Beehives Full of Bees
Casey:
I'm fired up tonight in the sense that I love hate my phone and we're going to have to talk about this later.
Casey:
There are some parts I really, really, really love in some parts that are driving me freaking crazy.
Casey:
And I think we should talk about that later.
Casey:
That's what we in the business like to call a teaser.
Casey:
If this stays in the show, I guarantee someone will write in and say, so that's actually not a teaser.
Marco:
That's actually a sting preview.
Marco:
It's a blast reference.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
It's a miracle that anyone puts any content on the internet by choice ever.
Casey:
Ever.
Marco:
Well, if we ever want to get to that, I do want to talk about the feedback to my laptop article.
Marco:
Oh, I have feedback I would like to file, actually.
Marco:
Unfortunately, Syracuse have covered it pretty well on the upgrade today.
John:
No, I didn't talk about it.
John:
I purposely didn't try not to talk about your article.
John:
We have still plenty of things to talk about on your article with you specifically.
Casey:
All right, good.
Casey:
Yeah, and I have plenty of complaints to levy, so I would like my chance.
Casey:
Let's start with some follow-up about the multitasking gesture on the iPhone X. It was funny because as a podcast listener, I have listened to every Apple-related tech podcast that I listen to get all of the feedback.
Casey:
About the one true way to do the multitasking gesture, the one true way that is flawless and will never, ever fail.
Casey:
It just so happens that there are about 75 one true ways to do the multitasking gesture on the iPhone 10.
Casey:
And I had thought by the time we had covered it.
Casey:
perhaps the internet will have gotten this out of their system.
Casey:
Oh no, my friends, the internet is not done.
Casey:
So one of you has comically put in the show notes, and I'm guessing this is John, the tyranny, the tyranny, tyranny, tyranny, the, the, the angst of the pause tyranny, the tyranny, the tyranny of the pause.
Casey:
Tell us about this.
John:
Yeah, this was the implied context of all of my comments on the multitasking gesture.
John:
Last year, we're talking about how I had difficulty doing it from the home screen, but how it was as far as I could tell the same gesture as elsewhere and why I had difficulty doing it on the home screen.
John:
And at one point, I rattled off a bunch of gestures that I had tried, things that people had suggested and things that work elsewhere.
John:
the implied but not stated part of that conversation was that all the things i was describing i was doing instead of the one where you you drag up and then pause for a little bit and then you know like like basically what i think of as the sort of standard one i think it's the one they demoed in the keynote where you know pull up from the bottom but don't take your finger off the screen and then wait a little bit and then the multitasking thing comes and uh and the reason that
John:
That was my implied context is because I hate pauses.
John:
I hate, you know, tap and hold.
John:
I hate anything where I have to do something for a set amount of time and there's no way I can speed it up.
John:
That's why I was interested in the, you know, J turn, 45 degree angle, swipe, all sorts of other little things.
John:
So everybody who wrote in to tell us, why are you doing all these strange gestures?
John:
Just pull up from the bottom and then wait a second and it will come up.
John:
um i definitely knew that i don't want to wait um the second category of people are saying you actually don't have to wait if you pull up a precise amount from the bottom and immediately remove your finger from the screen it will bring up the multitasking gesture uh and i guess that gets rid of the weight but i find it more difficult to exactly get that distance right than i do to do one of the j turn or 45 degree anklings whatever so anyway if that case wasn't clear and you didn't know
John:
You can pull up from the bottom.
John:
Pause for a moment with your finger on the screen and the multitasking thing will come up.
John:
And that is probably easier to pull off than any of the gestures that I was describing in which you don't have to do that.
John:
But you do have to wait.
John:
And I don't like waiting.
Casey:
I had no idea.
Casey:
It's like you grew up in the New York area.
Casey:
We got a little bit of feedback about the refund requests for AppleCare+.
Casey:
I could have sworn I had put this in the show notes, but I was wrong for the past episode.
Casey:
So we'll be in the show notes for this episode.
Casey:
And John Himm was the first person I saw to write in with a link to a KBase article, Hello Stephen Hackett, wherein it's entitled, How to Request a Refund for an AppleCare Plan.
Casey:
Blah, blah, blah.
Casey:
There are a few important things to keep in mind when you cancel and return an AppleCare coverage plan.
Casey:
If you cancel your plan within 30 days of your purchase date, you'll get a full refund minus the value of any service already performed.
Casey:
If you cancel your AppleCare plan more than 30 days after your purchase, you'll get a refund based on the percentage of unexpired AppleCare coverage minus the value of any service already provided.
Casey:
And so it's a thing, which I didn't know.
Casey:
And we even heard a couple of people say that they told geniuses or perhaps not geniuses.
Casey:
And perhaps it was salespeople.
Casey:
But one way or another, one way or another, told Apple retail employees that this was a thing.
Casey:
And they didn't even know it was a thing, as it turns out.
Casey:
So, yeah, it's a thing.
Casey:
We'll put a link in the show notes.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Who is it that put this weird Kickstarter that I'd never heard about before in the show notes?
John:
It was me.
John:
It's always me.
John:
We were talking last week about advantages of face ID over touch ID, especially if you have things wrong with the tips of your fingers or they're dirty or scratched up, stuff like that.
John:
And also...
John:
If you're wearing gloves, and I mentioned that they had gloves that will let you use your touchscreen, but those gloves don't let you activate Touch ID.
John:
Well, someone sent me this link to a Kickstarter for gloves that let you touch your screen, you know, with gloves on, like they work with a touchscreen.
John:
But also...
John:
They provide not your fingerprints through the gloves, like I was suggesting last show, like there are no gloves that magically surface your fingerprints, but instead give you a bunch of stickers with ostensibly unique fingerprints on every single sticker that work with Touch ID.
John:
So what you do is you'd put on these gloves or put on these little stickers on your gloves, right?
John:
And each one is unique.
John:
Like every single person who gets one gets a unique fingerprint thing.
John:
Train it on your gloved fingerprint thingy, and then you can unlock your phone and...
John:
And use it with that glove.
John:
Of course, what that means is that if someone wants to unlock your phone, they just need to steal your glove instead of cutting off your finger or lifting your prints off a glass of water or whatever Mission Impossible type thing they're going to do.
John:
But anyway, it's a Kickstarter.
John:
All the normal caveats are by Kickstarter.
John:
But, you know, someone's always got an interesting idea.
John:
And here's another one.
John:
Unique fingerprint stickers.
Casey:
I had no idea this was a thing.
Casey:
Well, it's a Kickstarter, so is it a thing?
Casey:
Touche.
Casey:
Touche, sir.
Casey:
Well played.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So apparently we have some things to talk about with regard to iCloud restores during iPhone X setup.
John:
I spoke too soon.
John:
Last week we all spoke.
John:
Well, maybe you didn't, but I did about like, oh, iCloud restore during setup.
John:
It's much faster now.
John:
Everything works great.
John:
That was all true up until the point where my wife's phone wanted to update to whatever.
John:
I think it's like the iOS update that gets rid of the weird funny character thing.
John:
You try to type capital I, whatever, whatever update that was.
John:
And she normally updates her phone and eventually tried to do the update.
John:
And it said something to the effect of, oh, yeah, no, this this OS update will run as soon as your iCloud restore finishes.
John:
And it's said that for about two weeks now.
John:
And that's bad.
John:
Oh, lovely.
John:
And one of her questions to me was like, can I just cancel this iCloud restore?
John:
And it's like, I don't know.
John:
Like, it's another one of those iCloud things where...
John:
reboot your phone as far as i'm aware the iCloud restore finished the day we set up your phone like all the apps are there what what remains to be done i don't know it's not like i have some view into the system that tells me what the iCloud restore process is doing so i find this mildly upsetting and i don't as yet have a solution i assume what i'm just going to do is google the error message because that's the level of debugging we're at in the ios world these days especially as it relates to iCloud things
John:
So you can find how many other people have this problem.
John:
But in the end, yeah, it's like reboot the phone, step zero, and see if that magically changes something.
Casey:
We got some bad news from Apple, and I'm quoting now.
Casey:
We can't wait for people to experience HomePod, Apple's breakthrough wireless speaker for the home, but we need a little more time before it's ready for our customers.
Casey:
We'll start shipping in the US, UK, and Australia in early 2018.
Casey:
This was not given directly to ATP, but it was given to a couple of news sites or bloggers or what have you.
Casey:
The HomePod is indeed delayed.
Casey:
So I guess next week or perhaps later this week, we'll hear the same for the iMac Pro.
Casey:
Because weren't both promised this year?
Casey:
Is that right?
John:
Yeah, but the iMac Pro is going to make it.
John:
Is it?
John:
Sure, why not?
John:
Because like five people will buy them and it doesn't really matter and it will probably make it.
Marco:
I mean, technically, the 2013 Mac Pro was available in December 2013.
Marco:
But if you actually wanted to try to order one, you weren't going to get it until February 2014.
Marco:
So the iMac Pro might follow a similar path.
Marco:
I don't really know...
Marco:
If anything in particular is holding up the iMac Pro, I'm sure they have their reasons, but I'm sure they have nothing to do with whatever's holding back the HomePod.
Marco:
The HomePod seems like it was in such an early state when they announced it last June.
Marco:
that it's slipping a few months now is not that big of a surprise.
Marco:
And it's all new hardware.
Marco:
More importantly, probably all new software relying on their fairly shaky service backend for Siri.
Marco:
So lots of possible things could have gone wrong here or could have missed deadlines here to make that get delayed by a few months.
Marco:
So this is not at all a surprise.
Marco:
And I hope...
Marco:
From what we've seen from the HomePod so far, which is admittedly very, very little, it sure doesn't seem like it's that competitive with the other products in that market.
Marco:
So maybe they're making it a little bit better.
Marco:
That's kind of my hope here.
Marco:
Maybe this will be a little bit more competitive against the Echo line of products, especially, and then also against things like Sonos and Google, whatever.
John:
maybe it will be done is more like what i think this is getting at like they showed the hardware but they had so little of the software done that all they would let people do with it is play music but this is ostensibly something you can talk to and they were demonstrating none of that which makes me think that the hardware is was at that time much farther along than the software and software is much harder to predict when it will be done and i feel like it's not done and that's why it's delayed um and as i said on upgrade today with jason
John:
when they announced that the home pod would be released and the iMac pro for that matter in december it like they announced that it's in september when they had the uh iphone event is that when all the stuff in june or june whatever it was but anyway when they announced they announced december then right yeah in june during the wbdc keynote is the only time we've ever heard about the home pod and then they said december
John:
was that wwc really yes oh wow anyway right as soon as they announced december they pre-announced that they would not make the holiday season right so now when they're delaying it until you know early 2018 it's not as if suddenly they're missing the holiday season they already pre-announced they were missing the holiday season this is not a new change all they have done is crossed it over the year boundary and
John:
And it's probably because, you know, I think we can make it by the end of year.
John:
That's our stretch goal team.
John:
And they didn't make it.
John:
So it gets pushed out.
John:
Right.
John:
But the nice PR side effect is if they had announced HomePod and said, this isn't coming till 2018, there would be all these groans because you crossed the year boundary.
John:
But if you say December 31st, like, oh, but, you know, it'll be here in 2017.
John:
And that's a better PR story.
John:
And then as December approaches and it becomes clear that you're not going to do that and people just want to go home and get their vacations.
John:
Right.
John:
Then they can announce that it got delayed.
John:
So I think they were shooting for the end of the year and they just didn't make it.
John:
And that's fine.
John:
Don't release a product that's not done.
John:
At no point was this going to be a holiday purchase.
John:
And it's still not a holiday purchase.
John:
So it'll be fine.
Marco:
So one possibly worrying thing about this is that nobody seems that sad about this.
Marco:
Is that a concern?
John:
Well, what are they going to be sad about?
John:
I want that amazing demo that they show.
John:
Oh, they didn't show a demo.
John:
They showed it playing music and it sounded good.
John:
We don't even know what to expect other than it will play your music and some people said it plays music nicely and sounds good, right?
John:
There's no wow factor to this, especially with the Sonos announcements, right?
John:
If you want a speaker that sounds good that you can talk to,
John:
sonos tells you that uh and this is just like oh it sounds good and you can talk to it and you can talk to it and make a play make it play apple music where sonos will play apple music but not when you talk to it right now like yeah this this is apple trying to enter a market that it's currently not in but if they have something special to to show this market here's apple's entry and this is the special apple magic they haven't shown that yet so what is there to really get excited about
Casey:
All I know is I feel less and less confident in Siri as time goes on.
Casey:
And there was actually a really, really tremendous crossover between Welcome to Macintosh and 20,000 Hertz, both of which are phenomenal podcasts that you should be listening to.
Casey:
And I think it was Mark Bramhill of Welcome to Macintosh had said he was of the opinion that as Siri sounds more and more and more lifelike and less robotic, we as human beings, and I think I certainly fall into this, are less and less and less tolerant of it being anything but perfect.
Casey:
Because the voice is getting eerily close to maybe not perfect, but really good.
Casey:
And so you expect the best out of this.
Casey:
And man, I don't know if it's me or what, but I just feel like Siri has been garbage the last few months.
Casey:
But you know what isn't frustrating, kids?
Casey:
Me being vindicated.
Casey:
And oh boy, am I vindicated.
Casey:
We have some follow up about the great dust up of November 2017.
Marco:
The chili cook-off.
Casey:
The chili cook-off.
Casey:
If you recall, I had put an Ask ATP question into the show notes that John had tried to move out of the episode, and then obnoxiously I pretty much forced all of us to drag it back in.
Casey:
And we quickly discovered that John had built himself a Beautiful Mind-style conspiracy theory as to what the actual intention of this question's author was.
Casey:
During the recording of that episode, I tweeted at the author, whose name is Jonathan Bolling.
Casey:
I said to him, was this an honest question or were you making an in-joke about John Merlin, etc.?
Casey:
To which he replied at the time, honest question, but I was betting something pretty funny might happen in the answers.
Casey:
And I believe we brought all this up during the show.
Casey:
And John said, see...
John:
it's he thought something funny would happen he's setting us up marco cut that part out of the episode oh did he that's why yes wait did i yeah that's why i put it back in this one because it was like in the after after after after show but anyway yes this response did come in and so it was honest question but i was betting something pretty funny might happen and my reading of that question was but i was betting something pretty funny might happen and casey's reading is different but anyway go ahead
Casey:
So we got an email from Jonathan.
Casey:
I will not read all of it, but I will read some of it.
Casey:
Episode 248 Chili Cook-Off turned out to be more fun than I could have imagined.
Casey:
I was just hoping that you would include my question, so I had no idea that it would cause a mini Syracuse rant, TM, that would backfire and make the question stay in the show.
Casey:
Thank you, Casey, for defending my good intentions.
Casey:
I've been a big fan of hypercritical build and analyze an ATP.
Casey:
Longtime listener, first time, quote, close to the metal or quote.
Casey:
John's suspicions were unfounded.
Casey:
I do enjoy Reconcilable Differences, which, by the way, is a tremendous program, which you should listen to.
Casey:
But I didn't have anything from rec diffs in mind when I asked the question.
Casey:
I'd be curious to know which episode or episodes he thought I was referencing.
Casey:
Casey, I look forward to hearing you point out to John that he was wrong in the next episode's follow-up copyright John Syracuse of 2011.
Casey:
I should note that's in the email.
Casey:
I also look forward to his continued good-humored suspicions with a winky emoji.
Casey:
John, would you like to try to defend yourself at this time?
John:
Well, there's not really much to defend here because, well, first of all, I want to say that my hope after last week's episode was that you two, based on the feedback from everyone else, would come to a better understanding of what my objection was.
John:
Because if you recall, I'm more confused than ever.
John:
Well, maybe I can help you out.
John:
But anyway, I'm saying what my hope was.
John:
If you recall, the idea was there was this question in there.
John:
I moved it down.
John:
I said, I don't like this question.
John:
Casey asked me, and then he asked me on the show, why don't you like this question?
John:
And I explained why I don't like this question.
John:
And Casey said that my reasons were dumb.
John:
Right?
John:
So here, that's it.
John:
It was, John, please tell me why don't you like this question.
John:
I feel like I tried my best to explain why I don't like the question.
John:
There's no being right or wrong about why I don't like the question.
John:
But obviously, you two have not come to a deeper understanding of why I didn't like the question.
John:
And I don't know why this example didn't occur to me, but I think I have a better example to hopefully bring you to that understanding.
John:
Right?
John:
If someone had written into the show, Ask ATP, say, should I buy a white car?
John:
If Casey said, I don't like that question, I would understand why he doesn't like that question.
John:
that's it okay right okay i would understand now imagine that person had never heard the show before except like friends said that we talk about cars sometime and was legitimately thinking about buying a white car and you know they talk about cars all the time and maybe in the after show they'll talk about white cars maybe i'll just ask them should i buy a white car because you know they're hard to keep clean and so on and so forth right
John:
still still if you said i don't like that question i would say i understand why you don't like that question right and if that person ordered and said i don't know what this thing you're talking about the white cars i just for you i heard you guys talk about cars sometimes i'm thinking of getting one and white is hard to keep clean and stuff so i figured you'd have an opinion even if they were 100 honest i would still understand why you don't like that question and i wouldn't say it was a conspiracy theory now imagine further still that marco and i said
John:
Casey, I don't know what you're talking about.
John:
This person's just asking about white cars.
John:
I have no idea of this larger context that you're trying to refer to of white cars.
John:
Because this was like seven years in the future and we didn't remember this white car gag.
Casey:
Oh, I assure you, I will never be allowed to forget the white car gag.
Casey:
But I'm with you in principle.
John:
I'm with you in principle.
John:
This is the situation I find myself in.
John:
Because, believe me, the close to the metal thing was as real as the white car, as evidenced by all the people who wrote in to say that person is 100% trolling and John is right.
John:
I mean, because they don't know what's in this person's heart any more than I do, right?
John:
But that it is legitimately a thing, as much a thing as white cars were, and yet you two have no recollection of it.
John:
And this person claims to have no recollection of it, despite listening all the way back to hypercritical, which is where this is from, not reconcilable differences.
John:
anyway all this is to say i hope you now understand where i was coming from and i hope you can use the white car example as as instructive to say what maybe you wouldn't mind that question maybe you would but all i'm saying is if you said you didn't like it i would understand why and i think marco would too because we both have the shared context without the shared context
John:
Would you seem like a conspiracy theory person?
John:
What is this about white cars?
John:
What are you even talking about?
John:
Imagine how frustrating it would be for you to have to re-explain to me and Marco what the deal with the white car thing is.
Casey:
I do think, I am laughing, but I do think I understand your point better.
Casey:
I think the difference for me, and we can move on, but the difference for me is that the white car thing is, for better or worse, like the defining gag about me.
Casey:
It's that and who the hell is Casey.
John:
You're so lucky to only have one, Casey.
John:
well two but i'm with you again i'm with you what's the second one uh water on the computer no well okay three i said who the hell's casey in the computer yeah in the computer i see i'd forgotten about that one you'd have to re-explain that context and i would say you're crazy everyone knows who you are well fine
Casey:
But my point is just that there are a handful of things that I feel like all of us, upon hearing them, would say, yes, of course, who the hell is Casey?
Casey:
I remember.
Casey:
And this one, to my eyes anyway, was way more esoteric and way more...
John:
It's older.
John:
I mean, it's older.
John:
We traced it back.
John:
It was like episode 50 of Hypercritical.
John:
That's like six years ago.
John:
So, you know, I guess you can be forgiven for completely forgetting about it.
John:
I was just very surprised that neither one of you could even vaguely remember that it was a thing and we're just starting from whole cloth as if I was just making this up.
John:
I assure you, I am not.
Casey:
No, I never really thought you were making it up.
Casey:
It just seemed it seemed kind of bananas to me that you were so unequivocally convinced that this was that this was trolling.
John:
I thought you would remember I thought I mean, obviously, it's not as recent as a white car, but I thought one or both of you would certainly remember it.
John:
And either way, by the way, I will point out like at the end of this thing, I also look forward to John's, you know, continued good humor and suspicions.
John:
I mean, obviously, if someone was trolling, the trolly thing to do is not to tell you they're trolling.
John:
Not that I'm doubting this person.
Casey:
I'm sure this person is right.
John:
But I'm just saying there are people on the Internet like it's it's really easy to type words into a text box.
John:
But I'm I'm sure this person is being honest and like you, too, has just completely forgotten about this from my hypocritical days because that was a long time ago.
Casey:
Although, to be honest, so when did we record Neutral?
Casey:
That started in January of 13.
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
I think that's right.
Casey:
Yeah, that's about right.
Casey:
So that was almost five years ago and Hypercritical was six or seven years ago.
Casey:
So, I mean, the white car thing is far closer to Hypercritical than it is to us today.
Casey:
You know what I mean?
Casey:
Which is weird, right?
Casey:
Because I feel like that was yesterday in so many ways.
Casey:
Anyway, I was very punchy when we recorded, but I was never genuinely upset at you.
Casey:
I just thought you were being utterly preposterous.
John:
But I wasn't.
John:
That's what I'm getting at.
John:
Just because you don't have the context doesn't mean there isn't a context.
John:
And it's completely irrelevant whether he was being honest or not.
John:
That's what I was trying to get at with the white car thing.
John:
Because legit, someone could listen to the show.
John:
That's a real question that people ask.
John:
Should I get a white car?
John:
I've had that question asked to me before I even came in the show.
John:
But it would be a hell of a coincidence if they asked it on Ask ATP, wouldn't it?
Marco:
why would anybody ask if they want to get a white car or not yeah exactly why would that went up but why would they ask atp maybe it's just a legit honest honest question but i would understand if casey if casey gave it a little bit of side eye and maybe said i'm picking questions maybe i'm not going to pick that one i mean it seems to me that white cars just happened to casey he never has to actually consider them see have you exactly you've owned like 17 white cars have you ever had to ask anybody if you should get a white car or not
Casey:
no i've never asked anyone if i should but like you said it doesn't seem like he had a choice right yeah one of them one of them was a choice they just fall from from the sky into your driveway and then their engines break can you just dub in like the first 15 minutes of the first neutral where we discuss this one of them was absolutely unequivocally my choice i specifically requested white for one every other one happened to me
John:
i'm sticking with and for the record i'm pretty sure marco's the only one he obviously originated the white car thing and i think he's the only one who really cares my first car was a white car too and i think all i said on neutral was that if you have a really nicely shaped car then you can get it in white but if your car is ugly don't get it in white because it highlights how badly shaped it is but beyond that i have no objections to white cars
Marco:
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Casey:
Speaking of Ask ATP, let's just mosey right on in.
Casey:
Shane Buslow writes, do you think using Qi chargers everywhere and topping off the iPhone's batteries all the time will impact battery health?
Casey:
I have no idea, but I've had the same question.
Marco:
So I think this is probably similar to lots of different battery health questions and theories and best practices that we've heard over the years with computers.
Marco:
There is probably some truth to the fact that charging lithium batteries all the time does actually...
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
The reason I added this and why I thought this was kind of worth talking about is, like, I feel like with your phone that you're using every day, that you are charging every night, then you are using it throughout the day, you know, you're putting, like, a good part of a full cycle on the battery every day, sometimes more if you use it heavily.
Marco:
I feel like your battery is not going to be very useful for more than about two years, maybe three years if you're more gentle on it.
Marco:
But no matter what you do, this is really hard on a battery.
Marco:
To be used, to be basically cycled, a full cycle meaning full charge to nearly empty, to be going through a full cycle almost every day,
Marco:
you're going to wear out that battery pretty much no matter what you do.
Marco:
And so the alternative, which is, you know, topping it off on these little chargers all over your house and car and workplace all the time, I don't think that's that much worse.
Marco:
You know, it might actually be better even.
Marco:
Like, what's worse for a lithium-ion battery?
Marco:
Keeping it at a full charge for a day or going through a full cycle?
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
but it's probably not going to be that different.
Marco:
Either way, you're using it heavily.
Marco:
You know, like if you have a laptop and you use it on battery for its full range every day, that's going to do the same thing as the laptop.
Marco:
If you keep it plugged in all the time, that's going to be better for it.
Marco:
But, you know, again, like maybe not that much better because of the full charge being bad thing.
Marco:
So I think the answer here is...
Marco:
Keeping them uncharged all the time will probably impact battery health, but the alternative would probably impact it more.
Marco:
And in the grand scheme of things, your phone battery, no matter what you do, is going to have a not that useful amount of charge after two or three years, no matter what you do.
John:
There are other factors here as well that make it... And I don't know what the answer is.
John:
It just muddies the water even more of whether this is better, worse, or the same.
John:
But to start, I bet people are not going to buy such a tremendous number of Qi chargers that they are now charging their phone appreciably more than they used to, if only because Qi chargers charge your phone so much more slowly.
John:
And one of the things that shortens battery life is really fast charging.
John:
So if you have a big iPad charger at your desk that you plug your thing into to get as much use as possible when you're at your desk...
John:
versus putting it on a chi charger that charges much more slowly the slower one is going to be kinder on your battery and if you but it won't charge as much obviously in the same amount of time but if you have a bunch of chi chargers around the house what you're instead doing instead of charging very quickly in one location you're charging more slowly in multiple locations which again i think is better for the battery so there's you know you'd really need to come up with an exact regime of where you're going to be and what you're going to charge to compare exactly this pattern of use to exactly this pattern of use but
John:
In general, I would say don't worry about this.
John:
Don't worry about the battery life being affected because there are just so many variables, and depending on how they're each weighted in this giant equation, you could get better, worse, or the same battery life.
John:
But like Marco said, either way, if you...
John:
if you use your phone the same amount every day that's in the end you're using your phone that amount it's gonna two or three years of that many cycles even if you don't cycle all the way two or three years of just that much putting energy into the battery and taking energy out even if you always do it in the fat part of the curve where it's all good your battery is going to be a lot worse than it was when you bought it and you're probably going to want a new phone and that's just the way things are
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
JT would like to know, what are your thoughts and feelings on Apple TV remote redesigned for air power and to fix other issues?
Casey:
You know, a lot of people have been writing in about, what about this for air power?
Casey:
What about that for air power?
Casey:
I don't get it.
Casey:
Like, I think I said this last episode, but I will be very surprised if anything else gets air power support, except maybe the pencil anytime soon.
Casey:
I don't think this is going to be like the catch-all, you know, cover all of your desks and all of your, you know, kitchen counters and air power sort of thing.
Casey:
I think this is only going to be for iOS devices and, you know, the AirPods and I guess watch OS is strictly speaking a different OS, but you know what I mean?
Casey:
Like, I don't think it's going to be
Casey:
keyboard and mouse and Apple TV remote and any of those things.
John:
And MacBook.
Casey:
And MacBook, yeah, exactly.
Casey:
And especially like the Apple TV remote, I've charged that thing probably four times or feels like I've charged it four times in the year I've had it.
Casey:
That may not be accurate, but my point is just...
Casey:
It almost never needs a charge.
Casey:
Same with my keyboards and my mice, mouses, mises.
Casey:
They almost never need a charge.
Casey:
So what are you really solving if it's at worst a momentary inconvenience once a quarter or something like that?
Casey:
But I don't know.
Casey:
What do you think, Marco?
Marco:
Pretty much the same.
Marco:
We use our Apple TV almost every day.
Marco:
At least we did before we got stuck in Stardew Valley.
Marco:
I think I've charged it maybe three times.
Marco:
It's not a high-drain device.
Marco:
So the need to make charging especially convenient is not that high.
Marco:
Also,
Marco:
that tends to be in a different place in your house or your office, or you may not have one in your office, and you tend not to travel with it.
Marco:
So if the benefit of an air power mat is the thing that you stick on your nightstand table that you put all your stuff on at night, well, you're probably not going to have your Apple TV remote in your bedroom if your Apple TV is not there.
Marco:
Similarly, if the appeal of this thing ends up being that it's really convenient while traveling, you're probably not going to travel with your Apple TV remote either.
Marco:
And if you do, you probably won't need to charge it on the trip.
Marco:
So it's...
Marco:
It's a nice theory, but I don't think it matters that much.
Marco:
The Apple TV remote has so many other problems that they refuse to address.
Marco:
So if they're not even going to bother making it usable while it's charged, I don't think they're going to care that much that it's slightly inconvenient to charge it when you do every six months.
John:
I frequently forget that the Apple TV remote has a battery.
John:
Because it's so small and it's not like there's a battery door.
John:
I'm not sure if I have ever charged my Apple.
John:
I think I replaced my Apple TV before I charged the battery on it.
John:
I don't use it as much as Marco, obviously.
John:
It lasts a really, really long time.
John:
Although I have two quick Apple TV remote stories.
John:
uh the last time i lost it i'm always losing the apple tea remote because it's skinny and it goes down couch cushion and stuff like that you know my kids use it and so it's not like who knows but like they carry it into the kitchen they you know they it's in the bathroom who knows where they're taking this remote it's just everywhere right and there's no as far as i'm aware please tell me if i'm wrong there's no like find your remote function where you can make it make a beeping sound i would love that that they that's a feature they should add but anyway i lost my remote
John:
and i thought like this is it i've well and truly lost it i know i was thinking like boy i'm glad they reduced the price to 60 down from 80 because i'm gonna have to buy another remote um and even though you got the remote on your ios device where you can use that instead of the thing as far as i'm aware you can't can you wake your thing from sleep with that i don't know i didn't try it but i was like well like do i i think i can't use my apple tv until i get a replacement remote because i don't think you can wake the little black cube from sleep without the real remote
Casey:
Yeah, you can.
Casey:
If you try to airplay to it, I believe it'll wake itself up.
John:
Oh, yeah, that's a good.
Casey:
Yeah, I was thinking like I would guess the remote app would let you do it, but I can't.
Casey:
I haven't tried it, so I don't know one way or the other.
Casey:
But I can tell you I'll airplay to it from time to time and that will wake it up.
John:
Right.
John:
Anyway, I was halfway through that thought when I looked up at my little black thing and the little white light was on.
John:
so like you know i don't have to wake it up it's already awake and i'm like but how can it already be awake i've been looking for this remote for 15 minutes and i know it goes to sleep like no one has been in this room for a while and based on that information i realized i must be sitting on the remote somehow and that's what's waking the thing up and sure enough i took yet another run at the couch cushions and the little things that are between them it's like a sleeper sofa or whatever and eventually i found the remote and
John:
somewhere underneath my butt where i was squishing it and turning it on and the second story is about someone uh had realized there was a bunch of itunes purchases going through where they'd purchased like every episode of seinfeld and a bunch of tv series uh and they were you know it was like a husband and wife and they were asking each other did you buy these did you buy these things turns out it was the cat the cat would lay on top of the remote and buy things for them on the
John:
turned off television through their apple tea remote so i don't know if that makes us a bad remote or a good remote it's bad because it's lost easily it's probably bad because a cat can buy things but maybe not like cats are very devious
Casey:
Oh, my word.
Casey:
Uh, such as the attached, we'll put a link in the show notes and it's a picture of what appears to be, uh, the phone or iPad, I think phone in portrait mode, yet the volume indicator is shown in landscape.
Casey:
Whoops.
Casey:
With regard to rotation, I can say that rotation is a pain in the butt.
Casey:
Any iOS developer will tell you that.
Casey:
So that I give them a buy on.
Marco:
Although it does seem that there are a lot more rotation bugs in iOS 11 than there were before.
Casey:
There's a lot more everything bugs in iOS than I've been in a while.
Casey:
But yeah, you're right.
Casey:
I don't have a good answer for this.
Casey:
I guess to some degree, it's easy to get amazed by the new and shiny.
Casey:
And it's hard to build software reliably and predictably.
Casey:
That's why agile software development became a thing.
Casey:
It was an attempt to be better about predicting when software would be complete.
Casey:
And the whole shtick of it was that you wanted to be able to predict the future based on your performance in the past rather than, oh, well, I should be able to get that done in two weeks.
Casey:
You can look at your past history and say, no, actually, that'll take you a month and a half.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
All of the stuff around enterprise-level software development, which I know Marco doesn't understand, but John and I do, it's hard.
Casey:
It's hard work.
Casey:
It's hard to figure out the balance between how many unit tests you should write and how many you shouldn't and what your continuous integration story is.
Casey:
All of this stuff is hard, and it's not –
Casey:
To most people, it's not very sexy.
Casey:
And so what is sexy?
Casey:
Face detection.
Casey:
What is sexy?
Casey:
Augmented reality.
Casey:
What's not sexy?
Casey:
Jenkins.
Casey:
So it's understandable, if not necessarily excusable, that this would be the case.
Casey:
But I don't know, John, as my fellow boring old man when it comes to writing software, how do you describe this?
John:
i'm not sure you need to bring uh software methodologies and software in general into even if they weren't talking about software even if this was talking about like you know just to do car analogies because that's the thing we go to like how can they get this amazing you know uh engine new engine technology uh working but their climate controls suck um and it's you know it's just human nature and priorities and with anything where you especially in a business like apple's where you're
John:
It's not that it's a hit-driven business, but that you're only as good as your last success.
John:
Things like the iOS calculator bug, where some animations in the calculator caused it to be less responsive.
John:
How many people are scrutinizing how good the calculator is from release to release?
John:
It's not a headlining feature.
John:
There are not a lot of resources put towards the calculator.
John:
When it was first made, there was probably more than there are now.
John:
But there is an inclination in companies that have to make money to say...
John:
We'll put time and resources and people into this thing because it's the thing that we need.
John:
And then when we're done with it, we'll be like, great, we did that.
John:
What's the next thing?
John:
Move on to the next thing.
John:
Right.
John:
And take people off of that and say those people are working.
John:
And you have to leave somebody there.
John:
But there's some poor maintenance engineer responsible for the calculator and seven other like neglected iOS applications.
John:
Right.
John:
And, you know, people are human and you don't notice that maybe the animations you're adding are making the thing less responsive because, like, you know, do you have a test where something, some automated thing presses the buttons really fast and makes it, you know, it's just it's just less important.
John:
It's lower priority.
John:
There are fewer people on it.
John:
And that's just the nature of the nature of humans, the nature of work and the nature of a business.
John:
So many, many things are explicable by the boring answer that, you know, that we did that and we can't afford to leave our very best engineers maintaining the calculator for the rest of their careers because they're not going to like that and they're going to leave the company.
John:
and it wouldn't be efficient uses of our resources so we get our our best people working on the next hard problem and everything else gets less priority and because humans are humans sometimes those things mess up everything after that that's like the easy thing to explain everything after that like why does ios 11 have more bugs does it seem like it actually has more bugs is your perception different than their metrics are they measuring the wrong thing all the way down to software is hard and software methodologies and all that stuff so from the outside it might seem
John:
But as Casey, I think, was trying to express, software in any large enterprise, including making a car or any sort of thing, is much more complicated than you think it is as a consumer of that thing.
John:
And complicated systems are hard to predict and hard to manage.
John:
And, you know, that's it.
John:
There's no, you know, it's not that Apple is being mean or it's still people who don't know what they're doing.
John:
Nobody knows what they're doing.
John:
There are no adults.
John:
There is no silver bullet.
Marco:
yada yada apple has for a very long time shown that they are not very good at multitasking and that whatever is the current hotness gets all the attention and whatever isn't gets either complete neglect uh or at best like drive-by updates where they like you know like like disc utility on mac os is like a great example of it where like
Marco:
The entire Mac is pretty neglected much of the time.
Marco:
And when things do get updated on the Mac, they tend to get updated in these drive-by fashions where someone seems to be assigned, like, hey, wait, rewrite this app that nobody was really needing to be rewritten.
Marco:
Rewrite it all.
Marco:
And then they're given enough time to rush together an almost complete version.
Marco:
And then it ships.
Marco:
And then it seems like no one's allowed to fix any bugs in it ever again.
Marco:
Or they're not on the project anymore.
Marco:
Or they don't have time.
Marco:
Or they're assigned to other things and have moved on.
Marco:
And so things get updated or created from scratch in these low-priority areas.
Yeah.
Marco:
And then whatever is released as like 1.0, which was probably rushed to meet a very tight deadline, those bugs basically stick around for a very long time or forever.
Marco:
Anything that is not the current hotness, that tends to be the case with Apple.
Marco:
As John said, there are lots of good reasons for that involving money and priorities.
Marco:
I think Apple's standards should be higher.
Marco:
Apple's standards are higher than average in most other ways.
Marco:
I think their standards for how to deal with their not-as-quite-high-priority products should be also similarly high.
Marco:
But they're not.
Marco:
And that's not a new thing.
Marco:
That isn't even a Tim Cook thing.
Marco:
Even under Steve, that was always the case.
Marco:
Whatever was not the current hotness got pretty badly neglected.
Marco:
And
Marco:
There's also a secondary divide here where Apple's frameworks have almost always been really, really good.
Marco:
In the entire era of modern Apple, I don't know what it was like before OS X, but in the entire era of modern Apple, the frameworks have always been amazing.
Marco:
Things like the ARKit, things like Core Image, Core Audio, Foundation, all that stuff, they make amazing frameworks, and that stuff has been solid pretty much...
Marco:
the vast majority of the time and very advanced.
Marco:
The applications that Apple ships with the OS and that they build on top of those frameworks have had a much spottier past and a much spottier record.
Marco:
The applications definitely seem like a lower priority for them.
Marco:
That also seems like an area where in recent years applications have struggled way more than the foundation stuff.
Marco:
So it might just be Apple has not figured out how to manage this well.
John:
it's certainly it's certainly that that's what the results seem to indicate but it's like that for everybody like there is no you can't just say oh let's keep all the best people working on the things that they originally create because they don't want to and now it's a retention issue like they don't want to work forever on this one thing they help create they want to move on to the next thing because they're smart ambitious people and if you don't let them uh you know then you'll have a retention problem and if you
John:
Even if you, you know, it's a hyper-competitive world where everyone is scrutinizing what Apple does so closely that if they actually did leave significant sort of standing armies attached to everything they ever made to make sure that everything they make is continuously improved and maintained, that's an inefficient use of resources.
John:
Like, why are you spending all this money?
John:
Why are your margins going down?
John:
Oh, we needed to leave a team of seven on the calculator forever.
Yeah.
John:
and multiply that by every piece of software we ever make.
John:
It's like, well, isn't the calculator done?
John:
What needs to be updated on it?
John:
It's like, well, if we just leave one person on it, then there's a chance that that one person can make a silly mistake and make us look bad, and so everything has to be higher quality, so we'll leave this team of seven on calculator.
John:
And no matter what team of seven you leave a calculator, they won't want to do it.
John:
A lot of these things, you feel like they're a training program for...
John:
uh less experienced people like before you get to be in the big show and you know work on a super important new feature in ui kit or work on a major new feature in the os maybe you have to maintain disk utility for a few years and that's how you learn right like there's no there's no easy solution people are not interchangeable cogs programming is a complicated endeavor uh
John:
And Apple doesn't actually have unlimited money and does actually have people scrutinizing every cent that it spends and telling them that they should have margins that are higher than they do.
John:
you know i don't know there's you know there's a spectrum it's not as if it's saying oh apple everything apple's doing they're doing as well as they can't they can and should adjust things right they can and should pay more attention to things that you know they shouldn't let as much slip as they do and they should be not be uh penny wise pound foolish where oh we saved a couple bucks here by moving some people around
John:
uh what is what are the potential downsides for the image of the company um all the way up to what are the potential downsides if we invest a lot in in a feature and spend a lot of time and energy on it and it doesn't turn out that well um how do we fix that when you know insert your favorite feature there whether it be the touch bar or the new keyboard reliability or any other thing where they really did dedicate a lot of resources and it doesn't turn out as well as they wanted like software is hard life is hard
Marco:
Yeah, but I think there's also a middle ground here.
Marco:
The impression I have gotten from reports from people within over the last many years, this seems to always be a consistent story that we hear from people at Apple, is that it's not like there were seven people on the calculator team and they reduced it down or they couldn't have those people forever.
Marco:
Or that it was done.
Marco:
None of the things were true.
Marco:
Somebody who was already very busy was tasked with updating this app along with probably, as you mentioned, probably like seven other apps to the new animation style or the new design style or take advantage of the new feature of the phone or just the new size of these phones or whatever else.
Marco:
So that was someone's job.
Marco:
They had enough time to do a two-thirds complete job because they had to rush to meet the deadline for when this OS and phone shipped.
Marco:
And then after it shipped, the staff was returned back to zero people.
Marco:
So we have heard that story so many times from people inside.
Marco:
So it isn't that things are just done and that the market's demanding that they... Or that all of a sudden they're undone.
Marco:
It's following marketing features.
Marco:
They have to keep things updated.
Marco:
And they keep seemingly very, very small staffs available to do things that aren't high priority apps or features or platforms like the calculator app or like the Mac.
Marco:
And
Marco:
And then as soon as that thing is done, the budget of time allocation that's available to fix bugs in it literally drops to zero.
Marco:
Not some, zero.
Marco:
That is a management problem.
Marco:
That needs to be adjusted.
John:
There are perverse incentives, too.
Marco:
And we've heard that, too.
Marco:
We've heard a lot of reports also from people that one of the issues that causes this kind of thing or leads to this kind of thing...
Marco:
is the incentive structure in the company seemingly favors rewriting large projects or being on high-profile platforms and doesn't favor doing more boring things that still need to be done.
Marco:
And that's also a management problem.
Marco:
They need to find ways to adjust their internal structures and policies and workflows and incentives to make high-quality platforms and apps happen more often than they do.
John:
The incentive that I was thinking of was...
John:
If you're tasked with doing something with calculator or if you're one person who's responsible for seven applications in the max utility folder or something, you're not particularly incentivized to slowly make the thing better by adding a feature here and a feature there.
John:
Because, like, you know, take the terminal, for example.
John:
Terminal, it only always amazes me when the terminal gets any features because the downsides are big.
John:
If you mess up the terminal, it's a thing that a lot of people use and they're going to yell at you.
John:
And if terminal is working fine, like why add any minor features to it?
John:
Because all you're doing is adding a new more bug surface.
John:
Like, oh, I added a silly feature to terminal and now I have 17 bug reports on it and I don't have any time to work on it because I'm off doing other things now.
John:
And I'm the one person who's responsible for terminal and seven other applications.
John:
I'm not motivated to add features to terminal.
John:
And justify them and say, well, I have to spend engineering time on them because every feature I add is a new thing that people can file bugs against.
John:
And if, you know, if we just leave it the way it is, we've got our existing bug backlog that we're probably just ignoring forever if we haven't fixed it by now.
John:
And there's nothing new to do.
John:
And what you were getting at is the, you know, being on the glory projects like no one ever...
John:
No, no, no, no, no, no.
John:
the equivalent of one or two motivated indie developers working on it who who like terminal was their entire livelihood and they had that kind of motivation but that doesn't exist inside apple no one inside apple is going to work on terminal the same way like that the i term authors are going to work on their thing as if their entire livelihood depends on constantly improving and maintaining the terminal application
John:
Which, you know, is a shame, but there's not really... I don't know.
John:
Everyone always says, we want to make it like a startup inside a big company, but I've never seen that done successfully.
Casey:
Well, I mean, the thing of it is, is that my limited understanding of what the culture is like within Apple is that they still fancy themselves the plucky upstart.
Casey:
And they're not.
Casey:
They're just not.
Casey:
And how do you maintain, and both of you guys have said this, how do you maintain any sort of talent at the company when part of being good at what you do is being good at the boring stuff?
Casey:
And it's just, it's hard.
Yeah.
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Casey:
So last year, I'm pretty sure single handedly Marco came up with a with a genuinely brilliant idea to do a little bit of a Thanksgiving special and ask and have each of us describe what tech stuff we are thankful for this year.
Casey:
And I really, really loved how that turned out.
Casey:
And so did a lot of listeners.
Casey:
And so, Marco, you're good enough to remember to talk about it again this year.
Casey:
So, Marco, what tech stuff are you thankful for this year?
Marco:
I wanted to keep the list pretty short this year because we're running a long time.
Marco:
You've only got four items, but there's a tie for number three.
Marco:
Well done, sir.
Marco:
Yeah, I actually do have four items.
Marco:
So one of them is my wonderful, beloved 2015 MacBook Pro.
Marco:
We will get to that in more detail later.
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Marco:
Look, I just love it.
Marco:
I wrote a whole blog post about how much I love it.
Marco:
It's great.
Marco:
And it is exactly what tech should be, which is it just works.
Marco:
It delights me.
Marco:
And I don't really have to think about it if I don't want to.
Marco:
It just works.
Marco:
Also, in the world of Apple hardware, I am incredibly happy with the 10.5-inch iPad Pro and the smart keyboard that I bought with it.
Marco:
I don't use my iPad for very complicated things, but I do use it frequently.
Marco:
Every day, I use it.
Marco:
It's always in the kitchen.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
but when i'm doing anything that's not really work especially around the house the ipad is wonderful and the 10.5 inch was such a great update in so many ways the screen size is great and especially like once you see it next to a 9.7 again you realize quite how much of an improvement it was it seemed like a pretty small improvement at the time but it's really nice so it's a great device i always have it propped up in the smart keyboard so text entry is nice and fast on it if i need that
Marco:
And it's great.
Marco:
I'm very, very happy with my iPad Pro 10.5.
Marco:
Third, I will add the general category of power and charging gear by Anker.
Marco:
It's not that new of an opinion to like Anker gear.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And Anker is not the only brand that does this, but I think they are the brand that does the most of it and the most consistently.
Marco:
And so very, very happy with Anker Gear, both like the multi-USB port wall chargers, their standalone batteries are also great.
Marco:
And of course, their heavy-duty braided cables, lightning cables are great.
Marco:
And they cost so little, relatively speaking, that you can...
Marco:
have a bunch of them and you can put them all over your house.
Marco:
You can carry extras around in bags and you can set up like, you know, different charging stations, the different, different rooms and different places like your office and your house and your car.
Marco:
And it's just really, really nice to have all that stuff become inexpensive and good.
Marco:
Um, it really, it really makes our digital lives with all these charging things a lot easier.
Marco:
And finally, special honorable mention to everything I have ever bought from the company sound devices.
Um,
Marco:
This is very specialized.
Marco:
If you are not a sound or video pro, you probably have never heard of this company and you probably shouldn't ever hear about this company.
Marco:
But if you work with sound or video gear, well, I haven't used their video stuff.
Marco:
If you work with sound gear at all,
Marco:
The devices by sound devices are not cheap at all.
Marco:
But this is truly pro gear.
Marco:
I use a USB Pre 2 for recording here.
Marco:
For our live show and for my increasing live and multi-port needs, I recently splurged and bought one of their 6 Series mixers.
Marco:
Their stuff is just so damn good.
Marco:
And it just works.
Marco:
This is true pro gear.
Marco:
And it's total overkill for most podcasters.
Marco:
But it's the exact definition of if you have a problem and you are willing to just throw some money at it to make that problem completely go away, sound devices.
Marco:
Trust me.
Marco:
Anyway, that's it.
Casey:
All right, so we can go in either surname or age order.
Casey:
Either way, that makes me next.
Casey:
And so I will run through my list.
Casey:
I will try to do this as quickly as possible.
Casey:
In no particular order, AirPods, I freaking love my AirPods.
Casey:
And I was just thinking a couple hours ago about how
Casey:
As far as I can tell, I haven't noticed any particular degradation in battery quality, despite the fact that these things have been in my ears for a probably concerning amount of time, particularly during the work week.
Casey:
And I think that's partially because anytime I take them out of my ears, they're immediately charging.
Casey:
So although I said no particular order, I lied because that is definitely number one.
Casey:
The remainder, however, is not in any particular order.
Casey:
CarPlay, believe it or not, and this surprises even me, it's got a lot of problems.
Casey:
It is not perfect by any stretch.
Casey:
But it is very, very nice, and I like that I can take pretty much any iOS device, plug it into Aaron's car, and immediately...
Casey:
I have the entire device's experience in her center console.
Casey:
So that's really convenient because my phone isn't mated, paired to her car via Bluetooth, but I can try to find an address to somewhere in Apple Maps and get the directions ready to go, plug in my phone, and suddenly she's got my navigation on her car, which is super cool.
Casey:
um i believe in in laptops that were built in this century so i love my macbook adorable again it's got problems but i love it and the problems it has it's slower than my ancient laptop by quite a margin that that's one of the problems coincidentally but uh but yeah i mean it is not perfect and and as i think i've said many times in the past if this was my only computer i'm not sure i would have such fond feelings for it
Casey:
But in the same way you have such fond feelings for your 10-inch iPad Pro, I have tremendously fond feelings for this MacBook Adorable because it is, to me anyway, the ultimate travel computer.
Casey:
And that can mean the couch or it can mean a cross-country trip.
Casey:
And I just love this thing.
Casey:
Also on the list, in the process of filming the Alfa Romeo video, which I have a first draft complete and I'm now refining it.
Casey:
Anyway, in the process of filming that, I borrowed a GoPro from Mork, which I think I mentioned in the past.
Casey:
It turns out GoPros are really cool.
Casey:
And if you're in a situation where you want to have a pretty decent camera that if for some reason it broke, you wouldn't be financially ruined.
Casey:
And you want to do something with that camera, like mount it to the outside of a car or put it somewhere there that there's not a lot of room.
Casey:
The GoPros are really, really cool.
Casey:
Very much a niche use case, but man, are they a great city.
Casey:
It's like your sound devices, right?
Casey:
You know, it's a very niche thing, but holy cow, does it work out well for those little niches.
Casey:
And finally, I love my LTE Apple Watch.
Casey:
I had already started taking fitness a lot more seriously before my LTE Apple Watch, but it is much more pleasurable to go for a run without having to carry anything on my person and still know that I can call for help if, God forbid, something really bad happened.
Casey:
And so I am super thankful for my Apple Watch, even though it is about 50% more expensive on a monthly basis than it should be.
Casey:
Yeah, maybe even 100.
Casey:
That's okay.
Casey:
Anyway, that's my list.
John:
I didn't actually make a list, but I can go off the top of my head.
Marco:
You didn't prepare for the show?
John:
Yeah.
John:
Well, Casey stole my first one with AirPods.
John:
My main problem with all these things is I can never remember what happened this year.
John:
Like it's this, you know, what things you're thankful for this year.
John:
Were AirPods this year?
John:
I don't even know.
John:
But since Casey listed them, I'm going to say they were.
Casey:
So they were since...
John:
thanksgiving ah all right did you see what i'm saying so i received mine i think late late late december and so i'm counting it as a thanksgiving to thanksgiving thing yeah certainly for most people they were this year yeah so they they have definitely just changed i think i was thinking about this the other day just how much they've changed my my life because i'm constantly listening to podcasts inside and outside of the house and
John:
Maybe it's not as big a deal.
John:
I know the AirPods, everybody likes them.
John:
If you ask someone who has them, oh, they're great or whatever.
John:
But for me, I think there's a little bit of extra attraction to them because I don't know how to describe this, but I'm the kind of person...
John:
I'm one of those people who's like disturbed by disorder.
John:
I think I described it to Merlin once where like there was some pictures on the Internet that show like a bunch of pencils all lined up, but one pencil is poking out.
John:
Right.
John:
Or like just things that are a bunch of physical objects that look like they, you know, they could be nicely arranged, but there's just something wrong with them.
Casey:
This is Aaron's kryptonite.
John:
yeah and whatever that is people say ocd but that is an incorrect use of that term it's not what it is at all that's a whole different thing um but if you're just generally like disturbed by disorder and headphone cords for me are were always a big source of disorder they're tangled in your pockets you have all these techniques for coiling them they get caught on things i think as i tweeted one of the other uh
John:
tweets that i i think back on every time this happens to me nothing makes me more instantly enraged than having my headphones yanked out of my ears that just makes me want to immediately kill right and like if you're going through a door and your headphone cord gets caught on something and the earbud is yanked out of your ears the worst right
John:
And it's not a big deal.
John:
Like, whatever.
John:
Oh, the cords bother you.
John:
Oh, it's crippling.
John:
You know, it really is ruining your day that you have cords.
John:
It wasn't a big deal, but it was always there.
John:
And I'm the type of person who is bothered by this kind of disorder, who is bothered by having to deal with it and having to have all these techniques for dealing with it and having to be aware of it and being careful with it and threading the cords through my clothes and doing all this other stuff.
John:
airpods get rid of all of that there is no more cord and despite being annoyed by not being able to change the volume and all the other things and having to deal with the charging and all the other stuff boy they have really just ambiently increased my quality of life by a tiny amount but that tiny amount is spread through like the whole day so i really love them um i'm gonna give a slot to the apple tv the new apple tv now that the beta os does the uh
John:
the frame matching stuff uh mostly because i hadn't realized how much i had written off the apple tv as sort of a video file audio file like whatever like a sort of a device in which i can indulge my love of beautiful movies and stuff because like yeah that's a thing that we use it to watch tv shows and the kids play with it but that's outside the realm of my sort of
John:
tv nerd experience but suddenly it's it's right back in now now it's back in the mix because now it can actually show things at the correct frame rate and has hdr support and it's 4k and it's back on the board and so i'm excited by that because i never really dislike the apple tv and i dreaded having to go to a geekier device like oh build your own raspberry pi and you can make your own thing or use the nvidia shield and don't worry you know like
John:
i i didn't want to deal with all that so i was just you know stuck with my plastic blu-ray discs and my tv and everything but now i'm more optimistic about the future of the apple tv in my life not just as a thing that my kids use to watch stuff sometimes um what was my third one oh yeah um
John:
my camera which i don't think was this year either but uh going through my pictures i've been printing books from the apple photo book thing and so i've been going through a lot of old pictures and everything and it's so clear where the dividing line is between my old cameras and my new one which is the uh sony a6300 and
John:
not that it's the world's best camera but it was a significant leap in image quality and sensor size over my old super zoom cameras and i notice it when i'm going through the pictures and i'm much happier with the pictures i'm taking with my new camera than i was with my old one so i got some good ones with the old one too but i see the difference and now of course i wish i could go back in time and you know take pictures of my
John:
son who was born 13 years ago with a camera from 2017 that's not the way the world works uh but i really i really do enjoy my camera and it's making me it's making me think that uh maybe like i'll wait i'll wait for uh marco's review of the of the bigger sony that maybe i should start cranking up the size of the camera i'm willing to carry just to see if i can go all the way up to a larger sensor size and and
John:
make it worthwhile but anyway i really enjoy my camera and let's see the final thing i guess i have to give a shout out to the mac pro how can i be thankful for a thing i don't actually have i'm thankful that this year again i'm pretty sure this year is the year that apple said you know what we should make a mac pro and i agree apple you should and i'm waiting patiently nice oh god
Casey:
I haven't had enough to drink to handle a Mac Pro conversation.
Casey:
So let's just move on.
Casey:
And let's talk about how I did not bring up the iPhone X. And in fact, none of us brought up the iPhone X as one of our things that we're thankful for.
Marco:
To be fair, Jon doesn't really have one.
Marco:
I've had it for like two weeks.
Marco:
It is really good so far.
Marco:
I really enjoy it.
Marco:
It's just a little early for me to say for sure that it's like a clear positive win on all fronts.
Marco:
But I think it's heading in that direction for me.
Marco:
But apparently not for you.
Marco:
So...
Casey:
I'm having some troubles and I feel like it is clear that Apple has done something that they have no bit.
Casey:
And I think I said this originally when we reviewed the iPhone 10 iPhones, 10 they've done something that they have no business doing and brought technology that really should not exist in 2017 and, and ripped it from the future and put it in 2017.
Casey:
So in a lot of ways, um,
Casey:
I am delighted and mesmerized by this device.
Casey:
And certainly every time I look at any other device, as I think I described last episode, anytime I look at any other device that has the big chin and forehead, I look at it and it just feels fantastic.
Casey:
frigging ancient like I'm poking fun at your laptop but really and truly these old devices look just ancient by comparison in a way that your laptop actually doesn't although I'll deny that in about 10 minutes that's fair I'll allow it in so many ways this thing is wonderful and my goodness when face ID works right boy does it feel amazing it feels like back in the day when I didn't put a passcode in my 3GS because why would you there's no need for it
Casey:
So in so many ways, these phones are so great, but I am getting more and more and more infuriated about the fact that I feel less and less and less able to use my phone at night or potentially in the morning.
Casey:
And let me tell you why.
Casey:
So...
Casey:
I think I described last episode that I have a very peculiar eye problem.
Casey:
It's called keratoconus, which means that I wear hard contact lenses.
Casey:
And it means that if I wear eyeglasses, which I do have a pair of eyeglasses, they get me from unable to do almost anything to somewhat functioning human being.
Casey:
But I would never drive with my eyeglasses.
Casey:
It's very difficult to work on a computer with eyeglasses.
Casey:
I need my contacts.
Casey:
And so at night when I'm in bed or in the morning when I'm in bed,
Casey:
and I don't have my contacts in, I have to keep the phone uncomfortably close to my face.
Casey:
Well, it's not uncomfortable to me, but it probably looks just completely weird to anyone else.
Casey:
I would guess that it's two to three inches away from my nose, and my nose is about 800 feet long.
Casey:
So that's actually not as close as it seems, I suppose, but it's close.
Casey:
And the point is that...
Casey:
What I feel like is happening, I don't know if this is true, but what seems to be happening is that I'm close enough that Face ID can't see my eyes.
Casey:
And it's assuming that I'm not looking at the phone.
Casey:
And so the symptom is that I will be actively using my phone, oftentimes having scrolled in like Twitter or something within the last 15 or 20 seconds.
Casey:
And the phone just suddenly decides to lock itself and turn the screen off.
Casey:
And this is happening a lot.
Casey:
It's not dimming before the screen is turned off.
Casey:
I'm not in low power mode.
Casey:
I am usually in do not disturb, but I'm not in low power mode.
Casey:
And oftentimes I expect it would dim.
Casey:
I would, you know, touch the screen to remind it.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
I'm here.
Casey:
Don't go away.
Casey:
I'm here.
Casey:
but it happened this morning like two different times.
Casey:
I'm sitting there, I'm reading something, and next thing you know, all of a sudden the phone turns itself off.
Casey:
Well, I shouldn't say turns itself off.
John:
Are you sure you're not a ghost?
Casey:
No, I'm not sure.
Casey:
Is this real life or is this just fantasy?
Casey:
I don't even know.
Marco:
Sorry, did you mention what's your auto lock timeout set to?
Casey:
Whatever the default is, but I will stall for time and I will tell you.
Casey:
But I'm pretty darn short it's whatever the default is.
Casey:
And I feel like that's like 30 seconds or something, which should be the default with the OLED screens.
Marco:
Well, I'd argue it shouldn't because it sucks.
Casey:
Well, touche.
Casey:
It is absolutely unequivocally set for 30 seconds.
Casey:
Yeah.
Marco:
And that's bad.
Marco:
But you said it doesn't dim first?
Casey:
No, that's the thing that's driving me bananas.
Casey:
Because if it was dimming, well, I shouldn't say that.
Casey:
Occasionally it will dim and then I'll touch the screen and everything will be fine.
Casey:
But there have been times where I will be looking at the screen.
Casey:
And again, in the defense of the phone, my device is very close to my face.
Casey:
and all of a sudden it'll just turn itself off.
Casey:
And yes, I do have attention detection on, and no, I have not tried turning it off, but I want attention detection on.
Casey:
I like it in every other circumstance.
Casey:
But when I have my phone so close to my face, it just suddenly decides, no, you're done now, and turns itself off.
Casey:
And I don't know what to do to fix it other than, I mean, I suppose I could turn attention detection off, but
Casey:
But my goodness, this is frustrating.
Casey:
And it's grating on me.
Casey:
It's that thing that when you hear somebody else talk about, like John's headphone cables, like, okay, yeah, that's annoying, but whatever.
Casey:
Get over it, John.
Casey:
No, I can't get over this.
Casey:
It's killing me.
Casey:
This is my headphone cables.
Casey:
And I don't know what to do about it.
Casey:
And it's getting to the point that it's kind of ruining a phone that I otherwise really, really, really, really love.
John:
did you put the ram from your iMac into your phone by any chance it wasn't your iMac also doing a thing where it would just turn itself off yes indeed is the phone also just rebooting itself like every few hours and you weren't telling us that because you figure that's fine well but no but he's complaining about his progress he's complaining about he says look i'm using my phone it just turns off whereas before he's like you know sometimes when i use my iMac it turns off but whatever yes yes yes
Marco:
I mean, it seems like, you know, step one is try turning off attention detection.
Casey:
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
John:
Why haven't you tried that yet?
John:
That's my question.
John:
Like, so you have this problem.
John:
What's been stopping you from saying, oh, I'm going to go to that obvious setting and flip it?
Casey:
Because I don't want to turn it off.
Casey:
And I think the moral of the story is I need to try.
Casey:
But I don't want to turn it off.
Casey:
I don't want to have to flip that switch every morning either.
John:
But why don't you want it off permanently?
John:
Like, what is stopping you from saying, why don't you want it off?
Casey:
because i like the whole like the phone knows when i'm looking at it and will show me the details of my messages now the next question you're going to ask me is did i ever bother with that before no i did not my my text messages could be seen by anyone who had access to my phone i don't think that's mutually exclusive i think it's as soon as the phone is unlocked it will show you the content of your text messages and it's unlocked whether attention detection is enabled or not just it uses face id for that
Casey:
Interesting point.
Casey:
Okay, that makes me feel a little better.
Casey:
Okay, that's an interesting point.
Casey:
I didn't think of it that way.
Casey:
I see what you're saying, though.
Marco:
So attempt number one, turn off attention detection, and then if that doesn't do enough for you, raise that auto-lock timeout above 30 seconds, and that should significantly reduce the chances of this problem affecting you.
Casey:
Yeah, but the interesting life lesson here is...
Casey:
I don't view this as my fault.
Casey:
And the chat room is already saying it's my fault.
Casey:
I'm sure if you're listening, you're saying it's my fault.
Casey:
But I don't view this as my fault.
Casey:
I'm just trying to use my phone the way I want to use my phone.
Casey:
And although by any normal metric, I am in no way differently abled or whatever the correct phrasing is that I'm looking for.
Casey:
But this is the first time, perhaps in my entire life, that...
Casey:
an ailment of mine has caused me to have a problem with the way something's designed.
Casey:
Because I don't think Apple's designers, I don't think, had ever really had to worry about, well, what happens if somebody has really, really poor eyesight and is basically touching their nose to this phone?
Casey:
Like, then what do we do?
Casey:
And...
Casey:
And so I feel I feel neglected.
Casey:
And that's a weird feeling for me, because as a able bodied person by any other metric, this is the first time I've really have to have to deal with this.
Casey:
And it's been a really good and useful lesson that it's easy to feel marginalized.
Casey:
That's probably not the word I'm looking for, but I can't think of a better one.
Casey:
It's easy to feel marginalized just by being overlooked the littlest, teeniest bit.
Casey:
And that's been kind of interesting, too.
John:
It's a glimpse of your future.
John:
As I think we've said many times when we've talked about accessibility features, your choices are you will eventually use accessibility features or you'll be dead.
John:
And in general, I think people will choose the accessibility features.
John:
It's not a question of, oh, maybe you'll need accessibility features.
John:
No, you will.
John:
The only way you won't need accessibility features is if you die or if they cure aging, I suppose.
John:
But don't hold your breath for that.
John:
Sorry, CGP Grey.
John:
Yeah.
John:
We're all going to need these features in everything that we do.
John:
If we just keep living and our bodies keep deteriorating, you may be perfectly healthy now and everything works, but eventually it won't.
John:
And then you are suddenly a customer for all the features that you are not using and all your electronic devices and all of the appliances in your home and all the places you go and your car and everything else.
John:
And so...
John:
there it's not speculative and it's not like you there's some chance you might need accessibility features you will need them um and i also some i obviously i don't have iphone 10 but i also do exactly what casey does i don't have his exact vision problem but i have terrible vision and when i use my phone without my glasses in my bed
John:
it might as well be touching my nose like that's when i get really intimate with the retina screen and be like oh look i can see the sub pixels because my close-up vision is still pretty good although uh maybe not true for casey but bad news for other young people who think that yeah you know i need glasses to see far away but i can see close up real great well guess what when you get old that goes too so that you have that to look forward to um but yeah and i think i would have the exact same problem as you and i think uh i would be in the same situation where i'd have to
John:
be considering turning off the attention thing just because i don't want to give up like that and you know it's not a long time but i do use my phone in my bed either before going to bed or just after waking up and i don't want to have to toggle setting to do that and i don't want the screen to turn off while i'm doing it so
John:
Yeah, that's a thing.
Casey:
So I'm looking at the settings right now.
Casey:
And in Face ID and Attention, there are two settings.
Casey:
Require Attention for Face ID.
Casey:
And then separately, Attention Aware Features.
Casey:
And the footer under that says True Depth Camera will check for attention before dimming the display.
Casey:
or lowering the volume of alerts.
Casey:
I am bummed to give away the lowering the volume of alerts thing, because although it doesn't happen but once or twice a day, that is a super nice feature, that when I look at the phone, it will duck the audio, or maybe that's not the right term for it, but it'll lower the volume of the alarm or the timer or what have you.
Casey:
And, you know, the thing that I guess really grinds my gears about this the most is that one of the coolest like wow things for me anyway about the iPhone 10 is that it is attention aware and that it is capable of making decisions based on whether or not you're looking at it.
Casey:
Like, that's so cool.
Casey:
Seriously, it's super cool.
Casey:
And now I feel like I'm giving up on a little bit of that.
Casey:
And that bums me out.
Casey:
because I like my new toy otherwise, and it's a really nice new toy, and I want all parts of my new toy to work, not just some of them.
Marco:
Thank you.
Marco:
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Casey:
Do we have time for your best laptop ever discussion?
Casey:
We sure do.
Marco:
The best.
Marco:
Done.
Casey:
Yeah, that's exactly how this is going to go.
Casey:
All right, so tell us.
Casey:
I can't tell if you and I are going to hate each other by end of this or if we're just going to shrug and say, yeah, okay, that makes sense.
Casey:
But make your pitch.
Casey:
Tell us about the supposed best laptop that's ever been made.
Marco:
I actually already did tell you a few weeks ago on this show.
Marco:
As listeners of this show know, I have lots of complaints about the current generation of MacBook Pros.
Marco:
And I switched back recently to a 2015 model that I got off eBay for a pretty good price.
Marco:
And I just love it.
Marco:
I absolutely love it.
Marco:
The wonderful design of it just resonates well with me.
Marco:
It fits my needs incredibly well.
Marco:
Even though it might not fit more modern needs in certain ways, it fits my fairly low laptop needs incredibly well.
Marco:
It's incredibly convenient to have all the nice old ports on it that I don't need dongles for.
Marco:
I can have only USB-A cables in my travel bag and be able to plug my phone into...
Marco:
either chargers or my laptop with the same cable and not have to worry about two different kinds.
Marco:
The keyboard is wonderful.
Marco:
It just works.
Marco:
It's reliable.
Marco:
It's the kind that I like.
Marco:
The trackpad is wonderful.
Marco:
It's just a great... The battery life is wonderful.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
The biggest thing I was afraid about when I went back to it was that it would feel old or that I would miss some of the advances of the new stuff.
Marco:
And in fact, that didn't happen at all.
Marco:
It doesn't feel old to me at all.
Marco:
It doesn't look old to me at all.
Marco:
And I don't miss the advances of the new stuff at all.
Marco:
So it basically was all good switching back to it.
Marco:
And I've been thinking for a while about whether I wanted to write a big blog post about just how much worse I felt the new generation of MacBook Pros is.
Marco:
And I decided to take a more positive approach and not do that at all.
Marco:
I do that enough here.
Marco:
But to instead really celebrate quite how good this laptop is.
Marco:
And in the entire post, while some of the things I point out are kind of subtly in comparisons to the current model, I never actually call out the current model.
Marco:
I never actually name it.
Marco:
I'm just talking about...
Marco:
the context of how great this laptop is.
Marco:
And that's really how I meant it.
Marco:
You know, certainly it's going to serve the function also of serving as a critique of the new ones.
Marco:
But I didn't want this to be a negative article.
Marco:
I wanted this to be a positive article about just how much I love that generation of laptops.
Marco:
And the great thing is you can still buy them.
Marco:
If you agree with me, Apple still sells them brand new.
Marco:
If you scroll down to the bottom of the 15-inch MacBook Pro buy page, they still have this model brand new.
Marco:
um you can get them plentifully on ebay and other resellers if you want to pay used instead um and so it's i just love this laptop a lot and so i wrote this big blog post i took some pretty pictures of it and i wrote this big blog post about just some of the things about that i love so much some of the good design decisions and some of the things that just resonate with me and just how nice it is and i named it best laptop ever or something like that and
Marco:
I had a hard time coming up with a title for this, and when I decided to go with that, I thought, boy, am I going to get hell for this.
Marco:
You put something on the internet that says best ever, and you're going to hear from a lot of people who disagree with that.
Marco:
Especially when the thing you're saying is the best ever is not the current thing.
Marco:
And the people who bought the current thing, you're kind of implicitly telling them, you made a mistake.
Marco:
You made a bad buying decision.
Marco:
Although I'm telling them from the perspective that I too made that mistake and I too bought the new one twice.
Marco:
Three times if you count the escape.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
I expected this to be a highly controversial article.
Marco:
And I also thought...
Marco:
I must be the only person who cares this much about this generation of MacBook Pros.
Marco:
Because no one's really talking about them anymore, and everyone's just kind of swallowing the new ones.
Marco:
And so I really didn't... I thought that this wouldn't go that far and wide, and that if it did, the response would be really, really mixed, and I'd get a lot of complaints and a lot of flaming and a lot of disagreement about what was the best ever.
Marco:
That was totally not what happened.
Marco:
It immediately went very far and wide.
Marco:
Even, like, you know, Top of Hacker News immediately.
Marco:
It got, you know, all over the place.
Marco:
Even Mac Rumors wrote about it for some reason, even though it was not news at all.
Marco:
Whatever.
Marco:
And it went far and wide very, very quickly.
Marco:
And the shocking thing to me is that the response, even on Hacker News, which is horrible, the response pretty much everywhere was nearly universally positive and with very, very strong agreement.
Marco:
Not 100% agreement, but I can write the sky is blue and I will get more disagreement than what I got from saying this was the best laptop ever.
Marco:
And that's really saying something.
Marco:
If Apple has any reason to be concerned, it's not that I wrote this article.
Marco:
They don't care about that.
Marco:
It's how many people agreed with it.
Marco:
I have gotten, I'm still, every day, still getting responses from this, but I got hundreds of responses, hundreds of comments on other sites, tons of inbound links, and almost all of them agreed.
Marco:
And that, to me, is shocking.
Marco:
And I thought maybe the MacBook Air people would have a problem with it, or maybe the 13-inch MacBook Pro people would have a problem with it.
Marco:
And they largely didn't.
Marco:
Even the people who liked those, most of them said, but you're right.
Marco:
So I am just blown away by how much people agree with this.
Marco:
And I heard from lots of people, both who have the old laptops, who have the 2012 through 2015 Retina MacBook Pro, who I've heard from tons of them who said, I'm holding on to mine.
Marco:
I love it.
Marco:
I see no reason to upgrade.
Marco:
I hope it never dies.
Marco:
Tons of them who were like, I don't know what I'm going to get when it does die, who I guess didn't know that they still make these.
Marco:
uh tons of people who have the new ones and who regret it and who wish they would have kept the old one or have been thinking about switching back to the old one a handful of people who did what i did and who did switch back to the old one and are very happy having done that again i can't underestimate or i can't understate how many people supported this this point of view and their responses um also i think worrisome for apple is
Marco:
is pretty much no one cares about the touch bar in any of these responses um that the big headlining feature of this laptop touch bar not a lot of people care uh the few people who disagreed with it most of them decided that the best laptop ever was actually a think pad um i disagree and that wasn't me surprisingly
Marco:
Yeah, so most of the disagreement was once it spread beyond the Apple crowd, the PC people were like, duh, the best laptop ever is not an Apple.
Marco:
But they can have that, I guess.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
As a diehard ThinkPad fan, you are way closer to right than they are.
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
So anyway, if you rule out the Windows people...
Marco:
And the biggest counter-argument was more theoretical.
Marco:
It was more like, well, someone needs to push the industry forward, and that's why Apple needed to go all USB-C.
Marco:
What about the original iMac going all USB, blah, blah, blah.
Marco:
And most of those arguments were honestly pretty bad.
Marco:
I disagree with many of those arguments.
Marco:
I don't think we have time to talk about that.
Marco:
I don't really care.
Marco:
But if we do, I will.
Marco:
But for the most part, the response was just so positive.
Marco:
And almost none of the people who disagreed even mentioned the touch bar.
Marco:
Well, I guess it wasn't a surprise, honestly.
Marco:
But it was damning, I would say, how few people cared about the Touch Bar.
Marco:
People cared about Touch ID sometimes.
Marco:
Even that, not as often as I would have expected.
Marco:
But for the most part, the Touch Bar didn't get much of a mention.
Marco:
The new keyboard does have some fans.
Marco:
People who said, you know, I prefer it, and that's fine.
Marco:
I get that.
Marco:
If you prefer it, that's fine.
Marco:
I think we can all still agree that it's unreliable for a lot of people, and that's a big problem.
Marco:
But for the...
Marco:
For the people who like it, you can like it.
Marco:
That's fine.
Marco:
But I think the whole package of the old one, I just love so much.
Marco:
And it just is a workhorse.
Marco:
It just works and works and works for years.
Marco:
And some people did point out that that generation has had its issues.
Marco:
You know, the first one I got in 2012 had image retention.
Marco:
That was a common thing.
Marco:
That's why I made my little grid page.
Marco:
It was for the 2012 Retina MacBook Pro.
Marco:
And over the years, they seem to have fixed that.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So that had some issues with some of those early screens, if they were made by LG instead of Samsung.
Marco:
It has this continued screen delamination problem for some people.
Marco:
That hasn't ever affected me, but oh well.
Marco:
And the ones with discrete GPUs, as every MacBook Pro with a discrete GPU has had in the last probably decade or so,
Marco:
um those gpus tend to die at a higher rate than than average um and so that causes problems for people but we but not only have they all done that um but we don't even know yet if the current generation will also do that i think it probably will um so the overall the response was great and uh pretty much everybody agrees with me i guess except casey
Casey:
So I think your point is fair.
Casey:
And I think part of the reason why you got such good coverage of this is because you did take the high road and said, hey, rather than telling you about why everything else is garbage, let me tell you why this is good.
Casey:
And if that implicitly means that other things are garbage, then so be it.
Casey:
The problem I have with it is that it is far more absolute than
Casey:
Or it reads as far more absolute than I think is really true.
Casey:
You know, the best laptop ever made.
Casey:
Period.
Casey:
It's not the best laptop for Marco.
Casey:
It's the best laptop ever made.
Casey:
And this is it.
Casey:
Look at your opening paragraph.
Casey:
Apple's made many great laptops.
Casey:
The 15-inch retina MacBook Pro 2012 to 2015 is the epitome of usefulness, elegance, practicality, and power for an overall package that still hasn't been and may never be surpassed.
Casey:
Like, it's not an unreasonable thesis, but I feel like to some degree this entire article was, that's fine for Marco.
Casey:
And that's okay.
Casey:
I mean, it's Marco.org.
Casey:
It's not people that are like Marco.org.
Casey:
It's Marco.org.
Casey:
So, I mean, to some degree, I really need to give you a buy on this.
Casey:
But that's, I think, where my primary complaint lies, is that there are other uses for Mac laptops besides what you need to do.
Casey:
As an example...
Casey:
A lot of people, and I think you were one of them, had many, many beehives full of bees in their bonnets about the removal of the SD card slot.
Casey:
Right?
Casey:
And you were particularly perturbed about the removal of the SD card slot.
Casey:
Obviously, I have no idea how many people do or do not use the SD card slot.
Casey:
But I can tell you that I had never, ever, ever used an SD card reader ever until 2014 when I bought our big camera.
Casey:
And I would argue that most people that I know anyway don't have big fancy cameras that take SD cards.
Casey:
So to me...
Casey:
If you were to lament the loss of the SD card slot, that's fine for Marco.
Casey:
Or really, I guess the loss is not fine for Marco.
Casey:
But you know what I mean?
Casey:
Like, for you, that's a big friggin' problem.
Casey:
And I'm not trying to patronize you.
Casey:
Like, for you, that is a big friggin' problem.
Casey:
That's a big deal.
Casey:
But for me, it may not be.
Casey:
As it turns out, it actually is.
Casey:
But for the sake of discussion, it may not be.
Casey:
Do you see what I'm driving at?
Casey:
And so I think the thing is that...
Casey:
I have one of these computers that I use every single day because that's my work computer.
Casey:
And you know what?
Casey:
It's a damn fine computer.
Casey:
It really, really is.
Casey:
But there's a lot that I wish was different about it.
Casey:
As a perfect example, I wish it had the new keyboard until it inevitably breaks.
Casey:
But until that moment, I wish it had the new keyboard.
Casey:
Because when I type on this thing, when I go from my beloved magic keyboard to this...
Casey:
It feels like I've gone from a steel roller coaster to a wooden roller coaster.
Casey:
Everything is creaky and loose and just mushy and just just gross.
Casey:
And I can't it's not fair of me to just hand wave away the reliability problems of the new keyboards.
Casey:
And I recognize that that's not fair.
Casey:
But for me, I love the feel of the new keyboards.
Casey:
If they could only make a reliable version of it, it would be tremendous.
Casey:
But they haven't.
Casey:
And they haven't.
Marco:
So that's not a great counterargument.
Marco:
Until they do, until they can make that keyboard without pretty horrible side effects, then you can't say, well, I wish they had that keyboard everywhere, because trust me, you don't.
Casey:
You're right.
Casey:
And now, in my defense, my beloved MacBook Adorable has yet to have any keyboard problems that compressed air couldn't fix.
Casey:
But I haven't had... And to be fair to you, I didn't have compressed air in the house.
Casey:
I had to buy myself compressed air to fix my six-month-old laptop.
Casey:
Yeah, like what year is this?
Marco:
Pretty freaking preposterous.
Marco:
And how often did you have to use compressed air to fix your keyboard on the one that you don't like?
Marco:
uh never right but it feels like mush though i mean i see right i really do i really do and and i do i i also i want to push back a little bit on what you said about the sd card slot also because you know it seems like one of the counter arguments to this um or or one of the general arguments in support of the new direction apple has taken um is you know like the whole thing about like moving forward and everything people always say well if the apple didn't move forward we'd still have vga ports and yeah guess what the world does still have vga ports
Casey:
I believe I made that exact argument to you.
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
You're not the only one.
Marco:
But, like, there seems to be, like, a few, like, brain virus themes among Apple defenders where they repeat back some kind of dogma that doesn't actually apply very well or is not a very good argument.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And the iMac going all USB is a great one, which doesn't apply at all because that was one desktop going all USB, a consumer level one no less, in a lineup that had plenty of other options that didn't go all USB.
Marco:
And also, it went all USB and it was a big problem.
Marco:
It was really annoying.
Marco:
And then future versions added back a lot of ports that weren't USB.
Marco:
So that's one bad example.
Marco:
There were
Marco:
Other ones, things like VGA ports.
Marco:
Well, VGA ports, people still complain.
Marco:
Well, yeah, you know what?
Marco:
VGA ports are still around because they're still on a lot of projectors and stuff.
Marco:
And that's reality.
Marco:
That's fine.
Marco:
There's all sorts of bad examples.
Marco:
But I think one of the thought viruses that is common among Apple defenders is that...
Marco:
If something is not used very often or by a large percentage of people, it should be removed.
Marco:
That the removal in and of itself is progress.
Marco:
And that's not always the case.
Marco:
Every Apple product, every desktop, every laptop, every phone I have ever owned has features on it that I have never used.
Marco:
For instance, on my MacBook Pro, on all MacBook Pros, including the current ones, I never use the front-facing camera for anything, ever.
Marco:
I don't take selfies, and if I'm going to use FaceTime, I use it on my phone or an iPad.
Marco:
I never use the front-facing camera on a Mac for anything.
Marco:
But it has them.
Marco:
Should they remove the front-facing camera because I don't use it?
Marco:
No, because its presence there doesn't affect me in any way.
Marco:
It's an inexpensive part.
Marco:
Very inexpensive because Apple never updates them and they're always terrible.
Marco:
But it's an inexpensive part.
Marco:
It doesn't add a meaningful amount of size or weight or technical complexity in a way that gets in my way at all.
Marco:
And for the few people who do use them...
Marco:
it's there and if i ever really need it it's there for me too so even if i think i'll never use it it's there similarly i never use video output on my laptops because that's just not how i use laptops i don't have to connect them to projectors really ever and i don't use it at home like that and so i don't i don't need i never use the hdmi port on my laptops before when they still had those and with the new ones i never use video output on them either
Marco:
Should they remove it because not a lot of people use it?
Marco:
No, because it doesn't get in the way at all.
Marco:
It doesn't matter at all that I never use it.
Marco:
It's not a problem in my life at all.
Marco:
If I ever need it, it's there and it's there without me having to buy anything.
Marco:
So like if I happen to be like in a hotel room or something and all of a sudden, oh crap, I have a quick need to show something from my laptop on this TV that has an HDMI port.
Marco:
I can just take a regular HDMI cable that's probably already behind the TV, unplug it from whatever garbage DVD player that's already there, and plug it into my laptop, and I didn't need to go to an Apple store and buy a dongle.
Marco:
I can use what I already have, and that will probably suffice.
Marco:
That is called versatility.
Marco:
So when a computer has things on it that you might not think you need, there is still value to have them be available just in case you do need them sometime.
Marco:
And as long as they are not really getting in the way, like...
Marco:
It was not necessary when designing the 2012 MacBook Pro to get rid of all these ports for like thinness or lightness reasons or anything else.
Marco:
They're all pretty thin.
Marco:
They're all pretty light.
Marco:
They don't add a lot of cost or complexity or anything else.
Marco:
They left them in because people use them sometimes.
Marco:
On the new ones, I don't know the details of exactly what would have fit in the slightly thinner case.
Marco:
By the way, using the old one, don't notice thickness difference at all.
Marco:
Don't notice the weight difference at all, but that's fine.
Marco:
You might.
Marco:
That's good for you.
Marco:
In the new ones, would it have killed them?
Marco:
Could they have included an SD card slot for people who use that and need that?
Marco:
I think they probably could.
Marco:
Could they have included any other ports?
Marco:
I think probably yes.
Marco:
They didn't as a feature because the thinking that removing things is itself a feature has infected Apple to the highest levels in addition to the Apple Defenders.
Marco:
So now Apple views it as progress or courage, whatever word they want to use.
Marco:
and all the defenders support this, that removing things is itself a commendable thing, and it's, quote, moving forward, which is a meaningless phrase.
Marco:
Moving forward only means doing what we did this year.
Marco:
There is no such thing.
Marco:
Moving forward suggests there's one future that you're moving towards inevitably, and that's not true at all.
Marco:
You create that future.
Marco:
Anyway, that's a BS phrase that bothers me.
Marco:
But the idea that removing things is itself...
Marco:
Something that we should do as soon as we can.
Marco:
We should drop things as soon as we can.
Marco:
That's not true for everything.
Marco:
And I think the more high-end and pro you get with computing gear, the less true that becomes.
Marco:
Because what pros need is not only for their gear, including their keyboards, to work incredibly reliably, as reliably as possible, but also pros need that versatility.
Marco:
Pros need the idea that if you're going to be traveling somewhere with your gear or on a set or in some kind of production environment and something comes up that you didn't foresee...
Marco:
And because you didn't foresee it, you probably don't have the right dongle.
Marco:
If it's true pro gear, it will try to accommodate as many of those situations as possible.
Marco:
That's what pros actually need.
Marco:
And Apple has been great at doing that in the past.
Marco:
And now they're really taking, I think, a pretty quick nosedive in that area.
Marco:
And I really, really love so much of the old one because it has so much of its versatility.
Marco:
And the new one took such a stark change, such a rapid turn in the other direction.
Marco:
That's why it bugs me so much.
Casey:
See, I understand everything you just said, and I can't with an honest heart sit here and say you're wrong, but I can say I look at it differently.
Casey:
You said just a moment ago, if it's true pro gear, it will try to accommodate as many of these situations, these basically oh crap situations as possible.
Casey:
There is a very compelling argument that you just made that the best way to do that is to have as many ports as possible on that device and as many different kinds of ports as possible on that device.
Casey:
But another approach is, what if you had one port that can do anything?
Casey:
In which case, yes, you're right, Marco, that I would have to carry an HDMI dongle with me.
Casey:
Full stop.
Casey:
There's nothing I can do to argue that fact.
Marco:
And buy one for $80.
Casey:
Well, I didn't pay $80 for mine, but you're still more right than you are wrong.
Casey:
I would have to buy one.
Casey:
But the fact of the matter is, for any situation that I, Casey, could possibly face, any situation that I would want to be prepared for, I have three different USB-C things that I would need to carry with me, none of which are particularly large.
Casey:
One of them is triple old USB and Ethernet.
Casey:
One of them is HDMI and pass-through USB-C.
Casey:
And, by the way, has an old USB on it.
Casey:
And what was the other one?
Casey:
Shoot.
Casey:
Oh, the USB-C to lightning adapter, which truth be told, I could just use one of the dongles and a traditional cable.
Casey:
So I think the problem is that your perception of versatility is requiring nothing but the device.
Casey:
And I shouldn't say that I don't agree with that.
Casey:
I'm implying I don't agree with you.
Casey:
I do agree with you.
Casey:
But another perception of versatility is we have one port that can do frigging anything, right?
Casey:
It can do anything.
Casey:
So if you need an SD card reader, Marco, and actually I do, and come to think of it, maybe that would be number four, dongle number four, but nevertheless.
Marco:
Yeah, they multiply.
Marco:
It's like cats.
Marco:
You think you have two, and then eventually you get six.
Casey:
It may be more like rabbits than cats, but we're saying the same thing.
Casey:
But you know what I mean?
Casey:
Finding an SD card reader, then fine.
Casey:
I pay $10 or $12 or whatever it was I'm on a price to get one.
Casey:
But for Erin, who doesn't need one, she doesn't have to have one.
Marco:
Her computer has one.
Casey:
I know.
Casey:
You're ruining my point.
Casey:
You know what I'm saying, though.
Casey:
You know what I'm saying.
Casey:
And so what was the other one?
Casey:
Oh, like Ethernet ports.
Casey:
Like no normal human needs Ethernet ports anymore.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I do because I'm a weirdo.
Casey:
You do because you're a weirdo.
Casey:
But no normal human needs Ethernet ports anymore.
Casey:
And this is where the entire internet is going to write in and say, oh, actually, you really do need Ethernet ports for this, that, and the other.
Casey:
Okay, fine, whatever.
Casey:
But I would say most people who buy MacBook Pros don't need Ethernet ports.
Casey:
And I think the problem that you and I have is actually the same problem.
Casey:
And although we disagree on the best possible mechanism for fixing the problem...
Casey:
I think I share most of your complaints, and I think that, by and large, we're of the same mind, even if we're arguing about the particulars.
Casey:
And I think the real honest-to-goodness problem—and I read this.
Casey:
I'm parroting somebody.
Casey:
Maybe it was you, for all I know.
Casey:
But somebody said to me—maybe it was John—somebody said recently, the problem is the lack of diversity in the lineup.
Casey:
Jason Snow.
Casey:
Oh, is that who it was?
Casey:
Okay, thank you.
Casey:
there's no like 17 inch aircraft carrier option and i bring that up not because i think 17 inches is the right answer although here again all the fanboys with 17 are going to come out of the woodwork but there's no way for you to get the mac pro god help me uh of laptops right there's no way for you to say money be damned maybe even portability be damned maybe
Casey:
I want the most flexible, versatile device I can get by both definitions.
Casey:
I want a couple of USB-C ports.
Casey:
I want a couple of USB whatever the hell the old one is.
Casey:
I want SD card reader.
Casey:
Hell, give me a thicker computer so I can have onboard Ethernet.
Casey:
I'll take it, whatever.
Casey:
And I think the problem is that there's no option for that.
Casey:
And so I think...
Casey:
It would make all of us feel better if there was an option, because at least then we could say, you know what?
Casey:
I really don't want to have to buy the aircraft carrier laptop, but it's worth it to me because I want all of these things.
Casey:
And that's what stinks.
Casey:
And I think that it might have been you that said months ago that.
Casey:
One of the problems with MacBook Pro is that Pro implies things.
Casey:
But the reality of the situation is the MacBook Pro is the every-person computer unless you want an adorable, which I would argue is a much more niche device.
Casey:
Or a MacBook Air, of course.
Casey:
But does that make sense?
Casey:
The MacBook Pro is covering college students who are doing nothing but Google Docs all the way up through people doing Final Cut Pro on film sets and doing 3D rendering or VR development.
Marco:
Spoiler, VR people can't use MacBook Pros right now.
Casey:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
But maybe down the road with the external GPUs, yes, I know.
Marco:
Okay.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
So I think the problem is what Snell had said, I think a little while ago now, was that there is no choice.
Casey:
And that means that if I want to choose...
Casey:
to have more ports or if i want to choose to have a laptop that is actually reliable or a keyboard that's actually reliable i'm screwed because i got nothing it's then i'm buying a thinkpad and that's not a fun place to be or 2015 which is still a valid choice it won't be forever but right now it is yeah
Marco:
No, I mean, that's all very, very fair.
Marco:
And I will say also, to defend, to refute something in the book, you didn't quite argue, but that people will hear in your argument and will argue with me against it.
Marco:
Sorry.
Marco:
USB-C can be great.
Marco:
The idea of having versatile USB-C ports on a laptop...
Marco:
is great.
Marco:
And you're right that USB-C ports can offer a great degree of versatility.
Marco:
My problem with USB-C, one of my problems with USB-C, I wrote a whole article about some other ones, but one of my problems with USB-C is that
Marco:
I don't think the ecosystem is ready for that to be our only port.
Marco:
I think the last year or so has really supported that view, that the ecosystem just is not there, and it's going to maybe be a few more years before it's there.
Marco:
And one of the counterarguments I've heard over the last few days about this is Apple needed to do this because it would push the industry to finally make more USB-C peripherals, just like the iMac pushed them to make USB peripherals.
Marco:
Two things.
Marco:
A, the iMac didn't push them to make USB peripherals.
Marco:
The iMac wasn't that popular relative to the entire world of PCs.
Marco:
The entire world of PCs was already making USB peripherals.
Marco:
They were going to make them anyway.
Marco:
And it just so happened that the Mac benefited from some of them with the iMac.
Marco:
Secondly, the idea that Apple going all USB-C will push the industry to make USB-C peripherals, that's a great theory.
Marco:
So far, it hasn't happened.
Marco:
The original USB-C MacBook, the MacBook 1 slash adorable slash 12-inch, came out now, what, two and a half years ago?
Marco:
That was the first Mac with USB-C port, and MacBook Pros went all USB-C now a little over a year ago, and we still have a fairly immature, fairly incomplete, and fairly unreliable selection of USB-C gear out there.
Marco:
It's still a really immature and inconsistent market that has a lot of big holes in it.
Marco:
I don't think that the industry has been forced by Apple to make great stuff.
Marco:
The reality is there's a lot of mediocre crap.
Marco:
And some of it's good.
Marco:
Most of it isn't.
Marco:
I think if Apple would have continued to ship old ports alongside USB-C... Basically, if USB-C ports became the new Thunderbolt ports...
Marco:
where most Apple laptops would have two of them along with other ones, you know, maybe, you know, and maybe even keep, maybe even have four of them on the, on the MacBook pro on the fifth, the big ones, you know, and, and, uh, cause you know, you can do that.
Marco:
They're, they're pretty small.
Marco:
They're, you know,
Marco:
They have very high technical needs.
Marco:
The idea that all of them can be charging ports and Thunderbolt ports means that Apple pretty much can't make, say, a 15-inch with six of them or eight of them because they can do too much.
Marco:
Whereas like the old ones, you can connect a total of more devices before you have to go to dongles or hubs.
Marco:
Because some of those ports are pretty simple to add.
Marco:
They're pretty low-needs, dumb ports on the old ones.
Marco:
But when every single port you add has to be able to charge the computer and be a Thunderbolt port by your own design...
Marco:
you can't have as many of them.
Marco:
You run into issues with maximum bandwidth on the Thunderbolt controllers, chipsets, costs, running wires, etc.
Marco:
So I think the better way to do this transition would have been have an actual transition happen, not just like jumping into the deep end with all USB-C, to have an intermediary generation, or at least a high-end model, like at least the 15-inch, where there's more room for things and more budget for things.
Marco:
have an intermediate where like you basically have some of the old ports and an sd card reader and stuff like that and then you you have replaced thunderbolt ports with usbc ports that would have been great if that laptop would ever exist from apple that would have a high chance of being the best laptop ever because then you have all the versatility of usbc you have the higher bandwidth for the higher you know needs of it for things like 5k displays that would be awesome
Marco:
But then you don't have to, I don't think, I think in this world, I don't think you have to give up the versatility of having one or two USB-A ports on there also, and having an SD card reader, and maybe an HDMI port.
Marco:
Because these are things that are either difficult, clunky, or unreliable to do with adapters and dongles so far.
Marco:
That would have been a very different reception to this machine, I think, than what we actually got.
Casey:
John, you've been quiet.
John:
I did already talk a lot about this on today's episode of Upgrade.
Casey:
I haven't heard it.
John:
I haven't heard it.
John:
More in-depth commentary for me on this.
John:
But one thing I didn't talk about specifically about this article is – and I just scrolled through it again to see if I was mistaken.
John:
I seem to have recalled something in the article that's not actually there, but I think it's kind of implied.
John:
And this is –
John:
not really the substance of what either two you're talking about so i apologize but like so the title is the best laptop ever made and the the implied thing that i thought was there but doesn't seem to be is that part of what makes it the best is what marco has talked about before that like it's not actually that much slower than the current ones because intel's progress on their laptop cpus hasn't been that great and because
John:
You know, like it's not it doesn't feel like you're using an old computer.
John:
And part of that, like that's what I'm wrapping up.
John:
It's like, well, I can see where you come from this article, because if that's part of your definition, what that does is it excludes all the other laptops.
John:
it excludes the powerbook 100 and 170 it excludes the wall streets it excludes the tie book it excludes the 13 inch macbook air because all of those are really old and really slow by modern standards or don't have retina screens or don't have color screens or whatever the case may be right um and if you narrow your definition
John:
in that way the only real contenders are the other laptops that can kind of hang with the modern ones so that's basically just this generation which apple still sells and maybe one generation before you can make some arguments for depending on how you're going to do trade-offs or whatever
John:
And I think that narrowing of the definition lessens the idea that this is the best laptop ever made.
John:
Because if I'm thinking of the best laptop ever made, I'm not going to put that qualifier on.
John:
I'm not going to say, and by the way, it has to be like something that I could reasonably use today and it wouldn't feel slow.
John:
uh because that excludes too many great laptops and then you know if and i think most people took that implicit framing right because if they didn't everyone would be you know pulling coming out of the woodwork and saying that their old favorite laptop from like 20 years ago or something right is the best one and arguably the thinkpad people are actually doing that but i don't know if modern thinkpads are really as great as whatever one they're trying to cite i have no idea um they're not even i i would probably go for like the 2011-ish 13-inch macbook air as a better oval laptop in this one because this 15-inch
John:
like you know you've heard my complaints before but like design wise like the keyboard is too small uh the the arrow keys should be full-sized not like the current ones but like an actual inverted t that extends downward from the keyboard like it is very wide at large and not
John:
particularly portable as far as portables go and i just feel like the 13 inch air is a better laptop but you're not going to use a 13 inch air to get your job done today uh it is slower and it's worse and it's non-retina and it's just you know it's not a better laptop than this but if you do best ever made you know so that so anyway that is more of a meta issue that i think
John:
You know, I think most people took it in the spirit that Marco intended it, but the title doesn't reflect that.
John:
And that the spirit Marco intended it excludes, you know, saves him from a lot of criticism that would be warranted if the scope was widened up.
John:
Because honestly, I don't think this laptop in the pantheon of Apple laptops...
John:
is the best one or two or three.
John:
It's maybe in the top five, really, but it really depends.
John:
I was never in love with this model of laptop, and there are a lot of things about it that are suboptimal.
John:
It only really shines when you consider that, hey, it's still a pretty great laptop.
John:
And when you, you know, whether, again, implied and not explicitly stated, when you start to compare it to the 2016 and 2017 ones.
John:
Because...
John:
I don't think those laptops struck a good balance.
John:
And I don't think a lot of people really love them.
John:
And I think the touch bar is kind of a dud.
John:
And all the things that we've talked about a million times, that sort of... The opposite of reflected glory, as compared to the current line, suddenly this 2015 looks a hell of a lot better.
John:
And I feel like that sort of... The opposite of basking in the reflected glory, basking in the reflected crappiness of the modern ones, is what makes this laptop seem so great.
John:
So I think this is more like...
John:
how marco has found love with with an older computer that's really that's really not that much older um but is less about uh in the pantheon of all laptops or even just all apple portables how great this one particular model is because there there are many things to not recommend this model and when i look at it all i can see all the things i've always complained about it that i just feel like this exact laptop could have been better with all the same features but
John:
But that's not what we're talking about here.
John:
I'm sorry to get hung up on that, but that's what I came away from this article.
John:
The larger point about the balance being struck, what I'm... You know, Marco said before that so many people agree with it.
John:
The main thing I kind of can't get past is the idea that...
John:
like so many so many of the people so often when you complain about an apple product you're like i don't know what apple should have done instead but i don't like this one and it's not really helpful and it's kind of apple's job to figure out like you know it's not it's not customer's job to tell apple exactly what to do they just can be satisfied they're not satisfied and their customer sat numbers are what they are but in the case of the new laptops i think people who have complaints
John:
know exactly what they specifically want that like that it would be so easy to make a laptop that would satisfy all the people who are dissatisfied with the current one like and maybe it's 17 different laptops from 17 different people but there's no mystery like and you know just you know experience of dealing with this and putting going conference rooms
John:
If you're in a conference room every single day and you constantly have to deal with that dongle to plug in HDMI, all those people are not... There's no mystery.
John:
They say, put an HDMI port on it, right?
John:
I would be... Can you make this computer better?
John:
Put MagSafe on it, put an HDMI port, put an SD port on it.
John:
And throw that in front of all these people.
Casey:
Actually...
Casey:
That would probably be enough.
Casey:
It really would.
John:
And they'll be like, I don't use the HDMI, but I care about the SD.
John:
I don't use the SD, but I care about the HDMI.
John:
I don't really care about MagSafe.
John:
It's so easy to just say, it's not a mystery what you need to do, Apple.
John:
Make it slightly different.
John:
Slightly different feature set.
John:
Like Marco said, you don't have to have all the ports, but everyone loves all the USB-C and Thunderbolt.
John:
Those are all great and everything.
John:
Just a few little tweaks here and there, and don't make the keyboard so damn small to make me happy and make it more reliable, right?
John:
They're close, but everybody knows.
John:
It's an open secret.
John:
Like, how can you make these?
John:
It's like, wow, I wonder how we can make these more appealing.
John:
We all know how to do it.
John:
More ports, better ports, like bigger keyboard, arrow keys that are easier to find, reliable.
John:
Like, it's right there.
John:
And the touch bar, you know,
John:
do you need it do you not need it no one really loves it i don't even know how to go with that and that's what's frustrating normally if people don't like something or it's unsatisfactory in some way they don't know like exactly how to fix it and this the solutions just seem so obvious and not to say that that's what apple should do because we're always asking apple like don't do the obvious thing that people know that they want do the thing they didn't even know they wanted right that's apple's job well so i'm not saying do it
John:
Right, exactly.
John:
But I'm not saying Apple should, like, oh, just do what people expect, right?
John:
They have to do what people don't expect.
John:
They have to try to go above and beyond.
John:
They have to, you know, push the limits with, you know, touch ID and face ID and all the things they do.
John:
But when they miss, then it starts to feel like, oh, I wish they had just done the obvious thing.
John:
Right, so what's the solution?
John:
Should they now backpedal and do the obvious thing?
John:
Or should they make try number two at the transcendent thing?
John:
And I think Marco has criticized them a lot in the past of, like,
John:
Apple, don't feel like you always have to like every single time be transcendent because we wait too long for these big transcendent things.
John:
And so if you miss one of them, nobody wants to wait around for another five years of unsatisfying, unreliable laptops that are shaped like this.
John:
backpedal and do the obvious thing while you regroup, you know, like, and, and as I think I said, an upgrade, they could be doing that right now.
John:
Hardware timelines being what they are.
John:
There's only so much they can do in response to dissatisfaction.
John:
um and the final thing like we've been on this topic for a while but before we get off it is like apple just reported its results and they're selling a ton of macs and i think they're selling a ton of these laptops and we're just we're back to success heights problems yeah people have complaints but look at the numbers if if the metrics you're looking at don't reflect the supposed dissatisfaction then either we're all wrong and we're in the minority and apple is on the right path and everything will be fine or they're measuring things the wrong way um
John:
So I think, based on vague hints from the roundtable that I continue to read things into that Mac roundtable they had, and the fact that they did try to adjust the keyboard, and the fact that the keyboards really do appear to have reliability problems, that Apple will do something and make different decisions about the next major revision to the laptop line.
John:
Not just putting rubber gaskets in the keys, because that's all they could do in the time allotted to them, but...
John:
in whatever the next round of MacBook Pros that come out that actually get to meaningfully incorporate the feedback that we feel like we're all providing and that people may be providing with all their little different services or whatever, that I think Apple will make different choices and I think they will make adjustments that make these more satisfactory and perhaps will make Marco revisit whether this 2015 computer
John:
is indeed the best laptop that apple ever can make because like he said he really hopes that that's not the case and i think it won't be the case he just needs to wait a little bit longer all right thanks for sponsors this week simple contacts squarespace and betterment and we will see you next week now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental oh it was accidental
John:
John didn't do any research.
John:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
John:
Cause it was accidental.
John:
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, so that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-
Casey:
I think we have one obvious choice for the after show.
Casey:
What is up with this Tesla Roadster?
John:
yeah actually honestly i think the semi it might be the more interesting one but you're you're wrong about that the semi is not the more interesting i mean maybe more impactful or maybe they're both vaporware but the tesla roaster is obviously much more exciting
Casey:
So no snark or joke intended.
Casey:
Can you set up for me what this event was?
Casey:
Because I had heard that there was going to be a Tesla event, but I really honestly didn't know much about it.
Casey:
And I don't follow Tesla that closely.
Casey:
So I don't have a good feel for what the significance of this event was.
Marco:
John, I mean, honestly, I don't follow them that closely.
Marco:
I never watch their events live because I find them a little bit insufferable.
Marco:
So I don't watch them.
Marco:
I just kind of see what news comes out of them afterwards.
Marco:
So this was, as far as I know, this was an event ostensibly to reveal the Tesla semi-truck.
Marco:
And then the Roadster, I think, was the one more thing, even though it has been kind of teased for a little while.
Marco:
But no one really knew anything about it yet.
John:
yeah that's my impression too i also don't follow that closely but yeah this was a semi event but i wasn't shocked to see the roadster because this has been like an open secret for such a long time the roadster was their first car and you know they're going to revisit that it seemed like an obvious thing they were going to do and guess what they did it and yeah so i didn't watch it live either i just caught the news after the fact but i think it's i think it's interesting because if you said oh tesla's going to do a roadster that makes perfect sense they make a big four-door sedan and they make a smaller four-door sedan and
John:
And the original car was the Roadster.
John:
And it's obvious that there's probably a market for a sporty car.
John:
And so here's their sporty car.
John:
But I was surprised at exactly the form this sporty car took in many respects.
John:
So it's called the Roadster.
John:
but it's it's not a t-top but there's not much air above your head like just before you even think about what this car does if you look at it it looks more like a coupe with a section of the roof that comes off and i feel like the sort of open air that's not unusual that's like porsche was huge into that uh i know but like even think of even think i know it's more like a target's less even the boxster has more open air let alone like a you know a proper convertible
John:
Right.
John:
So it is it feels less open than I would have expected it to be.
John:
It looks just more like a coop.
John:
And so they have to call it a roadster because, you know, their first thing was called the roadster and there's like the family thing or whatever.
John:
But what they've essentially made is, like you said, like a target type of thing, which is fine.
John:
It just doesn't match.
John:
with the name um and the second thing i was surprised by was like it's not just like oh here's a sportier you know it's a two-door sporty version so you don't have to have a big family sedan it's a kind of a fun sporty car it seemed like in typical tesla fashion they were going for the jugular and saying no no no you don't understand we're making a hyper car look at these numbers right 250 mile an hour plus top speed
John:
which is pretty impressive even for hypercars because they generally tend to go for downforce and at the cost of top speed unless you're talking about the vayron or something or the chiron or whatever the new one is zero to 16 1.9 seconds which is a very typical elon musky kind of number that i don't doubt this car can hit but you know they just wanted to have a number with a one in front of it for the shock value um
John:
is it necessary and then the price like is you know 250 grand or whatever it is like it's not like oh it's a sporty car it's like no here's our competitor to you know the p1 or the la ferrari or all you know the the porsche 918 only it's and it's got an open top on it and the range by the way is 600 miles i
John:
It's like they... I'm almost surprised it doesn't go faster than they're around, put it that way.
John:
I mean, it's almost surprising to me that they didn't say... And by the way, the top speed is 327 miles an hour.
John:
Because why not?
John:
Like, in Elon Musk fashion, this must be the best car human beings have ever made.
John:
It is faster, goes longer.
John:
You know, does everything... You know, like, pulls 3.0 Gs, like, detaches your retinas when it goes off the line.
John:
And I feel like that's... Like, I don't...
John:
i don't i'm not sure like this this car is writing checks that tesla probably can't cash because oh but it gets worse though elon musk on the 18th of november should clarify that this is the base model performance so it'll be a special edition pack a special option package that takes it to the next level
John:
and i think i complained in the neutral thing of like all right so so you you want to make a hypercar maybe not the way i would have gone i would have just made a sporty car that costs 80 ground and you'd sell a lot of those and it would be great and people would like them but fine you want to make like a hypercar type thing there's more to hypercars than these particular numbers you put down most again most of the reason that the hypercars that you know top gear or whatever had competing to the reason they don't go as fast as the veyron is
John:
they consciously trade that for downforce and handling because they're trying to go around a track quickly and when i see a 620 mile range i think is this a 5 500 pound hypercar because once you start trying to turn 5 500 pounds around a track suddenly all the power in the world is not really helping you because you've got this big problem of this huge amount of momentum going into every single turn um
John:
And so I feel like this car is not going to be able to compete with a Porsche 918 or a Ferrari or a P1.
John:
It's going to get left behind on anything except for a straight line.
John:
And then so what is the market for this car?
John:
People who only care about numbers but who never turn?
John:
Like, do you just want to make an electric dragster?
John:
Because you can make one of those.
John:
it it seems like a a strangely misguided car in a way that both the model s and the model 3 are not model x is kind of misguided because of the stupid doors but uh i'm not sure i'm not sure they've even if they hit all their numbers and this car is exactly what they say it is
John:
I'm not sure it is a car that makes sense in the price point and market in which it competes.
John:
If I had $250,000 and I had to choose between this and any of the other hypercars, I would choose any of the other hypercars in a heartbeat, even if this is faster on the drag strip or whatever.
John:
Just because it doesn't seem to deliver what is required to compete in...
John:
in that price range and that stretch and you know like i said furthermore i don't think tesla needed to compete in this price range it seems like it seems like an ego exercise they should have just made a really fast no yeah exactly it's it's on brand but like but the model s is so sensible it's got so it's got so so much room it's so like the packaging is so efficient uh it's got the seats in the back it's you know it's got all the safety stuff even the model three so so reasonable you can make a really good sporty
John:
electric car for 80 grand uh porsche's gonna make one like well there's gonna be 140 fine but bmw is gonna make them like people are gonna make but tesla's just got to go no like this will destroy your body and liquefy your organs just don't turn so much so so you're unimpressed
John:
No, I'm impressed technically or whatever.
John:
It just seems like such a weird, like I would not have predicted this if you said, what do you think Tesla Road is going to be like?
John:
There's no way in hell I would have said, oh, it's going to be 250 grand, have a 600 mile range, go over 250 miles an hour because none of those specs, I wouldn't even target them.
John:
Like why even target them?
John:
the base model 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds like oh god i don't maybe maybe elon's goal is eventually to make a car that will kill him like literally kill him like he'll as he ages and his cars get faster it would just you know press his heart against the back of his rib page until it explodes and then finally he will have achieved what you know yeah so marco as an owner what is this does this rev your engine ha ha ha or are you kind of whatever about it
Marco:
Well, when I first was aware that they were teasing a new Roadster, I thought that might be kind of fun as a future car.
Marco:
But I don't want to pay this amount of money for a car ever.
Marco:
This is not anything I would get at all.
John:
Your family can fit in the, I'm sure, very spacious back seats because it does have four seats.
John:
I'm not sure where those four seats are and all the pictures.
John:
I can't imagine where they might be.
John:
But yeah, it might be hard getting the car seat back there in the trunk.
Marco:
Yes, I this like so I kind of see where they're going with this.
Marco:
I think what you have to realize here is that what Tesla can do that almost no one else can do yet is just obscene speed from a stop.
Marco:
Obscene 0 to 60 times with their electric drivetrains.
Marco:
That's how they are able to compete with supercars right now is that stat.
Marco:
There's a reason why they keep pushing that with the Model S.
Marco:
And there is probably a market of people who are buying the Model S just because it's so damn fast, but who don't actually need it to be this big, full-size sedan.
Marco:
People who actually want something more sporty and small and hopefully nimble like this.
Marco:
Right now, those people are buying the Model S because that's what they have to buy to get the speed.
Marco:
But I think there is probably a market of people who would rather have this.
Marco:
And I'm sure John is right that the range suggests this is probably going to be a heavy car.
Marco:
We don't know what that means actually, how heavy.
Marco:
The reason the range has to be so high is probably because in order to dump out so much current at once to get that insane acceleration, it probably needs a ton of battery modules wired up in parallel to be able to dump all that current out.
Marco:
And so they probably achieved the range not as a goal in itself, but just as the smallest amount of batteries they could put in here to get the simultaneous current out to push those motors so hard to get that acceleration.
Marco:
So I'm guessing the range and the weight of those batteries is actually more of like an annoyance in the design than a goal.
John:
Yeah, but the goal is probably like, oh, under two seconds, right?
John:
So if they just said 2.5 seconds instead, suddenly the car gets much lighter.
John:
2.5 seconds is still plenty fast.
John:
And maybe the price can go down because most of the cost is in the batteries in these cars.
John:
And it's just everything cascades from like the desire to have these numbers, these three numbers up here.
John:
to be so fantastical and yeah so the range probably wasn't a primary goal and maybe as a side effect but it's up there with one of the three numbers and top speed like that makes no sense like where are you going to be able to drive it that fast and the fact that it does have that kind of speed makes me wonder exactly how stable it is at that speed because
John:
you need a lot of downforce to keep your car from becoming a kite at that speed.
John:
But if you have a lot of downforce, it's very difficult to get above 250 miles an hour.
John:
So I just... It probably has a lot of weight.
Marco:
Yeah, I know.
Marco:
And unlike most cars, the weight's very low.
Marco:
So it does have some advantages there.
Marco:
But I think ultimately...
Marco:
There's a pretty big portion of the market of people who would buy this kind of car who will never, ever, ever take it on a track, who will never take a turn at very high speed, and who don't care how it handles going around a competition track.
Marco:
There's a lot of people who buy supercars...
Marco:
Because they like the way they look in their neighborhood and on the highway and when they go shopping and people see them.
Marco:
That's a huge part of the market for these things.
Marco:
I would say probably a very small percentage of owners ever actually take them on a track.
John:
i think this falls down in that area too though because it looks less exotic than all of the hypercars that it is competing with due to its price range i mean it looks fine i don't think it looks bad it looks good but it if you saw that next to a la ferrari it's clear which one of those looks more like it's more impressive right especially people who don't know cars like this looks fine but it's all of the hypercars have
John:
I feel like more aggressive and more exotic styling than this, which just looks like a, you know, fairly nice sports car.
John:
Like this, this looks to me like it should be competing with, with the, the Porsche and BMW equivalents, right.
John:
That are going to be less expensive, but,
John:
probably have slightly less performance but will look about the same as this like they won't they won't look like the 918 they'll look like oh you know like a a really cool futuristic electric cayman it's not exactly what that looks like but you know it's not it doesn't even fulfill i feel like the uh impress a bunch of uh teenage boys driving down the road type of thing you
John:
Unless they know what it is.
John:
If they know what it is, obviously they're impressed, but if they don't know what it is and they saw it rolling up next to a P1 and a LaFerrari, they're all going to stare at the P1 and a LaFerrari and this is going to be looking like Top Gear whenever they take an Audi with them along with a bunch of other cars.
Casey:
No one looks at the Audi.
Casey:
I don't know, man, because Tesla is their company, whereas the McLaren... I'm saying they know what it is, but for non-car people, you look at it like all the wings and flares.
John:
This is a very smooth... It's a fine-looking car, but it doesn't look like...
John:
this even even the let me pull up the porsche thing you know what i'm talking about even the porsche one looks more futurey and stuff and yes i think tesla does have brand cachet especially for people who know but for non-car people the cachet is oh that's the electric one not oh that's the one that does 0 to 60 in 1.9 seconds
Marco:
another problem they have is that a lot of the market who who buys these kind of cars wants them to be really loud and this won't be they can pipe that in just like your m5 up to the outside yeah they'll just have really great recordings of air that was this hell you could use the same recordings that were in your m5 i mean it would be perfect
John:
i pasted a link to the porsche mission e thing i mean it very really is very similar it's very kind of rounded uh you know styling cues probably you know more or less derived from tesla say this this car looks electric like what do you how do you style a car on the outside to make it look electric
John:
and I feel like obviously all the Teslas look like that, and when I look at the Porsche, I think, oh, that looks like, I can kind of tell that's electric because it's styled differently than their gas things, and it's not just because it doesn't have big exhaust and a giant grill in the front gulping in air or whatever.
Marco:
Honestly, this Mission E I don't think is an attractive vehicle, and I think the Roadster is.
Casey:
I would agree.
Casey:
Also, that illuminated Porsche.
Casey:
John, you can't talk about attractive vehicles because you hated the Alpha, so we can just move on from your opinion.
John:
I think the Tesla and this Porsche are similar.
John:
There are things that annoy me about both of them.
John:
and this this is not a production car by the way i think this is like their their concept so who knows what the real one will look like but i like the front end of this porsche it looks to me uh it has the family resemblance but it also looks futurey that i would agree with you know the same thing with the the roadster it looks it has family resemblance it looks better than all the other teslas as it should um but it is a little bit i don't know i was gonna say dumpy
John:
uh it's a little bit uh awkwardly proportioned it looks a little bit like a not an ugly duck thing but it's a little stunted maybe it's because the wheelbase is short um you know like it's or the back overhang is so it just doesn't it feels kind of like a uh
John:
more like a toy car i mean it looks more like the uh the lotus elise the the you know or the the tiny lotus chassis that the original uh roadster was based on it doesn't look like the big long wide supercar that you would expect based on these performance numbers
Marco:
Well, they already have a big, long, wide car.
Marco:
It's called a Tesla Model S. And it's also really freaking fast and like supercar levels of fast.
Marco:
It's not low.
Marco:
It's not, you know what I mean?
Marco:
And so they made this to be like a much smaller, faster version.
John:
Well, it's like a really fast Miata.
John:
That's what it looks like.
Marco:
It turns out that would be really fun.
John:
A really fast Miata would be awesome.
John:
Yeah, but that doesn't compete in the same thing.
John:
When you see it next to a LaFerrari or a P1, those don't look like really fast Miatas.
John:
They look like
John:
big hypercar-y things.
Marco:
To me, as someone who mostly doesn't pay attention to hypercars and supercars, or any cars for that matter, I mostly am not in that world.
Marco:
I'm mostly unfamiliar with it.
Marco:
If you put...
Marco:
All the cars you've mentioned, like the Ferraris and the Porsches and the P1s and all the weird things that were always on Top Gear, if you put those in a lineup and took their badges off and you asked me which one was which, I probably wouldn't be able to identify any of them.
Marco:
I have to imagine that's true of a lot of people, including many people who would be buyers of these things.
Marco:
You stop being a car person when you give your stick shift and your gasoline engine.
Marco:
That's true.
Marco:
But I have a feeling a lot of potential customers of these kinds of cars might not even recognize things like a P1 if they saw it.
Marco:
You are because you are not only a car nerd, but you are also a car nerd who specifically loves supercars.
Marco:
And I think most people aren't, including many of the people who buy them.
Marco:
So many people buy them just as a money or prestige symbol or just to have fun.
Marco:
And I think that for many of those people, the downsides that you are citing of this and the comparisons you're making of it to other supercars just won't apply.
John:
I just felt like the Model S never really got its due in all the car magazines and car websites.
John:
And maybe it's, again, because of track performance reasons.
John:
It's not even considered when they have these performance tests of sports sedans.
John:
It's always like, oh, it's BMW versus the Alfa, and the Alfa's on top this year or whatever.
John:
No one ever includes the Model S.
John:
and in some respects it's like unfair because it's like oh that'll be in the electric test and of course it'll be the best electric car because it's not many much competition it's like you know the model s versus the chevy vault which one obviously right like um but when it comes to the sports sedans and like there is a practical reason and it's like look if we brought in this test it would lose because it's just too damn heavy right it's never going to win and all the performance tests that involve turning it's never going to win so it's not even fair to include it
John:
But the other thing is just such an oddball, and I think that will start to change when everybody else essentially comes out with their Tesla competitors, and suddenly it will make sense that the Tesla will be included in all these tests, and it will be...
John:
a more there'll be less bias against it to say oh that's the weird electric one and it has such weird trade-offs that we don't even know how to measure it against the other ones it'll just become par for the course and that's where tesla will really have to prove itself um this car specifically based on tesla's you know the tesla modifier like when they say they're going to make a car add how much to when you'll actually be able to get the car
John:
It's conceivable that by the time deliveries start happening for this car, that its competition will have arrived and that it will no longer like that.
John:
These these numbers are great and impressive because you can't buy this car now.
John:
I have no idea what the numbers are going to be for the BMW, Porsche and Mercedes and whatever else full electrics that are all inevitably coming.
John:
And so unlike the Model S, which got to enjoy this time as like the uncontested king of electric cars, this may not enjoy that time.
John:
This may arrive at the same time as everybody else.
John:
and it may be much tougher to be impressive now and that may also mean that all those other cars have exactly the same things that i'm complaining about that are all big and heavy because they have to be because of the battery packs or whatever or it could be that those cars make different trade-offs and those only get to 60 in 3.2 seconds but they trade that for being much lighter weight and we'll see how that shakes out of you know what kind of things you want or don't want or maybe they could be more aggressively styled or half the price or double the price
John:
um that's where i think it'll be more interesting but right now this looks like this is like a category in uh unto itself in much the same way that i guess the model s was in the beginning but unlike the model s which makes sense both on paper and in reality this car does not yet make sense to me
John:
So send me one to test.
John:
I'll tell you what I think of it.
John:
Well, they wouldn't send it to you.
John:
They sent it to Casey because he's our car journalist.
John:
Yep.
John:
I have dibs.
John:
Oh, he only does gasoline cars.
John:
Sorry.
Casey:
Well, no, no, no, no, no, no.
John:
Half his video is the engine note.
John:
He's going to put a microphone next to the tailpipe of this thing and it'll make no noise.
John:
Just a high-pitched whine.
Casey:
You have not seen my video, but that is slightly true.
Casey:
Just record, like, the tire noise.
Casey:
That's right.
John:
Listen to how it crunches over gravel.