that was their cadence right uh and they're like oh we can't we can't sustain that anymore because every time we try to do a new process it's taking longer and longer so to try to get from 14 nanometer to 10 or whatever the next one is it's taking longer than we thought so we're going to do a process shrink or new architecture and then we're going to optimize that architecture so basically give us another year to get to the shrink
John:
The new strategy is process, architecture, optimize, and you know what?
John:
Let's optimize again.
John:
Because we don't have the new process size ready to go.
John:
And it's kind of comical to see them change their TikTok strategy to a three-step strategy to a four-step strategy.
John:
It's like a little kid stalling on getting their assignment done.
John:
It's like, well...
John:
my new strategy is let's wait another year um and you try to look and see what like our so you know kaby lake is not that big of a deal of an enhancement as we've discussed in past things like some some video drm stuff in there and some minor tweaks but it's not you know like it is technically an optimization
John:
of of a pre-existing thing but and maybe the next one they will optimize more but we're kind of used to even even in this you know age of the uh the dwindling returns on uh morris law used to the idea that we will get a bigger jump in cpu capabilities and uh with with a process shrink and if that process shrink just never seems to come it's like well
John:
What can we really do?
John:
Like we did a really good job as architecture to begin with this process size.
John:
The biggest bang for the buck historically has been, you know, how can we decrease power and get more transistors to do stuff with and, you know, like make different choices.
John:
The shrink gives you that headroom to do it, provided you can figure out how to make it work.
John:
uh in lieu of a shrink you are left with the same power budget and the same number of transistors and just making different trade-offs basically or just being a little bit smarter about a few components and you can make things better that way but you can't make them better in the not that they're giant leaps but you know to to get a double digit percent increase in almost anything is a very big effort
John:
within a given uh process size especially in an architecture that's already pretty well optimized right so this i'm not gonna say this is disappointing but it is further evidence of the slowing rate of advancement at the uh at the edges of hardware on cutting edge hardware like what is the best process size you can get you know in a processor in a sophisticated processor for any amount of money and for another year in a row it's going to be 14 nanometers
Marco:
I mean, really, like, these days, like, an Intel delay is not news.
Marco:
Like, when Intel delays the next big thing for a year, that used to, like, shake the industry.
Marco:
These days, it's kind of more surprising when they don't.
John:
And I think, I'm pretty sure they're still ahead of most other people.
John:
Because other people are like, yeah, we're excited we have a 14 nanometer process.
John:
Like, Intel's going to be on its third year 14 nanometer.
John:
It's like, well, welcome to the club, right?
John:
And I guess that lead only counts if they get to the next size before everyone else, too.
John:
But I'm I'm guessing they will.
John:
I'm guessing this is not like Intel incompetence.
John:
It is merely that it is getting much, much harder as the sizes get much smaller, as we discussed on past shows.
John:
Moore's law cannot continue forever as far as our understanding of the physical world is aware, because you cannot subdivide matter into ever smaller pieces at a certain point.
John:
you reach a size where you can't break it into any smaller sizes without super high energy physics and stuff.
John:
So inevitably, eventually, everyone's favorite infinite timeline argument, Moore's Law cannot continue, right?
John:
Because if you keep having the size of things and you're down to, like, quarks and stuff, like, no.
John:
Even getting down just the size of individual atoms, the whole...
John:
functioning of the way we manufacture transistors stops working and we're already getting into all sorts of problems on the feature sizes we're doing.
John:
So it will end.
John:
It's just a question of what does the slope look like as we slide down into the doomsday scenario of CPUs that never get any better and wait for quantum computing to save us all with an entirely new paradigm.
John:
But either way, this is not the type of story that I want to read.
John:
I guess another old man story I'll be able to tell is like when I was a kid,
John:
Computers would get massively faster every year, and it was amazing.
Casey:
I remember those days.
John:
Not anymore.
John:
Doom on a Pentium.
John:
It was like, can any computer be this fast?
John:
How is it possible?
John:
Last year, this game was barely usable, and now it goes faster than my eyeballs.
John:
And that would happen every year.
Casey:
It's true.
Casey:
All right, tell me about AMD Ryzen.
John:
So I wish I had more time to read up on this, but we haven't really talked much about AMD on the show.
John:
Occasionally we mention them, but in the context of Intel alternatives, but we've been doing even less of that.
John:
And it's mostly because despite doing very well in the glory part of PC CPUs back in the day, the Athlon days, remember those?
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
When AMD was actually giving Intel a run for their money and was...
John:
And taking a lot of the crowns in this type of sort of speeds and feed measurements contest that were so popular back in the 90s, what is the best CPU for gaming or for whatever?
John:
And look at these benchmarks and the highest end, so on and so forth.
John:
And AMD was doing really well.
John:
And they were an important player.
John:
And it was great to see the competition.
John:
And it forced Intel, I think, to get off of the net burst architecture in Pentium 4 and come out with the core series, which was awesome.
John:
And then it was like Intel took the lead back and wiped AMD off the face of the earth.
John:
They came out with the bulldozer architecture that was not particularly successful and it was a bad choice.
John:
And they've always had sort of, you know, financial problems as compared to the behemoth that is Intel and, you know, have never been, you know, competitive with Intel's fabbing abilities.
John:
And so we haven't heard anything about them for a long time.
John:
And this seems like their comeback.
John:
Like, hey, we're AMD.
John:
We still know how to make good CPUs.
John:
And so they have a line of CPUs that are competitive.
John:
Like, they're not the best in the world.
John:
They're not like, oh, these are 10 times better than everything Intel has.
John:
But it's a comeback story, and people like a comeback story.
John:
Right.
John:
this company that was not didn't seem to be even be in the race like like people suggesting uh apple suggests to use amd processors that suggestion stopped many years ago and started to become apple should get amd to make a new processor that's better than all their crappy ones right right or apple should work with amd or apple should make its own x80 but all but never like no one's suggesting like you know what mac laptops would be better if they took out the intel cpus and use amd ones instead
John:
um and so they have these series of cpus which are significant mostly because a it's a comeback and they're they're actually competitive good and b in the for the most part they're cheaper than the intel alternatives um i don't think any i looked at them briefly to see is there anything that would be great for a mac pro no they're they're not mac pro caliber things but they do have a lot of cores for a low price with a reasonable power envelope um and i don't think this means apple will look at them any more than they did in the past because of
John:
ancillary issues and because who knows what Intel's roadmap looks like versus AMD's roadmap but I'm excited to see AMD back in the mix because despite the fact that Intel seems to be getting his butt kicked all over the map by ARM processors and mobile and everything having to do with that because all of Intel's mobile efforts have
John:
not really gone anywhere and they're not particularly competitive and they're just lucky to get like a radio chip that in uh apple's iphones at this point and every day they must uh i forget who did this maybe the ceo had already left regret the sale of their arm holdings when they had the x scale processor the arm things intel got rid of that because they wanted to do everything x86 sigh
John:
anyway um i like seeing a competitor for intel on the high end as well because competition is good and i hope this spurs intel to redouble its efforts to stay ahead of the game and to find ways to get more performance and to find ways to get to the next process size and to
John:
widen that gap again between them and amd not that i'm saying amd's only purpose in life is to make intel stuff better but for the foreseeable future i don't see apple switching to amd unless they're asking them to make their very own custom chips and so for my purposes amd exists to give pc hobbyists a cool alternative to build pcs with and to make the processors that are going to be in my max hopefully better
Marco:
cool sounds about right does it make you want to build a pc no no what makes you want to build a pc is xeons like if i ever like you know a lot of people build um pcs and like a lot of the hackintosh guides and stuff out there uh and price comparisons are all about this class of hardware they're about like you know imac class cpus you know the intel like
Marco:
You know, 4000 series with K on the end.
Marco:
Like those are really high powered CPUs for desktops.
Marco:
They're really nice.
Marco:
But Apple already makes those.
Marco:
They already, you know, ship computers with those and keep them reasonably up to date most of the time.
Marco:
They're called iMacs.
Marco:
And the iMac 5K is a wonderful computer.
Marco:
I'm talking to you on it right now, with the exception of my image retention issues on the display, which everyone says are actually not solved in the most recent ones.
Marco:
With the exception of that, it's been a wonderful computer for me, and I expect it to serve me still for a while until something faster comes out, which really hasn't happened.
Marco:
The problem is I want something faster.
Marco:
I want more than four cores.
Marco:
I want higher performance than what the consumer line can offer me.
Marco:
So I've only ever been tempted to build a Hackintosh, not to give myself a cheaper iMac, which I understand why people do that.
Marco:
That makes sense.
Marco:
But to give me basically...
Marco:
Mac that Apple does not even sell.
Marco:
And that is, you know, a modern Mac Pro.
John:
Well, you can get it.
John:
You can get eight core Ryzen for $329.
Marco:
That is way cheaper than the equivalent eight core Intel chip.
Marco:
That is true.
Marco:
You know, I don't know.
Marco:
I guess I'd take a look at it if I was to build a Hackintosh.
John:
I'm just thinking like for Apple's purposes, like for an iMac, because again, I don't think any of these are suitable for as far as I'm aware for laptop chips or whatever.
John:
Intel still has that wrapped up.
John:
But for kind of like the what we used to call desktop class CPUs where it's not the Xeons, but it's not in the power envelope.
John:
But like the thing that you could stick in an iMac because it's big and has lots of fans.
John:
And what we currently have in the iMac...
John:
I think you could get either a better processor in the same envelope or an equally good processor for hundreds less dollars going with AMD.
John:
Again, not that I think Apple will do this because of ancillary reasons and other chipsets and Thunderbolt and just general relationships with them, but
John:
It shows me that there is, once again, competition in the market.
John:
Because before, GNOME was like, oh, you shouldn't be using that.
John:
If we were saying we shouldn't use this particular Intel CPU and iMac, we were saying you should use some other Intel CPU instead.
John:
We weren't saying you should use something from AMD or something like that.
John:
And now you can say that.
John:
There's products on the market that say...
John:
uh apple here is an alternative for your iMacs i know you're probably not going to do it but what it does show is that intel perhaps is not serving your needs as well as they could because clearly it is technically and financially possible to make a chip that would make marco happier so why don't you do that yeah i mean like most of my problems don't lie with the processor companies you know like they're intel's good enough for me my problem lies in apple's inability to ship hardware
Casey:
So does that cover our Zeon Gold then or no?
Marco:
No.
Marco:
The Zeon Gold is the kit they're supposed to use, but they won't.
Marco:
Okay.
Okay.
John:
I have not read up on the Xeon Gold, other than the part that I pasted into the show notes.
Marco:
It's Skylake EP.
Marco:
It's the Skylake EP Xeons, which is the line of chips that would be most appropriate to put in a new Mac Pro.
Marco:
But they're probably not going to do that.
Marco:
So, therefore, I have nothing to... I haven't even looked too far into these, because in the past, I've looked into what Skylake E was going to have, and it is truly awesome.
Marco:
It's wonderful.
Marco:
But it's just... I don't know.
Marco:
To me, it's kind of even... It's almost sad or painful to even read about this processor because I know that... To know this is out there, but that you can't buy a machine with it.
Marco:
Exactly.
Marco:
Like, I just... Whatever has been clogging up Apple, I hope it gets out and they start shipping hardware again because...
Marco:
something's wrong like something is deeply wrong at that company where where is the where where is all the effort going that's what i want to know because it's sure not going into the mac it's sure not going into the apple tv it's not going into the ipad some of it but not much of it is going into the watch like where is it going some of it's going to be the phone obviously but is the entire company only capable of keeping the phone up to date at a reasonable pace which even that is kind of i think a ton of it's going into the phone
Marco:
Sure, but they're a big company.
Marco:
Where the hell is everything else?
Marco:
That's what I want to know.
Marco:
And until we get something, even that, that's easily a separatable thing.
Marco:
Where is the entire company going?
Marco:
something's wrong that's that's all i all i can say is something is deeply wrong and needs to change but that's i know that's not very helpful but when you have when you have a year like 2016 in the product line something's really really wrong 2017 has a lot of checks to cash uh and we'll see if they do i hope they do but we haven't heard a lot of promising info so far to suggest that they will except tim cook's vague promises
John:
Did you see that thing I retweeted earlier today of someone was doing Swift compilation benchmarks?
John:
Like, how long does it take to compile a bunch of Swift codes?
John:
Yeah, it was LinkedIn, yeah.
John:
And the two-core Mac Mini beat the highest-end Trashcan Mac Pro.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, granted, that's because of problems in the Swift compiler, I think.
Marco:
That is not because the Mac Mini is faster.
John:
I know, but here's what this shows.
John:
It doesn't show the quality of the hardware.
John:
It shows support for the hardware.
John:
Obviously, there is something...
John:
Yeah.
John:
have no expectation of ever running out of trash can because there's so few of them so it's not not only is it not optimized for it but doesn't even take advantage of the hardware that's there it's like the worst case scenario of like you know you get weird pc hardware but windows doesn't support it well only this is apple and this is you know they have a limited line of hardware and like that's all i've ever heard from uh mac trash can mac pro users is that
John:
they feel left out of the rest of the apple ecosystem because all of the software updates and application updates and os updates pretend that they don't exist so any weird problems they have don't go away don't get fixed and new software doesn't take advantage of all the cores that they have and so on and so forth which is which is sad because that's exactly how it's supposed to be you put out this exotic piece of hardware and don't worry about it because you make the os2 and all the and a bunch of the applications as well
John:
you can make sure that it is leveraged and that you take advantage of it and when that doesn't happen you just have an exotic piece of hardware that gets worse over time and you know eventually you got mac minis beating you in a compilation benchmarking like why again that i really think that's like you know xcode and the compiler having bad settings but you know the the point your larger point about you know maintenance and support does stand i mean
Marco:
people say like look at apple they have all the money in the world why can't they do x well you know it wasn't that long ago that microsoft saw all the money in the world and they had like two decades where they did almost nothing microsoft had a very very long span where they could not produce anything even good let alone great uh and you know it's arguable whether they've come out of that yet but
Marco:
But they're trying.
Marco:
They're doing a lot better now.
Marco:
They're doing a lot better than they were in the Windows Vista era, first leading up to Vista and then Vista itself.
Marco:
Microsoft had all the money in the world but simply could not manage to ship great things because of other problems, because of mismanagement, because of internal problems, whatever the case was.
Marco:
Microsoft had just no ability to apply their money into creating good products reliably.
Marco:
And I think we are at that point now with Apple.
Marco:
It is very, very hard to look at the output of Apple over the last couple of years and say otherwise.
Marco:
They're a company that can produce good things sometimes, but increasingly that's the exception, not the norm.
Marco:
And that's really, really worrisome to me.
John:
One of the ways that Microsoft got out of it, got out of their funk...
John:
aside from changing management stuff, was they tried a lot of different things, most of which failed, but they tried a lot of them.
John:
And I think, you know, if I look at, like, what was the success story that was able to convince Microsoft itself and the outside world that Microsoft could conceivably do good things again, I feel like it was the Xbox because that was a weird market.
John:
Like, why the hell is Microsoft making a game console, right?
John:
And...
John:
it you know it struggled and they had to learn this new business in the same way that apple kind of had to learn the new business of cell phones and they didn't it you know it's not comparable to the iphone obviously in terms of the the scope of its success and how important it was to you know because it was just another game console for the most part although it had its own innovations but it of all the things they did they tried so many things so many different mobile phone strategies so many different tablet and pen computing like they were so close to so many innovations but because they kept trying all these different things
John:
I don't even remember half things they did.
John:
That sidekick company that they bought with a little turdy smartphone thing that they sold.
John:
But Xbox, of all things, unquestionably was a success in its market, in a very difficult market that has killed many a company who have tried to enter it and be successful.
John:
um and so it i i think apple probably continues to need to uh needs to continue to do what it seems to have been doing and like be willing to try it like the watch is a good example try a watch maybe it's going to be awesome maybe you won't or whatever but but do it like we don't need to be i don't think we need to be convinced that apple can still do great things because you know the the apple watch is as successful as it may or may not be
John:
it's you know i think it's a big step up for the the smart watch market and in many ways has has come to not redefine that market but sort of pin down what people expect from smart watches to the point where smart watches uh are very much now uh aping some of the looks and features of apple's things if only to uh to capitalize on their uh you know their marketing cachet uh but self-driving cars all sorts of things that we say why is apple even doing that
John:
All you need is one or two of them tit for it to be worthwhile.
John:
Thus far, none of them have been big successes.
John:
But if Apple was in a Microsoft-type situation, we would all be looking at the watch or the AirPods to say, see, Apple can make great things again.
John:
Apple's not down that low.
John:
When we see the AirPods, we're like, yes, that's what Apple should be doing, and that's what we expect of you, right?
John:
Versus we are super surprised that you've made a successful good product.
John:
We're not surprised.
John:
It's what we expect.
John:
We still expect.
John:
We still have high expectations of Apple.
John:
We still hold them to high standards, and I think that's good.
John:
um but i also like that's why i don't want to be too down on all the weird stuff apple is doing and i know it's easy to do the you know the trade-offs like oh you should just be making max better because that's what i like or whatever but as you pointed out marco for all we know those are entirely separate things and it's not like they lack the money so as long as it's not literally the people who are going to make the mac pro who are now making self-driving car software like go for it well more power to you um
John:
eventually we may be the point where we're looking for apple's xbox uh and maybe i was gonna say maybe apple should just make a gaming console but they're really terrible at gaming so don't do that uh once they buy nintendo and the show finally comes to an end because the apocalypse that will happen if that comes to pass um
John:
Yeah, I'm not as down on Apple as you are, Marco.
John:
I continue to believe that they can come out of it.
John:
And I think Microsoft is a great example that no matter how low you go, there's always something great you can do.
John:
And I would hold up Azure as an example of that too.
John:
And a lot of the dev tool stuff that Microsoft has been doing.
John:
They had a lot of smart people.
John:
They had a lot of great tech.
John:
It was just a matter of finding a way to channel that in a productive way while also continuing to milk the cash cow that is their terrible enterprise software.
Yeah.
Marco:
But my main concern here is that 2016 was a really bad year for Apple from the public point of view.
Marco:
And Tim can say stuff like, oh, we have stuff coming.
Marco:
Don't worry.
Marco:
Just because you don't see it doesn't mean we're not working on it.
Marco:
But that doesn't mean anything.
Yeah.
Marco:
And it just seems like there's these areas of Apple product development that have stalled or that have taken way too long.
Marco:
And there seems to be not only no end in sight, but no changes that would suggest that there would be a change of policy or change of results coming.
Marco:
And so what I want is by the end of 2017, I think there's a handful of big hotspot areas that...
Marco:
If they are still lacking, I want to see somebody get fired.
Marco:
I know it's not cool to talk about Apple executives and SVPs and talk about them personally and say who should get fired.
Marco:
But I think things are bad enough now that heads have to roll if certain things don't get fixed.
Marco:
And I would say maybe the list would be, you know, Mac desktops, hardware, you know, iPhone design.
Marco:
Like if that new iPhone does not come out this fall and they have another year of the iPhone 6 design and, you know, general form factor, that's a problem, right?
Marco:
If Mac desktops do not get any kind of meaningful update during this year, that's a big problem.
Marco:
I would say iPad software, like multitasking on the iPad is one of these areas where like that needs to be improved significantly in some way.
Marco:
I would say Siri, the quality of Siri, the reliability, the intelligence of Siri needs to be improved.
Marco:
And maybe I'd throw in TV content deals as we talked about earlier because those have also been stalled forever and the Apple TV is suffering greatly.
Marco:
So those things, like if all of those don't have meaningful improvements by the end of 2017, then that will be a very long time during which these things have not improved and desperately need to.
Marco:
And somebody high up needs to get fired or resign at that point.
John:
Well, you would like that to happen.
John:
But if the rest of the world says, hey, record iPhone sales, here's a 10% bump to your stock price, Apple.
John:
Apple is doing great from the perspective of investors and other people who have, you know, the broader world that has expectations of what Apple is supposed to do, which is sell a lot of iPhones for a high price.
John:
They're doing that really, really well so far.
John:
And everything we're talking about is tiny little slivers of the giant pie wedge that is the revenue of Apple.
Marco:
Well, no, it's not.
Marco:
Because, look, Microsoft did really well under Steve Ballmer financially for a long time.
Marco:
He had record quarters, record sales, as the product line just...
Marco:
It stagnated and crumbled, and the quality of the foundation the company was built on crumbled, and the world around it moved on to this massive new world of mobile, and they totally missed it because they were not being managed properly.
Marco:
So the fact that they keep selling record quarters is not good enough for Apple.
John:
But what I'm saying is like –
John:
executives don't get fired when your stock price goes up in general.
John:
So I'm saying whether you think it's the right thing to do or what you would do versus what is actually going to happen.
John:
Because the only thing we've seen executives get canned for at Apple is not getting along with other executives, that's forestall, not being a cultural fit or flailing and not being a success like whatever paper master and those people who were there for a very short time.
John:
What would it take for a long timer to get fired?
John:
I mean, I think we've seen with the reshuffling, not firing, but like
John:
We don't know what's going on with that reshuffling that they've done various times, but surely that reshuffling is elevating some people and minimizing other people within the company enough so that they all stay there, but still affecting them.
John:
You're not going to see a big-name executive get fired when...
John:
every kind of metric you can put on the company is looking good because that's just not how big companies work now arguably like you said they're making a big mistake that sir you're figuring out how to make more money out of the iphone but what about the future blah blah blah but they have answers for all that well future we have all these super products you don't know about plus the car crap and stuff like that and maybe they'll hit and maybe they won't like it's not not like they had their heads in the sand right but
John:
i don't what i'm saying is that don't get your hopes up for that to happen right even if even if none of the things you listed happen but they still have like record iphone sales again and the asp goes up again no one's getting fired like i mean if that if whoever was responsible for getting a skinny model tv deal hasn't been fired yet another year of not getting it is not going to make a difference to give an example that's relevant to the things we just talked about because obviously it's not important enough to the future of the company
John:
um and in other areas like the phone like not the phone the watch it's hard to tell exactly how the watch is doing because apple's being cagey about it but i feel like the watch is on a slow burn right it is it's not a super duper success like the iphone was but even the iphone wasn't a super duper success in its first year or two right or the ipod or anything like that but apple is standing behind the watch and working on it and things seem like they're going in the right direction with the watch it is getting better people like it more it is finding a place in the market
John:
Yeah, I actually would agree with that.
Marco:
There is a reason why the watch didn't make my hit list, because it is not amazing on all terms.
Marco:
It has lots of asterisks on it, but overall, it is healthy, and it does seem to be on the right track.
John:
And so like the Apple that is still willing to nurture a product like that, that, you know, even the iPad, which arguably they're nurturing and helping along and, you know, they're trying to get it, you know, come on, come on, little product, like you can do it.
John:
Maybe they're not quite doing the right things, but like the fact that they're standing behind those and all the rumblings we hear about AR and stuff like that.
John:
I do see a lot of encouraging things of like, how is Apple fostering the, you know, the development of what could be eventually big, important businesses and how patient they're being with it.
John:
Most of our frustration is with free existing businesses that seem like they are neglected.
John:
Right.
John:
And because we like those products, but yeah,
John:
I don't know enough about the executives to say someone should be fired.
John:
I think if I had to restructure slash restaff a bunch of things, you know it.
John:
My picks is all server-side stuff.
John:
That part of the company is obviously in the most need, and I don't know who's in charge of that, and I don't know who needs to be in charge of it, but Apple should have bought Google long ago and given all the responsibility to all their server-side stuff at Google because they know what the hell they're doing, and Apple does not yet.
John:
They're getting better, but not fast enough
Marco:
What's getting better faster, Apple services or desktop Linux?
John:
uh apple services because that's not one is going nowhere um but yeah but but i can't i can't pin that to a particular group or executive and i think there has been restructuring that seeing apple like presented like mesos conferences and stuff is showing that that is actually going in the right direction they're just so far behind that it's very difficult to catch up but for all the other things like even the mac things i don't i don't feel like the people who are involved in mac hardware like i i
John:
I don't know.
John:
I don't know where the blame lies for that.
John:
It seems like priorities that would be set above the level of people working on the Mac stuff, right?
John:
Like, I bet everyone who's working on the Mac loves the Mac and wants it to be awesome.
John:
And I bet a lot of people who are involved in the Mac love the Mac and want it to be awesome.
John:
But it's clear that the pace of product releases and innovation and choices about the particular mixes of the products are not satisfying a certain class of Mac users.
John:
And we find that unsatisfying.
John:
And even for the people that is satisfying, I feel like the releases are slower, which is not good from anybody's perspective that we want to see new, better things faster.
John:
But I wouldn't fire anyone involved in the Mac organization, right?
John:
I feel like that's a priority set at a higher level.
John:
And I wouldn't fire Tim Cook because of all the good things that we just listed, the phone and the watch and everything.
John:
trying to figure out how to make the ipad better um yeah i'm i i i have to have hopes for this year and i found last year disappointing but um i think i'm i think i'm more optimistic than you are that these are all eminently fixable problems and i am encouraged by by uh efforts like the watch
Casey:
Yeah, and furthermore, I don't entirely get what firing somebody really accomplishes, other than making you feel better that somebody's paying for what you don't like.
Casey:
And it certainly would presumably change course of Apple, at least slightly, if that executive was high enough.
Casey:
But, I mean, we don't know what's going on behind the curtain.
Casey:
We don't know if they're playing a long game that...
Casey:
that will revolutionize the Mac or revolutionize something else or just create a whole new thing that we can't even fathom.
Casey:
We don't know what they're doing behind closed doors.
Casey:
And I just feel like seeing a head roll or demanding a head roll, I don't know that that's necessarily going to really change anything.
Casey:
I mean, just because one or even a couple people leave or are told to leave is
Casey:
You don't move a ship that big without moving the rudder a lot.
Casey:
And one person can only move the rudder but so much, unless they're like Steve Jobs or Tim Cook.
Marco:
I think the reason why I want to see something change, if all these things still continue to fail at the end of this year,
Marco:
is that if no heads roll, if no one changes jobs, if nothing really suggests that anything went wrong, then that is Apple tacitly telling the world, and possibly themselves internally, this is fine.
Marco:
This is how we wanted things to go.
Marco:
It's one thing if the reason why all these things are in neglect right now is because lots of things have gone wrong, or somebody really messed up, or somebody made a terrible decision, or took a bad risk, or something like that.
Marco:
It's another thing if these things are all this way in this state of neglect because that's considered okay.
Marco:
So if there's somebody whose job changes, for instance –
Marco:
The role of the App Store recently got taken out of its previous organization and moved under Phil Schiller.
Marco:
And in the eight years or whatever it was that it was under the previous organization, nothing happened.
Marco:
It was just stagnant and had lots of problems.
Marco:
And it's been under Schiller for about a year now, and lots of improvements have happened already.
Marco:
And they're at a great pace.
Marco:
So obviously, that was an area where something was really not working right.
Marco:
It had a lot of problems.
Marco:
It got moved to a different executive.
Marco:
So effectively, the old executive was presumably removed from it in some kind of action or some kind of decision.
Marco:
And then under the new executive, things changed because something wasn't going right.
Marco:
So that was a recognition internally to the company that this is not working.
Marco:
This is not good enough.
Marco:
We're going to change it so it can be good enough.
Marco:
And so if nothing changes in this list of things, Mac desktops, iPhone, if nothing changes and these things are still being neglected almost a year from now, after being neglected for the last few years, then that to me is a sign that Tim Cook and everyone beneath him believes that is good enough.
Marco:
So that ultimately rests on Tim.
Marco:
Whether the problem is Tim himself or somebody below him, that is on Tim to manage, to supervise, and to fix if there are problems.
Marco:
You know, when there are problems between Forstall and Ive and whatever the drama was there...
Marco:
Tim saw there was a problem here and he fixed it.
Marco:
And whether you like his solution or not, he took an action because things were not good enough.
Marco:
He fixed it.
Marco:
If nothing changes in these areas and they're still being horribly neglected in another year from now, then that is Tim Cook implicitly saying this is good enough.
John:
Yeah, but that's a strategic choice, though.
John:
If he chooses to de-emphasize the Mac or cancel the Mac entirely, that is a strategic choice for the company that will make all of us sad.
John:
But it's not saying we think this is good enough.
John:
It's saying, yeah, we're deprioritizing that and shifting our efforts elsewhere because we don't think that's important to the future growth of the company, which we hate and we don't like.
John:
But it's not the same as saying we're trying to put everything we have behind the Mac.
John:
It's the difference in intention.
John:
the best it could possibly be, and this is our best effort.
John:
I'm not even asking for that.
John:
I'm asking for basic maintenance.
John:
Yeah, well, again, because if they were trying to say we are trying to maintain the Mac in the fashion that it has been maintained in the past, and they think this is satisfactory, you're right, that they're wrong on that.
John:
But if instead they're saying this is exactly the amount of support for the Mac that we want, this is exactly how we want it to go, these are exactly the products we want out of them, we're very happy with the results, this is our strategic direction, we're all sad and mad about it, but from a company
John:
You know, from the perspective of is Tim Cook making the right decision for the company, it's arguable that he is because the Mac is clearly not the future of Apple, right?
John:
It's just this thing that we all like and use, right?
John:
And if it means that more time and energy and money is available for whatever...
John:
The actual future Apple is going to be, but it's going to be the watch or AR or self-driving car software or who knows what.
John:
That is probably the correct strategic direction for the company, despite how angry it makes us.
John:
I think it is entirely a question of what their intent is, because it's like judging whether it's a success or a failure.
John:
we see what the results are.
John:
And if that is the intended results, then they're getting exactly what they want.
John:
And then our quibble is just with the strategic direction.
John:
Whereas if the intended result is very different than what we're actually getting, then that's the company failing to execute successfully on its own plan.
John:
And because Apple doesn't really tell you what its own plans are in terms of how it emphasizes product lines and stuff, other than the PR problem that we get about
John:
you know, we love the Mac, blah, blah, blah, which really says nothing.
John:
It's very difficult to judge whether they are failing or successfully executing a strategy we don't like.
Casey:
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Casey:
And I concur that I am disappointed with the way the Mac has been treated.
Casey:
And I would like to see it be different.
Casey:
But just because my engine isn't revved by a touch bar...
Casey:
doesn't mean the touch bar is wrong.
Casey:
It doesn't mean that it was a failure.
Casey:
It doesn't mean that Apple isn't innovating.
Casey:
It doesn't mean it's not a magical, awesome improvement.
Casey:
All it means is it's not right for me.
Casey:
And for me to hypothetically say, oh, that Apple's doing everything wrong or that the head of Mac hardware should be fired strictly because of the touch bar, which is not what you're saying, Marco.
Casey:
That's not at all what I'm saying.
Casey:
Nope.
Casey:
That's not what I'm saying.
Casey:
I know it's not, but I think what I'm trying, let me just rephrase and say that I think you're conflating a disappointment with direction.
Casey:
This is what John was just alluding to, a difference in direction or disappointment in direction with a failure.
Casey:
And that is not necessarily the case.
Casey:
Just like John said, I agree that I don't like the way things are going, but I think it's too strong to say that it's a failure at this point.
Casey:
It's just, it seems a little bit aggressive to me.
Marco:
And I didn't say these things are all failures at this point.
Marco:
I said that these are like checks that 2016 wrote for 2017 to cash, and if 2017 goes through and these things are all still a problem, something needs to change big time.
Marco:
Because I'm not saying that a company that's trying to maximize its revenue and make itself a solid growth potential in the future shouldn't change strategy.
Marco:
What I am saying is that Apple does not ship shit
Marco:
Apple's entire brand and the reputation they've built up over years and years and years is that they don't ship shit.
Marco:
That Apple products are good.
Marco:
They are great.
Marco:
And for them to keep saying that and to have major areas of the product line that are really embarrassing or really like customer hostile even for years on end...
Marco:
That they keep selling just to scrape a little bit more profit off the pavement before they just totally kill them.
Marco:
That is not what Apple should be doing.
Marco:
For Apple.
Marco:
For Corporation X, sure.
Marco:
Let Steve Ballmer run it then.
Marco:
Why isn't Steve Ballmer running it?
Marco:
That's what they want to do.
Marco:
That's the goal.
Marco:
Let him do it.
Marco:
He's great at that.
Marco:
But that's not Apple.
Marco:
That's not good enough for Apple.
Marco:
It never has been and it shouldn't be now.
Casey:
Yeah, I mean, in the grand scheme of things, even though I'm actively arguing with you right now, I do largely agree with you.
Casey:
I think that you're right that 2016 wrote a lot of checks that I've yet to see 2017 cash.
Casey:
I just what concerns me is I wonder if you're putting Apple on a pedestal and if they don't release the most perfect Mac Pro ever.
Casey:
that you're going to still be fiery about it.
Casey:
If they don't version bump the MacBook Adorable, you're going to be fiery about it.
Casey:
Truth be told, I will be too, but don't tell Marco.
Casey:
No, the MacBook Adorable is only one year old.
Casey:
That's fine.
Marco:
By my standards, that's totally fine.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And I mean, also remember, we're only one calendar quarter...
Casey:
into the year yet i mean there's still plenty of time left now in your defense marco typically there is a march event of some sort and we are already halfway through march and there's been not even a a peep of a confirmation about it which means they'll surely confirm it tomorrow before we release the episode but nevertheless um you know we haven't heard a march event yet and that's slightly alarming but it's only march we don't know what's in store for the rest of the year and who knows our our socks could be blown off at wwdc
Casey:
And typically they're at least, you know, my socks are at least blown a little bit forward, if not entirely off my feet to beat this analogy to death.
Casey:
And so you never know what will happen.
Casey:
But I don't, I wouldn't, I think we shouldn't get too fiery yet.
Casey:
If after WWDC and we've seen the software updates and we still haven't seen much in the way of hardware updates, okay, maybe we should start getting fiery.
Casey:
But at this point, I'm not too concerned yet.
John:
On the topic of figuring out, like trying to figure out intent, like basically is it a successful execution of a strategy we disagree with or a failed execution of a strategy that we would support, that type of thing?
John:
The Mac Pro is actually a good example because on the idea of Apple not shipping things that they would be proud of, right?
Yeah.
John:
The Mac Pro, I think, is the best example of it.
John:
It's not that it was a bad product when it was introduced.
John:
It's actually really cool and interesting.
John:
It's that if you keep shipping it for three years, it becomes an embarrassment.
John:
Right.
John:
And it is the type of embarrassment that like, look, there is no strategy.
John:
that makes sense with the image that apple previously had unless the new idea is we don't want apple to have that reputation which doesn't make any sense because everything else apple does and everything they say and everything they've always done is like yes we want to be the company that has a reputation of shipping good stuff the mac pro is um it's you they shouldn't still be selling it and i understand why they're why if you were to if you were to get someone up on stage and talk to them in a wdc you know talk show type interview and say why are you still shipping the mac pro i guarantee you what they will said and it's probably true is
John:
You know, we didn't want we we, you know, some vague answer about how they had they didn't plan for this.
John:
Like there was a strategy to do to do something better and it didn't work out.
John:
So I would say they would they would they would vaguely admit to some kind of failure there.
John:
And they would say, well, then why are you even still selling it?
John:
They would say, well, because we have customers who need a computer like this and actually believe it or not, in case he could probably believe it, not selling this now piece of crap overpriced computer would actually be worse for those customers than continuing to sell it.
John:
and then the only recourse you have for that is like okay but do you still have to sell it for like eight grand and they'd be like well people buy it and that you know whatever apple has never been ashamed of selling people things for way too much money but that's the situation they're in so i feel like the mac pro to figure out is this a strategy we don't agree with or is this a failure there has to be a failure in there whether they're not going to come and tell you exactly what the failures are you know what i mean like
John:
They're going to say, oh, here's what went wrong or whatever.
John:
But that seems very clear to me.
John:
There is no conscious strategy that Apple says, you know what, we're going to make pro hardware and then we're not going to update it for three or four years there.
John:
I do not believe that was ever Apple strategy.
John:
That is evidence of a failure.
John:
how big a failure is that in the grand scheme of things i don't know or whatever but that is the only thing that it seems clear from the outside everything else you can say is it a failure to like ship make all your laptops thin and lighter is that a strategy or is it a failure to have computers that aren't really that much better than the ones they replace but are more expensive or is that part of a strategy like a lot almost everything else i look at and i squint and say that seems a lot like a strategy maybe a strategy i don't agree with personally from my taste in products or whatever but it seems like a strategy but the mac pro
Marco:
does not seem like a strategy it seems like a failure um counter argument the mac mini uh mac mini is totally fine they could update it it's really easily updated it's uses cheap component parts that's definitely that's a strategy well and so their strategy was let's put this thing out there but because it doesn't sell in very high volumes let's never update it basically why couldn't that have been the same strategy for the mac pro
John:
No, because the Mac Pro, the whole point of the Mac Pro is the biggest, fastest computer for the most demanding workloads.
John:
And the rest of Apple's product line, like the 5K Mac, has passed it by.
John:
Its role in the product line is to be the biggest, fastest, and most expensive.
John:
The role of the Mac Mini is to be the cheapest and crappiest.
John:
Success!
John:
like you know if you never update it it exactly fills its role the cheapest and crappiest and you're just like oh this is a product apple doesn't care about and doesn't really care about updating that i feel like mac mini looks totally like strategy to me but there is no world in which a strategy of like we're going to make the biggest fastest computer then never make it any faster and the whole rest of our product line including eventually our watches are going to be faster than this freaking trash can that's that's not a strategy because of the slot that the product goes in so it's got to be a failure so
Marco:
I don't think we have enough Tim Cook Apple history to know that.
Marco:
I think it was probably a failure of some kind, but I think it's very plausibly also just a strategy of how today's Apple deals with low-volume products.
John:
We need to, like, write all these things down so that we can wait, like, in 20 years for, like, the tell-all book.
John:
Like, we need to track down these long-retired millionaire Apple executives.
John:
Like, what the hell happened with the Mac Pro?
John:
Like, tell us.
John:
Because from the outside, we can't tell.
John:
What, you know, was it just, like, an Intel thing that you didn't get or the sales volume or there was something like, I don't know, what happened?
John:
like or did you have a design and there were fatal flaws with this little triangle design and you're just eating the cost on these gpu replacements and the new one you had planned didn't work like what what happened whereas the mac mini i feel like you interviewed me like yeah no one cares about that computer it's low end and it compiles faster than the mac pro anyway
Casey:
Wow.
John:
Oh, is there any show that we can't eventually get to the Mac Pro about?
John:
Casey loves it.
Casey:
That's the best.
Casey:
It makes me so happy.
Marco:
Thanks to our three sponsors this week, Eero, Betterment, and Squarespace.
Marco:
And we'll see you next week.
John:
Now the show is over.
John:
They didn't even mean to begin.
John:
Cause it was accidental.
John:
Oh, it was accidental.
John:
John didn't do any research.
John:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
John:
Cause it was accidental.
John:
Oh, it was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at atp.fm.
Marco:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Marco:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse.
Marco:
It's accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
They didn't mean to.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Can we please talk about something that'll make us happier?
Casey:
Please.
Casey:
Like the Switch, maybe, hopefully, possibly.
Casey:
John, how do you like your Switch?
John:
It's hard to say how I like my Switch because... Oh, come on, man.
Casey:
This is supposed to be your happy place.
John:
No, no, no.
John:
Because as far as... I feel kind of bad because a lot of people who I know who are using the Switch are all talking about it and they're talking about the hardware and it's like...
John:
This is just a Zelda delivery device for me at this point.
John:
Kind of like my PlayStation 4 became my destiny delivery device.
John:
And in that capacity, I wish, as always, that the hardware was faster because then I wouldn't have slowdowns in forested areas.
John:
uh and it's like i still find myself thinking can you imagine how how you know how even better this game would be on the ps4 but in general um i don't spend much time dwelling on that because i'm really really loving zelda i think it's a great game i enjoy it i think about it when i'm not playing it i can't wait to play it every time i'm away from the game
John:
uh and it's like watching a movie i really don't think about the quality of my blu-ray player when i'm watching a good movie i think about the movie so when i'm playing zelda i'm thinking about zelda and it's awesome and it's great and my switch has literally never been held in my hands to play a game and has not left the dock since i got zelda so that's how i'm using my switch it is i'm pretending that nintendo is still releasing tv connected consoles and not this hybrid portable thing and
John:
And I'm perfectly happy with that.
John:
Eventually, I probably will take it out and try playing it handheld and see what that's like.
John:
But for now, it is me, a pro controller, and Zelda, and I'm loving it.
John:
No spoilers, please.
Casey:
You know, it's funny.
Casey:
So I played with two different people's switches.
Casey:
My sister-in-law got one and she came over the evening of launch day.
Casey:
And then the following day I went to my friend Steve's house and played with his for a little bit.
Casey:
And I guess in a kind of opposite way in that I don't think I really want a canister to speak to because I don't really see how it will help my life.
Casey:
I want to switch so badly, even though I know I'll play it for like a week and then never look back because I just think this thing is so darn cool.
Casey:
And I've been super impressed by it.
Casey:
We actually hooked it up to my TV because my sister, my sister-in-law's that is because she hadn't hooked it up to hers yet.
Casey:
And I thought that was super awesome.
Casey:
I played a few minutes of Zelda.
Casey:
I thought that was really cool.
Casey:
I didn't play it enough to like really get into it, but my initial impressions were great.
Casey:
The hardware with the weirdly named Joy-Cons, like I find that name to be a little bit peculiar, but the click that it makes when you slide one of them in and removing it is so cool and the kickstand is a little chintzy or whatever, but it still gets the job done for the most part.
Casey:
everything about this hardware is so cool and i really want one for no reason at all because i i'm just not really a video game kind of guy um but man this thing is neat and i'm super impressed by it and it's the first time i've lusted after a video game system since the original wii which i did play a lot of for about a year and then i just never looked back
Casey:
Um, but I've been super, super, uh, anxious to get my hands on one, even though, well, I mean, I could get my hands on one, I'm sure, but I, I know myself enough to know that I'm just, I'm, I'm in lust.
Casey:
I'm not in love, but we'll see what happens over time.
Casey:
Marco, you, you guys are, I guess, really Tiff got one, right?
Casey:
So what have you thought?
Marco:
We haven't really played it much.
Marco:
So I just came back from a trip.
Marco:
I left for that trip shortly after last week's show.
Marco:
The night before the trip, I tried to buy and download Zelda, and the credit card thing on Nintendo's website just kept failing and timing out.
Marco:
Their whole website just sucked that night.
Marco:
Everything kept failing.
Marco:
and so i wasn't able to buy it in time for the trip and so i didn't bring it because i'm like you know i have like you know i have bomberan and that racing game neither of which i've actually played yet i just because like you know buying and installing this stuff it all takes time and then i have to do something else and then i left for a trip and i'm like i'm not going to bring this entire console taking up space in my bag and one more thing to charge and everything else just for these two kind of like you know second tier games i you know if i could get zelda before the show sure i'll bring it but i couldn't
Marco:
So that's so I didn't bring it.
Marco:
And now we're back and I'm dealing with all the work I missed.
Marco:
So I still haven't actually played it yet.
Marco:
And I'd love to play it on my TV, but I can't get a pro controller anywhere.
Marco:
So that kind of breaks that as well.
Marco:
I don't really want to use the weird little like.
John:
You can still play it.
John:
I was going to say you can play it on your TV without a pro controller.
John:
You just got to use the Joy-Con.
John:
So that a lot of people have asked me if I have like the left Joy-Con disconnecting thing.
Marco:
i don't know i don't use those things just the controller and it works fine right exactly so like does not disconnect yeah so so i need to get myself a pro controller uh to to really enjoy this thing because what i really want is to just is most of the time to play these games on my tv uh so once i get that then let me know but i'm also um i suspect that these initial games i got are probably not going to be a lot of my time i'm not really into zelda tiff would probably play it but i i probably won't
Marco:
uh i'm more into like the racing and stuff games so when mario kart comes out i'm very much into that uh but i that's not out yet and like when the new sonic thing comes out i'll be very much into that probably but that also isn't out yet uh mario games when those come out but they also aren't
Marco:
any kind of virtual console stuff to uh to maybe play some of the games that i've missed since like the super nintendo era or the n64 era like to play some of the some of like the mario games that have come out in the middle if if that becomes available and possible to do i'd love to do that but i can't yet because they don't exist so eventually i expect to really enjoy this thing but right now i've barely used it because everything i've tried to do either failed or took too long and then i had to go on a trip
John:
I feel like there are like three obvious possibilities with this Zelda, this Zelda in particular.
John:
One is you're a super Zelda fan and you played all the 3D Zelda games and you love them.
John:
You will also love this game.
John:
So that's the easy case.
John:
That's why all the gaming press loves it.
John:
That's why I love it, right?
John:
Two is you don't know Zelda from a hole in the wall.
John:
And you bought this Switch because you saw one and thought it was neat.
John:
And you get Zelda because it's like the, you know, the popular top tier game to get on launch.
John:
And you start playing it and you just slowly, gradually get lost in Zelda playing your version of what you think the Zelda game is supposed to be about.
John:
Maybe not even advancing the actual main quest storyline for a very long time and spend like literally a year and a half playing.
John:
consumed by this little toy box world because you have never played a sandbox game before and you've never played a zelda and this is all entirely new to you right and the third possibility is you've never played a zelda you get this game you try it and you're like this seems big and confusing not for me and i think that's what marco's gonna happen it's like yeah it's neat i can see how people might like it but not my type of game it probably also happened to tiff because
John:
It's very difficult, I feel like, to play this Zelda game in particular, and any Zelda game, in a casual way.
John:
You're either going to know what you're getting into and know you like this kind of game, or not know what you're getting into and just be completely consumed because you don't have the antibodies for this type of thing, but you are the type of person who does like this kind of game.
John:
And for that type of person, like...
John:
I can imagine sinking literally hundreds of hours into this non-multiplayer, single-player, completely entirely scripted deterministic game because you'll just be like climbing trees and picking apples and cooking food and exploring and occasionally advancing this big overarching world story thing, which may eventually get too hard for you to do anyway.
John:
and like because if you've never done that before this is amazing i've done all this stuff before and i'm like you know amazed and excited and just want to go exploring and do things and like constantly getting distracted from advancing the main quest by all the other things that you can do whether they be official side quests or entirely different ones and it's just it's for for an experienced it express it impresses experienced zelda fans
John:
but i think like the best like the ideal experience is for like for this to be your first zelda and for you to be the type of person who loves zelda but you don't know it yet because you've never played one this was your first zelda game like some kid for some kid this is going to be this kid's first zelda game it's going to blow their mind they're going to talk about this game like we talk about mario 64 of being like oh so that's what 3d platforming is oh i see that's that's how 3d works like like completely you know uh
John:
childhood-defining game-type experience.
John:
So I'm excited by this, but I have dim hopes that Marco will get anything out of it, and I'm not sure about Tiff because she's been hot and cold on the other 3D Zelda games, so we'll see.
John:
But yeah, as with so many other game consoles that I buy, if this was the only game I was ever allowed to play on the Switch, already worth the money.
Marco:
See, for me, I expect Mario Kart will probably be that game, if not one of the later Marios, but yeah, we'll see.
Casey:
Yeah, I've wondered when the Mario Kart comes out, because I haven't played Mario Kart in a long time.
Casey:
And my understanding is it's just like a slight refresh or something like that.
Casey:
But either way, when it comes out, if I give that a shot...
Casey:
That might give me enough ammunition to buy the Switch.
Casey:
And the reason I say that is not because I don't think I would love Zelda.
Casey:
I think I would.
Casey:
But I view that as I would play it once and then be done.
Casey:
And I don't know if it's worth, what, $300 for the Switch and like $70 or $60 for the Zelda.
Casey:
So call it $400.
John:
You would play it once in one sitting or you think you would finish the whole game?
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
I'm saying over the course of like a month or two, maybe I would finish the whole game.
Casey:
But I don't know if I want to spend $400 on Zelda because I feel like I would play Zelda, think, wow, that was really great.
Casey:
I'm glad I did that and then never look at the Switch again.
Casey:
But if I see like Mario Kart, which I know that I've loved previous Mario Kart games.
Casey:
If I see that and it's well-reviewed and I get to play it on one of my friend's consoles and I like it, that might change things.
Casey:
Additionally, I've never played Splatoon, but I've heard nothing but universal praise for it.
Casey:
So I believe that's, again, like a refresh or a new version is coming for the Switch at some point.
Casey:
So maybe if I play that, I'll think, oh, you know, maybe this is worth it.
Casey:
But sitting here now, I'm looking for a reason to spend my money on this thing, and I just can't come up with it yet.
John:
If you're going to play that many games, though, and you're rallying off those things that you think you might play, honestly, it would be better for you to get a PS4 because there are so many different choices in the franchise.
John:
The next game in my queue, for example, is Horizon Zero Dawn, which has a terrible title.
John:
um which is also an open world type game but looks 100 times better because it's on ps4 and you know anyway uh it's being compared to zelda a lot uh but on a ps4 you get that you get the uncharted series you get all the all the top tier games on nintendo's thing you just get nintendo's top tier games so it is slimmer pickings and i feel like you would have a better experience on a on a quote-unquote real tv connected uh console but
John:
for for nintendo specific franchises mario card 8 i i feel like i know what that's going to be because i already played it this is a deluxe version right um and for me i still miss the driving mechanics of double dash it's still my favorite but mario card 8 was a really good mario card and just adding more tracks and everything is also going to make it really good but i find as i get older my tolerance for rubber banding ai in racing games is decreasing mightily
John:
And because I was never particularly good at raising games, multiplayer is just another avenue for me to feel frustrated because everyone I play online is 100 times better than I am.
John:
So it almost becomes like a party game where it's only good when you're playing with other people.
John:
And even then, even within my own family, it's hard to find people who have...
John:
our skill ranges are too too widely varied right that's the problem and so we we could play a four-player mario kart but two to three people are going to be really upset because they're never going to win and and that's bad um but yeah like i i'm not entirely sure that
John:
you should get a switch casey uh i think probably eventually declan will tell you what you should get and you should just do what he says that's my yeah not yet but eventually he'll tell you which console you should get and why and you should just listen to him and do that and then maybe you can maybe he can show you the ropes and uh teach you some things
Casey:
Well, there's a couple things you're not considering, though.
Casey:
Like, number one, I classically was a Nintendo kind of guy.
Casey:
I had everything up through and including the 64, and then, what was it, GameCube, and then I did not have.
Casey:
Then I had a Wii, and I didn't do anything since the game.
John:
You can't believe you skipped the GameCube, man.
John:
So many good games.
John:
Such a good controller.
John:
To be fair, a lot of people skipped the GameCube.
Casey:
Also true.
Casey:
It was less about the hardware, more about me just not really being interested in games anymore.
Casey:
And that's the other thing, is that you're probably right on paper that a PS4 would be a more worthwhile purchase.
Casey:
But all of these top-tier games that any normal human or any normal gamer would want to play, I just don't really have much interest in.
Casey:
I know that I have...
Casey:
played at least one zelda game i played all of ocarina time and and a fair bit of what i whatever was on the wii if memory serves um skyward sword where you wave the controller around to wave the sword no maybe it wasn't the wii then i don't think it was the way um i don't remember what it was maybe it was one for the gamecube but i played it on the wii it doesn't really matter twilight princess yes i think that's i think it was twilight princess now that you say that it doesn't really matter though the point is that i the couple that i've played i've enjoyed
Casey:
But other than that, what appeals to me about the Switch is that I think it would be great for the party games that I remember from when I was a kid from the Nintendo 64, like the equivalents thereof.
Casey:
So like Mario Kart, things like Goldeneye, which I see Splatoon kind of filling that void.
Casey:
You know what I mean?
Casey:
I don't have a terrible interest in going online and playing strangers because I know I'll get just completely destroyed by eight-year-olds and that's okay.
Casey:
Um, but having a bunch of friends or family or both over and playing sounds really appealing.
Casey:
And I was super impressed.
Casey:
Like, God knows if this would work at all or if it would work well, but I was super impressed, uh, by the like trailer promo video or whatever.
Casey:
That came out in October where they had like a portable switch and that's redundant, but, you know, a switch not docked and they had like two people playing each with their own joy con or I think there might have even been one where they had like four people playing or or.
Casey:
Certainly at another point, they had like a series of switches, switch eye, whatever the plural is in this particular context.
Casey:
Switch eye is correct.
Casey:
Yeah, definitely.
Casey:
That's definitely it.
Casey:
The plural of switch is switch, you guys.
Casey:
But anyway, they had several switches all in like a circle, and presumably they were all like networked together.
Casey:
There was another case where there's, I think, a basketball game where they were back-to-back, and there were a bunch of people playing simultaneously.
Casey:
I have no interest in a basketball game.
Casey:
I don't remember what the group was playing.
Casey:
It might have been Splatoon.
Casey:
But that sort of a thing is what makes the Switch most interesting to me.
Casey:
And that portability, the fact that it can switch, ding, between being docked and undocked, that to me is what I find so interesting about it.
Casey:
Maybe that's silly.
Casey:
Maybe that's stupid.
Casey:
But, I mean, that's why emotions are not logic and logic is not emotional.
Casey:
It's the way I feel.
Casey:
I just think that that's what's really neat and interesting about it.
John:
A lot of people are enjoying portable playing within their own house, like playing in bed.
Casey:
Yeah, seriously.
Casey:
No, I think that would apply to me.
Casey:
Absolutely.
John:
And I've done it with the Wii U when I was playing Mario Kart 8, for instance, and the family wanted to watch the TV.
John:
I could continue to play Mario Kart 8 just on the Wii U gamepad.
John:
And I came to actually like it that way.
John:
It's the same thing that got me with the gaming monitor, like being closer to the screen, being able to see more detail.
John:
I haven't done the math and the angles in it, but I think you can get it to fill more of your field of view.
John:
Even though I have the 55-inch television, I do sit kind of far away from it.
John:
I even felt like I know this can't possibly be true.
John:
Maybe it is.
John:
I don't know.
John:
I even felt like the input lag was reduced, even though the video was being wirelessly sent to this handheld thing.
John:
Like the game was actually playing on the Wii U that's attached to my TV and it was wirelessly sending the video.
John:
Like surely that has more lag than playing it on my actual TV.
John:
But for whatever reason, bottom line is I did better.
John:
I did better against the accursed rubber banding AI in Mario Kart 8 and in getting five stars or three stars or whatever it is, max rating and all these things to unlock all the stuff.
John:
I did better when I had it in my hand.
John:
And I found that fun, being able to be in the same room as other people but not occupying the giant TV while they watch some show and I play this thing.
John:
Again, I haven't done that with the Switch yet.
John:
I've been doing entirely on TV mostly because my son and I are playing the new Zelda together.
John:
and anyone else who happens to come in the room wants to see what we're up to because we're up to some awesome stuff um and but then it's easier for us to sit in front of a tv and zelda is not a twitch game where you have to have like amazing response times and amazing frame rate and it's a good thing because you don't have that but uh it's it's more fun for everyone to like look and to be looking at the big screen and admiring the scenery and pointing out the sparkles that i don't see out of the corner of my eye which means that i have to go pick up an arrow that i shot 10 minutes ago
Casey:
Sounds like a blast.
Casey:
It's awesome.
Casey:
If you ever get bored of yours, just send it my way.
Casey:
I'll play the snot out of it.
John:
I can't take it out of the dock because I might scratch the screen.
John:
Oh my god.
John:
Are you guys aware of this controversy?
John:
No.
John:
So people, you know that the Switch goes into the little napkin holder thingy that's to dock?
John:
Yeah, mine's in there now.
John:
Should I be afraid of taking it out?
John:
Somehow, somewhere, people are getting scratches on the sides of the screen.
John:
Not the part that lights up, but still kind of like the screen surface, like the black area around it.
John:
And all sorts of internet photos, and they're like...
John:
scratches on it and they're like is that is it happening because you're sliding and in and out of the plastic dock and like oh the plastic dock is scratching people switches you need to get a screen protector but then people get screen protectors and they heat from the switch makes the screen protectors peel off and buckle and they're saying oh you shouldn't get screen protectors and then someone puts a video of them taking their switch and slamming it in and out and into the dock as hard as they possibly can like 50 times and then pulling it out and saying
John:
see no scratches so whatever the hell you're doing to scratch your switch it ain't putting in the dock and people like well you don't know my life i put my thing in the switch gently three times and it scratched to hell and so like unlike the left joy con thing which is 100 reproducible as far as i've been able to tell in my brief googling around on the scratching thing is that no one knows what the heck is happening
John:
And chances are good that Nintendo wouldn't have shipped something that could have scratched.
John:
But the screen, I think the screen is not glass.
John:
And so it's conceivable that the two plastics could combine in a way that could cause scratches on the non-lightup part of the screen, which would be bad.
John:
So I have been very, very carefully taking my Switch in and out of the dock.
John:
No way.
John:
But I was pretty well convinced by that guy going to town on his Switch, his sacrificial Switch and his dock, and saying, look, I'm literally squeezing the napkin holder dock pinched shut as much as I can and jamming this thing out.
John:
Like, incredibly rough.
John:
I'm like, if that doesn't scratch it, like, then what is happening?
John:
Like, do they...
John:
they could have a grain of sand inside their dock and that would do it because you know all you need is a grain of sand between two little surfaces and you'll get scratches out of especially if it's plastic um but how does sand get in your switch dock so i don't know it's i think that is the the least concerning controversy the joy con thing seems like a hardware problem that they're going to have problems with it's just you know people are holding it wrong it's the same thing all over again you got your
John:
your big watery uh meatbags uh blocking the signal and some bad antenna design mixed in you know we've all been there and done that but that doesn't concern me because i'm just gonna use the pro controller or if i didn't use the pro controller i would use it when they're docked to the switch in which case signal is not an issue you know i mean i'll put the things on the side i'm not sure that i would ever it's only a problem when it's in the grip is that what you're was that what the thing is
John:
No, it's only a problem when it's in your hand.
John:
You can use the two Joy-Cons, like one in each hand, like just holding them like you're on the couch and the switch is across the room.
John:
Right.
John:
Oh, using the two Joy-Cons like that.
John:
And when you do that, it's possible to wrap your big media adult hand entirely around the left Joy-Con in a way that blocks the antenna and causes like Bluetooth disconnect.
John:
right so but so that's the issue everyone's having is only when they're disconnected so if you use it like all together it's fine yeah it's fine yeah because i think when it's all together i think it's literally physically connected or if not you certainly can't wrap your hand around the side that's facing the switch because it's you can't get your hand there you know it's connected and that's right right right i fix it did like a or someone did a tear down to show where the little antenna is and show that like if you attach an extra antenna wire and trace it put it in a different position like you're able to make it much harder to stop with your hand but
Marco:
you know it's it's iphone 4 type situation all over again so i'm i'm not concerned about it's why i didn't i was no way i would wait for like oh wait for they make a new hardware revision and fix this problem which they probably will but it's no way in hell i'm waiting i wanted to play zelda if i don't succeed in getting a pro controller anytime soon uh is it is an acceptable substitute to use either the little plastic thing that comes with with it or to buy the 30 while charging grip uh to to just use the joy cons as a controller
John:
You can try to see what you like.
John:
I mean, the buttons are super tiny on those Joy-Cons, and the joystick is very tiny, and it's all kind of small and tiny and awkward, and I wouldn't choose to do it with my hands, but a lot of people are discovering what I discovered long ago.
John:
I wouldn't do that with my hands.
John:
I'd do it with your hands.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Ergonomically speaking, having your left and right hand not joined by, like, not holding onto a rigid thing, you know what I mean?
John:
Like, to be able to separate them, like you do with the nunchuck and the Wiimote or whatever.
John:
Mm-hmm.
John:
is ergonomically great for anyone who has kind of rsi issues because you can put your wrists and hands in more neutral positions you're not forced to like with a keyboard you know you're not forced to align your fingers with the home keys why split keyboard lets your wrist be more neutral or whatever
John:
So with the separate controllers, a lot of people are either discovering for the first time or rediscovering how comfortable it can be to have two completely independent, not attached by anything controllers, and you can put your hands however is most comfortable for you and just use your thumbs and your fingers to make it like things.
John:
I just think they're too small for...
John:
my hands for the size of my hands but you know your mileage may vary so try either way and the little the little doggy thing i haven't even tried it in that the grip seems fine or whatever it's like honestly why would i ever why would i ever put those things into the little doggy grip when i have the pro controller i i don't see myself ever doing that cool i will try to get a pro controller and try to actually download zelda it might be working out by the way speaking of companies that won't let you give their money sony is the worst at this every time i want to buy something on sony's thing like
John:
it probably is my fault for triggering this like my the expiration date of my credit card change because i got a new card issued or whatever and maybe i went through and tried to do the purpose before purchase before i had updated the card it's like oh you know whatever your purchase didn't go through it's like oh yeah i gotta update the expiration date so i go update the expiration date and change it to the new one
John:
But it just still won't let me purchase.
John:
I delete that credit card, enter another one, won't let me purchase.
John:
And like, how many times have I done this?
John:
Every time I go to buy something, it's like, guess what?
John:
Sony will not let you buy anything with any credit card, with this credit card, with a new credit card.
John:
I go through like every credit card I own.
John:
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
John:
And it's because they do this like 24 to 48 hour lockout to prevent fraud when they think there's some sort of problem.
John:
like and you google for it you see a million people getting payment failures for drawing buying stuff in the playstation store it is so incredibly common and so i think for the past three times i've bought things because i buy all downloadable for a ps4 i don't buy plastic discs if i can help it for the past
John:
three times here's how I buy things on the Sony store I go to Amazon I buy a digital download code for $20 worth of credit I get the code I enter into the thing like there's no I don't lose any money in the deal except for the money that's left over that's how I buy things on Sony's stupid store because they won't take my freaking money they also accept PayPal but screw PayPal