Desktop Laptop
Marco:
it's the lead up to the holidays and there's a lot of projects in the air you know like there's there's not only you know the typical holiday stuff of like well better make sure we get gifts for everybody um we also unfortunately i have been unable as of yet to convince my extended family that adults no longer need presents at christmas
Marco:
In addition to gift giving, you have stuff like sending out Christmas cards, which fortunately my lovely wife Tiff does the vast majority of the work for that.
Marco:
So that's good.
Casey:
Can we just pause there?
Casey:
I hope that you appreciate the amount of freaking labor that takes because I am the de facto Christmas card person in my family and...
Casey:
It is so frustrating and takes so much more time and money than it should.
Casey:
All for, as Aaron is off to remind me, people to look at and go, oh, lovely, and then throw in the trash.
Casey:
I really, really love the tradition.
Casey:
I really do.
Casey:
And I find it very enjoyable and a lot of fun.
Casey:
to, to think about what I want to send, but the actual sending and like working with these God awful websites that, that are, that you use to like generate these cards.
Casey:
I mean, maybe Tiff actually puts everything together in like Photoshop or something like that.
Casey:
I'm not at that advanced.
Marco:
No, no, no.
Marco:
She, she uses the God awful websites and that's, that's part of the frustration of this time of year.
Marco:
Um, you know, cause like, cause of course, you know, the first few days of December, everyone goes to do it at about the same time.
Marco:
And so these websites crumble under the load and, you know, you can imagine a,
Marco:
A fairly mediocre web app, even in the best of days, is not the best user experience, right?
Marco:
But to add to the mediocre and crappy user experience, also like server lag and delays and occasionally lost work because something timed out, like it's a mess.
Casey:
It's infuriating.
Casey:
and so like this year I actually so last year I put in a reminder for myself to in like mid-November like really start getting the process going because my typical MO is that I just plain don't think about it until December and then I'm like crap I gotta get the show on the road and so like mid-December I'm like going through pictures trying to figure out the ones I like but
Casey:
Then I realized I didn't have like a good hero picture, you know, like a good picture of all of us.
Casey:
First good day to do it was this past weekend.
Casey:
And so then we have to, you know, get everyone dressed up and do the picture and blah, blah, blah.
Casey:
And now I'm like delayed getting everything to the printer.
Casey:
And then the printer is going to take like a week or two to print it.
Casey:
And then it doesn't arrive here until like four days before Christmas.
Casey:
And I like...
Casey:
put all these undue goals, I guess, on myself.
Casey:
And I always fail every year.
Casey:
And so then I get frustrated.
Casey:
And of course, because I'm a turd, I take it out on Aaron.
Casey:
And then Aaron's like, why are you getting frustrated?
Casey:
This is stupid.
Casey:
We're just, everyone's going to put these in the trash in a week anyway.
Casey:
Why do we care?
Casey:
I'm like, well, yes, but, but it's so enjoyable.
Casey:
And of course she looks at me and she's like, is it now?
Casey:
So it's, I love it and I hate it so much.
Casey:
So all of that is many, many words to say.
Casey:
I hope that you do indeed appreciate the work that Tiff is surely putting in for this because it is such a pain in the tuchus.
John:
I think this is a good time for me to announce that the Syracuse family will not be sending cards this year.
John:
So YouTube in particular, when you don't get a card from us, don't be insulted.
John:
We're not sending them to anybody.
John:
Why?
John:
Because we didn't get our acts together soon enough and we have too much other crap.
John:
So it's like...
John:
We made a different call than the Liss family, but we're in a similar situation.
John:
We're just like, nope, can't do it.
John:
So if you're listening to this and you normally get a card from me when you don't get one this year, don't be insulted.
John:
We just are not sending them out this year.
John:
If you'd like to see a picture of us, let me know.
John:
But we more or less look the same.
Casey:
Sorry, Marco, like 30 minutes ago, you were trying to make a point and I totally derailed you.
Casey:
I'm sorry.
Marco:
I don't remember where it was anymore.
Marco:
Oh, I think the point was the holidays are stressful.
Marco:
Yes, indeed.
Marco:
And many projects are going.
Casey:
Or not going in my case.
Casey:
Yeah, I was saying to the boys before the show that we just picked up our Christmas tree and we are a believer in the live Christmas trees here in the List household.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And this is unremarkable in and of itself, but this is Penny's first Christmas with a Christmas tree, because we adopted her just before New Year's last year.
Casey:
And my limited understanding is that it is probably not good for her to chew on said Christmas tree, which is probably... Penny is a dog, just...
Casey:
Yes, sorry.
Casey:
Penny, my dog.
Casey:
That wasn't clear at this point.
Casey:
No, it's our third child, Penny.
Casey:
Anyways, it's going to be an adventure keeping her from just eating every bit of that tree.
Casey:
And so we're going to see how that goes.
Casey:
Ask me about this next week when the tree has been moved outside or something like that.
John:
I think it'll be fine.
John:
Cats are the biggest jerks with Christmas trees.
John:
Dogs are usually good about it.
Casey:
Well, cats are jerks in general, so, I mean, what are you going to do?
John:
So, I already said that we totally failed, did not finish on the holiday cards.
John:
Christmas tree, weren't ready to give up on that one, but we did wait too long, and I went to get a tree, and it was...
John:
Slim Pickens, literally, like all the trees were super skinny.
John:
Oh, that's fine.
John:
It's a Charlie Brown tree then.
John:
No, they weren't like, it's not that they weren't like, you know, the density of foliage and branches was fine.
John:
They were just, instead of being triangular shaped, they were more like tube shaped.
John:
And so they didn't get fatter as they went down.
John:
So it was like a pipe cleaner, like a big, bushy pipe cleaner.
John:
And I asked the person, like, what's the deal?
John:
Why are all the trees skinny this year?
John:
And I said, I don't know, these are the trees that we got.
Marco:
They're teenagers.
John:
Yeah, and our problem is we have really low ceilings in our ancient New England house here.
John:
So even the ones that were like nine feet tall, there would no way they would fit in our house.
John:
Even those didn't get wide at the bottom.
John:
But I had to pick one that would fit, you know, I had to pick like a seven foot tree that would fit in our tiny little house.
John:
And those just look like pipe cleaners.
John:
So I got the best one I could.
John:
Uh, and we put it in the garage as we usually do because waiting to the weekend to bring it in.
John:
Um, and it was sitting there in the garage looking like a sad pipe cleaner.
John:
Um, and my wife just couldn't take it.
John:
And she said, you know what?
John:
I'm going out and getting a better tree.
So,
John:
She went and got a better tree and it is better.
John:
She did find a better tree at a place.
John:
It's like close to her work, but not really close to us.
John:
So now we have two Christmas trees, a reject one and a better one.
John:
So that's kind of how the holidays are going for us.
John:
I mean, yeah.
Marco:
Where does the reject one live in the house?
John:
They're both in the garage right now.
John:
The reject one is laying on the floor in the garage, and the good one is in the stand in water, so it's trying to keep it alive.
John:
So you're just slowly starving the bad one?
John:
I don't know what we're going to do with that.
John:
We're having difficulty.
John:
I'm not going to get into all my difficulties.
John:
There will be an after-show update, freezer update, for people who want to know.
John:
But there is much more going on than just that.
John:
Maybe it'll wait for a Wreck Diffs episode in the future.
John:
Oh, God.
Casey:
No, you got to give us that content, man.
Casey:
Come on.
John:
It's too much.
John:
It's too much.
John:
There's too much.
John:
You don't understand.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
So wait.
Casey:
So I thought my impression was there was almost not enough room in your garage for air, much less a tree, even more so two Christmas trees.
Casey:
Did you move the cars outside for a while?
John:
Oh, the cars haven't been in the garage for like a year.
John:
You know, as soon as the weather gets warm again, my wife takes over the garage and fills it with junk.
John:
And usually each winter, it's a battle to get rid of enough junk that the car can fit back into it.
John:
But that is not happening anytime soon for reasons that I will mention in the after show.
Casey:
Oh, my.
Casey:
Oh, my.
Casey:
You know, a little birdie is sending me a picture of your reject tree.
Casey:
And it is...
Casey:
It is not great, John.
Casey:
No.
John:
It's not great.
John:
But it was like, and that was one of the best ones.
John:
It had healthy branches from top to bottom.
John:
It's just shaped like a pipe cleaner.
John:
And they were all like that.
John:
It's not just like this one.
John:
They were all like that.
John:
It's had nine, 10-foot trees that just did not get wider at the bottom.
John:
I'm like, what is going on?
Marco:
Oh, my God.
Marco:
This tree is sad.
Marco:
Oh, dear God.
Marco:
Why would you buy this at all?
Marco:
That was the best one.
John:
And you don't understand.
John:
The place I go to get the trees is like a nightmare.
John:
It's a parking lot that is too small with people all fighting with each other trying to get parking spots and stalking other parking spots to get in there.
John:
It's just a madhouse.
Marco:
If this was the best one, I would go somewhere else.
Marco:
And if I couldn't find anywhere else, I would get a fake tree this year because...
John:
that this is not... Fake tree is not an option.
John:
This tree would have been okay.
John:
Because, I mean, again, you just want it to be healthy.
John:
The other big problem is usually they don't have... Well, you're starving it, though.
John:
Usually the branches lower are just either gone or pathetic that they can't hold anything.
John:
This thing had sturdy branches from top to bottom.
John:
So among the skinny trees that would fit in our house...
John:
This was the best one.
John:
And the problem is we went too late.
John:
Like, you need to go, like, basically the day after Thanksgiving.
John:
And we waited too long because we did our racks together.
John:
So we had slim pickings.
Marco:
Literally.
Casey:
Let's do some follow-up.
Casey:
A few months ago, I think it was, we were talking about Ubiquity's breach.
Casey:
So to recap, Ubiquity is like the fancy person home networking equipment.
Marco:
The fancy person?
Casey:
You heard me.
Marco:
I would say the really nerdy and also very often used in businesses networking equipment.
Casey:
fine whatever like i said fancy person but anyway i would say almost nobody whoever touches ubiquity gear would be considered a fancy person by almost anybody else good god this this show is going off the rails quick all right this conversation is quickly becoming a confrontation all right so ubiquity had a breach uh several months ago and turns out whoopsie doopsies it was from the inside so we have a post on bleeping computer.com and i don't remember where i saw this i apologize i think it was in a slack somewhere but um
Casey:
Nicholas Sharp, who is posing as an anonymous company whistleblower, planted damaging news stories falsely claiming that the theft of ubiquity data had been by a hacker enabled by a vulnerability in the company's computer systems.
Casey:
Among other things, this is a quote, Sharp applied one-day lifecycle retention policies to certain logs on AWS, which would have the effect of deleting certain evidence of the intruder's activity within one day, court documents read.
Casey:
After his extortion attempts failed, Sharp shared information with the media while pretending to be a whistleblower and accusing the company of downplaying the incident.
Casey:
So he leaked the data and then pretended to be ticked off about the fact that the data was leaked.
Casey:
It is, while truly evil, a very ingenious plot, and it would be much funnier if it wasn't so gross.
John:
Not that ingenious, because it seems like he got caught pretty easily here.
Casey:
Touche, touche.
John:
And fairly quickly as well.
John:
I mean, this is only a few months ago, right?
Casey:
That's true.
Casey:
But anyway, I admire the hustle, if nothing else.
Casey:
And actually, I do think I admire nothing else about this plan.
Casey:
But nonetheless, you know, it was, all kidding aside, it was a little bit alarming because even though I genuinely do use and have paid for some but not all of Eero's stuff in my house, and I genuinely do like it, if I ever got to a point that I didn't want Eero anymore, I would probably turn to Ubiquity.
Casey:
And when all of this happened, I kind of was like, oh, I don't know if I would ever go to that either.
Casey:
But now we know their issues were all personnel-related things from the inside.
Casey:
So whoopsie doopsie.
John:
But the data was leaked because he was inside the company.
John:
He did have access to the data and he did leak it, right?
Marco:
Yes, I believe that to be right.
Marco:
And also a couple of current and former employees I've seen comment here and there anonymously.
Marco:
It sounds like this wasn't just some low-level engineer.
Marco:
This was a pretty high-ranking person in the company.
Marco:
And apparently people did not enjoy working with him on many levels.
Marco:
And so it sounds like Ubiquiti might – maybe their security is not as bad as we all thought it might have been back then.
Marco:
But they definitely have some personnel issues for sure, or at least they had.
Marco:
And so they're not doing everything right.
Marco:
However, I am still very happily using all their Wi-Fi gear.
John:
Yeah, setting aside whether there's an actual criminal inside your organization, like the reports are like, hey, everyone complained about this person and nothing ever happened.
John:
And in general, that's the sign of an organization that's not healthy because how super important somebody is or no matter what they may have done in the past that has earned them a reputation as a good employee who was involved with successful projects or whatever.
John:
If lots and lots and lots of people complain about them, it's worth considering maybe that employee is not...
John:
as valuable to the company as you think.
Marco:
We are sponsored this week by Slidebox, an iOS app that helps you keep your photos clean and organized.
Marco:
Go to slidebox.co to get the app.
Marco:
This is such a simple and great idea.
Marco:
I love this so much.
Marco:
So Slidebox is just an iOS app.
Marco:
It provides Tinder-like swipe gestures to sort your photos one by one.
Marco:
So you see a photo, you can swipe up to delete it, pull down to mark it as a favorite, and tap one of your albums at the bottom to sort the photo into it.
Marco:
And that's it.
Marco:
And you just swipe, swipe, swipe, and you can go through and sort and organize your photo library so easily.
Marco:
It makes organizing photos fun and not honestly the chore that it usually feels like with the built-in tools, if I'm honest.
Marco:
And Slidebox integrates and interacts directly with your iOS and iCloud photo library.
Marco:
So when you organize using Slidebox...
Marco:
You're organizing your actual photo library on your phone, just like you see it in the Photos app.
Marco:
And your organization then, of course, syncs.
Marco:
So if you pick through and delete all the crappy photos and everything, that's all synced to all your devices.
Marco:
So it's really a fantastic way to quickly, easily, and just with a lot of fun...
Marco:
Pick through and filter out and organize your photo library.
Marco:
It's great.
Marco:
Check it out today.
Marco:
Slidebox.co.
Marco:
Slidebox.co.
Marco:
Organize your photos with a swipe.
Marco:
Thank you so much to Slidebox for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
Speaking of things that are not as valuable as I thought.
Casey:
Hey, so my desk has been rearranged again.
Casey:
Would you like to know why?
Marco:
Is there still a large monitor on it?
Casey:
It depends on your definition of large because it ain't 27 inches.
Casey:
I can tell you that.
Casey:
Is it 32?
Marco:
Yeah.
Casey:
No, it's not 32.
Casey:
I would have been much less suave about breaking that news to you.
Casey:
That's why they call them 4K Casey Liss.
Casey:
Yep, that's right.
Casey:
Oh no, what did you do?
Casey:
So my LG 5K, which in the time that it worked, I loved so dearly.
Casey:
Does that sound like any white car that you've once heard about on this very program?
Casey:
When it worked, it worked great.
Casey:
But anyways, the 5K...
Casey:
seems to have gotten worse and worse.
Casey:
And so it was taking more and more cajoling to get it to actually display video on the screen.
Casey:
But what was fascinating, though, is, as much as I'm laughing and trying to poke fun at both myself and this monitor...
Casey:
It was a very puzzling predicament that I was in, in the sense that... Was it?
Casey:
No, no, just hear me out.
Casey:
Ten out of ten times, I would plug in my laptop to the 5K.
Casey:
The laptop would get power from the 5K.
Casey:
Every time, no matter what, without fail.
Casey:
Well, 9 out of 10 times it would display video on the 5K.
Casey:
Then like 7 out of 10 times.
Casey:
Then like a couple days later, 4 out of 10 times.
Casey:
And now it's to the point of like basically never happens.
Casey:
And I didn't understand, and I still don't completely understand how that could be, but...
Casey:
Iden Worsalski on Twitter gave me an excellent theory, and this is through his own terrible lived experience.
Casey:
So Iden writes, I have an LG 5K that has this issue as well.
Casey:
The port is wearing down, and one of the high-speed connectors isn't making a good contact.
Casey:
Cool.
Casey:
Power delivery and power does, so it charges.
Casey:
I opened it up a while back and reflowed the connector, which fixed the issue temporarily, but it started up again.
Casey:
So it took a little bit of back and forth because I'm a dumb-dumb and didn't understand what he was trying to say at first, but basically...
Casey:
Of course, thinking about this deeper, there are many different pins in the USB-C connection, right?
Casey:
And some of them are for power and some of them are for data.
Casey:
And what Aiden was saying was that the power pins, the way that they are physically connected to the PC board on the LG 5K...
Casey:
Those tend to be all right.
Casey:
They don't tend to have any sort of physical issues.
Casey:
But the high-speed data pins like to just kind of fall off after a while or lose their physical connection.
Casey:
And so that means that I can get power, but I can't get video, which is exactly the thing I'm seeing right now.
Casey:
So Iden wrote a little more.
Casey:
He said that this is with a picture that it'll be in the show notes.
Casey:
That's the Thunderbolt 3 connector on the LG 5K PCB.
Casey:
Iden says, I wasn't able to get good pictures of my phone due to the angle, but the far pins, if you look at this picture, that transfer Thunderbolt 3 were not making good contact and cause signal integrity issues on my monitor due to the connector pulling off the board.
Casey:
And I should have mentioned, and I forgot, that during the days when it went from 8 out of 10 times to 5 to 2 out of 10 times, I noticed that if I jiggled the USB-C connector, occasionally I would get it to work.
Casey:
And then all of a sudden it would just die and stop working.
Casey:
But power would still be working.
Casey:
Nothing else would.
Casey:
So everything that I know...
Casey:
says that idon's hit the nail on the head and this is the this is the real issue here um so i have done a chat day before yesterday i believe it was maybe it was late yesterday i did an online chat with lg and said i would like to get an rma please because i would like to get the service it took just a couple minutes back and forth and then they said all right uh it will be 150 to have you send it to us and then we will repair it and send it back
Casey:
Now, they didn't want to take my credit card over the chat because they shouldn't, and I wouldn't have let them anyway, and they're supposed to call me to get my credit card number, which hasn't happened yet, and so I'm kind of wondering where that whole phone call is sitting.
Casey:
But nonetheless, hopefully I will get the LG 5K repaired, and then...
Casey:
My computing life will be good again.
Casey:
But in the meantime, I had to figure out, well, what the hell do I do?
Casey:
Because using just a 14-inch screen every day, all day, not the most desirable thing in the world.
Casey:
And I literally do not have any other monitors in the house.
Casey:
So he sent a message.
Casey:
I sent a text to a good friend of mine who is at my last jobby job, who happens to be the IT director at that jobby job.
Casey:
And I was like, hey, man.
Casey:
do you happen to have any of those LG four?
Casey:
Now these are not ultra fine, mind you, the LG four case sitting around that maybe I could like buy one off of you.
Casey:
Cause I kind of need something to hold me over for a few weeks.
Casey:
And he said, you know what?
Casey:
Don't worry about it.
Casey:
I'll just loan you one for a little while.
Casey:
Cause we're not using them.
Casey:
And so in, out of the goodness of his heart, and I mean that genuinely, I ran to my old office today for the first time in three years.
Casey:
And I picked up a 24 inch LG four K monitor, which is what I'm currently using on my desk right now.
Casey:
So I am back in 2018, baby.
Woo.
Marco:
Even 24 inches even in 2018 was small.
Casey:
Yes.
Casey:
And actually, it's funny because I wrote a blog post about how much I hate the complete dearth of monitor options for Macs these days, or particularly retina monitors.
Casey:
And somebody pointed out to me, and they're right, that strictly speaking, my own metrics say that this screen isn't really enough.
Casey:
It's a long and involved story that I'm already running way too long.
Casey:
But suffice to say, there's a certain pixels per inch number that you should really hit in order to be retina.
Casey:
And even though I do view this screen that I have in front of me, which is 24 inches at 4K, I do view it as retina in the sense that for my eyes and from the distance at which I sit, I can't see pixels.
Casey:
But it's only like 180 ppi, and strictly speaking, it should be like 220 to be true to form retina.
Casey:
So even this screen, which I do endorse...
Casey:
isn't, strictly speaking, one of the four options that are on the market right now.
Casey:
One of the four options that is retina-capable, retina-friendly, whatever, on the market right now.
Casey:
It is truly ridiculous.
Casey:
So Apple, please, for the love of God, can I have something that is in between the LG 5K, which...
Casey:
hashtag Marco was right, is maybe not the best thing in the entire world.
Casey:
Oh, and the utterly ridiculous Pro Display XDR, which I should add, by the way, the morning that the LG 5K really gave up the ghost, I think a stiff... If somebody had coughed behind me, that would have been a stiff enough breeze to get me to buy the XDR.
Casey:
But thankfully, cooler heads prevailed, and I didn't.
Casey:
And that is the truth.
Casey:
I'm not trying to spring anything on YouTube.
Casey:
I really haven't bought one.
Casey:
I really don't intend to.
Casey:
And part of that is because it occurred to me that two of these LG 4Ks, which again, I'm borrowing one, but if I were to buy two of them, it would be $600 all in.
Marco:
So for the price of the stand of the XDR, you could get three of them?
Casey:
Yes, exactly.
Casey:
No, you're exactly right.
Casey:
And I know the point you're making and I agree with you.
Casey:
Yes.
Casey:
And that's what I came down to.
Casey:
Like, I was seriously about to commit to buying an XDR.
Casey:
And then it occurred to me for $6,000, like, let me rephrase, I guess, for $600, I can get two 4K screens, which without question is nowhere near as good.
Casey:
But is an XDR 10 times better than two of these 4Ks?
Casey:
Eh, I don't know about that.
Casey:
It is certainly 10 times more expensive, but is it 10 times better?
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
Five times better?
Casey:
Probably.
Casey:
10?
Casey:
Eh, I don't know about that.
Casey:
So that's why I didn't remind me of this in a month when I ended up buying one.
Casey:
But sitting here now, my hope is I will use this borrowed 4K to get me by, and then in a month or maybe two, I will finally have the 5K and be living the dream that I was for about a week before it died.
Marco:
I love that that's the dream.
Casey:
That's the best I got, Marco.
Casey:
I'm a simple man.
Marco:
You've got to dream a few inches bigger.
Casey:
I've been doing that for a long time, brother.
Casey:
All right, moving right along.
John:
Before you move on, this picture of the connector, hopefully Marco will make this the chapter art, but it's the printed circuit board, green in this case, and then just coming out of the printed circuit board perpendicular to it,
John:
is the usbc connector and it's just soldered right to it like yep that seems like a bad arrangement it seems so doesn't it um i mean in general like if people complain about this on laptops for years it's usually a good idea to have like a a separate smaller printed circuit board
John:
that just hosts the connectors for anything that has connectors, whether it's a laptop with its ports on the sides or a monitor with ports on the back, and then have like a ribbon cable or something flexible that connects to the main printed circuit board because the connectors can wear out because they're like a mechanical part.
John:
Things are going into them and out of them and, you know, people yanking things and things bend and get pulled or whatever.
John:
And so if the connector goes bad, what you want to happen is, oh, well, I'll just replace this whole little sub assembly with this little printed circuit board with the three connectors on it.
John:
I'll just rip out that ribbon cable, throw this in the garbage, get a new one of those, plug it in without having to replace or any resolder anything on the board or anything like that.
John:
And it also provides a form of strain relief, like the connectors can be on a little thing that is independent and is bolted directly to the back of the display.
John:
So it's, you know, fixed in place.
John:
In this arrangement, I'm assuming the openings on the back of the monitor support these connectors a little bit so they can't move around too much.
John:
But depending on how precisely engineered the plastic is and how well the printed circuit board is supported inside there, apparently it's not constructed well enough.
John:
But this just seems like a design that was made to eventually fail.
John:
And it makes me worry about how the connector is...
John:
in the back of my pro display xdr connector are they just sticking out of the servant-printed circle board like that like i already dread taking that connector in and out and i try to never do it but anyway this well the xdr's connectors are like like the the holes are part of the solid metal casing like they it's those things can't budge like i i can't imagine that would be an issue they're not translating but if you are to if you are to bend the connector down could the inside of it tilt up while using the case as a fulcrum you know what i mean like a levering
Marco:
Honestly, I think they're so rigid from the metal that I wouldn't worry about that too much, but certainly it's worth asking.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Anyway, I'm very careful with this type of thing, but this LG design seems just like a bad idea from the start that it was sort of bound to fail.
John:
So if they fix it, they're just going to give you a new circuit board that's like this.
John:
I guess just be very, very careful when you click things in and make sure nothing ever pulls on the cord or yanks it or does anything bad to it.
Casey:
No, truly.
Casey:
I don't know what I'm going to do specifically, but like, you know, as a silly example, I moved the LG 4K down to the screened-in porch once, you know, just because it was a beautiful day and I wanted to have it down there.
Casey:
And in any normal situation, I wouldn't think a thing of it.
Casey:
But now, once that LG 5K arrives, did I say 4K a minute ago?
Casey:
I meant 5K.
Casey:
But anyway, once that ultra-fine 5K arrives back at my house after the repair, I will probably like super glue it to my desk and
John:
maybe even superglue a cable to the back of it because my goodness although i can't say in this picture maybe this is a smaller printed circuit board that has the connectors on it and it's just that's the that printed circuit board has them connected strange like normally when you have a separate printed circuit board that the connectors are like laying down flat on it like they are in a laptop or whatever but i guess maybe that's not possible in the back of the monitor anyway i don't i don't want to pass any particular judgment from this very zoomed in picture except to say that apparently this is a chronic problem on the lg5k so it seems like it's not the best way to do connectors
Marco:
One of many chronic problems in the LG 5Ks.
Casey:
Yeah, and that's the thing.
Casey:
I would love, genuinely, I would love to have somebody pipe up from the back of the house and say, hey, did you realize the, I don't know, Asus QRS TUV 6573 monitor exists and is exactly what you want?
Casey:
And a lot of people have said, oh, well, here's a 4K 27-inch monitor that's very cheap.
Casey:
And that's not what I want.
Casey:
Yes.
Marco:
There's a million 4K 27-inch monitors.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
right and so what i if genuinely if somebody is out there listening and knows of a monitor that is available in the united states today that is between 22 and 24 inches and 4k or preferably about 27 inches and 5k please let me know i know and people love to reach out with like these 32 plus inch monstrosities that are 5k in one in one dimension and then like i don't know
Casey:
It's like 5K vertically and 15K horizontally.
Casey:
I'm not into that.
Casey:
I just want as close as I can get to an iMac screen without the computer behind it, if you please.
Casey:
So if such a thing exists, let me know.
John:
But you're behind the times, though, as we discussed last show.
John:
I know this would be fine for your purposes.
John:
The LG 5K and this 4K, these are not HDR monitors.
John:
these are not mini led they do not have any of the the new modern specs they're not high refresh i don't think right nope they don't have any of the modern specs that your laptop screen has so you're just looking for like oh something that will tide me over or something that you know but you're never going to see hdr images on these things you're not going to get 120 hertz out of them right so and this is this is why i think you should not get the the xdr i don't think the xdr is going to be replaced anytime soon i just think now it is too late to buy it
John:
and when when will it be replaced in six years oh so you're saying it's too late to buy it now but it's going to be replaced in six years yes that's exactly what i'm saying that's the way that's the way of the apple monitors if you have you ever bought an apple monitor before this is the experience right marco and i got in just under the line we bought it when it was the best option available and it was actually kind of good but now that you can buy a 14 inch laptop with a screen that's better although way way smaller it's too late now no way no way you spend six thousand dollars on this monitor you just have to wait
John:
For Apple to either put out the new big iMac with a cool screen and then the monitor that uses that screen, or I don't know what you wait for.
John:
So I feel for you, Casey, but I'm glad you held strong and did not buy the XDR because it is not time to buy that screen.
John:
It is time to wait six years for it to be refreshed.
Casey:
Yeah, that's the thing.
John:
I disagree, but okay.
John:
I think for me and Casey and most normal people, it is not time to buy the XDR.
John:
That time passed and he missed it.
Casey:
I agree with you.
Casey:
And the thing of it is, is that a lot of people have been have said in so many words, sometimes kindly, sometimes not, you know, what is your sanity worth?
Casey:
And what is, you know, this would arguably help you earn more money by helping you do your job better.
Casey:
Why would you not spend that money?
Casey:
And if it was $2,000, like I would have paid and in retrospect, maybe should have paid full price for an LG five, like a new LG five K.
Casey:
But even that seemed a little spendy.
Casey:
If I could get like an XDR or something along those lines for a couple grand, I probably would.
Casey:
But $6,000, like I just can't, I can't get to the point where I think that that is a reasonable expenditure money.
Casey:
Even if it could make, even if it printed, it had a money printer on the back that printed money.
Casey:
Like I still don't know if I could do it because it's just so preposterously expensive.
John:
The other thing I'll add to that is that with your vision, the way it is, Casey, um,
John:
a retina like your your aim of like 220 uh points per inch or whatever 180 or even 150 and that may be your future anyway so the idea that you might get a 32 inch screen with like 170 points per inch that may be what you want like i know a lot of i mean a lot of people as they get older and eyes get worse end up going to like 42 inch televisions like people you're using like 42 inch plasma tvs because it makes things bigger as in it has lower ppi right and it's larger physically speaking so
John:
you know it'll it's easy it's as you said it's very not very easy but is easier to find 4k 27 inch monitors with hdr and high refresh those are still expensive as discussed on past shows but at least they exist uh and having you know i i've got everyone right here i play my playstation on a 4k 27 inch monitor and for a while when i had like the dtk it's a little mac mini thing i hooked it up to that and everything's bigger
John:
Right.
John:
It's not, it's quote unquote, not retina.
John:
Everything looks bigger, like, like a fun house type thing.
John:
And I don't need that right now.
John:
But if my vision continues to deteriorate, that might be the type of thing that I want.
John:
So by the time Apple comes out with like, finally, they made a monitor that's retina and it's 5k and it's a reasonable price.
John:
It's like, yeah, but now the pixels are too small for me because I'm old.
John:
That's probably not going to happen to you anytime soon, but I'm probably getting close to that.
John:
So I'm enjoying my Retina 6K while I have it.
John:
And when it's refreshed in six years, maybe my eyes won't be able to see it anymore.
John:
We'll see.
Casey:
No, I think you're exactly right.
Casey:
And that's part of the reason why this, strictly speaking, incorrect LG not ultrafine 4K that I'm looking at right now...
Casey:
Part of the reason why I think it is acceptable is because my eyes are garbage.
Casey:
And so for me, it's like, yeah, whatever.
Casey:
It's good enough.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
It's just, it's so frustrating.
Casey:
Like, we don't need to perseverate on this anymore.
Casey:
But it's just so frustrating that this is seemingly a solvable problem that
Casey:
That Apple, especially like they've gotten these MacBook Pros so right.
Casey:
And to have no good options, either first or third party, like I could excuse it if let's suppose that we all agree that the LG 5K ultra fine was was really, truly ultra fine.
Casey:
Like it was a great monitor just for the sake of discussion.
Casey:
then fine.
Casey:
I wish it was Apple branded, but okay, that's no big deal.
Casey:
But the fact that there is literally nothing on the market that I can find that is truly workable other than the XDR, which is now eliminated because it's so absurdly expensive, it's such a hole in their lineup.
Casey:
And I got to assume they're going to fill this hole at some point, but...
Casey:
Why is this hole there?
Casey:
Let's fix this, please.
John:
Tim Cook had a tweet occasionally, or Tim Cook's Twitter account, occasionally tweets things of like, oh, here I am at the opening of Apple Store and whatever, and we love all our customers, blah, blah, blah.
John:
And one of them was like, look at these people doing creative things with our new MacBook Pros.
John:
And it showed a bunch of people with MacBook Pros
John:
sitting in front of this big setup doing, I don't know, audio, video, whatever they're doing.
John:
So they're professionals using their MacBook Pros, right?
John:
And there are a bunch of monitors attached to the MacBook Pros, and none of those monitors were Apple monitors.
John:
And I did a snarky quote tweeted going, oh, I wonder why they're not using Apple monitors.
John:
Mm-hmm.
John:
i i understand where apple's coming from and that the market is probably small but that's true of the mac pro as well we already had this conversation no not a lot of people are going to buy the mac pro yes apple you still have to make it like even if it's a money loser like just to have a complete lineup to have some coherence right otherwise you're going to take your best most perfectly arranged like glamour shot of people using your products in real world situations and you'll be embarrassed by things and they'll be embarrassed by the fact that there were six monitors in front of these people and none of them were apple monitors because they didn't need xdrs and there's no other choice haha so they're not
John:
man and the other thing the other thing they're embarrassed about is those brand new macbook pros with their amazing displays and all the ports and everything had this giant mess of dongles coming out of the back of them because they were like hdmi dongles so they could have like three hdmi monitors attached to it and everything because why are the monitors hdmi monitors because that's all you can buy because you know it's just i you know tim cook probably doesn't care about these things they're like hey they bought apple products it's great and we love how our products integrate with their existing monitors that they use with all those stuff but
John:
you know it would be nicer if you could say look we sell a complete solution and they can use all of our stuff and apple might say well they can just buy pro display xdrs but no one wants to waste money if you don't need a pro display xdr if you just need a 4k size monitor apple doesn't sell one so you have to get whatever they were using in that picture and it's
John:
It's not a good look for Apple, especially in like, you know, you want them to work with other monitors.
John:
I'm not saying only have proprietary monitors.
John:
But in the glamour shot, you want to say, look, if you buy all Apple stuff, it works all well together.
John:
And it's a great experience.
John:
And you just can't do that.
John:
To Casey's point, you made these great new laptops.
John:
They have places where you can connect monitors.
John:
What am I supposed to put in there besides the XDR?
Casey:
I mean, just to put things in perspective, this monitor, which I'm very thankful to be able to borrow, I'm running it via DisplayPort.
Casey:
What is this, like 2002?
Casey:
I mean, I'm going USB-C to DisplayPort because if I use HDMI, I believe it's only 30 hertz.
Casey:
So it's fine.
Casey:
Everything's fine.
Casey:
I'm thankful for this monitor, but it's just frustrating.
Casey:
It's so frustrating.
Marco:
I think a few things are true at the same time.
Marco:
Thing number one is, yes, the XDR is absurdly expensive.
Marco:
Thing number two is, yes, you should buy one anyway.
Marco:
And thing number three is...
Marco:
What will probably actually happen is the monitors that you're juggling now, whether it's the 4Ks that you have now, the 5K if it ever comes back, and if it then subsequently works after that.
Marco:
Those are two big ifs in my mind.
Marco:
If all that happens, that will probably tide you over until...
Marco:
mid next year at which point apple probably will release a monitor like i i expect if they have a monitor project going which was lightly rumored about a year ago i would expect to come out probably at wbdc this coming year um so or or you know thereabouts so i think the this hole in their lineup which is very big and very real i think they do they did finally admit to themselves they should fill that hole in typical apple fashion it's
Marco:
Even though this giant fire in the product line was there, they're going to take their sweet time to fill it.
Marco:
But when they do finally fill it, it'll probably be fine.
Marco:
That being said, they're probably also, in a similar timeframe, going to release the larger iMac.
Marco:
And when that happens, assuming that the larger iMac and the next large monitor come out in a similar timeframe...
Marco:
I think you're going to have a big decision to make about whether you go for the larger iMac for your desktop needs and relegate your current laptop to laptop-only needs.
Marco:
That being said, I think you really couldn't go wrong with either of those options when they come, and assuming the monitor does come.
Casey:
You know, it's funny.
Casey:
I might be the only person that is not excited for the new 27-inch iMac or, you know, whatever fills that gap.
Casey:
Because right now, monitor accepting it.
Casey:
I know I've done a lot of, you know, complaining about the monitor situation, especially over the last week or two.
Casey:
But monitor accepted.
Casey:
I could not be happier with this MacBook Pro.
Casey:
It is so good.
Casey:
Oh, my God.
Casey:
They're amazing.
Casey:
It's a couple of software quirks here and there.
Casey:
Like the SD card reader seems to be a piece of garbage, and I'm still getting some Bluetooth wonkiness.
Casey:
But I'm pretty sure both those are software.
Casey:
And so eventually those will get fixed, I have to assume.
Casey:
And leaving that aside, these laptops are so good.
Casey:
I am so happy with this laptop.
Casey:
I didn't think I could be happier with a computer than I was with the iMac Pro.
Casey:
And then I got a portable iMac Pro, and it turns out that's even better.
Casey:
Right.
John:
So you're going to be even happier with the big iMac, though.
John:
I think it's a no-brainer when that happens.
John:
You have a decision to make.
John:
The decision is you get the new iMac because the new iMac will be faster than these laptops.
John:
You'll know it will have a good display, so that problem is solved.
John:
And then your laptop continues to be an awesome laptop.
John:
It's just freed from the burden of having to also be a mediocre desktop for you, right?
John:
Yeah.
John:
It will just be a great laptop.
John:
And then you'll also have a great desktop.
Marco:
They're great desktops too.
Marco:
That's the great thing about this.
Marco:
That's the thing.
John:
But the iMac will be an even greater desktop because it will be less thermally constrained and will have a bigger screen.
Marco:
The screen, you're right.
Marco:
The iMac will probably have the bigger and nicer screen and everything.
Marco:
But that being said...
Marco:
I really don't feel any constraints, at least using the 16-inch as a desktop.
Marco:
The 14-inch, if you do sustained long testing on the 14-inch, it does thermally throttle sooner than the 16-inch does.
Marco:
But in practice, most people aren't doing that kind of work.
Marco:
I feel like when the iMac comes out, it's going to be less of a bomb going off of joy and happiness because Apple's been making really great desktops for a while now.
Marco:
the desktops weren't on fire the way the laptops were.
Marco:
The desktop lineup from... Even the 27-inch regular iMac before the iMac Pro, the 27-inch iMac has always been a pretty great computer.
Marco:
For its entire existence, it's been a pretty great choice.
Marco:
And those have been really good, especially when they went Retina.
Marco:
It just was so great.
Marco:
The 27-inch 5K iMac, what an amazing computer for its entire existence.
Marco:
And then the iMac Pro took that model and made it even better.
Marco:
And again, amazing computer, even though they only ever made one of them.
Marco:
Amazing computer, amazing product line.
Marco:
The new Mac Pro, even though it's ridiculous, and no longer really new by any stretch of the imagination now, but the soon-to-be outgoing John Mac Pro...
Marco:
That also amazing computer for what it is like they really have been making great desktops.
Marco:
Hell, even, you know, we mentioned last week, even the Mac mini from 2018 forward has been great.
Marco:
So Apple's been making great desktops for years now.
Marco:
We don't we're not we weren't like as starving for great desktops from them.
Marco:
They haven't been making amazing laptops since 2016 or so.
Marco:
There's been all these compromises, and so to finally have really freaking great laptops coming out of Apple from last year's M1-based models and making them even better now with this new line of MacBook Pros, oh my god, they're so good.
Marco:
And frankly, as I mentioned in my review episode of these...
Marco:
My desire for a desktop is lower than ever right now because currently the fastest Macs you can buy by far are MacBook Pros.
Marco:
And so I'm extremely happy with this.
Marco:
And using this laptop as a desktop, I really don't feel much compromise at all.
Marco:
The only thing I feel is I think I still have to open it up to turn it on if it's powered down, but oh well, that never happens in practice.
Marco:
And
Marco:
I don't have Touch ID on my keyboard, but that's only because I don't have Apple's keyboard.
Marco:
Even that problem could be solved now if I want it to be.
Marco:
So this is just great.
Marco:
It's such an awesome computer as a laptop or as a clamshell mode desktop.
Marco:
These things rock.
Marco:
It is nothing like previous laptops being used in this way.
Marco:
If you're interested in using clamshell mode or even, I haven't tried side-by-side mode.
Marco:
We have laptop open, but a lot of people do that.
Casey:
That's what I'm doing right now.
Marco:
There you go.
Marco:
The M1 series of laptops is so much better at either one of those than any of the Intel ones, and hell, even the PowerPC ones.
Marco:
These are so good.
Marco:
I can't overstate how good a computer these are and how happy it makes me that finally Apple's making just kick-ass amazing laptops.
John:
I mean, but obviously you have it connected to an XDR, so you have the monitor problem quote-unquote solved.
John:
Casey does not have one of those, nor should he buy one.
John:
So his decision will be different than yours.
John:
And honestly, your decision, especially if they come up with a 20-core version of the iMac, you're probably going to get that too, let's be honest.
John:
Although you might not, because it would be a downgrading screen size.
John:
So you have a more... Your decision, Marco, is trickier, because do you want to give up 6K for 5K, depending on how big the iMac screen is?
John:
But Casey's decision is straightforward, is...
John:
You get to use your laptop as a laptop and you get a desktop with a good screen that's faster than your laptop.
John:
So it'll be straightforward for Casey when the big iMac comes out.
Casey:
Will it though?
Casey:
Because I just spent like $5,000 on this laptop on the agreement with myself.
John:
Yeah, maybe you'll hem and haw and wait.
John:
But I just feel like I've always been in the opinion that let a desktop be a desktop, let a laptop be a laptop.
John:
Don't try to use one for both.
John:
If you want to spend $6,000 on monitor, then you can be in Marco's land, but honestly, Marco's only going to be in that land until something with a ridiculously higher number, of course, comes out, in which case he'll jump ship to that.
Marco:
It would probably have to be a Mac Pro, though.
Marco:
I don't think I would jump ship for an iMac because of the monitor thing, but a Mac Pro would be tempting.
John:
Or like a mini Mac Pro, this half-size thing.
John:
We don't actually know what that whole lineup is going to be like.
John:
But yeah, you're just waiting to see something that is appreciably faster than what you've got.
John:
And you don't have any issues right now because the laptop works great in clamshell and you already have a huge monitor.
Marco:
Well, and even like the things I would want to be faster mainly are Xcode builds.
Marco:
But I'm like, even just from going from four performance course to eight, I'm nearing that point where like things start to level off with Xcode builds of my scale.
Marco:
So I might not even need the Mac Pro when it comes out.
Marco:
And I know everyone's going to make fun of me for even thinking that I would possibly not buy it, but I didn't buy the last one.
John:
That's true.
John:
Yeah, but you had a 10-core iMac Pro at that point.
John:
Yeah, fair enough.
John:
So, you know, we'll see what the compile times are like.
John:
Again, you are using more Swift, so.
John:
Yeah.
Casey:
Don't even get them started.
Casey:
No, I think the more interesting question to me is, I guess maybe a Mac Pro for Marco, but even potentially more interesting is what happens if we get some sort of screaming Mac Mini?
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
That has, you know, basically the 16-inch MacBook Pro guts, but in a Mac Mini.
Casey:
Because I think if I were Marco, that would be pretty appealing.
Casey:
I mean, you're here, so you tell me I'm wrong.
Casey:
You're wrong.
Casey:
Okay, tell me why.
Marco:
Well, if I didn't already own my desktop laptop, maybe.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
But now that I've joined the world of desktop laptop for the time being, it's great that if I'm going on a trip where I want to actually bring all of my stuff with me, all of my work, all of my files, or just have the biggest screen I can have, I can bring the giant laptop.
Marco:
And I have my computer.
Marco:
Like...
Marco:
really you know if there's not significant compromises for using a laptop as a desktop then there's no reason to get a desktop the only reason we get desktops is because usually there are huge trade-offs involved when if you try to use a laptop as a desktop instead of just using a desktop you know actual desktops are better in certain ways but
Marco:
those ways are smaller than ever right now.
Marco:
In fact, right now, it's either way.
Marco:
Right now, the laptops are better than the desktops.
John:
Yeah, we're in this weird situation where the powerful desktops have not gotten the ARM system-on-a-chip treatment.
Marco:
Right, and they will.
Marco:
Like, you know, next summer or next fall, whenever it is that we get faster desktops, you know, that'll put things kind of back in order a little bit, but the...
Marco:
the laptops are so good and so like low compromise.
Marco:
I mean, for instance, like typical things that have always been problems in the past whenever I've tried to use a laptop as a desktop.
Marco:
Number one thing usually was thermals and fan noise.
Marco:
And with these current, like with the 16 inch, that is just not a thing.
Marco:
I haven't tried using the 14.
Marco:
I can't speak to it like as a desktop configuration.
Marco:
But the 16 inch,
Marco:
This thing is quieter under load, full load, like full sustained 100% CPU load for hours.
Marco:
It's quieter than my iMac Pro was.
Marco:
And that was a very quiet machine.
Marco:
That was remarkable.
Marco:
It's quieter than the Mac Pro at idle and load because the Mac Pro has like real fans.
Marco:
This thing is so quiet and runs so cool.
Marco:
I mentioned how I keep it in a vertical like little wood clampy stand with the vent, the screen hinge and vent on top.
Marco:
So I can reach over, and I can put my hand on top of the vent, and I can feel the temperature of the air and the velocity of the air coming out of the machine.
Marco:
I almost never feel anything, or I'll feel a very slight air current, and it's barely warm at all, or it's just cool.
Marco:
Like, this thing, the thermals and the noise are so good on this.
Marco:
So that's, you know, major compromise number one with desktop-laptop situations.
Marco:
Out the window.
Marco:
This thing is...
Marco:
silent the vast majority of the time and even again when i was able to crank it and this is like the only time i've ever heard the fans was when i maxed out all the cpu cores for multiple hours then i heard the fans barely
Marco:
And again, it was warm.
Marco:
You know, the air coming out was warm, but it was nothing like any Intel machine of any class I've ever seen.
Marco:
So that's thing number one.
Marco:
Thing number two, usually using a desktop as a laptop is a bit unreliable, especially regarding sleep-wake and the connection or disconnecting of screens.
Marco:
That doesn't seem to be a thing with any of the M1-based computers, the MacBook Air and these new MacBook Pros.
Marco:
So far, the Apple Silicon use in clamshell or out of clamshell, plugging in external displays, disconnecting external displays, all that stuff seems to be way more reliable with the M1-based stuff than previous machines.
Marco:
So that compromise is also gone.
Casey:
I would agree with that with a small asterisk.
Casey:
I would, when the 5K was still working, rest in peace, I would sometimes have my computer in clamshell and sometimes not.
Casey:
And one crummy thing about the M1 Max is that they will come back to like, you know, not when they're suspended, but when they're just, you know, the screen is off.
Casey:
What is the name of that?
Casey:
When it's not fully asleep, but the screen is off, it doesn't matter.
Casey:
Anyway, point being, when the screen is off and you hit a button in order to wake the screen up, the screen wakes instantly.
Casey:
And any other monitor, any other monitor, well, maybe not the XDR, actually, but any other monitor I've ever seen, you're feeling like you're waiting a year for that darn thing to turn on.
Casey:
It is remarkable how quick these M1 Macs wake up.
Casey:
And also switching resolutions.
Casey:
Just for grins, I was doing that just a moment ago on this
Casey:
very, very old LG 4K monitor.
Casey:
And it's astonishing how quickly that even this old monitor can switch resolutions.
Casey:
It's not like the Intel days where you sit there with a stopwatch and wait 15 seconds for flicker, flicker, flicker, black screen, flicker, flicker, black screen.
Casey:
It's instant when you switch resolutions, which sounds like such a silly thing, but it's so delightful.
Casey:
So yes, I absolutely agree with everything you're saying.
Casey:
It is...
Casey:
It is unbelievable how few compromises these machines have.
Casey:
And for that reason, I don't know, again, leaving the displays aside, I don't know, John, that I would get an iMac because I would feel guilty about spending another $5,000 or whatever it would be on another computer.
Casey:
And because I really don't have compromises on this machine.
Casey:
I really, really don't.
Casey:
It's remarkable.
Marco:
Yeah, and there's so many other ones, too.
Marco:
Other compromises that you would typically get with laptops, usually the performance ceiling would not be as high because they don't have the thermals.
Marco:
Well, we'll see what chips they put in the iMac and the Mac Pro, but...
Marco:
Chances are, like, following the current rumors and their current apparent strategy so far that they've had with the M1 series of chips and the products their fields with from them, it seems like they're mostly just putting the same chips in the desktops and the laptops and running them at the same or very close or close enough clock speeds.
Marco:
And, you know, so I wouldn't actually expect...
Marco:
significantly higher cpu performance between the families now what they do on the gpu side that that's going to depend you know i i would suspect they would they're going to beef that up in various ways as rumored but but like you know if it ends up that the macbook pro is going to have you know two of these chips or you know one of these chips and then the mac pro has two of them or four of them like
Marco:
For my purposes, that's going to be mostly the same performance between the MacBook Pro and the Mac Pro most of the time.
Marco:
It's just going to add more parallelism for very large parallel tasks.
Marco:
But if the MacBook Pro is already reaching the point of diminishing returns for Xcode builds of my size and scale, then I'm not going to really need anything faster for a lot of cases until I start using SwiftUI.
John:
So the real compromise for desktop laptop, as far as I'm personally concerned, and I think this is a thing even people who are not as obsessed with this as I obviously am, is you get all your windows arranged and then you unplug the monitor.
John:
Oh, my gosh.
John:
Where does your 6K worth of windows go on your tiny little 14-inch screen?
John:
Well.
John:
they go somewhere and the os tries to do something sensible with them and i think it's been better about restoring them but it's still just like you've disrupted your working environment because now you need to go use your laptop and having them separate means that your desktop is arranged the way it is and no one's ever going to pick up your desktop and smush its screen to be smaller or remove a screen and suddenly it used to think it had two screens now it just has one and that one screen is only 14 inches instead of 6k
John:
that's a disruption as far as i'm concerned i did it at work i for when i was still going to the office for many many years and as said in this program my solution to this problem was to run my uh the monitor attached to my laptop at the exact same resolution as the monitor on my desk and i could do that because i had these pre-retina things and i ran the laptop at the the
John:
the highest, like whatever it is, the most scaled resolution, right?
John:
And I just manned my desktop monitor at its native resolution.
John:
What was it, 1920 by 1200 or whatever?
John:
So I was 1920 by 1200 both, and I mirrored displays.
John:
So even when I yanked it out, I knew nothing moved.
John:
But that...
John:
it was had its own compromises 1920 by 1200 on a 15 inch laptop was not great and it was kind of blurry and 1920 by 1200 on non-written display it was also not the best but that was the compromise i chose there and i don't think you could do that in the modern world nor would i want to so if i had an xdr and a laptop attached or even a 16 inch laptop and i disconnected that laptop what happens to my windows it's madness so that's gonna keep me on that's gonna keep me on desktops forever and i also don't like laptops oh
John:
i mean that's that's that's a fair point like that is like the disruption of taking of unplugging a laptop from his desktop configuration and taking it with you yeah there is a lot of disruption that happens you know maybe you'll disconnect external discs attached to the monitor like it's all like desktops you're able to sort of build a setup with a bunch of junk and the laptop yeah it's great that you can take it away and take it with you but not everything comes with the laptop some stuff stays on the desk
Marco:
There are utilities.
Marco:
There's one called Stay that purports to fix that window area problem.
Marco:
I actually have it on my list to try it out.
Marco:
I haven't tried it out yet.
John:
Please don't send us the million apps that do this.
John:
We all know about them.
John:
But the thing is, the OS could do this better.
John:
Third-party apps do it better.
John:
But in the end, if you used to have a 6K display and a 16-inch, now you just have a 16-inch, something's got to give.
John:
There's no solution to this with software.
John:
You now have less space for your stuff, especially if you had stuff arranged carefully on both screens.
John:
Where does it all go?
Marco:
well i mean i i think that can be solved with apps but i think the the bigger counterpoint here is like even if like this is why i think my my two laptop situation is actually kind of great because here's the thing if a macbook pro is actually a better desktop than most desktops for most people
Marco:
then even if you literally never move it, you might be better off getting it as your desktop just in case you might need to move it sometime.
John:
If you're a Mac user, it's like you said, it's the best desktop you can get.
John:
Just think of it as like a car up on blocks in your front lawn.
John:
It never goes anywhere, but it's the highest performance desktop that Apple sells right now.
Marco:
Yeah, but I think if you're going to be super mobile back and forth all the time, then yeah, get a laptop.
Marco:
If you're going to be only occasionally mobile, I still think this makes sense because, again, if there's not significant compromises to it not being a desktop –
Marco:
then it being a laptop is always going to be better because even if you hardly, it's like people who buy SUVs, like, well, I might go off road sometime.
Marco:
It's like, well, even if you almost never do that, you still have that capability if you need it.
Marco:
And if there were no other compromises, you know, it's,
John:
but there are the suvs have higher rollover i know i know i use more fuel and they're more subject to crosswinds and like it just like you know i know but but imagine if there were no if there were no compromises right well but there are still are some like you it's way better than it used to be for sure and apple's line is in a weird place right now but
John:
there is less space inside those things and all the components are sort of wedged in there and batteries can expand and do weird stuff and there's not as much as room for dust to get caught and like they're don't get me wrong they're way better than they used to be and right now they are the best desktop that apple sells but i expect this to be a temporary condition it just depends on how much value you put on the other stuff and and how lucky you get in avoiding the laptop whammies because
John:
Like I would, you know, if given the choice, I would rather have a purpose built desktop like an iMac than the laptop, even if they were exactly the same speed and I never disconnected them just because like, why do I want to pay for a monitor that I'm going to keep folded up all the time if I don't want to use it that way?
John:
Why do I want to pay to have everything miniaturized and put in the skinniest possible case when that has no value for me?
Marco:
You think the desktops are going to be any different?
John:
Given the way the iMacs are, we don't know yet, but you know, the 24 inch iMac, that is not a, it's not a different distinction, but maybe the big one it will be.
John:
But yeah, just like the laptops are, you know, they're made to be small and portable and they expect you to carry them around.
John:
And it's not that there are compromises, but there are different trade-offs for achieving that portability.
John:
If that portability literally isn't important to you, then the only reason to buy them right now is because it's the best desktop that Apple sells, but that won't be true for a while.
Casey:
I don't know, man.
Casey:
I keep coming back to, I think Marco's right, that with so few trade-offs, I mean, and you're hanging your hat on things that just really aren't true anymore.
Casey:
Like, oh, there's more space.
Casey:
Well, it's all crazy.
Casey:
Look at the iMac 24-inch.
Casey:
You just said it yourself.
Casey:
It's all crammed into this.
John:
I know.
John:
I'm saying right now that's the right thing to do.
John:
But I assume, I mean, certainly the Mac Pro will be less compromised in terms of how much space, at least I hope it will be.
John:
But we don't know.
John:
The big iMac might be as thin as the 24-inch, but it might not be.
John:
So we have to wait and see what Apple does with its other desktops.
John:
Already, I would say the M1 Mac Mini, incredibly spacious.
John:
Like this empty, literal empty space inside there, right?
John:
Obviously, it's not the M1 Pro and the M1 Max inside there, but...
John:
The Mac Mini is suddenly a cavernous, you know, it's got this massively overbuilt power supply right from the old Intel Mac Mini.
John:
This tiny little logic board with a system on a chip on it.
John:
And I feel, I think I would feel more confident about the longevity of an M1 Mac Mini than a new 14-inch M1 Max.
John:
And just because the new 14-inch M1 Max, it's got a bunch of batteries inside there and it's much tighter and there's more room for stuff to get caught.
John:
And the M1 Mac Mini is...
John:
just an empty cavern an overbuilt empty cavern um you know and it's probably going to be fine like it's not that big of a difference so the compromises that used to be there are just not there anymore but it doesn't mean there's zero of them it just means that they're one they are falling below the threshold of people most people caring but definitely not falling below threshold of me caring and in the end it is a waste to buy a screen and a keyboard and a trackpad if you're not going to use them
Marco:
Well, I mean, I think ultimately the biggest reason to get the new iMac when it comes out, again, we don't know anything about it, but the biggest reason to get the new iMac when it comes out is going to be the screen problem.
Marco:
Like it's going to be that, oh, well, Apple still is not going to have.
John:
Especially if they don't have a monitor with it, then that is the biggest selling.
John:
But you're basically buying a monitor and it's like, I guess that has a computer attached.
Marco:
yeah like the screen problem is going to be a big driver and then secondarily to that yeah desktops do have like more ports you know it'll have something it'll have things like built-in ethernet that the laptops don't have and we'll see but yeah well probably i mean at least on the power brick right yeah i don't know i don't know but will it be will it be like 10 gig ethernet like on the mac pro who knows
Marco:
Right.
Marco:
I mean, so I think, like, yeah, there are still reasons, but I think what Casey had said was important.
Marco:
It's like, there are still reasons, but they're mattering less and less over time.
Casey:
Exactly.
Marco:
And they matter less now than ever, with that one exception of the monitor question, which, again, we keep coming back to this, you know, bringing it back around.
Marco:
Like, that's why it's such a glaring hole in the lineup.
Marco:
But if you're either willing to set $6,000 on fire or have some other solution to your monitor needs on your desktop besides relying on a built-in one for, like, an iMac...
Marco:
If you have the monitor question answered, the MacBook Pro is the best desktop Apple makes.
Marco:
And I don't think the new iMacs, whenever they come out, will be that much better than the MacBook Pro is already.
John:
Agreed.
John:
We'll see.
John:
I mean, it's easy to predict.
John:
If you want to make bets on Marco changing his setup, that's usually a safe bet.
John:
But you have gone back and forth from laptop, desktop, laptop, desktop.
John:
I'm assuming the cycle will continue to repeat.
John:
And that means eventually you'll be in a desktop again for a little while.
John:
So we'll see.
John:
I mean, most likely.
John:
I mean, you were just very recently you were on the Mac mini, but just because that was the best one you could get.
John:
But now the laptops are better.
John:
So now you're on that and there'll probably desktops that come out that are better and you'll be on that.
John:
And who knows?
John:
Round and around you go.
Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
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Marco:
Thank you so much to Impending Inc.
Marco:
for sponsoring our show.
Casey:
All right, we should probably talk about Apple announcing self-service repair.
Casey:
This dropped like a month ago now, but we just haven't had a chance to get to it.
Casey:
And so this is Apple announced self-service repair, which will allow customers who are comfortable with completing their own repairs access to Apple genuine parts and tools.
Casey:
It starts with the iPhone 12 and 13, and M1 Max will be coming soon.
Casey:
It starts on the iPhone with the display, battery, and camera.
Casey:
This will all begin in the U.S.
Casey:
in early 2022.
Casey:
Following the repair, customers who return their used part for recycling will receive credit toward their purchase.
Casey:
And in the past three years, it is noted, Apple has nearly doubled the number of service locations with access to Apple genuine parts, tools, and training, including more than 2,800 independent repair providers.
Casey:
The rapidly expanding independent repair provider program originally launched in the U S in 2019 and since grown to more to more than 200 countries, enabling independent repair shops to access the same training parts and tools as other Apple authorized service providers.
Casey:
I should, it's probably obvious by now, but I should note this is an Apple PR release.
Casey:
Um, this is interesting.
Casey:
I don't think that I would be the kind of person that would want to open up my own phone and replace a display, but it's cool that I can next year, right?
Yeah.
John:
So the context for this announcement, if you're not going to keep up with things in this world, you're like, all right, I guess, whatever.
John:
This seems weird or I'm not interesting or whatever.
John:
But there is a context for Apple making this announcement.
John:
And that context is the challenge of people with broken Apple products getting them fixed and not wanting to pay a lot for that to happen.
John:
Yeah.
John:
There are a lot of challenges involved with that.
John:
There's one YouTuber, Louis Rossman.
John:
We'll put a link to his video responding to this.
John:
But he does the type of repairs.
John:
What is it?
John:
Sega does what Nintendo don't.
John:
Rossman does what Apple don't.
John:
If your Mac is broken, you can, of course, or your phone or whatever, you can, of course, take it to an Apple store.
John:
And they will fix it for you for a price.
John:
But you might not like that price.
John:
That price might be really high.
John:
Let's say you have one of those stupid laptops where everything was all attached to the top case and your stupid keyboard went bad and they had to replace the whole top case.
John:
And let's say it was out of warranty and you don't want to pay that much.
John:
Can't you just fix the keyboard?
John:
No, we have to replace everything, right?
John:
So that same thing plays out a lot of different ways.
John:
Oh, I cracked my screen on my laptop.
John:
Can you just replace the screen?
John:
No, we have to replace the entire assembly involved in the screen.
John:
Even though just the LCD panel is bad, we have to replace the aluminum top of the case and the backlight back in the old days and the LCD thing.
John:
that even though they are independent parts, they want them to be replaced together.
John:
Oh, one chip on my logic board is bad.
John:
Can't you just replace that chip?
John:
Nope.
John:
Sorry.
John:
New logic board, $900 chip is 30 bucks.
John:
Right.
John:
Um, so this is the, the, this is the problem here.
John:
And, um,
John:
you would think okay well that's what apple wants to do they want to give you the best repair possible they don't want to replace individual chips because when you replace individual chips it's unreliable and they just go bad again and there's problems with corrosion and blah blah blah you know they just they just want to give you the best repair possible and that costs a lot of money so fine you don't like it apple's thing go someplace else and get it repaired that's where the tricky part gets in where else are you going to go and
John:
And so here's Apple bragging about their independent repair providers and how they've doubled the number of those and how they're getting more and more places that have genuine Apple parts, which is another problem because lots of places will repair your stuff but put in sort of like equivalent parts, counterfeit parts, you know, parts that are not genuine Apple parts, let's say, that might cost less money or whatever, that customers may be okay with, but Apple isn't because what if, you know, there's liability problems or especially if it's involving a battery or something or whatever.
John:
So Apple wants there to be a better network of independent repair shops that use Apple parts and that do things the Apple way.
John:
And for that to happen, those parts need to enter an agreement with Apple that says we will do the repairs the way we're supposed to.
John:
And in exchange, you will allow us to get Apple genuine parts and Apple genuine parts.
John:
you know, repair manuals that tell us how to fix them or whatever.
John:
But still, like, those places are under constraints due to that agreement with Apple.
John:
They're still not allowed to do repairs that Apple thinks, quote unquote, shouldn't be done.
John:
And that's where this big tension is between people who want, I keep wanting to say, who don't want to pay a lot for this muffler, but it's an ad that only old people even know about.
John:
Remember when ads were on TV and people watched them?
John:
It was a long time ago.
John:
They don't want to pay that much for things to get repaired.
John:
They're okay having a non-genuine Apple thing if it means the screen on their phone works again.
John:
They don't care.
John:
They just want to get their phone fixed for less money than Apple charges.
John:
And if they go to an independent Apple retailer and that retailer gets genuine Apple parts at the genuine Apple price and has to do it the genuine Apple way...
John:
where it's not probably not going to be that much cheaper or to the degree that it will be cheaper it's just cutting into the margins of the independent shop like they're not they're not empowered to solve the actual problem here that's what i have in the notes like what what problem is being solved the problem from consumers perspective is i have a broken thing i want to pay the least amount possible to get it fixed and i'm willing to compromise on like
John:
Maybe long-term viability won't be that good.
John:
It would be better if you replaced the whole logic board.
John:
Like, I acknowledge that, but I don't want to pay $900.
John:
I want to pay $200.
John:
It's a big difference in money, right?
John:
Or I just want my screen to be fixed.
John:
It doesn't need to be a genuine Apple screen.
John:
I don't care if the screen is worse.
John:
I just want to be able to use my phone again so it'll hold me over to next year, and I want to pay half price, right?
John:
And that option is not, that problem is not being solved by this program.
John:
This program of allowing people to do things the genuine Apple way with genuine Apple parts is not helping.
John:
And so people like Louis Rossman, his problem is at his shop, he can't get the parts anymore because no one will sell them to him.
John:
Apple won't sell them.
John:
And the people who make the parts, like the actual vendors that Apple buys them from, also won't sell him the parts.
John:
So he literally can't get this one little, you know, $2 chip.
John:
uh on the logic board needs to be replaced he knows how to replace it he can replace it he's got videos on youtube of him replacing it and it costs way less than buying a whole new logic board and yes maybe it is less reliable over time but this is a trade-off that consumers are willing to make but apple says consumers shouldn't be able to have that choice consumers should only be allowed to repair their things in the way that apple wants them to be repaired which is usually the better safer way but also the more expensive way
John:
And so this is the whole right to repair thing.
John:
How much say should Apple have as a vendor in how I can decide to get my thing repaired?
John:
And this program, it sounds like, oh, well fine, just do it yourself.
John:
But no, if you want to do this yourself, you also have to pay the genuine Apple price to get the genuine Apple parts and repair things the genuine Apple way.
John:
And they're starting with display, battery, and camera, which are things that break a lot on phones and same thing with Macs.
John:
They're not going to sell you
John:
the little chips that you need to fix a little thing on a logic board.
John:
They're not going to sell you just this part of the screen instead of the whole screen assembly.
John:
Apple's not going to do that.
John:
So still Apple is exerting control by saying, here's what we'll sell you.
John:
And we will tell all our vendors, you're not allowed to sell any of the parts that you sell to us to other people.
John:
So Apple's essentially boxing out independent repair shops from doing things not the genuine Apple way.
John:
which is kind of crappy and this repair program doesn't really do much to change that except in that it allows i mean as far as i can tell it allows people to undercut apple by cutting into their own profit margins by saying okay apple wants x amount of profit margins because they have to maintain a fancy store in a mall right
John:
I don't have to maintain that.
John:
I have lower rent.
John:
I'm in a smaller place that doesn't have like Italian marble tiles on the wall or whatever the hell Apple has in their Apple stores.
John:
And I'll pass that savings on to you by taking less of a profit on this screen repair.
John:
But I will do the screen repair the Apple way with Apple parts and it will cost almost the same price minus 10% or something.
John:
And that 10% is 10% I'm eating because I have to pay the same price for the parts that Apple does, right?
John:
So I guess that helps.
John:
I'm not saying this is an announcement.
John:
It's bad.
John:
I'm just saying that the problem that is that the context, the surrounding context of like, hey, what is the problem with people getting stuff repaired?
John:
That's not being fundamentally changed by this program.
John:
It's helping.
John:
It's better than not doing this.
John:
It's better to have independent repair shops than to not have them.
John:
But still, Apple is essentially controlling from top to bottom exactly the kind of repairs that can be done to its products by anybody, not just by Apple.
Casey:
Marco, any thoughts?
Marco:
No, John covered it really well.
Marco:
I think this is going to change things in small ways, not big ways.
John:
I mean, and it's good if you're one of the independent repair shops.
John:
Oh, I want more access to more stuff and to be able to do more repairs.
John:
Good.
John:
Great.
John:
But the bigger problem, like the big question is, should Apple be able to decide how I can get my thing repaired?
John:
And the answer is right now they can sort of like de facto, like through all their arrangements and dealings.
John:
It doesn't look like they're stopping you from doing anything, but they really are.
John:
And it's kind of crappy.
John:
Um,
John:
In some ways, it's also kind of better because again, these things have lithium ion.
John:
This is the scare tactic that Apple always uses.
John:
It's the computer repair equivalent of think of the children.
John:
Oh, battery's going to explode because you use a cheap battery and they poke the battery when they were changing your screen and everything's setting on fire and everyone's going to die in flames, right?
John:
Like that's Apple will always tell you that you're all going to die in flames.
John:
And there is some truth to that.
John:
Someone's probably going to die in flames.
John:
But think of it this way.
John:
When you get your car repaired, you don't have to go to the dealership.
John:
You can go other places and anybody can buy a part from Honda to repair your car.
John:
And Honda does not force you to rebuy the whole engine if you just need a new head gasket.
John:
They will sell you the head gasket.
John:
They will sell you every part in that car.
John:
It's a good business.
John:
Parts are very profitable, right?
John:
But they won't just... Sorry, we won't just sell a head gasket.
John:
You need to buy the entire head.
John:
that's not how honda works imagine if they did imagine if if first there were only you could only take it to the honda dealers and they said now we'll allow third parties to do stuff but also you can only buy the entire you know top of the engine you can't just buy a head gasket because we feel like if you just replace the head gasket that's not a good repair you just need to replace the whole top of the engine right that's the situation we're in with computers and cars are way more dangerous than computers at this point right in terms of potential for instant death right and
John:
Yes, battery is going to go bad and burst into flames.
John:
But, you know, if you're hurtling along in this, you know, multi thousand pound machine that could veer off into an immovable object in any second.
John:
But somehow we're OK with doing with cars, but computers, it's, you know, when Apple makes the safety argument.
John:
It's true.
John:
there'll probably be more incidents of bad repairs and things going bad but is it going to be worse than vehicles and somehow the world goes on you know we think it's better that you can take your car to someplace other than the dealer and i don't think anybody if you introduced the law that said hey we've decided that you're no longer going to be allowed to get your car repaired any place other than the dealer well that's kind of true with tesla right now sorry marco but
John:
Tesla tries very hard to be like Apple in this regard of not allowing third-party repairs.
John:
This whole YouTube video is not if you want to look at it.
John:
But I don't think we'd want to go back with cars.
John:
I don't think anyone would agree to a new law that says your car can only be repaired to the dealer because we know what would happen there.
John:
Well, that's the situation we're in with Apple.
John:
We were in with Apple, and Apple is trying to expand it out in the other direction.
John:
But we're nowhere near where we should be, which is
John:
I can get my car repaired anywhere and I can be confident, unless I have a Tesla, I guess, that you can buy any part of this car, any one of these thousands and thousands of parts that make up this car.
John:
You can buy a genuine part or a replacement part that is not an OEM part and pay someone else to put it in there and it will be fine.
Marco:
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Casey:
All right, let's do some Ask ATP.
Casey:
And Todd Caprillion writes, The iPhone was a big risk for Apple, in part because it didn't have a hard keyboard.
Casey:
Instead, they opted for the flexibility of a virtual one.
Casey:
In this usage, a virtual interface was a smashing success.
Casey:
Following this lesson, I can see the merits of replacing the top row of regular function keys with virtual ones on the Mac laptops, like they did in the Touch Bar.
Casey:
This appears to have been a failure, however.
Casey:
Why do you think the use of a virtual interface works so well in one context but not the other?
Casey:
I have a couple of theories.
Casey:
First of all, when I am using the virtual keyboard on a phone, nine times out of ten, I am looking at the phone, whereas I am a touch typist.
Casey:
And so it is very rare that I am looking down at my keyboard.
Casey:
It happens, but it's very, very rare and it's very unusual.
Casey:
And secondly, every iPhone had the same keyboard.
Casey:
Not every Mac had the same keyboard.
Casey:
And a lot of times people who wrote code to create programs and applications for these Macs were doing it on iMacs, which didn't have a touch bar.
Casey:
So those are two potentially silly reasons, but those are two reasons I see why it never really took off.
Casey:
And then there were people like Marco who just never gave it a chance.
Marco:
excuse me i gave it lots of chances i'm kidding i'm kidding no i i think you know number one you're right that the fact is that when you're touching a screen that you are looking at that's a very different thing than a keyboard where traditionally like typically most people typing on physical laptop keyboards most of the time are not looking at the keyboards when they're typing on them
Marco:
So problem number one is that the touch bar required you to move your eyes every single time down to the keyboard to be able to reliably use it.
Marco:
Whereas with the phone, you are looking at the screen the entire time you are actively using it.
Marco:
And so you have a lot more direct interaction there.
Marco:
And I think the other thing is that the software keyboard on the phone
Marco:
is not 100% better in every way than a physical keyboard.
Marco:
But it enabled such additional features like the screen opening up when the keyboard wasn't there into much more screen area and other kinds of customization and everything else.
Marco:
So it allowed other benefits that let us forgive the downsides of the virtual keyboard over a physical one.
Marco:
The touch bar didn't do that.
Marco:
The touch bar didn't enable enough additional value compared to the hardware keys to justify the loss of the hardware keys.
Marco:
That was the biggest problem, is that in certain ways it was significantly worse.
Marco:
The lack of feel, accidental input, having to activate it to do certain things, having to wake it up.
Marco:
So it was worse in all these ways.
Marco:
But it wasn't better enough.
Marco:
It didn't provide enough benefit to offset the ways in which it was worse.
Marco:
Whereas the iPhone, it's the opposite.
Marco:
The iPhone keyboard, like, yeah, it's worse than a hardware keyboard in some ways.
Marco:
But all these benefits came from doing that, that we put up with those downsides.
Marco:
And it was overall a very good tradeoff.
Marco:
And the touch bar just didn't have that.
John:
Yep, I agree.
John:
That's the big difference.
John:
What do I get in exchange for this?
John:
In exchange for this weird thing, what you get on the phone is like, well, you get like double the screen size without making the device bigger.
John:
How does that feel?
John:
And it's such a massive win.
John:
And the other thing I had going for it is those tiny keyboards, like on BlackBerrys or whatever, they weren't great.
John:
You know, laptops can have full-size keyboards on them that are just, you know, they're fine.
John:
Full-size keys, full-size, right?
Yeah.
John:
to replace part of that with the screen and with all these compromises or whatever like it's easier to replace the crappy tiny keyboard with a slightly crappier on-screen keyboard in exchange for getting double the screen space and enabling a whole world of new applications and by the way when you don't need the keyboard you know it's like such a huge win and the touch bar is like
John:
we're going to compromise your full-size keyboard that you like, setting aside the butterfly business or whatever.
John:
And in exchange, you don't get much.
John:
Maybe you get some benefit, but also you get some downsides of having to move your eyes.
John:
So that's why.
John:
Like, it's...
John:
It's like any design thing.
John:
It's all about the trade-offs.
John:
You have to look at what are the pros and what are the cons and the balance for getting the software keyboard on the phone was just, you know, witness the entire world of phones now.
John:
Such a huge win that it more than makes up with the compromises and the touch bar.
John:
Look at Apple's laptop lineup.
John:
Look at the laptops around the entire industry.
John:
That trade-off obviously had a much worse ratio.
John:
Otherwise, all laptops would have touch bars now, but they don't, not even Apple's.
Marco:
I think another thing we learned is that the touch bar's promise, if it was going to have some positive value, the promise was,
Marco:
look, we can change all these function keys to be anything you want depending on applications and needs and preferences.
Marco:
You can have all the dynamic changing stuff.
Marco:
But I think what we ultimately learned from that is what most people need from laptops in that area is things like, well, yeah, I need to be able to control the brightness.
Marco:
I need to be able to control the sound volume.
Marco:
I might want media playback controls there.
Marco:
all things that the keyboard already offered in the function keys.
Marco:
And you kind of want those to, like most people want those to be available most of the time on laptops.
Marco:
And then once you throw in touch ID on one side, escape on the other, like, well, to make that area functional the way most people need it for laptops,
Marco:
You could actually just use function keys and just have them be permanently fixed in place, and that's going to solve most people's needs most of the time.
Marco:
So even the upside of the touch bar, of the dynamism of it, was something that proved to be not as good and not as necessary as I think people would have thought if they would have first come up with this idea in 2015 or whatever.
John:
And it's not like there's – unlike the phones where half the device was dominated by the keyboard because the phones had to be so small, right, that you were doubling the screen size.
John:
There's already a large amount of screen space on laptops.
John:
That was part of Steve Jobs' original pitch was –
John:
you know, why would we take half of the surface of this device and put it on a thing that can never change, right?
John:
If we make the whole thing screen, we can change everything that appears there.
John:
We can have a keyboard that just accepts numbers and we can have a keyboard with a .com button when you're entering an email address and like, look at the, you know, look at the benefits of a screen.
John:
You can put anything you want on a screen.
John:
laptops have a big screen and you can put lots of stuff that you want there and it's almost as like if apple wanted to do something like the touch bar in terms of a user interface element you could just dedicate the bottom of the screen can you call it the control strip bring a blast from the past from classic mac os you can put the touch bar on the actual screen and then make the screen a touch screen apple um and just dedicate a region of the bottom of the screen to that if you think if you think it's a useful thing to have you know oh a part of a part of the interface that can change anytime we want
John:
it's the screen you've got a whole screen for that and do it like there's lots of interface elements that are like that in the mac ui put them there moving it down to the keyboard and more importantly taking away the physical function keys that you can always reliably find the volume up and down a mute button because it never moves and it works like a button and you can feel for it and so on and so forth taking that away which by the way was stupid you could have put the touch bar on top of the function keys it's not like you didn't have room on the surface of the giant laptops anyway taking that away you needed something to balance it and they didn't give enough benefit to balance it
Casey:
Alrighty.
Casey:
Arian Aneha writes, why is Chromium's dominance considered bad for the open web?
Casey:
I understand that Chromium browsers have poor support for Apple devices, but isn't that because Apple uses WebKit?
Casey:
What would we lose or what would Google gain if all competing browsers were based on Chromium?
Casey:
The pros of greater website compatibility and interoperability of extensions seems like a massive upside of everyone using Chromium.
Casey:
After all, it is open source, isn't it?
Casey:
John?
John:
Yeah, so setting aside the obvious disadvantages of like a monoculture, both biologically speaking and the various biological analogs in the software world, like it's not a good idea to have, you know, an important part of our computing platform be like one piece of software, you know, based on Chromium or whatever.
John:
The open source thing is a bit of a sort of get out of jail free card that people like to play.
John:
But as I wrote in a very old blog post, 2013, when I used to write slightly more on my blog,
John:
Having something being open source is great and all, but for projects like Chromium, big complicated projects where it's not like a single developer can do anything, you need large companies funded by billions of dollars in advertising revenue to be able to make any headway on that project.
John:
And it's basically whoever has the most employees working on it, whoever pays people to work on it, whoever writes the most lines of code
John:
by default controls that project oh it's open source don't we all share this together good luck competing with hundreds of google engineers right you can't they're going to make all the changes they're going to drive the change you can't compete with that because they just put more money and more people on the project and therefore they control it so even if it's like oh it's not like google controls it chromium is an open source project it's controlled by all of us no it's controlled by google because google puts the money in
John:
And everyone else is volunteering in their spare time or whatever.
John:
They can't compete with people being paid with, you know, the millions of dollars that we funnel into them through Google searches and search ads and stuff.
John:
Right.
John:
So having an important part of our computing experience being de facto controlled by one company is,
John:
a company that makes his money off advertising.
John:
That's bad.
John:
And yeah, Apple uses WebKit.
John:
Not too long ago, WebKit and Chromium were based on the same browser engine called WebKit.
John:
But now it's based on Blink or whatever.
John:
But I understand Chromium is bigger than just the browser engines.
John:
You know, like, I get it.
John:
But yeah, it would be bad for all of us if Google, an advertising company, was the one and only vendor of the major component used to power our web browsers.
John:
And the fact that it's open source doesn't change that.
Casey:
Dave Saunders writes, and we kind of hinted at this earlier, we now have a MacBook Air with an M1 and a MacBook Pro with an M1 Pro and M1 Max.
Casey:
We have an iMac with an M1.
Casey:
So it is a strong possibility that when we next get an iMac or perhaps an iMac Pro, it'll have the M1 Pro or M1 Max chips.
Casey:
when the iMac hasn't been refreshed for ages the iMac the the Mac Pro was a clear statement of intent but in the current context Dave writes I'd be interested in your thoughts on what is the incentive for Apple to keep producing the Mac Pro to serve the small and shrinking number of users who are not served by other Macs I feel like this is one of those ones that we get asked like annually and apparently it's that time of year again so John take it away
John:
I can just put my same article from 2013, the case for a true Mac Pro successor.
John:
It's still the same case it's ever been.
John:
Like, luckily, we don't have to remake this case.
John:
Apple agrees with us.
John:
Apple is not, you know, they haven't said that they're producing an ARM Mac Pro, but they're producing an ARM Mac Pro.
John:
Like...
John:
Apple needs to continue to push at the top edge of computing hardware, not because they make a lot of money off of them or, you know, selling lots of people, or just because for the same reason that the analogy I made in this old blog post, it's the same reason the car makers make what they call halo cars, right?
John:
It's a car that burnishes your brand.
John:
It's really cool.
John:
You probably lose money on the whole project, but it's an important place.
John:
It serves so many different purposes.
John:
It's a place where new technologies are tried out for the first time.
John:
It's a place where you push the envelope.
John:
Things like the XDR, which is a ridiculous product,
John:
It was their first mini LED display.
John:
It was their first HDR display.
John:
Like, it was pushing the envelope on what was possible.
John:
And it taught people inside Apple about this new technology.
John:
It also, a role that I don't think I talked about in this blog post, people don't really consider, but like...
John:
it is being on a halo car project at a car company that's a good gig it helps you retain employees if you have like your very best employees maybe they want to make the cool you know supercar even though that's not an important you'd rather have them be making the next toyota camry right but if you want to retain that engineer this great you know this great automotive designer and they want to be on the lfa project
John:
put them on the lfa project you will retain that employee you will make them happier they will improve their skills burning through all your money making this ridiculous supercar that's never gonna it's not gonna turn a profit right they'll be happy happy employees with even better skills that's what you want right so having you know if you were on the mac pro team and this sort of like turns your propeller you love making big fast beefy computers
John:
You want that job in Apple, right?
John:
And if you can't get it at Apple, you go elsewhere.
John:
You work on Threadripper at AMD or something.
John:
Who knows?
John:
You'll go on Microsoft and work on whatever.
John:
Having projects like this is important for the morale of the company.
John:
It's important for employee retention.
John:
It's important for R&D.
John:
It's important for satisfying your customers.
John:
Do you want to keep video editors as one of your markets?
John:
Do you want to keep selling Final Cut Pro?
John:
You need to sell a machine that they can use to do their real job.
John:
No, there's not a lot of them.
John:
No, they're not going to make you a lot of money.
John:
But if you want in that market, this is the price of entry.
John:
So...
John:
Yeah, Apple eventually was convinced of that argument.
John:
They had a Mac roundtable.
John:
They said they're going to make a modular Mac Pro.
John:
They made one.
John:
It's pretty cool.
John:
I think they're going to make another one.
John:
I don't think we have to re-litigate this, or at least I hope we don't.
Marco:
Yeah, agreed.
Marco:
I think, you know, even though what they're making so far with the Apple Silicon Macs, like if you just look at their current lineup, even though everything I was saying earlier about how you don't really need desktops for many people anymore...
Marco:
there are still those higher needs or more specialized needs that the current products won't cover well.
Marco:
Even if we get a nice iMac that's very similar in hardware to the current MacBook Pros, that's going to be great.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
If you're a professional video producer, you're going to want more GPU grunt.
Marco:
You're going to want more bandwidth.
Marco:
You're going to want more storage options and even higher RAM capacity, possibly.
Marco:
There's always going to be some customer
Marco:
that is not going to be served by laptop-grade or mid-range desktop-grade hardware, even though that hardware is fantastic.
Marco:
Because as time goes on, as that hardware continues to get more fantastic, the needs of high-end customers also continue to increase.
Marco:
Video gets higher bitrate.
Marco:
People do more advanced processing of things.
Marco:
There's more scientific research or ML training or stuff like that.
Marco:
The bar is always getting raised, and there's always going to be
Marco:
Whatever most people are able to get away with, there's going to be high-end users, and they're going to want more, and they're going to be able to use more, and they're going to be willing to pay for more.
Marco:
And so the Mac Pro is going to address those markets similarly to how the current one addresses them, I think.
Marco:
It's not going to be a high-volume machine, but it is going to be very important to certain markets and certain users, and therefore they should keep making it, including for all the reasons John just said as well.
Casey:
Plus, it gives us more Mac Pro stuff to talk about.
Marco:
Exactly.
Marco:
What would we talk about if they didn't make Mac Pros?
Casey:
Uh-huh.
Marco:
Thanks to our sponsors this week, Slidebox, Impending, and Trade Coffee.
Marco:
And thanks to our members who support us directly.
Marco:
You can join at atp.fm slash join.
Marco:
Maybe if enough of you join, we can get Casey to waffle more about an XDR.
Marco:
And we will talk to you next week.
Marco:
Now the show is over.
Marco:
They didn't even mean to begin.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
Marco:
John didn't do any research.
Marco:
Marco and Casey wouldn't let him.
Marco:
Cause it was accidental.
Marco:
Oh, it was accidental.
John:
And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.
Marco:
and if you're into twitter you can follow them at c-a-s-e-y-l-i-s-s so that's casey list m-a-r-c-o-a-r-m-n-t marco armen s-i-r-a-c-u-s-a syracusa it's accidental they did it
John:
so john what's new with your freezer yeah i guess that's a spoiler but honestly you should re-listen to the episodes in order and so you already know the source of my beeping turned out to be my freezer i said i'm solving the problem by buying a new freezer just a brief update on this unfortunately ongoing saga oh no
John:
I did buy a new freezer.
John:
There was a whole rigmarole about preparing the way that maybe I'll talk about on Rectifs, but whatever.
John:
Please.
John:
Freezer gets delivered, gets installed.
John:
I killed myself trying to level it.
John:
Again, more Rectifs content probably.
John:
Set it all up, put food into it, painfully carried the old one up and out and put it in the garage while waiting for someone to give it away to.
John:
turns out the new freezer has some problems it's kind of like the the lg 5k like it seemed like it seemed like it was okay but then like it was confused about whether the door was open or closed i'm like well the door just did get you know it comes in without the door and you connect the door so i sorted that out but like and the little high temperature light was on i'm like well but it is high temperature now we gotta wait for it to cool down but by the time the first day was over we realized that uh
John:
you know after many hours uh it would eventually just start beeping constantly beep beep beep beep beep that's that's the high temperature alarm right at least you know what it is now yeah no there's no doubt like it is constant it is it's the high temperature alarm it's constant beeping like about that fast no i said like at least you know it's the freezer yeah i know it's the freezer and it's not a song it's just constant beeping um
John:
I you know, we did get like a freezer thermometer to see is it really high temperature and it's not it's negative 20 degrees inside there So the thing is broken.
John:
It thinks that it is You know, it's temperature sensor doesn't work If you google for this online, you will find lots of people with this exact problem with this exact model, which unfortunate.
John:
Yeah
John:
anyway um oh and the other thing is like frost is forming inside the thing so i made the pretty quick call to say i'm not going to try to deal with this i'm just sending it back yeah smart so yeah so i um it's you know sending everything with the whole covid and shipping and blah blah blah the earliest they could come and pick it up is the 20th so
Marco:
Oh, geez.
Marco:
Like three weeks from now.
Marco:
Yep.
John:
So it's a good thing we didn't get rid of the old freezer because the old freezer is up in the garage right now.
John:
And we have transferred the food out of the downstairs freezer and put it into the garage freezer and unplug the downstairs one.
John:
You know why?
John:
Because the high temp alarm would go off every six hours.
John:
so that meant every morning when we woke up we woke up to beep beep beep beep beep beep beep oh god every morning because it would it was going off at 12 and 6 so 12 6 12 6 12 you know you have to go down there and press the alarm reset button so we lasted a few days on that and we're like no f that um and so now the food is in the upstairs uh freezer that's in the garage and guess what
John:
It doesn't sing a song anymore.
John:
Oh, no.
John:
It's in the garage.
John:
Oh, no.
John:
Did we knock a bunch of dust loose carrying it up?
John:
Was it just angry in the basement?
John:
So, anyway.
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
The replacement is going back on the 20th.
John:
Right now, all the food is in the garage one, which is no longer singing a song, and we're not quite sure what to do.
John:
Oh, and by the way, if you're looking to replace it, given what's actually in stock, your choices are various rebranded versions of the one that's in the garage,
John:
It's under Maytag brand, Whirlpool brand.
John:
You can look at them.
John:
If you're familiar with them, you can say, that's the same freezer with different brandings, right?
John:
So you can get that one, or you can get various rebranded versions of the one that's in the basement, which is a GE, but there's also Insignia.
John:
It's the same.
John:
Those are the two standing, frost-free, vertical...
John:
freezers that you can get in stock there are lots of others made but like you'd have to wait months for them to come over on a boat from somewhere right only those two are in stock anywhere so we are either going to pretend that the one in the garage is cured and then i guess carried it back down to the basement which i'm not looking forward to especially now that's considered it's filled with frozen food which would have to remove and would be like a time pressure thing right um i like to leave it in a garage where it's cold anyway
John:
Or buy a new one, probably just buy a new, slightly larger, because, you know, of course, slightly larger, the version of the one that's in the garage and sort of reset the clock on the beeping song or whatever.
John:
So that's where we are.
John:
I will give more updates as things change.
John:
But anyway, the saga continues.
John:
We have not solved the problem.
John:
We had a different amount of beeping and the old one's not playing its song anymore.
John:
uh i i would just leave it like just return the bad one leave the leave the now garage freezer in the garage and that's just where you get your frozen food now well that's a getting good like i do want to be able to fit the car in there again eventually so with the car will not fit and that's a lost cause the car will not fit with the with the with the freezer in there no way no how so that's got to come out it barely fit before like i know but it did fit
Casey:
John, I think you've lost this battle once in a while.
John:
No, I'll bring it back down.
John:
I mean, we don't want it in the garage.
John:
It's a pain to go outside into the cold garage when you want something.
John:
It's better to stay inside the conditioned house and go, you know, in the basement.
John:
So we'll see.
John:
You know, there are other things in progress again.
John:
You know, listen to Wreck-Diff if you want to hear more of this saga.
Casey:
Yes, I do.
Casey:
All right, Marco, what's going on with you these days?
Marco:
Well, I'm going to take it to neutral.
Marco:
I do not have a driving permit for the sand yet.
Marco:
However, I have driven on the sand.
Marco:
And I have purchased a vehicle.
Casey:
Oh, did you get that?
Casey:
What was it?
Casey:
A Toyota?
Marco:
So I put the link in.
Marco:
I put the picture in our Slack so you guys can see.
Marco:
So the neighbor's FJ?
Marco:
It is the FJ Cruiser.
Marco:
Not the neighbor, but somebody else in town.
Marco:
So I have purchased an FJ Cruiser.
Casey:
What color is the roof?
John:
Well, the roof happens to be white, but the car.
John:
This is a homely car.
John:
I'd forgotten how ugly these things are.
Marco:
Yeah, the car is gray.
Marco:
It is nothing that I would have picked out in terms of like if I was going to choose my own FJ Cruiser.
Marco:
By the way, which hasn't been made since 2014.
Marco:
And it was never made in large volume, so they're kind of hard.
John:
It was never attractive.
Marco:
No, it was never attractive.
Marco:
They're kind of hard to find, but they're out there.
Marco:
And if I were to pick my own, I would probably get a yellow or orange one.
John:
Why?
John:
To lean into the ugly factor.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And I would almost certainly get it with a stick, which it was available in.
Marco:
This is gray and automatic.
Marco:
So this is not what I normally would have picked.
Marco:
But as I mentioned, I don't have a driving permit yet.
Marco:
The reason I have purchased this vehicle, I think I'm pretty high on the list to get a permit.
Marco:
So I think I'm going to get one probably either this winter or next winter.
Marco:
In the winter, sometimes the bay freezes over and the ferries have to suspend service for... You're going to drive right over that bay on this vehicle.
Marco:
Well, so when the bay freezes, which happens usually every winter for at least a few days, and sometimes it can be a week, sometimes it can be a few weeks, sometimes it could be a month.
Marco:
And when the bay freezes, you no longer have access to the land for things like grocery shopping, and that's kind of annoying and problematic.
Marco:
So when the bay freezes, if there's no ferry service, anyone who's on the sand driving waiting list can get weekly sand driving permits.
John:
This is a hell of a system here.
John:
This is so ridiculous.
Marco:
However, if the bay freezes and I get a temporary freeze-over permit, I can't necessarily drive my Tesla on the sand.
Marco:
No, not advisable.
Marco:
You need a vehicle that can do it to make use of that.
Marco:
And so normally, you know, I was not planning on buying anything until and unless I got the full permit.
Marco:
But somebody in town who had a permit was moving.
Marco:
She decided to sell her car, and she was offering it at a price that was well below not only its official value, I think, but also well below anything that is online for sale right now.
Marco:
First of all, try to buy any car right now.
Marco:
This is not a good time to need to buy a car if you're buying in most contexts.
Marco:
um this is also really not a good time to want to buy an fj cruiser or a wrangler or any vehicle that would be suitable for this purpose um so this was an opportunity that i just didn't want to pass up because so you know a i have i have like you know the bay freezing over contingency now covered i have a sand capable vehicle and it was very inexpensive
John:
Was it more or less expensive than my Mac?
John:
More, but not by a lot.
John:
Not by much at all, actually.
John:
My Mac has very poor performance on the sand.
John:
I'd advise it again.
John:
It doesn't even have wheels.
John:
You didn't even get the wheels.
John:
A lot of plays for a sand ingress in my Mac.
Marco:
Yeah, and I didn't get the wheels.
Marco:
So, you know, this opportunity came up to get this vehicle, and it was too good of a price to pass up, and it's actually only 80,000 miles, and it's a 2014 model year, which was the last year they were made.
Marco:
Like, if you're going to get an FJ, besides, you know, that it's not really the color or transmission I would have necessarily picked for myself, if you're going to get an FJ...
Marco:
you want a 2014 model year with relatively low mileage.
John:
And it's a Toyota, so it's fine.
John:
It's not like you bought a Land Rover or something.
John:
It's fine.
Marco:
And as part of the deal, the previous owner was super nice and super generous with her time and everything.
Marco:
And she taught me how to drive on the sand because she'd been doing it for like 30 years.
Marco:
And so she took me out.
Marco:
We did a whole run.
Marco:
I did it with her through the gate and everything because she's allowed to have other people drive the car if she's in it.
Marco:
Um, so we went through the gate.
Marco:
I went the two different routes you can go and I learned where everything was.
Marco:
And let me tell you, driving on the sand was way harder than I expected.
Marco:
So a few things I've learned.
Marco:
So first of all,
Marco:
This was – the conditions we're talking about here, this is driving across a beach for a few miles, and it's in the winter, and it hadn't rained in a while.
Marco:
And so the beach consisted almost entirely of multiple very deep tracks through the sand, just tire tracks –
Marco:
Like deep tire tracks just running straight, you know, kind of zigzag here and there, but mostly like straight tire tracks on the sand forming like a bunch of like, I guess, like kind of virtual lanes across the beach, maybe like eight or 10 like virtual sand lanes wide, but super deep tracks, you know, probably at least six to 10 inches deep, you know, just the tracks in the sand.
Marco:
and going between them the sand because it hadn't rained in a while the sand is not hard packed down so it's very loose packed and you're riding in these basically deep ruts so getting in and out of the tracks is is not easy necessarily because you have these big ruts you're going in and out of and the sand is loose and it's very tall and so this was a challenging time to drive through the sand
Marco:
I don't want to toot my own horn here.
Marco:
I'm pretty good at car control in loose traction situations.
Marco:
Casey, you recall at BMW, the driving fun thing we did with Underscore?
Marco:
I was pretty good on the skid pad.
Marco:
I wasn't good at going around it quickly, but I was really good at not spinning out and not losing control.
Marco:
I'm generally pretty decent at that kind of thing with cars.
Marco:
This was hard.
Marco:
Again, way harder than I expected.
Marco:
You know, there were lots of times where, you know, I'm I'm going down this track and and the woman who was selling the car who was telling me like she had given me a ride off like on the sand a few days earlier.
Marco:
I would describe her driving style as like pretty gentle.
Marco:
She was a slow, careful driver.
Marco:
One of the reasons why I bought the car, actually, because I could tell she wasn't a hard driver of it.
Marco:
But there were so many times where she would tell me, you should go faster here.
Marco:
Go faster, otherwise you're going to get stuck.
Marco:
You've got to go faster.
Marco:
You've got to go faster.
Marco:
I had to keep the car moving at certain points.
Marco:
Otherwise, I was at risk of getting stuck.
Marco:
And this is...
Marco:
An FJ Cruiser, which, you know, off-roaders respect this vehicle.
Marco:
It's a pretty well-regarded vehicle for off-road driving.
Marco:
It has off-road tires.
Marco:
They were aired way down to like 20 PSI.
Marco:
And it was still really hard.
Marco:
It was in four-wheel drive mode.
Marco:
The diffs were locked.
Marco:
Like, it was as off-road mode as it could be.
Marco:
And there were still times when I would try to steer out of the current rut I was driving in, and I would turn the wheel and I'd just keep going straight.
Marco:
As if you're driving on ice.
Marco:
You turn the wheel and you just, well, I guess I'm going straight for a little while longer until I can get it to kick up, get up there on the ridge.
Marco:
So it was very, very hard.
Marco:
And one thing she told me, she said, everybody who has a driving permit gets stuck sometimes.
Marco:
and i'm like really everyone like because i'm here i'm thinking like i'm gonna get a really capable vehicle and i'm and i'm a pretty good driver i'm i'm never gonna get stuck and she's like no everybody gets stuck and what do you do when you get stuck you call 9-1-1 and they dispatch a local police something to come pull you out i'm like really i'm like first of all i'd really i'd be mortified if i ever had to do that i really don't want to have to do that but all of this is to say
Marco:
This vehicle, I really appreciated how capable it was.
Marco:
At the same time, it was just barely what I would want in capability.
Marco:
And so recognizing that there aren't many vehicles that are more off-road capable than this that aren't really giant things.
Marco:
Because I don't want a huge lifted pickup truck.
Marco:
I don't even want a full-length SUV because once you get onto the big streets, boy, do you want a very small vehicle at that point.
John:
Yes, like a Wrangler.
John:
The Rivian is more capable than this, though.
John:
Higher ground clearance, more power, bigger, knobbier wheels, right?
Marco:
Yes, and that's one of the reasons why I'm interested in the Rivian.
Marco:
It is, however, a bigger vehicle, and it doesn't exist yet.
Marco:
That's the bigger problem.
Marco:
But certainly, I think if I get a permit and the Rivian comes out during the time I have a permit,
Marco:
I would most likely then sell or trade this in and switch to that until then.
Marco:
And Casey, you're right.
Marco:
The Wrangler is the other choice.
Marco:
However, I don't think a Wrangler is that much more capable in this condition.
Marco:
I think it would be fairly similar overall.
Casey:
I would probably agree with that.
Casey:
But the two-door, anyway, is a very small car.
Casey:
It's been a while since I've been physically next to a FJ or whatever the heck this thing is called.
Casey:
So I don't recall how big they are, but a two-door Wrangler is very small.
Casey:
The four doors are not.
Casey:
The four doors are pretty big.
Marco:
Well, and I wouldn't get the two.
Marco:
The two-door Wranglers don't have enough space for me.
Marco:
Like, we have a kid.
Casey:
You're a family of wee little people.
Casey:
You'd be fine.
Marco:
Have you seen a two-door Wrangler?
Marco:
Yes.
Marco:
If you have a car seat in the back, there's no trunk.
No.
Marco:
that's a bit of a problem there's not an abundance of trunk and you only have one car seat if you have it forget car seat if you just have a passenger in the back if you have the back seats operating as seats you have basically no trunk
Marco:
i wouldn't say that you have a frunk it's just in the back so anyway that's not at all but and then no trunk in the front anyway all right so no if i went wrangler i would go with the four-door one and dimensionally the wrangler and the f the wrangler and the fj are very similar um there's a couple inches here or there but it's not they're very they're very close in size overall
Marco:
um but anyway when i was first thinking about like you know what kind if i if i got a sand vehicle what would i go for would i go for something like a wrangler or some giant suv thing or i was thinking like could i get away with something that's maybe just like a really good all-wheel drive system with some good ground clearance
Marco:
There are certain options like the Subaru Outback has this off-road package in the modern ones that gives it pretty good ground clearance.
Marco:
It's a pretty good system, so people recommended that.
Marco:
There's other Jeep models that are a little larger, more comfortable on the highway, but aren't as off-road focused as the Wrangler.
Marco:
And now I know from this experience of just driving, driving there and back, you know, basically two trips on the sand.
Marco:
I already know that I would absolutely not want any vehicle that is less off-road capable than this.
Marco:
If anything, I'd welcome more, you know, like if I can get the Rivian cool, I Wrangler and FJ are my new baseline.
Marco:
Nothing that is less capable than these off-road would work for me here.
Marco:
i've also of course i went and got the uh the super expensive uh max tracks uh skid plate things that you can like you can stick under your wheels you get stuck and help pull yourself out or help drive out i guess um so i ordered those i'm like i do not want to get stuck ever and have to like call the police that sounds terrible so i i hopefully i never have to use those but i did order those um and like you know like little mini shovels so
Marco:
So we'll see if this ever even happens, if I ever get the permit.
Marco:
But the great thing about this deal, too, is it was such a good price that even if I never get the permit and I end up selling this in a few years, I'll probably make up all of what I paid for it, or most of it, at least.
Marco:
So...
Marco:
It was kind of a no risk.
Marco:
And again, this is another reason why it's kind of a no brainer deal.
Marco:
But other thing, other notes about driving it.
Marco:
This was the FJ Cruiser.
Marco:
It was it was an old vehicle like it came out in, I think, like 2008 or 2007 at first.
Marco:
And the 2014 was not changed that much from that.
Marco:
And so it still works.
Marco:
the way cars from the early 2000s worked so it doesn't have the stupid engine auto start stop which i hate on all vehicles that have it it doesn't have proximity key it doesn't have oh i'm out no proximity key it basically has no it's like it's the way all cars used to be that's how this car is the way all my cars still are by the way yeah like there's an ignition you put the key in it and turn it and just to start the car that's still a thing
John:
i will i will trade that for no stop start any day of the week like so many cars like the thing every time i look at a modern car review and they go over like and here's where you disable the start stop button all i want to know is the one piece of information they're telling me is do i have to disable stop start every time i get into the car does it remember like that's the most important feature of this car and let's just like casey if they say oh you got to disable it every time you get in i'm out
John:
It's not that bad.
Marco:
And in fact, part of the reason a lot of the positive reviews that the Wrangler 4xe are getting, the plug-in hybrid Wrangler, a lot of those positive reviews are positive because the 4xe, you don't really feel the engine start-stop because it's a hybrid system.
Marco:
Whereas all other Wranglers, you feel it and everyone hates it because it sucks.
John:
It's the principle of the matter.
John:
Stop-start, I reject on principle.
John:
Even if I never feel it, I just know that it's happening.
John:
I say, no.
John:
You need to be
Marco:
burning gas constantly yeah so again like it has it's just it's an old it's like a basic functioning car so you know the the key fob does have little remote control buttons to like lock and unlock the doors by remote so that's that it has that yeah it has that like capability but that's it everything else does it have carplay nope it does however have a standard doubled in radio socket does it does it have bluetooth
Marco:
So here's the thing.
Marco:
So first of all, I don't know much about these cars, but I did know that everyone said like if you're going to have a vehicle on the beach for this purpose, get the FJ because it's better than the Wrangler for the needs of most residents here.
Marco:
So great.
Marco:
Okay.
Marco:
Other than that, I really didn't know much about the vehicle.
Marco:
the first time that I get into it and I, you know, I look around the controls, I notice, right, there's no, there's no navigation system.
Marco:
It's just like the stock head unit that just has like, you know, the regular, you know, LCD display that shows like, you know, the seven segments of the numbers, whatever.
Marco:
Like it's not, it doesn't have like a full, you know, bitmap screen.
Marco:
So there's no navigation system.
Marco:
Um,
Marco:
But I did see there was a USB port and a line-in on the bottom.
Marco:
I was like, okay, so I can rig something up there.
Marco:
I ordered myself ProClip USA mount for my phone.
Marco:
I'm just going to mount it up there with a MagSafe puck, and that's fine.
Marco:
I thought, too, one of the flaws of the FJ is that the visibility is not great.
Marco:
Especially with the rear visibility, if you're trying to do some parking maneuvers, it does actually have those beeping parking sensors, like the proximity sensors for parking on the rear bumper.
Marco:
So that's nice.
Marco:
But
Marco:
i was thinking like oh first thing i think i'm going to get here is some kind of aftermarket backup camera because i'm spoiled now i love backup cameras and i don't want to go without them and especially a vehicle that i'm not that familiar with i have to navigate around very tight uh streets and you know like navigating it on the island is terrifying um actually on the streets because it's the streets here are so narrow and there's like houses built right up to the edge it's it's terrifying
John:
So we're getting lured over our children and say, yeah, in my day, we had to back up all these big vehicles with no rear visibility and no backup cameras.
Marco:
Yeah, exactly.
Marco:
So first thing I think like, all right, I got to get an aftermarket backup camera.
Marco:
And then I'm thinking like, well, maybe I'll, maybe I'll also get like, maybe I'll replace the head unit with a CarPlay head unit.
Casey:
Oh, now we're talking.
Marco:
Right, because you can do that.
Marco:
You unscrew a few screws and you have the head unit out.
Marco:
It's a standard double DIN.
Marco:
And I already own one, actually, from my CarPlay testing rig that I've actually since replaced with something better.
Marco:
I already own an extra double DIN
Marco:
carplay head unit that's just sitting around not being used like this is great i could just pop it in and those usually have video inputs for backup cameras as well so i think oh great i can rig that up it should be no problem i could have some local shop do it i don't know how to do any of that stuff i could have some local shop do it it'll be fine
John:
do you actually want though i'm wondering i don't know what the interior looks like but like in a car this old is that is carplay actually better than your phone mounted on a vent because like if it's positioned really low in the dash you're not going to want to look at that you rather look at your phone to be closer to your island like it's not made to be like current modern carplay things where the screen is like within your eyeline where you can just glance down at it is it like down in the floor
Marco:
So it's, it's low, you know, it's, it's not, it's not super, super low, but it's not certainly ideal.
Marco:
Um, so here's, so as I was, you know, we transferred the car over, I'm putting on the new license plates and I notice as I'm, as I'm putting license plates on, cause I was looking kind of eyeing the bumper to see like where I'd read some forum posts, like, Oh, you can, you can put a backup camera right in the middle of the rear bumper.
Marco:
And it kind of looks nice with the parking sensors and everything.
Marco:
And I'm looking at that.
Marco:
And I look up and I notice there is what appears to be a backup camera in the spare tire enclosure thing on the back of the car.
Marco:
There's no screen in the car, though.
Marco:
And I then did some research and learned that they added a backup camera to the FJ in later model years.
Marco:
Oh, great.
Marco:
Okay, I have the last year of it, so I have the newest thing.
Marco:
That's great.
Marco:
But there's no screen.
Marco:
So I thought maybe the backup camera was only used if you optioned the navigation system.
Marco:
uh and so i'm like all right well i i guess let me let me figure out how to hook up the stock camera to a carplay head unit and i'll put that in i i was looking at the manual casey because i had some questions about some of the off-road controls that i don't know anything about i'm stunned so i was reading the manual and i noticed that there was a section about the backup camera and it didn't have the asterisk um that said for for all the all the optional equipment has the asterisk and that says if equipped and
Marco:
And the backup camera did not have the asterisk, so it's standard.
John:
This is where Doug DeMuro needs to come in and show you all the quirks and features of your car because you don't know where the hidden screen is.
Marco:
Yeah, so in all of my test driving of this car, I had never put it in reverse.
Marco:
I learned from the manual that when you put the car in reverse, it shows a tiny, grainy little backup camera image in the rearview mirror.
Casey:
Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.
Marco:
Which apparently is a common thing on lots of cars that I've just never seen before.
Casey:
Sure is.
Marco:
Sure is.
Marco:
So that I'm like, OK, I'm being I'm trying to be too smart about this.
Marco:
This is fine.
Marco:
It also already has Bluetooth on the radio.
Marco:
So I already have Bluetooth and a backup camera and a car mount for my phone.
Marco:
So that's it.
Marco:
I'm not going to bother with CarPlay.
Marco:
I'm not going to bother changing the head.
Marco:
I'm just going to keep the car stock as it is and just clip my phone to the dashboard like I do with my Tesla.
Marco:
Because that's fine.
Marco:
That gives me everything I want, really.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So it's, yeah, overall, it's even better than I thought.
Marco:
Other notes before we end here.
Marco:
I was very pleased.
Marco:
We used to be, growing up, we were always a Toyota family, but I haven't owned a Toyota or driven one since 2002, maybe?
Marco:
And I was very pleased when I got into this car that I already knew how to use the cruise control because it still works exactly the same way.
Marco:
That old cruise control stock that's on Toyotas with the res and set and everything, it works exactly the same way.
John:
You mean it's not just tap on the navigation item on touchscreen, then go to cruise control, then go to the slide and move your finger down?
John:
They have physical controls for the cruise control?
John:
How barbaric.
John:
You can do that in one operation without looking.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
So everything worked.
Marco:
It's a fully manual car except for the transmission, of course.
Marco:
Although, honestly, again, for a moment, going back to the transmission, first of all, I didn't actually mind the automatic transmission that much because I'm not driving this car in a sporty way.
John:
You've got enough to worry about not getting stuck in the sand to worry about shifting, too.
John:
I feel like automatic gives you one more thing that you don't have to worry about.
John:
You can concentrate on steering and throttle input and brake.
Casey:
It gives you one more Thunderbolt lane.
Marco:
Well, and that's the thing.
Marco:
I think for off-road use, automatic might be better, for me at least, at being a relative amateur at off-road driving, because what you often need is to start from a stop in a very slow way, like to creep.
Marco:
And that's really hard with a stick, especially with my relatively sloppy stick technique.
John:
That's why they have creeper gears on...
John:
But this is the thing.
John:
When people say off-road, they're picturing going up a mountain with rocks or whatever.
John:
Sand is an entirely different beast to deal with.
John:
And you're not going to – just to be clear, people don't know what Long Island beaches look like.
John:
He's not going over boulders.
John:
There are no boulders here.
John:
It is sand.
John:
It is just sand.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
Lots of sand, often very loosely packed.
Marco:
And I have to go around.
Marco:
I had to pass a school bus, which that was terrifying because it was it passed very close.
John:
Speaking of that, what are the rules about like how much of the beach is available for you to drive on?
Marco:
It varies depending on how much have storms washed away recently.
John:
But I'm saying, can you go all the way down into the water and just splash through the waves if you wanted to, or is that illegal?
Marco:
It's not illegal.
Marco:
You will get stuck if you do.
John:
If you think of a car, I'd go down there in sunset and speed through the hard-packed sand with the spray coming behind you and then just try not to get stuck.
Marco:
Yeah, I mean, yeah, like, you don't want it to be wet, but you absolutely, like, you're allowed, if you have this permit, you are allowed to drive on any part of the beach except for the dunes, obviously.
John:
If you want to really accelerate the corrosion of your vehicle, you could splash through the saltwater.
Marco:
Yeah, right.
Marco:
but yeah so it was oh and there was also there was one scary moment too where um i was i was turning in one of like the like one of the inland but still sand roadways and a truck was coming in the direction and i saw it had to pass me in a relatively small space and i tried to pull over a little bit like off to the right to give them more space the non-existent shoulder yeah
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And my rear end fishtailed left very much towards them.
Marco:
Nice.
Marco:
So, yeah.
Marco:
This, again, terrifying and way harder of a drive than I expected.
Marco:
So, yeah.
Marco:
I still, obviously, if this permit happens, I still have a lot to learn about how to drive.
Marco:
And I think a lot of that will just come with experience.
Marco:
But...
Marco:
It was so much harder than I thought.
Marco:
So much harder.
John:
Do you eventually get onto the, you know what they have?
John:
They just recently expanded this.
John:
The place where you can take your RVs and stuff.
John:
Oh, I guess that's maybe not near you.
John:
Like Robert Moses somewhere?
John:
Yeah, I guess maybe they don't have that.
John:
No, that's not disfiction.
John:
farther out east they have so there's the beach and then there's the dunes and then if you go farther out east on the south shore they have beach dunes and then another sand road and then uh rvs that are like that have views of the bay essentially and
John:
right but that sand road it's a road but it is not a road it is just sand and that reminds me what you're talking about it's so skinny where you see like these it's always pickup trucks pickup trucks are rvs they're rvs being pulled by pickup trucks and the two pickup trucks will be coming toward each other on that road and it's like there's no way two cars are going to be able to pass each other because there's no room and it's just sand and it's like feet deep you know like you're saying the ruts and you see them creep past each other and try to like squeeze by with you know the big
John:
Those whatever they are, whatever those plants are in the dunes, like scraping the sides of their fancy $80,000 pickup trucks against the dunes as the deer chew on things and laugh.
John:
Anyway, I guess you don't have those roads.
John:
I'll have to go look at some satellite things, see if they're around there.
John:
But anyway, you're on the beach the whole time.
John:
There's no part where you sort of go to the other side of the dunes, but you're still on sand.
Marco:
No, there's both.
Marco:
So there is an interior route that drives through more towns, but it's slower and tighter.
Marco:
And there are still sandy sections on that, but there's fewer sandy sections.
Marco:
Or there's a couple of points where there's little ramps so you can cross the dunes, like sand ramps.
Marco:
But there's a couple of cuts through the dunes that you're allowed to drive through.
Marco:
that you know get you in and out of that area and then you can drive on the beach the whole time as well if you want to so so but sometimes in the winter especially like sometimes there's not enough beach to drive on and so everyone has to then use the interior route so it's a whole thing and and you know keep in mind that the context of this like the interior route all the interior roads that such as such as they are are one lane wide and even just barely that
Marco:
And so if there's someone coming the other way, one of you just has to turn somewhere and let the other person pass or back up into like, you know, back up to the next street behind you and turn into that.
Marco:
Like, and this is one of the reasons why like backup visibility is pretty important for this kind of driving because you often are having to back out of the street you're on to let some other vehicle go the other direction or something like that.
Marco:
And so it's not easy driving by any means.
Marco:
But yeah, it was...
Marco:
It was very educational.
John:
You should consider a duck boat, though, because when the Atlantic Ocean punches through into the bay, as it has done multiple times in Long Island's history, if you just go out east, there are various places where the ocean has punched through.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
Your road will end and you will need more than a sand permit to get out.
Yeah.
John:
No, at that point, I think I'd get back on the ferry.
Casey:
I really feel like Fire Island is the geographic equivalent of an LG Ultrafine 5K.
Casey:
It's great, except that you occasionally can't get to the mainland and can't get food.
Casey:
It's great, but only certain people are allowed to drive.
Casey:
And by the way, you have to drive on the sand.
Casey:
It's great, but it's going to sink into the ocean sometime in maybe Adam's lifetime.
John:
It's not sinking into the ocean.
John:
The ocean is going over it.
Casey:
Oh, I'm sorry.
Casey:
My mistake.
Casey:
It's different.
Casey:
Anyway, it's great.
Casey:
Asterisk, dagger, double asterisk, double dagger, cross, double cross.
Marco:
No, it's just great.
Casey:
Is it though?
Marco:
Oh, one more thing that I loved about the FJ here.
Marco:
I'm going to send you a picture too.
Marco:
The controls for things like the ventilation system.
Marco:
they're a very small number of giant knobs and buttons yeah imagine having a physical control for something isn't that um isn't that just astonishing how easy it is to use those things without thinking about it they never move really easy to find it was great like because for for one of the drives it was cold and so i was wearing gloves for most of the drive and it was no problem to operate these giant knobs imagine
Marco:
that with gloves on it was great like it was just it was so refreshing it was almost like you know after having driven more modern cars for a while it was like retro appeal you know to have this like it's not accessibility is not retro it's just good usability well that too but yeah like oh man it was so satisfying oh I just I'm just gonna turn this temperature knob slightly or I need to turn the heat on oh I just go over here and you know turn this a couple notches with my giant gloved hands and it's totally fine
Casey:
Imagine that.
Casey:
I can't wait until you end up buying another internal combustion car because you realize that, yes, it is nice to have an electric-powered car, but everything else about the Tesla is a pain in the ass.
John:
There's plenty of electric cars with physical controls.
John:
Not everyone is on the same page as Tesla in terms of how much should be physical and how much should be not.
John:
That's true.
John:
You can look at the car manufacturers that are getting a clue faster than others, but a few of them have already sort of gone back on their previous iterations and have said, nope, we're bringing back physical controls for climate.
John:
We're bringing back physical controls for cruise control and all that other stuff.
John:
So I have faith that people will figure it out eventually, but maybe not Tesla.
Casey:
Where's the AC outlet in the car?
John:
Like the vents?
Yeah.
Casey:
No, no, no.
Casey:
The alternating current outlet.
Casey:
Because I'm looking at a button in this picture you sent me.
Marco:
There's an AC outlet in the trunk.
Casey:
Oh, that's pretty cool.
Marco:
Yeah.
Marco:
And as well as a giant subwoofer for some reason.
John:
I get the other benefit of physical controls.
John:
You get to have blanks for the features that your car doesn't have.
Marco:
Three blanks.
Marco:
But anyway, it's surprisingly nice.
Marco:
It's the first time I've...
Marco:
bought a gas car in forever it's the first time i bought an automatic car in forever it is not at all what i thought i would want to buy ever uh but it's pretty nice like for for what it is it's got a round steering wheel too yeah imagine a complete circle real easy when you make those turns yeah it turns out this car is very easy to drive as a human which you still have to do a lot turns out