Do Not Expect Five Nines From My Plex
Casey:
How do you pronounce that?
John:
Let's work on affluent first.
Casey:
Is it affluent, not affluent?
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
Is that what I did wrong?
Casey:
I always get that one wrong.
Casey:
That's my bazelle, John.
John:
You've got like nine of those, though.
Marco:
And I only said it wrong once.
Marco:
Well, yeah, but it was a pretty amazing one.
Marco:
It was gloriously saying it wrong.
John:
It was pretty amazing.
John:
But I'm learning.
Marco:
See how I don't make the same mistakes.
Marco:
I still remember exactly where I was when I heard that for the first time.
John:
Such a significant moment in your life.
Marco:
I was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge because I was doing a weird thing.
Marco:
So I was walking over the Brooklyn Bridge and listening to your TV segment and I heard you say Bazell and I just cracked up laughing in the middle of this very crowded area and I like rewound it like three times to just keep hearing it.
Marco:
It was amazing.
Marco:
I was walking over the bridge to go visit Jason Santamaria to have him redesign Instapaper.
Casey:
All right, let's get started.
Casey:
Let's do some follow-up.
Casey:
And I have some quick waffle iron follow-up.
Casey:
I know that the ATP universe was just riveted by my waffle iron quest from a few weeks ago now, maybe a couple months ago.
Casey:
If you recall...
Casey:
We had a wearing pro waffle maker that is no longer being produced that I loved.
Casey:
And that was our Sunday breakfast for years.
Casey:
And then the thing kind of exploded out of nowhere.
Casey:
And we bought a cheap and truly terrible Hamilton Beach waffle maker based on a wire cutter pick, I believe.
Casey:
And it's really bad.
Casey:
And I feel bad saying that because Hamilton Beach is local, actually.
Casey:
But
Marco:
Yeah, but see, no one ever says, well, I guess except for this one Wirecutter review, but no one has ever said, the best X is the Hamilton Beach one.
Casey:
But anyways, we were gifted a Cuisinart WAFF20, a WAFF20.
Casey:
It almost says waffle.
Casey:
Yeah, that's true, actually.
Casey:
Good point.
Casey:
And I just would like to report in that this is a very, very, very close version to my beloved Wearing Pro.
Casey:
In fact, I would argue it's probably made by the same people when it's all said and done.
Casey:
And now we can make two waffles at once instead of just one, which is kind of cool.
Casey:
So if you're looking for a waffle iron, I strongly recommend the Waffle 20 Double Belgian Waffle Maker, Stainless Steel by Cuisinart.
Marco:
This looks nearly identical to the one I actually have.
Marco:
Like, because I have the, mine is still branded wearing, but I think what happened is wearing sold the consumer business to Cuisinart and they're just doing the pro end now.
Marco:
Um, but this looks identical to mine with the sole exception that the power switch on mine is one of those that has the red led that glows through it, you know, but otherwise it looks identical.
Casey:
yeah it's uh really good i really recommend it and if you have the luxury of living uh near me you should ask to come over for sunday waffles don't be creepy i'm just saying you gotta stop putting these emoji in the show notes that my computer can't display it's just punitive now oh my gosh wearing pro period space white box
Casey:
it's the drooling emoji in case you were uh in case you were curious how how old is your we'll get to that later let's not even go there the question is what in what year was that emoji added to mac os yeah seriously i think that was in the last year or two where's jeremy burge when we need him all right that is all for follow-up that was world record fast john tell me is a robot coming back from the future to uh terminate you what's going on here
John:
I shouldn't have put a capital letter T in there and made you think it was about SCSI Terminators, or I'm not sure what else you would have thought it was about.
Casey:
I would have thought SCSI Terminators, actually, because I don't know what else it would be.
John:
Do you know this because I already complained about it elsewhere, and that's why you know what I'm going to talk about?
Casey:
No, I don't know what you're going to talk about.
John:
Oh, well, what's your guesses?
Casey:
I mean, I would have said SCSI Terminator, but I know that's even older than your computer, which is saying something.
Casey:
I don't know.
Marco:
See, because it's capitalized, it's got to be a movie reference to the Terminator movies.
Marco:
Mm-hmm.
Marco:
I'm guessing it's either something about Arnold Schwarzenegger, therefore California, some kind of issues he's having with California, or something that promised to be back and now is back.
Marco:
So maybe the keyboard problem, I don't know.
John:
I'm proud of you for making pop culture references to a movie you haven't seen, Marco.
Casey:
Correct.
Casey:
Now, for the listeners, just to be clear, the show notes read as follows.
Casey:
John's Terminator Woes.
Casey:
John is, of course, capitalized.
Casey:
Terminator is capitalized.
Casey:
Woes is not capitalized.
Casey:
So, John, tell us, what is this about?
John:
I feel like this is...
John:
this is a segment of the show now where i have i feel guilty about bringing it up because i'm just here to complain about a thing but john this is literally why people love listening to you on podcasts but there's such minor thing anyway this this one it's minor yes they're all minor things that's what we love it's minor but it's subverted like it is it has rearranged the
John:
my mental model of like the media world in in an interesting way so you know as i've talked about my past shows i have all sorts of ways to watch television and movie things i subscribe to all the services under the sun although i did actually remember this month to cancel one of the ones that i haven't watched in a while so i am i am trying to manage my subscriptions better but uh every time speaking of subscriptions every time i have to
John:
cancel a subscription uh grubber keeps talking about how he loves uh that apple subscriptions shows him all the stuff he subscribes to in one place that's true and it makes it easy to unsubscribe you know you just go to that screen and get rid of it every time i want to go to that screen i have to google for itunes subscriptions manage or like i have to google where to find it and then like the top google hit is that thing where they break out the instructions i can never remember where the hell it is do you guys know offhand where it is there's actually a new url
Marco:
If you happen to be an Overcast Premium member and you go to overcast.fm slash account, you can do it there.
Marco:
I just paste it in the show notes.
Marco:
So it's apps.apple.com slash account slash subscriptions.
John:
So you can get to it on your phone, too, not going to a web browser.
John:
And that's the one I usually go to, and that's the one that eventually kicks you to what I think is a web interface.
Marco:
Yes, and if you click that URL from any Apple device, it works on desktop iTunes, it works on iOS, it works on any Mac or iOS device, that will take you to the screen.
John:
Anyway, it's like settings, your Apple ID, view Apple ID from the pop-up, and then once you're in view Apple ID, you scroll to manage subscriptions.
John:
Anyway, all this is to say I have lots of different ways to watch stuff.
John:
There's sort of a hierarchy of how much time do you want to spend looking for it.
John:
Like, a lot of the times I want to watch a movie, and...
John:
sometimes i'll be feeling bold and i'll speak into my terrible uh apple tv remote and ask to watch a movie and see like what service it pops up because it in theory knows that i subscribe to hulu and netflix and amazon prime and all the other things and i want to see what it'll bring up and if it's on netflix i'm like oh great i'll just watch it right uh but if we're in a hurry like oh the kids want to watch a movie or we're all sitting down as a family to watch a movie
John:
And I don't want to deal with figuring out which of the umpteen services that I have has that movie.
John:
Is it on HBO?
John:
Is it in the Showtime app?
John:
I don't want to deal with that at all.
John:
I just go to iTunes and just buy the movie.
John:
Because it used to be, in my mind, the most reliable, the fastest, and also the most expensive, obviously, way to get it.
John:
Because I have all these services I subscribe to.
John:
If they have the movie for free, why would I pay $12.99 to buy the movie?
John:
Or rent it, depending on...
John:
whether i think i'm ever going to want to watch it again right so in that situation i was uh
John:
bringing my uh family uh my children up to uh pop culture snuff so they don't end up like marco and they haven't seen the terminator movies because terminator one uh the first terminator movie not titled terminator one uh is rated r so i couldn't really show this to my kids until they're older right so my son is old enough to see it now um so i said we're gonna watch terminator then we're gonna i really just wanted him to watch terminator 2 which is not rated r but you can't watch terminator 2 without watching the terminator
John:
uh so i'm like all right i don't want to deal with finding where this movie is available it might be on one of my streaming services i don't know let me just go to itunes and buy it because i know i i instantly know how to do that i don't bother with any voicing i just go to itunes type the term you know i can find it and i'll just pay the money and we'll play immediately and i won't have any problems this is particularly true of last time so i'm looking for like
John:
anime or foreign movies or things with subtitles where i don't want to deal with like is it going to be the dub are the subtitles going to be burned in in a weird font if i see it in streaming or even just regular movies is it going to be reformat on amazon prime or it's like the weird unrated version like itunes i feel like is the canonical there's a movie you know it exists you just want to see the movie the way you expect to see it so go to itunes and in the case of the terminator we're watching it
John:
and as we're watching the movie uh immediately i noticed but it just gets worse and worse as we watch the movie the audio sync is off the words people's mouth lips moving don't match the audio at first i'm like boy back in the 80s they were pretty uh sloppy with the adr no it's not the adr it's it's actually out of sync and it's getting worse so i do all the things i try you don't want to like ruin the movie experience like wait i gotta pause i gotta fix anything one time i tried during the movie i tried like pausing and reloading like when someone got up to go to the bathroom i tried pausing and then playing it didn't work
John:
I killed the application.
John:
That didn't work.
John:
And then they were back.
John:
So we just watched it with out of sync audio.
John:
And I'm like, this is this is BS.
John:
Like it was one of the few times I was thinking I should ask for a refund.
Casey:
Wait, you watched an entire film, even one you've seen before with out of sync audio.
Casey:
I've seen it many, many times before.
John:
I mean, it wasn't that it wasn't that I bet.
John:
I don't know if anyone else in the room noticed it was out of sync, but I noticed.
Casey:
I cannot fathom John Syracuse of watching an entire two-ish hour movie.
John:
It's not a talking movie, first of all.
John:
And second of all, it's worse to interrupt the movie.
John:
I'd gotten everyone together.
John:
We're all going to watch the movie.
John:
The lights are off in the room.
John:
You can't kill that experience by saying, I'm not going to futz with my Apple TV for 20 minutes.
John:
Again, that's the reason I'm doing it on iTunes.
Casey:
If anyone can do that, it's John Syracuse can kill that experience by futzing with the Apple TV.
John:
I would absolutely not do that.
John:
I'm the one who doesn't want you to stop in the middle of the movie.
John:
I want you to watch it uninterrupted and have your full concentration.
John:
Anyway.
John:
And this is just blowing my mind because it was like, like I said, the most expensive way you can get this movie.
John:
I'm like, what could the problem possibly be?
John:
I'm like, is it my AV setup?
John:
I'm like, no, because...
John:
I use this Apple TV to watch video all the time through the same receiver and there's no problem with the audio sync.
John:
I was starting to think that it had to be the file, like that actually this is somehow got uploaded to Apple servers with a file where the audio is not in sync.
John:
So to test that, I downloaded the audio on my Mac.
John:
and tried playing it there two things there one i'm doing this on a 5k imac which is not that old of a machine right it's i think it was is it the current 5k imac still maybe it is uh it's a 1080p movie and my 5k imac could not play it without dropping frames which i don't understand at all i tried it in itunes itself and i tried it in like the new crappy quick time player
John:
And both of them, they'd play it, but occasionally it would drop frames.
John:
But anyway, despite them dropping frames, the audio was still in sync with the frames that were there.
John:
So it's not the file.
John:
The audio is in sync in the file.
John:
I tried rebooting the Apple TV.
John:
I tried checking the audio and video settings in the Apple TV.
John:
I tried doing software updates in the Apple TV.
John:
It didn't need any.
John:
It was already up to date.
John:
This is an Apple TV 4K, all on the latest version of everything.
John:
playing an itunes movie i tried it on multiple different dates maybe it's just weird today maybe there's something else going on can it play this movie with all it was out of sync and it got it got worse like farther into the movie it went so this is a it's making me think about how i might try to get a refund although every time i think about it i'm like i have no idea how to do that and it'll probably involve calling someone on the phone and it'll be a hassle
John:
who the hell knows so now i have this cruddy copy of the terminator with the audio out of sync and now next time i need to get a movie and think like what's the least problematic way to get it i don't know maybe i'll just try to buy it from amazon or something i don't even know what my next in line is terminator 2 by the way didn't have this problem on the apple tv because we watched terminator 2 like the next day and i had already purchased both of them ahead of time so it wasn't like i had to reach you know i watched terminator 2
John:
the audio was in sync for the most part like there was a few seconds i'm like wait a second is it out of sync again i'm like no that's probably actually just bad adr anyway this this is uh really bothering me mostly because i don't know how to explain it but secondarily because now i don't really have a go-to for you're in a hurry you want the movie now
Marco:
I mean it's – do you think like does one bad occurrence here ruin this whole service?
Marco:
Because like I too have had occasional problems with iTunes bought content.
Marco:
Usually it's TV shows.
Marco:
But they're very occasional.
Marco:
Like the hit rate is very high like as a percentage.
Marco:
If you look at what else is out there, I don't think any of us have more experience with Amazon purchases for digital downloads or anything like that.
Marco:
We don't really know if they're actually better.
Marco:
In this case, this isn't a problem where Apple Lala Web Services, this is a problem where the file itself was probably at fault.
Marco:
The file itself was probably messed up.
Marco:
What can you really do about that?
Marco:
No service is going to be impervious to
John:
content providers uploading bad files but the file wasn't messed up like i said the audio was in sync when i played it on the mac it dropped frames but the audio was in sync all right so i mean there was some kind it's like a problem with playback and it's not like a it's not 4k i don't think like my tv is not 4k anyway but like i don't understand what its problem could have possibly been well it could have been maybe maybe it's like a bit rate thing like maybe it was encoded with like it like it didn't cap the bit rate in a way that like your mac is
Marco:
Well, I was going to say that your Mac is powerful enough to keep up, but not your Mac per se.
Marco:
One's Mac could be powerful enough to keep up compared to an Apple TV.
Marco:
In your case, your Apple TV is probably faster than your Mac.
John:
I watched it on my iPad too and also had audio sync problems then.
John:
Not as bad as the Apple TV, but definitely noticeable.
John:
So it is baffling.
John:
So yeah, maybe I'll just, I don't know, maybe I'll find a way to get a refund and like...
John:
uh just continue to go back to it as my only choice but it's definitely weird and there's no there's no way in the interface to complain about this i guess it's something they don't expect to have like the terminator is a popular movie so i don't quite understand how this this could happen and not them not know about it but maybe because everyone like me just gives up before they even start trying to figure out how to tell them
John:
Hey, Apple, your copy of the Terminator is messed up.
John:
There, I told him.
John:
File a bug.
Casey:
Why did you not try Plex?
Casey:
One of the advantages of Plex is that when you're Plex friends with other people, as I know you are, other people might have the movie you're looking for.
John:
That's like the least reliable way.
John:
I got to rely on someone else's server being up and their upload bandwidth being adequate to keep the movie streaming and them not turning off whatever computer they're running Plex on.
John:
I would never choose that for it's time to see a movie right now and be guaranteed that it works.
Casey:
Really?
Casey:
That's bananas to me because in my eyes, that is the most reliable way because I've never had an instance where one of my friends has randomly turned off the computer I was using.
John:
My Plex server that you have access to is on my wife's computer that she restarts all the time for any reason she feels like it.
John:
So you can be in the middle of a movie and it can restart.
John:
So let me tell you, do not expect five nines from my Plex server.
Marco:
Well, also, I mean, in my experience...
Marco:
you know flex server files are often either files that fell off of trucks or files that people have encoded themselves with rips and everything and those in my experience tend to be the least reliable in terms of audio sync to video like that that actually is a very common problem if people are bad at it yeah but my main thing is it would be lower quality because it's probably re-encoded or something that was already lossy encoded
Casey:
Well, even if that's true, at least like maybe it's just my values, but I would much rather have an SD video that is matched to the audio than a 1080 video where the audio is, you know, 10, 15 seconds.
Casey:
Well, they're milliseconds.
John:
You know, you're overestimating the audio.
John:
I think I'm talking the audio drift I'm talking about.
Casey:
Yeah, I shouldn't have said seconds.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
But you get my point is that personally for me and maybe you don't have to agree.
Casey:
But for me, I would much rather have synced crummy video than unsynced pretty video.
John:
i need to have it all anyway um someone mentions uh the movies anywhere thing do you guys know about that yeah yeah if if anybody out there doesn't know about this you need to know about this yeah so it's a some service that i think disney ran that somehow they got deals while the other streaming people were like if you buy anything anywhere it can appear appear in movies anywhere and you can play it back there and i think
Marco:
think it might be drm free when you play it in that context like oh no i doubt it's drm free but so yeah the point is basically like they have deals with like amazon itunes uh whoever else and and including when you redeem those codes that come with blu-rays and so you can buy a movie on a blu-ray redeem the code at movies anywhere and then it shows up as a purchased movie on apple's side in your itunes movie account if they have it
Marco:
It's crazy.
Marco:
I don't know how they rigged this deal up with Apple.
Marco:
I don't know how they got Apple to agree to this, or anybody else for that matter.
Marco:
Basically, almost every studio participates in this now.
Marco:
For me, I bought a bunch of Blu-rays on Black Friday because they were all discounted on various Black Friday sales.
Marco:
They were cheaper than buying movies on iTunes and Amazon and stuff.
Marco:
I bought a bunch of Blu-rays, I typed in the codes, and I put the Blu-rays in the closet.
Marco:
And I'm probably I'm not sure if I'll ever watch them, but I have the codes.
Marco:
And so now all those movies just showed up in my iTunes account.
Marco:
It's great.
John:
Yeah, I should try.
John:
I always forget about that.
John:
I do have that app installed and I do look at it.
John:
It's kind of cool to see all your movies like aggregated into a single place and everything.
John:
And I do use it occasionally to get like file downloads.
John:
for for you know services that i traditionally think of although i think amazon gives you file downloads now anyway i always forget that it exists when it comes time to watch a movie like this so i could have just bought it an itunes quit the movies app and then gone to the movies anywhere thing and see if i could play it there although do they have an apple tv app i have the app on my ipad where i watch a lot of credit movies but i assume they have an apple tv app somewhere the actual movies anywhere i'm not sure i've never looked because i don't need to because everything that i put in there shows up in my itunes thing oh well anyway watching movies is hard
Casey:
Transcription by CastingWords
Casey:
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Casey:
All right, over the last, what is it, 48 hours or so, maybe a week or so, Apple has brought something back from the dead.
Casey:
We have iPhone XS and XR smart battery cases, and even the XS Max gets a smart battery case now.
Casey:
Smart battery cases for everyone.
Casey:
I never had one originally.
Casey:
I was on the camp that it looked kind of silly with the humpback on it.
Casey:
These appear to be a little bit less silly looking to my eye because the humpback is going all the way to the bottom of the case rather than kind of being a bump in the middle.
Casey:
But they're $130 for the XS one.
Casey:
Is the Max one more expensive?
Casey:
I'm sure it is.
Marco:
I think they're all the same.
Casey:
Oh, they are all the same.
Casey:
You're right.
Casey:
These, I guess, are pretty cool.
Casey:
Like, this is not something that I personally feel like I need in my life, but they charge via Qi now, which is really cool.
Casey:
So the case will charge via Qi, and then the case will charge your phone.
Casey:
And from what I understand, they're really great.
Casey:
Marco, you got one, didn't you?
Marco:
not the new one no but we did have the old one tiff used it on her iphone 7 i think for almost the entire time that she had it i think you nailed it we're like you know we all made fun of it when it came out because it looked just ridiculous it was like by far one of the ugliest looking apple products that they've ever released and you know over over the coming weeks after it was released we came to learn well they did it that way because you know the it wouldn't block the antenna bands and every other case blocks the antenna bands and everything and
Marco:
And so there were some reasons why they made it so ugly.
Marco:
Like the shape of it had some practical upsides to it.
Marco:
And then in use, it was actually kind of nice because you could rest your pinky along the bottom edge of that like backpack that it was wearing.
Marco:
And so it was a way to, you know, like...
Marco:
If you look at pretty much any way that people hold large phones in more easy ways by sticking things to the back, they all kind of rest on this principle.
Marco:
It's easier to hold stuff near the middle of the back of the phone than it is to reach top and bottom edges.
Marco:
And so you can kind of rest your pinky on that little ledge and support the phone that way, and it was easier to hold a bigger phone that way.
Marco:
The new ones don't have that, and honestly, I consider that a slight regression in that way because it actually was really nice to hold that.
Marco:
But otherwise, the new ones appear to have...
Marco:
similar general appeal in that they you know they're kind of frumpy looking but they're providing excellent utility if you need a battery case we currently don't have a need for battery cases but if if we were to need one i'd go right to that one because when you compare it to other battery cases like it has the same advantages that the first one did first of all it charges via lightning in the
Marco:
This is very rare for peripherals and especially for battery cases.
Marco:
Almost all of them require micro USB in to charge, which now means you're carrying multiple types of cables with you necessarily.
Marco:
Whereas if it has lightning in, you can just plug in however you normally charge your phone.
Marco:
As you mentioned, Casey, this one also supports wireless charging, which very few battery cases do.
Marco:
So again, that's even better.
Marco:
It's like however you charge your iPhone now, you need to change nothing about that to charge this case.
Marco:
And then my favorite thing about the smart battery cases compared to other ones is other ones, they kind of act like USB battery packs in the sense that you have to turn them on.
Marco:
And then when you turn them on, they activate and become a power source for your phone.
Marco:
Your phone thinks it's pulled into the wall and pulls power until either it's full or the case battery is depleted.
Marco:
And there's a number of things about this that Apple improves upon with theirs.
Marco:
So first of all, there's no on-off switch.
Marco:
You don't have to think about whether it's on or off.
Marco:
You just charge through it when you have a chance, and it charges your phone until it's empty.
Marco:
So the phone stays at 100% until the battery case is empty, and then the phone starts draining itself from there.
Marco:
You can view the charge level in the batteries widget on iOS, which again, like other cases, you're at best with cases you have a four LED kind of dot situation, but that's usually the most detail you'll get.
Marco:
The other cases also have, because you have to manually turn them on or off,
Marco:
It's kind of wasteful if you turn them on and the phone fills up and you don't turn them off.
Marco:
It can slowly drain power in a weird, inefficient way.
Marco:
You can accidentally leave it on when you don't really need it to be there, like when you're not even using it and that can slowly drain the power.
Marco:
Or you can think you're charging up and then it's actually off.
Marco:
Having to manage the power switch on your battery case is annoying.
Marco:
And so for Apple to remove that and add all these smarts about how it charges it and where you can show the battery info and everything...
Marco:
and not having to have your own separate type of cable, it's a really convenient package.
Marco:
Like, I gotta say, it's very well done, and it's a decent capacity.
Marco:
It's not, like, super, super high capacity.
Marco:
If you need, like, maximum capacity, you want to look at other things besides this, but otherwise, like...
Marco:
It's a really nice package.
Marco:
Unfortunately, as usual, it's more expensive than what it replaced by a good deal.
Marco:
I think the old one was $100, I think.
Marco:
So if this is $130, that's a big increase.
Marco:
But it's typical of many modern Apple things, which is it kind of hurts to eat the price.
Marco:
But if you can get past that, it's a pretty good option.
John:
I think I find so weird about this battery case and has been weird about a couple of things is the timing.
John:
Like it seems to me that would have been much better to release the battery case at the same time that you release the phone, because that's when there's going to be a big rush of people who, uh, who are buying the phone because they want the latest and greatest.
John:
And they're the least price sensitive people.
John:
And when they buy it, they're going to buy accessories and they're going to buy a case.
John:
And if the type of person who used a battery case before they might want a battery case again, and it's not available for months, uh,
John:
Like, it's just bad.
John:
I mean, probably this is not their most important peripheral, so whatever.
John:
Same thing with the XR, with the clear case and everything.
John:
It's better to have the peripherals available when you launch the phones.
John:
And of all the things that you can't get done, obviously getting the phones ready for sale is much more important than getting these peripherals ready for sale.
John:
But it's the type of thing that seems odd that Apple has these weird misses in...
John:
timing on stuff like this not that i'm saying they should delay the phone or whatever but cases like they're it's not that i don't what what is it that made this thing be delayed is there something about this case did they not have batteries because they had to use them all on the phones like i'm sure there's some maximization somewhere but it just seems weird to me that uh you know they're it would be better if they could get their acts together and have launches where we're not where not something isn't delayed and the same thing with the 10 hour delay itself which obviously is more explicable because they you know maybe there's some
John:
conservation of parts or manufacturing capacities for the big phone launches but here's hoping that someday soon we can actually have a flagship product launch from apple that where everything launches at the same time including all the peripherals and there's no weird manufacturing problems and there's no like slow trickle i mean this is after the holidays for crying out loud i don't i don't understand it
John:
oh and as for the specific battery case uh the only thing looking at it and you can tell me well maybe it's not the same you can't tell me mark because you had the one the the one you had was for the uh seven yeah that's the only one that's ever existed before this yeah right i'm just trying to remember which phone it was on so uh the battery case unlike the apple leather case and the apple silicone case goes all the way around top and bottom and for a 10 style phone where you constantly swipe up from the bottom i don't like the idea of hitting the lip
John:
on the case now i can't tell from pictures whether the lip is big or small or whether you notice it or whatever but i do one of the things i like about apple's case is the leather one and the silicon one is they don't even have anything down there so you have no chance of hitting a lip when you do that very very frequent gesture which is swipe out from bottom um so if i go to an apple store and these one i think this is on display i'll have to try it out but i think it looks better than the old one it's more elegant i think i remember defending the old one's looks because it's like that johnny i've let's not hide the fact that there's something slapped to the back of this phone let's just
John:
you know let's embrace that and say guess what it's a phone with a thing stuck on the back this one actually does less of that it's like well it is a phone with things stuck on the back but let's try to blend it in you know to make it not quite as obvious like putting you know strategic makeup on a very large nose uh but it looks nice and if i had to get a battery case i think i would also get this one but the things you said about capacity and price like the the uh
Marco:
dollar per watt hour or whatever is not good on this case but that's not before you know what and you know like what the reality is like if you need a battery case at all you're already like you know a subset of the population and then like if you need a big big big battery case
Marco:
Those people exist.
Marco:
There's plenty of them in absolute numbers, but that's such a smaller percentage of the population.
Marco:
Apple's not going to make a case that is that big and heavy to have a three times your iPhone battery size battery in it.
Marco:
Realistically, this is the most they're going to do, and that's plenty for them, I think.
John:
So one interesting caveat about this case that Renee Ritchie pointed out and a couple other people did as well.
John:
You see, look at this case, you're like, oh, it's the iPhone XS smart battery case.
John:
And they have the one for the Max and they have one for the XR, yada, yada.
John:
What about the X?
John:
They never had a smart battery case for the X. But the XS is the same as the X. Can I just take the XS smart battery case and use it on the X?
John:
Well, the XS is kind of sort of the same as the X, like the same dimensions, the cameras in the same place and so on and so forth.
John:
But there are things that are different about it.
John:
And initially, I think people were like that you can't use it with the 10 because because of those differences, because, like, you know, the speaker holds one line or whatever.
John:
But he said, yes, you can use the tennis battery case with the iPhone 10 when you attach it to the iPhone 10.
John:
Apparently, you may get an incompatibility pop up that says, like, you can't use this device with this peripheral or whatever.
John:
But if you just dismiss that dialogue, apparently it charges fine.
John:
And if it doesn't work, they say if you just update to iOS or reboot or whatever, it'll work.
John:
You still have the problem that it'll be covering up some of your speaker holes and they won't be aligned.
John:
So you might not get a good sound performance out of it.
Marco:
but but like the speaker holes like you know the 10s reduced the amount of holes in the bottom because it had to make room for that antenna band but the speaker holes that it replaced were the ones that weren't there for any purpose anyway other than visual symmetry like the speakers in the bottom of all modern iphones they look like there's two speakers at the bottom but only one of them is actually the speaker you can tell by playing something and covering up each one with your thumb you can figure out which one is the actual speaker
Marco:
And so I think that the the one that's the real speaker hasn't changed between these two models.
Marco:
All they did was reduce the number of holes that were around what on the other side is actually the microphone hole.
John:
Oh, so are you blocking the microphone?
John:
Like, I don't know which ones are blocked and which ones.
Marco:
Well, I'm guessing the location of the microphone didn't change.
Marco:
Like all they did, I think when they added the antenna band on there and reduced the number of holes, I think the holes they got rid of were holes that weren't necessary anyway.
Marco:
So I think that's why, like, like Rene even said, he tried it on his 10 and he couldn't tell a difference with the sound.
Marco:
I think it's because there really isn't actually a difference.
John:
It's kind of weird that Apple didn't just make a 10 case.
John:
Like, I mean, I was speaking about timing how this didn't launch with the 10S.
John:
If they were going to make a battery case for the 10 style phone, why did they not do it for the entire year that the 10 was the flagship phone?
John:
I don't know.
John:
It's weird.
John:
Don't they want people's money?
John:
Don't they want this?
John:
I mean, the margins must be great on these things.
Marco:
anyway they look really cool do they come in colors i just see it in black here oh just black and white black and white yeah and i will warn you if you've never had the white silicone kit ours was white that tiff used and they do pick up lint and dirt and discoloration like crazy uh you know i i still honestly i still think the white is the better looking one of the two but uh just don't put it in like jeans pockets and expects to come out not covered in blue lint
John:
If you're making a science fiction movie, definitely get the white one, but just make sure you get it in the first few takes because it won't look that color for very long.
John:
Yeah, exactly.
John:
Doesn't it look like something from a sci-fi movie?
John:
It looks totally like something from a 70s sci-fi movie.
John:
It is a real device.
John:
The white looks super future-y.
Marco:
I can see that.
Marco:
I will say, too, as I mentioned, I don't usually use these kind of things.
Marco:
I have in the past.
Marco:
I have owned them in the past and have tried various things for various phones.
Marco:
But I really have tried over time, I've kind of learned my lesson a few times, to stop buying things that depend on the exact size and shape of a particular phone.
Marco:
Because we've seen this business long enough by now that we know that pretty much every new phone that we buy is very likely to require all new accessories of that type.
Marco:
Which means that you can spend $130 on this, but in however many years it is between now and when you buy your next phone, which is probably not that big of a number...
Marco:
That's all the use you're going to have out of this.
Marco:
At that point, this becomes useless and you throw it away or whatever.
Marco:
You're out that money and that's it.
Marco:
If you're lucky, you give it away to somebody who needs it.
Marco:
Whatever accessories you buy that are cases or that are very tightly fitting things or integrated things that depend on a phone's shape, those have a very limited lifespan.
Marco:
And so I have found over time that I try to minimize that as much as possible.
Marco:
I still usually will get whatever Apple's leather case is for my phone at the time, but I try to keep it at about that and hopefully nothing else.
Marco:
Anything like docks or anything, I try to get the ones that are size-adjustable, where they have little rails you can move back and forth or whatever to accommodate different phone sizes, and that will usually last many years or rely on things like wireless charging pads instead of docks in certain cases.
Marco:
uh, because it's just, it's so wasteful to get accessories like this.
Marco:
And then one to three years later, that battery is still good and could still be useful, but well, you know, I got a new phone.
Marco:
It doesn't fit.
Marco:
Oh, well, you know, give it away, throw it away, whatever.
Marco:
Um, so generally I find, um,
Marco:
For my external battery needs, which are relatively infrequent, I greatly prefer just standalone USB batteries that I can plug into my phone with a cable if I actually need that because it's infrequent enough that the inconvenience of that is much less significant than the wastefulness of having to buy one of these things every year or two.
Marco:
Now, if you're somebody who actually needs that extra battery life,
Marco:
every day then this makes more sense because then like that that calculus changes but if you're if you only need it like when you're on vacations or at conferences or whatever i strongly suggest considering just a regular usb battery pack which are so plentiful these days you probably already have one and just using a cable because it isn't as convenient or integrated as this but it goes in and out of your pocket a lot easier and it's so much less wasteful over time
Casey:
I used to always get battery cases for my phones the same way that you did, and my math also changed, and I've come to the same conclusion that you have, Marco, that I would use the batteries at conferences and maybe a couple other times, maybe if I were to go to a concert or something like that.
Casey:
generally speaking i never really need a battery for my phone and when i need one i can use past and probably future sponsor away you know my suitcase has a battery and i can just and granted it's physically quite large because it's designed to mostly live in the suitcase but it'll pop right out and i can take that with me and i would much rather have one battery that will last me across multiple generations of iphone
Casey:
then have to pay $130 or what have you every single time the phone changes.
Casey:
Even the speaker grills change, you know what I mean?
Casey:
And so I completely agree with you, Marco, that I personally think that an external battery pack that is not strapped to your phone is much better.
Marco:
Also, we live in a multi-device world.
Marco:
If you get a standalone USB battery thing, you can charge your phone, yes, or if you're out somewhere and you need to charge on your iPad or your Kindle or your Apple Watch or whatever else, you can charge those also.
Marco:
In fact, if you get a USB-C one, you can charge a MacBook.
Marco:
It's better rather than having like 15 different batteries for all these different devices or battery cases or whatever else.
Marco:
Just get one USB battery pack that you will keep charged and that you can keep in whatever bag you carry most often and have it be as versatile as possible.
Marco:
It's just nicer and easier in general to consolidate and have fewer phone-specific accessories and to have more generalists and fewer single-purpose batteries.
Marco:
Just get one or two general-purpose USB batteries and be done with it.
John:
unit asker is the word you're looking for yes um so talking about this first i think that most people who are not tech enthusiasts keep their phones for way longer than we think uh so maybe it's less of an issue for them like i just think about the phones i see people using and how old they are and how destroyed they all are and just how
John:
like they're not like you see something like that and you're like it's kind of like me with my car it's like they're not going to get a new one until that one like breaks or they or they can tell is about to break or like stops being functional for the purpose right that's kind of you know so maybe it makes more sense there but the other thing i maybe think of is the reason i've never bought a dock for any of my phones or ipod touches or whatever i always wonder like if the dock that
John:
The dock or charging station or whatever market is kind of like people get excited about one particular one that there's some Kickstarter for or something or they see a cool one for sale and they buy it and they love it and it's next to their bedside or wherever it is.
John:
And then it comes time to get their new phone.
John:
And what they want is to be like, I want to use it.
John:
You keep using my old dock or just find whatever the updated version of this dock is for the new phone.
John:
And they find it.
John:
Oh, the company that made this dock is out of business or this was just a random Kickstarter or the company that makes this dock is still in business and makes a dock for my new phone.
John:
But it's totally different because of the whims of fashion.
John:
And like, but I just want my old dock.
John:
or like that doc that you got involved in a kickstarter marco where like the doc didn't ship until they had changed to lightning so they had to give you this weird adapter like docs are not that they're expensive or anything but especially if you like fall in love with one and build your habits on it and it's like this is just what i want because it's beautiful and it has my phone in the right position and you know maybe some of them have a little place for your watch i think both of you have some weird thing that like puts your phone and you're watching it don't they studio neat
John:
Yeah, like you can make those better or worse, like more flexible.
John:
I think the ones you have are basically just like a big expanse with a lightning port poking out for you.
John:
You're like, well, as long as it's a lightning port, you know, this isn't trained to a particular width or thickness, but you know.
John:
Yeah, it's adjustable to different thicknesses.
John:
Yeah, that's why I've never been into those things because I just feel like if I ever found one that I really liked,
John:
I would just be disappointed.
John:
Speaking of which, speaking of finding something I really like and being disappointed, my stupid phone pouch, same thing.
John:
My phone pouch was looking a little rough.
John:
Like, you know, I'm using the one for my 7, which I thought, you know, even though the butt sticks out of it, I'm like, well, it's still, and I like it.
John:
It's fine.
John:
The butt sticks out, but it's fine.
John:
I'm like, well, this is looking kind of beat up.
John:
I shall order another one.
John:
Guess what?
John:
They don't make it anymore.
John:
Very sad.
Casey:
You could just go without a pouch.
John:
No, it's crazy talk.
Marco:
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Casey:
It is the middle of January, which means it's time for us to start thinking about 2019.
Casey:
And this has been in the show notes for a couple of weeks now.
Casey:
But I was thinking a while back that I feel like there are two interesting questions that I'd like to hear your opinions on and I'd like to weigh in with my own opinion.
Casey:
about Apple's 2019.
Casey:
And it seems like more than I can remember in the last several years, everyone, myself included, is kind of anticipating a very turbulent year for Apple.
Casey:
Not in a bad way, necessarily, but just that there's probably going to be a lot going on this year.
Casey:
And I got to thinking about, you know, what are some of the things that all of us feel like we're seeing some smoke about?
Casey:
Things like Marzipan, which we've heard about already at WWDC last year.
Casey:
And I don't recall what the formal statement from Apple was.
Casey:
I don't think they ever committed to this year.
Casey:
But it certainly stands to reason that we should hear more about it this year, even if it's not formally released.
Casey:
There's been plenty of smoke around the idea of ARM-based Macs.
Casey:
And then as we discussed last episode, supposedly there's a Mac Pro this year, maybe, possibly.
Casey:
And additionally, this new Apple streaming service, which I have unequivocally decided will be called Apple Video.
Casey:
You heard it here first.
Marco:
I actually agree.
Casey:
Yes.
Casey:
See, thank you.
Casey:
That will be this year, I think.
Casey:
And additionally, in the last week or two, I think it was in the last few days, actually, we've heard rumblings of maybe a new iPad mini and maybe a new iPad touch.
Casey:
What?
Casey:
That might be happening in 2019?
Casey:
So given this list of potential events, and maybe there's others that I didn't think of, I have two questions to ask each of you.
Casey:
And I can either start or finish.
Casey:
It doesn't matter.
Casey:
But the two questions are, what generally accepted story or event, like the ones I just went through, are you personally most interested in?
Casey:
And then secondarily, what generally accepted story or event do you think will affect Apple the most?
Casey:
So you may not be into it at all.
Casey:
So let's take an example.
Casey:
Like, I don't care about the Mac Pro.
Casey:
I actually don't think it'll affect Apple the most, but you could make an argument that a new Mac Pro could make a big difference to Apple.
Casey:
So maybe I would choose that the Mac Pro is the thing that will affect Apple the most, even though I don't care.
Casey:
So let's start with Marco.
Casey:
What do you think you are most interested in?
Casey:
And let's go through those for the three of us, and then we'll come back around and we'll talk about what will affect Apple the most.
Marco:
So I have a hardware answer and a software answer here.
Marco:
My hardware answer... So my theme here, I kind of touched on it last week.
Marco:
I think this is going to be a big year for Macs and for pro Mac hardware and maybe software too.
Marco:
But I think this is a big year for the Mac in a number of fronts.
Marco:
We've heard either Apple promising or rumors rumbling to the effect of...
Marco:
Big things happening, at least the Mac Pro hardware, the display that should be coming out, the possible rumblings of MacBook Pro update, maybe, and even the remote possibility of ARM Macs, which I think are possible this year.
Marco:
I wouldn't say likely, but I think possible.
Marco:
This could be a really interesting year for the Mac in particular.
Marco:
And they've kind of been leading up to this.
Marco:
I think this is the year where a lot of questions get resolved.
Marco:
That's ultimately what I'm excited about.
Marco:
We have the giant question of the Mac Pro.
Marco:
We have the giant question of what the heck are they going to do in the next MacBook Pro?
Marco:
Are they going to change the keyboard?
Marco:
Are they going to do anything else to address Pro needs a little bit better or whatever else?
Marco:
The Mac Pro, I think, is...
Marco:
interesting in, like, John's Halo car sense, but it's not, like, super important, actually, in most ways.
Marco:
So, for the hardware pick, I actually am more interested, even though this is sacrilege in the show...
Marco:
I'm actually more interested to see how and if they answer questions about the MacBook Pro.
Marco:
That is the more interesting hardware thing to me.
Marco:
And so I look forward to, I don't know that we're going to get an answer to that this year,
Marco:
But I think it's about time for that.
Marco:
I think it's likely.
Marco:
I think we probably will.
Marco:
And I just really want to see what is the next MacBook Pro?
Marco:
How do they take these three years of feedback and make the next product out of that?
Marco:
I really hope that that gets answered this year.
Marco:
And I hope it's a satisfactory answer because it has seemed recently like they're in the weirdest spot right now where
Marco:
in something that I don't think we expected, their desktops are actually in pretty good shape right now.
Marco:
This is a great time to be a Mac desktop user.
Marco:
The iMac Pro is fantastic.
Marco:
The new Mac Mini is fantastic.
Marco:
Who would have thought that I would be saying these things, right?
Marco:
And the iMac is a little outdated.
Marco:
So the iMac is not a great buy right now, but it's still a great computer.
Marco:
There's nothing wrong with it.
Marco:
It's just outdated.
Marco:
So the high-end and the specialized desktop lines are great.
Marco:
And the Mac Pro is probably going to make that even better.
Marco:
But because the iMac Pro is so great already, and the Mac Mini is also so great and also solves a lot of potential Mac Pro use cases, there's actually, I think, less need than ever for the official Mac Pro.
Marco:
So the Mac Pro, I think, is... I'm looking forward to it finally, and I might even buy one, but...
Marco:
it's actually less burning of a question for me because the laptop line is, I think the MacBook Pro is still like partially on fire.
Marco:
It's not quite as bad as before the keyboard membrane version, but it's not great.
Marco:
And so I really want to see how that's resolved.
Marco:
And I think we will actually have that answered this year.
Marco:
And then on the software side, again, this is some Mac excitement here.
Marco:
I want to see what the heck Marzipan ends up being like.
Marco:
That's the big question to me.
Marco:
Our Macs might also be a big thing, and that would be potentially cool new interesting hardware and some kind of software ramifications.
Marco:
But that's honestly not as interesting to me as what the heck is going on with Marzipan.
Marco:
Because I'm a Mac user.
Marco:
I love the Mac.
Marco:
I'm an iOS developer.
Marco:
I don't love developing for the Mac, and I've done very little of it as a result.
Marco:
I love developing for iOS.
Marco:
I'm also, as a Mac user, I've been scared about the clear slowdown in the development of new, good Mac software over the last decade or so.
Marco:
So the Mac...
Marco:
has all these unanswered questions going on around it.
Marco:
And I really do think 2019 will be the year that a lot of these questions get answered.
Marco:
And I'm just super excited about that.
John:
John?
John:
We're doing it one question at a time?
John:
Oh, this is too easy for me.
John:
I'm obviously most interested in the Mac Pro, like, for many reasons.
John:
You've all heard all my reasons over many years.
John:
I need a new computer.
John:
I want it to be a Mac Pro-style computer.
John:
They said they're going to make one.
John:
That is where all my interest is.
John:
I actually am, secondarily, even though I hate laptops, very interested in laptops just because I'm so angry about this three- or four-year run of bad laptops.
John:
And I really, like, I have...
John:
because i know they will make a new laptop and because i there is less flexibility like the mac pro could be anything and you know it could be a weird pyramid shape floating thing who knows the hell you know but laptop is going to be a laptop and i just want to see it have a decent keyboard and maybe have some more ports on it and i'm just you know but uh but i hate laptops so i'm not interested in that i just in an academic sense you know and and in kind of a apple you know get your stuff together kind of
John:
it's the part of the Mac business where they have screwed up the worst and so they need to, where they've screwed up the worst and haven't announced the fixed.
John:
They screw up the worst probably in the Mac Pro, but they've announced, they've said all the right things about that, whereas they're not saying anything about the MacBooks other than like,
John:
And maybe at best, like, stay tuned or whatever.
John:
Like, they haven't said... They haven't even said that.
John:
Yeah, well, they don't have to.
John:
Like, we know that... Like, we're going to come out with a new laptop.
John:
Yeah, we know.
John:
We know you're going to come out with a new laptop eventually.
John:
They don't have to announce that.
John:
It's not like the Mac Pro where we question whether they're going to make another one.
John:
But about it, they have said nothing.
John:
And they haven't had any sort of, like...
John:
roundtable where they talk about the laptops and say, we hear you about the keyboard.
John:
The next one will have a better keyboard and more ports.
John:
They have not said that.
John:
So that's my second place.
John:
That's my honorable mention.
Marco:
As far as the Mac goes, the Mac Pro doesn't affect that many people.
Marco:
Anything that happens to the laptops, the laptops are the Mac.
Marco:
They are by far the biggest sellers.
Marco:
Relatively, nobody buys desktops.
Marco:
The laptops are the line.
Marco:
And so when the laptops have a problem, that's a way bigger impact on the Mac in general than if the desktops have a problem.
John:
Yeah, they screwed up the Mac Pro the worst, but even a much smaller screw-up on the Macs that they actually sell is a bigger deal.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
For me, I don't know if it's going to happen in 2019, but the thought of ARM Macs I think is the most interesting.
Casey:
It is hard for me to argue against the MacBook Pros and if there's something different happening there because I think, Marco, you make a very compelling case that
Casey:
But in terms of just interest and what just piques my interest the most, I think it's ARM Macs.
Casey:
And I'm not necessarily predicting it's going to happen this year, but there's enough smoke around this fire that it's a possibility.
Casey:
And I just think an ARM Mac would be fascinating, both in terms of how do they manage the hardware transition, but also how do they manage the software transition and does it look like...
Casey:
You know, the transition from PowerPC to Intel, or is it something totally different?
Casey:
Is Marzipan really kind of a Trojan horse to get ARM Macs to be a thing?
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
But I think for the one that I'm most interested in, it's got to be ARM Macs because that's kind of all-encompassing and would mark a pretty dramatic change in direction for the Mac.
Casey:
So that's what I'm most interested in.
Casey:
Now, Marco, tell me, of all the things you've gone over, what do you think will affect Apple the most?
Marco:
I don't have as good of an answer for this one.
Marco:
I mean, if you go strictly speaking, what will affect them the most, I think whatever the iPhone is this fall.
Marco:
But that's kind of a boring answer.
Marco:
In a larger way,
Marco:
They're pushing into services, and that does weird things to their incentives.
Marco:
If you look at iCloud storage, the user experience of using a phone without photo backup, they don't have space for all your photos to do full-blown iCloud photo library and iPhone backup.
Marco:
It's a miserable experience without that.
Marco:
People get these pop-ups saying you're out of storage space.
Marco:
You know what those people don't do?
Marco:
They don't go sign up for plans.
Marco:
That's what they do.
Marco:
Instead, they just dismiss those boxes and they think their phone is annoying and eventually their phone breaks or gets lost and they lose all the pictures of their kid for the last three years.
Marco:
that's not a great way to do these things.
Marco:
And it does leave open competitive holes.
Marco:
That's why you see the Google ads that poke fun at it and say, buy our phone, you won't have this problem.
Marco:
That's a pretty compelling sales pitch.
Marco:
So I think...
Marco:
What has a non-trivial chance of happening is what a couple of our podcast friends have also been speculating about.
Marco:
I think there might actually end up being some kind of expansion of one of the Apple services.
Marco:
Probably, what's the iPhone care thing where you get a new phone every year?
Marco:
Upgrade program.
Marco:
I'm guessing they expand one of their subscription offerings, probably the upgrade program.
Marco:
into including an iPhone every two years, whatever it is, so an iPhone every X years, and also iCloud storage, and also Apple Music and Apple Video, to have one subscription that they can kind of, if they have this, this solves a number of problems.
Marco:
So first of all, and you can look at Amazon Prime as one of the reasons of why this is so compelling for the business, too.
Marco:
If you have a service that you want a bunch of people to sign up for, but they aren't, you bundle it with something that they are going to pay for, right?
Marco:
So here's what Apple knows.
Marco:
Everyone wants to buy iPhones.
Marco:
Yes, even now after this disappointing quarter, everyone still wants to buy iPhones, right?
Marco:
And everyone doesn't want to pay for Apple music or Apple videos separately.
Marco:
And everyone sure as hell does not want to pay for their, for their photo storage.
Marco:
So what Apple can, Oh, and they already did this to some degree with Apple care.
Marco:
The iPhone upgrade program includes Apple care and you still pay for it.
Marco:
Like it's, it's just the cost of the phone plus Apple care amortized over 24 months or whatever it is like you're not saving money or you're saving some, some, some small trivial amount of money.
Marco:
But if you sign up for that, you get AppleCare too.
Marco:
Apple gets the money for AppleCare too.
Marco:
So they automatically tie AppleCare to the phone sales.
Marco:
So if they can make an even more compelling package there that includes all these other services, even at some basic levels, then they can prevent people from not getting them when they get their phone through this program.
Marco:
So they can bundle in and think about everything this does.
Marco:
First of all, it gets more sales to Apple stores instead of carrier stores because the Apple store version of the description is more valuable.
Marco:
It gets more people to have a better experience and better data safety because they actually have their phone fully backed up and all their photos backed up.
Marco:
And Apple still gets the money for all these services.
Marco:
And if they started out with Apple Music and then later on they add Apple Video or even if they do it up front, that gets more people into those services.
Marco:
And then that makes those services more valuable and makes people more likely to stick with them because if you are buying the iPhone upgrade program package anyway and it comes with a music service, how likely are you to use Spotify after that?
Marco:
if it comes with a video service that you're already paying for and have anyway, are you really going to also get HBO now or Netflix?
Marco:
Maybe, you know, some people won't because they'll already paying for this.
Marco:
This is what happened to the Amazon prime.
Marco:
This is why prime is so big for Amazon.
Marco:
It's like people all bought it for the fast shipping and Amazon's been shoving all this other stuff into it.
Marco:
And people now like now they have this huge install base for their crappy video service because everyone kind of had it quote for free anyway with the shipping program.
Marco:
And now they have this massive video service as a result.
Marco:
So like there's a lot of reasons I think for Apple to do a large bundle subscription.
Marco:
By the way, it also fixes iPhone sales because it makes people more predictably upgrade no matter what phone they release.
Marco:
So it solves a lot of problems.
Marco:
It really does if they do something like this.
Marco:
I don't think we've heard anything that suggests that they are doing something like this, but I think they should.
Marco:
And if they did this, I think that would have the biggest effect on Apple.
Casey:
Yeah, I think it's hard not to imagine Apple wanting to do a kind of get all the Apple things service.
Casey:
It seems like such an obvious answer.
Marco:
Well, not all the things.
Marco:
Because what they don't want to do is lose add-on sales, attachment sales, upgrade sales.
Marco:
They're not going to give you everything.
Marco:
But they should give you like a baseline level of all these things.
Marco:
So like services that only really have a fixed price where you get everything for that fixed price, like Apple Music, that makes sense.
Marco:
The iPhone plan, I wouldn't expect that to be like the two terabyte plan.
Marco:
I would expect that, you know, whatever like the base one is, is it 100 gigs or something like that?
Marco:
Whatever the base one is, that would be the one that's probably included.
Marco:
And then if you want a bigger one, you pay a little bit more per month.
Marco:
Um, and I wouldn't, and I think too, like the hardware, like, you know, you can, you, it's the same thing with a great program.
Marco:
Like you don't get the best iPhone for the base price.
Marco:
Your price varies depending on the iPhone you choose.
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
And how expensive that is.
Marco:
So I think it would be like that, you know, but it's still, you're still getting a lot for one price that you just build into your budget and you, it just, Oh yeah, I pay, you know, 60 bucks a month for my iPhone and the things around it or, you know, whatever the cost is.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
John, what will affect Apple the most?
John:
I'm going to actually take the boring answer because that's probably the actual answer, which is what the new iPhone is.
John:
And the main reason it's a big deal in the upcoming year is because we're just coming off this change in guidance about earnings.
John:
And then we're going to get the second impact of that story when the actual earnings come out, the ones they warned us about.
John:
Even though it's the same story, unless there's some dramatic difference like,
John:
oh, we warned you, but it turns out everything was great after all.
John:
It's probably not going to be, you know, they warned us.
John:
I mean, it's going to be bad, right?
John:
So this next phone is super important.
John:
And the main reason I've been thinking about this phone is, well, two reasons.
John:
One, like, we talked many reasons about...
John:
why phone sales might be down and all sorts of the china issues or whatever but there are other ancillary things in addition to like the battery replacement program and one of the things in that giant bucket of things that probably didn't help phone sales is the fact that the whole phone line changed over to the 10 style and some people may be wary about that because it's not what they're used to like we all did that transition already and we're fine with it but we're early adopters everyone else may be less so but
John:
The next one of those that's coming along, well, first of all, presumably that's going to continue.
John:
And, you know, I don't think the home button's coming back.
John:
So the new ones are all going to be like that.
John:
And now there's the rumor of USB-C floating around again.
John:
We talked about this a couple of years ago.
John:
We will continue to talk about it until they do it or until they lose the connectors entirely.
John:
uh if they did that this year like this is kind of it's not a make or break phone but it's a more important phone than normal because it may be a new and perform factor so there's a lot of question marks around that it may have a new connector and it's kind of important for this phone to do better to be like they need the story for 2019 needs to be better than the story we're about to have for their earnings on the the 10s and the 10r and everything like that
John:
However things worked out and whoever's fault it is or whatever, the pressure is on.
John:
And so I think because the phone is most of their money and it's their flagship product and this is a very important year and it's a year when potentially many things could be changing, that's going to affect them the most.
John:
And that is the boring answer, but I think it's the answer.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I do want to talk about the sort of Prime-type service that Marco was talking about that has been discussed in the Apple nerd community for a while now.
John:
I keep thinking of it as Apple One because Google calls their storage thing Google One, which is a terrible name for a storage service.
John:
But Apple One is not what they'll call it because that's too highfalutin of a name.
John:
I don't know what they'll come up with.
John:
But the thing that I have my head scratching about this Apple plan is
John:
And it has nothing to do with what Apple will do, because they may do something very much like what Marco described.
John:
But what I would suggest to Apple that they do in this type of strategy, that you're going to have one subscription thing, to tell them I need to figure out what the tractor is.
John:
So Marco mentioned the fast shipping in Amazon Prime, right?
John:
That's why everyone got Prime.
John:
I don't even know if it had any benefits beyond that in the beginning.
John:
It didn't.
John:
Lots of people order stuff from Amazon.
John:
and and even even today for the generation of people when prime was introduced who were ordering things online we're still of the generation where uh it's like the uh who buys batteries old people seinfeld sketch where shipping seemed like an affront like i want stuff and i don't want to leave my house i don't want to pay extra money for it to come to me and so just it's not it's not even the amount of money it's just that it seems like
John:
especially for small purchases where the shipping becomes a large portion of the thing.
John:
You're like, I could go to the store, but I don't want to get in my pajamas, but I don't want to pay shipping.
John:
There's a huge psychological draw of, I would love to buy everything I can on Amazon, but I just hate the idea of shipping.
John:
Maybe I can afford shipping.
John:
Maybe it's not even the money.
John:
It's just the idea of shipping.
John:
That was a tremendous tractor onto which they could attach all this crap, right?
John:
And I actually think Amazon's video services is not that bad and they have some good original content.
John:
Music service is less appealing.
John:
But anyway...
John:
That was an incredibly powerful tractor.
John:
It still is probably the reason most people buy Prime because it just feels good not to have to pay shipping.
John:
I don't think people even end up doing the math, right?
John:
And I don't even think it sells mostly to people who can't afford it.
John:
In fact, I think Prime probably sells the most for the people who can most afford the shipping, right?
John:
It's people who are just like, I just want to make shipping go away because I don't like that feeling, right?
John:
I don't know what the tractor is for Apple One type service unless they do what they have heretofore not done, which is
John:
I'm going to suggest a tractor, but before I suggest one, can you guys think of what's the tractor in an Apple One all-encompassing?
John:
It's the iPhone.
John:
Yeah, absolutely.
John:
But what about the iPhone?
Marco:
It's getting an iPhone.
Marco:
But you can get an iPhone now without Apple One.
Marco:
Yeah, or you can get this wonderful monthly upgrade program where you don't have to spend $1,100 up front.
Marco:
You can spend whatever, $40, $50, $60 a month on it instead, and you don't have to think about it.
Marco:
And it comes with AppleCare.
Marco:
But you can do that now.
Marco:
Right, and so that's why I think what I'm suggesting is they basically do an expansion of that, where they just throw more stuff into that plan.
John:
Yeah, but they'd have to charge more money if they throw more stuff into that plan.
Marco:
Sure they would, but I think that is the draw.
Marco:
For $40 a month, you can get this phone, or for...
Marco:
$50 or $60 a month, you can get everything.
Marco:
The Amazon Prime trick to this is they don't even make it an option.
Marco:
They don't even give you a choice.
Marco:
There is no shipping-only Amazon Prime service because if they offered one, a lot fewer people would get all the other crap that comes with it.
Marco:
I know I wouldn't.
Marco:
If Apple really wants to push people into this, what they would do is only offer this plan that includes everything.
Marco:
I don't know if they would go that far, at least maybe not at first,
Marco:
But they could really just do the upgrade program, add $10 or $20 a month to it, and have that include Apple Music and Video and iCloud storage.
Marco:
And that would be pretty awesome.
John:
So here's what I think they have to use as their tractor.
John:
You're right that the iPhone is the thing that has the most draw.
John:
But I think for any service like this to work, they need to do something like what I just described with Amazon, where...
John:
just the idea of shipping is is making that go away is is the thing now there's nothing really like that in the apple world uh except for maybe storage which i'll get to in a second but i think the best tractor for this is for apple to to give up on like what they have traditionally done which is all their sort of financing uh
John:
you know pay over time layaway loan type things all of them have either been the same cost as buying it up front or more expensive i think for apple one to work the draw has to be get an iphone for less money than you could get one for otherwise not a lot less money in fact so little less money that it practically doesn't matter
John:
but the the draw is not that you can get an iphone and not that you can get an iphone by paying monthly instead of paying all at once but that you can get an iphone for less and it doesn't even matter how much less it is it could be like one dollar less as long as you get people talking about the idea like oh if you wanted to get an iphone you got to do the apple one plan because you can get it for less money how does apple make money on that type of thing well the apple one plan all together you're not just paying for the phone you're paying for other benefits as well so they say you should get that plan because it gives you
John:
The Apple video service, Apple Music, more iCloud storage, so on and so forth, all of which you pay for it, again, at some potentially reduced rate than if you bought them separately.
John:
But the main point is, but if you buy all that stuff, you get the iPhone for less money.
John:
That's all it has to be.
John:
It has to be the program that you get to reputation for.
John:
The cheapest way to get an iPhone is like this.
John:
And they're like, well, it's not actually cheaper because you're paying for a bunch of other stuff.
John:
And what if I don't want Apple Music?
John:
And it's like, yeah, but that's like an extra, you know, five or ten dollars.
John:
Like, and you might have bought that anyway.
John:
In fact, that stuff is cheaper, too.
John:
But the point is, you get the iPhone for less money.
John:
And that's the only tractor I can think of.
John:
And the thing that bothers me about their services thing is...
John:
the tractor for netflix is original programming like they're getting into this realm with the apple video service uh where they have to it's like i said uh i think last show like it's like pixar it becomes like a hit-based business where you're making content that has to be good kind of like the products like you have to make phones that are good too right but
John:
the phone is is their strongest pull but in netflix they don't have a phone they they have to make good shows that you want to watch and that's all they can do so i do wonder about the apple video service like as a weird attachment thing that that you put onto the tractor of getting an iphone for a dollar less that tricks people into buying more stuff from you because they're in their in their mind it feels good to get a quote-unquote get a deal on an iphone i
John:
the video service is like oh and they give you this video service like it has to it has to have some appealing value so they do need also to have like a hit show or something music doesn't help because everyone's got all the same music at this point so i don't i don't think they can differentiate that on that but to tell someone yeah and you also have to pay this extra money the two little mini tractors they have alongside are never get that stupid dialogue that you're that your phone is full which means they would have to give people
John:
what we've always talked about like just you should give people as much storage as the phones they buy can hold right i think that's what they have to do because the value of getting more storage is not getting more storage it's not having to worry about storage anymore so if you give them 100 gigs instead of five gigs and they still run out of space they still hate you for it you have to say get this and you won't get the dialogue ever again
John:
So that's a hurdle they have to overcome.
John:
And the second thing is the video service has zero value unless there's one show that people talk about that you're interested in on their service.
John:
So that's a big ask.
John:
Cell phones for slightly less.
John:
Give them storage so they don't have to wear storage anymore and have at least one or two good shows on Apple Video to get people talking about it.
John:
That is a plan that you could get more people into.
John:
I wouldn't include AppleCare, and I wouldn't include, like, get the upgrade whole type thing because I think that's asking for too much.
John:
Like, you have to keep this bill down to a reasonable rate.
John:
Prime is, like, what, $90 a year?
John:
And you're talking about $60, $70, $80 a month?
John:
That's not a mass market program.
John:
So that's my advice to Apple on any sort of one-purchase program is...
John:
eliminate things that eliminate concerns entirely when it comes to the storage and when it comes to like you know the phone everything have the tractor be get an iphone for cheaper and you've got to make one or two good shows and that's that's a hell of a bill to fill and i don't think actually that's all coming in 2019 which is why i still listed the iphone and even if they did all that in 2019 the iphone would still affect them the most because
John:
In the first year you launch the thing, who knows who even is going to sign up for it.
John:
So long term, that may affect Apple's trajectory the most.
John:
But in 2019 itself, it's still the boring old iPhone.
Casey:
I understand what you're saying about this whole tractor thing.
Casey:
And yeah, the obvious answer is the iPhone.
Casey:
But I don't know.
Casey:
I feel like there's a really clear marketing angle where Apple says, look, you want to have an iPhone every year.
Casey:
You don't want to have to worry about storage.
Casey:
You don't want to have to worry about your photos being backed up.
Casey:
You don't want to have to worry about where you're getting your music.
Casey:
And you don't have to worry about where you're getting your video either.
Casey:
And so with this one monthly fee, you will get a phone once a year.
Casey:
You will get all the music in the world.
Casey:
You will get all of our original content, which I agree with you, John, that we don't know if that original content is useful or not, but who knows.
Casey:
But we will give you the storage so that you never get nagged, which is what you just said.
Casey:
I think the storage, in addition to all the other things, may be enough pull to get people to do it.
Casey:
And certainly, if Apple has a couple of really hit shows, then that would put it right over the edge.
Casey:
But I think it's even more than the storage...
Casey:
I think it's just the one bill to solve all your problems, which of course isn't literally the case, but one bill to get all of your photo issues resolved, one bill to get all of your backup issues resolved, one bill to get all of your music desires resolved, one bill to hopefully get all of your TV or your movie stuff resolved.
Casey:
And who knows?
Casey:
Maybe they would throw in like...
Casey:
You can get a couple of iTunes rentals for free every month or something like that.
Casey:
I don't suspect that to happen, but you never know.
Casey:
But the thought of them discounting the iPhone is a tough pill for me to swallow.
John:
For this whole plan, there has to be some discount somewhere in there, and no one cares about discounts on Apple Music or Apple Video.
John:
or discounts on apple care all they care about is discount on the iphone and again you can make this count 10 bucks like it doesn't have to be a lot but the whole point is you you have to there has to be a value proposition and i don't even question the whole thing of like i want an iphone every year i don't know if people do want an iphone every year i know some people who get used to their phone and want even if you gave them a free upgrade they'd be like i just want to keep this phone because i like it because i'm not sure about the new ones like some people want a phone every year and those people would probably be the most likely to pay for this thing
John:
But it can't be one of those Apple-style plans where you just add up the prices of everything and add a little bit on top.
John:
Because they're like, why would I do this?
John:
Like, yes, one bill is convenient.
John:
But, you know, I liked it when they consolidated the family plan or whatever.
John:
But the mass consumer is like any sort of bundle.
John:
There has to be a savings.
John:
And the only thing people care about savings for is the phone.
John:
It's like Prime.
John:
Prime, people bought it when it was just shipping.
John:
Like, that's all they cared about.
John:
everything else they didn't care about it was on top of it so there's nothing you can do for like oh i'm buying this because i get these add-ons they have to buy it and say yada yada yada add-ons the whole point is that i pay less money for the iphone and so i you know and that is totally not an apple thing to do i know they're raising all their prices and so on and so forth but like that's you need to appeal to people's sense of getting a bargain somewhere
Casey:
Yeah, I hear you.
Casey:
But I really think the one fee to fix everything, because I forgot about AppleCare, you don't have to worry about breaking your screen within reason.
Casey:
And so I really think one fee to get it all done is maybe enough.
John:
I think AppleCare is a deal breaker price-wise because it's so damn expensive.
John:
But maybe they could just spread that out over three years or something.
John:
Because I know so many people are like, I want AppleCare.
John:
Then you show them how much it is and you're like, oh, never mind.
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
Hi.
Casey:
But just as a final thought, my answer to my own question, what will affect Apple the most?
Casey:
I think Apple Video or whatever it ends up being called, which I do think it will be Apple Video.
Casey:
I think that is really going to change Apple because if it flops, I think that will have a ripple effect, possibly even more than the Project Titan that may or may not have ever existed before.
Casey:
And if it's a success, then that changes the way Apple feels about things.
Casey:
And so suddenly they become a content company.
Casey:
And we actually recorded today for RelayFM members.
Casey:
Myself, Alex Cox, and Stephen Hackett did an episode of Fusion, which is just for Relay members, where we kind of dive into this a little bit.
Casey:
And it's worth listening to if you are a Relay member.
Casey:
And if you're not, you should be one.
Casey:
But anyway, I just think that having one Apple bill that solves almost all your problems might be enough.
Casey:
I think we should move on to Ask ATP, but before we do, Marco, any closing thoughts on all this?
Marco:
I don't think so.
Marco:
I think you pretty much covered it.
Marco:
I do agree with John.
Marco:
There should be some kind of significantly motivating factor, but I don't think it needs to be as much of an exclusive discount, as he says.
Marco:
I really do think that
Marco:
Just offering all this stuff together as part of the iPhone upgrade program for some smaller additional fee every month, like on the order of $20 a month more or $15 a month more, whatever it is, I think that's very powerful.
Marco:
Because ultimately, people are going to come in and buy iPhones anyway.
Marco:
The iPhone upgrade program, by most accounts we've heard, has been a success.
Marco:
People do seem to be doing it in good numbers.
Marco:
And making a single price thing that includes all this stuff, it just makes so much sense from both a consumer point of view and from a point of view of helping Apple get more services off the ground.
John:
To be clear, they can do like what you're describing, like that plan.
John:
That will be a success in and of itself is just, you know, people who have lots of money will do it for the convenience.
John:
Like there is that convenience of it.
John:
But I'm trying to think like Amazon Prime bigger as in like, how can you get it to appeal to the widest variety of people, not just like...
John:
How can you make it more convenient for people who are going to give you that, like us?
John:
We give them that money anyway.
John:
I buy the biggest storage plan.
John:
I buy the family thing.
John:
I buy AppleCare.
John:
I buy all the expensive phones.
John:
I would love to have that consolidated into a single bill.
John:
So that is a valuable product that will work for customers exactly like me.
John:
But what I'm trying to think of are all the customers who don't buy the backup plan and cheap out on the storage and don't replace their phones every year and don't care about Apple Music or Apple Video and
John:
Like how are you going to get them on board the Amazon Prime train?
Casey:
Yeah, and I think that's me that you're describing because I do get an iPhone almost every year.
Casey:
I am a devout Spotify user, but I could be convinced if I felt like I was saving even a few bucks somewhere that – and not necessarily on hardware, just somewhere.
Casey:
If I get the video stuff, the music stuff, if I get iCloud storage, which I still am not paying for even though, yes, I know I should.
Casey:
Please email somebody else.
Casey:
What?
John:
Did we do this already?
Casey:
We did.
Casey:
We did.
Casey:
Yes, we already did.
Casey:
I've been beaten up about it.
John:
I was just going to ask you if you were buying the family plan, but you're not buying the storage at all.
John:
That's terrible.
John:
We need to put that in the follow-up, and until you buy it, we just ask you about it every week.
Casey:
We'll make a web.
Casey:
Somebody will make a single-serving site for you.
John:
You're going to be like my parents.
John:
I'll just have to buy it for you without your knowledge and not tell you about it.
Casey:
Perfect.
John:
Sold.
John:
I'm going to delegate that to Marco, actually.
Casey:
Marco did it.
Casey:
I could see myself being convinced because the idea of just getting one bill that just covers everything is appealing, and maybe that makes Spotify go away.
Casey:
I don't watch...
John:
that much netflix maybe netflix would go away probably not but you never know the video service is the hardest because no one who's into orange is the new black is going to say well now that i've got apple video like people buy people subscribe to the services because there are specific shows they want increasingly exclusive shows no one is going to ditch cbs all access because they get apple video because cbs all access has star trek so video is tough they they need to make good shows
Marco:
The reason why Netflix took off so well is because you can have just Netflix and always have something to watch.
Marco:
You don't have that with services that are exclusively original content like HBO.
Marco:
Like you can't, if you're a big HBO fan, you can go there and you can watch Game of Thrones and whatever else you watch on there like when it's in season.
Marco:
But then when it's out of season, you don't have much you can go there for.
Marco:
And so if Apple's doing exclusively original content, which, I mean, I don't think we necessarily know that from the reports so far, but it's most likely that it's going to be exclusively original content, you know, based on how they appear to be doing things so far.
Marco:
So if that's mostly it, if there's not going to be some giant catalog of 90s sitcoms that you can watch reruns of instead when you feel like doing that, it's not going to be a service where people are like, I'm going to cancel Netflix and go to that.
Marco:
They're going to watch stuff on there when there's a reason to,
Marco:
And when there's not, they're going to go elsewhere.
Marco:
And that's why I think it's going to be a really tough sell.
Marco:
To get a video service off the ground in this day and age, when all the competitors are very mature and have huge catalogs, to get something off the ground today that's probably going to have a fairly small catalog to start...
Marco:
is not going to be easy, especially since Apple, you know, is not incredibly good at launching these kinds of things.
Marco:
See, the Apple Music launch.
John:
The way everyone talks about this launch, which I think would make sense to downscope this slightly, is like, oh, how does Apple deal with an Apple video service?
John:
You just make a part of Apple Music with no increase in price.
John:
Done.
John:
Like that's exactly the prime model.
John:
Say you already buy Apple Music because for whatever reason you like Apple Music, works with your HomePod.
John:
Guess what?
John:
You got video for free.
John:
Oh, I don't even care about video.
John:
I was like, well, what are you getting it?
John:
So deal with it.
John:
And suddenly Apple Video has exactly the same user base as Apple Music, which is actually doing better than probably the last time we talked about it.
John:
um that is not apple one where you get everything in a phone upgrade and the storage or whatever but it is the obvious way to launch apple video in an amazon style that is not an apple style we come up with a new service and you get it for free than the same price with apple music not apple not the old apple style but the new services oriented apple style if they care about getting adoption and they have any you know like that's that's the way to do it that is exactly the prime plan it's just less exciting for us hoping for an apple one service
Marco:
well and you know and maybe that's like the baby version of it like i i agree that is probably the more like it's like kind of the safer it's the safer smaller step i don't necessarily know if it would come with no price increase i think maybe maybe apple music would suddenly become 20 bucks a month instead of 15 for the family just the usual snake like the price wouldn't increase when the video was added but apple music would just creep up in price like everything else and
Marco:
a way that you don't notice like well that's not that's why amazon did it amazon charged a fixed price for prime for for years and then they started adding a bunch of stuff to it and then like a couple years after they added a bunch of stuff like we're going to raise the price because now you're getting so much more for this yeah
John:
And the good thing is they raised the price after, I think, Amazon Video has proven its worth.
John:
They had some good shows that people like.
John:
I wouldn't want to get rid of Prime now partially because of the video, because Patriot was on there and The Man in the High Castle.
John:
They actually have shows that I care about.
John:
In the beginning, they didn't, but now they do.
John:
So when they increased the price, there was no question that I was going to keep paying that price.
Marco:
Yeah, but anyway, so I think some kind of bundle subscription, I think, will happen.
Marco:
Whether it's part of the iPhone upgrade program or whether it's a separate thing that could be expanded Apple Music or a whole new plan that includes Apple Music, whatever it is, I think a bundle subscription that includes multiple services, at the very least...
Marco:
Music, video, and God, I hope, iCloud storage.
Marco:
Because, look, everyone should get iCloud storage.
Marco:
And it's time that Apple makes a plan that forces people like Casey to get it even though they don't think they need it.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Aftershocks, bone conduction headphones.
Marco:
I love bone conduction headphones.
Marco:
So here's how they work.
Marco:
It's different from most of their headphones if you haven't tried them before.
Marco:
Instead of having anything sticking in your ear or resting on or pushing on or sitting around your ear...
Marco:
Bone connection headphones don't actually block up your ears or put anything in them.
Marco:
They have these little tiny, like, micro-vibrating transducers that sit next to your ears with a headband that goes around the back of your neck, and so your ears are left totally open.
Marco:
And those transducers send little micro-vibrations.
Marco:
You don't even feel them.
Marco:
through your cheekbones and it makes your eardrum pick up the vibration.
Marco:
So you hear sound from the bone conduction headphones, but no one else does.
Marco:
And best of all, you also hear sound from the rest of the world because your ears aren't being plugged up or covered.
Marco:
And so this is actually really useful when you think about it in lots of situations.
Marco:
So for instance, my favorite way to use these is walking around outside, especially in the summertime because I get really hot and sweaty.
Marco:
I don't want big sweaty pads on my ears.
Marco:
And if I do happen to sweat all over these things, they're water-resistant and everything, so it's not a problem.
Marco:
But they don't make you hot.
Marco:
And when you're walking around, you can hear things going on around you.
Marco:
So you can hear, for instance, if you're outside walking or jogging or whatever, you can hear cars as they move.
Marco:
So you're not surprised.
Marco:
All of a sudden, there's a car behind you.
Marco:
You didn't even realize that never happens with bone conduction headphones because you always are aware of your surroundings.
Marco:
So they're great for environments like that.
Marco:
I use them all year round because even in the wintertime, when I'm spending a lot of time inside...
Marco:
I still want to be able to listen to podcasts or take a phone call and say, know if somebody's knocking on my door or if I'm not the only person in the house to know if somebody's calling my name.
Marco:
They're so useful.
Marco:
And Aftershocks are just great headphones in general.
Marco:
They have great Bluetooth reception.
Marco:
They have a great warranty.
Marco:
They have great battery life.
Marco:
So they're just really practical and useful headphones.
Marco:
I just love these things.
Marco:
I wear Aftershocks most of the year at least once a day.
Marco:
And if not more than that, they're just that good.
Marco:
So see for yourself at atp.aftershocks.com.
Marco:
Use code ATPBUNDLE.
Marco:
That'll get you $50 off a Trex Air bundle.
Marco:
That's atp.aftershocks.com.
Marco:
Code ATPBUNDLE for $50 off a Trex Air bundle.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Aftershocks for making such great headphones and for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
Okay, let's do some Ask ATP.
Casey:
Wojtek Petrusiewicz writes, Hey, John, please explain again in as much detail as possible.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
Exactly why you didn't buy the 2013 Mac Pro.
Casey:
This is a serious question slash request.
John:
You're not going to get as much detail as possible on Ask ATP.
John:
Sorry.
John:
I thought I did it like last show.
John:
The Trashcam Mac Pro had two big sort of workstation-style GPUs with tons of VRAM and one CPU.
John:
and that's not like the shape of the machine that i want i want one fast gpu for gaming that doesn't need to have 12 gigs of ram i certainly don't need two of those um and the other big factor is like the trash can came out around about the time we were talking about having a you know quad 5k you know what we now know is the retina display on the on the
John:
not quad 5k quad 27 inch i think i kept referring to it but anyway a 5k display uh but that mac pro seemed like it couldn't drive one even if one existed so it's like well i'll wait for the next one of those because maybe the next one will be able to drive a 5k display haha the next one there never was the next one so that's why like if i was going to buy a new mac pro i wanted it to be like we were so close to to retina on the desktop in a in a 27 inch form factor that it seemed wasteful to buy a machine that didn't do that and this particular machine
John:
didn't like didn't have the internals that i wanted it was very expensive i was paying for workstation class gpus with tons of vram that that not only did i not want but weren't actually as good as what a single gaming gpu could be doesn't mean the new mac pro is going to satisfy me anymore but those are the reasons i didn't buy that old one and obviously because i thought they would revise it and maybe the one the next year or the year after would support 5k but there just never was the next one sorry
Casey:
Marco Silva writes, Hey, John, do you smash?
Casey:
And if you've ever watched Jersey Shore, that's very funny.
Casey:
But I believe Marco's referring to Super Smash Brothers.
Casey:
And also, have you ever wandered into the world of fighting games, John?
John:
I don't know why I'm asking this for everybody.
John:
We all have a way to play Smash Brothers now, right?
John:
We've all got Switches.
John:
I played Smash Brothers on the N64, on the GameCube.
John:
Did I get the Wii version?
John:
I don't think I did get the Wii version.
John:
I don't even remember if there was a Wii U version.
John:
I didn't get it for Switch.
John:
not that into it like i got it because it's a it's a cool fun game but i'm just not that into fighting games period i have not wandered into the world of fighting games i know a lot about it and have read a lot about it because it is the subject of many articles both interesting and horrifying uh in the recent years in the gaming press and and in the past as well like the what you know the the gamecube i feel like was the where i started really reading about the uh the smash fighting game community you know and the tournaments and everything and
John:
Yeah, I've never been into that at all.
John:
It's just not my cup of tea.
Casey:
Yeah, I had Super Smash Brothers for the Wii.
Casey:
Yeah, I think it was the Wii.
Casey:
And I actually really liked it.
Casey:
I didn't play it that terribly often, but it was a really fun party game because, well, the way in which myself and my friends played it, none of us had any particular skills.
Casey:
We were just mashing on buttons randomly.
Casey:
And it was a lot of fun to play in a group setting.
Casey:
I haven't yet picked up the one for the Switch.
Casey:
I...
Casey:
Probably will at some point for the exact same reason.
Casey:
But generally speaking, I'm not that into fighting games either.
Casey:
I never really played Mortal Kombat that much.
Casey:
I did love and play the snot out of Street Fighter 2 back in the day.
Casey:
But that was about it.
Casey:
Marco, where do you come down on this?
Marco:
I don't play fighting games, really.
Marco:
I mean, I barely play any games at all.
Marco:
But if I'm going to be playing games, it hasn't been fighting games for a long time.
Marco:
Back when Street Fighter 2 came out for the Super Nintendo, which was the first modern fighting game, I played that with my friends at my friends' houses, but I never really went past that.
John:
Yeah, fair enough.
John:
The thing about fighting games is like there's what we all describe, which is like, oh, let's just go have fun with the game.
John:
But like there's another game that the fighting game people are playing.
John:
Like there's a big gap.
John:
It's not, you know, probably not as comparable as in any other sort of genre.
John:
I was thinking of like Destiny.
John:
There's a pretty smooth spectrum from people who are just playing Destiny casually all the way up to the crazy people like me or, you know, obviously the streamers people play all day long.
John:
But in fighting games, it's like you're either just like goofing around and having fun or you are playing an entirely different game.
John:
It looks different to you.
John:
It looks and feels different to you because you know all the different things about the moves and the timing and the frames of animation and the cancellations.
John:
People who just play fighting games casually don't even know that stuff even exists.
John:
It's not...
John:
all button mashing but it's close like they start they're conceptualizing as a little person on the screen that you can make do stuff they're not seeing the matrix and there's this huge gap and then there's actual fighting game people and to be any good at fighting games you have to see the matrix in that way and it becomes a different thing and i think it's actually very interesting it's just not what i'm into
Marco:
Thanks to our sponsors this week, Aftershocks, Careof, and Banktivity by IGG Software.
Marco:
And we will talk to you next week.
John:
Now the show is over.
John:
They didn't even mean to begin.
John:
Because it was accidental.
John:
Oh, it was accidental.
John:
John didn't do any research.
John:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
John:
Cause it was accidental.
John:
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 Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental Accidental They didn't mean to Accidental Accidental Tech Podcast So long
John:
Exciting things happening in people's lives.
Casey:
Michaela turned one.
John:
Cute pictures of Michaela up on your Instagram.
Casey:
Hey, thanks.
Casey:
Yeah, those are good ones.
John:
For a one-year thing.
John:
You've had a lot of nice pictures on your Instagram lately.
Casey:
Oh, thanks, man.
Casey:
Yeah, I'm trying.
John:
I'm just digging for compliments because they're all my pictures.
Casey:
I realized as soon as you said that, that the pictures I put up of Aaron and me yesterday, I think both of those are John Syracuse originals, and at least one or two of the Michaela ones are...
John:
It was all of them except for the last one.
John:
Was it?
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
Last two, maybe?
Casey:
But yeah, you're right.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
Here it was.
John:
I thought you were complimenting me, but no, it was really... Do you ever get the... I get this... I think I've talked about this before when I first started doing Instagram.
John:
People giving me crap about the fact that I take my pictures from my big camera and put them on Instagram.
John:
That's cheating.
Marco:
Yeah, I don't think that's the thing people actually care about anymore.
Marco:
There were people who would give you crap about it years ago, but yeah, that's not a thing anymore.
John:
Now people just care about ads in their timeline.
John:
It's not a chronological timeline.
Marco:
no because the reality is like now a lot of what you see in your timeline is shot on professional cameras and processed in professional apps and then stuck in instagram like it's it's there's so much of it now that like and the cameras in your phone have gotten so good that many of the phone shots portrait mode yeah yeah yeah many of the phone shots look like pro camera shots so yeah i don't think anybody cares about that about the distinction anymore
Casey:
Yeah, I have such a complicated relationship with Instagram because the more time I spend on it, the more I like it, then the more I hate myself because I know it's Facebook.
Casey:
Well, then there's so many damn ads.
John:
Yeah, the ads are out of control there.
John:
Speaking of something I would pay for a service for, like, oh, God, not that Facebook would ever let us pay to get rid of ads, but I would pay that in a second.
John:
It used to be like, you know,
John:
every couple of pictures there was an ad, and now I think it's like literally every other picture is an ad.
John:
I can't handle it.
John:
Yeah, they've really cranked them up.
Marco:
And it's in the stories, too.
Marco:
Yeah, in the story.
Marco:
The story is like, nowhere is safe from this.
Marco:
And the thing is, I actually like
Marco:
instagram ads more than most online ads that get in my way because they actually are creepily relevant a lot of the time and i've actually discovered some really nice products that i've bought from instagram ads uh so i know i'm like not helping the system at all but i actually so you're the problem
Marco:
yeah it's like i'm like the guy who responds to spam right it's like that's like i i have actually bought really good things from instagram ads and so so has my wife so stiff so like and i've heard from other people too like the products that get advertised to you on instagram ads often are pretty good and often are pretty well targeted maybe i need to give them more information about me because they do not have my number
John:
like they're i mean they're advertising me clothes for example like it's not yeah what they're doing there was an ad like i don't even know what the ads are for the reason they bother me is they're so big and you have to scroll past them yeah i gotta launch instagram like it was an ad that i saw just before the show and i like i scrolled past it and i don't i didn't even realize what it was
Marco:
i i think they think i'm a woman uh there's a number of reasons why the ads suggest that but but overall like they think i'm a man often enough to sometimes suggest like you know men's walking shoes and stuff so i don't know but but i have like there's a couple of like mistargeted things where like maybe it's confusing me and tiff because we are from the same ip address i don't know but uh all right so i've got star trek ad which i mean i guess that's close but like that's not a great egg because i already know about that show like i'm very aware of it and
John:
anyway uh a leaf gutter blocker uh yeah i've seen that one well that's that's actually pretty well targeted you're a homeowner you care about such things probably i'm not gonna i'm not in the market greek yogurt no
John:
uh i don't know like the one here let me see the one instagram ad i ever saw that i had any interest in that i actually looked at long enough to know what it is was that service that i'm sure everyone gets this instagram ad like it knows that i play video games so there's this thing where they do like these metal posters of like video game characters and people for movies and stuff yeah yeah
John:
Yeah, I looked at that because it had a cool picture of some like destiny or halo thing or whatever and like alright They they know I play video games and I like those video games and I would like a cool looking thing But then I didn't you know do anything about that.
John:
It's like I actually bought anything and
John:
Yeah, Instagram.
John:
And the stories with the green circles now, I'm really confused by that.
John:
Have you seen some of those, Casey?
John:
Yeah, yeah, that's close friends.
John:
Explain to me how that works.
John:
I mean, obviously, I know how it's supposed to be like only your close friends see this, but I didn't know there was a way to say someone is a close friend at Instagram.
Casey:
Yeah, so this is only in the last maybe month or so, but you can set up a list.
Casey:
And I don't think there's a numeric limit, or if there is, it's fairly...
Casey:
What's the word I'm looking for?
Casey:
You can put a lot in there.
Casey:
Generous.
Casey:
Generous.
Casey:
Thank you.
Casey:
God, I couldn't think of the word.
Casey:
Thank you.
Casey:
Yeah, so there's this new thing from last month or so, and it's where you can specify that some number of people, and the number is fairly generous, are your close friends.
Casey:
And when you put up an Instagram story, you can elect to make it public or you can elect for only close friends to see it.
Casey:
And naturally, there is no hint that you have put up a close friend story to people who are not your close friends.
Casey:
So, you know, if you did not mark me as a close friend, John, but you did put up an Instagram story for your close friends, then I would be none the wiser unless I was like looking over, say, Marco's shoulder and I saw you with a green circle around you.
Casey:
But the green indicates that some of that content, some if not all of that content is just for close friends.
Casey:
And I really like that a lot because...
Casey:
I think to some degree there's an implied, I don't know, seriousness isn't the word I'm looking for, but like Instagram carries a little bit of implied weight in my mind that the things you put on there are pretty or special or interesting.
Casey:
And like, especially with Instagram stories, my day to day life is really to anyone else in the world would be quite boring and, and, and very uninteresting.
Casey:
And so I,
Casey:
I don't really put up a lot on Insta stories unless I'm at a football game or a concert or traveling or something like that.
Casey:
But my close friends of which I think the list is my list is like 30 ish.
Casey:
Um, my close friends might give a crap about the boring administrivia that I do day to day.
Casey:
And so I might be way more forthcoming with my close friends and putting up Insta stories that only they get to see.
Casey:
And, um,
Casey:
There's a handful of people that have made me close friends of theirs, which is really nice.
Casey:
And I've really enjoyed being able to interact with their stories because I know going into it that this is less polished, I guess, than the sort of thing I would normally see on Instagram or especially an Instagram story.
Casey:
And there's even more casualness, casuality, that's not a word, but casualness.
Casey:
It's more casual when it's with close friends than it is even with stories.
Casey:
And I feel like stories is a more casual version of Instagram and a more ephemeral, of course, version of Instagram to begin with.
John:
I find this feature terrifying because it's yet another opportunity for you to not be aware that you aren't sending it to your close friends when you thought you were.
John:
Like, it's one of those rules, like, never put anything up on the internet that you wouldn't want the world to see.
John:
This feature enables you to do that.
John:
You are made to put things, and it's just, like, can you imagine, like, if you put something in there that's supposed to, especially you actually treat it as just your close, close friends, and you want to say something important or heartfelt or show some, you know, thing where, like, your wife walks by in her underwear in the background or something, like,
John:
And you didn't do – you thought you were on Close Friends but you weren't.
John:
Like it's just – I can't even imagine.
John:
I'm someone who never does Instagram stories at all.
John:
So obviously I'm not the target market.
John:
Maybe it's an awesome feature and obviously you like it.
John:
So it just gives – every time I see that green circle, like it just makes me think about all the non-green circles that people thought – might have thought were green circles when they weren't.
Yeah.
Casey:
I take your point, but I forget exactly how the UI works.
Casey:
I haven't done it in a few days at least.
Casey:
But I believe there's like two different buttons on the bottom of the screen when you take a picture or movie or what have you.
Casey:
And it's pretty clear which one does what.
Casey:
And there's no hoodwinking or any of the other creepy stuff that Facebook typically does yet.
Casey:
Um, there's the, you know, there's, there's none of that to make you, to make it easy for you to make a mistake.
Casey:
I, again, I take your point.
Casey:
It doesn't mean you're wrong by any means, but, but I don't know.
Casey:
I really, really like it.
Casey:
Um, I'm getting some real time followup from an anonymous person whose name might sound like Schmeich, who has said that he has occasionally put up a, uh, he or she, I should say, has occasionally put up a story, um,
Casey:
That was intended for close friends but ended up going to the whole world.
Casey:
So such things do happen from time to time.
John:
The one thing that gets me on Instagram is like I post Instagram so rarely, right?
John:
But I think if you count the number of times I've intentionally posted on Instagram and compared to the number of times I have somehow hit something that accidentally turned on like the –
John:
It's either the camera or maybe it's like the starting a story type thing.
John:
I accidentally activate that all the time.
John:
And I'm like, oh, stop.
John:
Whatever you're doing.
John:
Stop.
John:
Turn off camera.
John:
It must just be because I brush the bottom of the thing or maybe I'm going for another icon but they don't have labels on them and they're not good.
John:
I think I do that more often than I intentionally post.
Marco:
Just to show the relevance of the ads, I've been scrolling through as you guys have been talking and documenting all the ads I'm seeing.
Marco:
Watches, watches.
Marco:
No, surprisingly not.
Marco:
But New York Times subscription was the first one.
Marco:
That's actually pretty good.
Marco:
That's pretty well targeted.
Marco:
I read the New York Times sometimes.
Marco:
I don't subscribe to it.
Marco:
I've thought about subscribing to it.
Marco:
I'm in their demographic.
John:
I've never seen that ad, and I go to the New York Times all the time.
Marco:
bad job so i got that i have something called pop chart which like makes posters of things that that was kind of a miss um fancy upstate new york architectural homes in the mountains that's actually a pretty well targeted ad marine layer former sponsor of this show they make good like soft t-shirts that's a great ad i have some other shirts that's perfect um waterproof sneakers it's okay i've bought athletic sneakers from there before so that makes sense uh fancy leather dress shoes
Marco:
actually pretty good i've tapped on some of those ads before maybe you just buy more stuff than me that's more data an iphone cloth case i don't know where that one came from but not too bad um some kind of fancy mattress for athletes um t-shirts for people who love the big lebowski okay uh a hands-free dog leash i do like a lot of dog posts um and finally a men's like subscription clothing box service
Marco:
which I am pretty much in the demographic for.
Marco:
So these are actually pretty well-targeted ads to me.
John:
Meanwhile, I'm looking at an ad about, as far as I can tell, this is a hate when I can't tell what the ad's for.
Marco:
Wait, people are going crazy over these MacBook skins, John.
John:
now the ad that i'm looking at is i think uh trying to get me to travel to iceland not a well-targeted ad but the thing is i can't even tell with the audio off i can't tell the the account that it's from is l-a-n-d-b-l-a-d-e-x-p lindblad exp i don't know anyway so i'm i'm not going to iceland i'm not a big traveler like i don't know where the hell that's coming from what else do we have uh
John:
a smart home blinds closing thing i own zero smart home things i've seen that the thing that loops around the the cord yeah yeah yeah that's a good idea uh okay this one's closer it's a uh a dongle usbc dongle all right that's i mean i guess uh
Marco:
yeah i just i mean i the thing i used to like about instagram ads is they would have nice photos in them i would be like well even if it's not a thing i care about it has a pretty photo but i think instagram ad makers have figured out they don't need to make a nice photo anymore they just need to have like a crass well if they're if they're like high-end price like like the the upstate new york mountain house architecture ones those photos are beautiful like i almost like the i i kind of make a habit of not liking ads because like i don't i don't want to feed them that but i almost liked that one because it was just really nice pictures don't like ads
John:
OPP France?
John:
It's a sneaker company called OPP?
John:
Yeah, you know me?
John:
Yeah.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
My first day that I'm seeing is Goosebumps the movie, which, okay.
Marco:
i will say i my favorite sneakers came it's the it's the on running brand and that that i discovered that through instagram ads i discovered it i bought the shoes they're fantastic you're you're the problem you're propping up the entire instagram economy yeah quaker chia peach overnight oats oh finally finally found a relevant ad my dog's gps which i already own is being advertised to me good job
Casey:
Westin hotels some of my ads are really really really annoyingly and uncomfortably good but most of them I feel like are just you know shotgun approach let's just put this in front of as many eyeballs as we can and see what happens yeah I mean a lot of these are clearly like you know give me you know men 25 for 34 or whatever you know yeah exactly a lot of it is like stuff like that you can you can tell
Marco:
But a lot of it is more focused and sometimes very focused.
Marco:
And some of them are cheap, garbage-y stuff like, back this Kickstarter for this thing you don't need.
Marco:
Those are kind of crappy.
Marco:
But there's enough good ones that I don't mind the quality of the ads anymore.
Marco:
When they first joined my timeline, I was very offended by their presence just because I had never had ads before.
Marco:
But now that I've had them for a long time and I'm accustomed to them and I've gotten some actually pretty good products out of them, I don't mind them as much.
Marco:
I do think that they are a little bit too frequent.
Marco:
They need to turn that dial down a little bit, and of course they never will.
Marco:
But if I had my ideal case, I know they're never going to get rid of the ads completely, but I do wish there would be fewer of them and have them be more spaced out.
Casey:
You know, this is tangentially related.
Casey:
Do you ever look at the explore tab, which is the little magnifying glass?
Marco:
Occasionally.
Marco:
If I run out of stuff and I'm not tired yet or whatever.
Casey:
That is exactly when I use it, for the record.
Casey:
But I have found that that tab is eerily good at predicting what I would want to see.
Casey:
Like lots of cars, fair bit of nerd stuff, and then a smattering of other things.
Marco:
Yeah, mine is entirely watches and dogs.
Marco:
Like, that's all it is.
Casey:
Yeah, exactly.
Casey:
John at the bottom on the tab bar, not the home, but the magnifying glass.
John:
Magnifying glass.
John:
I have never tapped on this before in my life.
John:
Here we go.
Casey:
So this is, to me, exactly what Instagram thinks you are.
Casey:
And in my case, it's stunningly accurate.
John:
Yeah, this is not good.
John:
It's showing me Trevor Noah.
John:
I did watch a Trevor Noah video on Twitter today, so that's a good guess that I might want to see it, kind of.
John:
Then there's a bunch of pictures of people that I don't recognize.
John:
I don't know why I would think I would want to see these people.
John:
I have no idea who they are.
John:
There's one picture of food because I follow Nevin's food account.
John:
Do you follow Nevin's dog?
John:
He's really cute.
John:
No, I know about Max, but I don't follow dog accounts.
John:
no it's just a bunch of people i don't know why would i ever well i'm so that's not so much for that so maybe i just don't maybe you don't put in enough things i don't follow like car accounts dog accounts like all i follow people that i know so as far as it's concerned it looks like this person likes pictures of people i mean i guess that's true like the only time i ever hit the like button is on like a picture of somebody that i know or the only thing i'll do in the marco vein is cute kids i'll almost always give but that's cute kids of people i know it's not just random cute kids right
Marco:
First of all, you are missing out by not being a part of dog Instagram.
Marco:
Dog Instagram is very powerful.
John:
I'm on dog Twitter.
John:
I get my dogs on Twitter.
John:
Dog Instagram is better, I'm telling you.
John:
Maybe, but I feel like I'm cheating on my dog.
John:
Plus, my dog is really cute anyway.
Casey:
That's sweet, precious angel.
John:
Yeah, I get all the dog loving I need in person.
John:
Yeah, no, I'm just looking at Instagram just to see pictures from people I know, and that's it.
John:
So maybe I'm using it wrong, but whatever.
John:
That's what I do.
Marco:
The only thing for me that kind of poisons my Explore tab sometimes is there's a large part of Instagram that I...
Marco:
normally don't see any of and don't want to see any of which is basically people just screenshotting viral tweets and trying to make like viral memes spread on their instagram accounts that they just stole from twitter and other social networks like so it's just like it's like i'm coming here to not be on twitter and then when they bring twitter to me it kind of ruins that have you seen the stories of stories
John:
No, is that a thing now?
John:
Yeah, you can do a story of someone else's story.
John:
Oh, good.
John:
And I was like, as if these things aren't blurry and low resolution enough.
John:
Now you're going to do someone else's story within your story.
John:
Don't like it.
John:
I think maybe that's a feature that only certain like high influence people have.
John:
But I see it.
John:
And I'm like, it is like you said, it's like pictures of tweets.
John:
Yeah.
Marco:
well there is a thing where like you can if somebody tags you in their story it gives you the quick ability to re-story it in like one of those little like inset things yeah but yeah like like i'm talking i'm talking more about like it's just like people like screenshotting memes and gifs and twitter posts and making instagram posts out of them yeah or taking picture of their computer screen there's a story of them holding their phone up to their computer screen it's like great it's a cool story bro