macOS Uranus
Casey:
You may choose not to answer this question.
Casey:
I will not be offended.
Casey:
Where are you right now?
Casey:
Are you at the beach or are you somewhere else?
Marco:
Yeah, I'm at the beach.
Casey:
And is everyone with you at this point?
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Although tomorrow is still a school day.
Marco:
It's so funny.
Casey:
Well, Adam's still school tomorrow because today was the kids' last day.
Casey:
And I was at school all day volunteering.
Casey:
So I am frigging exhausted.
Casey:
So this is the moment where I say, I'd love another short episode.
Casey:
And you'll look at the timestamp and see that we go for three and a half hours.
Casey:
But they still have school tomorrow.
Casey:
That's just criminal.
John:
Yeah.
John:
My kids still have school tomorrow, too.
John:
My daughter has a test tomorrow.
Marco:
Oh, God.
Marco:
That's cruel.
Marco:
Because in reality, many people will pull their kids out of school the day or two before Christmas break.
Marco:
And so the schools usually don't schedule anything important on those days.
Marco:
Teachers usually know, okay, if you're going to have a quarter of the class absent, why bother scheduling a big thing?
Marco:
For Adam's school, he's like, well, that's it for the week.
Marco:
We're just going to watch movies the next two days.
Marco:
Every class is a movie the next two days.
Marco:
And I'm like, here I am, like, driving him all the way off the beach.
Marco:
Like, you know, it's like this 45-minute drive before our house is ready.
Marco:
So it's like, I'm driving him off the beach every day.
Marco:
I'm like, I'm driving you off for that, like, for two days of movies.
Marco:
But, you know, I think that's, you know, part of school is kind of the, you know, the learning experience of teachers need days off to.
Marco:
And sometimes you just got to put a movie on because it's look, it's the day before break.
Marco:
Like no one, no one's going to learn anything.
Marco:
No one's going to do anything.
Casey:
The teachers are cooked to your point.
Casey:
Like they're, they're already.
Marco:
Yeah, they're tired.
Marco:
They're ready for their break too.
Marco:
And again, like if like a quarter of the class is going to be pulled out anyway, you can't really do much of academic importance.
John:
But the quarter class isn't going to be pulled out, though, because they're very strict about making sure you have butts in seats.
John:
And so the absence policy for parents pulling their kids out for vacations is getting stricter and stricter because school funding depends, at least in Massachusetts anyway, on those kids being in school.
John:
So they make it much harder.
Casey:
I tell you what, so I mentioned a second ago that I volunteered at the school all day.
Casey:
The school, the kids' school, has a program where father figures can come in and volunteer.
Casey:
And what that specifically means at each school is different, obviously.
Casey:
But for me...
Casey:
You know, I was running around helping out with various and sundry things, and this was the last day of school for the calendar year.
Casey:
And so all of the, like, holiday parties were today.
Casey:
The school-wide, like, holiday assembly slash, not recital, but I can't think of a better way to describe it was today.
Casey:
And let me tell you, when you have several hundred kids from grade pre-kindergarten through fifth grade, and they're at their annual sing and ring, emphasis on ring,
Casey:
where they're all carrying a bell or sometimes many bells that they are ringing.
Casey:
And then they are playing music, and they are all singing to some degree of singing at decibel levels that I cannot describe.
Casey:
I almost pulled a Marco and put in my AirPods because, my goodness, it's so loud in there.
Casey:
And their music teacher is a dear personal friend of the family.
Casey:
She does an amazing job with it.
Casey:
But when you have that many itty-bitty kids, there's nothing you can do.
Marco:
To be clear, pulling a Marco means using AirPods as a hearing protection at a concert, like a rock concert.
Marco:
I would never in a million years do that at a kid concert.
Casey:
I am absolutely exaggerating for the purposes of storytelling.
Marco:
I would probably want to because, as you said, they're very loud sometimes.
Marco:
So I actually think that some degree of hearing protection would not be outrageous.
Marco:
I'd just be way too self-conscious to actually do it.
Casey:
Again, I'm 90% full of garbage.
Casey:
I did think about it and desire for it, but like you said, I would never do it.
Casey:
Although I do want to talk to you, Marco, another time about your soundboard for when you're doing things remotely with microphones and stuff, because the poor music teacher is using an old soundboard that I think is on its last legs.
Casey:
And so what I want to know, not right now, is what is the Marco solution to this problem?
Casey:
And then I would love the one-third of the cost, maybe quarter of the cost, public education solution to this problem.
Marco:
Yeah, I was going to say like the me solution is not going to be on the educational budget.
Marco:
However, I'll just give you the answer right now because why do this in the future?
Marco:
So what I use, like I run the sound at our village meetings here in our little town.
Marco:
And what I use for that is a sound device's MixPre 10.2.
Marco:
And the main reason why is there's eight wireless mics, so I need eight inputs.
Marco:
And the biggest reason why is that it supports an auto-mixer feature.
Marco:
And when you have a whole bunch of live mics in one area, some kind of auto-mixing is an incredible difference in how loud you can push things without feedback and how clear the recording and whatever the PA sound is.
Marco:
it's a massive difference to have an auto mixer because, you know, you have a whole bunch of mics near each other.
Marco:
If someone talks into one, they're going to be picked up at quieter volumes at the other nearby mics as well.
Marco:
So you figure if you have, you know, eight mics across a big table or like in like a school play situation, you got like four or five kids on stage all with mics all near each other.
Marco:
Then what's going to happen is all of that like kind of cross feedback where your voice goes into everyone else's mics,
Marco:
that just kind of raises the noise floor.
Marco:
And anytime the noise floor gets raised, that means that then you can't have the PA volume up too high without feedback starting to happen or things like that.
Marco:
And so what auto mixing does, when someone talks into one mic, whatever signal gets the strongest sound
Marco:
or whatever mic is the strongest version of their voice it like subtracts that from the others and there's a couple different techniques to do it and if you look at almost all the like nice high-end mixer recorders out there things like from like from zoom or from sound devices the high-end ones all have some kind of auto mixing feature available sound devices you got to pay actual a little bit of extra for it for it's like a plug-in zoom mixers like the f8 and like that kind of line those i believe come with it for free
Marco:
And there's again, there's a couple different techniques you can argue over which ones are better or worse.
Marco:
It doesn't really matter that much for my purposes.
Marco:
What matters a lot is whether I have that or not in some form.
Marco:
And it just makes all the difference in the world.
Marco:
So, you know, depending on their needs, I would say like, you know, the sound device stuff is very expensive.
Marco:
Maybe go for go for one of the zoom recorders like the F8 or there's like some I haven't looked in a few months.
Marco:
There's a whole bunch of new options now.
Marco:
Those tend to be very well priced for the capabilities they offer.
Marco:
And they have the auto mixer, which is a very, very good feature.
Marco:
If they don't need that, if they don't need auto mixing, there's a whole bunch of like basically giant, like what looks like mixing panels or mixing boards.
Marco:
Like they have all the big faders on them and everything.
Casey:
That's what she has now, and it's not good.
Casey:
They usually are.
Marco:
I mean, you can get good ones.
Marco:
They're thousands of dollars.
Marco:
The ones in education budgets are generally not good.
Marco:
And actually, Zoom, I have my first attempt at running this sound experience was a Zoom version of that.
Marco:
It was a Zoom big flat console mixer that was only a few hundred bucks.
Marco:
It was not that expensive.
Marco:
It's more limited in its recording and mixing abilities, but it has a whole bunch of inputs and big faders for all of them and everything.
Marco:
And that works.
Marco:
it works just fine the quality is really pretty low it's you know it's a very like lightweight plasticky build um it the doesn't have a lot of great features you know it doesn't have auto mix it depends on you know their needs and budget how many channels they need whether they want to spring for auto mixing in some form or not like that's kind of where you're landing on that but it looks like the zoom live track l8 this looks like a more modern version of what she's currently using and
Casey:
I don't recall what the brand is of what she's using.
Casey:
And it's not her fault, just to be completely clear.
Casey:
She's working on a completely neutered budget because America.
Casey:
And I think the equipment, I don't know if she even chose it.
Casey:
And if she did, it was many years ago.
Casey:
So this is not her fault at all.
Casey:
But it occurred to me, I'm sure Marco has a solution to this problem.
Casey:
And then I figured you might know enough to be able to give me a more realistic
Casey:
solution to the problem because what it boils down to is she needs like i would say she needs to get you know some sort of rca or equivalent audio in from like a computer or something along those lines it doesn't necessarily need to be rca but something like that and she needs a couple of mics like two maybe four tops maybe and then she needs xlr output to powered speakers like separately powered speakers honestly i i'll send her my my i think it's the l12 that i have it's either the le or the l12 we'll talk offline i'll just send her mine i don't use it anymore
Casey:
problem solved i'm sure you could uh you could definitely make her day if we can orchestrate that so i'll figure that out after the show hope it still works it's been in my basement for a year and a half you know which basement because that means it's covered in salt it is not an outdoor rated mixer oh no so it doesn't work is what you're saying no it's but it was it's in like the enclosed bike room so it's it's somewhat enclosed
Marco:
May or may not come with some sand.
Casey:
Yeah, the fun thing is I actually know what you mean by that now, which I'm very happy for.
Casey:
Well, you know, that would be a tremendous gift, and I'm not going to hold you to it, but it would be a tremendous gift.
Marco:
I'll seriously do it.
Marco:
Remind me tomorrow.
Casey:
And another thing that would be a tremendous gift is if you would like to get the gift of ATP membership, which is the best.
Casey:
you should go to or have really a loved one go to atp.fm slash gift, and you can have them buy you or you can buy for someone else the gift of ATP membership.
Casey:
You can do it for a month.
Casey:
You can do it for a year.
Casey:
If the person you're giving the gift to is already a member, John was smart enough to figure that out.
Casey:
What we'll do is we'll push off your renewal date and so on and so forth such that it will be after the gift is done.
Casey:
uh so far this has gone very well i am extremely saddened to report that we have no bugs as far as i'm aware of which means i've now cursed it um and i shouldn't put that energy in the world but here we are so yes atp.fm slash gift john anything you would like to add
John:
You've got it all.
John:
Remember, you can buy these things instantly, so you've got right up until whatever holiday you're celebrating begins.
John:
You know, you can deliver them instantly.
John:
There's no waiting.
Casey:
See, look at that.
Casey:
Let's start with the entire internet telling us.
Casey:
And I say that as though I'm angry, but honestly...
Casey:
I probably would have done the same thing if I were the internet.
Casey:
The entire internet has told us, hey, here's what happens when you log into iCloud.com, even with two-factor, because your phone is lost or something like that.
Casey:
We kind of opined about this during the show, and then I had some real-time follow-up that was
Marco:
surely way too late for most people who email just trying to help it's my fault should have looked into it because we were saying like you know based on the stolen device protection stuff we were saying like how do you log into icloud from someone else's you know computer or whatever if you have 2fa enabled how do you receive the 2fa code if your phone was just stolen yep exactly right uh so morgan what is the umlaut over the o what sound is that
Marco:
I think it's like, uh, but I, I'm probably wrong.
Marco:
Please don't write it.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
So with that in mind, Morgan Shunberger, Morgan Shunberger.
Casey:
That's definitely not it.
Casey:
Uh, so Morgan S writes, when you log into iCloud.com from a web browser, you can access the find my section without the need for your 2FA code.
Casey:
I use this quite regularly when I worked at app at the Apple store and we needed to disable, find my iPhone on customer devices for some services.
Casey:
You still need the Apple ID and password, but not a 2FA code.
Casey:
So that's good to know.
Casey:
Ian Williamson writes, logging into Find My On The Web with only a password drops you into a very limited interface that lets you find, set to lost, and erase devices.
Casey:
Attempting to break out of this interface to access other iCloud functionality does then prompt you for multi-factor authentication.
Casey:
So that's extremely cool.
Casey:
I appreciate that.
Casey:
And then back to Morgan again.
Casey:
Morgan continues, you can also use the Find My app on another person's iPhone.
Casey:
Find My, and then you go to Me, and then you scroll down, and there's Help a Friend, which then takes you to iCloud.com slash find on the web.
Casey:
But still, that's kind of helpful to know.
Casey:
And then a lot of people wrote in to remind us, I genuinely forgot about this, so this is a useful reminder.
Casey:
So if you recall the way this is going to work in the new version of iOS that's in beta now,
Casey:
So Marco and I are out at a bar and my phone gets stolen.
Casey:
So the person who grabbed my phone can enter my password and then they have to wait an hour in order to actually commit the change.
Casey:
But the key that we missed on the show last week is that when stolen device protection is enabled, even when you're at a trusted location, you still need to do biometric authentication.
Casey:
So you either need to do touch ID or face ID.
Casey:
And I certainly dropped the ball on that last episode, and I don't think any of us remembered.
Casey:
So that's true, I believe, not only at the time you try to change.
Casey:
So at the beginning of the hour, you know, say my password 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 gets changed by the thief.
Marco:
That's a terrible password, man.
Casey:
It's the same password I use in my luggage.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
So then, um, so, so that gets, uh, it's changed from one, two, three, four, five at the, at the point in which the thief takes it, they can't, or they try to, they can't commit that change until an hour later.
Casey:
And at that point they need my face or my fingerprint in order to actually commit it.
Casey:
So that's one way that this is hopefully going to eliminate this whole thing as a problem.
Casey:
Did I pretty much summarize that?
Casey:
Anything else we want to add?
Marco:
Yeah, and that's pretty good.
Marco:
All this stuff, not needing 2FA to reset or to wipe a remote device if it's lost, having the help a friend link in the Find My app, having all this stuff account for the real world here.
Marco:
You can tell, yeah, Apple really has thought a lot about this.
Marco:
They're not just quickly reacting, shooting from the hip.
Marco:
They're taking time to think about all the different avenues here, vectors of attack, how you need to make things accessible in the real world, how you can maximize regular people being able to find this stuff and being able to do this stuff in real-world situations.
Marco:
um and so and and you know having that the biometric authentication being required still after one hour thing again like what a clever solution that is i'm i'm very happy with this feature you know i i still would like a little bit more control over something like for instance like i think the the home and work exceptions or exemptions um i think that should be optional or and controllable to some degree um one hour you
Marco:
One hour still feels a little less than what I would like the delay period to be.
Marco:
But I do admit that with the biometric re-authentication, that does change things quite a bit in its favor.
Marco:
So overall, this is a great feature.
Marco:
I really am very impressed with some of the cleverness of some of these details.
Marco:
And I think it's great.
Marco:
And the only thing I would really nitpick now that I think is a bigger deal than all these little wishlist items that I just said is I think this should be on by default.
Marco:
Yeah, that's fair.
Marco:
But again, I'm sure they thought about that, and maybe they'll change it in the future.
Marco:
I'm sure it's going to be one of those steps in the walkthrough screen when you first boot up the new version.
Marco:
Although, honestly, that screen does not need more steps.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
that separate description but um you know i think this it looks like it's fairly free of major downsides and and for something like that that has such large security implications to people who might not necessarily think they have major security implications um i think that's the kind of thing that should probably be enabled by default
John:
The biometric auth doesn't help with the one hour limit.
John:
If you think the one hour limit isn't quite enough time for you to get to something, like in general, the time limit thing, what you're worried about there is that when they have your phone plus your passcode, they can do a hell of a lot of damage without changing your Apple ID password.
John:
So the Apple ID password and changing things over your Apple ID, yeah, they won't be able to do that because they need the second, you know, first and or second authentication.
John:
They need to wait a period of time.
John:
But while they're waiting, they can go into your iCloud keychain and get all your bank account passwords and go onto the web.
John:
Well, no, no, hold on, hold on.
Marco:
They can't get keychain stuff because it's also protected by biometric.
Marco:
That's not true on the current OS.
Marco:
I believe that's one of the tweaks they've made for this.
Marco:
But I mean, look, there is a lot they can do.
Marco:
If you haven't all seen it, Joanna Stern did a wonderful interview video.
Marco:
She actually went to a prison.
Marco:
She went and found somebody who was in jail for doing this scheme at scale and interviewed him.
Marco:
And it was very interesting.
Marco:
And he was saying, you know, most of the time he doesn't need to like shoulder surf the passcode.
Marco:
He just like kind of messes with the phone.
Marco:
So it locks and he's like taking a show.
Marco:
And people will just tell him their passcode just to like help him out.
Marco:
Like, oh, yeah, it's one, two, three, four, five.
Marco:
Like they'll just tell him.
Marco:
And he was saying people put everything, all of their like passwords and details.
Marco:
They put them all in notes.
Marco:
He's like, people put everything in notes.
John:
All their secrets are all in notes.
John:
But even if it's not in notes, like that's the damage you can do with it with a phone with the passcode.
John:
Like what if they in their email client, if you've got access to their email account, how many people's email clients like say using the Gmail email client?
John:
Is that going to lock when stolen device protection has come out?
John:
No, you launched the Gmail client.
John:
You're already logged in.
John:
You have access to the email.
John:
Now you can reset every one of that person's passwords on their bank website or whatever.
John:
You know what I mean?
Marco:
It's like, yeah, I think the email having the email and having their phone number for SMS to FA codes.
John:
Exactly right.
John:
Which of those websites are probably going to use as the lowest common denominator as we discussed before.
John:
So what I'm saying is that one hour time, like the clock is ticking.
John:
Yes, your Apple ID is more protected with this, which is really important because then they can lock you out of like all your photos and all your purchases and all that stuff.
John:
But they can still do a lot of damage with your phone and your passcode.
John:
Even just your phone without your passcode, they can do a lot of damage if they're able to the phone and the passcode does even more damage.
John:
So I would say the clock is still ticking when this happens.
John:
It's very important for you to get to a friend's phone or some other device as fast as possible.
John:
And now you know what you can do to help with that.
John:
But don't think that you have unlimited time because like,
John:
well it doesn't matter they'll never be able to reset my apple id password because they don't have my biometrics that's true but they can do lots of bad things with your phone so don't wait all right let's talk about beeper beeper is beeped i guess i don't know this is all breaking news as we record it took me a second that's good
Casey:
They have all but given up on this.
Casey:
Eric Mikulikovsky writes, he is the co-founder of Beeper, each time the Beeper mini goes quote-unquote down or is made to be unreliable due to interference by Apple, Beeper's credibility takes a hit, you don't say.
Casey:
It's unsustainable.
Casey:
As much as we want to fight for what we believe is a fantastic product that really should exist, the truth is that we can't win a cat and mouse game with the largest company on Earth.
John:
We know.
John:
We know you can't.
John:
Everybody knows you can't.
John:
You knew you can't.
John:
Why did you decide you were going to play a cat and mouse game with the largest company on Earth?
John:
It's like somehow after two weeks of this, we just realized we can't play a game of cat and mouse and technical things against the largest company on Earth.
Casey:
Yeah, we know.
Casey:
You don't say.
Casey:
So Eric continues with our latest software release.
Casey:
We believe we've created something that Apple can tolerate existing.
Casey:
Uh-huh, sure.
Casey:
Really?
Casey:
We do not have any current plans to respond if the solution is knocked offline.
Casey:
The iMessage connection software that powers Beaver Mini and Beaver Cloud is now 100% open source for anyone who wants to use it or continue development.
John:
Yeah, you try it.
John:
You see how easy it is.
John:
It's really hard.
Casey:
And as far as I understand, apologies because I didn't have time today to do as much research into this as I would have liked, but I believe what they said is, hey, if you have a jailbroken iPhone, you can run the software on it.
John:
Keep reading.
John:
It's right there.
John:
It's right there.
Casey:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Casey:
Okay, never mind.
Casey:
I'll keep reading.
Casey:
My apologies.
John:
You didn't have time to move your eyes down one line from where you stopped.
Casey:
Correct.
Casey:
My brain is a mush.
Casey:
Apparently my brain is already on holiday break.
Casey:
Just watch some movies.
Casey:
Yeah, right.
Casey:
It should watch some movies.
Casey:
Let's start with Elf or maybe Claymation Christmas.
Casey:
So Mac Rumors has written up in its latest efforts to keep the service afloat, Beeper will suggest that users get a hold of an old iPhone to get iMessage working on their Android phone.
Casey:
Users will then be asked to install a free Beeper tool to generate an iMessage registration code that will reinstate the ability to register phone numbers on the service.
Casey:
The catch is that the iPhone must first be jailbroken and it must be kept plugged into power at home and connected to Wi-Fi for periodic registration re-requests.
Casey:
Cool.
John:
So you've got an iPhone already.
John:
Like instead of using iMessage on that iPhone, just jailbreak it and plug it in your house and keep it on the Wi-Fi.
John:
And then you can use an Android phone with iMessage.
Marco:
Again, I respect the hacker mindset of trying to get this to work.
Marco:
That was really cool on a technical level.
John:
They shouldn't have told anybody about it.
Marco:
Or they should have just released it open source and said, hey, do what you want with it, everybody.
Marco:
It's been a fun story.
Marco:
This was never a business.
Marco:
And this is, as much as they're ever going to, this is them throwing up their hands and saying, never mind.
Marco:
But honestly, I feel like the thing about, oh, just get an old iPhone and jailbreak it, like...
Marco:
If you want to use iMessage that badly, just use an iPhone.
Marco:
What are you doing on Android if you're dying to use iMessage that badly?
Marco:
I think the reality, unfortunately, that most people covering tech devices either rarely will point out or won't point out is that most people using Android in the U.S.,
Marco:
are not the super technical, nerdy people who are going to be able to do all this stuff.
Marco:
Yeah, there are some Android enthusiasts who that well describes, but most of the US Android buying market is lower-end users or non-technical users.
Marco:
I know the rest of the world is different, but in the US is where it's most needed,
Marco:
And the reality is like, you're not going to get like your uncle whose Android phone is greening all your group chats.
Marco:
You're not going to get him to go get an old iPhone and get all this working.
Marco:
Like that's just not going to happen.
Marco:
So I think if you are one of the people who is actually thinking about going through all those hoops to set up and keep running an old iPhone that you will somehow jailbreak and keep jailbroken, like...
Marco:
I mean, look, that's a it's a project.
Marco:
But is it really worth all that trouble?
Marco:
Just turn your iMessages blue.
Marco:
I don't see that being worth it.
Marco:
If that matters that much to you, you should probably just use an iPhone.
Marco:
But and all the people who are using Android as nerds, like from the nerdy end of it.
Marco:
it probably doesn't matter that much to them to jump through all these hoops.
Marco:
They're using it for reasons that are strong enough that they probably don't even want to use iMessage this much.
Marco:
So I don't think there's a great role for this product to exist.
Marco:
I think it made a wonderful tech story of these last few weeks, and a few people enjoyed it maybe, but the rollercoaster ride is over.
Casey:
I agree.
Casey:
Although I just wanted to reiterate what you said a minute ago.
Casey:
I think as a technical exercise, this was fascinating and super cool.
Casey:
And I'm glad that they've open sourced it.
Casey:
Like, I don't think anything will come of it, but I still think it's cool that they're contributing, contributing it back to, you know, the, the, the, I can't think of the word I'm looking for, not society, but the broader landscape for lack of a better word.
Casey:
But anyways, I think as a technical exercise, it's extremely neat.
Casey:
And I applaud them from a technical level trying to accomplish this.
Casey:
But in reality, like, how did you think this was going to end?
Casey:
You know, this is exactly what was always going to happen.
Casey:
In fact, you know, Stephen Hackett summarized, regardless of what you think about Apple's control over iMessage, it's clear this party is over.
Casey:
So there you go.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Virtualization options for x86 only versions of Mac OS.
Casey:
We had talked about this, I believe it was an Ask ATP last week.
Casey:
And we had a few people write in with some feedback.
Casey:
The first person that I saw bring up UTM, which we'll put a link in the show notes, was Luke Channings, who writes UTM is a UI around, how do you pronounce this?
Casey:
It's QEMU.
Casey:
I'm sure there's some silly technical jargon.
Marco:
I'm sure however you pronounce it is wrong.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
It's my sequel, not my SQL.
Casey:
Anyways, around key EMU, it's Bondi, not Bondi.
Marco:
I literally, I always forget which one it actually is.
Marco:
Just do the opposite of whatever you think you're going to do.
Marco:
But then it loops around.
John:
It's a recursive error.
John:
But every time you are very consistent in getting it wrong, so you just do the opposite.
John:
It's the George Costanza method.
Casey:
Don't make me say the A word for rich.
Casey:
Anyways, the QEMU that's quite popular these days has hardware acceleration on Apple Silicon and does architecture emulation.
Casey:
Glenn Brown writes as well, UTM can run natively on Apple's Hypervisor framework on ARM Max, plus it can emulate x86 PowerPC and a whole lot of other platforms.
Casey:
When using it with Hypervisor framework on ARM Max, you can enable the Rosetta x86 hardware extensions.
Casey:
VirtualBox, which a few people brought up as well, does not have an ARM Mac version yet.
Casey:
They had one in Tech Preview for a while, but it seems to have disappeared from their site.
Casey:
And then friend of the show Steve Trouton-Smith writes, the best and most flexible answer if you're on Apple Silicon is a separate machine running ESXi.
Casey:
And he has a blog post about it.
Casey:
It's ideal if you can get your hands on a 2018 Mac Mini, as it requires the least amount of hacking around and lets you pass through the native GPU to the VM.
Casey:
Also, only Apple Silicon VMs have the issue with logging into your Apple ID.
Casey:
You can use the App Store, et cetera, on Intel versions in VMware to your heart's content.
Casey:
So what Steve is saying is get a different machine entirely, which can be a Mac Mini, but there's other options as well, where you run all this stuff on the other machine and you can like remote desktop or VNC or what have you into them.
Casey:
And that is the most native experience with the least amount of hacking about, but there's still some hacking about required.
Casey:
So all sorts of options for you.
Marco:
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Casey:
All right, let's talk about the Massimo patent-related things that we spoke about last week.
Casey:
And the two of you got on a tear, which I was all in on.
Casey:
I wish I had a bucket of popcorn that I could have consumed as I was listening to you guys.
Casey:
But I think all three of us got a little off the rails about the specifics of this particular case.
Casey:
And a lot of people called us out on it, and justifiably so.
John:
Unjustifiably so.
Casey:
Unjustifiably.
John:
Justifiably so, my butt.
John:
No.
Casey:
Oh, all right.
Casey:
Let me grab that popcorn again because this is going to get saucy.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, I think we didn't fully dive into the details of this case, and that's bad on us, which we're about to correct.
Marco:
But also, we were mostly railing against the patent system as a whole, and it deserves every part of the rant.
John:
Yeah, we were complaining a lot about the patent system, and Marco went off on a big tangent about patent trolls, and everyone thought we were saying that Massimo is a patent troll.
John:
And I can understand where they might have got that impression because we did yell about patent trolls a lot and it was part of the same conversation.
John:
But it was just, hey, and by the way, a thing called a patent troll exists and here's why they're bad and here's why the patent system is bad and so on.
John:
So the closest you can come to justifying this is something that Marco said where he was...
John:
trying to say something that he characterized Massimo's patents as being dumb patents in part of a conversation where we were calling patents dumb.
John:
But so that's the question in the notes here is, is Massimo a patent troll?
John:
And this first feedback item from Martin Romel says, I agree that the U.S.
John:
patent system has many issues as a holder of 12 patents, most of them real, original ideas.
John:
But from what I've been reading...
John:
Yeah.
John:
But from what I've been reading, the Mossimo case is actually an example of how it should work.
John:
Here is the problem from my perspective with people understanding what I'm talking about.
John:
The idea that in the Mossimo case, like they're not a patent troll, you know, their patents are good and real.
John:
And this is an example of how the system should work.
John:
Again, reiterate, most people do not let this register with them because they think they don't they assume I don't mean what I am saying.
John:
I don't think any patents should exist for anything.
John:
So the idea that there's such a thing as a patent that is the way it's supposed to work.
John:
i personally disagree with i think there is no patent that should be allowed to be had because i don't think you should have exclusive rights to an idea that you came up with like that's my position okay mine too so so if if you say well but these patents these are the ones that i think are valid and these are the ones that are invalid
John:
Now, given that, we do very often talk about very dumb patents, because it is possible to look at patents and say, how dumb is this?
John:
And some of them are super duper dumb, and some of them are less dumb.
John:
And so you may think, but the less dumb ones, those are the ones of showing how it should work, right?
John:
I disagree.
John:
I think...
John:
That's not how it should work.
John:
But I can understand the point of the thing is saying they're not a patent troll.
John:
I agree that Massimo is almost certainly not a patent troll.
John:
They make real things.
John:
They have patents that people would consider not incredibly dumb.
John:
Although I will point out that as part of battling them in court, Apple hasn't validated a whole bunch of their patents, which is inevitable because, again, when these companies have a bunch of patents,
John:
Inevitably, many of them are incredibly dumb and able to be invalidated by companies with a lot of money and motivation to do so.
John:
And they invalidate them by saying, this doesn't even meet the incredibly weak standards of patents that we have developed in this country.
John:
Like, it's so bad and so dumb that in court I can show that this is an original idea.
John:
It was invented before.
John:
It's obvious to people who are knowledgeable in the art.
John:
Like, they can knock down these patents even within our current system, which is so favorable to allowing you to patent any BS, right?
John:
Right.
John:
But just so you understand where I'm coming from, there is no such thing as the system, you know, as a patent saying this is one of those patents that's working the way you think it should.
John:
Because I don't think anybody should have a patent for anything.
John:
You may disagree.
John:
That's your opinion.
John:
But that's where I'm coming from.
John:
That said, a patent troll is a company that doesn't make anything or do anything, and that's not Massimo.
John:
They make things and do things, right?
John:
Which is part of why Apple can't just swap them away entirely, because they have actual products, and that's why I think they're coming to, you know, getting favorable decisions in these various forums that they're battling on.
John:
They're not out there with just, we bought this pile of patents and we want to extract money.
John:
And if they were, by the way, Apple would have just paid them off because they would have taken far less money.
John:
But Massimo is motivated by their righteousness of saying, we're not just a patent troll.
John:
We didn't just buy a bunch of patents from some dying company and we're trying to extract money from them.
John:
we actually are trying to do important things and Apple is stealing all of our ideas and here are all our patents on them.
John:
And that's why Massimo is essentially fighting this tooth and nail, but they feel justified because they feel they have been wronged.
Marco:
It's important to separate out like your concept of, not you, John, you, the listener, your concept of patents is correct.
Marco:
But it's important to separate our conception of patents versus what's actually happened in this story.
Marco:
Obviously, Massimo is trying to paint it a certain way.
Marco:
Apple's trying to paint it a certain way.
Marco:
What seems to have happened, based on most of the reporting around this particular dispute, is not necessarily blatant patent infringement.
Marco:
It's more...
Marco:
poaching uh you know so what seems to have happened is massimo had a bunch of you know ability to detect blood oxygen uh through small gadgets apple apparently you know went to them and looked around and was like hmm pretty cool huh and then stole all their people they could
John:
They didn't steal them.
John:
They offered them more money to come work for Apple, which is part of how our system works.
John:
And in fact, there have been companies that have gotten in trouble for not doing that.
John:
When there was the no poaching agreement, I think, between Apple and Pixar, that's an example of something that shouldn't happen and is unfair because companies say, hey, or whatever it was, I think it was ILM and Pixar or whatever.
John:
hey, don't offer our employees more money to come work there.
John:
We'll all agree that we won't give our employees any raises above these levels, and we agree we won't poach from each other.
John:
That is anti-competitive.
John:
That is anti-worker.
John:
Offering someone to double their salary and give them stock options and they come to work for you, that is...
John:
Yeah.
John:
And patents are in the mix there because you can say, okay, well, I know things, but I think I can tell you, Apple, a way that you can do the thing that we did over there at Massimo, but in a way that doesn't technically violate Massimo's patents.
John:
And that's when you get into this whole thing, which is, from my perspective,
John:
becomes less about morals and ethics and more about the legality of a system that i've already said i don't agree with at all so yes you have to work within u.s laws and u.s laws have patents and if you can offer an employee twice the money and they get to work in a cool spaceship and they'll come to your company and they will try to figure out a way to do the same thing mossimo is doing without technically violating their patents which i think are dumb and shouldn't exist anyway i'm mostly fine with that i
John:
The other thing I don't think was clear last time is that I'm not rooting for Apple here.
John:
I don't think Apple is right or Massimo is right.
John:
It's just two big companies, as we last time, two big companies with piles of patents fighting each other to the death in a legal system, all using as the tool of that fighting a thing that I don't think should even exist.
John:
i you know who's right who's wrong it is a question for lawyers again as far as i'm concerned neither one of them should have any patents because patents shouldn't exist but they do have them and that is the law of the land so they are battling it out and is apple shady for taking meetings and saying oh we're super interested in your company maybe we'll even acquire you just tell us everything about your company and then they go off and do the same thing yeah that's not great that's basically sherlocking on a company level scale but i have news for you that's what every big company does
John:
And it's crappy, but it's one of the powers that big companies with a lot of money have.
John:
Think about it next time a big company wants to buy another company of $20 billion.
John:
Making bigger and more powerful companies tends to not make the landscape for competition better because they can come to you and say...
John:
Let's just have a meeting and you can sign these documents and tell us all about everything you're doing and tell us how you're doing it.
John:
And, you know, and then maybe like, who knows where this will lead?
John:
Maybe, you know, who knows?
John:
Anyway, they said, well, anyway, thanks for having on the meetings.
John:
And they go off and do everything that your company did based on the knowledge you gave them in those meetings.
John:
Whereas you thought they were about to acquire you or something.
John:
That happens all the time, not just in the tech industry.
John:
And you could say, oh, the small companies should be smarter.
John:
They should have signed agreements that doesn't let Apple do that or whatever.
John:
But then they won't get the meeting, right?
John:
They want to have that meeting because I think maybe they're going to be acquired.
John:
And then they may be thinking, well, don't worry.
John:
If they try to copy what we're doing, it's all protected by our patents.
John:
And then I have to fight that stupid patent battle.
John:
So this is not a battle where there is a righteous party and a wronged party.
John:
This is a battle where...
John:
It's a big company being kind of cruddy to a small company.
John:
But the legalities of the whole patent system are so weird that it's not really it's not really easy to tell what will happen, because if you think what you think should sensibly happen is rarely what's going to happen.
John:
And as for the stories in the press, obviously, depending on which side you're hearing from, it can sound one side or the other.
John:
But I think we can all agree that the in general cases with a very large company, a smaller company, the very large companies almost always kind of a bully.
John:
And Apple does that, too.
Marco:
And honestly, keep in mind, we are only hearing the Massimo side of the story, really.
Marco:
Apple's not spreading in the press their side of what happened.
Marco:
Well, in court, Apple's giving their side of it.
John:
I mean, again, in court, Apple did invalidate a bunch of their patents, but they also lost on a couple other ones.
John:
So we hear Apple's side in court, but yeah, they're not going to the press and trying to counter the narrative from Massimo.
John:
But I 100% believe everything Massimo is telling, because what they're describing is common practice in the industry.
Marco:
Well, but keep it, like, here, you know, one thing I thought of is, like, this paints Apple as basically being, you know, super evil, that, like, they went in there knowing they were going to steal all their stuff and then, you know, drive them out of business or whatever.
John:
But that's the problem with patents, because Apple went in there knowing that they wanted their watches to check blood oxygen.
John:
Like, that's what Apple knew.
John:
But you're like, oh, but they're stealing our ideas.
John:
Was your idea to detect blood oxygen with a watch?
John:
Because...
John:
we want to do that too and are you telling us you know obviously that's not what their patents are about like specifically but like the whole idea is apple has a thing they want to do with their products and there's pretty much no way for apple to do it without violating a whole bunch of dumb patents many of which they then had to go fight to invalidate so it's not as if they're like we never would have thought to try to do this they're already trying to do it right and maybe if there's some specific idea that they found out from those meetings that helped them but like again if you're coming from my perspective where no one should have an exclusive right to an idea
John:
So that is fine.
John:
It's just kind of questionable, like within the legal system to to have that meeting and to come away from it and just try to do it all on your own and poach all their employees and do all that stuff.
John:
It doesn't feel good if you're the smaller company because you're in a you're in a position of less power.
Marco:
But also just like the characterization of Apple as like intentionally going in here to like rob them.
Marco:
You know, let me let me present an alternative theory of what might have happened here.
Marco:
Apple wants to want to add this feature to their watch.
Marco:
They look around the landscape.
Marco:
They see this company has the ability to do it in a whole bunch of patents that are related to it.
Marco:
So Apple meets with them to basically investigate what should we do here?
Marco:
Maybe we should buy this company.
Marco:
Maybe we should license their patents.
Marco:
Maybe we should have some kind of agreement with them.
Marco:
They go to this meeting and suppose the company has really outrageous demands.
Marco:
And Apple looks around and is like, huh, if they want some absurd price or some absurd terms and we look around and we're like, you know, upon closer inspection, these patents don't seem that strong.
Marco:
And what if we can just hire these 10 people because they're the experts in the field?
Marco:
What if we just hire them for way less money than what this company wants us to pay them and just develop our own version that goes around their patents?
Marco:
that to me if that's how it went down and again we don't know this but if that's how it went down i don't see apple as being the evil bully in this situation it is you know unfortunate on some level it's a little bit of a bully to get the meeting and to have them open up to you about all that stuff because personally they they learn something in this meeting well how much are they opening up i mean the whole point of patents is you're supposed to disclose everything about the invention i know but there's but there's but there's more to it like otherwise what are they even talking about in the meeting like they're not meetings to acquire them
John:
know my guess is they were meeting to to basically like look around and see like should we work together like otherwise why why would Massimo have taken the meeting haven't they seen Pirates of Silicon Valley yeah that's what I'm saying like you kind of have to take the meeting because it might lead to some lucrative deal for your company you can't refuse the meeting because you're afraid they're going to go off and do it but yeah like I don't think there was I don't think they were even got to the stage where anyone was demanding any kind of prices it's just that Apple comes away from it saying I think we can do this without them yeah and what honestly I see nothing wrong with that
John:
In the absence of intellectual property that I don't agree with the existence of like patents, they should be able to do it without them.
John:
But having another company that has done it and has had some success kind of, you know, there is I mean, how much information are they getting that wasn't public?
John:
I don't know.
John:
Again, the patents themselves, the whole point is the patents are public.
John:
So that's part of the whole patent system.
John:
Right.
John:
But I presume there are things they discussed in that meeting that are that are more that go beyond what is known from the public patents.
John:
But but who knows?
John:
We don't we weren't in those meetings.
John:
Again, they'll hash it out in court, I suppose.
John:
I mean, honestly, if if Muslim was disclosing secret information to Apple in these casual meetings or whatever, but just things you learned about, like product development, what things do you have in development?
John:
What approaches have you found more promising?
John:
Because keep in mind, things that are in patents don't necessarily have to even work.
John:
true like that it's another thing about patents that's stupid you can patent all sorts of bs you can go find all sorts of patents for things that are nonsensical so just because a patent exists you don't actually know well did you try this and it ended up being like a good idea and economically viable and it actually works the way you said it would or is it just an idea that you have you know again i don't know what went on in those meetings but in general i don't like the ideas of big companies jerking little companies around and uh you know squashing them or whatever so and
John:
at this point i like i understand you know the people who have these patents at massimo or whatever like i understand their feeling of righteousness because you subscribe to the ideas of patents it seems like we did the work to figure all this out we published our patent and part of the system is you're not supposed to steal our idea without paying us and if they really buy into that system and you agree with it they should have a feeling of righteousness as they battle it i don't share that feeling because i don't think they actually have that right but legally they do so hash it out with the lawyers
Casey:
So Mark Hill continues, the description of Massimo just being a patent troll throws them in a bucket of bad actors, which probably underplays the role that Apple played here.
Casey:
I think this Verge article described the situation well, in which Apple behaved in a pretty predatory manner and for some reason has doubled down and sued Massimo.
Casey:
I am sure there's much more to the story in Loads of Bad Blood, but I feel the characterization of, quote, they are just an evil patent troll, quote, is a bit unfair.
Casey:
I agree, but we did not make that characterization.
John:
Yeah, I'm pretty sure we didn't make that characterization.
John:
I listened back, and the worst thing you said, Marco, is you characterized their patents as being dumb at some point.
John:
And that's the closest you came to claiming that they are a bad actor.
John:
But patent trolls are just an entirely different beast, which is a company that makes nothing, collects patents, and just shakes people down for money.
John:
That is not Massimo.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
There's also an LA Times article from October, which I don't recall how it landed in the show notes, but I thought it was very interesting.
Casey:
A few quick snippets from that with regard to Massimo's CEO.
Casey:
He wants to stop Apple from delivering what he calls the kiss of death to more vulnerable companies, showing interest, whining and dining them, and then stripping them for parts.
Casey:
Then, separately, earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal spoke to two dozen executives, inventors, and founders who feel like Apple delivered the same kiss of death.
Casey:
Kiani, the CEO, described the giant giving to Massimo.
Casey:
And then, finally, the LA Times wrote, it requires an extremely powerful suspension of disbelief to not see a pattern here, to ignore how Apple's wielding its power to get what it wants when it wants.
Casey:
Now, admittedly, I think this article had a point of view when it started, but...
Casey:
But it still was an interesting take on the matter.
Casey:
And yeah, it does not paint Apple in a particularly flattering light.
Casey:
Whether you think it's fair or right or whatnot, it's certainly not a very sporting way of going about it.
John:
I mean, that's true of big companies.
John:
Big, powerful companies do the small companies all the time.
John:
And again, you may think, why are the small companies taking the meeting?
John:
Because you have to, because of the imbalance of power, because the possible upside, right?
John:
Right.
John:
What are you going to do?
John:
Turn down that meeting?
John:
Say, no, we refuse to talk to you.
John:
But I think that's not going to help you.
John:
You have to take the chance.
John:
And so they do.
John:
It's a power imbalance.
John:
Whenever there's a power imbalance, even in a situation where the more powerful party is the most benevolent possible, they can accidentally do things that squish you because you're just a tiny ant compared to them, which, again, argues for not allowing unlimited accumulation of power in any market.
Marco:
Also, how much of this really has to do with the meetings?
Marco:
If Apple can hire away your key talent at massive salaries, it doesn't really matter whether they meet with you or not.
Marco:
If they want to do that, and if your key talent can just go to some other company and deliver the same value to them that they were delivering to you, it's unfortunate for the smaller company that can't afford to match those salaries or whatever, but that's just capitalism.
Marco:
That's just the value of good people.
Marco:
I don't see Apple as being a wrongdoer here or some kind of bully or some kind of unscrupulous actor by being willing to pay top talent, top salaries to come work for Apple and develop their stuff there.
John:
And that's not Apple's rep, by the way.
John:
Apple does not have a reputation for paying people top salary.
John:
they really don't opposite the opposite reputation is apple salaries are actually a little bit lower than their competitors and i think saying that's just capitalism is not as big a defense as you think it is but either way the opposite like i said before is companies colluding to not poach from each other and that is worse for workers so people should be paid what they're worth and if you have highly valuable skills that multiple companies want and you go to the one that gives you the most money
John:
That's good for you.
John:
Like that's gives a little bit more power to the individual workers so they can get some of the money instead of entirely being funneled to the people who run these giant companies.
Marco:
So also like if somebody can come to your company and develop similar technology as they were doing for someone else that evades all the first company's patents, then I would say the first company's patents weren't that strong.
John:
Well, sometimes they do things in an even stupider way to avoid the patents.
John:
That's why patents are so dumb because it's like everyone wants to do the same thing.
John:
And it's like, well, we have to do it in a convoluted way to avoid the stupid patent, but we all want to get the same look.
John:
It's just stupid.
John:
But yeah, there's, you know, how valuable are your skills to a particular company at a particular time will ebb and flow.
John:
And so take advantage of it while you can.
Casey:
So Apple has said that they are developing a possible software workaround in response to the forthcoming ban.
Casey:
And actually, as of today, I believe it was, they have stopped selling.
Casey:
Yep.
Casey:
They have stopped selling the Apple Watch Series 9 and Ultra 2.
Casey:
And I think there's going to soon come a time that they will no longer be able to third parties like, you know.
Casey:
amazon or best buy or what have you won't be able to sell them either additionally apparently they can't i think apple either can't import or can't buy or do something something related to parts for older apple watches so older apple watches cannot get repaired which is a bit of a problem because the problem is like it isn't just the series 9 and ultra 2 that have the the allegedly patent infringing hardware it's every it's every apple watch model that has a blood oxygen sensor which i believe is series 6 7 and 8 right i think that's correct i'm not 100 sure but i think that's right
Marco:
It's all of the high-end models since either the 6 or the 7.
Marco:
So if you have like a Series 7 that you're bringing in for warranty repair, they might not be able to actually give you a replacement for it because they can't legally do that or they can't get their hands on them or whatever.
John:
Yeah, not a good look.
John:
Yeah, and by the way, the software workaround is not to disable the blood oxygen center.
John:
Apple believes that they can work around this in software by somehow doing something with the software that avoids the patents.
John:
Massimo does not believe this, to be clear, and I'm sure they'll hash it out in court.
John:
Did the change that they make still violate the patent or not?
John:
It's all very silly, but this is the system they're working within.
John:
So...
John:
I mean, yes, worst case, I suppose Apple could disable it, but that would be a giant class action lawsuit for selling a product based on blocks and sensor and then disabling that feature after the fact.
John:
And so, you know, Apple's got to figure out a way to satisfy either the courts or Mossimo to make this go away.
John:
And like I said last week, I believe they will.
John:
In not too much time.
John:
I really don't think they're going to let this drag out for all of 2024.
John:
So sometime after the new year, I expect them to figure this out and issue a press release through gritted teeth that makes it all seem like everybody's happy.
John:
Kind of like the Qualcomm thing.
Marco:
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me if this was resolved before we actually published this episode.
John:
We'll see.
John:
We'll see.
John:
I mean, yeah.
John:
Everyone plays all the cards they have, but at a certain point, yeah, we have to come to the table again and some money is going to change hands.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
Anonymous writes that I'm an embedded controls technical lead at an automaker, specifically on new technologies, a position that essentially requires a lot of interface with the patent system.
Casey:
A big measure of my success is how many patents my name is on.
Casey:
Oof.
Casey:
Figured I'd give this background before I say I agree with essentially everything you said about patents in this week's, really, last week's episode.
Casey:
I have useless patents, obvious patents, patents on things that don't work, patents on things that have been done since before I was born, and even patents on technologies for cars that would only work on specific non-Earth celestial bodies.
Wow.
Casey:
I'm not kidding.
Casey:
That is exactly what was written to us.
Casey:
It's fantastic.
Casey:
The anonymous person continues, What I don't have is any patents that feel like true contributions to the state of the art, let alone anything that would be worth actually defending.
Casey:
I once had a dilemma over whether we needed to speak with one of our suppliers about licensing patents on a project we were developing in-house, as we knew they had substantial coverage in the area we were working in.
Casey:
I spoke with one of our intellectual property lawyers about this and got the following paraphrased response.
Casey:
Quote,
Casey:
We might not provably infringe on any of their patents in our implementation, and even if we did, it would be such a bad idea for them to sue us that we would never do it.
Casey:
Generally speaking, if you ever wonder whether something you want to do is prevented by existing IP, just put that out of your mind and do it anyway.
Casey:
No one will complain, and even if they did, the legal staff will make it go away without you ever hearing about it."
Casey:
That's all to say that big companies can basically get away with anything.
Casey:
As you folks said, everyone is constantly infringing on each other's patents, and even if there isn't a business reason to not complain, as in the case of my supplier, any attempt to protect IP against a large company is an invitation for them to rain fire on you for all the things you're plausibly infringing on.
Marco:
That's your patent system at work, everyone.
Marco:
It's a great system.
Casey:
Working as designed, right?
John:
Yeah, I mean, that is actually like, how does anyone get anything done?
John:
Like, they just ignore it and put their fingers in your ears and go la la la and hope the lawyers make it go away.
John:
And that's why part of the job of these big companies is to amass patent portfolio, defensive patent portfolios, so that they are prepared to do battle with anybody.
John:
who comes at them for IP infringing.
John:
And it really does take a particular instance of someone really feeling like, you know, that they've been wronged, that injustice has been visited upon them for them to burn time and money to do what Massimo is doing.
John:
So I feel like the people behind that suit obviously feel really wronged or whatever, but in the whole rest of the industry, everyone is just sort of,
John:
working within this dumb system as best they can, pretending it doesn't exist, and hoping that they all have their giant stockpiles of IP nukes pointed at each other as such that no one will really make a fuss.
Marco:
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Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So moving on, we had a fun conversation last week, again, from Ask ATP with regard to EVs that satisfy Rangachari Anand's requirements.
Casey:
Again, I am so sorry.
Casey:
And we had a lot of people write in with feedback.
Casey:
I don't think either of us or any of us had the time to independently verify any of these claims.
Casey:
So if these aren't 100% accurate, please, it's not our fault, I promise.
Marco:
And to summarize, Rangacharya's requirements were mostly about like physical controls for things like the HVAC system, having a sunroof that opens, mostly about like physical controls and physical shifter and that kind of stuff.
Casey:
Indeed.
Casey:
So Rick Gore wrote in the Audi e-tron line, perhaps the GT, which is basically a Porsche Taycan, the Audi Q4 e-tron or Q8 e-tron.
Casey:
All of those would potentially work.
Casey:
Again, I have not personally verified this.
Casey:
Also, all those are quite expensive.
Casey:
I don't have numbers in front of me, but they are very, very expensive.
Casey:
So I don't know if that's even in the ballpark for any normal person.
Marco:
I guess
Marco:
So normally when people are asking for vehicle recommendations, they normally list things like price and form factor that they are looking for.
Marco:
And Rangachari specified neither.
Marco:
So we don't know if they're looking for a motorcycle or a semi truck.
Marco:
It could be anything at any price point.
John:
And by the way, I put pictures in the show notes for all of these because when we were getting all these different suggestions, I was trying to drive home at that point.
John:
It's like, look at all these different cars people are suggesting.
John:
But then once I put all the pictures in here, I remembered, oh, yeah, every car looks like an SUV now.
Marco:
Yeah, that is true.
John:
Except for the e-tron, the GT rather.
Marco:
Which, by the way, I've seen an e-tron GT in person, and they actually look very nice, I thought.
Casey:
Yeah, it's a nice looking car.
Casey:
Yeah, better than the Taycan, if memory serves.
Casey:
But it's been a long time since I've seen that.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Some parts of it are better.
John:
Some parts of it are not as good.
Casey:
As it goes.
Casey:
Daphne Sakula Reides.
Casey:
I'm going to go with that.
Casey:
I'm so sorry.
Casey:
They suggested the Hyundai Kona, which I think is available in the States, but I certainly believe to be available overseas.
Casey:
Doug Spry reiterated my recommendation from last week, which I don't know if Marco cut it or if people didn't listen long enough.
John:
He didn't cut it.
Casey:
It was in there.
John:
People just sent feedback before they heard you say it.
Casey:
there fair enough uh the chevy bolt which apparently just stopped production literally in the last week or two so way to go chevy uh but again my parents have one it's really good uh then the strategery recommended the mini cooper se viveka recommended the fiat 500 e la prima the one model in trim level that's available in australia so i don't know if that's helpful here or not not this was not the one that's available in the united states
Casey:
yeah exactly and then a friend of the show sam abwell submitted recommended three and sam actually knows what he's talking about because he works in the industry not to imply that you you all don't but we don't we definitely anyways we definitely don't uh sam suggested the honda prologue the acura zdx and uh i guess much to john's chagrin the mercedes eqb and this is another great thing about the eq line you may be thinking to yourself wait a second
John:
I thought it was like the EQS was like the S class and the EQE was like the E class and EQB would be like the B class.
John:
But this looks like an SUV.
John:
They make a car called the EQS and they make it in sedan and SUV versions.
John:
And they're both called the EQS.
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
It's madness.
John:
I don't know what they're doing over there at Mercedes.
John:
And by the way, the Honda Prologue and Acura ZDX are actually GM EVs.
John:
Don't be fooled.
Marco:
And to be fair, seeing all these responses come in about all these EVs, I thought that this list of requirements was going to be satisfied by one or two, maybe at most.
Marco:
And no, there's tons.
Marco:
Did we ever find out if heartened is a word?
Marco:
The opposite of disheartened.
John:
It is a word.
John:
I don't know why you keep doubting it.
John:
But I'm going to cut you off there and say that I share your earlier expressed doubt that these things actually fulfill all the requirements.
John:
Because we got a lot of feedback of like, this fulfills all the requirements except it's not an EV.
John:
all the requirements except it doesn't have a sunroof like people were very willing to say yeah but it fulfills the important ones right so i'm still not convinced that every single one of these fulfills all the requirements probably they fulfill all the requirements except for one or two but without any prioritization like well do you really care about the the glass full glass roof or not like uh but yeah like the so some of these we'll get to more of this in a bit but like
John:
uh honda in particular has been good about trying to retain physical controls on just its cars in general as people have gone all touchscreen yes honda the leader in evs yeah well i'm saying but like for the for their because this this this trend uh away from switches and stored screens is across all cars is just more pronounced than evs right so honda actually has been holding the line and they've been getting good reviews for years by saying hey the new civic and it's got physical hvac controls no it's not an ev but they've been holding the line but again these two hondas the honda and the acura
John:
are actually GM vehicles.
John:
And their interior is filled with GM things.
John:
It's got GM stocks.
John:
It's got a GM steering wheel.
John:
It's a GM car on the inside because Honda has really dropped the ball on EVs.
John:
So they've essentially had to say, GM, can we sort of reskin one of your EVs for two of our brands so we actually have something to offer?
John:
And so they have.
John:
But that also means...
John:
that the interior of these looks like GM interiors, and GM interiors have also not entirely gone all screen.
John:
So, yeah, and these other ones is like a Fiat 500 and a Mini Cooper are very different from a Mercedes Q8 e-tron in price, size, capacity, everything about them.
John:
I know they all look like tiny SUVs of varying sizes, but that is quite a range.
John:
So, again, I feel like the criteria listed really do not allow anyone to narrow it down
John:
anything sane.
John:
Because if you really are cross-shopping a Q8 and a Fiat 500, I'm not sure how you're shopping for cars.
Marco:
Anyway, it is very heartening that there are this many options.
Marco:
In the not-too-distant past, if you were looking for a fully electric vehicle, you had...
Marco:
three or four options in most markets at most like you you really had very few options oftentimes it was like one per size class so to have this many options that fit what i thought was going to be a very restrictive qualification list really says a lot about the ev market we have a ton of evs now that's wonderful that is a fantastic thing
John:
like i said last week they've essentially gone mainstream in all ways except for price and it's the stupid cost of the battery that's making that happen but you know they're there you can find them in all shapes and sizes across all makers depending on how far along the curve they are and all the car makers say they're going to go all ev by some unspecified point in the future or they specify the point but we don't really believe them right so that is definitely happening but they're all still pretty expensive just because the batteries are really expensive and
John:
Thus far, especially in the U.S., but less so in the rest of the world, companies have been reticent to say we will sell you a cheaper one with a smaller battery.
John:
You've got the Nissan Leaf and a few other choices in the U.S., but in general, they're like, oh, if you're going to sell it in the U.S., you better put a massive battery in there.
John:
Otherwise, Americans are going to be too afraid of it.
John:
And a massive battery costs large amounts of money.
John:
So still no bargain basement EVs, even though technically they could make one.
John:
Put a tiny little battery in it.
John:
You can make a bargain basement EV that no one will buy because it has 80 miles of range.
Casey:
exactly no one in the u.s by the way i know in the rest of the world they sell them and you got the hondi and stuff like that just it's our own stupid fault america oh uh as an aside did you see i don't think i sent this to you guys but there was a post that went around recently about the um the chevy blazer ev that somebody was testing the same thing as the honda prologue and the uh the acura zdx by
Casey:
There you go.
Casey:
Well, I bring this up because of that.
Casey:
The Chevy Blazer EV was tested by someone.
Casey:
I'll put a link in the show notes.
Casey:
They were testing it.
Casey:
They picked it up in like Ohio or something like that.
Casey:
I mean, who would ever enter Ohio on purpose?
Casey:
Am I right, Marco?
Casey:
But anyways, they picked it up in Ohio.
Casey:
god i'm so sorry i'm just kidding uh they picked it up in ohio and uh drove to somewhere in virginia somewhere in rural virginia which is not richmond before you two jerks jump on me but anyway um they drove to somewhere in rural virginia and the car basically was completely kaput now this might have been at least in part electrify america's fault but whatever happened the the tester had it for literally like
Casey:
28 hours.
Casey:
And then they had to have the, the, the blazer, uh, trailered back to Michigan so they can figure out what the hell happened to it.
Casey:
So not a good look.
Casey:
And that's now Honda EVs as well.
Casey:
Hooray.
Casey:
Anyway.
Casey:
Uh, so speaking of physical touch controls, uh, this broke in the land, I think this was just in the last few days as well, right?
Casey:
Uh, Volkswagen brings back physical buttons for all new cars, the Volkswagen ID to all what a terrible name,
Casey:
Concept car features a slightly updated interior, with the most notable change being the return of physical buttons below the central touchscreen.
Casey:
According to the brand's interior designer, Darius Witola, this will be, quote, a new approach for all models, quote, based on recent feedback from customers, especially those in Europe who wanted more physical buttons.
Casey:
This is my people right here.
Casey:
I love this so much.
Casey:
I...
Casey:
I don't understand.
Casey:
I don't, I don't understand a desire to have fewer physical buttons.
Casey:
And there are people out there who have that desire and I don't understand it.
Casey:
Like, I think for a lot of things, like take an average, you take a Tesla, for example.
Casey:
I think it makes perfect sense to have things like dog mode on the touchscreen.
Casey:
I don't think you need a physical button for that.
Casey:
But it is bananas to me that things you fiddle with a lot don't have physical controls.
Casey:
Temperature, volume.
Casey:
Why do you have to have a motor?
John:
The forward or reverse gear.
John:
The forward or reverse gear.
Casey:
Yeah, that's pretty important.
Casey:
Why do you have to have motors in the dashboard to point the air at you?
Casey:
Have a freaking lever.
John:
Yeah.
John:
i didn't mention that one last time but that was like yeah people just kept doing that it's like you can just grab the little thing and point it at you and it's so much better and that in every possible and that one i have to say even that one they don't save money on that one like i know it's more expensive to have physical switches often but the motorized things have to be more expensive than just putting a little handle on them it's so much more complicated too it's just i i don't get it i don't get it i mean yeah we talked about last time you get like there's the futuristic thing and then in many cases it actually is cheaper and as i said last week um
John:
I had hoped that people had gotten this lesson and I was disheartened to see the latest line of cars from a bunch of car makers.
John:
It's like, here's our second round of EVs and they make all the same mistakes.
John:
And as I said on the show last week, you know, kind of like Apple Silicon with the timelines being like seven years.
John:
Maybe these were just designed before they took those lessons home.
John:
And here is Volkswagen saying, we're going to fix this.
John:
But what are they showing?
John:
A concept car.
John:
And they're saying, in the future, all our new models will do this.
John:
But the times to develop cars are so long.
John:
Like the feedback loop is so long between sell a bunch of cars, have people tell you that you don't have enough physical controls.
John:
That loops all the way back through corporate.
John:
And then it's like, which car is in our pipeline now that we can actually afford?
John:
make a change in at this point right it's like well you can't change the models that are coming out next year so maybe the ones after that so that's why we end up with a whole bunch of 2024 models that still have no physical choice and by the way it's every individual company that has to figure this out and you know it's kind of like how long does it take to convince apple that their laptops needed more ports right or that magsafe should come back it is a long cycle when it comes to hardware and especially with cars but i am glad to see things going the other direction but still not enough and still not fast enough for me
Casey:
Agreed.
Casey:
Then coming back to Sam Mabalsamid, the complaints about touch controls from customers and safety experts.
Casey:
And that's another thing.
Casey:
Safety experts.
Casey:
Like, you shouldn't be looking at the f***ing touch screen in order to change where the air is pushing on your face.
Casey:
Like, you shouldn't have to do that.
John:
That's such a difficult battle, though, because, of course, the people who make the thing say it's not unsafe.
John:
And then the people who say it's unsafe have to prove that it's unsafe.
John:
And then it's like, well, I don't trust them because they're biased.
John:
And it's not...
John:
You can't just say like, this seems like it's less safe.
John:
You do actually have to test it.
John:
And testing it to the satisfaction of all is very difficult because the people doing the testing have a vested interest in one direction or the other.
John:
And so do the people who are making the cars.
John:
And so it is actually difficult to test.
John:
yeah i mean just think about things like seatbelts how long did it take to figure out seatbelts good right you would think that's a slam dunk because we all believe it now but it wasn't it took a long time with multiple parties battling over years and generations of people living and dying before we could finally get to the agreement of seatbelts good and we did it all over again with airbags and anti-lock brakes and anything that costs more on the car and so we're going through that again with touchscreens indeed
Casey:
Anyway, let me repeat what Sam was trying to say before I interrupted him from the past or whatever, however you want to put this.
Casey:
But anyway, Sam says, the complaints about touch controls from customers and safety experts are finally being heard by most automakers, except Tesla, which doesn't actually care about either of those groups.
Casey:
Email Sam, not me, even though he's right.
Casey:
Hyundai, which adopted a touch interface on many vehicles, just launched an updated version of the Tucson that ditches the system in favor of a return to physical controls.
Casey:
Other Hyundai models that use the same interface will probably get updated in the next year or so.
Casey:
The new Santa Fe already has knobs and buttons for climate control and other features.
Casey:
GM's new vehicles all retain physical controls.
Casey:
Even Lucid has physical controls for volume and climate control, as it should be.
Casey:
As it should be.
John:
Yeah, that was one of the – speaking of Honda, that was one of the things back when everybody was going all touchscreen.
John:
Apple – or Honda did this thing where they – like everything is a touchscreen, but they shoved the knob just on the side of their touchscreen.
John:
And it looks so awkward and weird, but it was like some person with authority in Honda was like –
John:
i'm not letting you can go as far as you want but i'm not letting you get rid of the volume knob and so they said where are we gonna put it there's no place just stick it on the side of the screen so it's like a a big touch screen with just a physical knob just just sticking in the bezel and for years it was like that and i was like you go person in honda just keep holding that line they'll come back around your way and it hopefully it seems like it's going the other direction now so
John:
Kudos to that person, that person and the person who put the sync button and messages for the Mac all those years ago.
Casey:
Plus five internet points for both of you.
Casey:
All right, John, what is the iPhone 16 capture button?
Casey:
What's going on here?
John:
Talked about this, I don't know, maybe it was when we were doing the exit interview or something, or no, it was a question about the action button.
John:
And I had said at that time, you know, after we discussed the action button, like, you know, the rumors are that Apple is going to add another button to the next iPhone.
John:
And it's going to be below the power button where the millimeter wave antenna is.
John:
And I didn't think too much of it because, you know, I read a lot of rumors or whatever.
John:
But this rumor has been gaining steam.
John:
And so here now Gurman has chimed in.
John:
He's calling it the capture button.
John:
This is from MacRumors summarizing a Gurman report.
John:
German says the iPhone 16 models will include a new dedicated button for taking video.
John:
In a recent early look at iPhone 16 prototypes, the capture button will be located on the bottom right side of the iPhone 16.
John:
It will replace the millimeter wave antenna on U.S.
John:
phone models with millimeter wave antenna to be relocated to the left side of the device below the volume and action buttons.
John:
Non-U.S.
John:
models do not have a millimeter wave antenna and needs to be relocated.
John:
The capture button will be a capacitive button with haptic feedback rather than a mechanical button and is expected to include a force sensor that can recognize pressure.
John:
the capture button is coming to all four iphone 16 models so this is a combination of a bunch of rumors because you remember for the iphone 15 there were rumors that the volume buttons would be haptic like not actually move in and out but instead just shake when you hit them and we talked about that rumor for a while but then there was another follow-up rumor that said no they're not doing that so here's the haptic button coming back only not for the volume buttons or maybe it is for them but that's not what this rumor is about but for a capture button and
John:
With force sensitivity, so maybe the return of something like Force Touch, where if you press it, it does one thing, and if you press it a little bit harder, it does a second thing.
John:
But, like, the real purpose of this button is what the name says.
John:
Capture button.
John:
And...
John:
Boy, after so many years of Apple not really changing anything on the physical outside of the phone to go to new connector, lightning replaced with USB-C, ring silent switch replaced with the action button.
John:
And then the very next year, and guess what?
John:
We added another button.
John:
I'm not entirely against it, but I'm really wondering.
John:
I mean, sorry, I'm not wondering.
John:
OK, I'm not wondering why they're doing this.
John:
I'm wondering if it is wise to do it.
John:
The reason they're obviously doing it, if you look at the iPhone 16 rumors, is that they they want the capture button to be a faster and easier way for people to capture video.
John:
video including spatial video because all the iphone 16s are going to have two cameras that are lined up for spatial video instead of being on an angle like they did with the the 15 pro has them like that but the plain 15 still has them on an angle kitty corner from each other so on the 16 line uh both the the 16 and the 16 pro will have the two cameras lined up you know for good for stereo uh you know vision not any farther apart but at least they'll be aligned and also the rumor is the 16 pro will have a 48 pixel ultra wide
John:
So we'll have a 48 megapixel main and a 48 megapixel ultrawide, and they'll be lined up.
John:
All of this is to make more better spatial video.
John:
And then you've got a dedicated button for it, which presumably will bring up the video app immediately without you having to futz with your phone.
John:
and immediately start capturing that spatial video so you shouldn't capture these precious moments that everyone will watch on their $3,500 headset that they just bought.
John:
Right?
John:
That all, like, I see the vision there.
John:
I understand what they're doing.
John:
But two things here.
John:
One, how many people are going to have a Vision Pro in 2024?
John:
Apple's not even going to be able to make that many of them, even if they sell every single one that they make.
John:
They don't even be able to manufacture that many.
John:
Two,
John:
if Apple's really all in on spatial video, move the cameras farther apart.
John:
Like it's the stereo, the stereo effect is not as impressive when the cameras are literally a centimeter from each other.
John:
Like it's not, you know, the centers of the cameras anyway, move them a little bit farther apart.
Marco:
Well, also, I think if you're going to optimize the camera hardware for stereo capture, give us two 1X lenses.
Marco:
Like have that be the stereo.
John:
Yeah, I know.
John:
We talked about that if you could add a fourth camera, but apparently they're not adding a fourth camera.
John:
So do you want to lose the ultra wide?
John:
We talked about that too.
John:
Would you like to lose the ultra wide to have two 1Xs?
John:
I don't think most people... Again, who is the spatial video for?
John:
You could argue it's future-proofing.
John:
It's like, well, it looks like normal video to you, but eventually when you buy the Apple headset three years from now when it only costs $1,000, you'll be able to see all that spatial video that you queued off of your kids.
John:
I kind of get that, but I really... I'm with Apple.
John:
I understand the thing, but then when they say, okay, we're also adding a button, and the rumors, it seems to be a pretty big button, to the right side of the phone under the power button as a capture button...
John:
why is the action button not a capture button if people if people value capturing wouldn't they configure the action button to bring up the camera like and the fact that it's force sensitive makes me think they'll be like apple has something in mind with that like i'm not i'm not saying that the iphone doesn't need more buttons in fact i think i said in a past show that it should have more buttons i'm just not sure a really big button on the bottom of the phone below the power button dedicated to capture is how i would choose to add the next button to the iphone
Marco:
Well, first of all, I wouldn't read too much into the force sensitivity thing because that's probably just what works in cases, you know, because you figure anything that's if it's just like a capacitive button, that's going to be a problem with every case if it's on the side of the phone.
John:
I don't think it would be capacitive.
John:
I thought it would be like the the iPhone 7 button.
John:
That wasn't capacitive, right?
John:
It was force sensitive.
Marco:
That's true.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So presumably, the force sensitivity is just so they can add a button that doesn't have moving parts that is also workable through cases.
John:
So you think it doesn't mean that they'll use it to distinguish different levels of force, like you pressed hard and you pressed soft?
John:
nope i think it's literally just the mechanism by which the button works through cases without having moving parts and by the way speaking of that a slight gamer aside i believe it was the playstation 2 i remember when it was announced they said and by the way the controller has um four sensitive buttons now they each register you know a four pressure level from zero to 255 and like no game used that i was not yeah i was gonna say like did any game ever take advantage of that yes i'm sure there were games that did but it did not turn out to be a very important feature of the ps2 let's just say that
John:
And I think that continued through the PS3, 4, and maybe even 5.
John:
I don't know if and when they dropped it, but this is to the threat of like, do people like the idea of having something that they can press and then having something different happen when they press harder?
John:
We talked about Force Touch last episode.
John:
There are proponents of that, but...
John:
it is thus far it has not either caught on or sustained itself in the market in in you know in any product that has a force sensitive thing like you know a tech product like a game console or a phone or computer yeah i mean there are some like certain game controllers um i believe the original xbox did this where like the triggers would be like you know force sensitive so like depending on how much you pull them it was like analog triggers oh yeah no every game every game console has that these days they can tell how far you've put it but it's not how hard
Marco:
right yeah and it makes sense like you know a trigger button has a huge amount of travel so it makes sense you could make that you know easily analog whereas you know the top button of the controller where you just mash it harder or in this case you know the button inside your iphone yeah i don't i don't think that's uh that's an idea that's gonna stick around you should try the ps5 controller marco if you haven't because they uh the ps5 controller has motors that resist i got right here you're pressing of the triggers you have to like did you play the uh what is it called the uh chat room the little game with the cute little robot
John:
astro's playroom i've never played a ps5 game no but i have a ps5 controller on my desk anyway if you play astro's playroom you'll play certain levels you can feel there are motors inside it that that push back against your fingers when you use the analog triggers which is kind of interesting if you haven't felt it before and kind of fun although again most games don't use it and then you spoke about travel distance it's another thing fun thing that game consoles do especially the fancy controllers like the xbox elite controller i have
John:
What they have is a way for you to adjust that travel because in certain games you don't want it.
John:
Like if you're playing a game and you're a sniper and you want to pull the trigger to fire the gun, you don't want to have to pull the trigger an entire centimeter.
John:
So you can adjust it so it's like essentially a hair trigger and you pull it like half a millimeter and it activates.
John:
And that is a feature of fancy controllers.
John:
Just sort of negating the supposed feature of having analog travel for like using it as a gas pedal in a racing game or something.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
The other thing we need to talk about tonight is that apparently the next gen Apple Watch is again rumored to break compatibility with existing bands.
Casey:
So since the original Apple Watch came out, there was only one real break in the cycle.
Casey:
And that was when, or actually, was there ever?
Casey:
No, I guess that's not true, actually.
Casey:
I'm thinking of my.
John:
break in the cycle they changed the sizes of the watches but the strap size has never changed although I will say they cheated a little bit in that various watch straps on various different sizes watches have at various times looked a little awkward in terms of how even just the first party Apple bands connect into fit in with and extend from the bodies I've seen some combos that I look at and say technically that fits and you're not forcing it or anything but it looks weird
Marco:
Well, that's usually not a sizing issue.
Marco:
That's usually just a bad choice or a metal mismatch.
John:
I mean, I've seen ones where I feel like, is that supposed to be like that?
John:
Like, it doesn't look like... It doesn't look... I'm not going to say it doesn't look flush, but it doesn't seem to like...
John:
Just the part that goes into the little slot.
John:
I've seen situations with particular watch bands on particular watch models.
John:
Very often a very old watch band with a very new watch model, especially when they sort of change the shape of them a little bit subtly.
John:
The little Airstream trailer changed shape.
John:
It doesn't look like it meshes well.
John:
Like up close, I could see.
John:
I mean, Johnny, I wouldn't like it.
John:
He would say that doesn't look right.
John:
But technically, they have all been compatible across the world.
John:
as long as you get the the size match whatever whatever the what are the band sizes it's like it's like 38 40 41 and then like 42 44 45 right but when you buy the when you buy the bands you can buy them in small medium large but that's just the length but some of the watch bands also have to match the 41 versus 45 yeah they do
Casey:
And that's how I got myself confused when I was introducing this is that I went from the original big size.
Casey:
When all the watches changed to get bigger, I dropped down to the small size.
Casey:
And that's why for a second there, I thought that the watch bands had changed.
Casey:
It's not that at all.
Casey:
It's just that I had previously been getting the bigger size connector.
Casey:
And for the last several or a couple of watches, at least, I've been getting the small size connector ever.
John:
but but how does apple characterize those by the way when they say the big size because again the big size one the big size watches have changed they say 38 40 41 and 42 44 45 like that those are the two like trios of sizes maybe that's what i was seeing maybe i was seeing a band made for the smaller big watch used with the bigger big probably yes that because that would create a gap you would notice that but still that's the correct band for it if you look on the box it says this fits these models and you have one of these models and it does actually fit it just looks weird
Marco:
I don't know.
Marco:
I mean, to me, honestly, if I was going to tweak the Apple Watch band sizing, to me, the biggest sin of watch band sizing that they make is that on the smaller size watch, the sport band is too wide.
Marco:
Like the actual band part of it, after it tapers down from the lugs, the actual width of the band is way too wide for a watch that size.
John:
You mean you think it doesn't look good?
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
It's a mismatch aesthetically.
Casey:
Well, one way or another, it's been reported 9 to 5 Mac.
Casey:
Apple is once again said to be prepping for a big Apple Watch change.
Casey:
According to a new rumor this week, the band connection system for the next generation Apple Watch has been completely redesigned.
Casey:
This means that all existing Apple Watch bands will be incompatible with the next generation Apple Watch.
Casey:
The rumor comes from Kosutami on social media, who has previously reported accurate information about Apple's plans for future accessories.
Casey:
For example, the account shared several details about Apple's switch from leather to fine woven accessories ahead of time.
Casey:
Bloomberg first reported on Apple's plans to debut a major new Apple Watch 10 design, or is it X?
Casey:
Who knows?
Casey:
A few months ago, in that report, Mark Gurman explained that Apple was exploring a change to the way the bands are attached to the Apple Watch.
Casey:
The current system reportedly takes up a considerable amount of space inside the Apple Watch, which Apple engineers believe could be better utilized by a bigger battery or other components.
Casey:
Gurman has described the new Apple Watch band design as featuring a magnetic attachment system.
Casey:
That sounds horrifying to me until I tell you that I have been carrying my gigantic phone via a magnet-only pop socket for, what, two months now?
Casey:
And so far, so good.
John:
All right.
John:
Well, how big are the magnets on your pop socket?
Casey:
That's fair, too.
Casey:
That's fair, too.
Casey:
They're quite a bit bigger than they would be on a watch.
Casey:
But my point is you could potentially make it work.
Marco:
Also, keep in mind, magnets hold very strong in the sandwich direction.
Marco:
They're bad at the sliding across themselves direction.
Marco:
So depending on how it's engineered, it actually could be strong enough to account for most problems.
Marco:
I do worry a little bit about the lateral movement possibilities, dislodging them pretty easily.
John:
well i mean but that's the easy thing to fix in a connector because they just have like prongs or teeth or other things that sort of like uh you know go in there like when i'm when i'm when i'm thinking of these rumors i'm not thinking of magsafe right because magsafe does not have any of those things although even magsafe has a recess in it that like if you were to try to actually push it exactly sideways it would hit the lips of the recess but keep in mind like imagine yeah like imagine if if the magsafe connector if you couldn't move it up and down to take it off
Marco:
Like if it had like a little channel that it fit into that was deeper, if it couldn't move up and down, it would actually be a lot harder to disconnect it.
John:
I mean, it does have a little bit of channel.
John:
It is recessed.
John:
But I'm thinking of like prongs or teeth or even things that could like clip into like little slots with little nubbins on them.
John:
Like that it wouldn't entirely be the magnets.
John:
The magnets would be there as like maybe 50% of the attachment solution.
John:
Yeah.
John:
I'm not entirely sure what to make of these things, but the things that make me think something like this is probably coming are a few.
John:
One, I agree with the idea that the current system takes up room in the watch.
John:
If you don't think that, then look at the little naked watch body when you pull it out of the box and you realize, oh, there's giant channels hollowed out here where there's nothing in the watch.
John:
That is, every square millimeter is precious on these things.
John:
So I think an attachment system that doesn't do that...
John:
If they can find one would be beneficial.
John:
And that is something that Apple would pursue.
John:
And two, kind of like lightning and other things that Apple changes every once in a while, the current watch straps, Apple has maintained them and the basic design of the watch for what will be next year, about nine years and a decade or so, I think is a good run for a watch attachment mechanism.
John:
What you hope is that the follow-up attachment mechanism is even better and not a terrible mistake or something.
John:
But I think this is a reasonable time to be thinking about in the next year or two.
John:
If we can do something better, now is it a reasonable time to do it?
John:
Because we were all nervous when the Apple Watch was developed, like, oh, the new one come out.
John:
Is it going to invalidate all our bands?
John:
And they kept those bands around for close to a decade.
John:
And if they can come up with a way to do it without gigantic channels carved out of the thing,
John:
With the help of magnets and whatever other clever mechanism they have to attach, I think it could work.
John:
Now, one thing I will say about the existing mechanism is what it has going for it is very straightforward mechanical sturdiness.
John:
In this case, the yanking on the watch straps, if you took a watch strap and just pulled the two ends...
John:
That is where this thing does very well, because it's a fat thing inside a little channel.
John:
But the other direction, the way you slide them in sideways, the tiniest, most delicate mechanisms, I've talked about this in videos before, how precise Apple has to be to make this, that little mechanism that makes this sort of click in when you slide that you have to press your little finger on there on the little button to get it out.
John:
That is the only thing stopping it from sliding side to side, that and the sort of static friction of being in that very tight channel.
John:
And it just goes to show that, as far as that attachment mechanism is concerned, the yanking on the straps thing, very, very strong, straightforward, nothing delicate or complicated about it.
John:
And the other direction, the finest piece of machinery you could possibly ever imagine, the tiniest, little, most delicate thing, has been sufficient.
John:
So it seemed like the direction that they have to worry about is the yanking on the thing's direction.
John:
And the side-to-side direction, they can do almost anything and it will be fine.
John:
Yeah, that's fair.
John:
But the existing one is so strong in that direction because it is a fat thing shoved into a skinny channel.
John:
It is the most brain-dead thing.
John:
It's like you slide it in from the side.
John:
It's like wood joinery.
John:
It's straightforward.
John:
You can look at it with your eye and understand how it works.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And think of, have you heard any stories about Apple watches flying off people's wrists and the straps failing or whatever?
John:
Like, if straps do fail, I imagine they're not failing at the attachment to the watch point, that maybe they're failing someplace else due to, like, you know, some sort of problem with the strap.
John:
But, like...
John:
This strap design has been a home run.
John:
The straps that Apple sells have been really good.
John:
Even the third party straps that are presumably made to a less precise manner have been pretty good.
John:
Like we've had a lot of years of the Apple Watch and no one is saying Apple strap attachment mechanism sucks and it falls apart.
John:
And the risk of making a new one, especially with magnets or anything that's going to have scare stories on it, you know, like, oh, you know, we tried the new Apple Watch magnetic strap mechanism in this, you know, NASA GeForce simulator and it came off, right?
Marco:
get ready for those like so i feel i feel for apple if this is what they're doing but i'm also kind of excited about the idea of getting rid of those slots and maybe you know either putting in more battery or making the making the watch slimmer i think the i mean so first of all i need to preface this rumor this rumor has been circulating for something like three years that there's some major apple watch redesign coming next year or coming this year like and that's been happening now for so long it's almost like the year of linux on the desktops
John:
Well, are you counting the flat side one that we think might have just been the Ultra rumor?
Marco:
Maybe, but if so, I mean, the Ultra is nothing like that.
Marco:
So anyway, so the point is, there's been a bunch of rumors about substantial Apple Watch redesigns coming, and they've seemingly gone nowhere so far.
Marco:
So either the Apple Watch rumor mill is comically inaccurate, which has been the case so far,
Marco:
Or they really have been working on something, and it will be arriving soon.
Marco:
Maybe they got the timing wrong or whatever.
Marco:
But either way, either the Appalachian rumor mill is terrible, or there's finally enough smoke behind this fire that maybe it'll actually happen.
John:
But there's a third option.
John:
Either they got all the rumors wrong, or they're actually right.
John:
But the third option, and I think it's just as likely as all of those, is...
John:
So they're totally wrong about everything.
John:
But inevitably, the Apple Watch will get a major redesign.
John:
And when that happens, they can try to claim that they're right, because that's the nature of all products, like especially things like the Apple Watch and the phone or whatever.
John:
Apple is conservative about changing them, but they do change them eventually.
John:
So after a decade.
John:
like that it's going to happen right if the apple watch continues as a product long enough it will get a major redesign it is inevitable and you can't then retroactively claim see all those rumors we had we were right i mean maybe you were and maybe you weren't but like you know it's it's like predicting you know new max will be released and then they release like see i told you like yeah they keep getting released until they cancel the line like that's the nature of the product so but i but again with the 10-year time horizon in the beginning of of the apple watch we're all like well the next one look totally different eventually we're like no they're not going to look different they're
John:
going to look it's not like they didn't change them they did but they all kind of look like you know the rounded little lozenges or whatever uh until the ultra and so the ultra is a new shape for the apple watch uh i think that will happen to the regular i think there will be a new shape for the apple watch that will happen and if you're going to make a new shape for the watch that's the time to rethink the strap
John:
It could be kind of like various things that they've tried to do that they they look into alternate strap designs.
John:
They've been researching it for six years and they just can't get anything that's better and say, you know what?
John:
We tried.
John:
We tried.
John:
Well, let's regroup.
John:
Think of a new idea.
John:
But in the meantime, when we have the redesigned Apple Watch, same strap mechanism.
John:
that is a possibility as well because i truly believe that apple has been researching better straps in fact i think they were researching better straps before they shipped the first apple watch they shipped the best strap that they came up with it's been a hit everyone loves it but they're always looking for a way to do it better it's just not like from the outside especially it's not like there's some obvious thing that they should do to make it better it's going to be difficult and so with anything difficult
John:
I am willing to believe that it's taking them multiple years.
John:
I'm also willing to believe that it takes multiple years, and they say, you know what?
John:
We couldn't figure it out.
John:
Regroup again in a few more years.
Marco:
I mean, the thing is, like, for them to make all existing straps incompatible, that's a big risk that they're taking.
Marco:
There's a big cost to that on lots of levels.
Marco:
And so...
Marco:
If they're actually going to do that, I trust that they probably have really good reasons.
Marco:
So we'll see.
Marco:
I mean, I'm not looking forward to that because I have a large collection of Apple Watch straps I've accumulated over the years, and I don't want to have them all be obsoleted very quickly.
Marco:
But at the same time, I am a little bit excited to see, well, if they're going to go through that, again, they probably have good reasons.
Marco:
They probably were able to improve things significantly.
Marco:
One other area besides the sport strapping to widen the smaller watch that I would love to see aesthetically is that right now...
Marco:
The combos that look good on Apple watches are partly restricted by the design of the current lug system where you can see a lot of the strap like inside the watch from the sides.
Marco:
Like the part of it that sticks into the watch, you see the color, whatever color the strap is, you see that running into the watch body for that, you know, whatever few millimeters that is.
Marco:
That kind of restricts what combinations look good.
Marco:
And I think it looks a little bit inelegant.
Marco:
If they could design a strap system where you don't see the strap enter the watch anywhere except the boundary of the case, that would look nicer.
Marco:
Now, that might have other downsides.
Marco:
You wouldn't have the lateral removal process.
Marco:
So maybe that's what the magnets are for.
Marco:
Who knows?
Marco:
But if they can get rid of that side view of the side of the strap inside the watch body, that would open up more aesthetic possibilities.
Marco:
But also...
Marco:
Maybe they just need to change the system as part of a larger redesign to help the basic Apple Watch look fresh again.
Marco:
Because, you know, the current non-ultra line of Apple Watches, I think it looks good overall.
Marco:
Like in totally absolute terms, it looks good.
Marco:
But it is starting to look dated.
Marco:
Now, watch fashion changes very slowly over time.
Marco:
And they can keep selling exactly this for a while and be fine, but they're also in the tech business.
Marco:
And the tech business likes when things look new.
Marco:
See the iPhone and how we seem to demand case redesigns every roughly two to three years just to keep it looking fresh.
Marco:
The Apple Watch certainly suffers from some of that.
Marco:
People want their jewelry to look fresh and new sometimes and whatever.
Marco:
So I think the current line, the regular Apple Watch line,
Marco:
could use a redesign just to keep it fresh.
Marco:
Not to say there's any massive problems with the current design, because I don't think there are really.
Marco:
Everything I mentioned so far has been small problems, not big problems.
Marco:
But there is some need for them to keep this fresh in the long term.
Marco:
And so even just change for change's sake...
Marco:
We hate to say it as nerds because this shouldn't be the case, but the reality is people like new-looking things sometimes, and just having a new watch style is something they should do every so often.
John:
One other thing they could improve with a new strap attachment, aside from being able to see the side thing, is sort of the departure angle of the strap is kind of dictated by the angle of the slots because the slots themselves have a direction to them, and that angle...
John:
I mean, the thing is, there is no one perfect angle.
John:
Given a watch size, given a strap, given a person wrist size, there is too many variables that can dictate how good something looks.
John:
And if they could come up with a strap attachment mechanism that was more flexible about the angle of departure from the watch, it would help it look better on a wider variety of wrists.
John:
that's true yeah it's that's hard but it's but it's possible i mean like you know regular watches with spring bars do that like but exactly like there is there you know for for regular watches that don't have extremely easily removable swappable straps there are lots of it's like oh just put it on a hinge and then it can depart at any angle that it wants but that's not the system apple has for their watches because their straps are very easily changeable and so yeah although to be fair to the watch world quick release spring bar bands are actually not really any harder to swap than apple watch bands
John:
Really?
John:
I mean, I've never done it, so I couldn't say it, but the Apple Watch ones are so easy you can do it with a fingernail.
Marco:
Yeah, so there's a type called quick release spring bars that they have basically a little peg that sticks out straight down from the lug, kind of three quarters across the way of the watch band, and you just slide that little peg over with your fingernail, and the whole thing pops out.
Marco:
So it still uses a spring bar to poke through the two holes on your side, but that little peg lets you pop it out really quickly and easily.
Marco:
It is almost Apple Watch easy.
John:
No magnets, though.
Marco:
No, no magnets.
Marco:
Well, generally speaking, you don't want to introduce magnets unnecessarily to mechanical watches.
Marco:
They don't like that, usually.
Marco:
They should use quartz crystals.
Marco:
They're way more accurate.
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
Also, vinyl sounds better.
Casey:
Anyway, let's do some... No, quartz crystals actually are more accurate.
Marco:
They actually are.
Marco:
In this case, yeah.
Marco:
Quartz crystals are like the CD of the watch world.
John:
By a lot.
Casey:
You know, I should have just kept my mouth shut.
John:
We're just making the wrong analogy with the vinyl.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Anyways, it sounds more warm, I tell you.
Casey:
All right, so let's do some Ask ATP.
Casey:
Amar writes, do NVIDIA and Apple mean different things when they say cores?
Casey:
An M3 Max has 40 GPU cores, while an RTX 4080 has 9,728 CUDA cores.
Casey:
I have no freaking clue.
Casey:
John, what's the deal?
John:
amar what do you think the answer is yes they do mean different things when they say chorus they mean very different things and i think you've amply demonstrated that 40 chorus versus 9728 boy that 48 must be way faster and yes it is way faster but not that much faster
John:
um yeah so what what you call a core and a gpu it's it's up to it part of it has to do with the architecture but a lot of it is also marketing and what you decide counts as a core and the way nvidia and apple count is very different and the things that nvidia is counting as cores are smaller and simpler than the things that apple is counting as cores that's it
Casey:
Ryan McDonough writes, with the rumor of Apple creating their own LLM to build a better Siri, do you think this functionality will come to the existing HomePod mini range, or will this be a differentiator for the next release?
Casey:
I mean, it should go everywhere, but I think they'll absolutely use it to get you to upgrade.
Casey:
Although, why would you do
John:
That would mean they would have to make a new HomePod, though.
Casey:
Also true.
John:
This is why I think this is an interesting question because it's like, well, okay, is the thing versus Apple making your upgrade versus not?
John:
And the other part of it, I think, is are they doing inference on the hardware device?
John:
Because Apple has a lot of – there recently was Apple paper that they published about how they found a way to do –
John:
efficient uh inference and large language models on their own hardware even when it doesn't fit in ram stuff like that but the the hardware inside home pods is extremely wimpy like power wise like it's it's watch hardware you know or it's or it's older socs and it's like all this combines in the home pod of saying and also apple really doesn't like updating that line particularly often um
John:
So I don't know how to – it's like if it's all server-side, they don't need technically to update the hardware.
John:
But would it be all server-side?
John:
Because Apple's big thing seems to be – everyone assumes their thing is going to be, oh, we do a lot of stuff on device because we have amazing hardware.
John:
But HomePods do not have amazing hardware.
John:
And by the way, if HomePods did have to send it to a server to get answers, it's not going to make them any faster.
John:
Like sending SiriQuest to a server makes it seem slow as well.
John:
So –
John:
If I had to bet on this, I would say new HomePod because the old ones don't have beefy enough hardware.
John:
Not because Apple wants to make you buy a new one, although of course they do, but new HomePod because they want it to be done in hardware, and that would mean Apple will be forced to actually make a new HomePod, which may mean that this is not coming to HomePods at all until they can do that.
Marco:
And even then, like, I don't see I can't see Apple launching this this new alleged Siri that's LLM based doing inference server side.
Marco:
I just can't because we know a couple of things.
Marco:
Number one, Apple's cheap.
Right.
Marco:
Except when hiring people away from Massimo.
Marco:
Otherwise, they're machine.
Marco:
Number two, they're not great at the existing server-side infrastructure of Siri.
Marco:
And they're not super keen to run massive AI stuff server-side.
Marco:
They run services, but their services tend to do simpler things in the large, massive scale that they need to do them.
Marco:
Most of the hard computing crunching tasks are done device-side.
Marco:
We also know that device side, they are, as John mentioned, investing heavily in the AI side of device side inference.
Marco:
And also, they make really great device processors to do that.
Marco:
So all of that suggests to me that the vast majority, if not all, of Apple's efforts with these new AI techniques are most likely going to be running device side.
Marco:
And if they were to do all Siri requests through this kind of thing server-side, the scale of that would be so immense that not only would they probably not do it for just practicality and cost reasons, but also we probably don't want them trying that because I don't think they would do a very good job, to be honest.
John:
Well, so here's a question I don't necessarily know the answer to.
John:
I don't think any of us do.
John:
It's because I think there are certain things that you can do with large language models.
John:
they require more computing resources that exist on apple's any of apple's devices now that doesn't mean that apple is going to do those things with its llms it could be that they have their llms they train them up to do tasks that are simpler that can run uh device side again those are the rumors we know apple has strengths in this area we know they're they have papers on this topic we assume that they're going to leverage their strategic advantage which is they have literally billions of socs with neural engines in them out there in the world
John:
uh that's what they should do but that does mean that they can't do certain things like i think there's some stuff you can like type in the chat gpt or whatever that it responding to your query the amount of computing resources that are briefly marshaled to answer your answer your question is larger than exists on your phone and so if your phone was forced to do it it would take an unacceptably long amount of time i don't know what you would consider unacceptable but it would take longer it would take longer than it does when it runs server side and
John:
And so I'm not sure how that's going to shake out because we don't know what Apple's plans are with its LLMs.
John:
I would assume they're going to start conservative and maybe they're going, I mean, what we all wish is just say, look, just make it do everything Siri does but actually work this time.
John:
But that Siri does a large number of things.
John:
But I hope everything that Siri does is simple enough that an LLM could tackle it.
John:
Or again, as we discussed in the past, if you just put an LLM in front of the stupid Siri and had it figure out how to make Siri do what you actually asked for, that would be useful.
John:
But yeah, but HomePods have many things going against them.
John:
They do have weak hardware.
John:
Apple doesn't like to update them.
John:
And Apple's dedication to that entire product line has at various times been highly in question.
John:
So yeah, Ryan, my guess is you're probably going to have to buy a new HomePod.
Marco:
If they even make one that does this.
Marco:
I mean, keep in mind, too, like whatever Apple is going to do with Siri, they're going to have also these different levels of, quote, Siri.
Marco:
What does Siri mean?
Marco:
Because many of Apple's products have lower specced processors than the phones.
Marco:
The phones have these cutting edge and the Macs, of course, you know, the phones and iPads and Macs, they have these massively performing cutting edge processors, these huge neural engines that can run really advanced models and stuff.
Marco:
They also sell Apple Watches and Apple TVs and HomePods, all of which have Siri functionality.
Marco:
Now, we saw in the Series 9, may it rest in peace until it's for sale again, but we saw in the Series 9 and Ultra 2...
Marco:
They finally changed the SoC from a million years ago, and one of the things that you get with the new SoC is it does more Siri request processing on device.
Marco:
Previous Apple Watches seemed to do basically no Siri operations on device.
Marco:
It's part of the reason why Siri on the watch before was so bad and had such a high failure rate and was so slow because it was doing everything by going to the server.
Marco:
Current Apple Watch models at the high end are able to do some of that processing on device.
Marco:
iPhones have been doing a lot of on device Siri work for a while now.
Marco:
But, you know, the Apple Watch, you can look at the HomePod and you can say, well, they're going to have to put a higher end processor in there to be able to do that.
Marco:
And maybe they'll increase their costs.
Marco:
OK, you know, they might at some point do that.
Marco:
I don't think they will, but they might.
Marco:
But the watch is not a monetary problem.
Marco:
The watch is like there's no cost they can apply here to to build in iPhone class LLM execution into the Apple Watch of any similar year because it's just it's a way smaller power envelope and everything like that.
Marco:
So they're always going to have to have tiers of Siri of like, all right, we're going to do the full blown LLM smart thing all on device on the phone.
Marco:
But then what do they do on the watch?
Marco:
What do they do on the Apple TV?
Marco:
Whatever the answer to that is, that's probably the same thing that the HomePods will end up doing if they're ever updated for this.
Marco:
So I know I said a second ago that they're going to probably do everything on device, but it is kind of weird to think like, well, they can't do it on device on these much smaller processor products.
Marco:
So maybe they will have to have some version of it that runs on servers as well.
Marco:
But if they take every iPhone out of the picture and have the iPhones do everything or almost everything LLM-based locally on the hardware, that might make it a much more scalable service on the back end to serve only the smaller devices.
John:
this is a tug of war between uh their desire not to make a new home pod and their desire to have the llm power series on the home pod because if you want it on the home pod like they would wreck you to buy a new one but that means they would have to make a new one yeah so maybe like maybe what went out is like you know what we're not making new home pod just send it all to the server i know it will be slow but tough luck it's got to be that way and it's the least of the home pods problems
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And then the final item for Ask ATP is from listener John.
Casey:
Listener John, what do you got?
John:
It's not actually for me, but I wanted to hide the question from you two.
John:
I think now you need to like hide all your browser windows so you don't cheat.
John:
All right.
John:
Hiding.
John:
All right.
John:
I don't know.
John:
This is a question from Jim Callen who says.
Marco:
Wait, do I have to hide Slack and other things that are just web views?
John:
no no just no cheap no looking things up on the internet okay you and your wits okay all right now so jim callen writes can you name all the mac os version names in chronological order oh i saw this and i immediately noped right out of it well as long as you didn't research it you're fine so here's now before you you can be thinking while i'm saying this but before you say this i'm gonna say that i tried to do this straight up no cheating and could not
John:
I almost did it, but I did not.
John:
So I'm going to be honest and say that I did not succeed.
John:
So I'm going to assume neither one of you is going to two unless you cheat.
John:
Oh, God, no.
John:
But we'll see how you do.
John:
And if you want, you can collaborate with each other to try to come up with this together or you could try to do it individually.
John:
But before that, I'm going to say my first question is how many have there been?
John:
Major releases only, not counting betas, not counting dev things, not counting point releases.
John:
How many major releases of Mac OS X have there been?
John:
13?
John:
Probably something like 17 or 18.
John:
I don't know.
John:
Are we going to do like Price is Right rules?
Casey:
Yes, Price is Right rules.
John:
Marco wins 20.
Casey:
Oh, my gosh.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
I'm already off to a bad start.
John:
Hard to believe.
John:
All right.
John:
So now let's go from the top.
John:
Maybe you can do it together.
John:
What's the first one?
John:
And I'm going to demand version numbers and names because this just asks for version names.
Marco:
So I know John has said in the past that it was kind of ironic that the first one had a fast cat name because it was so slow.
Marco:
Was it like Puma or Cheetah?
Marco:
Was that one of the first ones?
Marco:
Jaguar?
Marco:
No, I think that was the third one.
John:
10.0.
John:
You see, for people who don't know, Marco and Casey did not come to the Mac until after the error they're trying to remember.
John:
So they're at a disadvantage.
Marco:
Yeah, my first Mac had whatever was before Tiger.
Marco:
Was it Panther?
Marco:
Yeah.
John:
oh man all right so i'm gonna say there's like cheetah jaguar panther i think was 10.3 you're going too fast let's just start with 10.0 what's your guess for 10.0 jeez i'll call that one cheetah you are right casey did you have any idea on that one no i was going to agree with marco but i don't know if i would have come up with that prior to marco having said so and yes it is it is the most hilarious name because it was the slowest version ever and they called it cheetah they burned that name real fast hilarious 10.1
Casey:
puma was that one of them i i uh yeah because we're not at tiger yet that was like three or four maybe tiger was four yeah that that sounds right to me so i'll go with puma yeah very good see you're working together 10.1 was indeed puma all right see 10.2 note like i i know 10.3 was panther i don't know what 10.2 was
Marco:
10.2?
Casey:
And we're not in the leopard and snow leopard era.
Marco:
No, that's all later.
Casey:
There's no lion that I recall.
Casey:
What other big cats are there?
Casey:
Ocelot?
Casey:
I don't even know.
John:
I'll give you a hint.
John:
It would be something that we would have fun making fun of the pronunciation of.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
Yeah, I've got nothing.
John:
Was it called X?
John:
Does the mispronounced word Jagwire mean anything to you?
Marco:
Oh, of course.
John:
Jaguar.
John:
Yeah.
John:
It's like a jag, but with a wire in it.
John:
Right.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Instead of saying the word Jaguar, apparently on the West Coast, people say Jagwire.
John:
Like it says W-I-R-E at the end of it.
John:
But anyway, Steve Jobs said Jagwire.
John:
It was called Jaguar.
Marco:
So that's 10.2.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
10.3, Panther.
John:
you're so sure of that one why is that because it was on the mac that you got yes is that correct all right yep that is that is correct all right 10.4 tiger yeah i think that's you're sure the tiger again because that's one of the ones that was on machines that you bought yes i had upgraded to tiger yeah so 10.4 tiger 10.5 was lion there was there was a lion 10.5 was not lion no i don't crap
Marco:
was there a lion yes it comes then and then mountain lion but oh right right right leopard leopard leopard yes 10.5 was leopard because then snow leopard i knew snow leopard was 10.6 all right yeah that's right there you go you're back solving good job okay all right so 10.7 was lion that's it it's because snow leopard was so great and lion was so bad all right then 10.8 was mountain lion mm-hmm
Marco:
now here 10.9 okay what the heck was after mountain lion it was they were still big cat names i think what you should also do and i found this was helping me as well i didn't actually need help until i got past the ones that i'd written reviews of obviously but eventually when i did need help what i started thinking trying to think of was uh wwc posters yeah no i think that doesn't help me at all i think 10.9 was when was when they switched to california names and i think the first california name might have been monterey casey do you remember not even close
John:
oh geez all right what are we still in cats oh is it catalina are we still in cats john i can tell you where you left off where you left off was 10.8 mountain lion and now you are flailing yeah no there was stuff yeah because i forget when they switched to california names no we're not yet not yet but i'll give you a hint and say this is when they switched to california names okay so what was the first california name they try to think back to wwdc posters mavericks
Casey:
No, that wasn't the first one.
Marco:
It was one of the first ones.
Casey:
I thought the first one almost made sense.
Casey:
And there was very, like, if you're going to choose.
Marco:
That's what Mavericks, because Mavericks has the weird plural that no one knew about except for Californians.
Casey:
Oh, wasn't it the one where they went on, they went out to get high in the Volkswagen bus?
Marco:
that's just all of california forever you're thinking of keynotes now instead of wwc posters yeah i was doing the same thing about weed remember weed yeah uh no marco was right 10.9 mavericks don't you remember the big poster with the wave that we were at the wwc the first one was maverick yeah because that it's it threw everyone off because it was not a cat and it had a weird plural thing all right so mavericks and then so now we're at 10.10 and i believe that was catalina
Casey:
I was going to say that, but then I thought, no, that's too soon.
Casey:
Oh, no.
John:
So you're having the same problem.
John:
So when I named these, I did obviously much better than you, but I did have this hole in my memory, and you're in the hole now.
John:
You're in what was my memory hole.
John:
What the hell was after Mavericks?
John:
Oh, man.
John:
Was that Monterey?
John:
I'll give you a hint on this one.
John:
I'll give you a hint on this one.
John:
It was the last Mac OS X review I wrote.
John:
that well yeah that matters a lot to you i don't remember that exactly we talked about on the show when i stopped writing it and also the version number what version are we on 1010 right so that's a good stopping point for me but what was that and we're in the california name so that narrows it down what was 1010 i'm gonna say catalina
Casey:
No, I don't think that.
Casey:
It's not Catalina yet.
Casey:
But I can't come up with what it is, though.
John:
I'll give you another hint.
John:
It was another name that had a pair.
John:
Big Sur.
John:
What is the pair with that?
Marco:
Oh, no.
Marco:
I thought you meant a pair of words.
John:
Previous names had pairs.
John:
Do you remember?
Marco:
Oh, yeah.
Marco:
There was like, you know, Tahoe and Suburban or whatever.
Marco:
I don't know.
John:
No, you just, you named, you named previous names with pairs earlier.
John:
Yeah, I know.
Marco:
I know.
Marco:
So, okay.
John:
What were the previous names with pairs?
John:
Just so I know that you understand.
Marco:
You know, leopard, snow leopard, that kind of thing.
Marco:
Yes, exactly.
Casey:
So here's a set.
John:
The next two coming up are pairs.
Casey:
I do not give a crap about Californian geography, and so they all just washed right over me.
Marco:
Wasn't it like the park and then the mountain Yosemite?
Marco:
Yosemite, that's it.
John:
Yosemite, and then there was... 1010 was Yosemite.
Marco:
Oh, and then... And then wasn't Big Sur inside of Yosemite?
Marco:
Isn't that a mountain in Yosemite?
Casey:
Big Sur is not Yosemite.
Casey:
No, you're right, though.
Casey:
It's the moon Yosemite.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
No, no, no, no.
Casey:
I think you're right.
Casey:
It's the big peak.
John:
It was snow Yosemite, right?
John:
Yes.
John:
Yes.
Casey:
No, it's that big peak inside Yosemite.
Casey:
You're right.
Marco:
I thought the big peak was Big Sur.
Marco:
No, it's not Big Sur.
John:
Don't you remember the best time?
Marco:
Oh, it has some name, like a butt.
Casey:
Oh, gosh.
Casey:
I can't think of what it was called.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
Oh, no.
Casey:
Oh, the Californians are going to be so angry at us.
John:
1010 is Yosemite.
John:
Here is a pair.
John:
What's another thing?
John:
What is Yosemite?
Casey:
it's national park right what's in that park some geysers and stuff the thing the big the big mountain peak what is that one called i don't know if i would have told you well can you name a mac os 10 version that might have been named something that's like a mountain name yeah big sir isn't that surf isn't that where you surf is it i don't know i thought big sir was where you surf
Marco:
I'm from Ohio.
Casey:
We didn't learn these things in school.
Casey:
I can't think.
Casey:
I can picture the backdrop.
Casey:
I can picture it.
Casey:
I can't think of the name of it.
John:
I'll give you a hint.
John:
It's two words.
John:
And the first one looks kind of Spanish.
Casey:
El Capitan.
Marco:
I would never have gotten there.
John:
El Cap.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yosemite.
John:
And what version number was that?
John:
Yosemite was 10.10.
John:
What was El Cap?
Marco:
That's 10.11.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
What's next?
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
10.12, I think, existed.
Casey:
1012 existed yeah because they didn't catalina i think they started using the numbers with 13 so 1012 oh jesus when do we get to catalina i mean you live you have these on your max like we're not in some obscure era that you don't like it's recent and yeah but the thing is i don't care about californian geography i just don't and so it meant nothing to me
Marco:
And by this point, too, at this point, we are well into the iOS era where iOS just has numbers, every version.
Marco:
It makes a lot of sense.
Marco:
And they're coming out every single year.
Marco:
It was one thing.
Marco:
When I had my first Mac, I could remember Leopard and Tiger and everything and Panther because...
Marco:
Those were only like every 18 months.
Marco:
It was more spaced out.
Marco:
There was less other stuff that I was tracking in the world because there weren't 17 platforms.
John:
All right.
John:
So I'll give you a hint on this next one.
John:
LCAP 1011 was your previous one, right?
John:
The next one is the first of a pair.
John:
The pair should be easy because it helps you, you know, like group them together.
John:
What's the next pair name?
John:
And you said the version was 1012.
John:
1012 was what?
Marco:
I love that you think that the version number will somehow remind me what this is.
Marco:
Like I knew Snow Leopard was 106 and, you know, Tiger, I knew the early ones.
John:
But again, if you are a Mac OS dev, you would probably be more familiar with these version numbers because you'd have to be doing the if availables on them.
John:
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah.
Marco:
and every man i as as a writer of frequent if available statements i wish apple would align all the numbers just like just skip them all so like next year is everything 18 like make it mac os 18 make it watch os 18 tv os 18 like just line it all up that would be great uh but anyway yeah i don't know what's a pair what's a mac os version named pair
John:
i think this is the last is it the last pair i don't know i don't think i think i think after this they went over to just numbers no but they're still was it no because we have sonoma yes there's and there's been sure somewhere in there on your card back we got to get up to the current version and see if you know what that is but anyway we're still stuck on we use monterey already what's a pet oh that's true monterey name the previous pairs
John:
monterey and then aquarium maybe no name the previous pair there's leopard snow leopard right lion mountain lion right uh yosemite el cap right and i'm gonna tell you that this pair is more like the first two pairs right it's like a it's a different word sir and big sir yeah good guess casey wrong but good guess that's what i'm getting at big and big sir um think of the desktop backgrounds maybe the default desktop backgrounds you might have used
John:
I got nothing.
John:
I'm tapped out.
Casey:
Well, Catalina's an island.
John:
Was there another island?
John:
You're doing so well, Marco.
John:
I can't believe you can't dig this one out.
John:
You got to Liz Miles this.
John:
What?
Casey:
What does that even mean?
Casey:
What does that even mean?
John:
That's more stuff I don't know.
John:
It's a Scottish lady who can talk her way into knowing the answer to questions that she seemingly didn't know the answer to.
John:
It is an amazing phenomenon.
John:
Listen to The Incomparable to hear it.
Marco:
Yeah, I don't have that.
Marco:
Whatever talent she has, I don't have it.
Casey:
Hold on.
Casey:
What do we have left?
Casey:
We have Sonoma left.
Casey:
I know that's not this one, but we have it left.
Casey:
We have Ventura.
Casey:
Ventura.
Casey:
Shoot.
Casey:
What I just had it.
Casey:
The island.
Casey:
Catalina.
Marco:
Catalina.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
We still didn't do Big Sur.
Marco:
There is a Big Sur, right?
Marco:
We didn't do it yet.
Casey:
There is a Big Sur.
John:
wait i gotta write this down a lot of these things are like within the length of the show like monterey was doing monterey do we do monterey yeah you have not gotten any those are all names that you have said but that are they are not yeah we didn't do monterey so is it like monterey then catalina because aren't those related i don't know they're all california that is not oh i was with you on that that's too bad would you like to give me give you a hint yeah yes please the pairing is word and then modifier word
John:
Yeah, I know that already.
John:
You told us that already.
John:
Your hints are terrible.
John:
Light Catalina and Dark Catalina?
John:
I'll give you another hint.
John:
This is a bigger one.
John:
The word starts with an S. Snow Catalina.
John:
No, not the modifier.
John:
The word.
John:
It's word and then modifier.
John:
Sonoma?
Marco:
No, we did that already.
Marco:
Well, we haven't gotten it.
John:
oh man it's i got nothing i yeah there's been so many we were running the show during these years we talked about these os releases at length on this very podcast using their names the whole time see this is where your memory hole is i did have a memory hole yours is worse than mine yeah at least i could name these but i couldn't like put them in the right order or whatever anyway but you're the mac guy like i you know i'm i'm just a mac guy but we all talked about on the show okay so i'll give you the final hint here the modifier
John:
How can I say this without giving you the actual word?
John:
The modifier.
John:
I just have to give you the word.
John:
The modifier.
John:
I'll give you a letter.
John:
The modifier begins with the letter H.
John:
So the word begins with an S and then it is H-S.
John:
Snow, Catalina.
John:
No, stop.
John:
H-S.
John:
Snow doesn't begin with an H. All right, well, I'm going to tell you the modifier and you're going to get it.
John:
Sierra and High Sierra.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Oh, well done.
John:
Well done.
John:
Sierra and High Sierra.
John:
And by the way, what version was High Sierra?
Marco:
I believe, wasn't that when they made it through?
Marco:
Okay, so.
John:
See, now it's tricky, doesn't it?
John:
We were at 10.11 before?
John:
10.11 is LCAP.
John:
10.12 is Sierra.
Marco:
Yeah, and then I think they said Mac OS 13.
Marco:
But you're wrong.
Marco:
That would have made sense.
John:
It was 14, wasn't it?
John:
Of course they wouldn't do that.
John:
Yes, that would totally make sense.
John:
That's not what they did.
Oh, my God.
Marco:
Oh, it was Mac OS 11.
John:
This is embarrassing.
John:
They called it Mac OS 11.
John:
They did not.
Oh, God.
Marco:
this is so embarrassing i'm an ios developer i don't know these things do you feel for for mac developers writing the availables now i mean i feel for mac developers on lots of fronts but right as an ios developer i have things very very very easy compared to most mac developers this is so bad sierra was 10 12 and high sierra was 10 was 11.0 god i don't know 10 13
Marco:
Well, if it's that, why are you making a video?
John:
10-12 and 10-13.
John:
All right, so we've done 10-12 Sierra, 10-13 High Sierra.
John:
Okay.
John:
What's the next one?
John:
Geez.
Marco:
Now are we... Wait, was this Monterey?
Marco:
Wasn't Monterey when they redesigned everything?
Marco:
Was that... No.
Marco:
It was an M when they redesigned everything, and I hated the toolbar design, but I forget which M. You mean like the look of the UI?
John:
You've gone through many different looks of the UI.
Marco:
Maybe that was Big Sur.
John:
Oh, God.
John:
Okay.
Marco:
So we haven't used Catalina yet.
John:
Let's start with the version number.
John:
What came after 1013?
Marco:
mac os 14 10 14 no or mac os 11.0 mac os did you say mac os 14 i did what version are we on now mark i don't know i think it's 13 is it 13 all right we'll set that aside for now all right it was not 14 was 11.0
John:
No.
Marco:
God.
Marco:
In that case, I'm going to say 10.14.
John:
That's right.
John:
10.14.
John:
And what was 10.14 called?
Marco:
I think we're at Catalina now.
Marco:
Yeah, I agree.
Marco:
But you're wrong.
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
Are we a big sir now?
John:
I'll give you a hint.
John:
I believe it was CFED up on stage when he announced this name.
John:
It's always CFED.
John:
All right.
John:
I'll give you another hint.
John:
Obviously, we're going through California things.
John:
I have to look this up to see if this hint is accurate.
John:
Hang on.
Casey:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
This is so bad.
Casey:
And you've done so much better than me.
Casey:
And I'm embarrassed for both of us.
Marco:
I'm imagining all the listeners just yelling at us right now.
John:
I mean, I have to say that the listeners, if they're honest with themselves, if you're not a Mac developer, there's no way you know these version numbers either, because unless you're like a kid and live through it.
John:
Okay, I'm going to say, all right, here's my hint on this one.
John:
This name, it's a California name, like we're still in the California zone here.
John:
It is more inland.
John:
than some of the other names.
John:
It's more inland than Mavericks, for sure.
Marco:
What's the wine place?
Marco:
That was Sonoma.
Casey:
That's Sonoma.
Marco:
We're there now, right?
Marco:
We're in Sonoma now.
Marco:
I can't even tell you the current version.
Marco:
That's how overwhelming these names always are to me.
Marco:
This is not the current version.
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
Where do they make wine and stuff?
Marco:
And they have farms.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
Sonoma.
John:
I'll give you another hint.
John:
Think of the color tan.
John:
Beigeoma.
John:
I don't know.
John:
What kind of geography is tan?
John:
Deserts.
John:
Can you name a desert in California?
John:
Oh, Mojave.
John:
That's right.
John:
Oh, good job.
Casey:
Good job.
Marco:
I was going to say, in all fairness, all of California is tan, but yeah.
Marco:
But yes.
Marco:
Okay, Mojave.
John:
10.14 Mojave with a J. I forgot about Mojave completely.
John:
Remember with the big desert slide?
John:
Remember the desert background?
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
I mean, now that you're saying it, I had totally forgotten that we had ever used that name.
John:
All right.
John:
What comes after 10.14 Mojave?
John:
Okay, then are we at Catalina?
John:
What version number do you think comes next?
Marco:
11.0.
John:
nope i'm gonna keep guessing eventually it'll be right numbers you always think that's when they change to no but no they didn't they did not they just would not change oh my god all right 10.13 would have been a great time to go to 13 and maybe the version numbers would be synced up now but they didn't do that they did 10.14 mojave 10.10.15 and what is 10.15 called
John:
is that catalina are we there yeah i think we're in catalina now it is catalina you're right now i mean this is like it's like five years ago 10.15 catalina then i think we had 11.0 big sir yay now we're coming into your memory your memory palace is working 11.0 big sir which is not in yosemite yeah
Marco:
okay i look i'm sorry california you don't know every detail about new york it's fine like it's a big world all right so i'm gonna say then we have mac os 12 uh wait we got big sir that was 12 right 11 was big sir 11 big sir okay so it was 12 catalina no you already did catalina oh my god was catalina 11 was big sir was did we do monterey yet
Marco:
No.
John:
You have not done Monterey.
Marco:
All right.
Marco:
So I'm going to say next is Monterey.
Marco:
That's right.
Marco:
12.0 Monterey.
Marco:
And now 13 is Sonoma, right?
Marco:
Wasn't there a V something?
Marco:
What are we on right now?
Marco:
Are we on 13?
Marco:
Mac OS 13 Viola.
Marco:
I don't know.
John:
Come on, guys.
John:
It was last year.
John:
I know.
John:
It was last year.
John:
Because I don't.
Marco:
Oh, gosh.
John:
It was the operating system on your computer last year.
Marco:
I told you, Mac OS 13 Viola is not Viola.
Marco:
Snow Sonoma.
Marco:
That's it.
John:
Big Catalina.
John:
Huge Catalina.
John:
Wow, I did not predict this.
John:
I thought for sure that you wouldn't know the old ones, and then when you got up to recent times, you'd be like, yeah, I can remember that.
Marco:
That was... Wait, was it a V, though?
Marco:
Do I have the V right?
John:
You do have the V right.
Marco:
What the heck was it?
Marco:
With a V. Hold on.
Marco:
With a V. Mac OS Vanilla.
Marco:
I don't... Oh, man.
Marco:
Mac OS Vienna?
Marco:
Mac OS Beclempt.
Casey:
No.
Casey:
I don't know.
John:
God, I don't know.
John:
It was last year.
Marco:
I know.
John:
That's why this is so embarrassing and frustrating.
John:
It's when my window dragging bug started.
John:
What version was that?
Casey:
Again, these are things that you know very well.
Casey:
Why are you doing Ventura?
Casey:
Ventura?
Casey:
Ventura?
Casey:
It's Ventura.
John:
I talked about it so much on the show.
Casey:
God damn it, you two.
Casey:
Shut up.
Casey:
It's Ventura.
Casey:
Just listen to me.
Casey:
Good grief.
Casey:
I finally got one on my own like an adult.
Casey:
All right.
John:
And now what comes after Ventura?
John:
Sonoma.
John:
What version number is that?
Casey:
14.
John:
And we're on present day.
John:
You did it.
John:
That was incredibly painful.
John:
I cannot believe it.
Casey:
Can we please, for the love of all that is good and holy, can we cut the sound of the release version?
Casey:
No.
Marco:
This is everyone's holiday gift from us.
John:
I cannot believe that.
John:
So I can tell you when I did it, obviously zero through 10, I noticed there were reviews of, right?
John:
And then I had this hole around Mojave Catalina and Big Sur that was just emptiness.
John:
And I knew those names.
John:
I'm like, when the hell did they come?
John:
And then I picked back up again with Monterey, Adventure, and Sonoma.
John:
So I found it very difficult.
John:
And then the numbering, I got tripped up the same way you did, Marco.
John:
I was like, when did they stop from the 10 point or whatever?
John:
And they just kept it on way longer than you think they did.
John:
Yeah.
John:
And yeah, it was ridiculous.
John:
Anyway, I thought that would be a fun thing to do.
John:
And it just goes to show how little attention people pay to these names anymore.
John:
But I think, Greg, if you're listening, keep going with the names because I love them.
John:
They're fanciful.
John:
If you want to come up with a new scheme instead of California place names, I'm all on bar with it.
John:
It's one of the many things that makes macOS better than iOS.
Marco:
If you're going to come up with a new scheme, align the numbers.
Marco:
That's it.
Marco:
Or at least give us some way that we can align them in the if available statements.
Marco:
Because the thing is, you always have to write the same pairings because the APIs across other platforms change in the same way each year.
Marco:
WatchOS 10 matches up with
Marco:
ios 17 and tv os whatever and mac os 14 and so you always have to write the same sequence so if there's there could be some way of like you know os 2023s like give us all the 2023 os's like if available 2023 os platforms then then this function can run well as you know or should know from web development you should really be checking for capabilities and not version numbers
Marco:
Yeah, but that's a lot harder in Swift.
Marco:
That's much harder.
Marco:
You can do it, but it's a lot harder and doesn't have as granular of control with a lot of this stuff.
John:
Anyway, that was a long-ass ATP, but now you'll never forget these numbers again.
John:
I've already forgotten them.
John:
To hear the names.
Casey:
I already forgot all of them.
Casey:
Yeah, me too.
Casey:
Just like that.
John:
It's Cheetah, Puma, Jaguar, Panther, Tiger, Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion, Mountain Lion, Mavericks, Yosemite, El Cap.
John:
Sorry, I always say it that way.
John:
Sierra High, Sierra, Mojave, Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, Ventura, and Sonoma.
John:
And they switched to the 11 numbering after 10-15.
Oh, my God.
Casey:
If we were the triumvirate or whatever, I'm probably using that word wrong, to come up with the naming scheme for future versions of macOS, what would we choose?
Casey:
What would be our naming scheme?
Marco:
18, 19, 20.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
Yes, yes, yes.
Marco:
I get that.
Marco:
The marketing names.
Casey:
The marketing names.
Casey:
18, 19, 20.
Marco:
18, 19, 20.
John:
Boo.
John:
That's so boring.
Casey:
That is so boring.
Casey:
They do it for all of their other OSs.
Casey:
It's fine.
Casey:
Can you play in the space with me, please?
John:
Come on.
John:
Here's what I would do, Casey.
John:
I will play in the space with you because I'm not a spoiled sport like Marco.
John:
I would do animals.
John:
I liked the big cat names, but obviously when you pick something limiting like big cats, there were more big cats, by the way.
John:
They just showed us not to use them.
John:
But I like the animal names, and I would be more expansive than saying it has to be cats or even just mammals or whatever because there are so many cool animals, animals that look cool in marking materials and animals with names that sound cool.
John:
I would go back to animals.
Casey:
I don't know what I would do.
Casey:
What would I do?
Casey:
What about, like, elements that are related to, like, computing?
Casey:
So, silicon is the obvious example, but, you know, other elements that are... Yeah, or something like that.
Casey:
You know, macOS titanium, that has a cool ring to it.
Casey:
I think macOS silicon is cool.
John:
Yeah, but then they get to, like, Einsteinium and stuff, and it's really like, hmm.
Casey:
I mean, you don't have to choose that one, John.
Casey:
You could...
John:
Yeah, I mean, there are a bunch of cool element names, but you run out of them real quick, I think.
Casey:
Or what about celestial bodies that are easily named?
John:
I don't know.
John:
Oh, everyone's waiting for Mac OS Uranus.
Casey:
Can that be the title?
Casey:
Please, dad.
Casey:
Please, dad.
Casey:
Please, please, please, please, please.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I'm just curious if we had any good ideas.
Casey:
Marco, do you have anything you'd like to share?
Casey:
I'm surprised neither of you said some sort of BS New York geography or something like that.
Casey:
Like all the islands that are or are not Long Island.
John:
I think it's only a California thing that they think their place names are so awesome.
John:
All our place names are, you know, sort of Anglicized, mangled Native American names anyway.
John:
And it's, you know,
John:
I'm not holding out for macOS Hophog, although they did make the Hophog win TV card, so who knows?
John:
There is some precedent.
Marco:
Those were the best TV tuners, and I owned, I think, one or two of them in my college years, and I always said hoppage in my head because I had no idea.
John:
Same, same.
John:
But I lived in Hoppog, so I didn't have that problem.
John:
And over my back fence when I lived in Hoppog was what we called the Hoppog Industrial Park.
John:
And I would go through the dumpsters of the companies like the company that eventually would make Hoppog Win TV and dig out all sorts of electronics, like big speakers and stuff and printed circuit boards and wires.
Marco:
The best thing about the Hoppage TV tuners is that they, as part of their name, had an exclamation point at the end, like Yahoo.
Marco:
So it was Hoppage!
Marco:
I always felt like I really had to announce it.
John:
It's not Hoppage!
John:
Just say the name right.
John:
well i'm at the time you know 17 or 18 year old me said hoppage although it kind of amazes me that a they would pick a name like that that they knew would be difficult to pronounce but b if i had a company name that i knew was difficult to pronounce and i really wanted it because it had some meaning to me the most prominent thing on the home page of every piece of literature i put out would be a pronunciation guide and yet they didn't so now this is what happens you get hoppage
Marco:
Thank you so much to our sponsors this week for sitting through that.
Marco:
The sponsors, I can't imagine they would have gotten through that.
Marco:
Anyway, they're wonderful anyway.
Marco:
Squarespace and Green Chef.
Marco:
And thank you to our members who support us directly and maybe who also got through that somehow after listening to our show.
Marco:
You can join us at atp.fm slash join.
Marco:
And we will talk to you next week.
John:
And now the snow is falling.
John:
Their kids are building snowmen.
John:
It's accidental.
John:
Accidental.
John:
Holiday fun time.
John:
Holiday fun time.
John:
John's gonna make snow angels.
John:
Marco and Casey are gonna let him.
John:
It's accidental.
John:
Accidental.
John:
Syracuse angels.
Marco:
Holiday fun time.
Marco:
And you can find the show notes deep in Santa's beard.
Marco:
And follow them on Twitter for holiday fun time cheer.
John:
At C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S-K-C-L-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-G-M-O-R-M-E-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S
John:
It's an accidental, accidental snowball fight.
Marco:
It's an accidental, accidental holiday tech podcast so long.
Marco:
So I had a bit of an adventure earlier this evening that I feel like you're going to want to know about.
Casey:
Oh, no.
Casey:
I don't like where this is going at all.
Marco:
So I was driving back onto the beach tonight.
Casey:
I really don't like where this is going at all.
Marco:
And as I approach the cut in the dune that you drive through to get from the beach to the side streets, I see there is a giant chain across it and it says no vehicular traffic.
John:
If only there was an app you could have checked for this.
Marco:
Yeah, right.
Marco:
So I had to turn around and go back to the previous cut and cut in there earlier and then drive on more of the interior roads.
Marco:
So I turn around and promptly got stuck.
Marco:
How did you do that?
Marco:
Well, turning around on a less trafficked part of the beach, like a closed cuts on ramp is there's a lot of powdery loose sand at that point.
Marco:
had you had you come to a stop had you come to a complete stop at the chain and then like how did you like reverse three-point turn like what is the maneuver you're performing here i did a three-point turn um because it at that point the beak's just pretty skinny it wasn't quite enough room to do a big loop around um especially without stopping uh so i had to do a three-point turn and i did a really bad job of it and got myself extremely stuck in the sand at what point in the turn did you get stuck
Marco:
um i guess the third point like as i'm pulling in the other direction and i think i was gonna make another california joke but i think people in other parts of the country might also call this a k turn oh i guess that makes sense all right anyway so so when i first got my sand permit the other people who have lived here for years they said everyone gets stuck
Marco:
And I said, I'm going to see if I can never get stuck.
Marco:
And I really thought, I'm going to get the greatest vehicles that can do this.
Marco:
I'm going to have all my gear in the front.
Marco:
I have the Max Trax Pro traction boards.
Marco:
I have all these different ropes and stuff.
John:
Well, wait a second.
Marco:
Once you're using those, aren't you already stuck there?
Marco:
Yes, but I've used them only three or two times so far to help out other people who were stuck.
Marco:
And they actually work pretty well.
Marco:
If you're not too, too stuck, they actually work quite nicely.
Marco:
So here I am.
Marco:
I do my three-point turn, and on the last point of it, I'm not going anywhere.
Marco:
And I made a critical mistake.
Marco:
I hit the gas harder.
John:
Press harder on the gas, yeah.
Marco:
And then I realized, oh, no.
John:
And by the way, on the topic, if you're like, I'm not going to get stuck and everyone gets stuck, I'm pretty sure there is no vehicle in existence that will not get stuck in enough, loose enough sand.
John:
I say this, the only thing I can think of is maybe, you know that dump truck you always see in the books for kids that are like the size of a seven-story building, like in mines, you know that one?
John:
Maybe that one.
John:
It's not possible for it to get stuck in sand.
John:
But I think like an Abrams tank could get stuck in sand.
John:
Like there is no like a monster truck could get stuck.
John:
I don't think there's any vehicle with wheels that is of a reasonable size that cannot get stuck in sand under the right conditions because that is the nature of sand.
John:
don't don't don't because it moves out of the way and allows your vehicle to sink maybe i'm wrong maybe someone knows that like actually this vehicle there's there is a vehicle of a reasonable size that literally can never get stuck in sand but i immediately went to like military vehicles with like tank treads and stuff no they can get stuck in sand too so i mean if there is one that exists there have to be something kind of like a tank or i guess how our graphs don't count
John:
So don't feel too bad because I think you are like, you know, it's going to happen.
John:
I mean, obviously driving skill and choices can help you a lot here, but your number was up.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And this is why too, like, I mean, I do definitely blame myself in the fact that
Marco:
I've gotten too cocky with the Rivian because it has proven to be so insanely capable off-road in all other ways.
Marco:
And look, as before, the Land Rover Defender was an amazing off-road vehicle overall.
Marco:
The Rivian's even better.
Marco:
It is fantastically good off-road.
Marco:
It is an amazing off-road vehicle, in addition to being an amazing vehicle in pretty much every other way as well.
Marco:
I'm very happy with the Rivian.
Marco:
But it is, in particular, as a sand-driving vehicle, it is fantastic.
Marco:
I'm very happy with it.
Marco:
And so I've gotten accustomed to being able to basically drive however I want on the sand and it'll work itself out.
Marco:
You know, I don't, you know, take crazy risks or anything.
Marco:
You know, I'm not like driving into the water or anything, but I've learned that I've gotten into the habit of not really...
Marco:
not really avoiding any sections of the beach sand because I figure, oh, yeah, I'll just drive through it.
Marco:
It's fine.
Marco:
And that was that was my mistake in this case, because this was a very, very like soft, powdery, deep section.
Marco:
That's based on we had a bunch of storms recently, so it's all everything's all messed up.
Marco:
So this is this is like a kind of newly soft and newly squishy section that was the wrong time to turn around.
Marco:
So anyway, I got myself really stuck and I thought, OK,
Marco:
I've prepared for this.
Marco:
I've watched all the videos from all the Australian off-roaders telling me how to do things.
Marco:
I have all this gear.
Marco:
I know what to do.
Marco:
Let me try to do it.
Marco:
So first thing I try to do is just try like, you know, very slow backing out because reverse seemed like the easier way to get out of what I was in.
Marco:
So I tried, you know, very slowly trying to make the wheels really crawl.
Marco:
Let me tell you, the Rivian is not good at this.
Marco:
Other off-roaders have a crawl mode or some kind of sand creep mode.
John:
There's not an electronic mode that changes the throttle response to the pedal and is essentially the equivalent of crawl mode?
Marco:
I could not find one.
Marco:
So there is a soft sand drive mode, which is what I use when I'm on the sand.
Marco:
um but it does not seem to do that uh so there is there is i couldn't find anything that was like i am stuck get me out um whereas other offerters will have various techniques to do that some of them will like use the suspension like a like a trampoline almost and like kind of try to bounce you out some of them will have these these creep modes that will try to slowly creep with all the wheels and slowly crawl you out as far as i can tell rivian doesn't have that um they could add it in software i think but but they don't so i tried just like you know slowly crawling the wheels out no dice
Marco:
I tried then lowering the tire pressure on all the wheels even further.
Marco:
I was about to ask.
Marco:
Yeah, because I've heard you can basically just lower the tire pressure and probably just drive out carefully.
Marco:
And I also had the Max Trax boards.
Marco:
So I tried digging out.
Marco:
I mean, the problem was it was deep.
Marco:
I was like, well, unfortunately, Casey, I did not take a picture because it was dark.
John:
I was going to say, we talked about this when you first were talking about having a sand thing.
John:
When you do get stuck, you need to document it, and you didn't.
Marco:
I know because it was dark and it's freezing.
Marco:
It's December.
Marco:
I know.
John:
That's the best part.
John:
We wanted to see the suffering.
John:
Just like, look how terrible this condition is.
John:
And by the way, I think when you were envisioning getting stuck, maybe you weren't envisioning doing it with a 7000 pound vehicle.
Marco:
Possibly, yeah.
Marco:
Certainly the weight of the Rivian is not... That is the one downside of it being... It's not helping you, especially when you're trying to wedge things under the wheels.
Marco:
Right, exactly.
Marco:
But it was so deep, and it was deep enough that the Rivian itself was also complaining that there was something under it.
Marco:
It starts showing these alert messages like, caution, there's something under your vehicle, right?
Marco:
And it's like, yeah, I know.
Marco:
There's a lot of small things under the vehicle, actually.
Marco:
But anyway, so what the Rivian will do if it is like...
Marco:
if it thinks that you are like hitting something it just stops the vehicle and puts it in park so i'd be able to like you know creep the wheels a little bit or spin them a little bit and then it would just beep park and stop me like that's even when it's in the off-road sand mode so i'm like okay that's that's not great
Marco:
that's that's actively fighting against me in addition to the lack of any kind of you know easy creep mode and so the anyway some a driver comes by another driver comes by and they're like the guy rolls into me he's like hey i he's like i i can't help you but do you want me to call for help someone else to help you because you're gonna need help getting out of that and of course i was like thank you but i actually let me try first you know because i don't want to like call someone have them come all the way out here let me see if i can get out first the guy's like all right cool and he he leaves okay great are you still on the beach now
Marco:
podcasting for your car let me just try refuse help i think i can do it i have a new idea that would be so amazing like i don't want that for you and yet i want it for the show all right so next thing i try is i'm going to do the full-blown max track experience and and by the way as you say at this point like the my my efforts to get myself out have only made the problem worse and now the bottom of the vehicle is resting on sand so that's really bad no that that is not good that's like that's as bad as it gets good
Marco:
Yeah, that you really don't want.
Marco:
So I had the great idea.
Marco:
Hey, I was in the standard ride height mode.
Marco:
The sand mode normally has a higher ride height.
Marco:
So let me try lifting the suspension.
John:
Yeah, the 19 mile an hour one.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
so i hit the button to raise the suspension and it says highest and it blinks for a little while and it's like and then it's then it's claims to be done and i look down i'm like i don't think it looks any different in fact i look pretty close to the sand still uh so i'm like i don't think that worked um anyway so we start digging out tiff gets the shovel tiff and adam are in the car my whole family's in the car oh great yeah of course that of course they would be yeah of course yeah and they didn't take any pictures
John:
yeah i got one at the end you'll see anyway so so tiff gets out she starts shoveling under one wheel i start going i'm like trying all my you know tricks of like i'm gonna wedge it under the wheel in this one way so this is why if you had more experience on the beach making sand castles this is where that would come in handy if you build those giant trenches to let the ocean come in if you tried to build the moat to keep the ocean out digging in sand suddenly those skills a lifetime of skills a childhood spent on the beach now it's time for those skills to shine
Marco:
i know right and and so if i had a lot of time and a lot of patience from my family and a lot of shovel ability and it wasn't so freezing because it's again it's december uh it's cold so like tiff and i are digging out and like our hands are frozen like tiff like tore through her gloves like it was there's sand everywhere like it was a disaster
Marco:
um fortunately soon enough after that the mayor drove by just coincidentally he was going home and he's like ah rookies he knows instantly like yeah we're gonna need to get pulled out so he turns his giant um i think he i think it's a suburban or something he turns that whole thing around uh i i pull out my my toe rope and my shackles and all that stuff i got i got loops in the front so
Marco:
tie it up and he yanks me out and it took two seconds.
Marco:
I'm like, yeah, okay.
Marco:
I guess I need help sometimes.
Marco:
I need to ask for help sometimes.
Marco:
It turns out he pulled me out and
Marco:
You know, three minutes of total time, whereas, you know, I was freezing my butt off and freezing Tiff's hands off trying to shovel myself out.
Marco:
So I think if again, like if I had a lot more time, if I had like if no one had come by and I had to get myself out, I think with enough time and digging, I could have.
John:
You could just build a dig a tunnel to your house and then drive the car.
Marco:
But it was I'm very glad I didn't have to.
Marco:
And certainly, you know, taking help from somebody driving by was the way to do it.
Marco:
And this this kind of doubles my commitment to I'm very happy that I am equipped to be that person.
Marco:
If if I encounter someone else who stuff like I have enough gear that even if I encounter somebody who has no gear, no rope, nothing like I can probably pull them out.
Marco:
And so I like the idea that we all help each other out here.
Marco:
It's wonderful.
Marco:
It's one of the best things about this community.
Marco:
But anyway, so got pulled out.
Marco:
And so anyway, so as I'm driving back, the car is still saying, you know, 20 mile an hour limit.
Marco:
And so it's in the high suspension mode.
Marco:
So I try lowering the suspension back to the regular standard height so I can go faster because it's kind of difficult to drive on the beach with that speed limit without being stuck in the ruts you're already in, as Casey was describing two weeks ago.
Marco:
And so I tap the button to lower the suspension, and it just doesn't respond.
Marco:
It does nothing.
Marco:
The suspension stays at the high state.
Marco:
I stay at 20 miles an hour state, whatever.
Yeah.
Marco:
Like, OK, well, I'm sure I'm sure all the crazy, you know, warnings about stuff being under the car and everything.
Marco:
I'm sure I have to, like, you know, let the car recover.
Marco:
Maybe I have to, like, spray some sand out of somewhere with a hose or something.
Marco:
So I get back to the house in turtle mode and 20 mile an hour mode.
Marco:
Very slowly.
Marco:
And every time I turn, I hear like rubbing.
Marco:
I'm like, oh, God, it's like sand and sand is somewhere bad.
Marco:
And like as I'm turning, it's like chunking it off probably.
John:
Is there a max track stuck in your wheel well?
Marco:
No, I got them all back.
Marco:
My front is now full of sand.
Marco:
But anyway, I got back to the house and I get out of the car and I notice I am much closer to the sidewalk than I usually am getting out of my car.
Marco:
The car thought it was in the highest suspension setting.
Marco:
Oh, no.
Marco:
But you get out of it and it looked like a low rider.
Marco:
The rubbing I was hearing was the tire rubbing against the wheel arch on turns.
Casey:
Oh, no.
Casey:
Oh, that is not desirable.
Casey:
No.
Marco:
And so I'm like, this is not good.
Marco:
So I park the car in front of my house.
Marco:
I go get the hose.
Marco:
I hose everything out of all the wheels and wheel wells.
Marco:
And there is just...
Marco:
massive quantities of sand like stuck in all the wheels like the the sidewalk looks hilarious after i moved the car because like it's just covered in sand from having fallen off my car i finally get everything out and you know during this process i'm out of the car you know hosing stuff out so the car is in park and is like turning itself on and off as i approach and go away with the proximity phone feature
Marco:
Eventually, I get back in the car to go move it to its driveway.
Marco:
I tried tapping the suspension button to put it back.
Marco:
And it says, check for obstructions under the vehicle.
Marco:
Is it clear of obstructions now?
Marco:
And I said, yes.
Marco:
And it said it was lowering the ride height.
Marco:
And I thought...
Marco:
I don't think I want it to go any lower because that would be crashing into itself.
Marco:
There's nowhere else for it to go lower.
Marco:
So I was a little scared, but fortunately it raised it back to standard height.
Marco:
So it seems to have worked.
Marco:
It seems to have been some kind of weird software detection of the sand below it where I guess it like...
Marco:
disabled the suspension in some ways to make it sink all the way down?
Marco:
I don't know.
John:
Does it have air suspension?
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
I think there is some way that this could be maybe a bug or unintended behavior because like seeing how it drove off the beach in totally flat low rider mode
Marco:
No wonder I couldn't get out.
Marco:
If that's how it got itself, like when I tried to lift it and it didn't look like it was lifting, that's because it wasn't lifting.
Marco:
Had I been able to lift the suspension all the way up, maybe it would have been easier to get it out.
Marco:
Or maybe you just would have dug yourself down another foot.
Marco:
I mean, it's possible.
Marco:
Look, I'm not going to say I have the best technique in the world.
Marco:
This is the first time I ever got stuck.
Marco:
I'm not very good at it yet.
Marco:
But I will say, yeah, based on all of this, and we'll see tomorrow if I'm able to drive off the beach normally.
Marco:
Probably.
Marco:
It seems like it was reset to normal condition again.
Marco:
And of course, I'm going to bring it to a car wash tomorrow and have everything really blasted out.
Marco:
But
Marco:
I think the Rivian is so far proving to be an amazing vehicle to drive on the sand, but it was actually a pretty awful vehicle to get stuck in the sand with.
Marco:
And that seems to be something they could probably improve with software.
John:
Although I have to say, if the air suspension was, the bladders were fully compressed, I would still not expect the front wheels to be scraping against the wheel wells.
John:
It surprised me that the suspension geometry is such that in fully compressed mode,
John:
that it could have that kind of failure mode where the wheels are rubbing.
John:
Although I'm not entirely sure where they're rubbing.
John:
I would look at that and say, have I done damage to the inside of my wheel wells with my wheels?
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't a ton of rubbing and it was at very low speeds for only a small number of turns.
Marco:
So I don't think it would have damaged anything permanently.
Marco:
But yeah, it was concerning to me that like, wow, it looks like the car is broken basically.
Marco:
But once I reinflated it afterwards,
Marco:
It seems to be normal now.
Marco:
But yeah, so we'll see.
Marco:
But yeah, overall, I got myself stuck for the very first time in the sand.
Marco:
I was not able to easily get myself out.
Marco:
I had to rely on a wonderful tow from the mayor, which took two seconds and it made me instantly realize it is so much easier to have someone else help you than to try to do it yourself.
Marco:
And finally, the Rivian is a terrible vehicle when it gets stuck in the sand.
Marco:
But as long as it's not getting stuck in the sand, it's an amazing vehicle.
John:
Well, you don't have anything to compare it to because you didn't get stuck with the other vehicles.
Marco:
You know what I mean?
Marco:
That's true, but I think it's the computerized features of it.
John:
Yeah, the fact that it was going into park and stuff like that.
Marco:
Yeah, it kept going into park and the suspension obviously did not behave correctly.
Marco:
So, you know, something went wrong there where it's really not made, it really was not designed to get yourself out of that kind of thing very easily.
Marco:
And sure, probably I would have needed help anyway, you know, or at least it would have taken me a very long time to help myself out.
Marco:
But if they made a few tweaks to the software, this could be a lot less crappy.
John:
i know this probably wouldn't have helped you in your situation especially looking at the pictures and knowing the geography you're dealing with but if you had a winch and something to attach it to you could pull yourself out but you didn't have a winch and you wouldn't have anything to attach to anyway that's yeah i i thought about like when i when i was first equipping myself for off-road stuff i i thought about getting a winch but first of all they are very expensive and very large aren't they an option on the rivian could you get it from the factory
Marco:
i don't think so no um there was one for the defender actually there was an option for that but um but the other thing is like for most places where you're getting stuck anything you'd attack to would be too far away like you're looking at like you know it's for the forest where you have trees yeah exactly you know here it might be like 200 feet away to the nearest thing you could attack to so it probably wouldn't be sturdy enough to pull a 7 000 pound truck out
John:
What are you going to attach it to?
John:
Are you going to attach it to some beach grass?
Marco:
They do have stuff you can stick into the sand and then attach a winch to it to perform some kind of anchor.
Marco:
Again, you're getting pretty esoteric at this point.
Marco:
If I got stuck once in two years, that's not that crazy.
Marco:
The tow rope worked fantastically.
Casey:
I'm glad you survived.
Casey:
So in the span of December, because it was December 1st that I almost destroyed your car, I believe.
Casey:
So this December has not, it has been a December to remember for the Rivian for sure.
Casey:
Or a December it wants to forget.
Marco:
I mean, in all fairness, though, like once we, you know, once we got off the beach with your experiment and then once I got off the beach with my stuff and the car had a chance to like reset itself, it did go back totally to normal.
Marco:
But I think, you know, when I spoke to somebody who advised like maybe I should just bring it in, just get everything checked out at some point just to make sure nothing's wrong.
Marco:
I think I'm going to probably do that after the holidays.
Marco:
I think I'm going to bring it in.
John:
I would suggest that.
John:
Yeah.
John:
It's the time for you to give them the feedback of the software changes they can make, like not having the thing put itself into park when it's afraid that, you know, that's, that's the thing that dumb, uh, older, dumber vehicles is like, well, they'll let you flog them until you break them.
John:
And this one is trying to protect itself, but in the process sort of like not letting you, you know, do what you want.
John:
It's kind of like, uh, the, the first bad versions of traction control that essentially made it impossible to go pills in the winter.
Marco:
Yeah.
John:
because because the brake it would apply the brakes and you would like i'm getting some progress up the hill and be like whoa i feel a wheel slightly sweeping let me apply the brakes and it would just come to a stop yeah exactly well i'm glad you survived all of you tell you what man i was cold i was very cold it's like advice to give my kids did you not have appropriate uh clothing for the weather and what my kids would say is i'm not going to be outside it doesn't matter and i bet that's what you were thinking when you were driving home but look you were outside
Marco:
No, I always carry appropriate clothing for the weather in the car because I always think if I get stuck, I'm going to have to be outside for a while.
Marco:
I better have like a hat and gloves and a good jacket.
Marco:
I had all those things.
Marco:
I was wearing none of them because at every single point I thought I was only going to be there for a minute.
John:
What?
John:
You had the stuff, and you didn't put it on?
John:
Yep.
John:
As I see you in the picture, not wearing a coat, not wearing a hat, not wearing gloves.
John:
That's correct, because at every single point, I thought, all right, I'm stuck.
John:
Your moments from freedom.
Marco:
Yeah, but it'll just be a second, and I'll just do this one thing, and I'll be able to get out.
John:
When you took out the Max Trax, that would be the time to put on the coat and the hat, I think.
John:
Yeah, probably.
John:
Because it's not going to take you a second at that point.
John:
Yeah.
John:
When you get the shovels out, and you're like, shh, one more second, just probably this shovel full will do it.
John:
I don't know.