The Way Corn Grows
Marco:
So Casey, are you recording?
Casey:
Yes, I am recording.
Casey:
It's sad.
Casey:
It is truly and utterly sad that you kind of genuinely need to ask that six years on.
Casey:
God, I'm such a disaster.
Casey:
I just need my computing life to be better.
Casey:
I feel like that's all I need.
Casey:
So we had three and a half minutes of flawless content, absolutely perfect content that is lost forever because I forgot to start recording.
Marco:
My room is so bright right now.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
Here we go.
Casey:
What have you done?
Casey:
Do you have the studio, the LED packs, where it's 10 LEDs wide and 10 LEDs tall, and you're just blinding yourself?
Marco:
Not yet.
Marco:
Actually, one thing... Oh, man.
Marco:
We've had so many recommendations.
Marco:
Thank you, everybody, for all the lighting recommendations.
Marco:
So many recommendations, many of which were actually very good, many of which followed the same general themes of...
Marco:
basically install um led panels on the ceiling and that would be a good idea if i was in an office with a drop ceiling or you know like where like it's made for that that's what those are made for but i'm in a regular room in my house with like a regular solid white ceiling
Marco:
And so any kind of thing made for offices where you just put a few big rectangles on the ceiling is not going to fly.
Marco:
I also didn't mention last episode that my office is a prominent room in my house.
Marco:
It's visible from the front.
Marco:
It's one of the first rooms you see when you walk into the house.
Marco:
And so any solution for my lighting also has to look pretty good to satisfy our desire for our house to look nice.
Marco:
And we live here and we have people over and we want things to be nice.
Marco:
So many of the options for insanely bright lighting would not pass the aesthetic requirement that I forgot to mention last episode.
Marco:
So I respectfully decline many of the options.
Marco:
A number of people wrote it.
Marco:
There was a guy who wrote a blog post about his giant corn light that he put in his room and how bright it makes it.
Marco:
That's great.
Marco:
And for those who don't know, the corn bulb is a style where it looks like corn on the cob made of LEDs.
Marco:
I just bought one of those like two days ago.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
I have one in my garage.
Casey:
It's amazing.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
They're wonderful for garages because garages, you don't care how it looks like in a garage.
Marco:
Like you just want a ton of light.
Marco:
And usually you have like a one or two like old light socket stuck to the ceiling and you can just screw anything in there.
Marco:
And so you put these things in the garage and they are just like cylinders covered with LEDs that you can get insane brightness out of, uh, as long as you don't care how they look.
Marco:
And those are wonderful for garages.
Marco:
Um,
Marco:
that's not going to fly in my office.
Marco:
So that option is out.
Marco:
One thing I am a little bit curious about, though, does anybody make a fixture that encloses a corn-style bulb in some kind of fogged dome?
John:
Some kind of Dyson sphere to capture all the energy.
Marco:
Well, no, like seriously, like just some kind of like, you know, translucent, like, you know, fogged dome around one of those bulbs would be great.
Marco:
I have not been able to find such a fixture.
John:
I think the fact that corn bulbs themselves usually aren't even, like the bulbs aren't even covered, like the little LED things are just, that makes me think that the cooling requirements are such that use in an enclosed fixture is a no-go.
John:
Leave the top open.
Marco:
Just have it be like the way corn grows.
Marco:
Yeah, I suppose, maybe.
Marco:
You know, just have like a cylinder and have the top be open and have it be a pole lamp.
John:
Speaking of your LED things, like not all LED panel things require a drop ceiling.
John:
They make a whole bunch of ones for residential use that just go right on top of your ceiling and just screw into it.
John:
They don't help with your aesthetic requirements, though, but just so you don't get too many emails telling you that you can find LED panel lighting for your ceiling that doesn't require a drop ceiling.
Marco:
I am actually very happy so far.
Marco:
So I have slightly brighter bulbs in my two Ikea not lamps next to my desk now.
Marco:
I bought but have not yet installed.
Marco:
It's funny.
Marco:
A lot of people recommended.
Marco:
They're like, just paint the room white.
I'm like...
Marco:
You know, I'm not going to do that because I like my red office.
Marco:
But directly in front of me, behind my computer, the entire wall that's – or the section of the wall that's directly in front of me that these two lights are up against is covered in very dark gray acoustic foam.
Marco:
And so I have bought, but not yet installed white acoustic foam because it doesn't need to be gray and they make acoustic foam in pretty much every color.
Marco:
So I bought new acoustic foam to stick behind my desk.
Marco:
I was going to do it today, but I didn't get, didn't get to it in time.
Marco:
I wanted to like have an update for the show.
Marco:
So maybe for next week, I'll have that done.
Marco:
But yeah, it's just like,
Marco:
increasing the amount of light that can reflect off the wall behind my desk is probably also a very good option.
John:
I'm wondering if that's going to pass the historical commission.
Marco:
It already has.
Marco:
Well, the idea of it has.
Marco:
We'll see how it goes in practice.
John:
Yeah, because like white, like, oh, white, fine.
John:
White goes with red.
John:
That's no problem.
John:
And it's bright.
John:
But is it white or is it like...
John:
whitish.
John:
And does it change color over time?
John:
We'll see how this goes.
Marco:
Yeah, that's always a risk with whites.
Marco:
So I guess we'll find out.
Marco:
And then my final bit of light follow-up for this week, at least, part of the problem was that the two fixtures on the ceiling in this room are enclosed.
Marco:
And you put LED bulbs in there and they die.
Marco:
It goes through bulbs like crazy.
Marco:
And so even though each fixture on my ceiling can hold three bulbs and I can put super bright ones in there, realistically, they only last a few months before I have to take them out again.
Marco:
And, I mean, one option could be I might just replace six LED bulbs every three months and just deal with it.
Marco:
But a friend of the show, Marina Eppelman, tweeted the other day about a new kind of XLEDIA.
Marco:
I don't know how that's pronounced.
Marco:
It's a new kind of LED bulb that is officially certified to work in enclosed fixtures.
Marco:
And it's like the only one in the market that claims this.
Marco:
They're really expensive, like $50 each.
Marco:
I took the risk.
Marco:
I put six of them in there.
Marco:
We'll see if they die.
Marco:
The reviews on them on Amazon, many of them were great glowing reviews, and then some of them were like, yeah, they died anyway.
Marco:
So we'll see what happens.
Marco:
But I do now have six 100-watt equivalent 5,000K bulbs.
Marco:
It was the closest that came to 4,000 in my ceiling fixtures, and that helps as well.
Marco:
So I'm sitting in right now a very bright office late at night, and
Marco:
I'm actually kind of happy with this light level.
Marco:
I don't think I need much more than this.
Marco:
So, so far, so good.
Marco:
We'll see what happens when I put the white foam up, and I will provide an update next week on this exciting segment of Marco's Light Globe.
John:
I forgot last week.
John:
I should have written it down because I thought of it and then forgot to bring it up.
John:
And a lot of listeners...
John:
I wrote in with the same idea.
John:
Those seasonal affective disorder lights are just like this big, bright light that you're supposed to shine at your own face to make you feel better about the fact that the sun isn't there.
John:
And I forget if you had one of those or not.
John:
They're not meant to light up the room, but they do...
Marco:
Yeah, so I actually made the chapter art last week, a shot of my desk with these two IKEA knot lamps next to it.
Marco:
And keen observers would have noticed that I actually had one of those on my desk, pointed directly at my face, sitting on top of my left speaker.
Marco:
And I actually just took it down today as I was preparing to move my desk out of the way to put up the new foam.
Marco:
And I started using that last year for the first time.
Marco:
And it's fine, but I don't love having bright light shining in my face directly.
Marco:
Like, it actually is...
Marco:
fairly intense.
Marco:
And it was fine a little bit.
Marco:
I don't think it made as much of a difference as just having a super bright office in the first place.
Marco:
So that's why I'm trying the super bright office this time.
Marco:
And if I really want to try the sad light as well, I guess I'll turn that on as well.
Marco:
But for the most part, I didn't get as much out of it last year as I hoped I would.
Marco:
And meanwhile, I think solving the better problem is just making the room insanely bright.
John:
what you need is like an apple style solution where your entire ceiling just looks like a normal ceiling but there are actually tiny little pin size holes millions of them and behind them is a full uh you know field of rgb leds covering the entire ceiling and then there's software that controls it to the color temperature and the brightness and it's like the sun rises and the sun sets and the color changes and when you turn it off it just looks like a normal ceiling that would actually be kind of awesome
Casey:
And very affordable, I'm sure.
Casey:
Well, you wouldn't need a stand for it, so maybe it would be affordable.
Casey:
Yeah, yeah.
Casey:
Well, I hope you get your light situation squared away as soon as possible because nobody likes a sad Marco.
Casey:
You just got your keyboard finally.
Casey:
We don't want you to get sad again.
Marco:
It's funny.
Marco:
I'm adding up the wattage of brightness that is in this room right now.
Marco:
I got 600 on the ceiling plus 700...
John:
in the pole lamps yeah so i have i have 1300 equivalent watts of light i was gonna say that's equivalent right yeah it's gonna be more and more difficult to explain to younger and younger people why we keep talking about light in terms of wattage as if it's a measure of light output well because i really hope you don't have 1600 watts of anything uh producing light but no watt equivalent yeah exactly yeah no they're 100 leds and they use like a tent of that yep
Casey:
That's the great thing about LEDs.
Casey:
If I leave one on overnight, which I don't do often, I come downstairs and I'm like, eh, oh well.
Casey:
Whereas if I had the 300-watt equivalent light bulb in the garage, or I should say if I actually had a 300-watt light on in the garage all night, that would make a dent.
Marco:
see and if you don't if you like garage like if you don't care how how bad something looks garages have all sorts of options like you know so they have the corn lights then they also i discovered all these things when i was looking at you know various bulbs i could put in my not lamps they also have these things that look almost like little fans they have like three like three or four or five like little panels that like fan out from the center that are all just covered in leds like there's all sorts of crazy options out there and as long as you as long as they can look hideous and
Marco:
and be very harsh to look directly at, then it's totally fine for garages and everything.
Marco:
So yeah, now I'm thinking like, oh, I could put more fixtures in my garage and have an even brighter garage.
Casey:
For all the work you do on your electric car.
Marco:
That sounds like me.
Marco:
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Casey:
So, gentlemen, I have to prepare the way.
Marco:
What are you preparing the way for?
Marco:
Oh, wait.
Marco:
We have to ask.
Marco:
Casey, what computer are you using right now?
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So I am still on the broken iMac that I have been using for far too long now.
Casey:
And the funny thing is, after I had done my desperation install of Catalina, which I have a little bit of follow-up about that in just a moment, but after I did my desperation install of Catalina,
Casey:
Everything was actually working really, really well for like a week and a half.
Casey:
And I did order a computer on Black Friday, and we will talk about that in a moment.
Casey:
But when I ordered the computer, things were actually still working pretty well on this iMac.
Casey:
And I couldn't help but wonder, why did I just spend thousands of dollars?
Casey:
But in an absolutely wonderful turn of events, the Sunday after I ordered the computer, so this past Sunday, I was using my iMac and
Casey:
And sure enough, all of a sudden the mouse just decided to not listen to me.
Casey:
And the cursor was delayed like it was walking through sludge.
Casey:
And the clicks were ignored until suddenly I had the machine gun again.
Casey:
And in a way, I was almost relieved because that meant, yes, this thing is still a piece of garbage that still needs to go away.
Casey:
My quick follow-up with regard to the Mojave install, if you recall, I intended to put Mojave on my computer because it seemed like everything still worked on Mojave.
Casey:
And then when I went to install it from my USB key that I'd made way back when, I clicked the continue button on one of the very first prompts in the installation process and it just hung.
Casey:
And there was no error messaging of any sort.
Casey:
We had discussed how I should have looked at the console and didn't.
Casey:
And I had no idea what had happened.
Casey:
Well, several people, many people, in fact, wrote in to remind me, which I did know but completely forgot, that the installer of certificate, if I understand correctly, had been expired.
Casey:
And so...
Casey:
The installer that I built on this USB key, you know, right when Mojave was new, surely that was one of the installers that had the broken and expired certificate.
Casey:
And that's probably why the install didn't work.
Casey:
And so if I really cared, I could build a new USB key and do the installation all over again, and it would probably work.
Casey:
But I appreciate people writing in.
Casey:
I had completely and utterly forgotten about that.
Casey:
And while an unfortunate thing to happen, ultimately, it was good to hear that I am, well, I'm probably crazy, but at least not for that reason.
Casey:
So, on Friday, I decided it is time.
Casey:
I'm going to order myself a computer.
Casey:
And I am an easily influenced person.
Casey:
Sometimes I listen to friends or people on the internet a little too much.
Casey:
And I decided...
Casey:
I'm going to do that again this time.
Casey:
I bought an iMac Pro.
Casey:
Hey, finally.
Casey:
So that is what I've done, indeed.
Casey:
So through a series of events that I'm not going to share, I was able to get a pretty solid discount on this iMac Pro from a friend of mine.
Marco:
You're friends with Tim Cook, aren't you?
Casey:
Yeah, I spoke to Tim.
Casey:
I spoke to Tim Apple and said, hey, Tim, can you help me out on this?
Casey:
And he said, no problem.
Casey:
No, I got a pretty good discount on it, which meant that I could afford to get a much nicer build than I would have otherwise been able to do.
Casey:
Because up until knowing that I could get the discount, I probably would have gotten that refurb that you had pointed out, Marco, which is genuinely an extremely good setup.
Casey:
And I don't know if it's still available at this point.
Marco:
There were a couple of good Black Friday deals, too, from various people.
Marco:
At least the base model was down, I think, to like $3,400 on some sites.
Marco:
There were some good deals on that base model.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
But what I ended up doing, because, again, I got a very, very, very steep discount.
Casey:
It is new.
Casey:
I got one with the 10-core processor.
Casey:
I went...
Casey:
Very back and forth on this, but I figured if I'm going to be spending $5,000-ish on a computer, I might as well do it right.
Casey:
So I got the 10-core processor, 64 gigs RAM, and in no small part because of Marco Arment, as always, convincing me to spend more money than I want to.
Casey:
This is how our friendship works.
Casey:
This is how our friendship works, and I am usually thankful for it.
Marco:
uh i ended up getting the four terabyte uh drive as well i almost said hard drive i'm trying to break myself with that habit i got the four terabyte drive as well disc i believe or i guess i mean i you know i know you can say ssd but like i mean because like drive is kind of like that's true hard drive it's also hard like it's not soft it's not floppy
Casey:
Oh, man.
Casey:
That's funny.
Casey:
But yeah, so that's what I've done.
Casey:
And it was a lot of money.
Casey:
And I am not overjoyed at having spent that much money.
Casey:
But I am overjoyed to receive it.
Casey:
In fact, earlier today, I got the notification that it went from processing to preparing for shipment.
Casey:
I forget how you phrased it, Marco, but...
Casey:
But to butcher your line and to steal your line, one of life's great joys is being able to tick the express shipping box on a custom built order computer.
Casey:
Because on this $5,000 plus computer, the expression is heavy computer, by the way.
Casey:
I don't know how much they weigh off hand, but it's not light.
Casey:
I mean, ask Margo.
Casey:
He carries his to the beach every year.
Casey:
But anyway, on this express computer, on this large desktop computer, express shipping was a totally unaffordable $8.
Marco:
so i absolutely tick that box i think it saves you like two or three days or something like that on the delivery time and they're always the express shipping from apple is always like ridiculously cheap obviously they're subsidizing most of the cost of it like and i figure at that point if it's like eight or nine dollars on a five thousand dollar computer like why don't they just always include express shipping like why is it even an option
Marco:
I don't even know.
Casey:
But anyway, so I have a new iMac Pro, a new two-year-old iMac Pro coming my way, and I am genuinely very excited.
Casey:
Now, the question, however, the question is two questions in one, really.
Casey:
One, is it going to come with Mojave?
Casey:
I believe Mike's did, and he bought his just like a month or so ago.
Casey:
And if it does come with Mojave, am I going to be a moron and put Catalina on it, only to create more of the same problems for myself?
Casey:
So we'll see how my willpower goes.
Casey:
But I'm very excited.
Casey:
I appreciate you and the listeners for putting up with my waffling and indecision over all this.
Casey:
But hopefully this story is coming to an end sometime in the next 7 to 10 days.
Marco:
And also, even if it comes with Catalina, that machine is compatible with Mojave because it came out before Catalina did.
Marco:
And it originally shipped with Mojave.
Marco:
So you can always download a Mojave installer and wipe it and put that on there if you wanted to.
Casey:
Yeah, that's true.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
We'll see what happens.
Casey:
I'll probably just live with whatever.
Casey:
I'm telling myself I'm going to live with whatever's on it.
Casey:
It's such a burden.
Casey:
You know what I mean, though?
Casey:
I'm just going to stick with whatever's on it.
Casey:
And we'll see how well that works out.
Casey:
Outside of dark mode, which I actually have come to like.
Casey:
Is that unique?
Casey:
No, that's not unique to Catalina.
Casey:
I've come to think of it.
Casey:
Okay, never mind, because dark mode is the one thing that I'm really, really enjoying on this iMac right now that I thought was Catalina only until two seconds ago.
Casey:
So I might not even bother for a while.
Casey:
We'll see.
Casey:
But I am super excited.
Casey:
I appreciate all the help and tutelage from the two of you and the listeners in getting this squared away.
Casey:
A couple of quick things that a lot of people have said, you know, why not a 16-inch MacBook Pro?
Casey:
Ultimately, it's something that I think Marco said, which really it was probably John because it's always John.
Casey:
I don't really want a 16-inch computer.
Casey:
I don't want a 16-inch laptop.
Casey:
And I'm not discounting the fact that it's amazing.
Casey:
Not at all.
Casey:
I'm just saying that's not a size that I really want.
Casey:
And so...
Casey:
From the beginning of 16, for me, for me, would have been a compromise.
Casey:
And it would have been a beautiful compromise, incredibly easy and great.
Casey:
And I'm very lucky to have it compromised, but a compromise nonetheless.
Casey:
And so I decided not to do that.
Casey:
A lot of people wrote in to ask about a Mac Mini.
Casey:
And it's a fair question.
Casey:
But in a lot of ways, I felt like the Mac Mini like half solved all of my problems, but didn't completely and utterly solve all of them.
Casey:
Like as silly as I would then need to get a monitor.
Casey:
And yes, there are monitors on the market, but the one I would get would probably be the LG.
Casey:
And that's another like $1,500 or something like that.
Casey:
Or $1,300, I think.
Casey:
And this was another thing I ran into with the 16-inch.
Casey:
I would want to get a monitor.
Casey:
I would want the 5K LG, et cetera, et cetera.
Casey:
And the 16-inch MacBook Pro, when specced the way I wanted it and with the monitor I wanted, was effectively iMac Pro money anyway.
Casey:
Now, yes, to be fair, I can't pick up the iMac Pro and take it to my local grocery store unless I have Marco's fancy carrying case.
Casey:
But nevertheless, it just seemed like the 16 was just a compromise and a Mac Mini...
Casey:
just half solves many problems, a lot of problems, but only half solves them.
Casey:
And the iMac Pro, it really effectively and efficiently, well, except financially anyway, efficiently solves every one of my problems with the exception of portability.
Casey:
And hopefully sometime next year, I can scrounge up enough money to get myself like a base model 13-inch MacBook Pro or 14 with a refreshed keyboard.
John:
Yeah, now you've got something to look forward to because now you – instead of being saddled with that 16-inch that you didn't really want – and by the way, I think both Marco and I said that multiple times because it's true.
John:
See, there you go.
John:
You'll be able to anticipate the small laptop that you actually wanted and be able to buy one that is not stuffed with all the most expensive stuff you can put in it because you don't need it for that because you've got your desktop.
John:
Exactly.
John:
One thing you didn't mention is what GPU you got.
Casey:
Whatever the stock standard one is.
Casey:
I don't even remember off the top of my head.
Casey:
I did not tick any upgrades other than processor RAM and disk space, however we're phrasing it.
John:
What input peripherals did you get?
Casey:
I already had purchased underscores, black keyboard and trackpad and mouse off of him when he got his iMac Pro.
Casey:
So I just left the defaults because even though I am... You left the defaults?
Casey:
Yeah, well, it's default, I guess, because the keyboard is the keyboard.
John:
Yes, exactly.
John:
Aren't they going to give you the tiny keyboard with the terrible half-size arrow keys?
Casey:
No, the one I have has faults.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I understand your question.
Casey:
I don't know.
Marco:
I'm nervous for you now.
Casey:
But it doesn't matter.
Casey:
I'm not going to use it.
Marco:
I think they gave you the big one with the iMac Pro.
Casey:
I think it's the big one as well.
Marco:
Yep, I can confirm.
Marco:
I just looked across the room at TIFF because she uses it.
Marco:
It's the one with the full numpad.
Casey:
Yeah, okay, then that's what I'm using.
John:
Dodge that bullet.
John:
I remember a couple years ago they changed the default to be the tiny half-sized keyboard.
John:
It's like, no, it's not the right default.
Casey:
That was the default on the iMac since I can remember.
John:
No, it's bad.
John:
It's bad.
Casey:
Actually, I really like that keyboard if you're willing.
John:
Not only do they have the same keyboard on their 12-inch and 15-inch and 16-inch laptops, but also on your expansive desk, same keyboard.
John:
It's not a good plan.
Casey:
Well, in any case, I just left the defaults because I'm not going to use them, and the defaults being the big keyboard, like Marco said, and the Magic Mouse.
Casey:
And even though I've become more of a trackpad guy over the last year, much to my own surprise, as we've talked about in the past, it didn't seem worth the $50 or $70 or whatever it was to upgrade to a second Magic trackpad since I've already got one, and a black one, no less, or a space gray or whatever.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
So yeah, so I'm excited.
Casey:
And I mean, if you have, if either of you have questions, I'm happy to talk about it, but otherwise we can just move right along.
John:
One more thing on the Apple keyboards, now that we're talking about the keyboards Apple offers for their desktop computers, which we don't talk about too much, mostly because Marco doesn't use one, so we don't have to hear him complain about it.
John:
But there have been issues with the current line of Apple's desktop keyboards, which are very thin and very small and
John:
uh the current like very long extended one has bendy problems uh supposedly by typing on it with your little fingers tappity tappity tappity you slowly bend it and it's like it's very close to the ground anyway but apparently originally only had like feet at the four corners and so you'd bend it down just so it curved a little bit because it was so thin that your tapping would bend it and then it would kind of like spin on the on the part where it hits in the middle and that's no good so no one wants a bent keyboard i don't know if they've addressed that at all but
John:
i've heard i mean obviously you can address it yourself by putting your own little feet in the middle maybe the new ones come with feet in the middle i don't know um i always liked it when the i mentioned this before when the function keys were a little bit farther away from the number keys again there's lots of room on my desk slash keyboard tray i don't need the function keys jammed right up against the number keys even though it looks nicer i don't care move them a half a centimeter up please um
John:
I can afford the desk space.
John:
And then as many people running on the chat, lots of people don't like the numpad.
John:
Righties don't like the numpad because it puts your mouse farther away from your keyboard, which is one of the many reasons that Marco doesn't use a keyboard like this.
John:
It would be nice if Apple offered a what they call 10 keyless or whatever that has, it's like the same as the Apple extended thing, but just cut the numpad right off.
John:
So you still get page up, page down, home end, and your full size arrow keys in their own little area, but you don't have the numpad.
John:
I don't like the numpad either, but I do actually use it occasionally.
John:
Like, I use it to enter numbers.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Maybe I'm growing up with PCs or whatever.
Marco:
But it does push my mouse farther away, and I don't like that part of it.
Marco:
Yeah, my preferred keyboard, the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic, comes with a separate wireless numpad that you can put anywhere.
Marco:
I mean, I think I've thrown away six of those things so far.
Marco:
Nice.
Casey:
I forgot to mention earlier, by the way, Friday...
Casey:
I forget when it was.
Casey:
I think I was not at the computer when it happened, but I came back to the computer sometime after I had ordered the iMac Pro.
Casey:
And I come back to my iMac and it had rebooted itself.
Casey:
And there was something, I forget the exact file name, but there was like an EFI check dump file or something like that.
Casey:
which I had never seen before in my life.
Casey:
And doing just a spot of Googling made me think that apparently there is some periodic task that will check the EFI, the BIOS, so to speak.
Casey:
I know it's not actually BIOS, but for the sake of discussion, it'll check the EFI and make sure it's valid and, I don't know, checksums are right and maybe certificates or what have you.
Casey:
And I guess my iMac failed that check at some point, which is super concerning in a billion different ways.
Casey:
Yeah, that's not good.
Casey:
And so...
Casey:
Here again, it is time for this thing to go away.
Casey:
I honestly don't know what I'm going to do with it.
Casey:
I haven't figured that out.
Casey:
I feel like throwing it away is not the right answer, but at the same time, I don't feel like I necessarily want to give it to anyone or even sell it to anyone.
John:
If you've listened to Casey complain about this computer for a month and a half and you would like to buy it, please send us email.
Casey:
Yeah, let me know if you want it, but I don't think you do.
Casey:
So anyway, I don't know what I'm going to do with this.
Casey:
If somebody has smart ideas, I'm all right.
John:
I mean, Apple will recycle it for you.
John:
Yeah, but I want – I mean – You can harvest that awesome third-party RAM from it if you want.
Marco:
Have you done the trade-in wizard to see what it's worth?
John:
uh i haven't lately but i thought but i don't don't check the haunted checkbox when you when you see the numbers is this by the way is this mac haunted don't check that one but the thing is i would need to buy a new mac in order to get the trading money back well you're gonna do that you're gonna do that when the 13 inch comes
Marco:
They just give you a gift card.
Marco:
They literally just give you a gift card.
Marco:
You don't need to be buying one at the same time.
Marco:
Go to the link in the chat.
Marco:
Google for Apple trading or go to that link.
Marco:
They just want the serial number and then they look up the model number from that and that's it.
Marco:
It's super easy.
John:
I'm going to do this right now and find out how much my Mac Pro is worth.
John:
Let's see.
John:
Serial number.
John:
Mac.
John:
Do you think it's going to let me do it?
Marco:
I believe that's going to be a recycle option.
John:
Do I have to hit Shop Mac?
Marco:
Scroll down to get an Apple Store gift card.
Casey:
Then hit Computer.
Marco:
It turns out webpages can scroll sometimes.
Marco:
There's more content than what's just in the first window.
Marco:
I'm doing this now as well.
Casey:
This is excellent audio material right now.
Marco:
I just sent them three old iPhones, one old iPad, and an Apple Watch that I bought this summer for my testing that I sent back to them for almost exactly what I paid for it.
John:
oh wow nice oh this is not great i entered my serial number and it says which model do you have i gave you the serial number surely from that you can tell right yeah i'm going through the same thing i'm guessing johnny's recycling cases maybe 200 bucks so i'm going down the mac pro alley and it says what year is it guess what the options are for the choices 2013 and that's it 2013 and other
John:
All right, and I've gotten to the end of the thing, and you want me to tell you what it says?
John:
Recycle.
John:
Based on what you've told us, your Mac is ready to recycle.
Marco:
Harsh.
Marco:
Harsh.
Marco:
Based on what you've told us, your Mac is not even worth recycling.
Marco:
The aluminum has broken down.
Marco:
We have no idea what to do with this.
Casey:
We are happy to recycle it into one Coke can.
Casey:
All right, I did get a dollar amount.
Casey:
Would you like to guess, gentlemen, what that is?
John:
$200.
John:
Wait, I'm going to guess now.
John:
Let me see.
John:
What year is your iMac?
Casey:
It is late 2015.
Casey:
It is 4 gigahertz quad-core i7 with 32 gigs of questionable RAM and a one terabyte drive.
Marco:
This is a few-year-old iMac that at the time you bought it would have been something like $3,000, right?
Casey:
something like that yeah um i'm gonna say eight hundred dollars well if we're playing prices right rules marco one but you are but you are closer five hundred and eighty dollars whoa that's lower oh take it take this deal i absolutely will take that deal without question i didn't even know this was a thing i thought you had to buy another computer yeah they send you a box and everything it's no they just send you a gift card like in like in a couple of weeks and then you can use it whenever you buy anything next from apple and you can stack them up you can use more than one
Casey:
That's excellent.
Casey:
I'm glad we had this conversation.
Marco:
So thank you.
Marco:
I get rid of a bunch of stuff this way because it's not – I know that when you sell things privately, you can get more money.
Marco:
But it's also a pain in the butt.
John:
But then you'll be inflicting this computer onto a private citizen, which no one wants that.
John:
No, I genuinely, I don't want to do that.
Marco:
Exactly.
Marco:
Like, by doing this, like, this is going to go into, like, you know, refurbishment and parts and all sorts of crap.
Marco:
Like, this is going to be, like, no longer your problem and also not the problem of anybody you know or directly took money from.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
No, I am really, really genuinely happy about this option.
Casey:
I did not even know that was a thing.
Casey:
That's excellent.
Casey:
Thanks, man.
Casey:
So yeah, so Casey's Computer Corner, I'm sure we'll do a small update when this thing arrives, which might be by the next time we record, but probably not.
Casey:
But otherwise, I'm super pumped and God willing, and hopefully it won't be a problem.
Casey:
Actually, I expect to have no problems with this computer because I did tick the $150 or whatever dollar AppleCare Plus box when I ordered it, thinking to myself...
Casey:
Well, given the great track record you have with your iMac, you might as well play it safe.
Casey:
But since I have gotten myself protection, that stands to reason that I will not need it.
Marco:
Yeah, I was even going to suggest that now that you've ordered the replacement computer, your current computer is going to be perfect now.
Marco:
It's never going to have any problems again.
Casey:
Exactly.
Casey:
I'm happy to report that my computer is still a piece of garbage.
Casey:
Don't worry.
John:
It's just passive-aggressively leaving little notes on his desktop telling you how broken it is.
John:
Yeah, exactly.
John:
Just so you know, while you were gone, I'm corrupt.
Yeah.
Casey:
Yeah, exactly right.
Marco:
Yeah, a couple things.
Marco:
And we mentioned this back when the iMac Pro first came out.
Marco:
But for whatever reason, the AppleCare on the iMac Pro is at the same price as the regular iMac, even though it's a $5,000 and up computer.
Marco:
And so it's like $160 or something for AppleCare.
Marco:
no matter how much you can spec it up to like a ten thousand dollar configuration it's still 160 or whatever dollars for the apple care so it almost doesn't make sense not to get it um even i got it for my mac pro because it was so cheap relative to the cost of any repair to this computer that might that might ever happen um and uh
Marco:
So that was a good move.
Marco:
And then finally, I also wanted to mention that over this past week, being Thanksgiving and everything, I traveled with the 16-inch for the first time.
Marco:
And actually, I spent a lot of time on it, a lot of work on it.
Marco:
And I am just continuing to be so happy with this computer.
Marco:
Yeah.
Casey:
Aw, good.
Marco:
That makes me happy.
Marco:
It's finally good.
Marco:
This is how I used to feel about all my previous laptops 2015 and earlier.
Marco:
They were just good.
Marco:
I had little tiny nitpicks here and there, mostly about, oh, I wish the battery lasted longer.
Marco:
There was never like...
Marco:
fundamental problems of things i really hated with these laptops before 2016 like it was just and now it's back to the way it was before this is just a nice apple laptop it's fast it's capable i loved having the giant screen i never felt like it was too big uh it was just a really nice i got serious work done on it and a bunch of you know slacking off and shopping like it was a combination of everything i do on computers like all done over a few days while traveling and
Marco:
It was just fantastic.
Marco:
When Turbo Boost was off, which I left it that way most of the time, it had totally adequate performance for Xcode and everything because, like, yeah, I'm slowing down the core speed, but there's also eight of them.
Marco:
So it can make up the difference pretty well.
Marco:
And meanwhile, again, with Turbo Boost off, it had amazing battery life.
Marco:
It actually would last, like,
Marco:
six or seven hours of programming or like 10 hours of web crap um it was it was never hot i never heard the fan it never like made my hands sweaty it was just great i just really am really enjoying this computer i have no problems with it some people report there's a problem with the speakers popping during certain transitions and i i haven't had that happen but the way i watch some videos on it it looks like it's probably a software bug
Marco:
um so that's i expect them to fix that with a firmware update probably pretty soon but otherwise yeah that doesn't that hasn't affected me and i just i love this thing it's finally a laptop that i really love again and i can get back to not thinking about laptops as much as i have for the last three years anymore
Casey:
That genuinely makes me very happy.
Casey:
Now, hearing you say, oh, it was sufficient for Xcode, I almost wonder if I should send you my adorable whenever I'm done with it so you can occasionally, just periodically, try to use that for Xcode and realize how good you have it because, oh, man, I love this adorable.
Casey:
I really do.
Casey:
But doing any real work on it is so frigging painful.
Casey:
It's so, so frustrating.
Marco:
And I will again make the argument – I should blog about it again.
Marco:
I will again make the argument for a true macOS low power mode because using these amazing, fast, high core count laptops with Turbo Boost disabled when you want it to be disabled is really nice because not only do you get really nice battery life, but again, it's also – it keeps the laptop cooler and quieter.
Marco:
I hate when I'm using my laptop and it's getting so hot that it makes my hands sweaty.
Marco:
That's a gross feeling.
Marco:
Nobody wants that.
Marco:
If you can avoid that, if you can keep it cool enough and that makes a difference between your hands being sweaty or not, that's a huge quality of life improvement.
Marco:
Not to mention the fact that sometimes you do need maximum battery life and sometimes you don't care that much about performance.
Marco:
To have a proper low power mode, I'm going to keep campaigning Apple until they do this because
Marco:
There's significant value to be had there, and it could be as simple as disabling Turbo Boost and disabling photos indexing.
Marco:
That could be it.
Marco:
That literally could be it, and that has a big impact right there.
Casey:
If you could only have one, would you choose low power or low data, like tethering mode for a MacBook?
Marco:
I would choose low power mode, no question.
Marco:
The reason why is because tethering mode you can accomplish with third-party apps in ways that seem cataly and friendly.
Marco:
Trip mode is, I think, the most popular one.
Marco:
It's great for that.
Marco:
Turbo Boost Switcher Pro has this kernel extension to make itself work.
Marco:
And as far as I know, it's signed in such a way that it's one of those things that like it says it works in Catalina, but it probably won't work in the next version of the OS as they keep locking down kernel extensions further and further.
Marco:
So I'm guessing that is probably not long for this world.
Marco:
And so probably a year from now, whenever the next Mac OS comes out,
Marco:
I'm guessing there has to either be an Apple-provided solution or there won't be a solution.
Marco:
And I will be sad when that happens because that will mean that my laptop will get significantly worse to use when I'm in certain conditions that are actually pretty common for me.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Away, who makes awesome suitcases.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
They're made with incredible materials.
Marco:
They have an amazing guarantee for life.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
I think they're most famous for the carry-on.
Marco:
This is the one that, you know, not only do they have the 360-degree four wheels on the bottom that make it easy to maneuver, not only do they have a TSA-approved combination lock and a removable washable laundry bag so you can keep your dirty clothes separate, all their bags have that.
Marco:
But the thing that makes the carry-on famous, I think, is this removable battery.
Marco:
So this is a battery that can charge any USB device.
Marco:
So your phone's low on charge while you're waiting at the gate or having a layover.
Marco:
you can just plug it right into your suitcase.
Marco:
You don't have to like crowd around the outlets to try to find the outlet in the airport, you know, at the old gates.
Marco:
You don't have to.
Marco:
You can just charge from your suitcase.
Marco:
And it's no big deal if they make you gate check it.
Marco:
You can just pop it out with one click and bring it on the plane with you.
Marco:
The Away suitcases are made from their signature polycarbonate or anodized aluminum.
Marco:
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Marco:
They also just recently announced an expandable line that has a nylon exterior, which is really nice.
Marco:
All these few cases are very thoughtfully designed, very high-quality materials.
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:
Thank you so much to away for sponsoring our show because this season everyone wants to get away.
Casey:
So I also made an impulse purchase on Monday.
Casey:
Oh?
Casey:
I'm just burning money up.
Casey:
Call me Marco Arment.
Marco:
Wait, so you actually proved Cyber Monday to be a thing?
Casey:
Well, except I went to a retail store and walked out with a box, but yes.
John:
You're doing it wrong.
John:
He's also proving that people are spending their time buying themselves things instead of buying gifts for other people.
Casey:
Yes, yes.
Casey:
That's also true.
Marco:
Actually, yeah.
Marco:
I bought a whole bunch of crap over the weekend, and I would say only about a third of it was for other people.
Casey:
Well, how many thousands of dollars in lights did you spend over the last week?
Casey:
That's rhetorical.
Casey:
It's rhetorical.
Casey:
I don't even want to know.
Casey:
It wasn't $1,000.
Casey:
On Monday, it was $999, Bob.
Casey:
No, no.
Casey:
On Monday, $1, I went to the local Costco and I bought myself, and by that I mean the family, a brand new LG C9 55-inch TV.
Casey:
Nice.
Casey:
Which is their OLED.
Casey:
It is the first 4K TV that has entered our house.
Casey:
It is actually the first TV that Aaron and I have purchased possibly ever.
Casey:
So we got a 720p TV, which at the time was pretty nice.
Casey:
I think 1080 was just starting to be a thing when this thing was new.
Casey:
This was 07 because it was when we got married.
Casey:
And then a few years later, I think it was in like 2011 or thereabouts, we were gifted a 1080 TV, a 40-inch 1080 TV.
Casey:
And that was our TV up until Monday.
Casey:
And now we have this 55-inch monstrosity that is up above our fireplace, which, yes, I know is a terrible place for TV.
Casey:
But if you've seen the way our living room is set up, it's really the only place for it.
Casey:
Marco can vouch.
Casey:
And so anyway, so we got this new 4K TV and it's lovely and I really like it.
Casey:
The problem is I have no way to feed it 4K content at the moment because I have a 1080 Apple TV.
Casey:
So it does have an internal YouTube app, which I've used briefly and was good.
Casey:
It has an internal Netflix app, which I haven't tried yet.
Casey:
I want to see if there's like a, internal isn't the right word for it, but you know what I mean, if there's a Plex app for it.
Casey:
So I wouldn't potentially, may not even need an Apple TV anymore at all.
Casey:
Who knows?
Casey:
I don't know that there is a Plex app for it, but I haven't had a chance to look yet.
Casey:
But it seems really nice.
Casey:
It has HomeKit support, which really only means power and inputs on this particular TV.
Casey:
But it's still kind of neat.
John:
Yeah, you were asking about that.
John:
Speaking of HomeKit, you were asking about HomeKit support for your television.
John:
And the whole time I'm thinking...
John:
What do you do with a TV with HomeKit integration?
John:
Can you explain what you're looking to automate or make work with HomeKit?
John:
Is it just saying a word to turn the TV on and off?
Casey:
Well, so really what it came down to is I viewed it as a similar thing as I did CarPlay.
Casey:
And just hear me out for a second.
Casey:
When we got our two most recent cars, I was insistent that we get CarPlay because I felt like, and I do still feel like, it was kind of future-proofing.
Casey:
Because at some point, I'm going to be disgusted by the onboard navigation in either car, or I'm going to want functionality that either car didn't come with that's available via CarPlay.
Casey:
And so I wanted to make sure that both of these cars had CarPlay because, to me, it helps them...
Casey:
You know, unlike Tesla's, you don't usually get updates to your car's infotainment.
Casey:
And so I felt like it would keep them more modern, even as the cars themselves get older.
Casey:
And with HomeKit on the TV, it was a similar thing in spirit in that I don't know why I need it.
Casey:
And to be honest, it's kind of whatever.
Casey:
But I just felt like since I know it's a thing,
Casey:
why wouldn't I try to get a TV where it has HomeKit support?
Casey:
And actually went through a really frustrating several hours.
Casey:
I know life is terrible for me around these days, but I couldn't get HomeKit to work on my brand new TV.
Casey:
You guys, the struggle is real, I got to tell you.
Marco:
And what it turned out was... Let's just disclaim that most of the things we talk about on this show are incredible first world problems and privileges, etc.
Marco:
Okay, let's move on.
Marco:
Exactly.
Casey:
Exactly.
Casey:
So, um, so anyway, so I couldn't get it to work and I don't have the gentleman's name.
Casey:
There are actually two different people that wrote in, but, uh, the first person was a gentleman, um, that had said to me, uh, Hey, if you tried, if you get the TV hooked up with your cable box and remember I'm a Fios TV subscriber as well.
Casey:
Uh, if you have it hooked up to your cable box such that it can control the cable box, which I had done, it won't let you add the TV to home kit.
Casey:
Um,
Casey:
And this was extremely frustrating to me because when I went to pair, not pair, but add this accessory to HomeKit, you know, it put up a QR code on the TV.
Casey:
I scan the QR code with my phone and my phone says, nope, didn't work.
Casey:
And the TV was like, yes, we're good to go.
Casey:
Uh, okay.
Casey:
So as far as I was concerned, the TV was happy and it was Apple.
Casey:
That was a problem.
Casey:
And Apple, you know, put up a, a tremendously useful, uh, error screen.
Casey:
And I'll, I'll put a link to my tweet about it in the show notes where I was whining about it.
Casey:
Um, but basically, uh, the, the, the dialogue said something like, I think I could go back dismiss or hit okay or something like that.
Casey:
And it basically just said, couldn't add accessory back dismiss or okay.
Casey:
I'm like, guys, can I have some amount of feedback here, please?
Casey:
Anything?
Casey:
Anything would be lovely.
Casey:
But it turns out it was not an Apple problem, and it was actually an LG problem.
Casey:
And there's something about when the LG is hooked up to the cable box that it will not allow or will not work with HomeKit.
Casey:
People theorize it's something related to Bluetooth.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
But once I disconnected the cable box in a figurative sense, so it's still connected via HDMI, but it's not doing any of the fancy channel surfing and so on and so forth, then I was able to add it to HomeKit no problem.
Casey:
And in this particular setup, the only thing it lets me do is turn it on or off or set an input.
Casey:
And since I am an HDMI CEC unicorn,
Casey:
I don't really need that that often because like if I want to watch the Apple TV, I just turn on the Apple TV and it turns on the TV and it makes it jump directly to the correct input.
Casey:
So that is many, many words to say, John, there is no damn point to me having HomeKit on this TV, but I knew it was a thing and so I wanted to have it.
John:
A real-time follow-up, you can indeed get Plex for your television.
Casey:
Oh, excellent.
John:
LG has like a whole app store, basically.
John:
It's a content store.
John:
The name of it is LG Content Store, which is not a good name.
John:
No.
John:
I suppose they can't use App Store because, you know, Apple and lawyers or whatever, but...
John:
Whatever.
Casey:
I don't know if it has an Apple TV app.
Casey:
I need to look into that.
Casey:
Oh, and I will say that in theory, sometime in the next two or three weeks, I will get a voucher for a year of Disney+.
Casey:
I was dragging my feet on subscribing because there was nothing that I personally was dying to watch.
Casey:
Yes, I know The Mandalorian's a thing.
Casey:
Yes, I should probably be excited about it, but whatever.
Casey:
The thing I was actually most and am most excited to watch is there's apparently an Imagineering documentary series or something like that, which I'm super amped to see.
Casey:
Well, anyways, apparently there's a promotion where if you get an LG OLED TV, of which this is, then you can get a year of Disney Plus.
Casey:
So you had to upload a scan of your receipt and so on and so forth, which I've done.
Casey:
And I guess sometime in the next month, they're going to email me a code so I can get a year of Disney Plus.
Casey:
I'm pretty amped about that.
Casey:
I know there is a Disney Plus app on there.
Casey:
home screen app store whatever you call it uh i didn't look for plex but the chat room is saying yes plex is the thing that i can install so i'll be checking that out too maybe i won't need an apple tv 4k who knows uh the question you haven't answered yet though is did you calibrate your tv
Casey:
So by John's definition, no.
Casey:
By my definition, yes.
Casey:
So when I got this TV, John immediately said, you must use the THX tune-up or whatever it's called app in order to get it calibrated.
Casey:
I did not do that.
Casey:
I might.
Casey:
But what I did do was the other thing you suggested, which is use, what is it?
Casey:
Artings or something?
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
And use their calibration guide to just get it close.
Casey:
And that is what I've done.
John:
The thing about RTINGS settings, they have settings on their website, rtings.com, and you find your model of TV and you can look at what their settings that they recommend are.
John:
But they are not sort of religiously anti-motion smoothing.
John:
So very often they will tell you to turn down the motion smoothing or to pick a particular option in the motion smoothing.
John:
So I would say get your settings from rtings.com and then disable all of the motion things.
John:
anything that inserts frames of video that did not exist in the source you want to turn that off i know it's hard to tell what those things are because they all have lots of weird names but the arting site will usually explain to you this is the thing that does motion interpolation frame interpolation whatever turn them off not low not medium off off off yeah so i would suggest you do that
Casey:
I think I have, but knowing me, maybe I didn't.
Casey:
So who knows?
Casey:
But anyway, but I am, I'm really pleased with this.
Casey:
It's really neat to have a very pretty and big TV and, and it, you know, it seems to have taken the place of my other TV really well.
Casey:
I have a very odd home theater set up, which the details are not particularly interesting, but this was basically able to slide into place in using all of the connectors that were already there.
Casey:
I didn't need to like get rid of component cables, for example, for the sake of argument and like put in HDMI or anything like that.
Casey:
Everything worked out just like I wanted, which is super great.
Casey:
And I'm so far really, really pleased with it.
Casey:
And WebOS, this is the first time I've used WebOS.
Casey:
And, I mean, it's fine.
Casey:
It seems good for the most part.
Casey:
But I like it.
Casey:
It's a nice TV.
John:
Do you notice the picture quality difference?
Casey:
uh i don't know not really really ask the person with terrible vision well not only do i have terrible vision but remember i'm not really i've only watched one or two things in 4k like i quickly played a casey on cars for like 30 seconds just to see it i mean i think you would notice when you turn on the television ignite at night uh if i don't know what the splash screen is for when you turn on the tv but often the splash screen is black with like a logo or something in the middle and
John:
Just that screen alone should look very different.
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
See, the problem is I'm not as discerning as either of you.
Casey:
And so, like, yes, I can recognize when I pay attention that the blacks are the blackest black.
Casey:
But in general, I don't think about that that much, and I'm fairly easily impressed.
Casey:
So I do like it very much.
Casey:
I'm not saying it's not great, and it definitely does look beautiful, especially in the blacks, even when I'm looking at 1080 content.
Casey:
But I really want to just properly set it up with, like,
Casey:
Well, I was going to say Plex, but honestly, that's all 1080 anyway.
Casey:
But get an Apple TV Plus app if there is such a thing, or alternatively, get a 4K Apple TV and hook it up.
Casey:
Actually, I meant to bring that up.
Casey:
Something that does concern me moments after I said, oh, all my old cables worked great.
Casey:
There were no problems.
Casey:
Something that concerns me is I put HDMI or had HDMI put through the walls or through the wall in order to go from where the receiver and cable box and whatnot are to behind the TV, which is, again, mounted up on the wall.
Casey:
And I'm deeply concerned that whatever HDMI cable that I put in there literally 10-ish years ago isn't going to have support for all the new fancy stuff.
Casey:
And I'm going to have to get somebody... It absolutely doesn't.
John:
It does not.
Casey:
So then I'm going to have to go through the walls myself or get somebody to go through the walls and replace it all.
John:
Well, if you don't use that fancy stuff, if you don't use enhanced audio return channel and you don't use the latest Ethernet or power tunneling things, if you don't use any of those features...
John:
You should be okay.
Casey:
Well, I don't, but what about like HDR and all that other fancy stuff?
John:
Yeah, that might be okay.
John:
What you really have to worry about is HDCP, the copy protection crap, depending on what you connect to it.
John:
Try it.
John:
It will be clear when it doesn't work.
John:
And HDR is a whole other realm of...
John:
calibration and settings and stuff that i haven't actually dealt with but it should also be obvious if you run any sort of test things whether hdr is quote unquote working or not um but i think like most cases hdmi you either get a picture or you don't and when you don't something is wrong you won't be able to do high frame rate you won't be able to do the wide color gamut stuff like lots of stuff you won't be able to do over that 10 year old cable
John:
well and that's the thing that i'm worried about is that it will show me a picture but i but it won't be as fancy and nice a picture as it could have been like it will be non-hdr for the sake of discussion you should be there should be some i don't i don't know this particular tv but it's usually some way that you can put an overlay where it shows information like what is the frame rate i'm currently getting what is the color space what you know and then you can look at that information and figure out what's broken about it but yeah that's unfortunately hdmi uh
John:
The TV you got is the one that has, I think, the most support for the latest HDMI spec.
John:
HDMI 2.1 includes lots of features.
John:
This TV doesn't support all of them, but it supports more of them than its other contemporary televisions.
John:
So it would behoove you to get a new cable that supports all the fancy stuff.
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
So that's the thing, which, I mean, it's a self-created problem, but I'm going to probably need to work that out at some point.
Casey:
But sitting here now, it's a very nice TV.
Casey:
Who'd have thunk it?
Casey:
I'm really pleased about that.
John:
So you're going to have an empty tree this year.
John:
It's just going to be Christmas morning, and you've got a lump of coal.
John:
It's like, well, Casey, you already bought yourself every present you could possibly want, so...
John:
Yeah, you don't get anything.
Casey:
That's very true.
Casey:
John, you apparently had a new experience sometime recently.
Casey:
You want to tell us about that?
John:
Got to try out a new gaming system without buying anything, which is always the best way to do it.
John:
Stadia launched Google Stadia.
John:
We talked about it many shows ago.
John:
uh i talked mostly about the this the idea of streaming gaming services why people keep trying to do it and why people will keep trying to do it and we didn't know if stadia would finally succeed where all those other services have uh have failed uh it's from google they have a lot of money they talk a lot about their cool technology whatever anyway they launched their service and because it's basically a service and not a game console they don't technically need to launch any kind of hardware because you can play
John:
stadia games uh on any device that's supported as sort of a client including your computer with a web browser so on your mac launch chrome and go to whatever it is it's like stadia.google.com or stadia.com i don't know whatever it is stadia.tv i forget this stadia.google.com
John:
there you go anyway go to that in your in your web browser yes your web browser on your mac and boom you're playing a console game that's running in google's data centers you can play it on i think your ipad and iphone or maybe just pixel phones eventually it'll be on your ipad and iphone um
John:
You can play it on your television if you have a Chromecast, but then you need a controller.
John:
And the one hardware thing they do sell you is there's like a Google Stadia controller that is basically everything you need.
John:
Like it connects to Wi-Fi.
John:
It does all the stuff that your Mac would be doing in its web browser or whatever.
John:
It does all the connection stuff and then it sends to a Chromecast on your television.
John:
so if you wanted you could buy that and in fact that's the only way or was the only way it launched where you could play stadia is if you gave them like 130 bucks for the controller and i think maybe it came with a chromecast i forget um and you would get this little box and you would you know they had all the youtube people opening up their box of their stadia controller and trying it out and so on and so forth and google sponsored a bunch of those videos but i didn't do that i'm not gonna pay 130 for a
John:
controller probably won't like for a gaming thing and it probably won't like so i'm like oh i have to wait until they eventually let you try stadia for free just in your web browser but it turns out that everyone who got one of those uh cool i think they call them like the founders box like if you were if you gave them money ahead of time or pre-ordered for it or whatever you got that but you also got invite codes so somebody sent me an invite code and i was able to join stadia and go through sort of the account creation process and all that other stuff
John:
uh before i get to the gaming part of it this is the part this is the part that made me dislike stadia the most and has nothing to do with playing games on it surprisingly you go through the setup process like oh welcome to stadia blah blah enter a bunch of information uh inevitably like as you would imagine for any sort of network-based service it makes you pick a name a quote-unquote gamer tag as the kids say um because that's how people relate to each other online
John:
I have a gamer tag that I've been using since college, and I have it on PSN, and I have it on Xbox, and I have a different one on Steam.
John:
And I typed that in, and it went to the next screen.
John:
I'm like, great, I must have gotten in early enough because none of the small group of founders took my preferred gamer tag, which is a weird word and not any part of my name or whatever.
John:
And so I'm glad I got my name.
John:
And then the next screen said, okay, here you go.
John:
And by the way, it showed at the bottom a number sign and then four hyphens.
John:
And it said, and by the way, to distinguish your name, a number may appear after it to...
John:
differentiate it from anyone else who may have the same name i'm like oh my that's weird well i suppose if someone else picks the same name as me i guess we're both gonna get numbers or maybe if we're both in the same game we'll get numbers after our things anyway i just sailed through because you know whatever and then i started playing something and my name had a number after it had a hash mark and a number after it
John:
A four-digit number.
John:
Like, okay, there are not 9,999 other people who pick this name.
John:
There's 500 people on the service total at this point.
John:
Like, no one is using this.
John:
Why do I have a number after my name?
John:
With a little bit of research, I mostly figured out that the only way you're ever going to see your name without a number at the launch of this service is if you are one of those founder people.
John:
Everybody else, no matter what name you pick, will get a number after your name.
John:
This is apparently a thing that lots of services are doing to try to avoid, I guess, namespace pollution and let people be happier to get their names.
John:
But let me tell you, this is the wrong choice from a human factors perspective, right?
John:
Not being able to get your name is bad.
John:
It makes people sad.
John:
I understand that.
John:
But saying that everybody is going to have numbers after the name is worse.
John:
And even worse than that is saying a tiny elite set of people won't have numbers and everyone else will have numbers, even if the name you pick, nobody else picked that name.
John:
This, you think, wouldn't make any difference.
John:
Who cares what your name is online?
John:
Who cares if you have numbers after?
John:
That's a big issue for me.
John:
If I had known that I was going to have numbers after my name, I would have picked a different name.
John:
It turns out it doesn't matter what name I picked, I would always have numbers after it.
John:
That's bad.
John:
I don't want to have numbers after my name.
John:
I try to teach my children that.
John:
I think it's a lesson for everybody.
John:
If the name you want is not available in the service that you're using, find a different name.
John:
don't put the year of your birth after anyway that's like personally identifiable information don't put don't put you know a seven digit number don't put 420 don't put 69 don't put 1138 don't put 42 don't put 360 like do not put those numbers like don't add numbers don't put two don't put three but don't put seven don't you know the only thing i'd allow
John:
for young people only, basically, is ASCII art based on little letters, like lowercase x, capital X, underscore, underscore.
John:
If your name is underscore, feel free to use as many underscores as you want, but no numbers.
John:
So I'm unreasonably upset about the fact that my gamertag has a hash mark or whatever, you know, and a four-digit number after it every time you see the name in a list.
John:
Like an animal.
Yeah.
John:
And then it's alongside, sometimes, people who don't have numbers.
John:
The haves and have-nots in Stadia.
John:
Oh, John, I'm so sorry.
John:
Anyway, obviously I played Destiny.
John:
Destiny recently rolled out cross-save, which is these amazing terms in the industry for...
John:
incomplete features uh what you would expect is if destiny is supported on multiple platforms and it's an online game where you know go and play online that everyone be able to play with everyone because hey it's the internet that is not the case if you're on playstation you can play with other people on playstation if you are on xbox you play with other people on xbox back in destiny one if you are on playstation 3 you can only play with playstation 3 players if you're on playstation 4 you can only play with playstation 4 players and on and on if you're on pc you can only play with pc players
John:
If you're in Stadia, you're going to play with Stadia plays.
John:
Aha!
John:
Now they have cross-save, which means you can only play with people on the same platform as you, but anything you do on any platform shows up on all the other platforms.
John:
So if I play Destiny on my PlayStation, and then I quit my PlayStation, turn it off, and then I go over and play in Stadia, I see that same player, all my same stuff, everything is the same over there.
John:
So cross-save is better than nothing.
John:
But it's not the same as cross play and I really hope cross play is coming anyway All that is to say I was able to play destiny with my actual characters with a mouse and a keyboard on my Mac and Chrome a 5k Mac and Chrome like zoom to full screen and I've done this before with the GeForce now service, which is a Nvidia streaming gaming thing they had they also had PCs and you could play the PC version of destiny over the internet and
John:
uh and stadia it's better than geforce now in particular i think there were fewer huge hitches in frame rate and the image quality seemed a little bit better and the launch time and everything about it seemed a little bit faster and it's like a technical miracle that it works at all
John:
But for games like Destiny, first-person shooters against other human beings, the technology is still not quite there.
John:
I have gigabit fiber to my house.
John:
I'm in an area that's not too far away from major switches on the Internet.
John:
Maybe all of the Stadia servers are on the West Coast, and that's what's killing me, but it was not good.
John:
So if you're wondering, has streaming gaming arrived for the hardest of hardcore games?
John:
uh games against other human beings the answer is no but if you're looking for a way to play games that don't require twitch reflexes and you want the cheapest way to do it and you want to be able to play from any one of your devices including your phone your ipad your television or just bring a controller with you to a hotel and be able to play there it's technically impressive and is probably the best one of these services that i've ever tried and i think i've tried most of them
John:
So, yeah, we're still waiting for that technical breakthrough.
John:
And I guess we're still waiting for that marketing breakthrough where someone can convince people who are not hardcore gamers that don't worry about it if you can't play Destiny.
John:
Destiny is a weird, complicated game anyway, and you're never going to get into it.
John:
But this is the best, cheapest, most convenient way to play all those other games that don't require, you know, millisecond precision.
John:
So...
John:
Yeah, I guess that's sort of a thumb sideways on Stadia.
John:
And everyone complained about the launch because they had very few games available.
John:
Most of the games are already available on other platforms.
John:
And there's all sorts of complaining about the launch.
John:
It doesn't seem like the service is off to a really great start.
John:
And it doesn't seem like any of the technical aspects have surprised anybody with how good they are.
John:
They're not way worse than people thought, but they're not way better either.
John:
So I feel like Stadia is kind of landing with a thud at this point.
John:
A glowing review.
John:
But hey, for something that I paid zero for, you know, it's like a free trial.
John:
Let me add a reminder.
John:
I did have to like sign myself up for a monthly thing, but I think you get like a one month free trial.
John:
I need to cancel this because I'm never going to use Stadia.
John:
although speaking of destiny which i just was uh someone's asking me today hey when you get your new mac pro are you gonna play destiny on it and you know i hadn't really thought about that but i think i probably will try it like obviously destiny doesn't run on the mac but uh assuming boot camp is still supported which apple people continue to tell me that it is despite all evidence to the contrary as far as i can tell
John:
that boot camp is still a thing if i can run boot camp on my mac pro i will indeed install some weird version of windows and install destiny for the pc and i suppose buy destiny for the pc if i don't already own it i think i did buy destiny for the pc once but i don't know if i need to buy it again it's confusing anyway i will do that so i can try destiny on my mac and see how that goes the the advantage by the way is like why would you want to do that
John:
For some people, it's mouse and keyboard to be able to use the mouse and keyboard.
John:
I can't do that for RSI reasons, so I would probably still be using a controller when I played it on my Mac.
John:
But on the PlayStation 4, the frame rate is capped at 30 frames per second, and the frame rate is uncapped when you play on a PC or a Mac Pro.
John:
And of course, the resolution is better and all that other stuff.
John:
So I'd really love to see Destiny at higher resolution and much higher frame rates just to see what that's like.
Casey:
But you don't need to buy a Mac Pro, John.
Casey:
That's what Jason told me.
John:
I don't.
John:
To run Destiny, again, as a friend pointed out to me, if I put a modern NVIDIA GPU in my 2008 Mac Pro, it would run Destiny at 60 frames per second.
John:
It doesn't take much to be faster than PlayStation 4.
John:
Even my Mac Pro could do it if given a $600 GPU.
Casey:
But you still are buying that Mac Pro, huh?
John:
Sure am.
John:
You don't need it, though.
John:
I don't.
John:
I absolutely do not.
John:
He has to buy it at this point.
John:
Oh, no argument.
John:
No argument at all.
John:
I want to buy it.
John:
That's the word that keeps me laughing.
John:
I want to buy it.
John:
You also have to buy it.
John:
I mean, let's be honest.
John:
I don't have to.
John:
My computer is the one that works, but I want to buy them.
John:
As we've talked about before, I do occasionally dread that I'm going to get this insanely expensive new computer that's going to be obsolete in two years when Apple switches to ARM, and it's going to be flaky, and I'm going to have nothing but problems with it, and I'm not going to be able to record podcasts.
Casey:
We'll see how it goes.
Casey:
Hey, I've been there, John.
Casey:
You can make it through.
Casey:
Trust me.
John:
I'll get the AppleCare.
John:
Don't worry.
Casey:
Yeah, I recommend it.
Casey:
And you're still not getting one, Marco?
Marco:
I don't have any plans to.
Marco:
I'm extremely happy with my iMac Pro.
Marco:
You're so adorable.
Marco:
What if it comes with an LED light?
Marco:
I mean, how bright is it?
John:
That's right.
John:
It comes out of all the holes.
John:
You thought those holes were there for airflow, but it's also for light.
Casey:
It's a billion nits.
Casey:
That's the thing.
Casey:
You don't even need that.
Casey:
Imagine how crazy it would be if Marco buys the Pro Display XDR because of the bazillion nits, but doesn't bother connecting it to the Mac Pro.
John:
Can the iMac Pro drive the 6K?
John:
I don't think it can, right?
Marco:
I think so.
Marco:
They have not said, I don't think.
Marco:
All they have said is that the 16-inch MacBook Pro can drive two of them.
Marco:
but they have i don't think they've actually documented or said anywhere what else can drive them and how many yeah i'm guessing no based on the age of the computer but who knows you make me feel real great about my purchase well you know you're not going to buy an xdr yeah are you going to put the 6k monitor next to your iMac pro nobody wants to buy that except for a very small group of people even i don't want to buy it but you will you could almost buy two of your iMac pros for the price of the xdr
John:
Yeah.
John:
Instead of dual monitors, just do dual iMac pros and two totally different computers and just use a KVM to constantly.
Casey:
Oh, what was that software that let you do like a fake software KVM over the internet?
John:
I forget the name.
Casey:
Oh God, I can't remember it either now.
John:
It's not hammer spoon.
John:
That's the config one.
John:
Uh,
Casey:
Ah, it's going to drive me nuts now.
John:
Knifey Spoonie.
John:
Spoonie Knifey.
John:
Synergy.
John:
There we go.
Casey:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Casey:
That's it.
Casey:
That's it.
Casey:
That's it.
Casey:
Oh, man.
Casey:
I am so excited for Marco to cave on this and buy himself a Mac Pro.
Marco:
Look, you'll be the first ones to know.
Marco:
No, we won't.
Marco:
Well, the business rep at the Apple store might be the first one to know.
Casey:
And then Tiff.
John:
Yeah, I think Tiff might know first.
John:
Yeah, we'll see.
John:
We need to get there and say, if Marco just quietly leaves the house, ask him where he's going.
Yeah.
Casey:
are you going to buy a mac no i'm not buying i'm going to the store i'm getting milk not buying a mac pro at all the best the best will be if the way i find out that marco has bought a mac pro is suddenly out of nowhere someone freezes his credit because the purchase is too big that that no i think even better would be out of nowhere you know i come home in the afternoon from wherever and i see there's a big package on my front porch and i think oh that's weird i wasn't expecting anything and i bring it in and i see it's from the town in which marco lives and i think well what what would marco have sent me
Casey:
I wasn't expecting that at all.
Casey:
And I opened it up and I realized, oh, it's an iMac carrying case.
Casey:
Oh my God, I know what he's done.
John:
He would never give up the iMac Pro.
John:
That would be his portable desktop.
John:
It's the stationary desktop and the portable desktop.
John:
Yeah, my travel computer.
Marco:
Oh my gosh, that is funny.
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Casey:
All right, let's do some Ask ATP.
Casey:
And someone, probably Joel, wrote in, hey, what do you think of developers trying to be fun in Apple Store update notes?
Casey:
I, generally speaking, don't like it, but there are exceptions where it's really good.
Casey:
If you are lucky enough to be on the gift-wrapped...
Casey:
beta on the test flight beta and i think jelly does this for the actual release notes too but the gift wrapped beta is worth the figurative price of admission for the release notes alone because i don't even i don't have any in front of me but jelly's release notes for the gift wrap beta are phenomenal it's like a story in and of themselves and they're so good
Casey:
When like big companies try to be cutesy and funny, I think it almost always fails and is garbage and I hate it.
Casey:
But when smaller independent developers try it, usually they are still connected enough with reality that it can work and work well.
Casey:
But that's just my two cents.
Casey:
Let me ask the old and stodgy ones, starting with Marco.
Casey:
What do you think?
Marco:
I think it used to matter what you put in those release notes.
Casey:
Oh, that's true, too.
Casey:
That's a very good point.
Marco:
But nowadays, with auto-update being on by default, and with the updates being further and further buried in the App Store app every time they change anything about it, I don't think it matters anymore, honestly.
Marco:
I think this fight is long lost, and now it's just irrelevant.
Casey:
Yeah, you're not wrong.
Casey:
John, what do you think?
John:
I think like any sort of content exercise, whether that's the text in your dialog box or your menu item names or help text or anything where you have to write something or create graphics or whatever in your application, it is an opportunity to do a good job and make your product feel better.
John:
And that includes release notes.
John:
Very few people will ever look at them.
John:
Fewer now, like Marco pointed out, than ever before because of the changes Apple has made.
John:
But the people who do look at them are looking at them because they feel better about knowing what the changes are, whether they need to know what the changes are or not.
John:
They want to know what the changes.
John:
And when you have well-written release notes, that's content that is...
John:
you know informative concise but also fun to read it makes the person reading them feel better about your application and those people tend to be the sort of most loyal hardcore customers depending on the type of application you make that customer group may actually be important to you they may be the people who are keeping you in business year after year because you have a niche application that
John:
uh caters to enthusiasts and they're going to seek out those release notes and so i think it is an opportunity for you to excel and for you to make your application make your customers happier and make your application uh more valuable to them and increase their affection for it you just have to know am i making that type of application does literally anybody look at my release notes
John:
Or am I making a mass market application that is not the type of thing where release notes matter at all, in which case I don't have to care about that.
John:
But what do I think about trying to be fun?
John:
I think it's perfectly fine and could possibly be beneficial.
John:
And then the final thing is, even if nobody reads them, if it makes you happy to do it as like sort of celebrating like a cherry on top of you getting a release out and you just do it because it's a fun thing that you enjoy because you like writing and maybe like you and five of your friends ever look at them and get amused by them.
John:
That can be a perfectly valid thing to do.
John:
It's not like we're asking, you know, the act of writing release notes is not writing a novel.
John:
It's like hopefully a very small amount of text.
John:
And if it makes you feel good to do it, then do it.
John:
But as Casey pointed out, try to ask a trusted friend whether you're actually making amusing release notes or whether you are not doing a good job in that task, in which case it could actually be harmful.
Casey:
Mike Bullock Ziegler writes, I am getting iPads for out-of-state grandparents to make it easy to share photos of my son and FaceTime with us.
Casey:
Neither are tech savvy.
Casey:
Neither of them uses much tech outside of a TV remote.
Casey:
Any setup tips or suggestions outside of accessibility settings for elder proofing it?
Casey:
You know, I don't have any great answers for this.
Casey:
So I'm really curious if you guys have any really clever ideas.
Marco:
I actually – I did this with both of my grandparents over the last decade or so.
Marco:
It's hard.
Marco:
Obviously, do what you can.
Marco:
Get all the updates on.
Marco:
Bury all the apps that they won't use and we'll just confuse them in a folder like an Apple folder.
Marco:
Bury as much as you can so that they can just have one page of Springboard.
Marco:
They don't have to swipe to different pages.
Marco:
Have everything on one page.
Marco:
Show them, obviously, you know, the best thing you can do is like be there with them when they first get it, show them how to use it, you know, show them the basics.
Marco:
And then one thing that, you know, depending on what your budget will allow for this use.
Marco:
Get them the cellular ones and activate the plan with something that you pay for and you control.
Marco:
Because then they never have to worry about Wi-Fi or connectivity.
Marco:
They're just always online.
Marco:
I don't know what this person's grandparent situation is at home, but my grandparents, when I did this for them a few years back...
Marco:
They didn't have an internet connection at their house yet because they didn't have a computer.
Marco:
So I decided, let me just avoid this problem entirely.
Marco:
Because once you involve an internet connection, then they have to call the cable company or whatever and have them bring out their stupid Wi-Fi router and deal with all that crap.
Marco:
And that's a whole other level of complexity and cost for them to deal with.
Marco:
And if you're trying to minimize that impact on them...
Marco:
If you can spare the money, just set it up with cellular and on your own plan that you pay for that they don't even need to think about it.
Marco:
To them, their iPad is just always online.
Casey:
That's a good idea.
Casey:
John, any thoughts?
John:
The only thing I'd add is Apple's devices and their iOS devices have tons of accessibility settings, but the only way you're going to know which one should be enabled and what they should be set to is to sit down with the person or persons who are going to be using the device and try each one.
John:
Do you like this better?
John:
Do you like that better?
John:
What do you think of this?
John:
What do you think of that?
John:
And then when you change the accessibility settings,
John:
In particular, things having to do with font size and weight.
John:
Also then try the applications that they think they're going to be using because despite all of Apple's WWDC session is trying to tell you how to make your layout still work when the dynamic text changes and everything, even Apple's own applications can have serious layout problems when you really crank up the text, especially on smaller devices.
John:
So just go through the whole accessibility screen, sit there, and try to get something that...
John:
works well for the people who are going to use it and go through the applications, show them how to use them, send test emails so they know how to get it, send test FaceTime calls, show them how to call things, set up their contacts, put little images on all their contacts, get everything pruned down, like Margo said, to adjust the things that they care about.
John:
You can now, quote-unquote, delete lots of built-in applications where it just hides them or whatever.
John:
Do that and then just go through the entire settings screen and set up everything in a reasonable way.
John:
It's going to take a long time, but that's the way to do it.
John:
The only part where I have some trepidation is...
John:
I still find, and maybe it's because I'm just not in the loop on this, maybe someone who's more hardcore into iOS can tell me, but I still find that the ultimate out that I talked about on the past episode of taking control of someone's screen remotely is
John:
I don't think you can do that in iOS.
John:
Do you know if that's possible?
John:
I don't think so.
Marco:
I don't think it is, but man, I, I have wished for that.
Marco:
Like there have been times when one of my grandparents would call with a question and I'd have to talk to him through something over the phone.
Marco:
And it, you know, it's hard because, you know, like if, you know, I don't know, depending on what your grandparents like,
Marco:
exposure to computers before this has been, my grandparents were starting from zero.
Marco:
And so it's hard to even try to get each other to explain with clear terminology like what's going on, what to do, have them explain what's happening on the screen and then you tell them what to do on screen.
Marco:
When they lack basic terminology because they don't have any experience with computers before this,
Marco:
even that part becomes very difficult.
Marco:
And so obviously if you can be in person, that's great.
Marco:
In my case, at the time I was doing all this, I lived in New York and they lived in Phoenix.
Marco:
So that wasn't really easily possible most of the time.
Marco:
So I just had to do tech support over the phone and it was really hard.
Marco:
And there were a couple of times where I had to say,
Marco:
I'm sorry, I don't know what to do.
Marco:
Next time you're in the mall, bring it to the Apple store and they'll help you.
Marco:
Because we couldn't figure out communication-wise how to work it out over the phone.
Marco:
It was really hard.
Marco:
And so I would have loved some kind of remote screen control thing in that kind of situation.
Marco:
But as far as I know, it's not possible.
John:
Chat room says you can share the screen but not control it.
John:
But anyway, that's my only trepidation.
John:
Macs, by far, way harder for people who aren't into computers to be able to deal with.
John:
But they do have that one advantage.
John:
The hack way that I've done in the past...
John:
And even before the screen sharing days, I used to actually use VPN to do it, but it was hard keeping third party VPN stuff going.
John:
And then I chat came and allowed screen.
John:
Anyway, the hack way is if they have a phone, they can do video chatting or at least just have the camera and they know how to text you pictures.
John:
You can, you know, you get someone can hold the phone up to another computer screen and say, this is what I'm seeing, which helps a lot.
John:
Or they can take pictures of a screen and send them to you.
John:
If they have a phone, just do FaceTime.
Marco:
Problem solved.
John:
It depends on what their problem is.
John:
The worst case is that their internet's not working, so they're on the actual landline telephone with you.
John:
Yet another reason to go cellular.
John:
Yeah.
John:
So that's the only sort of caveat I would say, that iPads are...
John:
the best thing to give to uh you know non-techie grandparents to see pictures and stuff they're way better than a mac i just wish they had a way for you to take control of the screen because so then you wouldn't have to do this back and forth and you wouldn't have to look at the screen and direct them to do things you could just say just sit back and i'll fix it and you can explain it to them while you fix it if you want or not if they don't care about that stuff they just they just make it work again um that's the suggestion for apple but yeah sitting down my suggestion is sitting down with them and going through all the settings is the best way to get it set up right
Casey:
Can the Apple Classroom stuff allow for screen control?
Casey:
If I recall correctly, the teacher could snoop, for lack of a better word, on all of the students, but could the teacher actually control any of the students' iPads?
Casey:
Do you have any idea?
John:
Don't know.
John:
Never used it.
Casey:
No, obviously, I haven't either.
Casey:
But I only ask because maybe it's somewhere in the system, just not exposed to us.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
And finally, Greg would like to know, Marco, I'm sure you've been asked before, but is there any chance you would port Overcast to the Amazon talking tube ecosystem?
Casey:
Also, would be curious as to the challenges if you decided to or what the issues are that cause you not to pursue it.
Marco:
For me, the biggest challenge... It's not something that I have strong feelings on.
Marco:
It's something that people have occasionally asked for.
Marco:
Not as much as when the Echo first came out.
Marco:
Very similar to, I think, an Apple TV app.
Marco:
People think they will use this when they first get these devices and so they request it, but then...
Marco:
After a few months, people mostly stop asking for it because they realize that they use these devices in different ways that maybe this wouldn't actually be that useful for.
Marco:
So for the most part, demand has been fairly weak, it seems.
Marco:
And so I largely haven't looked into it much because there's always something else more pressing.
Marco:
With podcast apps, and there's at least one of my competitors I know of that is on podcast.
Marco:
the Alexa family of devices, and I don't hear about it that often.
Marco:
I'm not seeing reports from people constantly saying, you know, I was going to go with you, but I went with them because they have this, or I'm leaving you because they have this.
Marco:
I hardly ever hear anybody even mention it.
Marco:
So I think it's one of those things that's just not super important.
Marco:
The thing is, and I say this as somebody who spent quite a lot of time building this massive sync engine to sync between iPad and iPhone and web for overcast,
Marco:
Most people only listen to podcasts from their phone.
Marco:
Almost none of my user base uses anything besides a phone.
Marco:
I use the iPad app every day myself, and that's why I maintain it.
Marco:
But otherwise, the vast majority of Overcast users use it on one device, their phone, and that's it.
Marco:
Because most people listen to podcasts.
Marco:
First of all, most people only have a phone.
Marco:
That's problem number one.
Marco:
But even for the people who have multiple gadgets, most people just listen to podcasts by themselves in situations where they are on the go.
Marco:
They're going to work.
Marco:
They're taking a walk, whatever it is.
Marco:
That is by far the majority of podcasts listening.
Marco:
you know, commuting or exercising or whatever else.
Marco:
And so they're not even at home necessarily.
Marco:
And if they are at home, many, many people simply just play the podcast out of their phone speaker, like the built-in speaker on the phone.
Marco:
They crank it up.
Marco:
They just play it on the countertop or whatever, and it's fine.
Marco:
So any feature that I have to invest a lot of time in that is about like multi-platform or multi-device support,
Marco:
not only is there low demand for it, but it's also usually so complicated and so costly that it's not even worth doing.
Marco:
Because any time I would spend making the phone app better, addressing people's wishes for features in the phone app,
Marco:
that is almost always time better spent.
Marco:
So it isn't that I am never going to do this.
Marco:
It's just a much lower priority than most people would want it to be of the few people who do want this feature.
Marco:
It's a low priority and it might never get done because there's just always more important stuff that's more pressing.
Casey:
Fair enough.
Marco:
Anyway, thanks to our sponsors this week.
Marco:
Alexa, no, just kidding.
Marco:
Away, Squarespace, and Handy.
Marco:
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.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental.
John:
It was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
Marco:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
Marco:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
Marco:
It's accidental.
Marco:
Accidental.
Casey:
They didn't mean to.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Accidental.
Casey:
Oh, man.
Marco:
I had to go appliance shopping.
Marco:
Our washer died.
Marco:
We had to get a new clothes washer.
Marco:
Clothes washer?
Marco:
As distinguished, I guess, from a dishwasher?
Marco:
I don't know what people in other countries call their washing machines.
Marco:
I figure just in case, it's the laundry machine that washes your clothes.
Marco:
If it doesn't dry them, that's a different machine in our country, usually.
Marco:
Unless you have a combination.
Marco:
Right, that's very rare in America to have the combo machines because usually we have these giant places that we can fit two huge machines.
Marco:
I think the combo machines are more common like in Japan and Europe where they actually have space issues.
Marco:
But anyway, so I had to replace our washing machine and that was a whole thing because we had a front loader
Marco:
Because when we moved into our house and we had to get a new washing machine, the one that came up, the house was broken.
Marco:
And so we had to get a new washing machine.
Marco:
And everyone was getting front loaded.
Marco:
This was 10 years ago, nine years ago.
Marco:
Everybody was getting front loaders.
Marco:
So, all right, fine, we got a front loader.
Marco:
And we heard, hey, they stink after a while because water basically sits in the bottom of them when they're not in use.
Marco:
So, you know, anytime you have standing water, you're going to have stink problems or mold problems or whatever.
Marco:
So we did all the precautions.
Marco:
We always left the door a little bit open.
Marco:
We would always pull out the detergent drawer thing when it was not in use, so everything could dry out.
Marco:
Everything was open to the air and could dry out all the time when it wasn't in use.
Marco:
We would run the cleaning cycles.
Marco:
We tried the special afresh things that the washer, I guess, wanted us to use.
Marco:
We did all the stuff reliably, and we cared for this thing perfectly, and it still...
Marco:
uh slowly starting to stink granted it's it was nine years old slowly starting to stink that still didn't get us to replace it eventually because we we learned like oh just run the first wash like if we were gone for like if we were out of town for a week run the first wash empty maybe and it'll it'll square out all the stinky water and then we can run and wash after that that would that would be uh you know normal ish
Marco:
But finally, it died.
Marco:
Finally, it started throwing error codes that, when looked up on Google, were things that were very expensive to fix.
Marco:
And it wouldn't spin anymore.
Marco:
So we figured, all right, now finally we have a motivating reason.
Marco:
Let's get a new washer, but let's get a top loader.
Marco:
And it turns out, according to the appliance salesman and the installers who came to install the thing, it turns out lots of people have made this exact same move from the front loaders that seem really nice and are super efficient, but really have stink problems moving back to the old top loaders.
Marco:
So we'll see how that goes.
Marco:
The reason I wanted to mention all this is that
Marco:
We also really hate our fridge.
Marco:
This is not for any incredibly major reason.
Marco:
It keeps our food cold.
Marco:
It works in most ways.
Marco:
But it has a water dispenser on the inside of the fridge.
Marco:
And so you have to open the door and it's, it's not even on the opening side of the door.
Marco:
It's on the hinge side of the door on.
Marco:
So you have to open the fridge all the way and reach in and basically like hang out in the fridge, holding down the water button and your, your cup under the water thing.
Marco:
This is mostly, most of the time a two hand operation to just get a cup of water and we work at home and we drink a lot of water.
Marco:
So this happens all the time.
Marco:
And we're like, okay, this is stupid.
Marco:
We're hanging out in the whole fridge.
Marco:
Every time we need to get water, this has to be incredibly inefficient to be losing all this cold air as we're sitting here with the door open, filling up one or two glasses of water.
Marco:
We've hated the fridge forever.
John:
That's not the only reason that's stupid.
John:
I think I talked about this on my big refrigerator episode, but I would suggest to people, and I know lots of people have some sort of conditioning against this, and sometimes there's a reason for it, but I would suggest to you
John:
because I know where you live, that during the winter half of the year at least, you can get cold water from your tap that tastes good to drink.
John:
You do not need to get water through some weird filter thing through a bunch of plastic tubes sitting stagnant in your refrigerator.
John:
It's plenty cold out of the tap in the winter, and your water is not chlorinated and doesn't taste weird.
John:
No, our water tastes delicious.
John:
That's actually not a bad idea.
John:
Maybe I'll start doing that.
John:
During the summer, you have to let it run for a while for it to get cold, which is wasteful, so maybe you shouldn't do that.
John:
But people...
John:
from you know because i'm old from my childhood nobody drank bottled water bottled water was not a big thing in my childhood but then eventually as i became into adulthood bottled water became a thing and then eventually it became clear to me that whole swaths of the country would never even consider drinking water that came from the tap sometimes again it's founded because your water is has chlorinated or has weird minerals in it and you know you don't want to drink it in a taste bad or maybe it's filled with lead or who knows what's the problem with your tap water like it's part of the reason we have these terrible bottles of water but but
John:
everybody loves those refrigerator things and as far as i'm concerned they taste like a filter i can't stand the brita things i can't stand water on the door i want water out of the faucet that's my preferred drink and i would suggest to everyone that if you are mindlessly getting water out of the little plastic tubes in your fridge consider trying something different that's you know you might have convinced me to try that because our tap water is fine
Marco:
Maybe.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Cause you know, cause I'll tell you what, so we ran into issues with the idea of trying to replace our fridge.
Marco:
Tell me about it.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So, so again, anybody who has not listened, you have to go listen to John's episode of reconcilable differences where he gets a new fridge from a few months back because it is amazing.
Marco:
Um,
Marco:
It is a Syracuse masterpiece.
Marco:
If you're a fan of anything John, which if you've made it this far listening to our podcast, I assume you are, you must listen.
Marco:
It's a masterpiece.
Marco:
It really is.
Marco:
So we'll link to that in the show notes again.
Casey:
I feel like that is the naked robotic core of John Syracuse, that episode.
John:
It's not.
John:
It's just an episode.
John:
But here's my pitch.
John:
You'll learn stuff about refrigerators and buying them.
John:
If you're in the market for a refrigerator and you have similar tastes to mine and you were nodding your head when I was telling you not to drink out of the plastic straw filter water from your fridge, this will tell you what the landscape of refrigerators looks like in 2019-ish.
John:
So it will be informative.
Marco:
yes anyway so our current fridge is a 36 inch wide 70 inch tall counter depth which means about 25 inches deep oh no counter depth ruins everything right it is built into a you know a cabinet style enclosure there's a cabinet above it there's a wall on the left side but we want the hinge being the left side and
Marco:
And so it has to... The door, when it swings open, can't extend very far past the left edge of the fridge.
Marco:
We only have about an inch.
Marco:
You're using single door, right?
Marco:
Single door.
Marco:
And we only have about an inch on the left of a gap before it hits the wall.
Marco:
So the door has to mostly swing with the hinge in place.
Marco:
It can't swing very far to the left of the fridge's bounds.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
We thought, let's look at everything available.
Marco:
And if we can find a good fridge, we're buying a wash or two.
Marco:
We'll get some kind of combo deal on it.
Marco:
We'll discount both things.
Marco:
We're buying two at once.
Marco:
We'll save on installation.
Marco:
So let's just replace the fridge that we hate.
Marco:
And there's other issues with it, too.
Marco:
Like all the drawers are all cracking and they don't slide well anymore.
Marco:
There's all sorts of other issues with it.
Marco:
So we figure, like, while we're getting one appliance, let's see what they can do for two.
Marco:
I don't think there's a single fridge on the market today that would fit in our fridge hole that we would actually like more than the one we have.
Marco:
Let alone, like, we're trying to get something better than what we have.
Marco:
I don't even think we can find one that's as good as what we have.
Marco:
Because this style of fridge that we have, which is a single door on top and a drawer freezer below...
Marco:
seems to not exist anymore.
Marco:
Not in counter-depth.
Marco:
Yes, so we have counter-depth is one problem, which I didn't even realize.
Marco:
I measured three dimensions of our fridge, and I went to the store.
Marco:
I'm like, all right, what do you have?
Marco:
It's this dimension.
Marco:
Figuring this must be a common dimension.
Marco:
Nope.
Marco:
You don't realize how big everyone else's fridges are.
Marco:
Yours is so shallow.
Marco:
You can barely fit anything in there.
Marco:
Yeah, so most of the fridges are like eight inches deeper than ours.
Marco:
And we have no extra space out there, so it would have to just then stick out from the front by a significant margin.
John:
Just got to renovate your kitchen.
Marco:
Just throw money at this problem and solve it.
Marco:
Which I really don't want to do for lots of reasons.
Marco:
This kitchen was only built... This kitchen, I think, is about 12 years old.
Marco:
We didn't do it.
Marco:
The previous owners did it, but they did it pretty recently before we bought it.
Marco:
It's a 12-year-old design.
Marco:
The fridge is probably about that age as well.
Marco:
And...
Marco:
I assume, like, you know, as they boxed out the fridge hole when they first built it, this seemed like a common size.
Marco:
And if you look at any kitchen remodel that was done around, like, 2000, I don't know, 2007, 8-ish, anything that was done around that time, they all have these same fridges.
Marco:
These, like, Whirlpool slash Gen Air, it's all the same company.
Marco:
These, like, you know, stainless steel, drawer fridge on the bottom, single door on top, water dispenser on the stupid hinge.
Marco:
Like,
John:
it's we we've seen the same fridge in many people's houses that were done around the same time yeah and counter depth is still popular like people like it because it doesn't stick out so far into your kitchen and you can like if you build the cabinets out to that depth they become like oppressive and make your kitchen smaller and it's just nicer it's you get less storage but you know counter depth is depth is still popular but it's popular kind of like my problem with trying to find one without a water feature on the quote-unquote high end like the cheap fridges the ones that don't follow the fads the ones that have a single door on top
John:
Those are not counter-depth because if you're shopping in the cheap end where you have no water feature and a single door and it's not counter-depth, you don't get any of the features.
John:
It's only when you go up to the nicer ones that it's counter-depth.
John:
And the nicer ones always follow the feds.
John:
And as you know, the fed is not currently drawer on the bottom, big door on top.
Marco:
Yeah, the fad is – so as far as I can tell, and like we talked to the appliance guy.
Marco:
We looked at all the things that were in this store.
Marco:
I looked then later at Home Depot and Lowe's.
Marco:
So we looked at everything, high-end, low-end.
Marco:
And it seems like, first of all, almost no one makes drawer, freezer, and top single-door fridge anymore at all at any size.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
most of them now are French doors where you have two doors on top and a drawer freezer on the bottom.
Marco:
That's mine.
Marco:
I don't like that arrangement very much.
Marco:
I don't like French doors.
John:
It's really nice.
John:
It's really nice.
John:
You get used to it very fast.
John:
I understand it won't work in your fridge hole, but I am a total convert.
Marco:
It won't work in our fridge hole anyway because the left door can't open, basically, because they slide way out of the hinge.
John:
But if it could work,
John:
It is actually really nice.
John:
Even if you like the main reason that that came out is if you have a small kitchen, it's great to have a smaller door that opens into it.
John:
But once you get used to being able to open just the right or just left, it's really convenient.
John:
Kind of the same way the drawer fridge sort of took over took over for a reason because the old fridge, whether it was like when I was a kid, it was freezer on top.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Instead of freezer on bottom.
John:
But when I was a kid, they also had some that were freezer on bottom.
John:
But the drawer is superior to both of those arrangements because you get to pull the thing out.
John:
Like most of the fridge, I call them fads, but these are innovations in the fridge space.
John:
They catch on for a reason because they are more convenient, better use of space, fit into more people's kitchen, so on and so forth.
John:
So I don't, you know, even though the French doors seem weird, I think if you got them and they could fit, you would get used to them very quickly and not be able to go back.
Marco:
maybe unfortunately they don't fit because they the left door can't swing open without hitting the wall with with itself like with the hinge part so that's i don't know why the hinges are designed that way and why the other ones aren't but for whatever reason that's how they're designed so i can't so we can't do a frank's door fridge and at least any model i've seen the only options we seem to have are to either get a fridge that is skinnier than our fridge hole that is not 36 inches wide that's more like 30 which is a pretty significant capacity reduction and would leave a big gap that would just be weird no that's not good
Marco:
or to remove the cabinet above our fridge and get one of these new like eight feet tall ones yeah that that's the that's the marco the marco fridges yeah i was waiting for you to get to the marco fridges i knew you would eventually yeah all the marco fridges now like all the fridges that that are nice now cost six thousand dollars oh gosh at least and are they're so tall that i can't reach the top shelf inside of them
Marco:
We have a little stepstool thing for our seven-year-old son to be able to get things in the fridge.
Marco:
I would need to use that to get things in my own top shelf of my fridge.
John:
And they have the compressors on top of much of them.
John:
The fridges go all the way to the floor, but the compressors on the fancy $10,000 fridges are all on the top as well.
John:
So you need even more.
John:
Sometimes you need very high ceilings and you certainly can't have cabinets as big as cabinets on top of them.
Marco:
See, I wouldn't even mind having the compressor on top because the compressor takes up space in whatever is on the bottom of the fridge.
Marco:
So usually, in these days, it's usually the freezer.
Marco:
So you get this super tiny freezer or this weird trapezoidal cutout out of your freezer that you can't use that space.
Marco:
So putting the compressor on top makes total sense if you're going to make the fridge super tall because you don't need to reach the compressor, but you do need more capacity in the bottom.
Marco:
So I'm actually fine with that.
Marco:
But like...
Marco:
How is a very common size of fridges 10 years ago now seemingly no longer made at all?
John:
It's the arrangement of the doors that's not made.
John:
A counter-depth, single door on top.
John:
I mean, maybe you could find one of them, but they're all the French doors because that's better.
John:
Now, I would blame the people who remodeled your kitchen not thinking that like, oh, this will never be a problem because we'll just make the hinge open on the other side.
John:
That's not good forethought.
John:
You should always have a little bit of room, especially if it's not just like...
John:
If it's a wall that's there that can't... Are you in the middle of a long, expansive wall, or are you right near a door opening?
John:
Could you widen a door opening by six inches and make it so your fridge hinge fit?
Marco:
We would have to open up the wall that's there to see what's behind it.
Marco:
Are we dealing with big supports that we can't easily move?
Marco:
It would take opening up a wall to answer this question.
John:
But you can't make a door opening six inches bigger and make it?
John:
It's like, how far is it from the nearest opening?
Marco:
uh the way the kitchen is arranged there is no other option of where to put this fridge or how or how to widen its space without literally knocking down a wall that we're not even sure we can remove that's what i'm getting at is the wall that it's up against yeah how far does that wall extend past the fridge oh i see what you mean um probably a good two or three feet at least yeah all right so you can't you can't i mean you can't make that opening two or three feet wider and suddenly have it no yeah no that's that's a shame uh i
Marco:
god i don't this is you just got to make sure that fridge doesn't break i mean we have the same problem like i in many ways as you know from listening to the program yeah like we've we've gone from like we've gone from us hating this fridge and we like we would joke because it's the only appliance that came with the house that still works all the other ones broke within the first year of us being here and we had to replace them all except the fridge that we hated and that works forever yeah
Marco:
right it'll never it'll never die and we kept joking like let me be able someday we'll sabotage the fridge so we can break it and finally get a new one now it's the opposite now we're like oh crap this fridge can never die because we we can never replace it yeah or you can replace it but it's much more complicated than the fridge part of it
Marco:
Yeah, we can replace it only after a cabinet remodel and buying one of these giant ones that I can't reach or having something that's way worse than what we have now.
Marco:
Great.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And, you know, the other thing with the Marco fridges is the trend in that sort of price class is not just to buy one of those.
John:
They make those counter depth so your kitchen can look nice and sleek and everything, but incredibly wide, like not as big as two fridges side by side, but close to it.
John:
and then they have, like, two of them.
John:
Like, one of them is, like, two, you know, 1.5 fridges side by side that's really just one giant refrigerator, and then a second one that's just freezer, and then a thing for wine, like, and they're all, they have the cabinet front.
John:
Like, so much money can be spent on these sort of
John:
quote-unquote commercial quality fridges which by the way kind of like viking stoves as you've experienced is not any guarantee that they'll be any higher quality in theory they keep the temp they keep the temperature more even inside there and they're more powerful and they have multiple compressors which a lot of the consumer wants to and everything but like it's one of those things where you don't actually get what you pay for always so i i would be leery of the the super expensive fridges even if they did solve your problem which they won't yeah
Marco:
Also, there are surprisingly few fridges that actually have the ice and water dispensers on the outside.
Marco:
Why is that so rare?
Marco:
When we were growing up, that was a common thing, and I've never had one.
Marco:
My entire life, I've never had a fridge that had a freaking water dispenser on the front, and I've always wanted one.
John:
You don't want that water.
John:
It's bad tasting.
John:
And the ice cubes, you don't want them either.
John:
There's plenty of ones with this stuff on the outside.
John:
Did you see all the double door ones?
John:
Not double door.
John:
Did you see the ones that I talked about on the Rectives episode where they have a little glass door on the front so you can kind of –
Marco:
Yeah, our friends have one.
Marco:
It's weird.
Marco:
Whenever I go over there and take them out of their fridge, I always pull the wrong button and so only the front half opens.
Marco:
I don't think that's a thing that matters.
John:
That is not going to stick around, I think.
Marco:
It seems like a weird gimmick that just complicates the mechanism and takes up more space.
John:
yep i mean i i see the advantages i see the potential savings i see the convenience angle but it's just it's such a compromise in terms of storage space that and that's the and that's the other thing if you ever got a non-counter-depth one you'd never be able to go back to counter-depth because you'd feel like you're using half a fridge
Casey:
I see what looks to be a more modern version of our refrigerator that includes Wi-Fi on it.
Marco:
Of course they don't.
Marco:
I'm not really sure why.
Marco:
You can get apps for your fridge.
Marco:
Maybe you can get Plex for your fridge.
Casey:
You can get it from the content store.
Casey:
Nice.
Casey:
Oh, my goodness.
Casey:
I put a link in the show notes in the chat room.
Casey:
So this is not our fridge.
Casey:
We bought ours several years ago, but this is a rough equivalent visually to our fridge.
Casey:
So anyway, it has the water feature on the front.
Casey:
Apparently, it has Wi-Fi for reasons I still don't understand.
Casey:
But yeah, this is about what we have.
Casey:
It's an LG fridge, and it looks roughly like that.
Marco:
So basically, I think our only option is to either blow out the cabinet up top and get a crazy tall $6,000 fridge, or blow out the wall next to the fridge and get a Frank's door.
Yeah.
John:
and see the thing is like as i talked about on the rectus episode eventually if you did find one that fit your dimensions and features you'd open it up and look inside you'd be like i don't like this fridge these drawers are terrible i don't like these shelves like you have no choices like you narrow it down so much to find one that actually like can work at all and then your choices as well it's this one or nothing and you look at this one you're like but i don't like this one yeah too bad oh good yeah shopping for fridges and stuff
John:
Yeah, and the thing is, I meant to talk about this when you were talking about your washing machine.
John:
There is a good subculture, if you want to check it out on YouTube, of people essentially complaining that they don't make them like they used to, especially when it comes to washing machines and dryers.
John:
They absolutely do not make them the way they used to.
John:
In some ways, good, because the new ones use less energy and less water and do a better job and yada yada, but in many ways, very bad in terms of quality of materials and durability and expected lifetime, which is why...
John:
You may have some relative or your parents or whatever.
John:
That's like a 25 or 30-year-old washing machine that's still going strong.
John:
And if you buy a modern one at great expense, there's no way in hell it's going to last 20 years.
John:
You'd have to replace everything inside that thing three times over for it to last that long because they just don't build them with materials that are even designed to last that long.
John:
From the outer case of the thing all the way down to every...
John:
uh you know motor bearing the whole nine yards so if you do find a fridge that you actually like and fits in the space don't expect it to be there probably as long as this one was because they're all made of cheaper materials with lower reliability and it's just a sad state of affairs except for i suppose the marco ones which will be exactly as unreliable as the marco fridge from the 70s or whatever the equivalent was
Marco:
Yeah, right.
Marco:
No, I tell you, I actually did stumble into that area of YouTube briefly when we were researching washers because I had the same thought.
Marco:
Hey, why don't we try to find a really good one?
Marco:
And if you look at the reviews for every single new washer with one exception, the reviews are all the same.
Marco:
They're all like, well, it doesn't use much water.
Marco:
Cycles take a very long time and it doesn't clean very well.
Marco:
Yeah, that's because that's the, you know, the water and energy conservation standards basically require them to be this way.
Marco:
And there's good reasons for that.
Marco:
You know, water's in short supply in the world and everything.
Marco:
So it's fine.
Marco:
But the result is that they don't clean very well.
Marco:
And they have other problems, too.
Marco:
And there's one type of machine that exists out there that seems to still be the old kind.
Marco:
It's the Speed Queen.
Marco:
And not even every Speed Queen.
Marco:
The Speed Queen TC model, not the newer models.
John:
Yeah.
Marco:
have you looked at the controversy on youtube of the new speed queens aren't as good as the old ones people are angry about that too yes i saw those videos there i i saw a video of a guy who all he seems to do is take videos of laundry cycles start to finish and so you can see how it washes the clothes start to finish from a camera it's and the commentary is amazing i love these videos but yeah so speed queen there was this big controversy that
Marco:
They changed everything to be energy efficient for the 2018 models.
Marco:
And then in 2019, they brought back one model that is the old kind.
Marco:
That's the TC instead of the T, whatever the other letter is.
Marco:
C, I guess, for classic.
Marco:
And so you can still buy that.
Marco:
And we almost did.
Marco:
We almost bought it.
Marco:
That was my vote for which one we should buy.
Marco:
But ultimately, Tiff got final say because she does like 99.999% of the laundry in our household.
Marco:
So it's her machine.
Marco:
And this problem with the Speed Queen is that they only made them a fairly small capacity.
Marco:
And we frequently want to put like a queen size comforter in there.
Marco:
And that's not going to fit in that.
Marco:
So we had to get a bigger one.
Marco:
But it's tricky because like all the reviews for all these reviews are basically like, yeah, they're terrible.
Marco:
And they last, you know, three to five years maybe.
John:
It should last a little bit longer than three to five years.
John:
But yeah, you should just think of it as like a wear item like your brake pads.
John:
It's not going to last 35 years.
John:
If you get 10 years out of it, consider yourself lucky.
John:
Replace it every 10 years.
John:
In general, the ones that were in our house before we moved in or maybe the ones we brought with us, they lasted a really long time.
John:
The new ones that we bought after that were more expensive, but I think they were also better.
John:
They were quieter.
John:
I think they washed the clothes better, certainly with less water.
John:
uh in particular the spin dry uh on them was way better than the old top loader that we had so there was an improvement but of course the reliability was worse so within eight or nine years they were sort of on their way out and so now i'm just basically resigned that every decade or so we're gonna have to get a new washer and dryer which helps me to try to control the cost of like look don't try to get a fancy high-end one because they're just gonna last eight to ten years anyway so get get one that you like that has good ergonomics if you can we kind of failed on that the last time we have
John:
Our dryer is actually up on blocks, so it's for a variety of reasons to try to get it up higher.
John:
Did you encounter this, by the way, when you were shopping, that they will sell you basically the equivalent of Apple's monitor stand for your washer?
John:
The drawers?
John:
Yeah, they'll sell you a thing that basically – it is a stand.
John:
It is a thing that makes your washer or dryer be higher off the ground.
Marco:
Yeah, we actually – we had those for our outgoing one because it only works on a front loader because obviously if you do that on top loader, you won't be able to reach in.
Marco:
Yeah, unless you're very tall.
Marco:
But yeah, which, you know, I'm not.
Marco:
But anyway, so yeah, we actually, we have the, we spent the stupid money on the previous machines because they were something like $200 each.
Marco:
And it's just like a stand that contains a drawer.
Marco:
Yeah, it's a metal box with a drawer.
Marco:
And I got to say, it makes it a lot nicer.
Marco:
When you have a front loader, it's much nicer.
John:
It's also like $300 for a metal box, which is just galling.
John:
And since the washer itself costs so much money,
John:
It really bothers me.
John:
Anyway, ours is up on blocks of wood, which are much cheaper than that.
John:
And you have to be careful of that because obviously they shake around and everything.
John:
So we just needed to get it a little bit higher so it would clear our laundry basket.
John:
There's nothing worse than putting the laundry basket in front of your dryer, opening the door, and it hits the laundry basket.
John:
That's no good.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
Geez, you can't have that.
John:
So ours is just up a little bit.
John:
But yeah, no, I'm sure ours are going to die in about three or four more years, and then we'll get new ones and it'll be fine.
Marco:
Well, the reality is like the one we got, like, so the one that we were replacing that, I mean, we got it nine years ago and it was, I forget exactly, but it was somewhere around like $1,100, $1,100, $1,200, something like that.
Marco:
And the new one we got is only 500 bucks.
Marco:
And so it's almost like, well, you know, like if this only lasts five years.
John:
You got a cheap one.
Marco:
Yeah, because top loaders aren't that fancy.
Marco:
If you get the front loaders, those are still around $1,000 mostly.
Marco:
It was also Black Friday, so that helped a little bit.
Marco:
Our watcher did us one favor.
Marco:
It died right before Black Friday.
Marco:
but like you know but like so you know only 500 bucks for this thing like yeah you know what if if it sucks i don't feel so bad about it because like yeah things these days are built like crap and they don't last as long but if they are cheaper well you know it's not good from a waste perspective but at least you don't feel like you're getting as ripped off
Marco:
Like if you're going to pay a lot for something that's terrible, that's a difference.
Marco:
You know, like the Marco fridge, like that's why I don't want to do that.
Marco:
I don't want to spend a $6,000 on a fridge because I know it's going to be the same garbage as the $1,000 one, just with a fancier plate on the front of it.
Casey:
Well, if a classic, more aggressive wash action is your preferred way of washing, Speed Queen's TC5 top load washer is the machine for you.
Casey:
Oh, and did we mention it doesn't have a lid lock?
Casey:
The marketing copy on this is incredible.
John:
So your pets can dive right in.
Marco:
Yeah, like...
Marco:
it's amazing to see the reviews for the speed queen after you've seen the reviews for all the other washers it's like these it's like a cult you look at the reviews like you know amazon's full and everything you look at the reviews and you're like these people are like my house in my entire house smells better as a result of this machine they're like tesla customers
John:
It's all the positive reviews.
John:
I'm sure people do have problems with the speed queens and in some respects don't do something as well as the modern ones, but those people aren't going to be in the reviews.
John:
It's going to be all the enthusiasts.
Marco:
You have to read these reviews.
Marco:
It's amazing.
Marco:
It's almost like those cultures of Reddit people who go and infect Amazon reviews with totally over-the-top humorous reviews.
Marco:
It's almost like that, but they're real.
Marco:
Like, it's amazing.
Marco:
Like, these people, it's like this washing machine changed my life.
Marco:
Like, it's really quite something.