I Am Not a Salad Power User
Casey:
I'm never buying a car ever again.
Marco:
I bet that's not true.
Marco:
That's like me saying, I'm perfectly happy with my computer setup.
Marco:
I'm never changing anything.
Marco:
I mean, come on.
Marco:
We know each other.
Casey:
And we know ourselves.
Casey:
This is entirely accurate.
Casey:
Well done, sir.
Casey:
We're traveling and, well, two-thirds of us are traveling over the next three or four weeks.
Casey:
And as it turns out, as with all things, we accidentally scheduled our vacations in a not terribly convenient way.
Marco:
Basically in sequence.
Casey:
Yeah, basically we are doing vacationing in serial and not parallel.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
This is a single-core, single-threaded vacation operation here at the Accidental Tech Podcast.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
We're going to have to squeeze in like 17 weeks worth of shows in the span of like three weeks.
Casey:
Not literally, of course, but that's what it feels like.
Casey:
And because of Gary the Privacy Clown, I'm not going to disclose any more than that.
Casey:
But suffice to say, yeah, we did not plan well.
Marco:
Whoops.
Marco:
It's almost like Adobe wrote our schedule.
Casey:
How do you figure that?
Marco:
Well, because nothing Adobe writes is parallel.
Casey:
Heyo!
Casey:
We'll be here all week, except not really, because like I just said, we're going on vacation.
Casey:
Anyway, how are you guys?
Marco:
Totally fine.
Casey:
How's the dog, John?
John:
Hanging in there, doing dog things.
Marco:
How much of your house remains both intact and not covered in pee?
John:
Oh, it's entirely covered in pee.
John:
It's mostly intact.
John:
She mostly goes for the soft items.
John:
I mean, she's got a little bit of chewing on the stairs and cabinets and furniture, but really mostly goes for the toilet paper and stuff like that.
John:
High value targets?
John:
Soft targets.
John:
shred that toilet paper make a giant mess in a matter of seconds you almost want to take some like pictures or video but then you do have to actually clean up and not encourage the dog to do this but it's kind of cute so that's the thing that puppies have puppies and babies their cuteness is their defense
Casey:
that's absolutely accurate all right let's start with some follow-up and it starts with andrew burwell who writes in to say i found this website to be particularly good for best tv settings and this is artings.com slash tv we'll put a link in the show notes they use calibration tools on the tv and adjust each brand and model of tv to its best settings possible given that they're all manufactured the same way you can expect reasonable calibration using this method
Casey:
They give you screenshots of your particular TV menus with the settings you need to use.
Casey:
I have an ancient TV that is 1080, but it is ancient.
Casey:
And I have never bothered.
Casey:
I'm sorry, Todd and John.
Casey:
I've never bothered setting it up properly.
Casey:
And I need to dig into this website and see if they have settings for my TV.
Casey:
Because I've never cared enough to really make it work, as we discussed last episode.
Casey:
And this sounds pretty great that I need to check this out.
Marco:
Yeah, actually.
Marco:
So after last episode and after John scolded me into thinking I needed to calibrate my TV, the first thing I did was not to download an app to try to do it.
Marco:
The first thing I did was search the web for other people's calibration settings for this TV because it's a current model TV and there's a lot of nerds out there who would do this kind of stuff and publish their results.
Marco:
This was the first thing that came up.
Marco:
And so a few hours before the whole world started telling me to go to this site, I had actually already done it and had tried their settings with very minor modifications.
Marco:
All I did was make it a little bit brighter and make it slightly closer to neutral white balance.
Marco:
And it's great.
Marco:
And so I haven't changed it since.
Marco:
It's been wonderful.
John:
So that's better than nothing.
John:
But I would still encourage people to actually use the calibration app because they say, oh, yeah, all TVs, they're all the same.
John:
Like, you know, there's not there's no variance in manufacturing or age or anything or like it's just not true.
John:
Like this will get you in the ballpark.
John:
To actually find out if your TV is calibrated correctly, you have to go through a calibration of some kind.
John:
And these probably get really, really close, right?
John:
But even just based on like how bright your room is and where the windows are, and if you mostly watch TV during the day or the night, whether you want to have one sort of in the middle setting or have a daytime and a nighttime setting.
John:
And by the way, look, this website is way better than things used to be when I calibrated.
John:
When I last calibrated my TV, it was still more of the Wild West.
John:
This is so nice with like the pictures of the menus and easy to find your TV.
John:
You don't have to go through forums and download these text files with the listings of all the settings and stuff like that.
John:
But looking at the settings for Marcos TV on this website, it shows the TVs still suck where it's like,
John:
well if you put this setting on these settings go from a menu to a slider and you can't use this setting with that thing and the again the words don't make any sense in the menus and i don't understand why they have like these smart tvs have little computers in there right they're running entire operating systems and yet the settings are all like well only the setting called pc can have these settings and when you put on game mode only these things are available and like i mean sometimes it makes sense where they're turning things off but
John:
This should all be downloadable, standardized, like even just not across all manufacturers, obviously, but just like there shouldn't be no dumb limitations.
John:
They don't like only the PC input can support a particular color space or stuff like that.
John:
And nothing should have weird code words.
John:
Everything should be in.
John:
like normal tech terms not branding terms shouldn't be like warm two warm three size one because it doesn't help anybody and and the weird limitations of like oh only in the isf expert mode can you change this setting but if you do the standard setting these three things aren't available but in this one like you don't get to pick the gamut it's like just just make them all the same and and and you only have like five different settings like oh i've used all my settings and actually sometimes you only get one setting that lets you change everything but that one setting doesn't let you enable game mode it's like
John:
There should be an unlimited number of settings.
John:
It's not like a game where you're trying to make it so they can only have two save slots to make the game harder.
John:
Like, how is it that we have these complete WebOS operating system on there and yet you still only have, you know, five sets of settings and they're all slightly different from each other?
Marco:
Well, let me provide a counterpoint here.
Marco:
Have you ever gone to one of these places like Chopped?
Marco:
It's basically like a salad assembly thing.
Marco:
It's like Subway for salads.
Marco:
I have not.
Marco:
I knew Casey would have.
Marco:
I knew John.
Marco:
I'm not surprised.
Marco:
I've never even heard of this thing.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
So basically, when I go to a place like this,
Marco:
You can do the thing where you just create your own salad from bare parts.
Marco:
Or you can have one of the preset salads that's on the wall.
Marco:
If the only option was, here is an array of 40 different ingredients, and you tell me what kind of salad you want and I make it for you...
Marco:
If I went to that restaurant, I would have no idea what to make.
Marco:
I would make a crap salad.
Marco:
It would just be terrible.
Marco:
It would be bland or uncreative or would have weird ratios or whatever else.
Marco:
I always order off the presets.
Marco:
And I might adjust things slightly within one of the presets.
Marco:
I like some guidance because I am not a salad power user.
Marco:
And so I don't really... I need some starting points, some presets...
John:
But that's not what I'm asking for at all, though.
John:
I'm not asking for there not to be presets.
John:
I'm asking for there to be like, say there's like a thousand things you could change in the TV.
John:
By all means, ship 17 presets.
John:
In fact, I would like an app store for presets even like where these websites wouldn't have to exist and you could just upload stuff.
John:
But the whole point is, if you decide, hey, I want to make a new setting called, you know, Marco's setting.
John:
There should be no limitations like, oh, sorry, you only get five settings and they're the presets.
John:
And if you change one of them, then you change one of the presets.
John:
The only way to get it back is a factory default.
John:
It should be like new thing.
John:
And you could start like, would you like this new setting to start from one of the standard ones?
John:
Sure.
John:
Start from the whatever setting.
John:
And then when you go in there, all thousand switches should be available to you.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah.
John:
They should be uniform and you should be able to make as many new ones as you want.
John:
And you shouldn't lose the presets.
John:
And in fact, it's such an easy opportunity to make presets something like downloadable, syncable, shareable with friends.
John:
Like they should cultivate these forms.
John:
Hey, if someone wants to run some fancy calibration app and make a branded setting and make it downloadable, you should be able to go to that URL and pull down the settings for whatever.
John:
There should be no dumb, arbitrary limitations that don't make any sense.
John:
That's what I'm saying.
John:
Not that you shouldn't have presets.
Marco:
Well, but I respect the idea of what is exposed most of the time to me, the user, is here's some presets, and if you go into them, there are a few, not even a lot, there are a few things you can tweak under each one.
Marco:
And then only in the expert ones, buried like three levels deep even within those, are all the different options that you want.
Marco:
But I actually don't want most of those options because I know that most of those options, I shouldn't touch those.
Marco:
Because A, I don't really care.
Marco:
And B, anything I would adjust there, I would probably be making things worse because I don't know what I'm doing.
John:
You can hide them under an advanced option just like they do in app preferences.
John:
You don't expose all the preferences.
John:
It's like you have nitpicky settings.
John:
They're not there.
John:
It's just that you don't see them unless you really dig for them, right?
John:
So you put the top.
John:
And really, honestly, the number of things you need to adjust on a television, aside from turning off stuff,
John:
Which is kind of annoying that you would have to dig through it, right?
John:
I mean, if you just look at the setting preset they recommend, it's like every single feature the television has, off, off, off, off, off.
John:
No sharpness enhancement, no vibrancy, no edge whatever, no motion, anything.
John:
Just off, off, off everything, right?
John:
It's annoying that you have to do that, right?
John:
But that aside...
John:
you really just need to change two or three settings brightness contrast different color balance things and that's it it's not like there's a hundred things you can do for picture quality mostly you're just turning crap off so yeah by all means have a have a hierarchy of settings have here are the three or four things you probably might want to change and advanced picture advanced motion advanced whatever and you dig down and down if you want to make it a hierarchy that's fine
John:
But I don't like it when options aren't available to you.
John:
Or like, well, in this mode, you get three settings for this thing.
John:
But in this mode, you get a slider that has, you know, 500 settings for it.
John:
Why?
John:
We just decided that's what it is.
Casey:
You know, we got two other interesting pieces of feedback around this.
Casey:
Malcolm Hall wrote in to tell us that some people have been buying Samsung has a product called Smart Signage, which is basically a TV-sized monitor, and that's it.
Casey:
So the idea is you take a monitor that's, you know, 40, 50, 60, 70 inches, but it doesn't have anything smart in it.
Casey:
Presumably it just has like HDMI or equivalent and nothing else.
Casey:
There's no speakers.
Casey:
There's no smartness.
Casey:
It's just a dumb display.
Casey:
And if you're hooking this up to like a sound bar or a stereo system, I mean, I guess some of you could go crazy enough to do surround sound.
Casey:
But anyway, if you hook it up to some other external speaker system, then you don't have to fight all the silly smartness, which isn't exactly what you two were talking about, because you two were just talking about calibrating the screen.
Casey:
But that's kind of neat.
Casey:
And additionally, Safe Khan wrote in to say that Samsung is also trying to do a frame TV, which is designed to look like nothing at all or not a TV at all until you want it to be a TV.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And then it will go from like a still picture to a regular traditional TV.
Casey:
And that probably isn't the best word picture that I've just painted, but we'll put links to both these in the show notes.
Marco:
Yeah, I saw that video, but like, so it's hard to tell from video, but like, is it still like a light emitting display when it's in like the frame mode?
John:
Yeah, that...
John:
that that's entirely like a marketing bs because there's no way you wouldn't know that's a tv like they always put it in lighting it's like oh it looks just like the painting because they put it in like a picture frame like oh it's like a painting right but you know it's not especially if it's an lcd tv with terrible black levels like there'll be no way oh here we go bright sunlight shining on your wall
John:
on an actual painting of a sailboat next to like a sailboat picture on your television it's i don't know who they think they're fooling with that but i mean i guess it looks nice if you have decor things there's a lot of a lot of televisions that you buy look like you know whatever like they look like technology products they look like computer equipment or whatever and if you don't want that look if you want it to look more like a piece of furniture that some people do this is a good look for your television but don't fool yourself into thinking that people are going to believe it's a painting
John:
Because they will not because it does not look like a TV.
John:
Maybe if it was color e-ink, that would work.
John:
But we don't have that tech.
Marco:
I feel like any technology that tries to hide a TV, that's solving the wrong problem.
Marco:
Like, remember when computers first came out when we were all children?
Marco:
Well, when Casey and I were children.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
And a lot of times our parents would make the computer live in some kind of giant cabinet that would close with big doors, like wooden doors.
Marco:
Sometimes they'd put TVs in there too, but usually the computer was what was hidden in this giant wooden cabinet by the wall.
Marco:
And that was like a certain generation, like the default mode was to hide technology, oftentimes like our parents' generation.
Marco:
And then now it's like, well, no, you have to use that.
Marco:
That's just normal to see in a house.
Marco:
It would be weird if you saw a house that didn't have a TV in it now.
Marco:
And so I feel like trying to hide a TV like it's you're just kind of fighting a losing battle like you're going to either have a really strange looking picture on the wall or you're going to have some kind of crazy complex thing like one of those you know raising and lowering things where the TV slides up out of a dresser you know see that like that that's just doomed to break and fail and we it's you know that's that's no good either.
Marco:
Just have a TV that you don't mind the look of.
Marco:
And if you don't want a TV in a room, don't put a TV in that room.
Marco:
Anything else besides just trying to own it is not going to go well for you.
Marco:
Same deal with baldness, by the way.
John:
Yeah.
John:
people still hide tvs but lest you think that's an old thing people still totally do that and the most recent this old house house i recall they had a television that they were a putting over their fireplace which is way too high for tv and b wanted to hide with a set of folding doors that like had a painting integrated into them so when it was closed it just looked like a painting like an actual painting or whatever eventually they just used wood panel doors because i guess someone talked them out of the painting idea um but yes people still want to hide their televisions and
John:
i guess people don't like it you know like decor wise it doesn't look nice to have a big black rectangle uh and and i think even these picture frame ones to have a big monitor turned on to a you know a picture of a sunset or something we just don't have the text it's not going to look right people in the chat room are pointing me to color e-ink displays yes we have color e-ink not televisions you can't they don't show motion
John:
um they did have that hybrid one remember that one that was like color e-ink but also lcd for motion so it was like this weird i don't know obviously it didn't catch on eventually we could have some kind of display technology that does reflective sort of like in the off mode where you could put a picture on there that would look just like a you know a picture on the wall or at least it would look like a poster at very least maybe or a very large photograph um
John:
But they could also do the motion of television, but we don't have that yet.
John:
But people still want to hide their TVs.
John:
And I totally agree with you, Margaret.
John:
I think it's ridiculous to hide your television.
John:
Like, part of it is almost like, you know, not just the decor of a big black rectangle, but also...
John:
the idea that people don't want to think of their lives as centering around television.
John:
Like that's somehow a shameful thing because of all like the, the television shaming from, from I think both of our childhoods of like the TV rots, your brain and don't watch TV and people, you know, you don't want people to know how much television you watch, but yeah,
John:
If you don't watch that much television, maybe you don't have a 70-inch television.
John:
I mean, it seems like the budget and wall space reflected by your television choices are not in line with the image you want to project to the outside world.
John:
They're like, oh, we don't even own a television.
John:
We don't even watch television.
John:
We just have the 70-inch rectangle here.
John:
We were forced to have it by the neighbors.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Anyway, I would never want my television to be in.
John:
And by the way, those little cabinets where you put your computers, one of the things that I think helped kill those is the fact that our computers are so hot now that, you know, putting them inside an enclosed cabinet would destroy everything.
Marco:
No, they were hotter then because back then they were CRTs.
John:
yeah but like the computers themselves were cooler i mean some of them you know they didn't even have fans uh over the heat sinks for the cpus back in the early days um yeah yeah crts are hot too but like the entertainment center for television used to be like that too remember the entertainment centers were uh for like your vcr and your game consoles like those were entirely enclosed too maybe they had holes punched out in the back for the wires to go through and most things didn't get that hot
John:
Like you didn't have your Xbox 360 in there.
John:
NES was not getting that hot compared to modern consoles.
John:
But those things were not a great environment for electronics.
John:
And today it's mostly worse because our DVRs, maybe not our Blu-ray players, but certainly our game consoles are hotter.
John:
But the TVs, like Bargo's, are way cooler temperature-wise than a CRT or a Plasma or anything like that.
John:
So those actually could go in cabinets.
John:
Now that they're the thickness of a piece of paper, cabinets don't make any sense anymore.
Marco:
I always love, too, the entertainment centers that our parents would have, that was mostly during the era of CRT TVs.
Marco:
So they were giant.
Marco:
They made the decision that this tremendous wooden monolith thing in the living room, that was somehow better than just having a TV.
Yeah.
John:
like that was fooling nobody yeah and it was and they were huge like they were often way bigger than the television like they were big enough that you could like shelve rows and rows of vhs tapes and stuff and then the other great thing my parents did this too they have one in their house right now you you would buy one and they're expensive like especially the ones that filled an entire wall that's a substantial piece of furniture if you got a nice one not an inexpensive piece of furniture because it was literally massive right and if you got one you were deciding how big your television was going to be
John:
until you know unless you wanted to replace that huge expensive piece of furniture or you know unless it was built into your house right and so if you bought one before hd tv you had a four by three hole for television and then you had to put a 16 by 9 tv in there and so you got shrunk down and if you bought before television got really big and you could just barely fit like a 40 inch hd tv in there now you can't get a good tv or you feel like you can't get a big tv my parents have to buy based on which tv will fit inside their
John:
slightly dated piece of furniture where they fit their televisions um so putting your electronics inside a box of any kind is just not a particularly future-proof idea and not good for cooling it's so true my brother-in-law has a house that was built probably in the late 90s uh i think
Casey:
And he has in his family room or living room or whatever he has like I guess he could call it a built in but basically in the wall is like sunk in and it's about the size of maybe a 40 or 50 inch TV these days and I'm sure left to his own devices he would have like a 9000 inch monstrosity but because it's in a built in that's in his wall.
Casey:
there's not really a lot he can do.
Casey:
Like to make it bigger, he would have to cut into his wall.
Casey:
Also, John, you are officially uninvited from ever coming to my house because I have a TV that is not calibrated, is mounted above the fireplace, probably, I don't know, two or three feet off the ceiling, which is like a seven or eight foot ceiling, I guess eight foot ceiling.
Casey:
I have 2.1 sound.
Casey:
I have a turntable.
Casey:
Like this is pretty much your hell is my family room.
Casey:
And I like it quite a lot, but you're never coming over because I don't want to, I don't want to never hear the end of this.
Casey:
too high i just don't understand people can have a television that high we had no option so so our family room i wasn't trying to make this an actual conversation but hey here we are uh our family room and marco can vouch for this it's very very wide and very shallow if that makes sense and so because of that there's no real convenient way to have a tv in the room unless you put it in the corner and like twist the furniture in the room to be in the corner but it's a
Casey:
So the best place for it in terms of room and furniture flow is above the fireplace, and that's where it is.
Casey:
But I understand and I recognize that for the optimum TV viewing experience, that is probably not the right place for it.
It's okay now.
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Casey:
Speaking of calibration, which we were talking about about 45 minutes ago, THX has a tune-up app, THX Tune-Up, that is, I guess, pretty well regarded.
Casey:
It's for Android and iOS.
Casey:
Unfortunately, not for the Apple TV, however.
John:
People were asking for calibration apps, and I suggested this to Marco.
John:
I assume, like, oh, there must be a bunch of good ones for Apple TV.
John:
Turns out, no.
John:
The Apple TV app store is not looking too good.
John:
If there's a good one for Apple TV, I couldn't find it.
John:
Put it that way.
John:
I think I downloaded or purchased every...
John:
apple tv app that has anything to do with calibration and they're all pretty terrible um thx tune-up uh i used years ago and it's still out there uh it's not an apple tv app which bothers me in a couple of ways because like well you know what's the point like why why do i have to also have a you know a phone or an ipad and then somehow a way to project that to the tv either a chromecast or an apple tv but if you have a
John:
uh the one combination i know works you have an ios device like an ipad or an iphone and you also have an apple tv you run the thx tune-up app on your ios device in your hand and then you airplay it to the tv and the reason i don't like that is because as far as i know airplay is lossy compressed over the air
John:
is that is that correct marco you might know video is is lossy compressed audio is lossless all right so but we care about video in this case and so like well it's just does you really want to run a calibration app compress the i mean some parts of it work like the you know the geometry stuff and the you know making sure you can see all the pixels and stuff like that but
John:
But anyway, the app itself is actually decent.
John:
It does the important things of saying, here's a screen, here's what it's supposed to look like in words, adjust it until you can see all six boxes or until you can barely make out the number, you know.
John:
seven over here or like they they tell you what you're looking for and then you can then it's up to you to mess with your television and do it it's a great way to test your calibration things because if you download those settings from that website who knows maybe it's dead on for your tv run through the calibration screens and it'll be like you should see six boxes you'd be like yep i see six boxes go to the next one you should see the number nine faintly visible and you shouldn't see 10 yep i see it go to that you'll it'll take you 30 seconds right but if you go through it and it's off
John:
then you get into the whole, it's time to actually calibrate your TV or make a daytime in a nighttime setting or whatever.
Casey:
So I was going to bring up in, well, actually, you and say, well, actually, why don't you use, or I guess, let me do this right.
Casey:
Well, actually, you should use the lightning digital AV adapter, but doesn't that use AirPlay behind the scenes anyway?
John:
Yeah, doesn't that have like little H.264 decoder, encoder thing there in a tiny iOS device or something?
Marco:
Yeah, panic with the whole blog post about it.
John:
yeah yeah so obviously ios is not the ideal thing and and uh this is the the next bit of follow-up here from john duffin and a lot of people are giving us tips about this uh i forget it was maybe someone on twitter was saying i was saying lucasfilm dvds and blu-rays have calibration things on them like if you go to their menus like deep in the extra section
John:
Someone was telling me that most Pixar Blu-rays and DVDs have calibration apps, again, somewhere buried in their extras menu on them.
John:
John Duffin wrote and told us that if you have a Sony Pictures Blu-ray and you type Sony on the title screen, like 7669, like telephone dialing Sony, I suppose, it will open the calibration screen, which seems pretty sneaky because who the heck knows how to do that?
John:
They should actually put it in the menu.
John:
These are all ways to get a better...
John:
source for calibration especially from like a blu-ray player because that's that's directly connected to your television and is not lossy compressed h.264 over the air through airplay uh the quality of these calibration apps varies but at the very least you can do geometry and you know uh grayscale levels and brightness and stuff like that and do a reasonable job with it so there's really really no excuse for people not to have access to a calibration thing
John:
of some kind like it's not you have to buy some expensive piece of hardware or software or you know do anything fancier it just surely everyone who's listening to this who has a fancy television that's worth calibrating has a dvd or a blu-ray or access to the ios app store to get a i think thx tune-up is free but if not you know it's the price of a cup of coffee just download it and give it a go
Marco:
counter argument the artings ratings are pretty good and i i nothing can make me want to boot up the ps4 and play a blu-ray disc somehow in that monstrosity and then get to the monstrosity that is blu-ray discs themselves and then navigate that and do all this when the artings things were good enough you've got an apple tv use thx tips it's fun calibrating your tv can be fun
Casey:
Or you can just not care.
Casey:
That is an officially ATP-blast option.
John:
Casey, we just want to make sure that you're... Didn't we go through this for you with the size?
John:
That's all I care about in your TV is that it's not an over-scan mode.
Casey:
Oh, it is.
Casey:
It still is.
Casey:
No, it still is.
John:
Wait, what?
Casey:
Really?
Casey:
I don't want it to be.
Casey:
I've tried everything I knew how to do to fix it.
Casey:
I'm not proud of this.
Casey:
I sound proud.
Casey:
I'm not.
Casey:
I don't like it.
John:
Forget about the car buying.
John:
Get rid of that TV.
Casey:
But the mount that we have in our wall, I think, only supports up to 40-inch TVs.
John:
You're so obsessed with these pristine 1080 versions of a show, and then it's stretched to non-native res, and you're flipping all the edges when you watch it on your television.
Casey:
Absolutely accurate.
Casey:
Absolutely accurate.
Casey:
I'm not proud of this.
Casey:
I know I sound all smug and proud.
Casey:
I'm not.
Casey:
It's just I have spent what I consider to be an inordinate amount of time trying to fix this, which is to say, like, five or ten minutes.
Casey:
And I couldn't figure it out, and I just don't care enough.
Casey:
I just don't.
Casey:
i want it to be fixed it's not that i don't want it to be fixed i just don't care enough so i would invite you down john to fix it but a you would never travel that far unless under duress and b you would hate everything you saw and potentially firebomb my house if only marco had had purchased this television two years earlier because right about now you'd be buying another television you can that's true one that's very true he's gonna need to replace this one anytime so hey maybe you gotta get his old plasma did you offload that yet
Marco:
No, it's sitting behind my chair in my living room.
Marco:
You want it?
Marco:
It probably weighs a ton, yeah.
Marco:
Well, yeah.
Marco:
Casey, if you want to come pick it up, you can have it.
Casey:
Oh, well, we'll talk about that later.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Tell me about your small speaker amp, Marco.
Marco:
Oh, yeah.
Marco:
A million people asked.
Marco:
I mentioned very quickly in passing last episode that my preferred setup was just this tiny little Class D amp that was like the size of a few packs of cards driving just two speakers without a subwoofer, without surround, anything like that.
Marco:
And a million people have asked me since then which amp it is.
Marco:
And the reason I didn't say is because it is the NuForce DIA, and it was discontinued like three years ago.
Marco:
And the entire company of NuForce was bought by this other company that apparently all the fans of NuForce hate, and they say they've ruined all their products since then.
Marco:
So I didn't feel comfortable recommending it because it's not only can you not get it anymore, but the things that you can get now have pretty crappy reviews from people who used to like the old stuff.
Marco:
Uh, so there is now this, there's this giant class of small, like class D amplifiers.
Marco:
And when I get into the details of like what, like class A and class AB and all these different amplifier topologies are, uh, class D basically allows you to make an amp very, very small and low heat and low power.
Marco:
Um,
Marco:
And audiophiles don't like it as much as the other kinds, but for the purposes of speakers on a TV, it's totally fine.
Marco:
And so Class D amps are great.
Marco:
There's lots of them.
Marco:
If you search Amazon for a Class D amp, there's a ton that are roughly between $100 and $400 that are approximately 25 to 50 watts per channel, and many of them support remote controls.
Marco:
And so for my little NuForce one, it has a little generic remote.
Marco:
And I was very, very easily able to have the Apple TV learn that up and down volume control.
Marco:
And that's it.
Marco:
So that's what I'm using now.
Marco:
If I had to buy new today, I would probably want a little bit more power for driving like floor standards.
Marco:
But if you're just driving bookshelves, then those little like 20 watt ones are fine.
Marco:
On Amazon, again, there's a lot.
Marco:
So just look for Class D amps with remotes.
Marco:
And there's a lot out there.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Now, I didn't get a chance to read this, but Jonathan Dietz Jr.
Casey:
writes in about Type-C personality.
Casey:
So can one of you take me through this, if you don't mind?
Marco:
Is it like a regular personality that you can insert in the direction?
John:
It's a post.
John:
It's a title pun.
John:
So he's been emailing back and forth with me about USB Type-C stuff since the show that we talked about it.
John:
And you remember we had the big long email that we read?
John:
He wrote an even longer email after, and I'm like, you should make this a blog post because there's no way we can even summarize a feedback email this complicated, and you should just really make it a blog post.
John:
Don't just email your insights and ideas to...
John:
single or a couple of people put it up on the web for everybody to see because then we can just link to it in the show notes which we will do and then anyone who's interested can read it so if you want to hear even more about the nitty-gritty details of usb type c and all the different alternate modes and what you would take to get hubs of different kinds and stuff uh
John:
take a look at this very long detailed post i think the most salient point and a couple other people have brought this up as well is the idea that it's still early enough in us the usb 3.1 spec and the type c spec and all that other stuff that there aren't a lot of chip sets that support all the different protocols and are certified by all the standards bodies and so on and so forth and that most companies that make hubs just buy like uh chips from somebody else or like a reference design from somebody else
John:
that has already done all the work to make sure the thing actually works and is certified according to all the standards, bodies, or whatever.
John:
And they just package it in a box and slap on a crappy power supply that's going to break in six months or whatever.
John:
But that's what they do.
John:
They don't make the chips.
John:
They want the chips to already be made.
John:
And a bunch of companies are going to be making these types of chips for the new USB specs, and they're just coming online now.
John:
So it could be that you wait another year...
John:
There could be many more options for, you know, USB type C hubs to do fan out on them and more complicated Thunderbolt hubs and stuff like that.
John:
So we'll see.
John:
It could also end up being like Firewire where you end up even many, many years into it that only a few companies make a set of chips and everything still costs a million dollars.
John:
And so we'll see.
John:
But anyway, I recommend the post.
John:
He took the time to write a blog post.
John:
And so now the entire world can share in his knowledge.
Casey:
Excellent.
Casey:
Brian Rossi writes in to say, are the rumored OLED iPhones going to have issues with image retention?
Casey:
If so, what measures should we take to prevent it?
John:
The question is, are they going to have more issues with image retention than LCDs?
John:
Do you know that your current iOS device, if it has image retention?
John:
Because I can tell you that many iOS devices over many, many years have had image retention issues.
John:
In fact, maybe yours does now.
John:
And me telling you this is going to make you look at it and realize, oh, God, I have image retention on my iPad.
John:
You probably do.
John:
um people don't like to think about it uh but it is there if you look for it it can get really bad on some devices after some time and other devices hardly show it at all i suppose if you wanted like ignorance is bliss so you probably shouldn't do this kind of like in the old days when you look for dead pixels but
John:
uh marco has a handy web page that will put a checkerboard pattern on your screen and you'll leave it there for a while uh and then you go anywhere else and if you can still see the checkerboard guess what you've got image retention to some degree no you don't have to anywhere else even it'll switch over to gray for you that's right you click and it switches to gray after you've stared at it for a little bit but the whole point is like to convince yourself that marco's not just trolling you you just launch another app or go to springboard or whatever and you'll still see it there um
John:
I've never owned an, I think the only OLED I have is my Apple watch, right?
John:
Like that's the only thing I have that's an OLED.
John:
I have heard that OLED have image retention issues and I've heard it talked about because it's like the successor to plasma, like, you know, cause LCD was never really the successor to plasma because the image quality was worse.
John:
So now here's OLED with image quality that's actually better.
John:
and the old slam against plasma in addition to all the heat and expense and power use and everything was that it had image retention.
John:
And, of course, LCD has image retention as well, but the whole idea is, oh, yeah, but plasma has bad image retention.
John:
So OLED I've heard talked about as if it's almost as bad as plasma, and so thinking that it's worse than LCD in terms of image retention.
John:
But having a never-owned one, I have no idea.
John:
I guess Marco will tell us if the menus are burned into his OLED TV.
John:
um so i would suspect that yes uh oled iphones are going to have image retention issues the same exact way as the lcd iphones at the very least you know i don't see if oled had less image retention issues than lcd it seems like something that you know you'd be hearing about instead but i hear the opposite that oh oled watch out image retention so no matter how well the whoever manufactures these screens does uh surely it will have
John:
the same image retention on average as all the other iphones now i don't know from year to year device to device manufacturer to manufacturer how the image retention has varied on ios devices i try not to look for it uh i see it occasionally still mostly on my ipad i don't know that's because it's i you know i use my ipad more because the screen is bigger and it's easier to pick up on these things
John:
um but i think most people don't know that lcds have image retention on their ios devices and so therefore probably won't notice it on their oleds oh i know what measure should we take to prevent it don't use your device you won't notice any attention wow i mean like what can you do like it's not you know what can you do to prevent like if you put an image on your screen and you leave it there for a real long time but like that's often what we do with our phones is leave an image there for a real long time whether you're
John:
reading a big page in an ebook and it takes you a certain amount of time to read a page or you're looking at a video uh and like my children you refuse to put the video in full screen the surrounding frame of the youtube that's not video is static the whole time you're watching a 20 minute video uh i don't know like with my television i could tell you as a long time plasma tv owner i don't play video games with a static hud if i can help it on my big television and
John:
I don't leave the television paused, like I don't hit the pause button on the TiVo or whatever and then leave the room for five minutes.
John:
If I'm going to leave, like Apple TV has a screensaver that will turn on, which is actually a useful thing for me because it's actually saving my screen.
John:
But if I'm going to leave the room for more than, you know, two minutes, I turn off the television.
John:
You don't have to turn everything else off, just turn the power off on the television and then turn it back on when you come in.
John:
But that doesn't apply to iOS devices because it's not like you're leaving it paused or leaving the room and the screen will turn off in a minute anyway to save your battery.
John:
So I don't think there's anything anybody can do about it.
John:
We just have to cross our fingers and hope that the first batch of these things don't end up having weird discoloration or image retention issues and hope that you get the one from the good screen manufacturer if there is such a thing this time around and we'll just deal with it.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
And finally, tell me about Apple's silence on net neutrality.
John:
the post on osnews.com uh asking where's apple on this whole neutrality thing we talked about it i think last show and unlike lots of other issues apple is not a particularly loud cheerleader
John:
in favor of net neutrality uh to the point where the you know the question was so where does apple stand on this like i don't know i've never heard them say anything of substance about net neutrality at all uh again unlike many other issues uh then this post goes on to speculate why that might be
John:
that apple as an incumbent with uh the potential uh you know lots of money and lots of digital goods that they want to send over the wires that the lack of neutrality would favor them because they do have the money to pay anybody and they can get an edge on their competitors and blah all sorts of sort of conspiracy theories or whatever but um as the biggest tech company in the world i feel like they should be much more vocal than they are i shouldn't be here thinking
John:
where does apple stand in neutrality i should already know because they should already have blacked out their web pages and done all the other things or whatever now who maybe they did that and i'm just missing it i don't know uh did any you guys recall anything from apple about neutrality ever
Marco:
no no yeah i don't know um that's disappointing uh well i mean i don't fault them for like not making their pages black and stuff on certain days because like apple does not respond well to social pressure to make them change their stuff for the sake of some you know someone else's terms like that's apple's not going to play a ball with that but it's not it's not someone else doing it like they they changed their home page when george harrison died like it shouldn't it should be intrinsic not extrinsic it should be them deciding that net neutrality is important you know therefore
John:
They are going to do this.
John:
Not that they feel peer pressure.
John:
They feel peer pressure to put George Harrison on.
John:
No, it's just something they decided to do as a company.
John:
And I hope that that still is within the company, that these important causes and important days make the token effort, express the values of your company.
John:
And Tim Cook's Apple has been doing that.
John:
Again, we've talked about this more than Steve Jobs' Apple, like expressing
John:
The values of the company externally in a more bold way that seem to be more about Tim Cook's values.
John:
Maybe Tim Cook doesn't value net neutrality.
John:
I don't know if you've never heard him talk about it.
John:
It's hard to say.
John:
There's a quote from him in this article that just is a bunch of nothing.
John:
So it doesn't tell you anything.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Aftershocks Bone Conduction Headphones.
Marco:
Go to atp.aftershocks.com to learn more.
Marco:
Aftershocks headphones work by bone conduction.
Marco:
So small transducers rest in front of your ears, not inside or around your ears like most headphones.
Marco:
And they send mini vibrations through your cheekbones directly to your inner ear, bypassing your ears and eardrums completely.
Marco:
So unlike every other kind of headphone, bone conduction leaves your ears completely open with nothing in them.
Marco:
So this brings some major benefits in practice.
Marco:
So first of all, a lot of people like me can't wear earbuds or in-ear monitors because they actually hurt.
Marco:
They physically hurt our ears over time.
Marco:
Aftershocks headphones don't have this problem because nothing is in your ear.
Marco:
They're also awesome for exercise and hot weather.
Marco:
They stay in place very easily with movement, unlike earbuds for me.
Marco:
And because they don't cover your ear up, I actually find them far less sweaty than regular headphones.
Marco:
And if I do sweat or if it starts raining, I don't need to care because they are IP55 certified for water resistance.
Marco:
And the biggest difference for me with aftershocks is that, and this is the big factor that should determine whether they are right for you at all, is that because nothing is blocking your ears, you hear all of the sound of the world around you.
Marco:
So they're not great in very loud surroundings, but they are awesome if you want to listen to a podcast or take a phone call while you're doing something like walking or running or cycling where you really need to hear the world around you for your own safety or convenience.
Marco:
And they also work great if you need to listen for something outside at home or at work while you want to listen to a podcast, maybe while you're taking a phone call.
Marco:
Maybe your kids are asleep upstairs and you want to hear if they need anything.
Marco:
Or maybe you're expecting a package and you don't want to miss a knock on the door.
Marco:
Bone conduction headphones are incredibly useful tools for, I would say, listening to podcasts and taking phone calls when you don't want to block out the world around you.
Marco:
So check out the flagship model in the Aftershocks lineup.
Marco:
This is the Trex Titanium.
Marco:
I've had one of these for a few months, and I find myself using it more than any other portable headphone in the summertime.
Marco:
And they are so good at minimizing sweatiness and letting me hear what's going on in the world around me.
Marco:
Battery life is quoted at 6 hours of playback, 10 days of standby.
Marco:
That sounds right to me.
Marco:
With my experience, I charge them every few days, and I've never run out of power.
Marco:
Also, all Aftershocks headphones have a 2-year warranty.
Marco:
So check it out.
Marco:
The Aftershocks Trex Titanium retails for $130, but listeners of this show can snag a pair for just $99.95 by visiting atp.aftershocks.com.
Marco:
That's atp.aftershocks.com.
Marco:
Thanks to Aftershocks for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
So we are recording on Monday the 17th, which is unusual.
Casey:
We usually record on Wednesdays and we'll be recording again, I think, on Thursday.
Casey:
Yes, on Thursday the 20th.
Casey:
And this is because of some vacation stuff.
Casey:
And since we have all these vacations that are kind of inconvenient for the purposes of recording the show, we thought we would do our podcast.
Casey:
possibly annual, don't really call it a tradition, but it's sort of becoming a tradition, ask ATP and do a Q and a with listeners.
Casey:
So rather than asking us or asking you guys rather to inundate us with email, we are taking a page out of the Mike Hurley playbook.
Casey:
And instead we would like you to use Twitter if at all possible, if you please, and tweet with the hashtag ask ATP, A S K ATP,
Casey:
And if you tweet into the ether with hashtag ask ATP, then it will be added to a nice little document and we will go through it and hopefully read and answer your question sometime.
Casey:
Is it next episode that we're doing this?
Casey:
Is that right?
Marco:
So we have planned it for next episode.
Marco:
However, I would like to say with all with the greatest apologies to the upgrade podcast for totally ripping them off.
Marco:
I would like to make this a regular segment that I think we should have ask ATP in every show.
Marco:
People ask us questions all the time.
John:
Yeah, but isn't the joy not having to answer them?
John:
I love when people ask us questions and I go, okay, archive that email.
John:
I mean, not to be mean or anything, but you're right.
John:
People do ask us questions all the time, but you don't understand how often people ask us questions.
John:
It would be a full-time job for multiple people to try to answer all the questions that are asked of us.
John:
It's just not possible.
John:
We don't have to answer all of them.
John:
Right, right, right.
John:
So don't think this is going to suddenly make it so that we're going to answer all your questions.
John:
But all of them will answer 0.001% instead of 0.000%.
Marco:
Right, yeah.
Marco:
Like, every week we could answer one or two questions, depending on how long the answers are.
Marco:
I feel like that would help prevent us from getting too much in our own selves about our topic selection and would prevent us from getting too far into just endless cycles of follow-up every episode.
Marco:
Just have a segment that is guaranteed to be something fresh, even in a very slow news period like the summertime.
Yeah.
John:
By the way, we're not going to answer these shows on the next episode.
John:
We're actually going to answer these questions on August 4th, the recording on August 4th.
John:
Can we answer one next episode?
John:
Maybe two?
John:
I don't know.
John:
I'm just kidding.
John:
I don't care.
John:
But anyway, the whole point is you've got like three weeks to send questions.
John:
So go nuts.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And I mean, the truth of the matter is whether Marco or John wins this civil war as to whether or not this becomes a regular thing.
John:
No, I'm totally for it being a regular segment.
John:
I'm just saying like it don't expect I'm saying to the listeners don't have unrealistic expectations that your questions are going to get answered because we get so many questions that it's just not possible to answer them all or even even any reasonable portion of it.
Casey:
That is true.
Casey:
But either way, we will have a Google document, a Google sheet, I guess I should say, that will track all of these for us.
Casey:
So please go to Twitter, if at all possible, and use the hashtag AskATP.
Casey:
If you don't have access to Twitter, then now's a good time to sign up.
Casey:
Follow Casey List, C-A-S-C-Y-L-I-S-S, and also tweet hashtag AskATP.
Casey:
But really, if you can't and won't suffer through Twitter...
Casey:
Yes, you can email us, but now you are dodging the official list, and it is extraordinarily unlikely, unless your question is perfect in every way, that we will answer your question.
Casey:
So the pressure's on.
Marco:
That's cold, man.
Casey:
I just, I don't want to get a bazillion emails.
Casey:
Please, no.
Marco:
Well, and the great thing about your research to Twitter is that it forces you to be brief, you know, because we don't, like, we already have a segment of the show where we read multi-paragraph emails to you.
Marco:
We don't need to add more of that.
Marco:
So instead, an ideal question should be,
John:
probably be about one sentence and twitter is great for that so we look forward to your questions with all apologies to the upgrade podcast for ripping off the segment from them you can uh use more than one tweet though because i feel like they're sometimes two or three storms now you don't need a tweet storm but 140 is that's you're taking away with the hashtag you're taking away with the hashtag already sometimes you just need you know last time we did q a i thought we had some really good questions that were like two sentences long that wouldn't fit in a tweet and i don't want to exclude those
Casey:
John that's the challenge that's the price you pay to getting your stuff mentioned on air so that's the challenge listeners 140 characters minus 7 so what is that 133 characters you have to put a space before the hashtag or I won't read it that's true 132 characters make it happen formatting counts
Casey:
And make sure you get your casing right, because let me tell you, you don't want John Syracuse on your case about casing, especially if you're Casey.
John:
Anyway.
John:
You use, like, the letter U instead of Y-O-U.
John:
Forget it.
Casey:
You're out.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
Let's talk briefly about 1Password, because there seems to be a bit of a kerfuffle that's happened over the last week or two.
Casey:
And I don't get it, and it kind of makes me angry.
Casey:
So my understanding, having not read deeply into this...
Casey:
is that 1Password's Windows version, the latest Windows version, no longer supports writing to local vaults.
Casey:
And I should probably take a half step back, actually.
Casey:
So 1Password is a password manager.
Casey:
It's the one that I use.
Casey:
It's probably the one that my two co-hosts use.
Casey:
I don't want to say that for certainty.
Casey:
Oh, yeah, John, you're using Keychain like an animal, aren't you?
John:
I declined to comment.
John:
Really?
John:
Whichever second is.
Casey:
Oh, no.
Casey:
Gary, the privacy clown, is so proud of you right now.
John:
That's right, yeah.
Casey:
Anyway, all right.
Casey:
Well, some of us on this show who will remain nameless, definitely not Schmarco or Schmacy, definitely use 1Password.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
One of the things that 1Password has started offering, which I think we've talked about in the past, is family plans and business plans.
Casey:
And so the idea here is that the way 1Password works is that they call kind of a group of passwords and other things as well, a vault.
Casey:
You could think of that kind of like a database.
Casey:
And you can pay them money on a recurring basis as an employer or as just a family member.
Casey:
And you can have one or more of these vaults or databases stored on 1Password servers, and then you can have users that are added to your account, and then you can share passwords.
Casey:
So as an example, Shmacy and Shmarin might have a 1Password for family account where, hypothetically, they slash we would have individual vaults for our own individual passwords that we don't wish to share and one family vault for passwords that we do wish to share.
Casey:
And in my opinion, it has worked extremely well.
Casey:
I think the 1Password apps on all the platforms are very well designed.
Casey:
I think they're super great.
Casey:
The AgileBits folks seem to be really good.
Casey:
I think they deserve recurring revenue from me, and that's why I am a paying subscriber to 1Password for Families.
Casey:
My employer pays for 1Password for Teams basically on my recommendation.
Casey:
I really like it.
Casey:
I really think it's great.
Casey:
And among other things, and I don't know the specifics about the mechanism here, but one of the things they've said is that in broad strokes, they use a very similar encryption scheme as iCloud does.
Casey:
So even if 1Password as a company or AgileBits as a company wanted to get into your password system,
Casey:
that are stored on their servers there's nothing they can do to do that without your guess what one password so they they've come out the new version for windows they have stated publicly that this version uh will not let you write to vaults or databases that are stored locally
Casey:
And yeah, and you have to understand that one password kind of came up by being by being able to store its password database, its vault in Dropbox.
Casey:
So you could have your password synced everywhere, even without their services.
Casey:
So a bunch of angry nerds, some of whom are cheap and some of whom are not, are getting very angry about the fact that you can't have local vaults on one password for Windows.
Casey:
And thus, it's clear without a shadow of a doubt that tomorrow or soon thereafter, you won't be able to save to local vaults on any of the other platforms.
Casey:
Now, my read on this is that, yes, there will probably come a time that you will not be able to use local vaults on password because if you're agile bits, you probably want recurring revenue to continue to make really world-class apps.
Casey:
And thus, you're probably going to want to compel your users to pay you on a regular basis.
Casey:
And you know what?
Casey:
I'm cool with that because they do really great work.
Casey:
They take it very seriously and they deserve a little bit of my money every year as far as I'm concerned.
Casey:
But oh, man, the nerds are very upset.
Casey:
So let me start with Marco as a hypothetical 1Password user.
Casey:
Gary, the privacy clown, I would never disclose whether or not Marco is publicly.
Casey:
Marco, what do you think?
Marco:
A similar issue came up when TextExpander went subscription, I believe, about a year ago.
Marco:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marco:
And it was met with similar anger.
Marco:
And we talked about it on the show, too.
Marco:
But I think it's increasingly clear that there are very few models for software to sustain itself economically.
Marco:
Because the reality is, we've talked about this before, so I'll be brief.
Marco:
Software requires ongoing maintenance.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
People have this idea that I'm just going to buy this app and I'll pay you up front.
Marco:
And I don't want to pay a subscription.
Marco:
I want to just pay you once and then I own it.
Marco:
And that's a wonderful idea.
Marco:
And for a long time in computing, that was somewhat reasonable.
Marco:
But today, those same people who only want to pay once up front and then quote own it also expect the manufacturer of said software to constantly issue updates whenever the environment changes.
Marco:
So a new OS version comes out, they expect a free upgrade.
Marco:
New features come out, they expect that on a regular basis.
Marco:
Any kind of service-based component that has to change with the times, they expect all that to be built in.
Marco:
Ongoing bug fixes, of course.
Marco:
People expect ongoing work for an upfront one-time price, indefinitely.
Marco:
And that's just not sustainable.
Marco:
It's simple as that.
Marco:
Like, no matter what people say, they might say, I just want to buy it and then at once.
Marco:
A lot of people do say that.
Marco:
But what they want, what they demand, is ongoing maintenance of that product.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
The only way to make this work really is either to just have so many paid installs and upgrades that you can just last on that for a while and just accept that you're going to make $40 from some customers up front and then they won't bother you again.
Marco:
And some customers will be using your product for eight years and never give you another dime and expect constant free updates.
Marco:
And you'll just have to kind of average it out and hope the average works out.
Marco:
And that works more often than not in the growth phase of a product.
Marco:
So in the beginning, for a new app or just a very successful app, that can work for a long time.
Marco:
Like when I had Instapaper, that worked for a long time because it was just growing like crazy as the iOS platform was growing like crazy.
Marco:
So the pay once and get free updates forever model worked for a long time.
Marco:
And 1Password probably has a similar curve here where...
Marco:
For a while, 1Password has been growing, I think, because I just keep seeing it everywhere.
Marco:
So I assume it's been doing really well for a few years.
Marco:
But these markets are saturating.
Marco:
Mac sales are flat.
Marco:
iOS sales are leveling off pretty significantly over the last few years.
Marco:
These markets are saturating.
Marco:
And so everyone who was depending on that constant growth of the platform to just drive new licenses for a pay-once business model...
Marco:
I think a lot of those companies are going to now face this problem of, hey, you know what?
Marco:
We're seeing this curve flatten out now.
Marco:
Our income might be dropping or leveling off, and we are still having to support this software with a staff and with costs and with ongoing maintenance.
Marco:
There has to be some way to fund that.
Marco:
And if you're not being able to fund it through the new users coming in that you didn't have before, giving you these $30, $40 at a time for the one-time license, then subscriptions really are the best way to do it.
Marco:
Now, there is an alternative.
Marco:
You can do paid upgrades, which 1Password has done for a while.
Marco:
And most of these companies, like on iOS, it's less common.
Marco:
But on the Mac, that's how things have worked for a while.
Marco:
But paid upgrades have their own problems too.
Marco:
For instance, you have this weird feature batching incentive where you as the software developer are incentivized not to really improve the existing version of the app in meaningful ways if you can save those up for the next paid upgrade.
Marco:
Then you have to batch up your releases and possibly not put out anything for two years.
Marco:
Then all of a sudden you have this boom, big drop where you drop a whole bunch of features.
Marco:
Then you have other problems like feature bloat.
Marco:
Look what happened with Microsoft and Adobe apps over the last 20 years.
Marco:
Lots of companies have gone through this.
Marco:
And what you end up coming... Oh, and also users who hate subscriptions, who say they never want to pay that, users have similar problems with upgrade pricing because there's problems with that too.
Marco:
Neither of these things is perfect for what users expect.
Marco:
Upgrade pricing has the problem of what if you buy it and then the next version comes out six months later?
Marco:
Should you get more of a discount than someone who bought it five years ago?
Marco:
Because you just bought it.
Marco:
You might be really mad if the upgrade comes out soon after you bought it.
Marco:
You might expect that your ancient version running on OS X Tiger should still work today on the newest version of OS X. But they might say, sorry, you have to pay an upgrade for the new one.
Marco:
Sorry.
Marco:
But there's problems with that, too.
Marco:
What it really boils down to is when you make people pay, they'll grumble about it.
Marco:
No matter how you make people pay, they're going to grumble about it.
Marco:
And the one thing they'll grumble about the most and get really mad about is when you change the way you make them pay.
Marco:
But once you can get past that problem of, hey, people are all mad right now during this transition, once you get past that and you're on the other side of the transition, if you are moving to subscriptions, yeah, people will be mad.
Marco:
And some people will never buy it again.
Marco:
They'll be so mad, they'll hold that grudge forever.
Marco:
I mean, look, Adobe has this problem, right, with creative cloud stuff.
Marco:
But Adobe's doing great right now because they made this transition.
Marco:
They're doing fantastically.
Marco:
They are better off on the other side of it.
Marco:
Even though some people are still mad and will be mad forever about subscriptions, some people will never use it as a result.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
the people who are left, they're making Adobe more money and Adobe is in a healthier place now.
Marco:
Same thing with Microsoft, I think, with Office and that kind of stuff.
Marco:
And so, honestly, I haven't been paying attention to this entire kerfuffle or to whatever happened with TechExpander.
Marco:
I don't know if Smile ever released numbers or gave any indication on whether they're doing better now with the new subscription model as they were before.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
So if 1Password or Smile, if these companies can get to the other side of this transition, and even if they lose customers along the way, they will probably be in a better place financially and will be more stable than they were before with the old pay maybe every few years for a paid upgrade model.
Marco:
And so even if this loses them customers, it still might be the best approach to take.
Marco:
Now, that being said, there are complicating factors with this particular arrangement.
Marco:
1Password, because of the nature of it, is dealing with this extremely sensitive data that a lot of customers have either requirements or requests.
Marco:
that the vault that is being the database of your passwords not leave their network.
Marco:
And they've had forever this local vaults feature where you can you can literally not use a sync service at all.
Marco:
You can have basically like your Mac sync its local vault over the local Wi-Fi to your iOS devices.
Marco:
Or you can just not use sync at all and just not use it on iOS or whatever.
Marco:
And a lot of companies, that's the method they have to use.
Marco:
I've heard here and there that some groups within Apple use one password, and they depend on that feature being there because Apple, I don't think, would permit its employees to have passwords stored on some external service or synced via Dropbox or anything like that.
Marco:
So I do think 1Password moving to a subscription pricing model is totally fine.
Marco:
And yeah, people are going to get mad, but that's probably fine.
Marco:
And by the way, they haven't said they're doing that.
Marco:
They basically just laid some groundwork and some commentary that suggests that they're considering that in the future.
Marco:
But they haven't actually said that yet.
Marco:
But anyway, I do think a move to subscription pricing is probably fine and probably the right move for a lot of software companies that require ongoing work for their products to work.
Marco:
And by the way, you might say, person listening who hates subscriptions, you might say, well, it's just a password manager.
Marco:
Why do I have to pay every month for this?
Marco:
Well, what happens when the new version of Chrome comes out and their extension breaks?
Marco:
They have to fix their extension.
Marco:
What happens when people find websites the extension doesn't work on and they have to fix that?
Marco:
New versions of iOS come out and they have to update to 64-bit or whatever.
Marco:
There's constantly ongoing work here.
Marco:
One Password is a very complicated app with lots of different components.
Marco:
It runs on many different operating systems, and it runs in every web browser, and it runs in iOS extensions.
Marco:
It's on all these different platforms and all these different parts of it that are all interdependent and have to interact with the web, which is a constantly changing environment.
Marco:
So they have to put constant effort into that.
Marco:
Whether you realize it or not, if they stopped or if your version stopped getting updates, you'd be mad because it wouldn't work as well.
Marco:
So subscription pricing, I'm on board with that.
Marco:
And by the way, I do pay for this subscription.
Marco:
I started paying for it about six months ago when I started reducing my dependence on Dropbox.
Marco:
I switched to their sync system and it's been totally fine.
Marco:
However...
Marco:
The removal of local vaults, if that is the plan, I think that's a mistake for this app.
Marco:
Because that will probably cost them a lot of customers that can never come back, even if they change their mind about how they want to pay.
Marco:
So I do think they should probably... I mean, they know better than I do what their customers want.
Marco:
But me sitting over here as an armchair observer, I think removing local vaults is probably a bad idea.
Marco:
But subscription pricing is fine.
John:
I think the reason they might be tempted to entangle these two things, the subscription pricing and the whole cloud sync or whatever, is that companies still feel, for a lot of the reasons that you just mentioned, that they want to have a story about why you're paying every month.
John:
And any kind of cloud sync thing where they store your data on their servers that they run is like, oh, well, you're paying us every month because we're taking your data and we're storing it on our servers and we have to pay money to run those servers.
John:
And it's something that you can explain to people
John:
have a better chance of explaining to people, like, why am I paying for this every month, right?
John:
But in reality, the reason they need you to pay for every month is everything that Marco just said.
John:
It has nothing to do with, oh, we have to run servers.
John:
Even if there's no servers involved whatsoever and it's entirely local vaults and direct device-to-device sync and they didn't run any servers, you should still pay them monthly, like in the same way that you would for like Photoshop or whatever, because that's the business model that allows them to continue to support their software.
John:
And it's kind of one of the goals, I feel like, of modern software applications is to become valuable enough to
John:
that people will pay you monthly obviously artists who make their living uh you know in photoshop or illustrator or whatever it's a no-brainer as a business expense that they make more money you know if they're experts in photoshop and they're like well i'm gonna learn an entirely new graphics program or find something else that i can do my work in because i don't want no you'll totally pay the monthly fee because that's how valuable photoshop is for your work and for things like password managers or
John:
I don't know, maybe text editors in some cases or whatever, some sort of integral tool that's like, it's not just a frivolous thing that you have on your Mac that you kind of like.
John:
It's like, no, I can't get my work done without this.
John:
Even something like Slack, where if your whole company starts using Slack and like your company runs on Slack, you realize is Slack valuable enough to our company for us to pay whatever Slack is charging for it?
John:
Like,
John:
And there's a limited number of those type of applications.
John:
You can't look in your applications folder and say, oh, I'm going to pay a subscription for every single one of those apps.
John:
You won't.
John:
They're not all that valuable to you.
John:
So if you're making software, in these days, it should be your goal to be one of those applications that is valuable enough for people to pay a subscription fee for it.
John:
And a password manager, I think, is definitely in that category of things because we all have lots of passwords and we want to store them securely and we want it to be convenient, but also...
John:
You know, not vulnerable and like don't want to have to think about the security.
John:
We want an application that has a long life, a company that has a reputation for security that's not owned by, you know, an advertising company or something like that.
John:
And so I feel like one password will eventually do well if they can get through this transition because.
John:
People are motivated to pay them money on a recurring basis just so they don't get bought out by some evil corporation or aren't tempted to sell their personal information or do something dumb.
John:
And like a lot of the stuff with, you know, the cloud sync and, you know, I don't want to type my one password into a web page because who knows what could be happening.
John:
Like in the end, you have to trust the company that makes one password because they control the field that you're typing your one password into.
John:
and you don't know what they're doing with that.
John:
They could be grabbing all your keystrokes and sending it off to someone, but they're not.
John:
That's why you buy from them, because this is a company that's good.
John:
I trust their reputation.
John:
I think enough of their customer base would be willing to pay them
John:
a recurring subscription even if there was no server involved like you don't need to convince them oh we'll run servers for you and do like local vault only in fact maybe they're willing to pay more for the one with fewer features so this is an interesting case because like marco was saying they're not just any random application they're a specific kind of application with specific privacy concerns that makes it so that like cloud sync or cloud storage is almost a demerit against them in terms of privacy and
John:
it should not be tied in any way to their recurring revenue.
John:
So, yeah, I don't know.
John:
It's easy for us to say for computer nerds who like love to pay for software or who are software developers ourselves who, you know, make our livings from other people paying for our software.
John:
But, you know, when I talk to non-computer enthusiasts, like people who just, you know, they're not into computers at all.
John:
They have a phone, obviously they have, you know, maybe they have a computer or whatever.
John:
the idea of paying anything at all ever for software still seems alien to a lot of people.
John:
So again, the, you know, the, the strategy is to both become valuable enough that people are willing to pay and probably to make an application, uh,
John:
that appeals to people who are acquainted with the concept of paying money for software so don't make an application that appeals greatly to people who have never paid for software and think it's ridiculous to do so because even if you make an application that they all love they'll never pay you for it it's bad make make an application for people who
John:
are willing to pay for software and make it your application valuable enough for them that they're willing to pay on a recurring basis and it's just a question of finding the right price obviously not going to pay 700 a month for password manager unless maybe you know it's some super duper secure one that has some sort of you know legal indemnity that goes with their something although probably cost them more than 700 a month right
Marco:
but they'd pay one cent a month so find the right number between one cent and seven hundred dollars and you know you'll be happy yeah i mean like that that's part of how adobe has managed their pricing where like you know creative suite is something like 50 bucks a month if you buy the whole thing and you know it goes down from there if you only need parts of it but if you if you were buying it before
Marco:
They have priced it such that it actually is fairly comparable to if you were actually just buying it every version or two before.
Marco:
Now, a lot of the customers weren't buying it at all.
Marco:
A lot of them were pirating it.
Marco:
And a lot of them were also not buying every version.
Marco:
They would skip versions or they would buy one and use it for six years because they just didn't care about the stuff in the new versions or they didn't want to spend the money or they couldn't spend the money or whatever else.
Marco:
But for the most part, they set the pricing of the subscription such that if you were buying it already, it actually is a sensible price.
Marco:
And that's why I subscribed to Adobe Creative Suite because I was buying them already.
Marco:
And so it ended up like, yeah, this is actually totally fine.
Marco:
And yeah, for them, I think they can set a price that makes sense here.
Marco:
I honestly don't even remember what I'm paying them because...
Marco:
it's too much for me to pay for i can tell you that because i have cs6 the last non-cloud version no no i'm talking about sorry one password is what i'm talking about oh oh it's five dollars a month for the family plan three dollars a month for the individuals that's okay that's totally fine
Casey:
I think there might be a discount if you go a year at a time.
Casey:
I'm not positive about that, so I might be wrong.
Casey:
But, I mean, $5 a month.
Casey:
A soda at a regular restaurant, like when John is feeling really, really saucy and wants to get himself a Sprite at a restaurant, that's probably $2.50.
Casey:
And he's literally pissing that away a few hours later.
Casey:
This is $5.
Casey:
I mean, this is not a lot of money.
Marco:
Yeah, but that isn't how people think about it.
Marco:
I know.
Marco:
You know as well as I do.
Marco:
You're an iOS developer now.
Marco:
You know.
Marco:
This is not how people think about this at all.
Marco:
But yeah, 1Password being $3 or $5 a month, that's totally fine.
Marco:
Because it is a power user productivity security tool that is often used by businesses.
Marco:
All of those words are things that can make paying for software valuable and reasonable.
Marco:
This is a no-brainer to me.
Marco:
To ensure that this app is financially healthy and here for the long haul, $3 a month is totally fine.
Marco:
Thank you.
Marco:
So when all you need to do is buy a domain name or an email address, you shouldn't have to go through page after page of add-ons and decline them all.
Marco:
Hover only offers domains and email.
Marco:
So when that's all you need, you can focus on finding a great domain name and getting back to work on your great idea.
Marco:
Hover also believes that you shouldn't have to pay for things that should be included just by common sense.
Marco:
So unlike most domain providers, Hover includes free Whois privacy with all supported domains.
Marco:
That way, your registration information, which by default is public, but in other registrars, that's published for anybody to see.
Marco:
Hover hides that with WhoisPrivacy by default on all domains that support it.
Marco:
So they make it very, very easy for you to sign up and it's just common sense stuff and it's very easy to use, very well designed.
Marco:
They have over 400 domain extensions that you can end your name with.
Marco:
So no matter what your name is, you can find something that's available.
Marco:
So they have classics like .com, .net.
Marco:
They also have some more specialized ones like .design and .tech.
Marco:
And there's also the really kind of crazy, funny ones that are recently added like .pizza and .ninja.
Marco:
There's so many available.
Marco:
Hover will make it easy to find a domain that's available for you.
Marco:
And they make it very easy to set up once you have it.
Marco:
They have a feature called Hover Connect, which lets you automatically set up any kind of common settings with common web hosts.
Marco:
So you don't have to dig through help articles and figure out which DNS settings work with your host.
Marco:
They have all this built into Hover Connect.
Marco:
And if you do, by the way, if you do need to mainly set things up, their interface for it is wonderful.
Marco:
I've used it a lot of times myself.
Marco:
And it's great.
Marco:
It's just very easy to use.
Marco:
And if you need a hand with any of this, Hover's awesome support team is there to help you.
Marco:
You can give them a call if you want to, or of course you can email.
Marco:
If you call them, an actual person picks up the phone.
Marco:
There's no annoying phone trees or transfers.
Marco:
A person just picks up and they can help you.
Marco:
It's amazing.
Marco:
So check it out today.
Marco:
Go to hover.com slash ATP.
Marco:
They have so many great features and it's such a pleasure to use Hover.
Marco:
I use it myself and I absolutely love it.
Marco:
Check it out today.
Marco:
Hover.com slash ATP will get you 10% off your first purchase.
Marco:
Hover, domain names for your ideas.
Casey:
Hi, Marco.
Casey:
Tell me about what's going on with Overcast these days, because I feel like I haven't heard much, which means either you're not working or, more likely, you're working a lot and you're just keeping it all quiet.
Marco:
I'm mostly not working, because, you know, summer.
Marco:
However, when I am working, I have a...
Marco:
dilemma and i and i talked about it under the radar recently uh but but in case you know the listener base of that is not the listener base of this so uh there are people who haven't heard it and i haven't heard uh what you who probably won't care and especially what john who probably has an opinion about this think about this um so my my main dilemma with updating overcast to ios 11 is ios 11 adds drag and drop stuff to the standard system widgets and
Casey:
Oh, I have opinions about this.
Casey:
I definitely have opinions.
Marco:
You can now full-time reorder table views and collection views in iOS if the app supports it.
Marco:
And supporting it is very easy.
Marco:
I already built my own full-time reordering system to reorder items in Playlist and Overcast.
Marco:
So you can drag around episodes and you can reorder them right there with the little drag handles on the right side.
Marco:
Doing this, in my way, was an incredibly complex pile of hacks that works most of the time, but has a few weird little random bugs that I just cannot solve and will probably never solve.
Marco:
But for the most part, it does work, and it's fast, and it's very clear and discoverable right there.
Marco:
I also have a problem with Overcast 3.0.
Marco:
The method that I chose of tapping the episode cells to then expand a little menu like TweetBot style and that the play button is one of the items in that menu as opposed to the previous behavior where just tapping on an episode row would just immediately start playing it no matter what.
Marco:
A lot of people still do not like this, and this seems like a very polarizing decision among the user base, and it has not stopped being polarizing.
Marco:
People have not gotten used to it.
Marco:
I am used to it, and I like it, but a lot of people still don't, and they seem to not be changing.
Marco:
So it doesn't seem like this is the kind of thing where, oh, you'll just get used to having to tap twice to play.
Marco:
A lot of people really hate having to tap twice to play.
Marco:
So my idea is, what if I replace the drag handle on the right side of the cells with a one-tap play button, move the info button that's there in selection mode down to where the play button was in the middle of that little bar menu that comes up, and then use the system's full-time drag, rotor, and control, replacing my giant pile of hacks?
Marco:
I think this is a good idea.
Marco:
There's lots of advantages of doing this.
Marco:
However...
Marco:
One of the big disadvantages of doing this, first of all, it's another change.
Marco:
People hate change.
Marco:
So I'm now moving the play button again, which will, even though people have been screaming their heads off for one tap play to come back, if I give that to them, a different group of people will scream their heads off that I moved it.
Marco:
And then the other problem is that the system drag and drop implementation is
Marco:
has a small delay where you have to hold the cell down before it pops up to be draggable.
Marco:
And mine, before, my hack job was instant.
Marco:
You can just immediately drag that handle and you wouldn't have to wait.
Marco:
So the system version of it is a little bit slower to activate.
Marco:
However, the system version will also allow me to put the play button on the side of the cell.
Marco:
So I would bring back one tap playing at least in the right quarter of the cell.
Marco:
It wouldn't be the full width of the cell because I'd still have the little pop-up menu if you tap the rest of the cell.
Marco:
But if you tap the little right side thing, that could be a play button.
Marco:
And I could make the touch target pretty tall and wide on that so people could get their one-touch playback.
Marco:
Also, I could get rid of my giant hack.
Marco:
which barely works now and is likely to break in future OS updates.
Marco:
So I think I should do this.
Marco:
But how big of a problem is it that the new standard reordering method has a small delay before you activate it?
Casey:
This is not a question.
Casey:
And I really, really love Under the Radar, but there are episodes where I switch from loving and listening to Under the Radar to hate listening to Under the Radar because I so deeply disagree with one or both of you.
Casey:
And I started this particular episode, which I believe is number 87.
Casey:
I'll have a link in the show notes.
Casey:
It's never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.
Casey:
Anyway, this episode, I started hate listening and then ended up just listening and enjoying.
Casey:
Because my opinion, spoiler alert, is that you talked yourself into implementing this using the new APIs by the end of the episode.
Casey:
Now, it sounds like maybe that isn't quite so cut and dry since you're talking about it with us now.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
To me, this is not even a question.
Casey:
This is absolutely use new API end of meeting.
Casey:
And there's a couple of reasons for that.
Casey:
Number one, it may feel weird now that you have a little bit of a delay and whatnot, but I don't think it will feel weird soon.
Casey:
Now, in your defense, drag and drop, I suspect, is going to be a lot less prevalent on the iPhone than it is on the iPad.
Casey:
So those of us who perhaps only use Overcast on the iPhone and maybe don't use iPads that often,
Casey:
It may feel a little weird at first.
Casey:
And like you said, moving the UI around is always going to tick somebody off.
Casey:
More than somebody.
Casey:
You know what I mean.
Casey:
Many somebody's off.
Casey:
But as someone who really, really, really dislikes third-party libraries, because you feel like you have no control over them, and oftentimes they are a pile of hacks...
Casey:
And really, it's kind of a dangerous position to put yourself in to have a third party library, especially one that's like really, really I can't think of the way to phrase it, but like it's wide reaching and it's it's taking a system thing and it's totally rejiggering it.
Casey:
And you are like wed to this library.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
You have created your own first-party equivalent of that, and you must burn it with fire as soon as you possibly can.
Casey:
This is not a question.
Casey:
You must get rid of it.
Casey:
You must use new APIs.
Casey:
End of meeting.
Casey:
John, what do you think?
John:
I have a question.
John:
If you use the native dragging thing, can you do a thing where you, like, whatever—
John:
tap and hold so like it pops up and now you've you've grabbed it can you with another finger flick scroll the stuff behind it yes and it's amazing so it solves your problem of like this of the bump bump bump bump bump scrolling speed yes you have to do it then and you can pick up multiple items well yeah i don't think i'm gonna be doing that too much but maybe on the ipad but yeah no you totally need to do the native thing i think that the
John:
native native dragging yes all right the second question is okay so i do native drag now i have these options i don't need the drag handles anymore or whatever what do i do with that space and for that i think i'll have to use it to see what it's like i understood what you're getting at with the pay button play button will be over here the info button will be in a little you know expand the bar thing maybe that'll be fine maybe it'll be weird i don't know i think it's worth separating like determining like exactly what to do with this newfound space and freedom uh and gesture freedom because i'm not entirely sure but
John:
native drag and drop you know seems like a no-brainer like casey said you get rid of your hacks it's it's a better interface and as drag and drop in theory becomes more prevalent it's what people will expect so just do it
Casey:
Oh, and I also forgot to mention that I am one of those people who is still grumbly about the fact that there's a two-tap play scheme.
Casey:
And so bringing back the play button on the right will make me very happy.
Casey:
And we all know that Overcast is written specifically to make Casey happy.
Casey:
So, yeah, I think you're going to have to do it, Marco.
Marco:
If I do that, can you stop asking me for a Mac app?
Casey:
When's the last time I've asked you for one?
Casey:
I'll tell you.
Casey:
The last time I asked for a Mac app was probably about a day or two before I got my AirPods.
Casey:
Because now, the reason I wanted a Mac app so badly was because the Bluetooth headphones that I was using previously were such a pain to switch between my Mac and my iPhone.
Casey:
But now with the AirPods, it takes two seconds to switch between them.
Casey:
So when I'm listening to Overcast, I'm connected to my phone.
Casey:
And when I'm listening to anything else in the world, I'm connected to my Mac.
John:
and uh it's no worries speaking of uh apps that marco doesn't want to develop and or maintain i have a feature request bug report for the mac version or another the web version of overcast oh god all right so frequently uh people will tweet uh overcast links with offsets which is cool it's like that's exactly what you want i'm going to tap this link and it's going to take me right to the the second in the in the podcast that they're trying to refer me to right as long as it isn't a major npr podcast yes yeah
John:
but if it is a podcast that i subscribe to and in the middle of listening to is it just my imagination or does that throw off my offset because i'm logged into my overcast account and it sent me to an offset and i play it it syncs that offset and now i've lost where i was because i was earlier or later in the thing is that a thing or is just my imagination that is indeed what happens and i've thought about this before like whether that should be what happens or not and i
Marco:
And it's hard because it's like when you put it this way, yeah, that shouldn't happen.
Marco:
You're right.
Marco:
But what would the alternative be?
Marco:
And once you start thinking, okay, well, what should happen?
Marco:
Like if you're logged in and if you have this podcast in your list, so it's not unplayed or rather it's not played, like it's an active item in your list and you have a position in it.
Marco:
then you get sent a timestamp link for a different time in that.
Marco:
Then should it play that, but then not ever update your synced position?
Marco:
What if you play past your synced position?
Marco:
Should it update it then?
Marco:
Like it's fairly complex as to what it should do.
Marco:
And so I haven't really addressed it yet.
Marco:
What do you think it should do?
John:
I think it should... I'm pretty sure it should just not update the synced position only if you go to a link with an offset in it.
John:
Because I can't think of a scenario where I would... The playhead would be at some non-zero position in the podcast, right?
John:
I think the tricky bit that you were talking about is, like, I haven't started playing it.
John:
Then I'm not quite sure what to do.
John:
But if I have started to play it, I think it's pretty clear that you... And I go to an offset...
John:
I want to play from that offset in the web player and have it not affect my other offset because I can't think of a scenario where I would want it to affect it.
John:
Why would I formulate an overcast web link for myself to jump to an offset with the intention of me going for it?
John:
Now, if the thing is at the zero position, I haven't started playing it and I go to an offset to listen to a thing, I personally would also like it not to update the thing because very often what happens is it does update it and then I will go to that episode and it'll start playing and be like...
John:
i guess i listened to the beginning of this one huh because here i am in the middle of it like i'll forget i don't realize no i just i just missed the entire beginning because of that offset link that i followed like you know three days ago or whatever so my solution obviously is just just if you just run your web browser in incognito mode or whatever when you tap that link it you know you won't be logged into overcast or log yourself out of overcast or whatever that's a terrible solution i know but uh anyway if you're just looking for the quick fix quick fix is
John:
offset in URL equals never sync playhead position, and then just make a different set of people angry.
Marco:
I think that's right, actually.
Marco:
That actually sounds like a really good solution.
Marco:
Yeah, because if there's an offset in the URL, because the regular web interface does not put those offsets there.
Marco:
So if there's an offset in the URL, just don't touch the synced position at all.
John:
yeah i think that makes sense to me too yeah so you're just like it's kind of like the uh one tap to play like you for a few years make one set of people angry and then you switch it back and then for a few more years make the other set people angry and then we'll see how it goes yeah tell me i think you know really how many people use the web interface right
Marco:
honestly very few it's it's a very like you should just get all of us in the chat room we'll vote all seven that actually might be possible like it's it's very few people like and every time somebody tweets a web link with overcast there are responses that are like oh my god i didn't know how to have web interface like
Marco:
No one knows it's there.
Marco:
And even the people who do know it's there, no one uses it.
Marco:
And yes, part of that is because it's pretty bare bones and I could make it a lot better or more full featured if I put a lot of work into it.
Marco:
But it's kind of a chicken and egg thing.
Marco:
Like part of the reason I don't put a lot of work into it is that nobody uses it.
John:
I'm also glad you don't chuck me into the app because that's the other option that most people would do.
John:
Oh, yeah, that's true.
John:
There's a web interface, but it immediately knows whether you have the app installed and chucks you to the app because I certainly don't want you to go into the app.
John:
Again, if it's an episode that I haven't started playing yet or one that I'm in the middle of, I don't want it to go into my app and change my playhead position like inside the app.
John:
If you did send to the app, I would say go to the app but open a totally alternate app
John:
one time like you just followed an offset link player interface that is disconnected entirely with the actual listening interface because when you follow a link with an offset someone's trying to show you something in an episode it is clearly not the same as i am listening to the episode they're trying to say here's this little snippet right here listen to this bit right and that i feel like is a different activity than i'm going to now listen to the next episode of my favorite podcast
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Thanks to our three sponsors this week, Hover, Fracture, and Aftershocks.
Marco:
And we will see you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin.
Marco:
Because it was accidental.
Marco:
Accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
John:
And if you're into Twitter.
Marco:
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-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-
Casey:
So I felt left out with you having your impulse purchases.
Casey:
Uh-oh.
Casey:
And so Aaron and I bought a car tonight.
Marco:
Whoa!
John:
Wait, like during the show?
John:
Well, not a car, right?
Casey:
Well, okay, so I would call it a truck, but Aaron would correct me and say, no, it's not a truck, it's an SUV.
John:
It's like a big sneaker, really.
John:
Sorry, tennis shoes.
Casey:
Oh, that's so cruel.
Marco:
I don't really get why people... Army boot?
Marco:
People who call SUVs trucks, I feel like that's unearned.
Marco:
A truck is a truck.
Marco:
If it doesn't have a bed on it, that's not a truck.
Casey:
Yeah, and that's exactly what Aaron would say, probably verbatim.
Casey:
To me, anything that is taller than a car is a truck.
Casey:
I'm not saying I'm right.
Casey:
I'm not trying to convince the listeners or anyone or you two.
Casey:
I'm not saying I'm right.
Casey:
It's just the way I've always thought of it, which is probably bananas.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
But yeah, we a few hours ago bought Erin a brand new Volvo XC90 and it's very nice.
Casey:
And we're very happy.
Casey:
And Erin is sad that she's left her Mazda 6 behind.
Casey:
We bought her a Mazda 6 a couple months after we got married.
Casey:
And so that car has been in the family from new, the Mazda 6 that is, for almost exactly 10 years.
Casey:
We brought it home at the end of August of 2007 and we let it go today.
Casey:
And it's sad.
Casey:
It's weird, right?
Casey:
Because a car is just a thing, right?
Casey:
It's just a machine.
Casey:
But it's...
Casey:
Kind of makes you sad when you see one go, especially, well, Marco, you wouldn't know about this because you don't keep cars for more than two minutes.
Casey:
But for those of us who keep cars for a while, like John and me, it's sad to see one go because it's been a part of the family for so darn long.
Marco:
No, I totally get it.
Marco:
I have felt that as well.
Marco:
I mean, I almost cried when I gave up the M5.
Marco:
I liked it so much.
Marco:
Yeah.
Casey:
Well, and you had a very unique experience.
Casey:
I mean, we actually had a very unique experience in that car.
Casey:
So, yeah, I mean, she was weepy.
Casey:
I was on the verge of weepy.
Casey:
And it's funny because, I mean, I liked her Mazda.
Casey:
Don't get me wrong.
Casey:
It was a very nice car.
Casey:
And more than anything else, it had given us no problems in its 10 years.
Casey:
I mean, I think we had to do an alternator once.
Casey:
But everything else was routine maintenance.
Casey:
I mean, it was bulletproof, which is probably a Japanese thing in that, you know, most Hondas I've heard about are bulletproof.
Casey:
Most Toyotas seem to be bulletproof.
Casey:
And this Mazda was certainly bulletproof.
Casey:
This one individual Mazda 6 was bulletproof.
Casey:
And so, yeah, so I was sad to see it go, but we're really excited to have the new car.
Casey:
Yeah.
Marco:
I only have one question, and you know what it is.
Casey:
It is not white.
Marco:
Is it white?
Marco:
It is not white.
Casey:
There was a brief window of time where, as I've described and as you do not like to agree, but I was backed into white on my most recent car.
Casey:
Not the prior ones.
Casey:
The prior ones were more deliberate than not.
Casey:
But, well, really, it was only a Subaru that was deliberate.
Casey:
Anyway, go listen to Neutral, and you'll get the story.
Marco:
Happens to be white.
Casey:
Yeah, the BMW happened to be white.
Casey:
And a couple of the other cars happened to be white.
Casey:
The Subaru was a deliberate choice.
Casey:
But anyway, this one is silver.
Casey:
We wanted, well, maybe more me than her.
Casey:
I don't think she cared that much.
Casey:
I wanted a deeper gray, which happens to be what her Mazda was.
Casey:
But for this one, we ended up... Can I complain for a moment?
Casey:
Please.
Marco:
Can I whine about...
Casey:
Can I whine for a minute about how awful it is to buy a car?
Casey:
Although I hear Tesla, it's just you go online and you pick it out and that's that.
Casey:
I don't want to hear about it.
Marco:
Ordering from Tesla is like ordering from Amazon.
Marco:
It's literally like add to cart, buy.
Marco:
It makes me so sad.
Casey:
When we bought Aaron's Mazda,
Casey:
We started the process in, I think it was like August of 2016, give or take a month.
Casey:
And we bought in August of 2017.
Casey:
And we literally haggled with the dealer for a year to get her car because we just refused to budge on the price that we wanted.
Yeah.
Casey:
So we walked into the local Volvo dealer at the end of December last year.
Casey:
I can't recall an exact day.
Casey:
It doesn't really matter.
Casey:
But at the very end of December, I believe it was between Christmas and New Year's, I think.
Casey:
And today, on the 17th of July, we brought the car home.
Casey:
I have spent the last, since Thursday or Friday, I have spent all day, every day, emailing every dealer between Philadelphia and Greensboro, North Carolina, trying to get a good deal on this car.
Casey:
Now, before anyone complains, yes, I did this to myself.
Casey:
But...
Casey:
What ended up happening was I emailed all these dealers saying, look, what's your best out the door price?
Casey:
I don't I don't don't even worry about a trade in.
Casey:
Just tell me with tax, with everything.
Casey:
What is your best out the door price?
Casey:
And you would think that that would be easy.
Casey:
But of course, it's not because their job is to not give me their best out the door price.
Casey:
Their job is to give me their crappiest out the door price and hope that I that I agree to it.
Casey:
So what ended up happening?
Casey:
Long story short.
Casey:
is I got our Richmond dealer in a bidding war with a couple other dealers, and we were mostly the victors.
Casey:
And so eventually we got this car at an extreme, well, I think of an extreme discount.
Casey:
And I'm really pleased with that.
Casey:
Additionally, and you have to understand that Erin has never been a particular fan of my car.
Casey:
She thinks it's fine, but she hates BMW drivers because, well, we're all jerks.
Casey:
And so she's never really been a tremendous fan of my car.
Casey:
Guess what car saved her several thousand dollars because of a Volvo promotion that's going on right now?
Casey:
My BMW.
Casey:
If you happen to own a BMW, Lexus, Audi, etc., you can get a multi-thousand dollar discount on a brand new Volvo.
Casey:
So how about them apples?
Marco:
Wait, do you have to trade it in or just by you owning it?
Casey:
Just by owning it because they're trying to get owners of other luxury marquees, marks, marquees, whatever, those things, get luxury owners to come to Volvo.
Casey:
And so just by having one in the family, we got, I think it was $3,000 off, which is pretty awesome.
Casey:
Wow.
Casey:
So that was pretty cool.
Casey:
But yeah, buying a car is terrible.
Casey:
It's terrible.
Casey:
It's just a frigging nightmare from start to finish.
Casey:
I mean, if I didn't care about the cost of the car, it'd be great.
Casey:
No worries.
Casey:
But it's terrible because not unlike buying a house, the dealer's one and only job is to get as to extract all of the money from you.
Casey:
And your one and only position is to try to extract as little as possible.
Casey:
From from your own wallet.
Casey:
So, you know, like Miss the Baron in the chat is saying, well, could I have just paid MSRP?
Casey:
Sure, I could have.
Casey:
But that would have been almost ten thousand dollars more than we paid.
Casey:
Like, no, that's no, I'm not made of money.
Casey:
So, no, I'm not going to do that.
Casey:
oh my god i hate i hate buying a car i just i don't want to do it for a long time and that's why i think that in part of the reason i mean aaron loved her monster as i said but part of the reason that she didn't want a new car was because she didn't want to go through this and it's just it's a freaking nightmare i hate it so what color silver did you get
Casey:
I think it's just silver, silver.
John:
I forget what the official... Bright silver metallic, osmium gray metallic?
Casey:
No, osmium gray is what I really thought would be good.
Casey:
Oh, the color options on this car are frigging terrible, unless you get into like the super expensive ones.
Casey:
Seville gray metallic.
Casey:
No, I believe it was just silver.
Casey:
The osmium is what I thought looked the best of the available options.
Casey:
So it's a XC90 Momentum, which is the cheapest XC90 they make.
Casey:
However...
Casey:
within xc 90 momentums you can get five five seat or seven seat and we got the seven seat one with the bright silver metallic we want like i was starting to say we i thought the osmium gray actually looked better but um but we ended up with silver because that's the one that the dealer could get their hands on and make a good deal on what engine did you get to get t5 or t6
Casey:
uh so it's a t6 which is because as soon as you go third row that means you're getting a t6 so uh it's a t6 all-wheel drive so it's you had to get the fast engine well not exactly so here's the thing the xt90 ranges from 40 or 45 000 to 110 000 or something like that i saw that it's like a porsche you could just double the price of the car with options that's yeah because well what it is is they make a version i forget the name of it it doesn't a hybrid thing yeah
Casey:
Well, but not only is it a V8 hybrid, but beyond that, it's actually a four seater.
Casey:
So the back is just blocked off and it's clearly like an executive's I'm going to be chauffeured in the SUV sort of thing.
Casey:
But anyway, so yeah, so ours was ours.
Casey:
We started as cheap as you could go in terms of the trim and then made it seven seats.
Casey:
So that makes it slightly fancier.
Casey:
And then it's actually pretty darn well optioned, which is great.
Casey:
Um, so it has pretty much all of the bits and bobs that we could possibly want, but, uh, it's pretty cool.
Casey:
I mean, I haven't driven this one yet.
Casey:
We did do an overnight test drive several months ago of, of a less loaded one.
Casey:
And, you know, it does have CarPlay, which I played with very briefly, uh, when we test drove it and it was really nice.
Casey:
Um, there are definitely problems with it, but it was really nice.
Casey:
Uh, it has like the bird's eye view.
Casey:
It has a heads up display.
Casey:
So a lot of it is, um,
Casey:
A lot of it is very similar to the M5, actually, or reminds me of the M5.
Casey:
But I'm really looking forward to it.
Casey:
It has a heated steering wheel, which we've never had before.
Casey:
It parks itself, which is something we've never had before.
John:
It's got an automatic, just like the new M5.
John:
That's true.
Marco:
I haven't been watching that, but that makes me sad.
Marco:
What they've done to the M5 is sad.
Marco:
Indeed.
Casey:
um oh and uh it's both supercharged and turbocharged how about that that's possible yeah so i i didn't i haven't read into this much but i i think the in the idea is that the supercharger which is belt driven is good for low rpm like when you're just taking off and then the turbocharger is better once you've got some some motion going and once you have some rpms you can do both because turbocharger is exhaust driven so right you have no no competition for things that are driving the things that are blowing air into your engine
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
But Aaron and I, we got next to each other one week.
Casey:
So I drove to the Volvo dealer and she drove separately to the Volvo dealer.
Casey:
And then we were going to grab a late dinner afterwards.
Casey:
And I got next to her at a stoplight and she took off with not any particular quickness, but I could hear that supercharger whine coming from a Volvo.
Casey:
Again, I would call it a truck.
Casey:
I know it's not a truck, but coming from a Volvo SUV.
Casey:
And it's just like...
Casey:
what why is that noise coming from a Volvo it's just it's so weird um but anyway so yeah so so far so good I mean we didn't really get a chance to uh play with it um since we yeah we got home we got home put Declan to bed I had to do a little homework for analog which we're recording tomorrow I played in the car for two minutes realized they screwed up the registration on the car which is going to be delightful to work out um and then uh came upstairs to record this so
Casey:
At a glance, super nice.
Casey:
We're really excited.
Casey:
But I hate buying cars, you guys.
Casey:
It's the worst.
Marco:
Well, I think what you have to come to peace with in order to buy cars without having this just massive anxiety and negativity about the whole thing.
Marco:
is that there's no way to buy a car and not lose a bunch of money.
Marco:
Like, you're losing it somewhere.
Marco:
Somehow, you're losing a bunch of money.
Marco:
Because a car is not an investment.
Marco:
It's a giant, depreciating, usable, disposable, eventually, asset.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
There's no way to own a car and have it not cost you a lot of money in some way.
Marco:
And all the different ways you can buy it, different financing options, leasing versus buying, they're all just – you're going to lose a lot of money somewhere.
Marco:
And when you go into the dealer, you know that for a dealer that has negotiable prices, which is most of them, you know that they're going to make a profit somewhere off of you.
Marco:
And you can look at it two ways.
Marco:
You can look at it as, well, they've got to make money too.
Marco:
They have people to pay, whatever else.
Marco:
You can also look at it as every cent I give them is me losing money unnecessarily because I don't care about them.
Marco:
I just want this vehicle.
Casey:
Yeah, and I feel both of those things as it turns out.
Marco:
And when you're talking about large amounts of money like you are with car margins, it's hard to feel a lot of sympathy for the person that you spent 15 minutes talking to to think that they suddenly deserve $6,000.
Marco:
Actually, no, I think...
Marco:
I'll give you $100 of this margin, and I want the car for invoice.
Marco:
So you're right.
Marco:
There's this constant pressure between what you want and what they want.
Marco:
But I feel like at some point, in order to go through this and not feel horrible like you do right now,
Marco:
Like, you just bought a new car.
Marco:
Well, your wife just bought a new car.
Marco:
And so you have a new car in the family.
Marco:
And that's really cool for both of you.
Marco:
And this should be an unquestioned celebration, especially given how rarely you guys buy new cars and how much you love cars.
Marco:
This should be a celebration time.
Marco:
And instead, you're being mad about this part of it or you're grumbly about it because...
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Because you know that somewhere you probably got screwed for some amount of money along the way.
Marco:
Oh, yeah.
Marco:
Or at least a lot of time.
Casey:
That's exactly what I was going to say.
John:
Well, so you can also think of it this way, that dealerships don't necessarily make all or even most of their money from selling you cars.
John:
So it could be that you happened upon a dealership in a situation in a particular car and...
John:
Yeah.
John:
where the dealer gets little or no profit from the car but they will find some other way that they hope to get the money from you and so if you can convince yourself that you are in one of those situations that they let this go out the door for no profit in the hopes of making it up by charging you an arm and the like for service um then maybe you'll feel better about the purchase yeah but but i think the you know the reality is you got a new car
Marco:
It costs a lot of money, but you have a new car.
Marco:
Enjoy it.
Marco:
And no matter how you did this, it was going to cost you a lot of money.
Marco:
You know, whether it cost you, I don't know what this cost.
Marco:
So, you know, let's say whether it cost you like $45,000 or $46,000, like that's not going to, you know, if you look at it in absolute terms, like, oh, I might have been able to save $1,000.
Marco:
That's a lot of money.
Marco:
but if you look at it in relative terms of what you're paying for this car it's like okay that's a small difference it's not going to make me angry for a month over this like let's just enjoy it right and i feel like that's that's the only the only emotionally healthy way to look at car purchases and believe me i've been on both sides of those like i i've had a lot of angry uh car investments over time but uh you know mostly before this show happened uh i had a
Marco:
I've had a lot of cars and not always have gone well or have been financially prudent.
Marco:
But the enjoyment you get out of this, that should be untarnished as much as possible.
Marco:
And it's hard when it's this much money because it's hard to spend this much money and just be flippant about it.
Marco:
But you love cars.
Marco:
You've been waiting for a long time and talking and debating about which car to get for this role for Aaron for a very long time.
Marco:
Enjoy it.
Marco:
Just enjoy it.
Marco:
And it's kind of like the same philosophy of John.
Marco:
And was it you, John, or Merlin talking about when you go to Disney to just kind of know that it's going to cost you a fortune and just plan for that ahead of time, and then when you're there, just enjoy it?
Marco:
That was me.
Marco:
Yeah, I figured it was you.
Marco:
See, you kind of have to do that, Casey, with car purchases.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
You know it's going to cost you a fortune somehow.
Marco:
At the end of it, you're going to have something that you love.
Marco:
It's going to be really nice.
Marco:
So just accept it.
Marco:
Know you're going to get screwed somewhere and then try to move on from that or don't let it get to you so much and just enjoy the thing.
Casey:
Yeah, it's funny you say that because so this, you know, the process started with, you know, me going to the dealer just cold and being like, OK, you know, what do you what do you have roughly?
Casey:
What does that cost?
Casey:
Blah, blah, blah.
Casey:
It was way out of our price range.
Casey:
So then we tried the Costco thing because Costco supposedly says, OK, we have pre-negotiated, you know, certain cars with certain options.
John:
I did that the past two cars I bought, too.
John:
I was not impressed with their price both times.
Casey:
Yeah, same.
Casey:
So when we went to the local dealer and said, oh, by the way, we didn't tell you before.
Casey:
We're Costco people.
Casey:
And they basically said, OK, whatever.
Casey:
That means you get a couple hundred dollars off.
Casey:
Woo.
Casey:
And then we tried True Car.
Casey:
And all that did, all that is, in my experience, I shouldn't say this as though it's factual, but in my experience, all True Car is is a sales funnel for a car dealership.
Casey:
So then you get blown up via email and phone with people who are not interested in making a deal.
Casey:
They're just interested in having somebody new to chase.
Casey:
Whatever.
Casey:
So what I ended up doing, like I think I said earlier, is I just had two or three dealers bidding against each other.
Casey:
But it got to the point that once I got Richmond to a price point that I thought was fair, which only happened because I had gotten other dealers to make pretty aggressive opening offers, then at that point, I'm going back and forth about $100 here, $200 there, $100 here, $200 there.
Casey:
And it occurred to me, to your point, Marco...
Casey:
What am I doing here?
Casey:
Like at this point, I'm there.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
I mean, I don't I don't want to talk about exactly how much the car was, but, you know, 100 or 200 dollars in the grand scheme of things on a car that's, you know, of this price is nothing.
John:
Well, that's how they get you, though.
John:
That's how they get you when you start talking about things.
John:
Here we go.
John:
They cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
John:
You're like, well, when I'm spending these tens of thousands, when I'm spending five figures anyway, a couple hundred bucks is nothing.
John:
Whereas if you are spending a hundred bucks, a couple hundred bucks on top of that, you'd be like, whoa, whoa, I'm not... You're exactly right.
John:
But it's the same amount of money in both cases.
John:
You have to be really careful with large purchases that you don't slip into that.
John:
Sure, I'll get the body-colored key fob for 500 bucks.
John:
It's nothing compared to the price on payment.
John:
It's like, don't do it.
John:
Just...
John:
I think you were doing the right thing, although you sent us a link to a picture.
John:
Is this your actual car?
Casey:
The link I put in the chat, which I will not be putting in the show notes, is the actual car, yes.
John:
So it looks white.
John:
That's all I'm going to say about it.
Casey:
It does look white.
Casey:
No, you're right.
John:
It does.
John:
This is a very light silver.
John:
It seems like you bought a really big white tennis shoe or sneaker.
John:
Oh, yeah.
Casey:
You're so mean.
Marco:
No, I don't think it looks bad.
Marco:
I mean, I don't know anything about SUVs, really.
Marco:
Like, they don't appeal to me, so I have a hard time judging them.
Marco:
But as they go, this looks pretty nice.
Casey:
Yeah, I mean, I'm looking forward to it.
Casey:
It does look white in the pictures.
Casey:
That's a very light silver.
Casey:
Without question, without question.
Casey:
Maybe, I mean, you know what I'll do is I'll put one of the pictures in the show notes, so I'm not going to put the link to, like, the listing, and it's probably going to disappear any minute anyway, but I'll put a link to the picture.
Marco:
Then people can reverse image structure.
Marco:
It's not going to do what you want.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
don't worry you're right i think it might just be overexposed there are a couple angles where it starts to look silver it does look that way yeah but follow john's advice of that i love like after telling you to like try to reduce anxiety about this purchase the fact that john led with that's how they get you is amazing uh it's a tm at the end of that phrase
Marco:
But I feel like that's how they get you rationale is good when considering extras and options.
Marco:
However, when just agonizing over the bulk of this price and the purchase price, the asking price, the profit margin, the invoice price, all this stuff, this is where it's a good time to just say, you know what –
Marco:
I'm going to be spending a lot of money on this.
Marco:
I'll try to be responsible, but it's not worth agonizing about it forever.
Marco:
Because keep in mind, too, and this is one area where a lot of people get caught up, there is a value that it might be hard to quantify, but there is a value...
Marco:
to your own mental health regarding the surroundingness.
Marco:
So you are not only spending a lot of time trying to extract negotiations out of the dealers.
Marco:
So the first half of the time that you spend on that is probably worth it, but then you get diminishing returns after that.
Marco:
So there's that issue of just the time spent that it's worth keeping that in check.
Marco:
And then also...
Marco:
If you're going to get all mad about something that's $100, it's like, okay, is that going to ruin an evening for you?
Marco:
Is it going to ruin a few evenings?
Marco:
Is it going to ruin a week for you?
Marco:
Are you going to be mad for a week over $100?
Marco:
Is that worth it to you?
Marco:
Are you going to get mad in front of your kid about something like this?
Marco:
How is that going to make him feel?
Marco:
Is that worth $100 to you?
Marco:
There's a cost to you and to your health and to your family and to the mood around you, the people around you.
Marco:
when things bother you too much.
Marco:
And so sometimes it's actually worth just saying, you know what, fine, I'll get screwed for the $100 because I don't want to deal with it for the next week.
Marco:
And I don't know if you did any of that because I wasn't there, which is probably a good thing.
Marco:
But a lot of people have trouble seeing the perspective on that.
Marco:
And finding that balance.
Marco:
And I've had trouble with this a lot before, too.
Marco:
And this is something I've only more recently started thinking more about.
Marco:
And there's a lot of value to yourself being able to just move on from something.
Casey:
Yeah, I oftentimes think that you can be a little cavalier about or maybe a little fast and loose about how you spend your money given that you impulse bought this really expensive TV and all that jazz.
Casey:
But I absolutely 100% agree with you that the key here is to get the purchase down to a place where you think –
Casey:
You're not getting screwed to where you think you're doing okay.
Casey:
And then at that point, when you're nickel and diming the dealer or yourself, is it really, really worth it anymore?
Casey:
It got to the point that I was just stressing myself out over this little bit of money that...
Casey:
Yes, $100.
Casey:
I don't mean to say that $100 isn't a lot of money.
Casey:
I'm not trying to say that at all.
Casey:
$100 is absolutely a lot of money.
Casey:
What I'm saying is there comes a time where you have to say to yourself, you know what, this just ain't worth it.
Casey:
It's just not worth continuing to do this to yourself.
Casey:
And that's that's where I eventually got is just it's it's not worth it for me to continue to stress about this.
Casey:
And so in the end, I am super happy about the purchase.
Casey:
I think it's going to be really great for the family.
Casey:
I think I'm really looking forward to the car.
Casey:
We've never had a Volvo.
Casey:
I don't think anyone in our extended families have had a Volvo.
Casey:
I've certainly been around them in the past.
Casey:
But I'm really looking forward to it.
Casey:
And at a glance, it seems super nice.
Casey:
It has so many bits and bobs from the technology point of view.
Casey:
I mean, it's its own.
Casey:
Apparently, one of the things we did, unbeknownst to us, was the dealer signed us up for a three-month trial on AT&T because the thing is its own Wi-Fi hotspot.
Casey:
It's got CarPlay, as I mentioned before.
Casey:
I think I said it's got the bird's eye view.
Casey:
So when you park, although I don't think it's quite as good as the M5s was.
Casey:
But anyway, as you park, it'll show you everything around you.
Casey:
And it has, of course, a backup camera and all that jazz.
Casey:
It has the three-row seating, which to answer somebody in the chat, the reason we got the third-row seating is because we want the option of putting friends or many adults or really, in a lot of cases, just having plenty of storage space in the back.
Casey:
Because you look at your average X5's trunk, and it's not that big, given how big the car is.
Casey:
And I think part of the problem here is that Aaron's Mazda was not a terribly large car, but had a cavern of a trunk.
Casey:
It was just preposterously large.
Casey:
And so if she's going to get this big SUV, she's not going to want to give up on that tremendous trunk.
Casey:
And I don't think that's unreasonable.
Casey:
So, yeah, so it's super nice.
Casey:
It theoretically will parallel park itself.
Casey:
It theoretically will perpendicularly park itself, I think, by backing in, although I'm not 100% sure.
Casey:
Wow, I didn't even think about that.
Casey:
Man, if it doesn't back in, I'm going to be furious.
Casey:
We're going to have to return it.
Casey:
My car backs in.
Casey:
Exactly.
Casey:
So, yeah, so it's...
Casey:
I'm really looking forward to... I say looking forward to it only because I haven't driven it yet and we haven't really played with all the technology stuff yet.
Casey:
But it's tough because here it is.
Casey:
It's like such a monumental day and moment in our lives.
Casey:
And it was slightly miserable because I was sad to see the Mazda go and Erin was devastated to see the Mazda go.
Casey:
She wanted the new car.
Casey:
It's not like I'm compelling her to get a new car, but she was devastated to see that car go.
Casey:
But, you know, it's also... It's like that...
Casey:
Oh, thank God that's over with because I don't want to ever want to do that crap again.
Casey:
You know, it's that that that release that just finally.
Casey:
And so, yeah, I'm not sure if I'm going to do any sort of formal review for either the website or my quote unquote YouTube channel.
Casey:
I mean, I have a channel that has a single video on it.
Casey:
you can just call it your vlog it's okay yeah totally um but yeah so far so good it seems really nice uh and and i'm really looking forward to spending more time in it and and getting to check out all the all the bits and bobs and whatnot should have thought about moving to a different state so you wouldn't have to have that stupid registration sticker in the middle of your windshield here we go i know although i might want to point out that it's not actually is the one in aaron's off center
John:
Yeah, that's what I'm going to say.
Casey:
Is it a little bit?
John:
Yeah, it looks like it's a little bit to the left.
John:
It almost doesn't matter because it being anywhere near the middle of your windshield is so awful that the fact that it's off center is like a secondary concern.
Casey:
Well, but if I was going to move, I would probably move to like Pennsylvania or North Carolina where I don't recall where the stickers are there, but at least you don't need a front damn license plate.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Drives me insane that we have to have those on our cars.
Marco:
By the way, seeing this picture of your gloriously white car next to Aaron's new allegedly silver car, that is really light silver.
Marco:
It is, to be fair.
John:
That is not very different looking cars.
John:
Now I miss Aaron's car.
John:
Aaron's car, look at that.
John:
What a great 90s car that was.
Casey:
It's a 2007.
John:
Silly wing on the back.
John:
It's got 90s styling.
John:
Yeah, that's totally a 90s car.
Casey:
It is not a... I was so happy and now I'm so angry at the two of you.
Casey:
Who doesn't like a good wing?
Marco:
Look how it's all car shaped and everything.
Marco:
Yeah, it's awesome.
Marco:
It doesn't look that different from my very well-loved 96 Maxima that I had.
Casey:
It's a 2007 Mazda 6, you guys.
Casey:
Why do you got to do this?
Marco:
It doesn't mean it was designed in 2007.
Why are you so mean to me?