Wax Buddies
Casey:
it was a probably really shitty but at the time i had no better restaurant uh i think it was like a guy's name like bernie's or something like that that i used to love going to um there was a place called danny's in wartsboro maybe that's what i'm thinking of i don't know it was it was really shitty i think but i loved it as a 10 year old everything there's really shitty is it really shitty but you loved it casey huh no i don't it's very it's very on brand isn't it out of character yeah
Casey:
In the grand tradition, we are recording in the middle of the World Series.
Casey:
And was it a couple of years ago that we actually ended up like live commentating on the game?
Casey:
Because I think that was game seven.
John:
I wouldn't call it commentating.
Casey:
Well, fair.
Marco:
We were talking at the same time the game was going on.
Marco:
We did acknowledge the existence of the game.
Marco:
And I believe we were trying to figure out what was going on.
Casey:
It was in the post-show.
Marco:
Yeah, it didn't make the actual edit.
Marco:
I tried.
Marco:
I really tried working it in, but there was nothing to be saved there.
Casey:
It was truly terrible.
Casey:
But hometown heroes, the Washington Nationals, are in the World Series in Game 7, which means this is the decider to figure out who is the best baseball team in the land.
Casey:
And I really generally don't care for baseball.
Casey:
But every once in a while, it's like a cup of coffee, right?
Casey:
I have like two cups of coffee a year.
Casey:
And I'm like, yeah, I think today's the day.
Casey:
And then I go back to not drinking it ever again.
Casey:
This is today's the day for baseball for me.
Casey:
So I have it on the side.
Marco:
I respect the idea of sports, but I've never had a team affinity.
Marco:
So I can follow what's going on in all the major sports games.
Marco:
I know the rules enough to know what's going on and to follow the games, but I just don't have anybody that I really care about rooting for.
Marco:
Now, where this comes in handy is I actually really enjoy going to a baseball game, but I couldn't give two craps who's playing or what kind of game it is.
Marco:
And so the best thing to do is go to AAA games.
Marco:
Because they're super cheap.
Marco:
You can get great seats.
Marco:
It's a lot easier.
Marco:
Everything about them logistically is easier and cheaper.
Marco:
And the food is fine.
Marco:
You can get a hot dog and hang out.
Marco:
And if you don't care if the team you're seeing is a super pro team or not, it's a great option.
Casey:
We have the Richmond Flying Squirrels, which once upon a time were the Richmond Braves.
Casey:
And they were a feeder team for the Atlanta Braves, but I forget who they feed now.
Casey:
It might be the Giants.
Casey:
I want to say it's the San Francisco Giants that they feed.
Casey:
But anyway, I've actually lived in Richmond over a decade, have never been to a Squirrels game, which is kind of unfortunate, nor did I go to a Braves game before that.
Casey:
But Aaron...
Casey:
Her dad is a huge baseball fan and a huge Atlanta Braves fan because he grew up here and, again, feeder team, blah, blah, blah.
Casey:
And so what I've understood through many, many, many different family stories is that Aaron's dad would put her with her, you know, little curly blonde hair when she was like six years old or eight years old or whatever.
Casey:
And put her in whatever area that is that you would get autographs on baseball cards.
Casey:
And so she would get autographs from all these different baseball players.
Casey:
And a lot of them, you know, went on to do nothing.
Casey:
But from what I understand, she saw.
Casey:
Oh, God, it's not Alex Rodriguez, who was the incredibly popular Yankee.
Casey:
Oh, God, please don't put this in show.
Casey:
Gruber will murder me.
Casey:
I'm trying to blank now.
John:
Derek Jeter?
Casey:
Yes, thank you, Derek Jeter, who apparently was a total asshole.
Marco:
Getting confused with A-Rod, huh?
Casey:
I know, I know.
Casey:
I'm sorry.
Casey:
All the baseball people are so angry at me right now.
Marco:
But anyway.
Marco:
To be fair, all the baseball people aren't listening right now because they're watching the World Series.
Casey:
That's also fair.
Casey:
But anyway, so Aaron grew up with baseball, and I just never really cared for it.
Casey:
However, I did go to a Nationals game years ago and loved it.
Casey:
And I agree with you, Marco, that going to a baseball game is surprisingly fun.
John:
So how are they the hometown team?
John:
Is this like New England Patriots where like an entire region claims a team?
Casey:
Because what do I have?
Casey:
I mean, is there a North Carolina team?
Casey:
This is as close as I get to a Virginia team.
Casey:
I'm trying to think.
Casey:
There's no West Virginia.
Casey:
Tennessee borders Virginia, but it's way on the other end of the state for me.
Casey:
Like easily, this is the closest major league baseball team.
John:
You could claim the Red Sox.
John:
Connecticut could be your hometown.
Casey:
no no you john no way so here's the thing no no no you don't understand john you're you're coming at this like a damn so here's the thing the way if you look at connecticut it's like a it's it's a rectangle right that's a little bit wider than it is tall and yes i know connecticut's tiny ha ha ha but if you split connecticut right down the middle which is roughly where hartford was if memory serves the western half of the state is the good half and
Casey:
That's the state that roots for the Yankees and the Giants, or if you really hate your life, the Jets or the Mets.
Casey:
The eastern half of the state has been infected by Boston, and they root for the Patriots and the Red Sox and all those terrible teams.
John:
The western half, the only thing the western half has going for it is tons of extremely rich people, if you consider that having something going for it, right?
John:
But the problem with the western half is the eastern half comes by its Red Sox fandom honestly, right?
John:
Whereas the left half of Connecticut is just wannabe New York.
John:
Other than the very rich people.
Casey:
What?
John:
How do you come to that conclusion?
John:
Because they wish they were in New York.
John:
They want to root for the New York teams, but they're not actually in New York, and no one cares about Connecticut.
John:
They're in Connecticut.
Casey:
They're not actually in Massachusetts either.
John:
Yeah, but the right half of Connecticut is solidly New England-ish, and all of New England claims to the Patriots, which makes sense, and the Red Sox.
Casey:
What in the hell are you talking about?
Casey:
At my parents' house, where they used to live, I could be in the state of New York on foot, and I could be in Manhattan by car in like an hour and a half.
John:
This is exactly what people in Connecticut say.
John:
They brag about how close they are to New York.
John:
I can get the New York radio stations.
Casey:
I don't have any particular opinion with you saying that Connecticut is want to be New Yorkers or whatever.
Casey:
Fine.
Casey:
That's OK.
Casey:
Sure.
Casey:
But they are no more want to be New Yorkers than they are want to be Bostoners or Bostonites, whatever you call yourselves.
John:
Boss holes.
John:
No, I feel like the Red Sox, despite them being the Boston Red Sox and not the New England Red Sox, they might as well be the New England Red Sox.
John:
Look no further than Stephen King, famous Red Sox fan who lives in Maine, which is much farther away than Connecticut.
Marco:
You know what I'm going to do?
Marco:
I'm going to leave all this garbage in the show, and that way we can refer back to this.
Marco:
Whenever anybody asks us to talk about sports, we can say, look at what happens when we talk about sports.
John:
We're not talking about sports.
John:
We're talking about Casey.
John:
Honestly, maybe that's better.
John:
And Connecticut, to be fair.
John:
Sports is just tangential.
John:
This is the most anyone has ever talked about Connecticut.
Casey:
It's probably true, actually.
Casey:
No offense taken.
Casey:
That's probably true.
Casey:
Connecticut was a lovely place to live, and I'm glad I'm not there.
Casey:
Anyway.
Marco:
Same way I talk about Ohio.
Casey:
Yeah, exactly right.
Casey:
I have been off the grid for the last week.
Casey:
Literally two hours ago, I was stepping off a plane at the local Richmond airport.
Casey:
Am I allowed to call that the hometown airport?
Casey:
Is that okay?
John:
I mean, we could have a whole robot and on episode about what hometown means, but you trying to claim the Washington Nationals as your hometown team when you grew up in Connecticut and live in Virginia is weird.
John:
Anyway.
Casey:
Remember, it's the Washington, D.C.
Casey:
Nationals.
John:
No, I understand it's not the state.
Casey:
Just making sure.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
No, let's do it.
Casey:
What justifies a home team?
Casey:
How does one claim something as your home team?
Casey:
Is it only where you grew up?
Casey:
Is it only where you are right now?
John:
No, hometown, not home team.
John:
Sorry.
John:
Yes, listen to what I mean, not what I say.
John:
We might have already done hometown on Robot Arena.
John:
I don't think so.
Casey:
I've listened to everyone.
John:
That's the problem with the show.
John:
I always have to, like, search the archives so we don't end up repeating because it's...
Casey:
No, seriously, I'm not upset.
Casey:
Lay it on me.
Casey:
How do I claim this?
John:
I feel like hometown is the place, assuming this is hometown normative, but assuming you grew up in a single place, like you weren't traveling all the time and didn't move seven times before you were 18, I feel like it's where you spend a substantial portion of your formative years.
John:
If you spend them in a single place, that's your hometown.
Casey:
Sure, I think I can agree with that.
Casey:
But what happens if you move every two years until you get to high school?
John:
Well, then you might not have a hometown if you move every two years.
John:
Like, what are you going to claim as your hometown?
John:
Nothing.
Casey:
So that's the thing.
Casey:
I have lived in some portion of – actually, I've lived in Richmond specifically longer than I've lived everywhere else.
John:
In your formative years?
John:
You're arguably still being formed, so.
John:
so like what years are these this is like middle school and high school is it earlier than that like what are we talking it's certainly before it's certainly before 18 i'm gonna say it's like uh you know sort of uh school age uh going off into puberty maybe like that region so like like middle school because like if you went someplace else for like kindergarten and first grade like who cares whatever but i'm saying like
John:
you know fifth sixth seventh eighth ninth tenth that kind of range eleventh you know that that's sort of the meat of it don't you feel like oh yeah yeah so if you were in like the same place for most of that time this becomes an easy question but if you weren't it becomes complicated yeah you might have to like if you were if you're in two places maybe that you could still like try to claim both of them like my early childhood was this is my hometown or whatever i feel like you just have to end up picking one but you moved a lot you just might not have any singular hometown
Marco:
I feel like the rules are pretty clear that like if you moved a lot, that kind of sucks.
Marco:
And so the reward you get for having tolerated that is you get to cherry pick at any given time for any given question.
Marco:
I agree.
Marco:
You get to pick like what's the best answer for this right now?
Marco:
What can I claim as my hometown for this particular story or scenario right now?
Casey:
Amen, brother.
Casey:
So John, I moved in the beginning of eighth grade, and I moved from having bounced around every two years for most of my childhood.
Casey:
In eighth grade, I moved to a little tiny town in western Connecticut called New Fairfield.
Casey:
I was in New Fairfield, Connecticut from eighth grade through my graduation from high school—
Marco:
That's pretty solid.
Marco:
Oh, yeah.
Marco:
Then that's your hometown.
Marco:
Eighth grade through high school graduation, that's it.
Marco:
That's it right there.
Casey:
Okay, so that's fair.
Casey:
I'm on board so far, but now as an adult, admittedly as an adult, and I am on board with what you're saying about formative years, I'm not challenging you yet, but I have lived in...
Casey:
Virginia, and specifically Richmond.
Casey:
I've lived in Richmond since 2008 and Virginia since 2000.
Casey:
So it's been almost 20 years that I've been in Virginia in some way, shape, or form.
Casey:
At what point do I never... Do you never get to claim Boston as a hometown, John?
Casey:
Because...
John:
There's one word you can change in this thing, and you might have... I don't recall what you said, but there's one word difference here, right?
John:
If you say, I'm rooting for my hometown team, that's incorrect.
John:
Your hometown team would be something in Connecticut or whatever, right?
John:
The new Fairfield tire factories.
John:
Yeah.
John:
If you're rooting for the hometown team...
John:
Then that might be valid, assuming what you say.
John:
I mean, assuming that the Nationals are the hometown team of people in Virginia, like you said, may have slim picking.
John:
So I guess that's it.
Casey:
Unless there's something in like in some part of North Carolina that I'm not thinking of.
John:
I mean, maybe like in the same way that people stretch out from all over New England to claim the Red Sox.
Yeah.
John:
Could you stretch all the way down to get the Braves in Atlanta?
Casey:
I think that's too far.
Casey:
See, that's why – who is the Panthers?
Casey:
Is that right in North Carolina, the NFL team?
Casey:
That's football.
Casey:
Yeah, yeah.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
I'm saying like we – I think it's slightly reasonable to claim the Panthers –
Casey:
if you're from richmond because the only other choice you have is the redskins and everyone hates the redskins so what are you gonna do um and for me i choose to root for the new york giants because my entire family is rooted for well i don't really don't pay attention to the nfl anymore partially because the giants suck and partially because the nfl really sucks but um and the giants are in new jersey which is a sore point
Casey:
Well, that is that as well.
Casey:
But anyways, so I think if I were coming of age, like so Declan, for example, if he paid attention to football, I think it would be reasonable for him to claim the Carolina Panthers or if he really hated himself, the Washington Redskins as his hometown team, because even though they're stayed away, it's still there's such slim pickings.
Casey:
There's not like 44 sports teams like there is around you guys.
John:
Well, don't get Declan into football because it causes brain injury and it should be abolished.
Casey:
And the NFL is pretty evil.
John:
Yes, for other reasons as well.
Casey:
So, Marco, at this point, I know you do not believe in sports, but if you were to believe in sports, would you elect to believe in Ohio?
Casey:
Sports teams from Ohio?
Casey:
I don't even know how to say this.
Casey:
Would you root for things from Ohio or would you root for things from New York?
Marco:
Oh, it would be hard.
Marco:
So like, you know, my home place, like my birthplace slash hometown is Ohio, Columbus, Ohio, slash Bexley, Ohio.
Marco:
But where I consider myself, quote, from if somebody asks, like, you know, where are you from?
Marco:
Who's just meeting me?
Marco:
i i'm probably not going to say ohio because that usually is more of a question of like where do you live right now you can say originally from ohio right originally in front of it if the question is like do i consider myself an ohioan or a new yorker presently i'm a new yorker you know i've been here for you know over a decade i think that counts right so okay yeah you know i am a new yorker i am from ohio originally and
Marco:
And my hometown is Columbus, Ohio, but I am currently a New Yorker.
Marco:
Based on that, I feel like I could pick either one.
Marco:
And as long as I don't change my affiliation too frequently, I feel like I kind of just pick whichever one has the best record or the most fun colors or whatever.
Marco:
I was going to say nicest outfit, but you beat me to it.
John:
Yeah, right.
Marco:
I mean, I do like red, and so I'd probably go Ohio State.
Casey:
Oh, wow.
Marco:
The other complicating factor is that I'm from Columbus, not Cleveland or Cincinnati.
Marco:
And those are very different places.
Marco:
Cleveland is basically in Lake Erie, and Cincinnati is basically Kentucky.
Marco:
Columbus is kind of its own island in the middle of a sea of cornfields.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
Even when I was there, no one in Columbus gave a crap about the pro teams that were in Cincinnati or Cleveland.
Marco:
And Columbus doesn't have a lot of pro teams.
Marco:
It doesn't have an NFL or MLB team in Columbus.
Marco:
So Columbus is really all about Ohio State.
Marco:
That's the whole thing there.
Marco:
No one there cares about the pro teams because there aren't any.
Marco:
So it's all about Ohio State, college, football, and basketball.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
I would have a hard time caring about any other teams in other sports from Ohio.
Marco:
If I had to pick a football or a baseball team that was not college, I wouldn't be able to, really, from there.
Marco:
Ultimately, though, the Ohio State red is not a great red.
Marco:
It's technically scarlet and gray.
Marco:
They're kind of crappy, muted.
Marco:
I don't like the red and gray combo that Ohio State uses, so I probably wouldn't actually vote for them.
Marco:
um but um i don't know new york stuff like i don't like the way they mix in the yellow with the blue and so i don't know i don't know i'd probably and also i kind of feel like new york it's like what am i gonna do like be a yankees fan like every single person in the on earth like i feel like that's kind of like overdone kind of cliche to be a yankees fan right so like i don't know this is why i just stay out of it
Casey:
Well, I mean the easy option is to do what everyone else does, which is to root for the Steelers, the Cowboys and or the Yankees because they were good when you started paying attention and then you just claim it forevermore.
Marco:
I will say I lived in Pittsburgh for a couple years and it was really fun to root for the Steelers in Pittsburgh because they happened to be really good then and they didn't have any of that baggage of like everyone loves them like the Yankees, at least at the time.
Marco:
This is like 2005 –
Casey:
Everyone loved them back then.
Marco:
There was also a clear pick.
Marco:
If you lived in Pittsburgh, you rooted for the Steelers.
Marco:
We didn't have the problem that Columbus had where there's no pro teams and there wasn't the problem of being overdone like the New York teams were.
Marco:
That was kind of fun.
Marco:
I enjoyed being a Steelers fan for two years.
Marco:
I still didn't care that much, but everyone else around me did, so I was able to
Marco:
participate a little bit more.
Marco:
I was there when they won a Super Bowl, so that was really fun to be in the town then, and everyone was all involved with that.
Marco:
So that was kind of fun.
Marco:
But it was clearer there than it is here.
Casey:
Steelers are definitely on the list of, like the Cowboys, the team that everyone roots for, even though they have no allegiance whatsoever.
Casey:
Now, you get an exception here, but no allegiance whatsoever to Pittsburgh or Dallas.
Casey:
Like Gruber rooting for Dallas, I have never really understood.
Casey:
Or the Yankees, actually.
Casey:
But, you know, it's each their own.
Casey:
My father-in-law loves the Cowboys as well.
Casey:
I beat him up for this all the time because he has absolutely no affiliation to Dallas whatsoever.
Casey:
I think it's just that when he started paying attention, they were extremely good, and so that was his team.
Casey:
See, also Chicago Bulls years ago, back when Jordan was around.
Casey:
When, coincidentally, I lived right outside Chicago, so I get to claim the Bulls forevermore, which, last I heard, was still not good.
Yeah.
Casey:
That's right.
Casey:
We should probably move on from the accidental sports podcast slash robot or not.
Marco:
This is so bad that I want, if anyone from Apple is listening right now and just so frustrated and yelling at their phone at how we're butchering sports, I want you to know that this is your fault for not releasing that 16-inch MacBook Pro yet.
Marco:
This is what you get.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Backblaze, unlimited cloud backup for your Mac or PC.
Marco:
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Marco:
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It's even less if you pay for a year or two-year plans.
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No matter where you are, say you're on vacation, you can like restore one file from like your home desktop computer or whatever is backing up to Backblaze.
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If you do have a disaster, they have all sorts of easy restore options from downloading things on the website all the way up to they will ship you a hard drive with your files on it.
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Thank you so much to Backblaze for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
moving on uh i have been out of pocket for the last week so i have no idea what we're talking about tonight but i do know one thing we can talk about and that is the atp holiday store uh happy christmas and merry hanukkah everyone it is time for more shirts and uh even though it's winter time in the united states we're going to offer some t-shirts for sale we're going to do a slightly different take on the existing and much beloved uh m style atp shirt so i don't remember which one of you came up with this but it was john not me
Casey:
Okay, there we go.
Casey:
That's right, you always assume John.
Casey:
I'm breaking the first rule of ATP.
Casey:
Anyway, so John came up with doing the ATP shirts in six colors, and there is both light mode and dark mode, which is to say the slash, slash, slash, slash, slash, I hope I got that right, ATP shirts.
Casey:
is in either white text or black text.
Casey:
And then you can choose the same shirt colors.
Casey:
They will be available for purchase up until, or pre-order, you know, the same rigmarole we've done many times, up until Sunday, November 17.
Casey:
So if you want it for late December, for example, and actually, I believe Hanukkah and Christmas both fall in late December, if I'm not mistaken.
Casey:
So order by Sunday, November 17th will remind you a few more times, but I would highly recommend picking one of these up.
Casey:
They look like they're going to be really great.
Casey:
Also, we're bringing back the traditional rainbow slash slash slash slash slash ATP shirt, as well as the hoodie, as well as the hat and the pins are always in stock.
Casey:
So go and check them out.
Casey:
I think they look really great.
Casey:
And something I've noticed is I have a fair bit of podcast t-shirts and they're all black or gray.
Casey:
And I really, really, really don't mind introducing a little bit of color into my life.
Casey:
And so now I will probably order a whole rainbow of ATP shirts.
Casey:
So I will be that guy promoting my own thing pretty much all the time since we've got all these lovely colors.
Casey:
Anything to add, John?
John:
Men's and women's style and 100% cotton and tri-blend.
John:
So the number of permutations is very large before you even consider the returning merchandise.
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
I'd forgotten about that.
Casey:
Yes.
Casey:
Two of us don't mind the tri-blend, and one of us is extraordinarily particular about 100% cotton.
John:
I like both.
John:
I have a mix, but I like there to be options.
John:
So behold, there are options.
John:
That's, by the way, that's part of the reason why, like, we have the colors and we have the ink that's black and the ink that's white is because...
Marco:
sometimes a color looks a shirt looks better with the black sometimes it looks better with the white sometimes it looks good with both and so it's like look you look at the shirts you decide which one you think looks better and buy the one you like uh so problem solved john is like the all of us nerds when it comes to this stuff like he wants to offer every single possible option for everything and i'm like johnny i versus buttons i'm like can we just have can we just have like two good options and that's it just make the decision for you
Casey:
listeners you have to understand marco is not making this up this is exactly how this conversation goes every time single time every time john or me it can be either either one of us uh but john or me decides that we should have a whole plethora of options and every single time johnny i mean marco decides no no no we need to cut it down to one or maybe two so you're welcome everybody
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Moving on.
Casey:
In follow-up, there is a new image that might be the 16-inch MacBook Pro.
Casey:
Guy Rambeau over at 9to5Mac has uncovered this, and there is a post where they put up this image, and it has a...
Casey:
a touch bar and a touch id key but instead of it being attached to the touch bar or like part of the touch bar in a way there is a clear separation between the touch id button you know slash power button and the touch bar itself which one would assume they would only do if they needed a similar style gap on the other side for i don't know an escape button an actual escape key so this is potentially good news we think
John:
Yeah, it looks just like the one on the MacBook Air.
John:
So if you've seen the one on the MacBook Air, that's what this looks like.
John:
The other interesting thing about this picture is you get to see at least some of the key layout.
John:
And as far as I'm able to discern, there are no changes there.
John:
The spacing between the keys looks pretty much the same.
John:
The key sizes look pretty much the same.
John:
No surprises in this photo at all.
Marco:
Yeah, that to me is the only disappointing thing is that I was – again, I've been hoping that they would change a number of problems with this current keyboard, not only the reliability issues, but also I was hoping they would change the – what I think is part of the accuracy problems that I and many people seem to have.
Marco:
The keys are, the key margins are too small.
Marco:
Like the margin between the keys, like we used to have more space between the keys and you could feel the edges of them more with your fingers.
Marco:
So if you were like kind of off by one or getting off by one, you could feel it more.
Marco:
And also the flatness of the key cap, it seemed like, I don't know, whatever it was, like the old ones seemed like you could feel where they ended and began a little bit better and the new ones you couldn't.
Marco:
And it seems like they haven't really changed that.
Marco:
And you know what?
Marco:
Look, if they give us scissor switches, I'll take it.
Marco:
If they give us a real escape key, which it looks like they probably will, I'll take that as well.
Marco:
Icing on the cake would be inverted T arrows.
Marco:
And then a distant fourth priority would be the key spacing increased.
Marco:
So if we're getting the scissor keys and the escape key...
Marco:
maybe inverted arrows i'll be i'm happy with that that's you know let's give them you gotta take what you can get right um and so far like and there's also been rumors that you know since october is ending and there's no event and they just did something else this week which we got to that was that didn't include this rumors are now like oh no what if this machine is slipping until next year
Marco:
I still think it's not.
Marco:
I still think this machine is coming out really soon.
Marco:
We heard, a few months back, we heard from two different sources a few bits of information that have been proven so far, or at least have been most likely proven so far to be accurate.
Marco:
We heard that it was going to be the 1mm travel scissor key switch.
Marco:
We heard that it was going to have a hardware escape key next to a touch bar.
Marco:
We heard that it was going to have inverted T arrows, which we don't know if that's true yet.
Marco:
And we heard that it was going to come out this fall and be supported by Catalina.one.
Marco:
And so far, that appears to all, with the exception of the inverted T's, which we don't know about yet, all of that has come true.
Marco:
And we heard that from two different people a few months back.
Marco:
So I'm thinking that information was pretty solid.
Marco:
And the fact that it was coming, that they knew back then that it was going to be supported in this OS release in particular, suggests it's coming out any day now.
Marco:
Because they wouldn't have these assets in this version of Catalina if it was coming out in the spring or next summer.
Marco:
They would wait until a much later OS release to support this machine.
Marco:
And these assets wouldn't even be here.
Marco:
So the fact that they're here, and the fact that all this other info has panned out so far, I'm inclined to guess that this is happening imminently still.
John:
A few other things just to make clear from this picture, it looks so much like the other ones in all other ways.
John:
It's got the little holes next to the keyboard that look like they're the same size, the same number of holes, the same position, the hinge, the, you know, everything about this picture looks exactly like the previous ones.
John:
Obviously, you can't see the fact that the size might be different because I think it's cut off before you see the edge.
John:
You can't see the arrow keys, as we already alluded to, so we can't tell anything about them.
John:
But it's further confirmation of the sort of iconic illustration of the computer that we talked about in the last show.
John:
But this appears to be an actual photograph.
John:
Or, yeah, it's probably an actual photograph, I think.
Casey:
All righty.
Casey:
Well, let's see what happens.
Casey:
I'm hopeful.
Casey:
I don't know if I'm going to get one of these, but I'm hopeful.
Casey:
Moving on.
Casey:
iOS 13.2 is out.
Casey:
I waited until I got home to upgrade my phone, and this is the only thing I've upgraded so far.
Casey:
Is it safe to update now for those of us who are holding out on the iOS 13 debacle?
Casey:
Are we good to go now?
Marco:
This is the least crappy version of iOS 13 yet.
Marco:
Hooray!
Marco:
That's their slogan, right?
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
There's still problems with it, but the number of problems is going down.
Marco:
I wish it was not growing new problems ever released, but the total number of problems is going down.
Marco:
So it is getting better.
Marco:
If you really want to upgrade to iOS 13 and you haven't yet, then go for it.
Marco:
It's good enough.
Marco:
But if you're on 12 on a device that still supports it and you are happy with 12 and you are relatively conservative in your software update cycle, I would say there's not a strong reason to upgrade yet given that it's still not rock solid.
Marco:
There are still issues.
Marco:
Again, they are getting much fewer, but there are still issues.
Marco:
As a developer, I'm annoyed by 13.2.
Marco:
that they seem to have changed dramatically how often and how aggressively apps get killed in the background for just like just being terminated for making space and memory it seems like developer as a user yeah i mean saying yeah like i tweeted about this the other day and i got a whole bunch of responses from people who are who are seeing the same issue of like basically your apps need to restart from scratch a lot more often than it seems like they used to before ios 13.2
John:
They're like toddlers under a blanket.
John:
If you're not looking at the apps, they disappear.
John:
Literally, as soon as it goes off the screen, the app is gone.
John:
It's blowing my mind.
John:
I'm sideways swiping on the iPad, my iPad Pro.
John:
I'm sideways swiping on the little thing in pullover mode.
John:
And when I sideways swipe to one app, I sideways swipe back and the app is relaunching.
John:
I'm like, I was just looking at you two seconds ago.
John:
You're in the sidebar.
John:
What the hell?
John:
Yeah.
John:
I think it's just broken.
Marco:
Yeah, I've heard especially people are having problems with things like YouTube, which does not remember your position.
Marco:
Or you have to go to your history to pull up the video you were watching a minute ago.
Marco:
And Safari having to reload all of its tabs all the time.
Marco:
As a developer, it freaks me out because when I hear...
Marco:
that my app is being killed in the background really quickly after after you know you're leaving it i think it's my fault it's my it's certainly my problem but like i think oh no i'm doing i'm like taking too many resources or i'm holding a lock open too long and the system is killing me it's not like you're running on the watch you're running on this thing with like gigs of ram and this incredibly powerful cpu and it's like oh sorry i'd kill you and i know it has happened before it's reasonable for you to think about that but it is not just your app it's like every app i use
Marco:
In a way, that's comforting because it makes it so that I guess it probably isn't my fault.
Marco:
On the other side of it, though, I can't seem to do anything about it.
John:
Have you considered using GPS constantly?
Marco:
Yeah, that's a fun trick.
Marco:
And if I'm playing audio, that seems to be okay.
Marco:
If you're playing audio or doing turn-by-turn tracking, it will keep you open in the background.
John:
Yeah, I was going to say, you have the easy out of like, look, my app literally does
John:
is meant to play audio in the background.
John:
So you're not going to kill me because I'm playing audio, but other apps don't have that defense.
Marco:
Well, and literally like I'm hearing reports from lots of people now of like they pause the app for like 10 seconds and go back and it has to relaunch after being paused for a very short time.
Marco:
So it, God, I just, what are they doing over there?
Marco:
Like it seems like every release of this godforsaken series of OSs in 13, every version of it fixes some stuff, but then breaks some new stuff.
Marco:
Like it, it's just, Oh, I, I don't know what is going on over there, but they have serious problems in software quality right now.
John:
I'm trying to figure out like, but this whole thing is this, is this like a new regime of power saving?
John:
Is this like partly responsible for the amazing new battery life of the phones?
John:
The fact that it kills everything instantly in the background all the time, or is it just a bug?
John:
Like I don't have a good explanation of this behavior, but it's from a, you know, forget about developer of like, Oh, my app is getting killed from a user perspective.
John:
Um,
John:
it's like my devices no longer have multitasking.
John:
The good part is they actually did make app launch faster in 13.
John:
So they relaunch really fast.
John:
And if the app is good, it does resume position, but I can still tell it's relaunching.
John:
Like I see the frigging splash screen in the apps.
John:
Like,
John:
it's just i don't i don't understand what's going on and i was thinking as a user i'm like oh maybe there's some new thing that apps have to comply with to get better behavior and indicate that they shouldn't be killed and that might still be true and but like it's just not a good experience and i'm mostly cranky about this because i chose 13.2 i had planned this at a time 13.2 is my releases aren't gonna update all my stuff so i did so i you know i've dated from 12 to 13.2 and
John:
you know there haven't i haven't seen things crashing my phone's not rebooting none of none of my things got you know bricked or anything on the update uh and it's mostly been fine but this multitasking thing particularly on the ipad where i'm frequently doing multitasking and have lots of things being juggled at once relatively speaking it is a significant downgrade in the experience and i hope they sort it out
Marco:
Not only from the developer point of view, too, I am at my wit's end with being an iOS developer right now.
Marco:
I feel like every time there's a new condition that our apps get killed for... I was talking about this under the radar this week, too.
Marco:
There used to be, back in the olden days, you had the low memory warnings.
Marco:
And there's an API for that, where if the system is low on memory and your app is still running...
Marco:
it will call a certain function in your app and post a certain notification that you can respond to, to do things like drop some cached content or do something to reduce your memory usage in like at runtime.
Marco:
And then if it needs memory still, and you haven't reduced it enough, it will kill your app like a little while later.
Marco:
But there's now a whole bunch of other conditions that your app will be killed for.
Marco:
Things like using too much CPU time within a certain window or writing too much disk or other conditions that your app will get killed for now.
Marco:
But not only are these mostly undocumented.
Marco:
But there's also no warning API in place for any of them.
Marco:
So you just get these crash reports that you just got killed for using too much CPU time.
Marco:
And it's like, okay, I can tell my app to slow certain things down in code if I get a warning ahead of time that I'm nearing some kind of limit.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
Again, these limits are mostly undocumented and they change between OS releases and there's no notification API to tell me that I'm getting near a limit.
Marco:
So all I'm left with is, okay, I just get killed every so often for reasons that you just made up in this OS release and didn't tell me about.
Marco:
And there's nothing I can do about it.
Marco:
And like a stack trace when you have like a CPU usage termination is usually not very useful.
Marco:
So I don't really know like what my app was really doing during that.
Marco:
Combine that with stuff like this new termination problem in 13.2 and the problems of 13.0 and 13.1 that also broke all of our apps in different ways, it's a really rough time to be an Apple developer right now.
Marco:
It's leaving such an incredibly sour taste in my mouth that not only can Apple not get its stuff together on their own software, but now they're making my life hard and making things bad for me and my customers for my software because the environment that it's running in is both unstable itself and is acting increasingly hostile towards my app.
Marco:
It's like they don't even want us there.
Casey:
Yeah, I couldn't agree with this more.
Casey:
And I've been really grumpy about this lately.
Casey:
Not only is the documentation crap, as we've been talking about repeatedly over the last few weeks, but something I noticed is that with Vignette, I was getting killed from time to time because I was writing too many contact updates too quickly.
Casey:
And that is completely undocumented.
Casey:
It was completely and utterly undocumented.
Casey:
And the crashes were extremely odd and weird and not helpful at all.
Casey:
And there was no way for me to do anything, like throttle it, just like you were saying.
Casey:
I mean, you were saying the exact same thing, Marco.
Casey:
There was nothing I could do about it because there was no limit that I knew about.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
I asked around with people I know internally and got some like potential answers, but it's, it's just extraordinarily frustrating that I am at least an okay developer and I can, I can work around these limitations as long as you tell me what the limitations are.
Casey:
And if you're not going to tell me, then what am I supposed to do?
Casey:
It's absolutely infuriating.
Casey:
And yeah,
Casey:
I look at what Apple's doing, and I am impressed, and I don't know if we're even going to talk about the AirPod Pro.
Casey:
We will.
Casey:
We'll talk about the AirPod Pros today, but...
Casey:
They're doing so much so well, and yet at the same time, so much of these fundamental things are falling through the cracks.
Casey:
And it's very, very frustrating at best, and just morale-killing at worst.
Casey:
And I'm in this game for a lot less time than you, Marco, but it is very, very frustrating trying to keep up with all the different ways Apple changes their minds and opinions and rules and regulations and...
Marco:
As developers, when the platform is basically quicksand below our feet, and when the platform is both rapidly changing and has a bunch of its own bugs that keep changing as well,
Marco:
So, you know, the APIs are changing.
Marco:
The language is changing.
Marco:
The UI framework is changing.
Marco:
The platform is unstable.
Marco:
Every OS release introduces new problems that we have to deal with.
Marco:
Plus, we have all these undocumented requirements that keep cropping up in point releases and everything.
Marco:
Add all that together and...
Marco:
I don't have time to work on features to make my app better because I'm just churning, working on just trying to keep up with the quicksand that my app is supposed to be built upon, trying to keep up with Apple's changes and the bugs and the APIs and deprecated things and changes in new OSs.
Marco:
I am having such a hard time just keeping up with the bare minimum.
Marco:
I have no time to make my app better for my customers.
Marco:
I don't know what Apple expects us to do here.
Casey:
Yeah, I don't know either.
Casey:
All right, let's try to talk about something happier.
Casey:
Maybe Samsung unveiled a new foldable flip phone concept.
Casey:
When did Mike get access to our show notes?
Casey:
What's going on here?
John:
This is what I was talking about last week, which is why it's involved for like the foldable phones.
John:
And I think it was like two weeks ago we talked about Mike's foldable thing.
John:
And then last week I said I was thinking about taking a quote unquote normal size, you know, iPhone size phone and thinking of ways to fold that.
John:
And that's exactly what Samsung showed.
John:
They showed a, you know, like I said, a traditionally proportioned
John:
phone and it folds like a flip phone like the the hinges uh right across the middle of the uh of the phone so it becomes half as tall as it was and i think that's just a concept i think or maybe it's a thing they're making it was more of a teaser uh i saw it in and it makes some sense to me and that it is more easily pocketable
John:
But I'm still not entirely sure of the merits.
John:
I mean, it certainly seems like it would make a better fidget toy than the Galaxy Fold, which seems hard to take out of your pocket and idly flip open and closed.
John:
But this is much closer to the Galaxy Fold.
John:
pre-smartphone you know sort of feature phone dumb phone flip phone error where you can take it and go flip flip flip flip if they make the hints good that could work uh on the other hand i still feel terrible about this screen being folded over on the inside of a phone that really tight radius on the inside curve and the inevitable crease you're gonna get there and yada yada yada anyway uh just funny coincidence that uh their timing of the release uh was around about the same time we were talking about on our show
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Any other follow-up?
John:
We skipped over the HomePod update.
John:
Oh, yes.
John:
I decided to update everything in my house at 13.2, and the HomePod was one of the last ones I wanted to, like... It supposedly has, like, the multi-voice support, so I wanted to try that out.
John:
And I kept trying to update it all day, and it would be, like, downloading update and...
John:
then it would say it would say checking for update for a while then it would say downloading update and it was like 900 megs or something and it would download surprisingly slowly because i guess it's over wi-fi because there's no wired ethernet connected to my home pod and it's not particularly close to my access point but i'm like it should be going faster than this and i'd look at it again and it would just be sitting there or it'd be like it would say downloading or would say checking again it just seemed to not be making progress like there's no progress bar
John:
another recent concept uh topic on the show so i don't know how far along it was but all i know is that hours were going by and it wasn't getting updated i'm like is it downloading the os update to my phone because i was using the home app on my phone like no that can't be the home pod is downloading it to itself right and i couldn't understand it and then eventually i you know
John:
raised my head above uh the waterline of my daily routine and saw on twitter that everyone was saying that the home pod update had been pulled because it had been bricking home pods and they don't have like a good way to sort of like you know restore them to health with like a special button press or usbc cable or whatever any any kind of diagnostic stuff they have is not really user accessible so if it's really truly hoses itself you kind of got to give it back to apple and they
John:
you know the grinch brings it to his workshop and fixes it for you and then gives it back so um what i had heard and this is my internal explanation of this is that you know so there was bricking home pods and that apple in theory stopped signing the update so you could download it but when it would try to validate the signature or whatever it would fail and then it would just download it again and try to validate the signature again i don't know if this is true this is what i had been told
John:
And it explains why my HomePod spent most of that day repeatedly downloading 900 megabytes of OS update only to find that it could not install it.
John:
So I guess I dodged a bullet there because it didn't break my HomePod, and I was trying to update after that happened.
John:
And today I ran the update for real, and I got 13.2.1, and it did not break my HomePod as far as I know.
John:
Yeah, I just heard someone turn off the lights before I started the thing, and it worked, so...
John:
That's good.
John:
But, you know, just add that to the pile of iOS 13 related disasters.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Bombas.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
These are made from super soft natural cotton.
Marco:
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Marco:
There's also some great new things, such as their new Merino wool socks, designed to be breathable, dry, and never itchy with just the right amount of thickness.
Marco:
And with tons of different colors, patterns, lengths, and styles, Bombas make the perfect gift for not only for yourself or for everyone on your list.
Marco:
I wear Bombas socks.
Marco:
I wore them all summer because I, and this was before they were a sponsor.
Marco:
I just, I heard they were good and I bought them and I check them out and they're really, really nice.
Marco:
Like these are, these are not like, you know, your, your standard, like, you know, cheap 12 pack bulk pair of socks.
Marco:
Like these are really nice socks.
Marco:
They're like, they're soft.
Marco:
They're thick in just the right places.
Marco:
Like they're really well made.
Marco:
They fit like, cause you, you actually order like different size socks depending on how big your feet are instead of like, you know, one size fits all kind of thing, which basically means it fits nobody.
Marco:
They're really nice.
Marco:
I got to say that the Bombas, they're just really great socks.
Marco:
So you can see for yourself at bombas.com slash ATP.
Marco:
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Marco:
Once again, that's bombas.com slash ATP to save 20%.
Marco:
Bombas.com slash ATP.
Marco:
Thank you to Bombas for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
While I was gone, Apple announced AirPods Pro, which came out.
Casey:
When did they release the AirPods with the Qi case?
Casey:
That was six months ago, something like that.
Casey:
I bought a new set of AirPods whenever that happened because my first gen bought within the first couple of weeks AirPods were basically useless at that point.
Casey:
It was apparently March 2019, says Rufola from the chat.
Casey:
Thank you, Rufola.
Casey:
So I bought new AirPods in March.
Casey:
I'm not really interested in buying new AirPods right now, but oh man, these sound good.
Casey:
So I don't know.
Casey:
Do either of you have a pair at this point?
John:
I do.
John:
I knew Marco would have them and he doesn't either.
John:
He's been waiting for this.
John:
He's been waiting for this moment.
John:
You know, the old AirPods didn't fit his ears, but he wanted to use AirPods.
John:
So this is potentially, and we'll hear what the result is, a solution because these are shaped entirely different than the old AirPods and they work differently.
John:
So Marco, how do your ears enjoy the new AirPods?
Marco:
So I have to start this with a giant disclaimer.
Marco:
I've only used them for a total of about an hour so far because they just came tonight.
Marco:
So I used them as much as I could before the show, but this is still a very early first impressions kind of thing, not a full review.
Marco:
I love that the case is not really that much bigger than the old case.
Marco:
It's mostly just like the old case turned sideways.
Marco:
It's the fat nano of AirPod cases.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
yeah it really is actually yeah yeah yeah it's uh it's i was afraid when we started hearing rumors about these that it would be some kind of like giant bulbous case that wouldn't fit in the ipod nano pocket in your jeans but it still does like it sticks out a little bit on some jeans but like it's you know it's very similarly sized to the old airpods case you just turn it sideways and it and it's that way so it's fine
Marco:
And that makes me very happy because all I've wanted all this time is some kind of headphones I could keep in my pants pocket and always have around and be comfortable that way.
Marco:
And only the previous AirPods ever really did that for me.
Marco:
But again, as mentioned, I had comfort issues with them and falling out issues with them.
Marco:
and i also i you know controlling them always sucked like doing like the double tap that always sucked and so the airpod pros airpods pro this god we're gonna mess this up constantly airpods pro they uh they fix a lot of these problems so first of all
Marco:
They come with three different size tips, very similar to the way the Power Beats do, although these aren't the same tips.
Marco:
They're different shapes, but three different size tips.
Marco:
Very, very happy about that.
Marco:
I tried them with the size that comes on them, like the medium size, I guess it is.
Marco:
The medium size seems to fit me great.
Marco:
I don't think I'm going to change to the other two sizes.
Marco:
I ran the cool test that it does where it plays some music and listens using the exterior microphones.
Marco:
It listens to see how much sound is leaking out.
Marco:
and how much is getting in.
Marco:
And that kind of tells you whether your fit is right or whether they're not sealing properly.
Marco:
And the test passed for me, so that was pretty cool.
Marco:
So I think I will probably be sticking with the medium-sized tips that come on them.
Marco:
And after about an hour of wearing them,
Marco:
I felt fine.
Marco:
It wasn't as comfortable as over ear headphones are for me because it was still something in my ear.
Marco:
And if I'm going to be wearing something for like an hour or more, I would rather wear either over ears or aftershocks, the bone conduction ones, because those similar thing, like they don't have anything in your ear.
Marco:
But if I'm going to have something in my ear, this is the most comfortable one I've found yet, on par with and slightly better than the Power Beats Pro.
Marco:
So that was really nice.
Marco:
Again, I'll see how it goes with longer sessions, but so far, so good.
Marco:
Noise canceling on them, I haven't had too much time again to play with it yet, but it seems to be like moderate strength.
Marco:
It's nothing like what you get with the big over-ear Sonys or Bose's, nothing like that at all.
Marco:
But it is, you know, it reduces sound somewhat.
Marco:
I actually like keeping it in the transparency mode.
Marco:
I don't think I've mentioned on the show yet.
Marco:
I have the new Bose.
Marco:
I think there's called the 400s or something or 300s, some number that is like the new big Bose headphones.
Marco:
I have those.
Marco:
I got those a couple months ago.
Marco:
one of my favorite features on them is that you can turn noise canceling totally off and it uses the microphones on the outside to pipe outside sound into the headphones in addition to your music.
Marco:
And so it's as though you're not wearing headphones at all.
Marco:
So if you want to be somewhere where you want to hear the outside environment, which I always do if I'm like outside, you know, I pretty much only want noise canceling if I'm on a plane or something, but like, otherwise, like I want to hear what's going on around me.
Marco:
That's again, one of the reasons I like aftershocks so much.
Marco:
Um, but yeah,
Marco:
So the Bose has this feature where it could pipe sound in from the outside continuously in addition to your music, and I love that feature.
Marco:
Well, the new AirPods do that now too.
Marco:
They have this feature, they call it transparency mode, and it's really, really nice.
Marco:
It feels like you're not wearing them at all, because you can hear what's going on in addition to your podcast or whatever.
Marco:
So I love that feature.
Marco:
I'm probably gonna keep it in transparency mode most of the time.
Marco:
And it's nice that it has some isolation and some noise canceling ability,
Marco:
Because one of the problems that AirPods have always had is like, it's really hard to use AirPods in very loud places, like on planes or like train station or whatever, because they just didn't seal very well.
Marco:
And it was very likely that your outside sound would overpower the AirPods sound.
Marco:
And you'd have to either crank it up to like unhealthily loud levels to hear what's going on inside your AirPods.
Marco:
These I think will solve that.
Marco:
I think both the improved passive isolation from the rubber tips
Marco:
and the active noise canceling, I think will be good enough that you'll probably be able to wear these on like a plane or a ferry or a train, and you'll probably be able to hear your stuff.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
Again, it's, I don't think it's going to be anywhere near as, as strong in that kind of scenario as over ear, you know, big active noise canceling models, but, uh, for earbuds, they're great.
Marco:
Now, uh,
Marco:
controls the they've totally changed the control scheme here instead of tapping your ear which i hated on the airpods because it's like it's already uncomfortable in there and now you're making me like strike my ear like double tapping them to do like that was a terrible thing uh so with these they've built in pressure sensors into the sticks stems whatever they're called and uh call the temples
Marco:
There you go.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So you squeeze the stick.
Marco:
It doesn't actually move.
Marco:
It isn't an actual button.
Marco:
It's like a squeeze sensor, and it makes a little click sound in there.
Marco:
So it sounds kind of like you're clicking a button, and then it mimics the old headphone gestures.
Marco:
So the old headphone clickers that they would have when they were wired, one press is play pause, two presses is seek forward, three presses is seek back.
Marco:
And then you can hold it for a few seconds, and you can set it to either Siri or changing the noise-canceling mode between off noise-canceling and transparency.
Marco:
And you can set those differently for each ear.
Marco:
So if you want, you can make the left one change noise-canceling mode, and the right one invoke Siri if you want to.
John:
Does it announce what you're doing when you change the noise canceling?
John:
Is there a voice?
John:
Is there a sound?
John:
How do you know which mode you're in?
Marco:
It plays a sound effect, and the sound effect is different depending on what mode it's entering.
Marco:
I haven't learned them yet, so I wish it would just announce it with voice.
Marco:
The Bose and the Sonys have done that for a long time, which is very nice.
Marco:
Those are like, noise canceling?
Marco:
That's really nice.
Marco:
This doesn't do that.
Marco:
This just plays some kind of pleasant Apple chime, and it's three different pleasant Apple chimes depending on what it's doing, so...
Marco:
I got to figure that out.
Marco:
But, you know, I'm sure if you use them regularly, you'll figure it out.
Marco:
But you can customize it so you can say, like, if you never want to use, say, transparency mode, if you just want to switch between noise canceling and off, you can uncheck transparency to be one of the options that cycles through.
Marco:
So you can pick, of the three options, which two or three it cycles through.
Marco:
So that's pretty cool.
Marco:
The old tap gestures are not present here.
Marco:
You cannot also do double taps on them to do, you know, the old things.
Marco:
It's only the squeezing the sticks now.
Marco:
And I've found so far in, again, very limited use so far, squeezing the stick is, it takes a little bit of getting used to it, like exactly the type of squeeze it wants.
Marco:
But once you get it, it seems pretty reliable.
Marco:
It seems like once you get the hang of what it wants you to do, it's pretty good.
Marco:
And the little audio click sound that it makes when you've done a button press is very helpful to have that kind of feedback to know, like, I did it.
Marco:
And that makes it especially helpful when you have to do a double or triple click gesture to do forward or back.
Marco:
that the little click sound it makes makes that a lot easier to do reliably um so i'm very happy with that uh there is still no way to adjust volume on them that's a little annoying but you know it's if you're if you used airpods you know what you know what that's like because that's how it's always been uh so i guess if you have you know apple watch or your phone nearby you just do it on that or
John:
I guess you could use Siri, but that would suck.
John:
I've done that, though.
John:
Sometimes my hands are full of stuff in the kitchen, and I do want to change the volume, and I have actually asked the dingus to do it.
John:
Yeah, I'm sorry.
John:
I mean, it's better than having no options.
Marco:
That's fair, yeah.
Marco:
It's a high bar.
Marco:
So control-wise, they're not as good as headphones that have dedicated buttons or a large tucked surface.
Marco:
They're not as good as that.
Marco:
But for tiny little earbuds, they're okay, and they're certainly a lot better than the original AirPods in the control department, in my opinion.
Marco:
So finally, we've done comfort.
Marco:
We've done controls.
Marco:
Finally, we get to sound.
Marco:
These sound really good.
Marco:
They don't sound as good as great full-size headphones.
Marco:
But they do sound as good as okay full-size headphones.
Marco:
I would even say they sound as good as decent full-size headphones.
Marco:
They sound, to my ears, better than anything Bose has ever made.
Marco:
They're on par with the Sonys.
Marco:
The Sony WH-XM1000 Mark II and III, they're similar to that in overall quality.
Marco:
Not the same tonal balance.
Marco:
They have a little bit better bass, a little bit smoother midrange.
Marco:
They're a little weak on the treble response, so things don't sound as crisp and airy as they could.
Marco:
also in headphone reviewer terms they have they don't have a very wide sound stage you know what that means in headphone terms is like how wide does it seem like the room that you're in is like how does it sound like you're like a big airy open space or does it sound like people have shoved speakers into your ears when you have like larger better headphones you can they use tricks to simulate a wide sound stage and it makes it sound more pleasant uh airpods don't do that and neither do the airpod pros
Marco:
But again, these are earbuds.
Marco:
And the whole time I was wearing them, I was testing them, I was listening to all these different music tracks and things I test with, and the whole time I was thinking, like, these are earbuds.
Marco:
I can't believe sound this good is coming out of earbuds.
Marco:
Because they really do sound better than a lot of full-size headphones I've tested.
Marco:
and overall it's it's a very like pleasing and offensive sound like almost every headphone i've ever tested i can point to something about its sound as being pretty severely bad in some way either it's like way too like boomy bass that makes it hard to hear anything else or the mid-range where all like the vocals and guitars are is all like sucked out and withdrawn or like the treble is so aggressively rolled off to make it sound warm and
Marco:
uh that you get no detail in the in that in the christmas range up there and there's nothing like that i can say for these like yeah like the treble is a little bit a little bit weak but it's to the point where like that could even just be like what their audio engineers find as their personal preference of how it should be everything about the sound is just good
Marco:
Again, I would like more treble if it's my preference, but overall, it's just good sound all around.
Marco:
There's nothing about it that jumps out as being too extreme or too lacking.
Marco:
It's just overall good, very pleasing, nothing like the old Beats where the bass was too crazy overpowering.
Marco:
So I really am very happy with these.
Marco:
Considering the convenience factor of having something that can fit in my pocket,
Marco:
And finally be comfortable, I think, for probably long spans here.
Marco:
I also, by the way, I had no problem with them falling out of my ears.
Marco:
Another problem I have with regular AirPods is that as I walk, they would fall out because as you walk, your ear moves slightly, I guess.
Marco:
And yeah, I had no problem there.
Marco:
They stayed in.
Marco:
I mean, I was just walking around my house because it's raining a lot today.
Marco:
I didn't want to go outside for a big dog walk at night.
Marco:
But I will.
Marco:
I'll report back on if that holds during more motion.
Marco:
But
Marco:
So far, these seem like a home run, and I am so excited about that.
Marco:
You know, finally, I think I will finally be able to join the AirPods revolution here that everyone else joined two years ago, whenever that was, because these do seem to fit me.
Marco:
The case still does fit in my pocket, unlike the Powerbeats, and I am just so happy at how good these appear to be.
Marco:
Like,
Marco:
They feel good.
Marco:
They sound great for earbuds.
Marco:
Again, they sound very good for headphones, period.
Marco:
And they sound great for earbuds.
Marco:
And to have that in this convenient package with all the first-party integration and support and everything, man, I think they've hit a home run here.
Marco:
I'm very, very pleased with these.
John:
It's not surprising that Marco couldn't find an AirPod that he liked until Apple made a Pro model.
LAUGHTER
John:
well done well done yeah the one other thing i heard about these speaking of pro stuff and i don't know if this is just heard it from one person and it would be interesting to measure is the latency is better like the the bluetooth latency i'm not sure how that could be but i suppose it could be if they updated the chips uh the other thing about these is from judging by the pictures it looks like
John:
Looks like there's more volume in there, more non-battery volume.
John:
Maybe some of that is air, maybe some of that is just the shape of the case.
John:
Maybe I'm being fooled by the fact that the tip has nothing in it, but it looks like it's part of the thing.
John:
But I'm wondering if there's actually more bigger, better smarts inside these.
John:
They say they come with H1, like there's no H2, I think, or any other kind of chip name changing.
John:
But I would love to see someone measure the audio latency to see if it actually is better.
Marco:
The AirPod itself, if you discount the volume that is taken up by the squishy tip, I don't think it's that much bigger.
Marco:
Also, they lost some of the stick length, too.
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I don't think it's actually significantly bigger.
John:
The stick length is something I immediately... When I first looked at these, I was all thrown off by the sense of scale.
John:
What I originally thought was that they took the...
John:
the airpods case uh you know take the airpods traditional airpods case with the top facing up and they had made it shorter like they had made it half as tall i'm like oh my god these things are so tiny yeah i've already pointed out it's not that it's they turned it sideways and made it you know 15 bigger or whatever which is fine um
John:
But then I was like, the sticks, I'm like, are the sticks shorter or am I just fooled because the proportions have changed?
John:
But no, it turns out the sticks are shorter, which is a little bit strange to me because I know people, some people think the AirPods look a little dorky because the sticks are a little too long.
John:
But I, well, all right, so I'm in the minority here, but I don't have, I don't.
John:
care how dorky i look wearing airpods for many obvious reasons it's the least of my concerns you don't look dorky everybody wears them everybody wants them it's fine like i i think during the very first three days they were out that you might have looked dorky that's that time has long passed well because of the airpods yes yeah um so but as far as i'm concerned uh make the sticks longer if that gives me more battery first of all and second of all if the main interaction with these things is grabbing a thing and squeezing it yeah
John:
Another few millimeters couldn't hurt if you're grabbing it and squeezing it.
John:
Anyway, I haven't tried them, so I have no idea if this is actually an issue.
John:
It would seem weird to me that they would decide to take that hit.
John:
I think they are actually heavier as well.
Marco:
If the sticks were longer, the case would have to be wider in that short dimension.
Marco:
Like, I'm looking down, like, there's not much room between the bottom where the stick rests and the bottom of the case.
John:
You could angle them, maybe.
John:
I don't know.
John:
I'd see, like, an x-ray to see how much room there is to finagle them.
John:
And that may be true.
John:
That may be why they made them short.
John:
And obviously, it doesn't matter in terms of battery life.
John:
They have, according to Apple and according to all the tests I've seen of them, pretty much exactly match the battery life of the non-pro ones, which is a feat because, obviously, these use more battery because they're sensing with a microphone and the noise-canceling mode and everything.
John:
So they...
John:
they met it with noise canceling.
John:
They knock off a half an hour.
John:
So Apple says 4.5 hours per charge with noise canceling, uh, and five without and five without is exactly what the non pro AirPods have.
John:
So it's not like they need desperately needed more battery.
John:
Uh, but I, I personally wouldn't have minded more battery.
John:
And I was looking at the cutaways trying to figure out what the hell is the battery in this?
John:
Like, I'm wondering if this changes the equation on the amount of mass in the AirPods is attributable to the battery.
John:
We have the whole discussion about the fact that batteries are replaceable.
John:
all that stuff apple has been asked about that i think even more recently than our program about it and then continues to say that they're mostly concentrating on recyclability recyclability is good uh but an ability to be recycled is not the same as actually being recycled um so let's just reiterate for everybody it's not for i mean it's not for apple's lack of trying if you bring your airpods to apple they will take them and quote unquote recycle them i'm pretty sure bring them to an apple store and they will recycle them for you i'm assuming they don't say yeah we're recycling these and chuck them in the wastebasket um
John:
uh but anyway see previous episode if they did that uh the environmental impact would be a fraction of what it is to like wrap and deliver uh one macbook pro probably anyway um i am interested in the the sort of potential for a battery case for your airpod pros now uh
John:
Maybe make the sticks longer, make the sticks a little bit thicker and give us even wider battery life.
John:
Because I think the battery life on these is fine when they're new.
John:
But as someone who's on his second pair of AirPods, you know, there's no getting around the fact that after a certain number of cycles, these batteries are going to be shot and they're not replaceable.
John:
And I don't want to have to buy new ones, especially now that the price for new ones has increased to $250 if this is the model you get.
John:
So you make that battery bigger, it lasts longer, it gets drained less severely, it doesn't go all the way down to, you know, 5% power or whatever.
John:
All that could contribute to a longer product lifetime for these things.
John:
So there's room for revision too, as always.
Marco:
I got to say, these are so good.
Marco:
Oh, a couple more little things before I forget.
Marco:
The cable in the box is a lightning to USB-C cable, not a USB-A cable.
Marco:
That's a nice little touch.
Marco:
We're moving into the future, finally.
Marco:
And it also, again, it comes with all three different ear tip sizes of the rubber tips that it can make.
Marco:
And I'm sure in three seconds, there's going to be like a million on Amazon, too, in case these don't fit you.
Marco:
And then also, the price of the replacement tips they've disclosed is $4.
John:
so if you need more rubber tips you can apparently get them from an apple store for four dollars which sounds like a bargain but actual cost of material is 0.01 cents of course but still like to go to buy a physical product from apple for four dollars i don't think like there's not a lot of things that they sell you at that price range well the product i think it's more of a part whatever product it's a part whatever but yeah getting a part for that and it's good yeah then like i said there's going to be a million aftermarket things but
John:
I wasn't interested in these at all because I don't like any headphone things that go into my ear canal in any way whatsoever, which is part of why I'm such a fan of the original AirPods and the original earbuds, although the first couple rounds of...
John:
earbuds on the ipod were a little uncomfortable for me but airpods i loved like this is what i want you're not actually in in my ear but you're in my ear and of course i find them very comfortable and i wear them all day long and they don't fall out and it's great i'm like all right well the pros it's great for people like marco the other ones didn't fit or if you want that in-ear experience or if you want nose canceling none of those things interest me but hearing everybody's rave reviews about them like well maybe you only think you don't like in-ear ones because all the ones you've tried have been different you know
John:
than the Apple ones.
John:
But here's the thing.
John:
You didn't discuss this, and I think it's going to come up in our circles eventually.
John:
I guess it's true of regular AirPods 2.
John:
Say I'm on the fence about whether I want to buy these, and I hear everybody talk about them.
John:
What I want to do is try them to see how comfortable they are in my ears.
John:
But, you know, first of all, you probably can't go into an Apple store and try some and stick them in your ears because that would be weird and unsanitary.
John:
And a million people have done that.
John:
And no matter how much the Apple employees wipe that thing down with their little magical cloth, it's supposedly doing something other than smearing stuff around.
John:
It's probably not going to happen.
John:
And even for people in your family or friends, you probably don't want to take their earwax covered thing and shove it into your ear.
John:
And after you do that, they probably don't want to stick it back in their ear.
John:
I mean, I suppose you could bring your own tips, but the tips probably get wear and tear being torn on and off.
John:
So there's like this, there's this try on problem with these that how do I know?
John:
whether i should try buying these things now you can buy them and return them it's like that 14 day whatever their return window is i suppose i shouldn't buy them anyway it's a moratorium on buying any technology products like in my stupid mac pro but you gotta save all those pennies how wait how much before we move on how much do you want to bet these cost less than the mac pro wheels oh for sure less than one these cost less than one mac for a wheel
John:
uh yeah so any day that'll come but yeah so i'm i'm actually intrigued by this not because there are any particular deficiencies with the existing ones because the noise canceling i mean even though it's not a feature i really want hearing that is just kind of like a more tame version of noise canceling and not uh not as oppressive as the the other ones a lot of people saying like that because there's this little
John:
air channel, that it doesn't give you that weird pressure feeling, which I don't mind, but whatever, I think it would be good.
John:
And the other thing I had been assuming, and maybe, Marco, you can tell me if you've experienced this, I assumed the transparency mode wasn't just...
John:
playing sounds from the outside but was concentrating kind of like voice boost on the human vocal frequency range and sending those through but continuing to filter out things outside of the human vocal range can you tell if that's the case um as from again this has been very limited use uh and only in one house like with a tv on for for reference but uh
Marco:
but it seemed like it was not doing that.
Marco:
It doesn't sound totally unfiltered in transparency mode, but it does sound like it's not strongly filtered.
Marco:
Any perceived difference in outside sound versus what was being piped in could have been chalked up to the microphone's response pattern to different frequencies rather than a deliberate filtering.
Marco:
So as far as I can tell, it's not doing that.
Marco:
And honestly, I think that's best.
Marco:
If you're in some kind of transparency mode,
Marco:
You don't want filtering.
Marco:
You want it to be as neutral as possible.
John:
You can hear the truck that's about to run you over, even though it's very low frequency.
John:
Right, exactly.
John:
Yeah, so I'm actually vaguely interested in that feature.
John:
We're not going to get to this today, certainly, but eventually we probably will.
John:
This makes me think all the more about the future potential for Apple's health products.
John:
Apple just had their earning call today and we don't really talk about those.
John:
But in it, Tim Cook, I think it was once again reiterated how important Apple thinks health is in the context of the Apple Watch and everything like that.
John:
uh they apple is taking baby steps into other health related realms whether people are noticing or not by giving you a small thing that you can stick in your ear that listens to sound of the outside world and plays it amplified into your ear canal i mean it's not that far to go from the airpods pro a couple generations down into something that perhaps isn't a purpose-built hearing aid but can absolutely serve that purpose for a large portion of the population and i think they could bring to it the same thing they bring to
John:
their cameras and their phones and you know you've got computational photography the room for innovation in hearing aids and other you know assistive devices for like computational enhancement rather than just sort of dumb amplification of sound is pretty big like Apple could innovate in that space they have the technology the frameworks the know-how the ability to make very small very fast
John:
hardware in a stylish package that can do a lot of sophisticated audio stuff and then having people on their staff who know how to do that programming.
John:
That's just... I can see it.
John:
It's like, you know, it's not far away.
John:
They could have a product like that out by next year.
John:
And although they're not...
Marco:
positioning the airpods pro in any way as an assistive hearing device i think even hardware wise some capability for that might already be there and could even be applied to the software update if that's something apple wanted to do a couple more quick notes before i forget um number one i think these actually might last longer than the old airpods did simply because there's a lot less potential for the earwax to gum up the important parts on the inside
Marco:
Because the different rubbery tip structure I think will keep your earwax further from the drivers and from the actual little speaker grill on the inside.
Marco:
And then secondly, one of the reasons why I think these will sound better to a lot of people is that
Marco:
the kind of like, you know, loose, resting there, earbud style that the old AirPods were, sounds very different depending on how good of a seal your ear is making with them.
Marco:
If you have a good seal, you'll hear good bass response.
Marco:
If you don't, you won't.
Marco:
And it's a huge variation depending on how good that seal is.
Marco:
And with the AirPods Pro...
Marco:
I'm going to keep trying to say AirPods Pros.
Marco:
With the AirPods Pro, because of the rubber tip structure there, it keeps a much more consistent seal.
Marco:
There's much less variation.
Marco:
You put it in, and it's sealed, and it stays that way.
Marco:
You don't have to push it or adjust it or anything like that to really get anything there.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
The way that AirPods originally sound so different to different people, I think the AirPods Pro will sound good to almost everybody because of the different ceiling structure it has there.
Casey:
So an unfair question, because you weren't the biggest fan of the AirPods, for someone like me who loves his AirPods and doesn't fly but a couple of times a year, is it worth it to get new ones?
Casey:
Because sitting here now, I feel like this is one of those really good holiday gifts, right?
Casey:
Other than ATP shirts at atp.fm.
Casey:
It's a really good holiday gift in that it's something I want, but I don't want to pay for myself because I have perfectly good AirPods.
Casey:
Like, where do you feel this lands?
Casey:
Is it something that's significantly better on account of the noise cancellation or the sound or what have you?
Casey:
Or do you think it's one of those?
Casey:
Yeah, you know, next time I get AirPods, get the pros or, you know, maybe put it on the holiday list or something like that.
Marco:
I mean, if you're an AirPods power user and you're happy with them the way they are, you know, fine.
Marco:
Then I don't think you need to rush to get these until like your next upgrade cycle.
Marco:
I would say like if you're buying new ones and you're faced with the decision of spending like whatever it is, the 80-ish dollars more for these, I would say no question, get the pros.
Marco:
They are that much better.
Marco:
unless you are super in love with the other ones and you don't want what the pros offer.
Marco:
But the pros are so much better for me in comfort and in those features and the controls and the sound quality.
Marco:
To me, it's a no-brainer.
Marco:
But if you are super happy with the old AirPods, yeah, keep them.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
If you are unhappy with any of those factors, make the jump, man.
Marco:
They're so good.
John:
If Casey was over your house and said, can I try out your AirPods, would you hand them to him and watch him stick them in his ears?
John:
How would you parse that, socially speaking?
John:
I would let a good friend try them.
John:
all right you're wax friends you're wax buddies yeah oh my god wax buddies um and to clarify casey is a good enough friend i like i would let casey try them you can you can allow your bodily fluids to mingle um so some real time follow-up and from some forum posts a couple people did go to apple stores and
John:
the apple store did allow them to try the airpods they had disinfectant wipes and like i said the people wipe stuff down what would be even better is if they did like the uh doctor's office ear uh scope thingy you know when they're gonna look in your ear with a little thing with the light they put on the little plastic tip they look in your ear they look in your other ear they pop off the plastic tip into the little garbage can which hopefully goes to recycling somewhere and they're done like they get these tips are so cheap that apple should have like a giant bucket of them and anytime anyone wants to try out airpods they say sure
John:
at airpods pro they take out two fresh new tips pop them in let them try them and then when they're done they rip those tips out and throw them into the cool little plastic recycling bin that would be a better system than trying to use disinfectant wipes but disinfectant wipes is apparently what we've got so if you're wondering whether you can try them on you can either if you're really good friends with marco try his or you can go to an apple store and brave the disinfectant wipes
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John:
One small item that has been in the notes for a few weeks, only because it's one of those things I see on the internet and then don't hear anything about.
John:
And the obvious explanation is that it was total BS.
John:
That's why you don't hear anything about it.
John:
But it could also be that nobody cares.
John:
Several weeks ago, someone was like, oh, I saw one of the new Mac Pros in the Apple store.
John:
One other person chimed in and said, yeah, I saw it too.
John:
I think it was on Twitter or something.
John:
And then radio silence.
John:
Now, there are lots of explanations for this.
John:
One is that there is at least one PC manufacturer case that looks exactly like the Mac Pro.
John:
It doesn't actually slide off from the top.
John:
It actually just opens on the sides or whatever.
John:
There's tons of YouTube videos of people showing this off.
John:
I'm like, I'm making an amazing Mac Pro.
John:
Or sometimes they show the video making you think it's the Mac Pro.
John:
Like it really looks like dead on, you know, in a video or in photos.
John:
But it's not.
John:
It's not an Apple case.
John:
By the way, if you're wondering how you can tell whether it's an Apple case, the one thing that these PC case makers were not brave enough to do was put a giant Apple logo on the sides.
John:
They were brave enough to exactly copy Apple's industrial design, and I don't understand how they can continue selling that and not get sued out of existence, but that shoe hasn't dropped yet.
John:
But anyway, that exists.
John:
So maybe these people were confused, and they didn't see a new Mac Pro in an Apple store.
John:
They instead saw one of these PC cases either in a store or on a video or something.
John:
Second thing I thought for at least several days is,
John:
Maybe Apple does have the new Mac Pros in the Apple store.
John:
It's not like they don't have them.
John:
When we saw the running software at WWDC in June, like they exist.
John:
You could have them in stores sitting off in the corner and maybe just no one cares.
John:
And so no one would mention it because who the heck cares about the Mac Pro?
John:
You know, there's trash can Mac Pros in Apple stores now, too.
John:
nobody ever mentions those they're invisible like there's also apple tvs probably hooked up and those are you know kind of meant to be invisible but my conclusion was after several days of this is that these people were mistaken and or joking and mac pros are not in stores but i did have a fun little diversion into thinking that they could appear there the only other related tidbit we have on this people people are asking like
John:
when is there going to be a Mac Pro event?
John:
They already did that.
John:
It was WMDC.
John:
There was an event.
John:
There was videos.
John:
There was music.
John:
There was a dramatic reveal on stage.
John:
We got to see them in person.
John:
They had the event.
John:
You don't need another event.
John:
That said, there is some Final Cut Pro event coming up and
John:
Other places where Apple could like have a coming out party for the fact that you can now go online and pledge your children's college fund to Apple in exchange for one of these computers.
John:
They could do that, but there's not going to be another event event.
John:
The news today was that the FCC filing for this thing came through.
John:
I don't understand how that relates to the timing of the release.
John:
Fall is a long time.
John:
I think it ends in the middle of December.
John:
I'm still patiently waiting.
John:
I don't even care about when they ship, really.
John:
I just want to see the pricing so I can figure out how much of my children's college fund is going to disappear into this computer.
John:
And Hammond Hall probably for several weeks about configuration and stuff like that, so...
John:
At the time of recording, that has not yet happened, and that's what I'm waiting for.
John:
I'm not waiting for an event.
John:
I don't care about the FCC filing, and I'm pretty sure these machines do not exist in Apple stores.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Moving on to Ask ATP, James Shield would like to know, I have a 2013 MacBook Air that I'm waiting to replace until Apple fixes the keyboards.
Casey:
But should I also wait until they move to ARM?
Casey:
Are ARM Mac laptops and the associated huge boosts in performance and battery life just around the corner?
Casey:
Or will I be hanging on to this already six-year-old laptop for as long as John has kept his Mac Pro?
Casey:
I agree that performance and battery life should get better with ARM laptops in theory, but do we really, really, really know that?
Casey:
I mean, of course we don't know it.
John:
Yes, we really know that.
Casey:
All right, all right.
John:
Look at the size of the battery in the iPhone.
Yeah.
John:
compared to the size of the battery in apple's laptops consider the performance numbers consider the better like i mean obviously the screen is smaller like if if it doesn't apple has done something terribly wrong like it will be difficult not to make an arm laptop that doesn't have better battery life than what we see today better battery life performance ratio i should say all right so should one wait or should one just commit
John:
No, like, if you need a laptop now, you should just buy one.
John:
Like, you'll get a useful lifetime out of that before the ARM ones come out.
John:
And do you want, like, the very first ARM laptops?
John:
Like, you probably want to wait for the software to settle down, and whatever the transition is, like, is perfectly safe to buy, you know, an Intel laptop.
John:
Now, especially since laptops, like, I was going to say, you're only going to be able to use it for six months before the keyboard starts breaking anyway, but who knows?
John:
Yeah, that's what I would say about this, actually, is
John:
like don't wait for arm laptops but if you can wait for the ones with the keyboard that works better uh that's what i would wait for i think it's still safe to buy intel computers and you know we brought this up months and months ago when i was talking about the the very real possibility that i will be buying like the last intel based mac pro like before the arm transition i have no idea when
John:
when and if the entire mac line will transition to arm or if they would just do the laptops or who knows whatever like but i'm resigned to the fact that it could be that i spend this huge amount of money and then the next big announcement related to the mac that apple has is guess what everything's going arm and here i am with this giant boat anchor like i'm i'm okay with that like i'm i know it's a real thing i'm signing up for it like i because the thing is and
John:
Because of the corner that I painted myself into, I love how I've turned this question into a Mac Pro thing.
John:
Because of this corner that I've painted myself into, I've waited 10 years.
John:
If I said, you know what, at this point, I should really wait for the ARM Macs?
John:
Like, come on.
John:
Like, you have to... 10 years, you gotta just... You know, I made my bed, now I'm gonna lie in it.
John:
So, anyway, I would say to James...
John:
it's safe to buy one uh safe to buy an intel mac it's probably not safe to buy any laptop with a butterfly keyboard in any form whatsoever so wait for the new keyboard if you can but don't be afraid that you're missing out on arm stuff like especially with laptops you'll have laptop for a year or two and you know if they transition to arm the day after you buy the laptop you'll still be fine spending that year or two on an intel one
Marco:
Yeah, I pretty much agree.
Marco:
I definitely agree that if you're concerned about longevity, do not buy a butterfly keyboard no matter what.
Marco:
You cannot trust them.
Marco:
Even the new materials version from this past year, it's unproven.
Marco:
It might last a little bit longer, but we don't know that.
Marco:
So you can't trust butterfly keyboards, period.
Marco:
So definitely wait on that.
Marco:
But once we have scissor keyboards...
Marco:
We don't know when or really even if we're going to get our Macs.
Marco:
It could be next month.
Marco:
It could be in five years.
Marco:
It could be never.
Marco:
We have no idea.
Marco:
Also, even when the first ones come out or if they come out,
Marco:
you might not want the very first generation.
Marco:
The second generation might be a lot better.
Marco:
The first generation might have problems and the first generation you're going to have to deal with the software transition in a much more rough and early way than you will if you wait like a year or two.
Marco:
So really like those very first ones, they probably would be compelling in certain ways.
Marco:
I wouldn't expect a huge performance jump.
Marco:
I would expect a big battery life jump, but not a huge performance jump.
Marco:
But those very first ones are good.
Marco:
They're going to have problems.
Marco:
They're going to have growing pains.
Marco:
And you're probably not going to want to be there on day one for the software landscape.
Marco:
You're probably going to want to let that shake out.
Marco:
Let all the developers update their apps for ARM compatibility for like a year or two first.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
That's not to say I'm not going to buy one on day one.
Marco:
But I buy everything.
Marco:
I think ultimately, if you're concerned with longevity of a product, you can buy an Intel MacBook as soon as they have scissor keyboards again.
Marco:
And then you can buy ARM whenever it's time to replace that one if they're out yet.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I was thinking as you guys were talking, would there be a compelling reason for them to maintain both Intel and ARM?
Casey:
Like keep the Mac Pro on Intel stuff?
John:
Yeah, like if they don't want to make a big beefy Xeon class ARM thing with all of the expensive PCI Express lanes and all that.
John:
If that turns out not to be either...
John:
Just not to be something they're interested in.
John:
The big question, the only reason they wouldn't do an Intel transition is if compatibility concerns end up trumping everything.
John:
And maybe compatibility is more important on the high-end pro line because of software and you can't get people port ARM.
John:
But maybe not.
John:
It's not clean, but today's Apple would absolutely do that if it made sense financially and politically in terms of getting software support for your weird ARM Macs.
John:
I continue to think that the more likely scenario is that if Intel can't get its act together, that everybody goes to ARM.
John:
Like someone sent an email earlier this week.
John:
It was like, Oh, you keep talking about our max, but I would never want that because my cool Intel Mac, I get to run a windows and Linux and blah, blah, blah.
John:
Like,
John:
Linux runs on ARM.
John:
Windows runs on ARM.
John:
It doesn't mean all the software is ported and that's always the problem, but you reach a critical mass and it's like, look, everyone's stuff already runs on ARM.
John:
We've had these alternate ARM versions.
John:
How long does it take to switch from Intel being the default with ARM as this weird sideshow to the other way around?
John:
It's really entirely dependent on how well Intel executes.
John:
If Intel starts making good chips again, then the rest of the industry will just breathe a sigh of relief and get back on that train.
John:
But it's not a safe bet anymore.
John:
So in the meantime, having ARM as a potential strategy for not just Apple, for everybody.
John:
And then if everybody does it, it becomes a lot less of a hassle and it makes much less sense to keep some portion of the Mac line on Intel.
Casey:
All righty.
Casey:
Adam Spellbring writes, I understand the basic reason why APFS can't be used with Time Machine.
Casey:
APFS doesn't support hard links.
Casey:
But what I don't understand is why Time Machine hasn't been updated to use symbolic links instead.
Casey:
Do you have any insight as to why they haven't been made compatible yet?
Casey:
Is it a complete rewrite of the application or do you think it's just not a priority since they've made it work with HFS Plus and there are more pressing issues?
Casey:
Would there be any real significant benefit to making Time Machine compatible with APFS?
John:
First minor correction, APFS does support hard links.
John:
It doesn't support hard links to directories, which is this weird thing that Time Machine does.
John:
Simlinks are not the same thing for a variety of reasons.
John:
As I think we've touched on in a few past episodes scattered throughout...
John:
there are obvious potential benefits to a time machine that is built around the capabilities of APFS, the ability to detect what has changed since the last time in an efficient manner and send just those diffs with the whole snapshotting functionality.
John:
Apple has been creeping up on that.
John:
So from the day APFS shipped everywhere, right, it's been clear that...
John:
Time Machine, if it was going to work with APFS, shouldn't just be like, oh, it works exactly the same way it does as HFS+.
John:
And Apple clearly agrees because they could have made APFS support hard links directives, but they didn't because APFS has many other features that are better, particularly with its snapshot functionality, right?
John:
Apple has been really slow about, okay, well, when, Apple, are you going to rewrite Time Machine to take advantage of all these cool features?
John:
In every release, there's been one more little thing that's a stepping stone to that.
John:
I think we talked about it after WWDC, the file system session.
John:
If you watch that or listen to our episode where we discuss that, which may have been several weeks after WWDC because there were a lot of announcements, we have recently taken another big step towards that.
John:
Does it mean that the next major version of Mac OS will have the new time machine rewritten for APFS?
John:
I doubt it.
John:
Apple tends to go slow on things related to file systems and even slower on things related to the Mac.
John:
So I'm not holding my breath, but that's the reason.
John:
That's the reason why you don't just see them making it work the same way it does with HFS+.
John:
If you want it to work the way it does with HFS+, use HFS+.
John:
It's your only option right now.
John:
If and when Apple finally brings this project to fruition, we will have a much better time machine that is more efficient, faster, more reliable, hopefully, than the HFS Plus variant.
John:
But until then, the delay is explicable, if annoying.
Casey:
And finally, Andrew Myers writes, this is an all Syracuse SKTP, it seems.
Casey:
Hey, do you have any advice on getting started with Letterboxd, or as you would say, Letterboxd?
Casey:
And apparently Letterboxd has thoughts about how to get started on Letterboxd.
Casey:
So tell me, what do you do there?
John:
I love how I'm converting you to say letterboxd, despite the fact that... Let it be known that that is not how the product wants you to say it.
John:
They want you to say it as letterboxd.
John:
I think they came in just at the tail end of the vowel dropping, like Tumblr and Flickr.
John:
So it should be letterboxd with ED at the end, but they dropped the E. Anyway, that's how they want you to say it, but I continue to say letterboxd.
John:
It's a website that's kind of like a...
John:
social network for people who enjoy movies.
John:
But when you think of that, you start to cringe like, oh, social network, I don't like that.
John:
Think of it as like what Flickr was like when it was just like a bunch of nerdy, cool people doing pictures or maybe like Instagram in the really, really early days.
John:
Letterboxd is still small enough.
John:
That's what it's like.
John:
It's a small community of nice people who like movies, who when they watch movies, they record something about them.
John:
The minimum you record, the fact that you watched it, you could also give it a rating, you could also write a small review, and then you follow people on it, and if you're interested in...
John:
You say, what movie should I be looking for?
John:
There's obviously the things that are new releases or whatever, but if you go to your Letterboxd homepage, you can see, here are the movies that are popular with the users.
John:
So it's probably like all the new releases or the big new Marvel movie or whatever.
John:
Then you also say, here are the movies that are popular with your friends.
John:
You're five or six or 10 or 20 or 100 people that you follow.
John:
What movies have they been watching lately?
John:
And depending on who you follow, that list is very different from the popular list.
John:
If you follow a bunch of people who are into weird, arty movies, you'll see movies that you've literally never heard of.
John:
And then you get to see someone, maybe someone that you know has watched it.
John:
Maybe they've rated it and maybe they've written a review.
John:
Or if you know them personally, you can, you know, I've done this a few times and I don't think it's too weird.
John:
You say, hey, I saw that you saw this movie.
John:
I know that because you posted it publicly on Letterboxd.
John:
What did you think of it?
John:
Tell me about it.
John:
I'm into movies and it's how I find new movies to watch other than just being like, oh, what are the new popular releases?
John:
The way I use it is I use it incorrectly, at least as far as the application.
John:
I did send this feedback once.
John:
When I watch a movie, I rate it.
John:
By rating it, it also marks it as viewed.
John:
So there's two bits of metadata that appear for each movie that I watch.
John:
There's a star rating.
John:
It's zero to five stars.
John:
Actually, it's half to five.
John:
I don't think you can rate it as zero.
John:
That's just unrated.
John:
And then a bit that says whether you watched it or not.
John:
It also records the date that I did that, you know, sort of implicitly when I do it.
John:
I think what they want me to do instead is use their diary feature to record the fact that I watched a movie because then you can, with a diary feature, if you do that, you can watch the same movie multiple times and say I watched this movie this month and then six months later I watched it again or whatever.
John:
I don't use the diary feature.
John:
I just do the ratings.
John:
And the other thing I do with it is when there's a movie that I think I'm interested in, either because from the outside world I've heard there's a movie that I might be interested in or because I go to the Letterboxd homepage and see what my friends are watching, I add it to my watch list.
John:
Like, oh, a bunch of my friends have seen this movie and they're saying good things about it.
John:
I would like to see that too.
John:
It's usually like new releases, especially, you know, I don't get to the movies that often these days.
John:
So there may be a movie that's out in theaters and lots of my friends are seeing it and they think it's good and it seems like the type of movie I would like, but there's no way I'm going to get to a theater to see it.
John:
i add it to my watch list if i didn't do that i will forget that movie exists i will never think to look for it in itunes i will just completely you know when it comes out on on video as we used to say like you know one to six months later or whatever i'll forget about it so i add it to my watch list anytime i want to watch a movie i go to my watch list because there is a giant list of movies that i've already determined are things that i want to see and i
John:
I'll find a movie there.
John:
You can click through on the site.
John:
It links to justwatchit.com or something where you say, where can I see this movie?
John:
And it lists all the streaming services, and I subscribe to all of them, so eventually I can either see it or rent it or buy it or whatever.
John:
That's how I use my Letterboxd account.
John:
I wish that every time I rated it, it counted it as a diary entry, it counted it as me watching it, but it doesn't.
John:
I can still sort my movies by like order that I marked them as watched.
John:
Like I said, it does record that timestamp, but it's not.
John:
At the end of the year, it gives you this fun thing that says, here's your year review and here's all the movies you watch.
John:
And at the end of every year, it thinks I've watched zero movies.
John:
because it only counts that I watch them because if you do the diary entry thing.
John:
So I'm still struggling with that a little bit.
John:
But anyway, Letterboxd is free, although you can give them money in various forms to keep them in business.
John:
I highly recommend you do that.
John:
I do pay the money.
John:
I don't think paying the money gives you any features.
John:
I think it's just like, hey, you want to keep using this thing?
John:
Give us money.
John:
uh it's really cheap it's like i think it's like 20 bucks a year or something i don't know i remember what it is anyway pay for it it's really good it's uh kind of like uh marco said a little while ago that instagram was his happy place for social networks where only good things happen letterboxd you know i follow i follow a very small number of people uh and it's mostly my happy place to find movies that are out that a bunch of people that i know or trust think are good and i go there when i have uh you know recreation time and i want to watch a movie
John:
I forgot the little thing where the Letterboxd Twitter, official Letterboxd Twitter account gave links, which we will put in the show notes, to their own instructions on how to use their website.
John:
I just described how I use it.
John:
I could be totally wrong.
John:
Anyway, Letterboxd.com slash welcome.
John:
And there's another one with a frequently asked question.
John:
So please follow those links to learn how you're really supposed to use the site rather than just how I use it.
Marco:
Thanks to our sponsors this week.
Marco:
Bombas, Handy, and Backblaze.
John:
And we will talk to you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin.
Marco:
Because it was accidental.
Casey:
Oh, it was accidental.
Casey:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
John:
And if you're into Twitter...
Marco:
You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A Syracuse It's accidental Accidental They didn't mean to Accidental Accidental Tech Podcast So long
Marco:
In our garage is Tiff's new BMW i3.
Casey:
You guys really like getting oddly shaped BMWs, don't you?
John:
Well, here's the thing they really don't like doing.
John:
They really don't like shopping for cars.
John:
That much is clear.
John:
That actually played quite a role.
John:
We spend so many shows talking about all the cars that you should test drive.
John:
And kind of like Casey, too.
John:
Rather than going out and test driving...
John:
all or let's say any of the suggestions you go to the bmw dealership and come away with a car like you go to one place and buy the first car that you see not that i'm saying that's the wrong choice like i think you probably made the right choice but you always skip over the step where you test drive all the different cars
Marco:
we'll have to maybe get her on here next week and I would like to drive it myself too because I haven't yet but she doesn't drive that much we didn't care that much about this process and this pick this time we didn't want to spend all that time going to a whole bunch of different places test driving a whole bunch of different things and there's other factors that factor in here like
Marco:
By trying things from different brands, that also means we have to go to different dealerships.
Marco:
And certain dealerships are closer or further away.
Marco:
Other dealerships that we haven't been to before are unknown of like, how easy is it to get service and stuff like that.
Marco:
And this was a really easy option.
Marco:
We had a BMW lease to turn in.
Marco:
We could get another one from the same company two months early and very, very easily with a really good price because her car that we were trading in had like no miles.
Marco:
So we knew we had some strong bargaining chips and that it would be really easy.
Marco:
And we know that the close BMW dealership is not only, again, close, but we know that service there is super easy when necessary.
Marco:
We didn't want to test drive for like, you know, three weeks going all over the place trying to find all these models to test drive.
Marco:
We really just wanted to have it be done.
Marco:
And this was an easy option.
Marco:
And it was so funny.
Marco:
Like, Tiff got in the i3.
Marco:
Tiff and Adam both.
Marco:
And they're both like, all right, this one's good.
Marco:
Let's get this one.
Marco:
And then, like, Tess drove it.
Marco:
And she was like, yep, this is great.
Marco:
All right, let's do it.
Marco:
Let's just get it and be done.
Marco:
I like how Adam had an opinion.
Marco:
He's made of us.
Marco:
I mean, of course he has an opinion.
Marco:
So he instantly got in the backseat.
Marco:
He's like, I like this one.
Marco:
Like, you know, from the backseat point of view.
Marco:
And it was...
Marco:
so so again we've only had it for like two days so this is um this is not like a full review or anything again just like the airpod pros but initial impressions and i haven't driven it either but initial impressions it's really quite nice i first of all i love how much space we have reclaimed in the garage it is shocking like how much shorter it is again the the major the major uh performance attribute of this car is how much it impinges on marco's car
John:
That's all that matters.
Marco:
It was kind of funny.
Marco:
The process of getting it... We went in and we're like, hey, we're interested in the i3.
Marco:
Let's test drive one.
Marco:
They are about to be between... They are between model year production right now.
Marco:
They no longer are making 2019s.
Marco:
They're starting to make 2020s, but you can't place an order for one right now.
Marco:
We're in a gap of a few months where you just can't order one.
Marco:
It was either wait until...
Marco:
after her lease expired by a couple of months before getting a custom ordered one for 2020 at some unknown price, or take advantage of a really quite compelling lease special that made the 2019 one very price competitive with the rest of its category, which it usually is not.
Marco:
But they had a really strong lease special to clear out the 2019s, as long as we could find one in local inventory that we wanted, because you couldn't order them anymore.
Marco:
And it turns out that there was one that we test drove that was a demo model that only had like 100 miles on it.
Marco:
And because it was a demo, it was fully loaded.
Marco:
The only downside maybe is that it has the range extender, the little gas engine that can like add something like...
Marco:
60 miles or so of range to it.
Marco:
If we were going to order one, we would have ordered it without that, just because we don't need it, and it just adds weight and cost.
Marco:
But it seems like all the local stock always has the extender.
Marco:
So we did have to get that by doing it this way.
Marco:
But otherwise, it was everything we wanted.
Marco:
And because it was a lease special and a slightly used store demo model...
Marco:
We got a really, really good lease deal on it.
John:
This is another AirPod situation again, isn't it, with the demo model?
Marco:
So how many butts have been in that seat?
John:
Oh, goodness.
Marco:
Well, it only had 100 miles on it, and the test drive route is probably a good four or five miles long.
Marco:
So 20 butts, maybe?
Marco:
Like a 20-butt car you got?
Marco:
No.
Marco:
Yeah, maybe something like that.
Marco:
It was kind of funny, too.
Marco:
We have put so little time into this.
Marco:
We've had this car in our garage now.
Marco:
It's just driven a couple times for errands so far, but we still haven't charged it yet.
Marco:
I still haven't found the charger.
Marco:
I know it came with one.
Marco:
I assume it's somewhere in the vehicle in some kind of compartment or something.
Marco:
It took until this morning before I even found the gas hole.
Marco:
We need to put gas in it at some point.
Marco:
the gas hole that's what they call it somewhere there's a there's a there's a hole that we put gas into and i knew where the electric plug was which is where the gas hole usually is on cars so like well where's the gas hole and we eventually found it you've learned that you're the gas hole yes i was the gas hole all along how big how big is the tank on that thing uh 2.5 gallons oh that's great like one of those one of those little things that you carry the gas station that's the full tank
Marco:
yeah right yeah oh my gosh that's true it doesn't actually drive the car right it just it just charges the battery right yes it they don't it doesn't drive the wheels at all it's like a motorcycle engine and all it's just like a little generator basically uh it just it just recharges the battery but yeah so we haven't like done any setup we haven't even put the easy pass in it yet and i haven't even disabled the incredibly loud beep of the unlock when you use the remote to unlock it the very first thing i ever did with any bmw was disable that beep thank god you can unlike some vendors um
Marco:
uh but uh but yeah i haven't even done that yet so we've done very little of it but so far it seems really nice uh and and again like we just didn't care to go do a thousand things so it was a super easy thing to just go get this one it was a lot of things we wanted for a really good price because of the various specials and discounting and the trade-in that we had for her last her last lease like
Marco:
We got a fantastic deal on what this car is because it's fully loaded.
Marco:
And we got a great deal even on what would have been a great deal on a base model.
Marco:
And we paid that for a fully loaded one.
Marco:
So it's very, very nice so far.
Marco:
uh and it's funny like so i was i was uh as we were like in the dealership a couple of nights i uh i they had an m2 sitting on the floor so i i like sat in it you know moved moved the seat up and everything it was like kind of playing around i didn't want to test drive it because i just we didn't have time and it wasn't like it was like blocked in by other cars inside the showroom so i knew it would be like an ordeal to get it out
Marco:
And I'm like, I'm not going to bother with that.
Marco:
But I was like, man, I loved my little 1M that I had very briefly.
Marco:
And the 2 series, like the M2 is shockingly close to the 1M.
Marco:
Like they've changed very little about it.
Marco:
Like even the interior is the same.
Marco:
Like it's extremely similar.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
It has proper cup holders, whereas the 1M just had a little like loop, didn't it?
Marco:
Oh, you're right.
Marco:
The one I had that had this weird little like stick in thing into this into the center.
Marco:
But yeah, so it's it's a little better, but not much.
Marco:
It's very lightly edited.
Marco:
But anyway, I was but I was I was like, you know, I wish I you know, for the second car need
Marco:
If it were up to me, my pick would just be an electric 2 Series.
Marco:
I love the 2 Series because you sit up at sedan height, but it's a small little coupe.
Marco:
Most small, sporty cars, you're basically sitting on the ground.
Marco:
You sit so low, and I don't love that perspective or some of the safety issues that it has.
Marco:
With the 2 Series, you sit almost at regular sedan height, but you're in a small car.
Marco:
I like that a lot.
Marco:
So all this time I was thinking, like, man, I just can't wait.
Marco:
I just want BMW to make an electric 2 series.
Marco:
That would be perfect.
Marco:
And what's interesting is that the i3 is a lot closer to that than I expected it to be.
Marco:
It actually is almost an electric 2 series in so many ways.
Marco:
Like, in an approximate footprint, in a lot of the design of the interior...
Marco:
A lot of the features that are offered, the features that are not offered, it really is actually very close to what I want.
Marco:
And what's interesting, just being a passenger so far, the visibility inside is fantastic.
Marco:
Like you get these huge windows and you're –
Marco:
You're sitting up almost at crossover or compact SUV height, but not quite that high, but it's close.
Marco:
So you have a great perspective.
Marco:
You have great visibility.
Marco:
And it feels, again, still only as a passenger, it feels really zippy and quick.
Marco:
Electric just feels so glorious.
Marco:
As soon as we got into that car and Tiff stepped on the gas, I was like, I can't buy an M2.
Marco:
I can't have non-electric ever again.
Marco:
Once you go electric, it ruins you.
Marco:
It totally ruins you.
Marco:
So, so far, again, we've only had it a few days, and I still haven't driven it, but so far, we're pretty happy with it, actually.
Casey:
Good.
Casey:
Well, congratulations.
Casey:
Everyone I've spoken to has an i3 or has had an i3, swears by them.
Casey:
I have a hard time getting past the look of it, but...
Marco:
Oh, it looks completely ridiculous.
John:
But you get past it real quick when you see how little space it takes up in your garage.
John:
You were comparing it to the M2, and I understand what your point was, but it is not shaped like the 2 Series at all externally.
John:
And that's the reason why it has the visibility of a big, tall, weird van with the nose...
John:
cut off like it's a it's a large it's a it's a miniature minivan with like and those are all good attributes you're just saying like externally it shares nothing with with the m2 but but it is a small car and it is zippy uh and you you know you do sit up higher in it and so that all makes sense but i think by the way i think the reason why everyone's like you know case you said like everyone who
John:
has an i3 loves it this has been true for many years and will continue to be true because we're in this period like when anybody gets their first electric car they're going to profess that they love this car no matter which electric car it is right and so i3 owners like chances are very high this is the first electric car and they're going to rave about it up and down
John:
especially because it's quirky, because it's shaped weird, because it has all these attributes the cars didn't have before, because it doesn't have to have a big engine in it, and it's got that whole tall van thing with the big visibility.
John:
Of course, they're all going to say they love it.
John:
The question to ask any of those people is how many electric cars have you owned, right?
John:
It's probably their first one, right?
John:
Same thing with the Chevy Bolt owners.
John:
Same thing with the Leaf owners.
John:
Everybody who gets their first electric car loves it and attaches a lot of love to that car.
John:
Even the GM EV people, like the EV1, the GM lead-acid battery...
John:
Those people love their cars because it was their first electric car because it was anybody's first electric car.
John:
So keep that in mind when you hear people raving.
John:
And we see them in the chat room anytime I mention stuff.
John:
The Leaf owners all love their Leafs.
John:
The i3 owners all love their i3s.
John:
This is just a weird human incarnation of what Marco was talking about, which is electric cars.
John:
They're good.
John:
And when you get your first one, you decide that this, it's not that electric cars are good.
John:
It's that this car is good.
John:
It's like when you get your second or third, you realize actually what you like is electric cars.
Marco:
Yeah, because they're really good.
Marco:
It turns out.
Marco:
Electric cars are so disruptive because the only problem for so long has been price and a limited number of models.
Marco:
And those are both getting better pretty quickly now.
Marco:
You're getting a lot more model options now in the market, and the prices are coming down.
Marco:
And so if you can go electric,
Marco:
I strongly recommend it.
John:
It's so, oh God, it's so good.
John:
And if you want to be extra super woke, you can count to what Marco just said and say, actually, electric cars aren't disruptive at all.
John:
They're just a replacement of internal combustion cars with a different way to accomplish the same thing.
John:
but they're perpetuating our car-centric culture and not helping with congestion.
John:
And what we really need is modern public transportation and cities built around people and not cars.
John:
I agree with all of that, but on the smaller scale, what Marco said is true, they are disruptive to the internal combustion engine.
John:
So we need to do all these things.
John:
We need to replace internal combustion cars with electric cars, but we also need to largely replace cars with better public transportation and cities built around human beings rather than cars.
John:
oh fully agreed but most of that stuff is not going to happen anytime soon in the u.s yeah you never know like there's the the meme the associated meme is they show you pictures of some like city like i don't remember it's like is it finland no maybe it's i don't know it's the netherlands maybe they show you what the city looked like in the 70s and it looked like a u.s city and a mere 30 years later it looks totally different so yeah it doesn't happen overnight but it's also not impossible so i hope i hope we start trending in that direction
John:
In the meantime, electric cars are awesome.
John:
If you have the means, he highly recommends them.
Casey:
I was going to make that same joke and beat me to it.
Casey:
That's all right.
Marco:
Marco doesn't know what that's from either, so it's fine.
Marco:
I knew that was a line that is a reference.
Marco:
I don't know to what.
John:
yep yep that's we should we should have some sort of rate and marking uh scoring scale marco identifies that it's a reference there's like one point from the correct form of media whether that's another point and then you know and then marco knows what it's from that's like three points and then marco knows what it's from it has seen it that's like the maximum score i suppose
John:
we'll never get there that would only be like the wire friends office he's seen a lot of stuff it's just we don't it's not a lot of overlap i'm i'm not well versed in those things to be able to reference them