00:00:05 ◼ ► Because of course, that's the room in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, where bad stuff happens.
00:00:12 ◼ ► I'm curious, have you seen Ready Player One? Maybe you even, you're the one who told me I
00:00:16 ◼ ► should go see Ready Player One. I guarantee you I didn't tell you, you should go see it. But yes,
00:00:21 ◼ ► I've seen it. And so here's a bit of a spoiler. I don't, is it a spoiler? I don't know. At this
00:00:28 ◼ ► point, I feel like the movie's been out on home video for a while. So I will say that in Ready
00:00:33 ◼ ► Player One, there is an homage to The Shining. And I had no idea I went into the Ready Player One,
00:00:45 ◼ ► I am of course, a huge Spielberg fan. It sounded like a good movie, you know, it's like virtual
00:00:56 ◼ ► reality, apocalyptic future, blah, blah, blah. I was like, all right, that's it. I don't need
00:01:01 ◼ ► to know anymore. And I went into this movie Blind. And when the Shining sequence came on,
00:01:09 ◼ ► I swear to you, I wept. I actually had tears streaming down my face. Like, actual tears. It
00:01:33 ◼ ► I think that's the general consensus. People found things to like, but then the immediate caveat is,
00:01:54 ◼ ► Let's put it this way, like it's, it did, I think, the best it could do with the source material.
00:02:00 ◼ ► Which was not very, I mean, you know, I don't know, I'm not really in, I don't live in fear
00:02:16 ◼ ► probably will anger some people. But I just think the book is terrible. And I think the
00:02:21 ◼ ► author certainly has had a vision and certainly has a lot of clever ideas and things like
00:02:28 ◼ ► that. But the book itself is very poorly written, I believe. It's very amateurish in its prose,
00:02:35 ◼ ► it totally took me out of the story. And then a lot of the concepts in the story are very,
00:02:43 ◼ ► I don't know, either basic or not very well thought out or don't take into account like,
00:02:48 ◼ ► you know, simple logic and things like that. And you can totally set all those things aside
00:02:53 ◼ ► and go, you know, I just loved it was a rollicking good time and all of that stuff. And I get
00:02:58 ◼ ► it. I get it. I'm not telling anybody else they shouldn't like it. Just for me, it wasn't
00:03:33 ◼ ► favorite actresses. She's an amazing director as well. Directed a great series called "Chicago
00:03:38 ◼ ► Land." If you haven't seen it, it was also in "Master of None" season two, or both seasons,
00:03:44 ◼ ► but season two, she directed an episode that I think won an Emmy. And, you know, there's a lot
00:03:49 ◼ ► of good things to love about that in Spielberg, right? Like he knows how to handle those big
00:03:53 ◼ ► things and treat them with a sense of truth. So I came away feeling okay about the movie itself.
00:04:07 ◼ ► on prolific, right? I mean, in some ways it's the opposite of Kubrick, who, as, you know,
00:04:14 ◼ ► years went on, was almost spiraling into like a logarithmic scale on how frequently movies
00:04:22 ◼ ► But it's funny because he's so gifted. He literally, you know, like, like in debate class or law school, you know, you're, you're always expected, you could argue, you have to be ready to argue either side, right? You know, like, you can't just say, well, I think this guy is guilty, so I would like to prosecute him, you know, you'd share, you might be have to defend them.
00:05:35 ◼ ► Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It is very, very difficult to believe that that was made by the
00:05:42 ◼ ► same people who made the first movies in the series, right? Like, and that's one in particular,
00:05:48 ◼ ► where I'm a particular humongous fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And I would even say that the other
00:05:53 ◼ ► comes with a lot of baggage, right? Right mind, you know, and that, you know, I like Temple of
00:05:59 ◼ ► Doom, and I like the last crusade. I thought they were good sequels. And, you know, but they weren't
00:06:08 ◼ ► Raiders. There was something there was some ineffable. There's something about Raiders and
00:06:13 ◼ ► the exact tone that it strikes that they never seem to have been able to recapture. You know,
00:06:19 ◼ ► maybe can't be recaptured. It was just so perfect. I put the crystal skull one. It's like,
00:06:25 ◼ ► how is this made by the same people? I cannot believe this right. Right. Ready Player One is
00:06:30 ◼ ► not in that territory. Ready Player One is is pretty good. But it's still you have to it's
00:06:34 ◼ ► like you said about the source material. It's like, it's like, I'm not sure how before they
00:06:39 ◼ ► even started production, how they thought this was going to be that good. I don't know.
00:06:44 ◼ ► Jared Ranere: Yeah, I mean, it, you know, the problems were very clear on their face walking
00:06:50 ◼ ► into it, right? You know, you looked at that, and you said, Okay, here are your issues. It's
00:06:55 ◼ ► a jumble of pop culture stuff without any true, like gluing force, right? It's enormous amount
00:07:03 ◼ ► of exposition going on in it that really has nothing to do with an ongoing story. Like it's
00:07:11 ◼ ► just a lot of digression into his personal likes, the author's personal likes, right? Like, "Oh,
00:07:17 ◼ ► I loved this game from the 70s, so now I'm going to describe it to you in intimate detail." And I
00:07:22 ◼ ► think one of my original issues with the book and the reason I read it twice, even though I hated it,
00:07:27 ◼ ► which I do sometimes, just to make sure. But I listened to the audiobook and Wil Wheaton read it.
00:07:36 ◼ ► And I like Wil Wheaton quite a bit, but I find his audio narration to come off as quite smug.
00:07:42 ◼ ► Like, and it normally I don't mind it. You know, I totally like the guy a lot. I like his writing
00:07:54 ◼ ► Yeah, basically and in the situation is is that you had that source material, you know with its particular
00:08:04 ◼ ► But I'm gonna explain it to you in detail and why it was so amazing and whatever right and then you pair it with his voice
00:08:11 ◼ ► I convinced myself that maybe I was just I had some sort of anaphylactic reaction, right?
00:08:38 ◼ ► Thought very interesting conversation after the movie about it was it, you know, like to me this is good parenting
00:08:57 ◼ ► movie and that's their book is the North Star and that's it and and it's like that's not
00:09:20 ◼ ► and then he made his own version for television and it was all yeah right do you ever see that i
00:09:26 ◼ ► actually it's funny i never did i've only heard about it like apocryphally yeah i don't know what
00:09:31 ◼ ► even made me watch it because like for example uh i've never seen the movie 2010 because it to me is
00:09:39 ◼ ► it's like uh uh what's that word when you're uh breaking a religious law uh oh uh well not verboten
00:10:24 ◼ ► certainly I read the book and I'm almost positive. I did see the movie but it's in the sort of in the
00:10:30 ◼ ► hazy reaches of my movies watching past you know, I don't I doubt I dwelled on it, which probably
00:10:36 ◼ ► I should I don't know why I'm irrational. I am I don't know if you've ever noticed this. I have
00:10:42 ◼ ► never I have some hangups never crossed my mind. But for whatever reason, I decided I would watch
00:10:48 ◼ ► the ABC miniseries, The Shining. Steven King, I think it was called Steven King's The Shining,
00:10:53 ◼ ► just so you knew that this one was by the book. And it was bad. It's just bad. It's just poorly
00:11:01 ◼ ► made, poorly shot, poorly cast. Anything that can be bad about it was bad. Well, it's like,
00:11:09 ◼ ► people use that phrase too close, right? You're too close to something to see it for what it is,
00:11:16 ◼ ► or to see the value in it. And, you know, I certainly believe that that even great authors
00:11:22 ◼ ► are great playwrights or screen screenwriters can fall prey to that. And I think that's an example
00:11:27 ◼ ► of that for sure. Yes, you need a distant eye to look at it for you. Yeah. Anyway, Ready Player
00:11:32 ◼ ► One's overlooked thing made me weep. It was so good and so amazing and so loving. And it just
00:11:39 ◼ ► so you know, just the right and it was just the right length, you know? Right. So it's,
00:11:44 ◼ ► to me. There was lots of great stuff in there like that, I think. But it's just, you know,
00:12:03 ◼ ► I haven't yet. And it's on my list. But yeah, it looks looks amazing. It's like this late stage
00:12:10 ◼ ► collaboration with Tom Hanks and Spielberg is amazing. The post is really good to Bridge of
00:12:16 ◼ ► Spies, though, in particular is one that I would hold up. So you know, anybody out there is looking
00:12:20 ◼ ► for movies to watch over the holiday season. Bridge of Spies is so good. And it's, you know,
00:12:28 ◼ ► it's like proof that he still got it. But it almost it's interesting to me that he wavers
00:12:33 ◼ ► between like a, quote, small movie like Bridge of Spies, which isn't really effects laden. I mean,
00:12:40 ◼ ► you know, the effects are that it, you know, takes place in the past. So I mean, there's obviously
00:12:46 ◼ ► some sort of, you know, special effects trickery going on there, but it's not a blockbuster,
00:12:54 ◼ ► you know, right. $500 million grossing movie, you know, it's, you know, it's a movie for adults,
00:13:02 ◼ ► I guess. Yeah. I don't know. I do. I worry I it is interesting because the other thing about
00:13:08 ◼ ► like a movie like Ready Player One, which was clearly meant to be like a ginormous worldwide
00:13:14 ◼ ► blockbuster is. And it was the explanation that I saw for why Crystal Skull was the way it was that
00:13:22 ◼ ► when they make movies now that are supposed to be, you know, like one of the top grossing movies of
00:13:28 ◼ ► the year. It's like, it's also arguably why the James Bond movies have gotten a little incoherent
00:13:34 ◼ ► is that it's all about the spectacle and the worldwide box office is so much bigger than the
00:13:40 ◼ ► U.S. box office that the sense that a movie makes by listening to the dialogue and what they say
00:13:47 ◼ ► isn't even that big a consideration anymore because the idea, you know, most of the people
00:13:52 ◼ ► who are going to be buying tickets to see it are not even going to care. Yeah, that it's all
00:14:16 ◼ ► major concern. But I think it's, we've gotten to the point where we had all the arguments, and now everybody just assumes it's true. And nobody bothers to really push back against it and go like, Oh, no, you know, it's a thinking man's blockbuster or whatever, we've gotten to the point where we sort of, you know, you have all the arguments, but the generation that had the arguments is now passed. And the generation that has grown up with that in their face is now here, and they don't care, you know, and it's it's an interesting one. But they're there every once in a while,
00:14:46 ◼ ► you will still see these big movies that managed to have just a great combination of course of director screenwriter, you know, team etc. You can almost never credit one person. But that do it right. And like Mission Impossible was quite excellent in that regard. Because it certainly was a blockbuster. But the last I think three have been attached, you know, because they used to be pretty standalone, right? Yeah. But the last three of them have sort of been attached to one another. Did you see the
00:15:15 ◼ ► latest one? I did. I did. Yeah. What would you think? What do you think? Uh, good enough.
00:15:22 ◼ ► You know, I'm not disappointed. I, you know, it is effectively I've been thinking about it. I
00:15:27 ◼ ► thought about before I even hit play on it. I think I just watched it last weekend. Definitely
00:15:32 ◼ ► recently. You know, it seems very obvious, but I also seem to be personally 15 years late to
00:15:44 ◼ ► James Bond. Right. Right. It's, you know, yeah. Yeah, I like the series a lot. It's, you know,
00:15:52 ◼ ► it's, you know, as a Bond fan, I feel like you, how could you not? It is interesting to me that
00:16:00 ◼ ► it's an interesting film series to me, because they try not to, there's a formula, obviously,
00:16:06 ◼ ► but they try not to remake it. And that they've done, you know, even just by starting with,
00:16:29 ◼ ► Because I'm a huge De Palma fan, you know, but sure. But at a certain point in the 70s, he was
00:16:36 ◼ ► shoulder to shoulder with Steven Spielberg, you know, and was sort of the, you know, and Lucas and
00:16:44 ◼ ► Francis Ford Coppola, you know that and score says he that there were all these guys who were,
00:16:50 ◼ ► you know, and they were all came of age in the 70s and made these amazing movies and they all sort of
00:16:57 ◼ ► had their personal styles, you know, like, to Palma's camera movement, you know, diploma was
00:17:03 ◼ ► moving the camera around before Steadicam was even invented. I don't even know how, you know.
00:17:08 ◼ ► So it was fascinating that the first one was Palma and it's, I love, the first one is truly
00:17:14 ◼ ► a magnificent movie. But then they had what, John Woo directed the second one or the third one?
00:17:30 ◼ ► Broken Arrow, I think. But it was supposed to be his big entry into the US market. And it certainly
00:17:43 ◼ ► Oh, yeah, he had the doves. But it wasn't the right choice. And it was certainly, you know,
00:17:47 ◼ ► the most incoherent. Ironically, I think some of the most like weird and awkward and good and
00:17:54 ◼ ► in that way, villain performances. Doug Ray Scott is the villain in that. And he's just so sneery
00:18:02 ◼ ► and malevolent, you know. But it had some good things about it and a lot of the good things were
00:18:09 ◼ ► basically Tandy Newton and Doug Ray Scott, you know. But it was a misstep. But then the third
00:18:16 ◼ ► one recovered big time, you know. And it just has gone on to be, I think, a really, really great
00:18:30 ◼ ► Oh, this is a horror show. And, you know, is not worth your intellectual interest, you know,
00:18:35 ◼ ► kind of thing that's been happening with these movies. Yeah. Which have you have you seen? Oh,
00:18:40 ◼ ► I'm sorry, I digress. Go. I'm, before we get off Mission Impossible. I like the series a lot. And
00:18:45 ◼ ► I like the last one. It's, it's good. It's probably it's not my favorite. I don't know.
00:18:51 ◼ ► maybe because there was a little too, there wasn't like a there there. I don't know. I don't know.
00:19:05 ◼ ► But yeah, I think that's a disease all movies are suffering from. The editors are getting less and
00:19:12 ◼ ► less power. And the directors are getting more and more power. And the analogs of the corporate world
00:19:19 ◼ ► they're strong. You know, when you get a CEO, and there's nobody there to tell them no, you end up
00:19:24 ◼ ► with, you know, problems. And the director is the CEO of that production. And you need an editor to
00:19:31 ◼ ► who else has direct I mean, with the list of directors of the Mission Impossible movies is so
00:19:34 ◼ ► great. Brad Bird directed the one. That's right. JJ Abrams directed was that the third one that
00:19:45 ◼ ► Yeah, but really great directors in it. You know, I don't know. It's a great series. And I think
00:19:51 ◼ ► it's a real testimony to Tom Cruise. I mean, however weird he is in his personal life. He's
00:19:57 ◼ ► really, really racked up a hell of a film catalog. Yeah. So the yet john john Woo was the the second
00:20:04 ◼ ► one of the JJ Abrams sort of resurrected it, you know, with Mission Impossible three. Remember,
00:20:09 ◼ ► it was, it was only four years between the first two and then six years to the second one of the
00:20:15 ◼ ► third one because I think everybody was like, "Oh, God, that's over." Right? And but then J.J. Abrams
00:20:20 ◼ ► kind of resurrected and then Brad Bird, which was one of the best entries in the whole series, and
00:20:26 ◼ ► then Rogue Nation and Fallout are both Christopher McQuarrie. Which is, yeah, both of them, I think,
00:20:34 ◼ ► are excellent. Yeah. No, it's a good series. I really liked it. Yeah. I mean, in the way that
00:20:39 ◼ ► the Bond films sort of ebbed and flowed with the quality of the director, you know, sometimes you
00:20:44 ◼ ► would get a director in the 70s who went on to be great, but at the time was just sort of doing
00:20:50 ◼ ► whatever. And then sometimes you got directors who were on the wane, right? And like they were friends
00:20:55 ◼ ► of the Broccolis or something, they got a directing job. And you sort of saw the difference. But what
00:21:01 ◼ ► I was gonna say about the blockbuster big movie thing, and I'm not going to talk about the movie
00:21:05 ◼ ► at all, because it's opening today. You know, I won't talk about plots particulars, but Into the
00:21:11 ◼ ► Spider-Verse, a Spider-Man animated film. I highly, I mean, I don't know, you know, I don't know
00:21:17 ◼ ► when this will air, but if you haven't seen it by now, if you didn't go see it on opening weekend,
00:21:22 ◼ ► go see it immediately. It's amazing. And not only is it one of the best Spider-Man movies,
00:21:28 ◼ ► if not the best Spider-Man movie ever made, it is just an incredible animated film with a ton of
00:23:05 ◼ ► have ever touched on that. But the only other thing I know about it is that at least one of
00:23:10 ◼ ► them—I believe he's a Peter Parker—is played by John Mulaney, who's a stand-up comedian who—
00:23:17 ◼ ► Yeah, John Mulaney plays—and this is not a spoiler because it's in the credits of IMDb, etc.—but
00:23:23 ◼ ► he plays Peter Parker, which is—and it's in the trailer, so I'm fine mentioning it. But Peter
00:23:41 ◼ ► how that's handled in the movie is incredible. You would think that something like that would
00:23:53 ◼ ► John Mulaney is a national treasure, in my opinion. Big fans here in the Gruber household.
00:23:59 ◼ ► We've gone to see him, all three of us. He's truly, truly a terrific stand-up comedian.
00:24:12 ◼ ► Jared: Yeah, absolutely. But the cast overall is really good. Haley Steinfeld is in it. Jake
00:24:18 ◼ ► Johnson is in it, who many people probably know from the—Zoey Deschanel TV series. I don't know,
00:24:26 ◼ ► I never watched it. But he's a great actor. I like him. But the lead, Miles Morales, who's the
00:24:32 ◼ ► kind of lead Spider-man, Spider-young person, is played by this guy named Shameik Moore. And
00:24:41 ◼ ► Shameik Moore is not known to a lot of people, although I think this will certainly get him a big
00:25:13 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. Like, I mean, the uncle voice, which is fine. The uncle voice, which I'll
00:25:18 ◼ ► mention, is played by Mahershala Ali. So it's, you know, there, there's amazing and amazing
00:25:33 ◼ ► us really solid. What's the story on how this movie even came to be? Because it's like,
00:25:53 ◼ ► It's the victim of really poor decisions made by a flailing Marvel in the 90s or late 80s.
00:26:32 ◼ ► it the humor or is it? It's what he thinks is funny and I don't. Okay, yeah, I got it. And
00:26:37 ◼ ► I don't know, like to me, the way that he made the Spider-Man movies and maybe that's the way
00:26:46 ◼ ► they had to be made. I don't know, but it's almost like there's a, there's always been like a video
00:26:52 ◼ ► game ness to his visuals that I don't like, you know, and, and I don't know. I enjoyed them. I've
00:27:57 ◼ ► because Venom's such a great character, but I'll be honest, I never really had any sort of faith in
00:28:03 ◼ ► Venom as a character that was not an immediate foil for Spider-Man. I mean, the whole reason
00:28:10 ◼ ► Venom was invented was to explore the darker side of what Peter Parker could be or was, and it came
00:28:17 ◼ ► out of the whole Secret Wars thing, which is a whole other story. But I really do believe that
00:28:33 ◼ ► am I misremembering that it was like he got like, he got the black costume from outer space and…
00:28:44 ◼ ► Secret Wars off planet and his suit got damaged or whatever and he found this suit that was
00:28:52 ◼ ► just sort of like ready-made or there and he came upon it and everybody's like oh maybe
00:28:59 ◼ ► you shouldn't put that on you know like where did it come from but it was the symbiote it
00:29:06 ◼ ► was an alien that gave him additional strength and power and eventually became you know obviously
00:29:23 ◼ ► It was sort of precursor to Infinity War. Yeah. You know, in that and it was definitely
00:29:28 ◼ ► a, an interesting kind of crossover big event. I mean, Marvel was doing a lot of those in
00:29:41 ◼ ► that I really held on to, like I had Amazing Fantasy 15 for a while, but ended up selling
00:31:43 ◼ ► But it's one of those things that's like, okay, that was hilarious, but it's not you know, it'll be on your rewatch list, right? But
00:31:48 ◼ ► Yeah, Jonah Hill was in that and that was a project that he tried to get off the ground
00:31:55 ◼ ► but Miller and Lorde directed that and it was a big hit a very surprise hit because everybody was like
00:32:10 ◼ ► Who was the other Oh Channing Tatum, you know and and I'll based off of 21 what you know
00:32:32 ◼ ► So they're behind the Lego movie. And so when you look at that you go like, okay anime animation expertise
00:32:38 ◼ ► Yeah, great sense of humor. They honor material. I mean the Lego movie when you know, you first saw that was coming out
00:32:46 ◼ ► right and and it was hilarious and somehow managed to like honor the origins of all those superhero characters as well as
00:32:58 ◼ ► Creation and family and all of this stuff and you're like how the hell did this happen in a Lego movie, you know
00:33:06 ◼ ► And so when I heard the project was gonna was gonna fire up like an animated Spider-Man
00:33:11 ◼ ► I was like, oh, you know another one because they've all been crap all the animated spider-man's have been pretty terrible
00:33:15 ◼ ► But it was produced by Amy Pascal and I'm like, well she's not you know, she's not a dummy and then
00:33:23 ◼ ► They got attached filler and lure got attached. I was like, oh hell yeah, like I'm in like whatever they do
00:33:35 ◼ ► be to use the extended universe and the characters and to do it right. And it was good. It was
00:33:41 ◼ ► really, really good. Yeah, because the other thing when I when you hear animated superhero
00:33:45 ◼ ► movie, you think about those awful, awful DC ones that they keep turning out, you know,
00:33:51 ◼ ► like, I don't watch them, I but I can't help but watch the previews. Like I see a new one
00:34:33 ◼ ► of good ones, to be honest. Like there's a couple of the Justice League ones that are decent.
00:34:55 ◼ ► Right. That's not good. That was not good. The one that I did like was the one based on and I
00:35:03 ◼ ► can't, I mean, there have been so many, I can't even begin to think that I would call it out of
00:35:07 ◼ ► my, out of the ether. But there was one that was based on this storyline where the Golden Age heroes
00:35:15 ◼ ► had to link up with the, with the Silver Age heroes and kind of defeat this cosmic threat
00:35:21 ◼ ► of some sort. So it was like Barry Allen and Classic Flash, what's his name? Anyhow, or New
00:35:29 ◼ ► Flash. So it was basically like New Flash, Old Flash had a team up kind of thing. That was
00:35:33 ◼ ► really good. Like, and so there have been some gems in there. But I agree that the animation
00:35:38 ◼ ► itself, like production value has never been good, which is actually a great contrast to
00:35:44 ◼ ► Into the Spider-Verse, which is, has a style that is absolutely unlike any movie I've ever seen,
00:35:50 ◼ ► animated or otherwise. It lives incredibly unique. Sony, there was like this new story, which,
00:35:57 ◼ ► you know, people got kind of wrong, to be honest, and animators on the project are actually kind of
00:36:02 ◼ ► mad about it. But there's a story that Sony was like saying, "Hey, we're gonna patent the system
00:36:08 ◼ ► that we used to create this movie." And everybody took it to mean that they were trying to patent
00:36:13 ◼ ► it so nobody can make anything like it, you know? But in reality, they're patenting the tools that
00:36:18 ◼ ► they made, which Pixar does, right? I mean, they just Pixar just open sourced their tools, some of
00:36:23 ◼ ► their big tools this like a year or two ago. And, you know, open sourcing a tool is a big deal for
00:36:29 ◼ ► a studio like Pixar, who relies on I mean, tools, a huge part of their value prop and their workflow,
00:36:36 ◼ ► you know, what they do, how they create movies. And so anyhow, the the Sony is saying like, hey,
00:36:41 ◼ ► this thing that we use to create this is so unique, we want to productize it so other people
00:36:45 ◼ ► can use it. But there the animation style is one of the best I've ever seen. It sort of manages to
00:36:53 ◼ ► translate the feel of like half tone and comic and you know, hard edged line, you know, line drawn
00:37:00 ◼ ► look with a really clever use of art style to telegraph to the audience what universe each
00:37:08 ◼ ► Spider Man is from. Right. So like they're, they're all animated. I mean, and there's no way I would
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00:39:25 ◼ ► today at Jamf jamf.com/the talk show. That's jamf.com/the talk show. And you get to get
00:39:39 ◼ ► that special deal where you get three devices in perpetuity for free. What else? Anything
00:39:58 ◼ ► should talk about. I've been kind of wanting to make the point of just saluting the Mission
00:40:15 ◼ ► feel like the series as a whole is sort of doesn't get the recognition it should. I think it is
00:40:26 ◼ ► Jared: Yeah, I mean, anytime you make more than the allotted three, you know, that people think
00:40:34 ◼ ► should ever be, then you start to get into this thing. It's like, oh, is it a cash grab? Is it
00:40:49 ◼ ► to some degree. And it's clever. It keeps coming up, they keep coming up with nice, nice new ideas.
00:40:57 ◼ ► And I think certainly you can't, you can't talk about Mission Impossible at all, not to spend
00:41:01 ◼ ► another, you know, 30 minutes on movies, but you can't talk about it without talking about,
00:41:05 ◼ ► you know, Tom Cruise and his commitment to those things. And you can have problems with him,
00:41:09 ◼ ► personally or whatever, and I totally understand, but his commitment to those movies, to making
00:41:14 ◼ ► those things feel real and the stunts and, and his desire to make them as good as possible,
00:41:21 ◼ ► all backed by, of course, his very unique star power and power in the industry, etc. And you
00:41:29 ◼ ► can't, you can't imagine those movies getting made or being good without him, you know?
00:41:59 ◼ ► like he's still making action movies and he's totally credible at it. It's very, very credible.
00:42:17 ◼ ► Pete Turner That he made, I don't even know, I don't know who he did it with. I should know.
00:42:28 ◼ ► from the set of Top Gun and he's in costume, I guess, as Maverick. Like, it just seems so weird.
00:42:37 ◼ ► Like, I don't know how they're going to make this movie. Like, how can how can there are no
00:42:41 ◼ ► 57-year-old fighter pilots? And he kind of has to be 57 because he made the first one in the 80s.
00:42:46 ◼ ► Right? Like, but anyway, right. But the movie isn't about the promotional video isn't about
00:42:52 ◼ ► Top Gun. He's just there in costume, but he's there to talk about motion smoothing. And
00:43:08 ◼ ► Jared Ranerel- Right, which was, it was, it was the guy with him, by the way, was Christopher
00:43:20 ◼ ► Don't quote me but I believe so. Yeah, that would make sense. Yeah, exactly and they did recorded at
00:43:28 ◼ ► Instructing people on how to remove motion-spoothing which the found was hilarious. I I will put this in the show notes. I've got this here
00:43:39 ◼ ► Mind misremembering the details of this where they even said like hey when you go home for the holidays like yeah
00:44:16 ◼ ► It is one of the strangest aspects of like the fact that that video has to exist is extraordinary
00:44:25 ◼ ► and it's fascinating. And I was talking, I was on, I think on a slack group or something with some
00:44:32 ◼ ► friends and we were talking about this video and I do think that part of it is simply that Tom
00:44:36 ◼ ► Cruz loves movies, right? Like it, he doesn't need, you know, he's obviously doesn't need to work,
00:44:47 ◼ ► I feel themselves about Yeah, right. You would think that financially, he's, you know, he doesn't
00:44:51 ◼ ► need to work and, you know, but instead, he's constantly working. He's, you know, making movies,
00:44:57 ◼ ► you know, not, you know, much again, like Spielberg prolific. Right. I, but I think he loves movies,
00:45:04 ◼ ► you know, and I think that that's what comes out in that motion smoothing video is they,
00:46:11 ◼ ► maybe maybe I'm wrong. But yeah, because that is certainly is bewildering to anybody who
00:46:20 ◼ ► one thing in that PSA that I sort of disagree with is that they they endorse going into
00:46:25 ◼ ► your relatives homes and turning it off only for when you're watching movies. But that's
00:46:30 ◼ ► a hard I think that's hard to do. Right? Like, yeah, I mean, I guess you could do it if they
00:46:48 ◼ ► I always get it wrong. And now I second guess myself. But if you have, you know, any of these
00:46:56 ◼ ► set top boxes, you know, you can presume that you're using them mostly to watch movies and
00:47:02 ◼ ► movie like TV shows. But I don't even know if that's safe to assume anymore, though, because
00:47:07 ◼ ► so many people who are cutting their cable, they watch, they might be watching their live sports
00:47:12 ◼ ► through those boxes now to write. So how do you tell your TV to turn off motion smoothing only
00:47:18 ◼ ► if it's a movie like you can do it by the input, but you can't really assume that everything from
00:47:24 ◼ ► these things is a movie anymore. So I just say turn it the hell off for everything. You don't
00:47:28 ◼ ► need it. I love sports. I like to watch sports. I don't think motion smoothing makes sports look
00:47:35 ◼ ► better. No, I mean, it doesn't, right? I mean, not in my mind, but it certainly is the look that
00:47:41 ◼ ► people have become more used to, you know, that high frame rate look, and basics interpolation
00:47:46 ◼ ► as additional frames, right? To make it look smoother, which is dumb because it creates
00:47:53 ◼ ► images that weren't there, you know, in effect. I think Ryan Johnson called it liquid diarrhea
00:48:02 ◼ ► things that I would- that PSA was like, I would like to see the Ryan Johnson version of it because
00:48:20 ◼ ► all these guys are in on it like James Gunn and Edgar Wright and Chris McCrory and all these guys,
00:48:26 ◼ ► but yeah, it's certainly terrible. You know? Yeah. It just makes the bottom, the lowest common
00:48:37 ◼ ► denominator on this is like, does it look good in the store? Right. And I think a lot of it has to
00:48:41 ◼ ► do with that. And the fact that they play like sports and highlight reels and stuff in the store
00:48:45 ◼ ► to get people to buy big TVs and watch live sports. And the thing is, like, live sports is
00:48:50 ◼ ► the thing that's keeping cable alive. Like it's the it's huge, you know what I mean? And for for
00:48:57 ◼ ► people that want, you know, to be able to get those games and to bounce around between games
00:49:01 ◼ ► and all that stuff, because the streaming services, unless you subscribe to something very specific,
00:49:05 ◼ ► and the MLB is very unique in this, like the MLB app, you know, you can't just get every game you
00:49:12 ◼ ► want. It's not the way it works. And even with the MLB app, as you know, if you want to watch a game
00:49:23 ◼ ► Yeah. For those who don't know, and if you're outside the US, I think this is going to sound
00:49:32 ◼ ► crazy, but I pay like 100 bucks a year to subscribe to the MLB app at bat, and I'm happy to do it.
00:49:41 ◼ ► maybe it's more than 100 bucks. I don't know, like 120 or something. I don't know. But the Yankees
00:49:45 ◼ ► play 162 regular season games a year. I watch, I'll bet I watch at least 100 of them. Maybe more.
00:49:53 ◼ ► But because I don't live in New York's TV area, I can do that. I can just fire up any device,
00:50:00 ◼ ► my Apple TV, my phone, my iPad, whatever. And because I subscribe, I can watch. But you can't
00:50:13 ◼ ► or if I happen to be in New York, I can't watch the Yankees on the app. Because they have these
00:50:20 ◼ ► TV deals. And it's, you know, we could probably draconian, it really is like a mafia situation,
00:50:27 ◼ ► right? Well, and in Philly in particular, because the Philadelphia's, you know, Comcast is
00:50:35 ◼ ► headquartered in Philadelphia. The two tallest buildings in city are both Comcast towers. They
00:50:40 ◼ ► don't just have one giant tower, they have two. They quite literally own the city. And they have
00:50:48 ◼ ► the TV rights to the Phillies. Like how is that? How is that legal? It's like the cable company
00:50:54 ◼ ► actually owned the TV rights. So you have to the only way to watch the Phillies is on Comcast
00:50:58 ◼ ► Sports Network. It's not even that it's some, like the Yankees have the YES network that the
00:51:07 ◼ ► Yankees themselves own. And they actually had a fight like two years ago where they weren't on
00:51:11 ◼ ► Comcast because they were arguing over how much, they had like a financial disagreement. And so,
00:51:16 ◼ ► at least, I think it was like two years ago, two or three years ago, the Yankees played most of the
00:51:21 ◼ ► season and you couldn't even watch them on TV. People in New York couldn't even watch the Yankees,
00:51:25 ◼ ► period. And even though they weren't on cable, because they had to spat with Comcast, you still
00:51:31 ◼ ► couldn't watch them in the app. Because it was a local blackout. Right? Very, very. Yeah.
00:51:37 ◼ ► Yeah. And in the, you know, consumers, there's this, you know, once again, this is another huge
00:51:44 ◼ ► discussion we could go on. But consumers always get screwed in this. And the the cable companies
00:52:26 ◼ ► They fight with each other all the time. And so the only person that loses is the consumer.
00:52:49 ◼ ► we as a family, we don't, we're not anti TV, we watch, you know, plenty of TV at home. But
00:52:55 ◼ ► whenever we travel, we almost never even turn the TV on in a hotel room. Because we're,
00:53:00 ◼ ► wherever we are, whether it's Disney or anywhere else, we're in this outside our home traveling to
00:53:09 ◼ ► do something right and that something is not watching TV. So like, no, we've even commented
00:53:14 ◼ ► that there's a lot of times where we don't even know if you know, like the TV couldn't even be
00:53:18 ◼ ► plugged into the wall and we wouldn't know because we just never turn it on. But every once in a
00:53:22 ◼ ► while, I will be there and maybe it's like a Sunday in Dallas Cowboys are on or something I
00:53:26 ◼ ► want to watch sports. And it's very funny like it when you're at Disney World, they have a very
00:53:47 ◼ ► You've got Disney Junior and Disney Channel for sure. Everything else is like a question mark.
00:54:00 ◼ ► Yeah. So there's, it's like, you're here, if the sport you want to watch is on ESPN, you're in
00:54:15 ◼ ► division, you know, deal scenario, whatever you want to call it is one of those things that
00:54:22 ◼ ► everybody wants to try and break up, which is why everybody's like trying to like come up with these
00:54:28 ◼ ► streaming packages and OTA packages, including Apple, you know, and everybody else. And it's
00:54:33 ◼ ► one of the big major things everybody wants to take down. You know, they want it to go away.
00:54:38 ◼ ► And nobody's really figured out a way to do it, though, because the claws are in super deep.
00:54:43 ◼ ► And it's difficult to get them to give up because you're essentially telling them to give up,
00:54:47 ◼ ► like an essential monopoly and all the money in the world for some other nebulous ideal.
00:55:03 ◼ ► Hmm. We definitely still have it. And my wife watches a bunch of shows that I guess we could
00:55:11 ◼ ► get through cord cutting. But, you know, it's, you know, just, it's just, we, we have it. I
00:55:19 ◼ ► think we're, you know, the bills on auto pay. I'm sure it's ridiculous amount, but I don't see it.
00:55:25 ◼ ► I call, I call them and, and, and threatened to cancel and get a lower rate every like six to
00:55:30 ◼ ► eight months. Which seems disingenuous. Yeah, I know it seems disingenuous, but at the same time,
00:55:36 ◼ ► I don't know. I, you know, it would I cancel? Sure. If there was another viable option,
00:55:41 ◼ ► absolutely. You know? And so I figure it's the monopoly tax. You know what I mean? If they're
00:55:46 ◼ ► going to be a monopoly, they're going to have to deal with me calling them once in a while to get
00:55:50 ◼ ► a lower rate, which they do. Like you, all you gotta do is call them and they're like, oh yeah,
00:56:24 ◼ ► other things, but it's just sad that they've gotten common, they've gotten complacent and lazy
00:56:31 ◼ ► about trying to please anybody or treat them well because you have no other options. Like somebody
00:56:36 ◼ ► punches you in the face and you're tied to a chair. What are you going to do? You know?
00:56:42 ◼ ► though, is that we have a TiVo. We've had a TiVo for, oh my God, that's probably like close to 20
00:56:48 ◼ ► years now. I mean, we don't have a, we're not using a 20 year old TiVo box. I forget how many we've
00:56:54 ◼ ► had, but not too many. And I, I know, I think Syracuse still uses one too. And I know that
00:57:05 ◼ ► but it is the best. It is the best play pause experience and fast forwarding of anything I've
00:57:12 ◼ ► ever seen. Like it, I don't understand how this isn't a solved problem, you know, and I know that
00:57:25 ◼ ► emphasize to us, you know, that they spent tons of time, you know, getting their stuff for streaming
00:57:31 ◼ ► video to be able to fast forward and, you know, go back and forth better, because it's always been
00:57:37 ◼ ► a problem. Sometimes it works and then sometimes you get a spinner and it doesn't work, right?
00:57:43 ◼ ► It's confounding. With TiVo, it has no latency at all. And it never has. Going back to when I
00:57:53 ◼ ► first got one in 1999, it's the only on-screen thing that perfectly works for fast forwarding.
00:58:03 ◼ ► everything else is always a little frustrating. And they have, they've been adding it and it
00:58:10 ◼ ► continues to get better. They've actually added the thing that the, who was the rival to TiVo back
00:58:17 ◼ ► in the day? Oh, good question. They had an arch rival. They did. And they're, the arch rival had
00:58:26 ◼ ► a 30 second skip button and TiVo never did TiVo. Never, you know, they had fast forward, but they
00:59:30 ◼ ► the D button and skip all the commercials. And so you just have one button, you just hit D,
00:59:34 ◼ ► and you just instantly jump to the exact right second you want to be at after the commercial
00:59:40 ◼ ► break. Like not, it's not it, you know, it's uncannily perfect. It's a great, it's really
00:59:48 ◼ ► a great experience. But it's funny, because I mentioned this Samantha Bee Show, because there
00:59:53 ◼ ► was an episode that we missed, and our TV for whatever reason, didn't have it, even though we
00:59:56 ◼ ► we have a subscription to it. And so I downloaded the TBS app to the Apple TV. This is, I think,
01:00:14 ◼ ► Comcast or Xfinity, whatever you want to call it, you know, which—and it all worked. But
01:00:20 ◼ ► it made me mad because I have the single sign-on thing on my Apple TV. I shouldn't need to
01:00:25 ◼ ► do that anymore. But then, you know, I could, I could watch any episode of Samantha Bee
01:00:30 ◼ ► show I wanted to, but there were two commercial breaks. And each commercial break had six
01:00:36 ◼ ► commercials and you can't skip them. Like, he literally just got to sit there and watch
01:00:52 ◼ ► box. But like, when we first computerized watching TV, first started using computers as the—put a real
01:00:59 ◼ ► computer between the TV, you know, the signal coming in from the cable to your TV, put a
01:01:06 ◼ ► computer in between it. We did it so we could skip commercials. And now, more and more, we're using,
01:01:12 ◼ ► we're watching, we're watching stuff through a computer more than ever. Some people, everything
01:01:16 ◼ ► they watch, you know, it goes through a computer. And we're using the computer to make the ads
01:01:28 ◼ ► Jared Ranere: Yeah, exactly. And that that goes kinds of experiences are what I mean by kind of
01:01:33 ◼ ► like spitting in people's face, you know, because you know, that's mandated by the cable providers,
01:01:36 ◼ ► right? Like Apple doesn't want that and right, CBS, or the, you know, no app maker wants to
01:01:42 ◼ ► stream you that it but the companies themselves are beholden to those advertisers just all the way
01:01:48 ◼ ► down it makes the customer experience extremely poor and that the Comcast sign on thing I don't
01:01:53 ◼ ► know if iOS 12 it started working and forgive my ignorance on this somebody may know I don't know
01:01:59 ◼ ► but you know Comcast always didn't work because they hadn't arranged you know they hadn't worked
01:02:05 ◼ ► out the deal with them yet and I don't know if it started working yet or not I noticed an
01:02:09 ◼ ► interesting behavior on my because I was set up an iPad for my son. All right, I kind of used
01:02:16 ◼ ► it and set it up for him. And was installing everything brand new. And once I had lined in,
01:02:24 ◼ ► logged into my iCloud account, I was able to kind of like log in like Disney Junior, for instance,
01:02:29 ◼ ► and authenticate with Comcast without having to enter my Comcast password. Whereas previously,
01:02:34 ◼ ► it would do this fake thing where it looked like you could do it. I don't know if you know what
01:02:40 ◼ ► I'm talking about, but like you could click on Comcast and it would say, "Oh yeah, we know your
01:02:45 ◼ ► provider. Is it Comcast?" And you'd think, "Oh great, all I got to do is tap this and I'm home
01:02:50 ◼ ► free." And then it would still force you to log in because it's not real. It's not like actually doing
01:02:55 ◼ ► it. It's just offering it in the list so that you know they know you know or whatever. But now it
01:03:01 ◼ ► seamlessly logs in and I can't, I don't know if it's iCloud wide or what, but that's the way it
01:03:07 ◼ ► should work. You know, one tap and then effectively it should just automatically find your account and
01:03:12 ◼ ► just use it. You know, like the tapping part of it is the part I think they need to get rid of next.
01:03:24 ◼ ► I don't think any executive at Comcast ever really understood this, but every time you had to log in,
01:03:30 ◼ ► it was effectively like spitting in your face, you know? Because like, we, you know, you know,
01:03:36 ◼ ► you're having to log in right now specifically because we are being punks and don't want to agree,
01:03:43 ◼ ► you know? And being protectionist about this and you're the one who's going to suffer. So, anyhow,
01:03:52 ◼ ► I think I've mostly, as a defense mechanism, I've largely forgotten the experience. But when
01:04:00 ◼ ► we moved two years ago, I know I've talked about this on the show, but it was probably like two
01:04:05 ◼ ► years ago, but to get the TiVo working, you have to have these things called cable cards.
01:04:09 ◼ ► That are like, they're literally cards, and they go in the back of the TiVo. And it's, you know,
01:04:14 ◼ ► you need one for each, however many inputs you have. And I think I think we have like four now,
01:04:19 ◼ ► I don't know how it I blacked out, you know, but in other words our TiVo can record like four shows at the same time
01:04:35 ◼ ► Cancel it all cancel the cable. I'm gonna sign up for this PlayStation view thing, which seems like the best, you know
01:04:53 ◼ ► But I got escalated to like the secret agent team at Comcast and like the guy showed up and he was like totally aces
01:05:02 ◼ ► Do you ever see the movie Brazil it's one of my favorite movies he's the Robert De Niro, you know
01:05:17 ◼ ► literally in five minutes everything was working and in every other, you know, like the three,
01:05:23 ◼ ► four times that somebody else had come was always 90, 90 minutes. They'd never heard of a TiVo.
01:05:29 ◼ ► They have no idea. And then they're on the phone for an hour talking to somebody at, you know,
01:05:35 ◼ ► somewhere and they're reading off all of these like crazy 20 character strings, you know,
01:05:41 ◼ ► that the diagnostic brings up. Just and this guy showed up five minutes later, everything's working.
01:05:48 ◼ ► And he's like, bloop, bloop, bloop. And he's like, showing me like, here, here's the end,
01:05:51 ◼ ► you know, like, because that's the other thing, too, is usually like, when somebody shows up like
01:05:55 ◼ ► that, they just want to leave. And you're like, well, hold on a second. Let me see if this works
01:05:59 ◼ ► before you leave. Right? He showed me he was like, here, look, here's proof that it works.
01:06:06 ◼ ► Yeah, I love a good tech. I'm a huge fan of a competent tech working at a place, either
01:06:14 ◼ ► a contractor working for them or working directly for them who shows up and is like, "Oh, yeah,
01:06:18 ◼ ► here's what's wrong," and fixes the problem. And I've had this experience in my old house.
01:06:23 ◼ ► It was built in the '50s, so the wiring was whatever it was. And time after time after time,
01:06:30 ◼ ► I was like, "Yeah, exactly. Bad." And time after time after time, we were just having trouble with
01:06:34 ◼ ► with it, pulling new lines, trying to figure all this stuff out. And like, I had people
01:06:39 ◼ ► come out like three, four times from Comcast. And then some guy came out, he was like, "Oh,
01:06:43 ◼ ► it's this." You know? He goes, "Guarantee you. I gotta go up on that pole. I gotta replace
01:06:51 ◼ ► fixes it, boom, done. And I'm like, "You know what? Can I just like permanently request
01:07:00 ◼ ► Oh, Comcast. All right there. Let me take a break and thank our next sponsor line node.
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01:10:18 ◼ ► talk show. I don't know what the explanation is. Philly is sort of downtown Philadelphia
01:10:49 ◼ ► But for whatever reason, like the Apple Store is at—I think it's on the 1500 block of Walnut,
01:10:57 ◼ ► maybe 1600 of Walnut. So like 16th and Walnut here in Philadelphia is where the Apple Store is.
01:11:16 ◼ ► to you—a giant cheesecake factory on top of it. Caddy Corner is a big AT&T store. Across
01:11:38 ◼ ► right? Okay, Verizon's biggest AT&T is sort of a copy of the Verizon and t mobile is more like,
01:11:45 ◼ ► you know, could easily be like a sneaker store. You know, it's, you know, there's nothing wrong
01:11:51 ◼ ► with it. You know, but it's not it's not big and huge. And and gotcha. Yeah. But now there's also
01:12:01 ◼ ► and it's all why are they all together? I don't know. I don't know if it has something to do
01:12:05 ◼ ► with that they want to be close to the Apple store. It is, you know, like, like in most cities,
01:12:10 ◼ ► Apple, Apple's location, would they chose, you know, like, the, it's like, the best retail area,
01:12:24 ◼ ► stores were there years ago, maybe the T mobile one was but the AT&T and Verizon ones are fairly
01:12:55 ◼ ► have their own network. And they do have—because we're a cable town, we do have a fair number
01:13:06 ◼ ► of Xfinity Wi-Fi hotspots. So if you are an Xfinity customer, you can get Wi-Fi in large
01:13:21 ◼ ► on Wi-Fi, you need a network. But the thing that occurred to me and I just wanted to bring
01:13:26 ◼ ► it up is who thinks like, I can see switching carriers, like I've been on Verizon for years.
01:13:44 ◼ ► consumer brand I would think you would want to shoot for, or you would put on the front.
01:13:50 ◼ ► Verizon by the way, it's powered by Verizon. So it's like an alternate consumer brand for Verizon.
01:13:55 ◼ ► Totally, I could see that some people don't like Verizon. You know, some people are like, oh,
01:13:58 ◼ ► you know, Verizon has negative connotation with them or whatever. But if you're gonna pick one,
01:14:02 ◼ ► if you're gonna pick a brand to take the place of a brand that people already may, you know,
01:14:08 ◼ ► not like for just because it's been in the public eye, and maybe they've heard negative things,
01:14:12 ◼ ► whatever, you know, good God, you know, I mean, you think you could come up with something better.
01:14:23 ◼ ► bill. And that's that they just keep charging me more and more, because they can because
01:14:34 ◼ ► right. You know, I could cancel the service if I want to write, I choose to keep paying
01:14:39 ◼ ► them. But I've, I've got decades of knowledge that they will, they will keep raising my
01:14:44 ◼ ► cable bill and that I have to do what you would you do because you're more sensible than I am is
01:14:51 ◼ ► call them up and renegotiate like that's a bad relationship right right like I mean when I call
01:14:59 ◼ ► a renegotiate most of the time it's basically a very mild faint towards hey I should probably
01:15:06 ◼ ► cancel this because it's expensive and they immediately transfer you to a customer retention
01:15:11 ◼ ► person who's like hey we've got this deal we're offering new customers and we're just going to
01:15:25 ◼ ► a loyal customer." You know? But their point of view is like a gym. They operate like a
01:15:41 ◼ ► does that. And that's the way they operate. And it stinks. It doesn't make me feel good
01:15:54 ◼ ► CB; Right. Exactly. Because not only would they not cancel your membership if you weren't
01:17:19 ◼ ► We've got all of your stuff here." Right? It's more along the lines of that protectionist,
01:17:35 ◼ ► show is this ongoing series of reports that iPhone, say, iPhone 10S, and especially the 10R,
01:17:45 ◼ ► it seems, according to these reports that sales are bad, or disappointing that they are,
01:17:51 ◼ ► I don't know, not good. And there's so much, it's, it's funny, because on the one hand, it's,
01:18:04 ◼ ► there's so much smoke that you feel like there's got to be some kind of fire. But on the other
01:18:10 ◼ ► hand, it seems like every goddamn year, there's the same type of stories that so you know,
01:18:16 ◼ ► some such and such supplier in in Taiwan, has said that a major company has drastically cut orders,
01:18:23 ◼ ► and everybody knows that it's Apple. And so it must mean that something you know, that that
01:18:33 ◼ ► these stories come out and every year when Apple actually announces their quarterly stuff, it's
01:18:42 ◼ ► nowhere near as drastic as it was. But the effect of this is seriously real. Apple has taken a huge
01:18:58 ◼ ► lost like $200 billion in market cap. And, you know, this is not a financial podcast. I'm,
01:19:06 ◼ ► you know, don't take investment advice from me. But I know that it matters. Like one reason that
01:19:11 ◼ ► it matters is that affects me, as somebody who's mostly interested in Apple's products is it's like
01:19:18 ◼ ► a retention problem. Because so many, you know, a lot of people at Apple, their Apple stock is,
01:19:25 ◼ ► is a huge part of the reason they stay. And when Apple stock takes a hit, it's like you can roll
01:19:31 ◼ ► your eyes and say, "Ah, it'll bounce back," because when the stories come out. But I don't know when
01:19:35 ◼ ► the company loses 20, 25% of its market cap, that is a serious hit to real people's personal wealth
01:19:44 ◼ ► and investment. I don't know what the hell is going on. I don't know what to make of it.
01:20:24 ◼ ► And that doesn't engender excitement as much as, "Oh, iPhone XR sales are taking a shit
01:20:33 ◼ ► think is the motivator behind a lot of people pursuing those stories. Because, and I'm not
01:20:38 ◼ ► even saying it's just like everybody's looking for something negative to say, because that's,
01:20:42 ◼ ► that is true with some reporters, but it certainly is also true that the news industry values
01:20:49 ◼ ► things that are different, right? Like you're reporting on change. Reporting on something that
01:20:53 ◼ ► has stayed the same is just not the primary motive of most news writers. They want to see things that
01:21:01 ◼ ► are new and different and present those to the audience, which is understandable to some degree.
01:21:10 ◼ ► can sometimes blind you to the realities of a situation because you want to see something
01:21:17 ◼ ► is changing so that you have the ability to commentate on it or to highlight it or to be first to point it out.
01:21:25 ◼ ► So we get a lot of people saying things prematurely, not just about Apple but about a lot of things.
01:21:30 ◼ ► It's sort of a motivator for the news industry and you have to push back against it constantly and it's hard.
01:21:35 ◼ ► You do as an editor, as a writer, etc. So I think part of it is that the hunt for some new information that you're bringing to light for the first time.
01:21:46 ◼ ► Sometimes that information is, hey, Apple maybe is not doing as well as it used to or whatever as far as iPhone sales go.
01:21:57 ◼ ► One, we know that Apple is selling a shit ton of iPhones, but the growth rate of its iPhone sales have slowed in recent years.
01:22:52 ◼ ► they're looking at the future value of the company and going like, "Hey, if Apple can't
01:23:08 ◼ ► one hand you're going, "Yeah, their growth is slowing for sure." On the other hand, there
01:23:15 ◼ ► is a lot of similarities between these reports and reports in the past because a lot of those
01:23:21 ◼ ► reports have been based on single component suppliers or maybe even one or two component
01:23:28 ◼ ► suppliers and that the modern supply chain, especially for a company like Apple, who is
01:23:34 ◼ ► the biggest company on the planet and has one of the best, most complex operations orgs
01:23:42 ◼ ► in the world, you know, has always been that the supply chain is super complex and reading
01:23:49 ◼ ► into one supplier's ordering sheet is a recipe for misreading. And I think that's still true as well.
01:23:59 ◼ ► Pete: I wrote about this on Doing Fireballs. Somebody at Apple, a long-time reader of the site,
01:24:05 ◼ ► that's, you know, a little birdie with knowledge of the situation, just said that they were
01:24:11 ◼ ► familiar with at least one particular supplier getting cut. And they didn't tell me why didn't
01:24:19 ◼ ► even you know, as often as the case, you know, would give you know, sell a little info and you
01:24:23 ◼ ► know, you have friends like this, you don't ask, you know, if they wanted to tell me what the
01:24:27 ◼ ► component was, they would have told me. But that it was, you know, all they all they said was that
01:24:33 ◼ ► it had nothing to do with any current phone had nothing to do with it's something in the future,
01:24:39 ◼ ► you know, presumably I didn't, they didn't even tell me, you know, like next year's phone,
01:24:43 ◼ ► but I presume that that's what they meant. And they said that there was a similar situation
01:24:48 ◼ ► last year that there was a late breaking change to the iPhone 10. Are you know, pretty much
01:24:55 ◼ ► I would guess I don't know exactly when but I'm going to guess that that's around January,
01:24:59 ◼ ► maybe like around right now, like anything for the 20. Like next year's September iPhones,
01:27:00 ◼ ► I don't go for it, but I think it's absolutely true what you said a couple of minutes ago.
01:27:13 ◼ ► And the thing is, that's coupled with failures in markets where they had an opportunity.
01:27:41 ◼ ► as well as they thought they would. And that, that, I think, kneecapped maybe some potential
01:27:51 ◼ ► Yeah, and they're also and they say this when they do theirs, you know, they talk about it because it
01:27:57 ◼ ► you know, it matters but the the value of the dollar compared to, you know, foreign currencies
01:28:02 ◼ ► hurt is hurting Apple in a lot of ways. Like I just I did my goofy little video of the 10R clear
01:28:10 ◼ ► case a week ago on Twitter. And somebody told me I forget what country it was. I'm sorry, but
01:29:08 ◼ ► all the time, I would definitely use an Apple leather case. I think it's, you know, best
01:29:19 ◼ ► for $1,000 device. But $80 for a plastic clear case, boy, that's hard. That's a hard sell.
01:29:38 ◼ ► whether that's an import thing or, you know, where they made them and how they're importing,
01:29:47 ◼ ► mean, frankly, the plastic case, I found it to be nice. But in the cardinal sin that it
01:29:53 ◼ ► commits, and I don't want to separate this from any other of these kinds of cases, because
01:29:58 ◼ ► they all do it, is that the buttons are hard to press. And I'm, it's a done, it's a done
01:30:07 ◼ ► and you know, they can only make it so flexible until the button probably gets unreliable or
01:30:11 ◼ ► flimsy or it tears out or whatever, you know, the little button mold. But once a button becomes hard
01:30:18 ◼ ► to press, that case is dead to me. And like, that's what I like about their leather ones.
01:30:22 ◼ ► Their first leather ones had this solid button. You know, it was just like a bump, essentially,
01:30:27 ◼ ► that you could shove on and it would press the button underneath. And the newer cases have this
01:30:32 ◼ ► nicely, you know, kind of debossed little arrangement where there's a, it's more flexible in that little hole. And so when you press it, it's like a nice snap, you can feel the button underneath, right? And like, that's, you know, absolutely, you could tell that this, they've been making this case for a while, and I've iterated on it, you know, from the first ones, and certainly better now. But the plastic one for me, when you press on it, the buttons, it's just too hard, and it doesn't doesn't make sense to me. But you look at that in the
01:31:01 ◼ ► the context of all the other plastic cases out there and I go, yeah, this may not yellow as much. It certainly has less seams than most of the plastic cases. It's absolutely cream of the crop in terms of ID, you know, from all the other plastic cases out there for however much you could call that on a clear case, you know, but it's good. It's the best you could best you could possibly make. But then you look at it and you go like, okay, well, you know, if you can't sell it for the same price all over the world, then, you know, who could, you know,
01:32:00 ◼ ► Total Lee, which is such a crazy stupid name, but they're very, they're like the wire cutters,
01:32:05 ◼ ► like top rated nice budget case maker, the total E one and the Spigen one are very, very similar.
01:32:12 ◼ ► They're much more rubbery than apples. They're they're sort of a softer rubbery type thing.
01:32:17 ◼ ► The Spigen one is crazy, though. It's a clear case. And they've printed their logo on the one side.
01:32:25 ◼ ► they've printed in small print on the other side, like on the side underneath the volume buttons,
01:32:32 ◼ ► they've printed in in myriad. So that's Apple's old font they've printed like design designed by
01:32:38 ◼ ► Spigen in California manufactured in China or wherever. And then up on the top, the craziest
01:32:44 ◼ ► part is they it it has a thing that says, like air gap protection. And then there's like an arrow
01:32:56 ◼ ► It's just a marketing phrase printed on the case. It's not printed like in black ink. It is. I guess
01:33:05 ◼ ► it's just embossed or something like it's yeah. Yeah. You have to look for it to see it like at
01:33:11 ◼ ► a glance. If I had this case, you wouldn't see that. You know, you would think it was just a clear
01:33:16 ◼ ► case. You wouldn't think there's a logo and there's small print and this, you know, crazy
01:33:54 ◼ ► is by definition not chill about it. And you're like, wow, okay, I get it. Like, you know,
01:34:05 ◼ ► worse is like, Apple has more of an excuse than anybody else to plaster Apple logos all
01:34:10 ◼ ► over everything. Because the Apple logo represents, you know, some sort of high end product and,
01:34:30 ◼ ► doing well." You know, and I think that there's a disconnect there and it's certainly hard
01:34:36 ◼ ► to appreciate until you're faced with it, where you're like, "Oh, thanks for not putting
01:34:56 ◼ ► is retired, and new people are coming up the ranks at Apple, and they start making everything
01:35:03 ◼ ► Yeah, there is this design trend in sneakers right now that is basically called overbranding
01:35:22 ◼ ► sweatshirt may have a repeating pattern of Nike logos across its face and back you know
01:35:34 ◼ ► brand itself has transcended whatever it used to be like a orientation logo to show you
01:35:46 ◼ ► sort. It's transcended all that and it's become its own pop art almost, you know, and you
01:35:51 ◼ ► could absolutely see like a point where you have like you could have like a MacBook with
01:35:56 ◼ ► like, you know, an Apple print across it like just the apples and repeating pattern across
01:36:01 ◼ ► the face of it or whatever is like a special edition. I hope they don't go that way. I'd
01:36:17 ◼ ► at least from their accessories. Because you know, Apple does like to hire designers to
01:36:21 ◼ ► play with their accessories and to make interesting things. So I'm surprised we haven't seen like
01:36:25 ◼ ► an overbranded Apple, you know, kind of case or, you know, iPad case and stuff like that.
01:36:30 ◼ ► Yeah. And I could sort of see that, you know, it, they probably could make it work like
01:36:34 ◼ ► some, you know, like the way that like Louis Vuitton sells stuff with that LV, the LV logo
01:36:39 ◼ ► in a repeating pattern. I could see an Apple Watch strap that has a repeating pattern of
01:37:00 ◼ ► **TZ:** And it's a clear case. It's supposed to be invisible. Why would you print something?
01:37:06 ◼ ► Yeah, exactly. Well, like, look, I don't want to like wax rhapsodic about this case any longer than we have to but and I as I said, I already am. I'm off the market for this case because of the buttons like I can't use it because of that right. Yeah, but the
01:37:19 ◼ ► The fact that they are showing restraint is nice. You just have to say look, it this is the only company on earth that's going to be like no branding means no branding. It's a clear case. Let's honor the truth of a clear case. Right. Yeah. And I like I get
01:38:33 ◼ ► I mean, it's a battery case and the case shows the battery and it's, that's pretty honest,
01:38:38 ◼ ► as far as I'm concerned. There's not, because in most of those cases, there's actually a lot of air
01:38:43 ◼ ► in there because they sort of create a smooth transition between the battery and the back of
01:38:50 ◼ ► the phone. And so they have to create this big bulbous sort of enclosure, right, around it so
01:38:56 ◼ ► that it doesn't have that lump, right? Whereas on the other hand, Apple's like, well, why all this
01:39:02 ◼ ► extra plastic and air to add extra bulk to it, why don't we just, you know, put the bare minimum of
01:39:08 ◼ ► plastic on this necessary to cover it and to make it a case, and that's it, and we're done. And I
01:39:14 ◼ ► actually appreciated that. I thought that was clever, and I did not have a problem with it,
01:39:19 ◼ ► even though everybody else did, pretty much on the planet. I hated the sheep in that case.
01:39:33 ◼ ► I'm okay with the lightning port underneath because you only need to plug it in for a couple of minutes and it gets a charge
01:39:54 ◼ ► Well, John, you're on your own with the mighty Mouse, but I appreciate you making the argument. I
01:40:04 ◼ ► I don't have one. So I haven't like had to use it or experience it. That's it. I had no value
01:40:13 ◼ ► It's just sitting on a shelf somewhere. So maybe maybe I shouldn't speak to it because I don't use it. But
01:40:18 ◼ ► Anyway, I was fine with the battery case to the other thing with the battery case design was
01:40:31 ◼ ► It meant there was no battery covering the antennas at the top or bottom and that's a huge problem with these battery cases
01:40:47 ◼ ► or cell phone reception or any antenna reception. I don't know, probably all of them, Bluetooth,
01:40:54 ◼ ► Wi-Fi, everything. And so that if you think about that, where the battery hump was, it's
01:41:10 ◼ ► be—well, I guess it doesn't have to. Somebody could obviously just make some crazy, uncertified
01:41:16 ◼ ► Lightning connector and use it. But because it has to have a Lightning connector, it has
01:41:29 ◼ ► talk about the cables, but this whole MFI thing is fascinating, but nobody really—Nelay
01:41:38 ◼ ► Patel has said that The Verge has been trying to get the story for over a year, and they're
01:41:44 ◼ ► up empty because nobody will talk about it because of the terms of the agreement. It's like you
01:41:51 ◼ ► become an MFI licensee and you're subject to big fines, like $10 million fines or something if you
01:42:08 ◼ ► a very secretive world, which in turn, you know, and you know, you're in the business to it. It
01:42:15 ◼ ► makes you think, Well, that's a good story, right? Like, right. Yeah, it does. You hear this is
01:42:21 ◼ ► secretive. And, and there's all sorts of crazy rules. And instantly, you know, your light bulb
01:42:27 ◼ ► goes on, you think I would like to have that story? Who can I get to talk about? But apparently,
01:42:33 ◼ ► with battery cases in particular, you know, part of it is just Apple being Apple. But part of it
01:42:39 ◼ ► too is that they, you know, they don't want you to they don't want they're not going to certify
01:42:44 ◼ ► a case if you put your iPhone in the case and all of a sudden it gets bad cell phone reception.
01:42:49 ◼ ► Because who are people going to blame? They're going to blame Apple, right? People aren't going
01:42:53 ◼ ► to think and it's natural, right? You would think, you know, you know, brand X, let's just say,
01:42:59 ◼ ► you know, you know, or let's just say like Mophie, I don't know, I mean, Mophie makes cases, but
01:43:05 ◼ ► they're a well known brand. Their cases are fairly premium priced. So you would think, you know,
01:43:13 ◼ ► well, this isn't going to, you know, make my cell phone not get good Wi Fi, right. But if you're so
01:43:20 ◼ ► you would it just you would just think like, all of a sudden, if everything you know, your cell
01:43:23 ◼ ► phone is slow, and you start missing phone calls or phone calls drop or whatever, you wouldn't
01:43:35 ◼ ► you know, and there's there was none for the 10. Right, right, right. And mofis just came out.
01:43:43 ◼ ► But that's for the iPhone 10. And I don't think it's certified for the 10 s, even though the
01:43:54 ◼ ► Well, the antennas are different. Yeah. Two. So I don't know if that makes any difference.
01:44:00 ◼ ► Right. Yeah, the MFI thing is strange. I mean, it's certainly I've heard very much the same,
01:44:06 ◼ ► you know, very draconian terms. And they like to keep it secret and all that stuff. And
01:44:11 ◼ ► everybody's reluctant to talk about it. They certainly have been reluctant with me as well.
01:44:14 ◼ ► I have been able to talk to some of them. I think when it when it comes to a real pain point,
01:44:25 ◼ ► I just, I don't think that this scenario is necessarily a big pain point for them. It's just
01:44:31 ◼ ► sort of, you know, the cost of doing business and what they expect, you know. I don't think any of
01:44:36 ◼ ► them are really worrying about these things like we as consumers may do because to them it's money
01:44:42 ◼ ► and so they're making money and they don't really care. The last time I was able to shake anything
01:44:54 ◼ ► transitioning to, you know, kind of a more secure chip. You know, they were sort of willing to talk
01:45:00 ◼ ► about it to a degree because there was some pain there because they had to switch to a hardware
01:45:05 ◼ ► solution that was more specific, and it caused delays. And they were essentially the wall,
01:45:12 ◼ ► the manufacturers are getting blamed for the delays. When in reality, it's like Apple's like,
01:46:10 ◼ ► opportunity, there was an opportunity them for them there to be like, we need people to know this is
01:46:16 ◼ ► Apple, you know, causing this delay and not us. So when it comes to that, so that's what you need to do. If you
01:46:21 ◼ ► really want them to talk, you need to find the pain and leverage the pain. I mean, I'm just speaking as a, as a
01:46:28 ◼ ► reporter here, this is this is the way you do it, you know, you go, what's your pain point? You know, do you want to
01:46:33 ◼ ► talk about it? You know, let's, let's discuss it. What's the issue? And then of course, from that point, you do your
01:46:38 ◼ ► due diligence and figure out whether you know they have it has merit or not. But that's
01:46:43 ◼ ► how you get to open up about this. And I just don't think it's too much of a pain right
01:46:56 ◼ ► Pontus sell single family estate coffee. It's owned by the race family in Brazil, and it
01:47:03 ◼ ► is terrific coffee. They describe it as premium select coffee. I'll tell you what it is. It's
01:47:10 ◼ ► good coffee. That's what it is. One of the things that's great about it is that they don't, it's
01:47:15 ◼ ► so easy to decide which one to get because it's not like they've got like 20 different varieties.
01:47:20 ◼ ► It's one variety of coffee that's just good, good coffee. And you select the roast. They've got like
01:47:28 ◼ ► a light roast, a medium roast, a darker roast, and then the French roast is like the darkest.
01:47:33 ◼ ► You can, if you want to get started, you could just buy a couple if you're not sure what type
01:47:38 ◼ ► of roast you like. I personally, I like, I like the light or the medium. I'm not a dark roast coffee
01:47:44 ◼ ► person. But you might be some people are, you can buy, you know, three or four different varieties,
01:47:52 ◼ ► see which one you like best. And the thing about coffee, I always mention it with this,
01:48:00 ◼ ► is that coffee is a perishable item. It's almost more like a fruit. It is something that
01:48:05 ◼ ► loses. It doesn't go bad, but it loses freshness. You want fresh coffee. When you buy Trace Ponteist
01:48:12 ◼ ► coffee, they roast it and ship it to you. They're roasting it themselves. They tell you the date is
01:48:19 ◼ ► is on the package. Like, and I have this description now and a lot of times the coffee is at my
01:48:24 ◼ ► house. Ding dong, there's the shipment, here's the box. And I look and the date of the roasting
01:48:34 ◼ ► at Amazon, go to Amazon and search for trace upon to us. And when you get it from Amazon,
01:48:38 ◼ ► they encourage you to do it. It's still shipped and fulfilled from the trace upon to us people.
01:48:51 ◼ ► great. So here's the thing. You can just buy coffee, of course, but they also have subscriptions
01:49:00 ◼ ► four weeks. It's your choice. You can change it anytime. And when you sign up for a coffee
01:49:06 ◼ ► subscription, you save 10% off every bag of coffee. Now they've also got a special deal
01:49:28 ◼ ► idea either. If there's anybody on your holiday shopping list left and you don't know what
01:49:33 ◼ ► to get them and they like coffee, why not pay for a one year subscription to trace Pontus?
01:49:39 ◼ ► them the gift of coffee that keeps on giving. And the other thing they have, again, they don't even
01:49:45 ◼ ► pay me to say this, that I'm supposed to tell you about the coffee, but they've got olive oil, too,
01:49:50 ◼ ► that comes from a single farm in Chile, I believe. And it's good. They sent me this olive oil. It's
01:49:57 ◼ ► really good olive oil. So you think, well, what? That's weird. Why would somebody sell coffee?
01:50:03 ◼ ► Why would they sell olive oil to it seems like a weird pairing. That's sort of what the trace
01:50:06 ◼ ► Ponte's brand is, is they're just sort of going around the world to find like single family farms
01:50:13 ◼ ► that grow really good gourmet products and then they bring them to the United States. That's,
01:50:18 ◼ ► you know, and around the world, that's what they're doing. So it's not really, you know,
01:50:22 ◼ ► I've never heard of a company that sells olive oil and coffee before, but it makes sense when you
01:50:26 ◼ ► think about it that way. So my thanks to them, go to trace, pontos.com and remember that code,
01:50:33 ◼ ► the talk show and you'll everybody gets free shipping in the USA whether you go to Amazon or
01:50:37 ◼ ► if you go to the trace Puntas website. Tracepontas.com/coffee if you just want to start at the coffees.
01:50:53 ◼ ► cables right now and how it is we're so many years into the USB-C Apple world right like the MacBook
01:51:28 ◼ ► cable. Apple's cables, much like their cases, pretty expensive compared to third parties.
01:51:42 ◼ ► world, their cables, you know, maybe the quality is not so great. Certainly the durability
01:51:52 ◼ ► Yeah, yeah, and I believe Marco posted this and it made complete sense to me the immediate moment. I read it
01:52:01 ◼ ► With the lightning cables a lot of the durability issues of the cables obviously are based on the cable relief and all of that
01:52:31 ◼ ► on them and then becoming very difficult to use to charge it like flip them over and try and scratch them off with your finger and
01:52:38 ◼ ► Stuff like this, but apparently the pins, you know, I will not apparently I do know this for a fact the pins in the
01:52:50 ◼ ► So they're obviously they're not on the the cable the cable itself is flat contacts and the sort of pins on the iPhone
01:53:12 ◼ ► problem, which kind of creates that carbonization, the blackening on that contact on the cable, and
01:53:19 ◼ ► then they no longer charge properly. And this has been happening to me for years. And you know, ever
01:53:25 ◼ ► since they kind of switched over to this new pin system. And it's frustrating, you know, your cables
01:53:31 ◼ ► perfectly fine, other than that you got one pin that's blackened, and it barely charges and you
01:53:36 ◼ ► got to scratch it with your fingernail to try and clean it. And, you know, maybe you can use an
01:54:10 ◼ ► You know, the thing that I learned, I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but what I learned
01:54:14 ◼ ► when I started looking into this, why are there no third party USB-C to lightning cables
01:54:19 ◼ ► is that every single MFI licensed lightning cable is you have to buy the actual lightning
01:54:34 ◼ ► as a cable, you know, like whoever makes Amazon's lightning cables or I always forget their name.
01:54:42 ◼ ► What's the name? Monoprice. Monoprice, you know, is one of my favorite places to buy cables because
01:54:47 ◼ ► their prices are good and the cables are, you know, the prices are really low and the cable
01:54:52 ◼ ► quality is very good. But the actual lightning connector, even for Monoprice, you know, who
01:56:22 ◼ ► But if they're selling $10 cables and it has a $4 lightning connector, that's a significant
01:56:32 ◼ ► And Monoprice is sort of known for passing on the savings to the customer, so to speak,
01:56:36 ◼ ► by producing the cables directly or buying them direct from the factory and selling them.
01:57:25 ◼ ► Yeah. The other thing I learned after I wrote about this, I got an email from a reader,
01:57:32 ◼ ► you know, who is in the third-party Lightning world. And they told me that last year, there
01:57:40 ◼ ► were like, I don't know, four or five months where there were no Lightning connectors available
01:57:51 ◼ ► Lightning connector that was being made, Apple needed because they were putting three in every
01:57:56 ◼ ► box with the iPhone 10. And I was like, "That doesn't make any sense. Why would there be three
01:58:01 ◼ ► Lightning connectors in the iPhone 10 box?" But you think about it, there were. There was one for
01:58:05 ◼ ► the charger, cable, one for the headphones, and then one for the headphone adapter. And
01:58:13 ◼ ► it literally did that. And you know, how many do they sell a quarter? They sell, I don't know,
01:58:19 ◼ ► 70 million iPhones. I don't know how many iPhone 10s they sold because they didn't break it down.
01:58:24 ◼ ► But, you know, figure 50 million or something like that. So, you know, 50 million iPhones means
01:58:29 ◼ ► 150 million lightning connectors in the boxes. Jesus. Yeah. When you think of the scale,
01:58:52 ◼ ► but a third party that might kill them, you know, like it, if you're trying to make cables and you
01:58:57 ◼ ► think you got a unique marketing spin, Hey, we're going to make cables that are pink, you know, or
01:59:02 ◼ ► wrapped in, in horse hair or whatever, you know, whatever they do. Um, if you're basing your
01:59:07 ◼ ► business off of those those connectors you're kind of boned you know you don't have the runway to to
01:59:13 ◼ ► make up for that yeah uh i it just is mind-boggling to me that that you just don't think of that but
01:59:21 ◼ ► it really could be the case that you know one of the reasons they don't give you the headphone
01:59:27 ◼ ► adapter anymore is that it's they don't have enough oh well that you know making when you
01:59:46 ◼ ► that's $25 million. And I guarantee you it probably costs them a little bit more than that.
02:00:02 ◼ ► The only other thing I just want to touch on briefly is the MacBook Air, the new MacBook
02:00:25 ◼ ► I've seen some pushback on that on the grounds of why would you know why buy the MacBook Air instead
02:00:32 ◼ ► of the the 13 inch MacBook Pro without the touch bar, the aka the MacBook escape, because it's
02:00:40 ◼ ► it's significantly faster, only marginally heavier, it's like a quarter of a pound or something,
02:00:47 ◼ ► but pretty insignificant. And even in terms of thickness, it's it's like the teardrop shape of
02:01:16 ◼ ► it's been out for a while and it's not new where your thoughts have settled on the MacBook
02:02:15 ◼ ► it's hard to argue it gets a computer like the air, which may not edit video all that fast, but certainly is an excellent overall computer, and lighter or lighter than the MacBook Pro for sure. And great keyboard and proven to work for a long period of time. You know, it's it's hard to argue against it as an option. I feel that I still like the shape of it. I like the angle. I like the you know,
02:02:45 ◼ ► my hand rest feels it feels better there. I don't like the high lip of the MacBook Pro.
02:02:49 ◼ ► I tend to I tend to have a little bit lazier, you know, typing stance. So I like the fact that
02:02:57 ◼ ► it has that nice low lip so I can kind of rest my arms on the table. I like the shape of it. It's
02:03:03 ◼ ► pleasant. I just think there's not a lot to recommend against it. It's not so much as I'm
02:04:37 ◼ ► manufacturing quirks or any issues. This is an extremely proven design and platform. So
02:04:44 ◼ ► it's also going to be reliable and going to be you're going to have a lack of surprises
02:04:50 ◼ ► Right. And the error is still, you know, a month old or six weeks old, however long it's
02:04:54 ◼ ► been. But the third generation keyboard design came out in the summer with the Touch Bar
02:05:00 ◼ ► MacBook Pros. And, you know, six months is, you know, you expect to get a lot more than
02:05:05 ◼ ► six months out of a keyboard. So we'll see how it goes. But so far, anecdotally, it seems
02:05:10 ◼ ► like this third generation design with the membrane has solved the reliability problems
02:05:20 ◼ ► keyboard, but it certainly doesn't. It seems like the problem that was a real problem has
02:05:26 ◼ ► Jared Ranere>> Yeah, I don't, the reliability for sure seems to be better. I don't know
02:05:32 ◼ ► if it has fixed any problems re people's feel, you know, if people have problems with the feel,
02:05:38 ◼ ► they probably, I don't know if it has rectified all that much for them. But it's certainly from
02:05:47 ◼ ► Pete: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good summary. That's probably my take too. I still feel I'm still
02:06:05 ◼ ► you know, of what it used to be or the concept, you know, the original concept. And I think
02:06:10 ◼ ► the concept still holds up. It's a light computer. It's extremely pleasantly shaped. It's well
02:06:15 ◼ ► made and it does exactly what you need it to do. You know, what more do you want? Yeah.