ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Oh, hang on, I forgot, hang on a second.

00:00:02 ◼   ► I gotta look me back in a moment.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - Where are you going?

00:00:05 ◼   ► - We just started.

00:00:06 ◼   ► - I know, I had to turn off the air conditioner.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I was looking at my levels and like,

00:00:09 ◼   ► why is there, why is there that little thing flipping?

00:00:11 ◼   ► - That's why Marco has eyes-a-tope, it's fine.

00:00:13 ◼   ► - No, I'm gonna go turn it off.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I always turn it off, I'll be back in a second.

00:00:16 ◼   ► - I know exactly how the air conditioner looks

00:00:17 ◼   ► in the frequency graph, 'cause it has this low mmm,

00:00:20 ◼   ► you know, whenever the compressor's running.

00:00:22 ◼   ► So, and you can see just this bright orange line,

00:00:26 ◼   ► right like at 60 hertz, mmm.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Oh, that's, and then you see it cycle on for a while,

00:00:32 ◼   ► and then it's off for a while,

00:00:33 ◼   ► and then it cycles back on.

00:00:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:38 ◼   ► - I'm back.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Now, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law,

00:00:43 ◼   ► their air conditioner in their townhouse

00:00:45 ◼   ► like figuratively exploded the other day,

00:00:48 ◼   ► and they were lent a in-window, what do you call it,

00:00:53 ◼   ► AC unit like John has everywhere,

00:00:54 ◼   ► and they were saying in the defense of John Syracuse

00:00:58 ◼   ► and your ridiculous air conditioning setup

00:00:59 ◼   ► that the modern in-window units,

00:01:02 ◼   ► aside from the fact that it's put in the window

00:01:05 ◼   ► via duct tape and cardboard,

00:01:07 ◼   ► leaving that aside, they actually throw

00:01:09 ◼   ► a whole lot of very, very cold air.

00:01:11 ◼   ► - Oh, they're very strong.

00:01:13 ◼   ► They're super big and ugly and oftentimes loud

00:01:18 ◼   ► and nowhere near as efficient often as,

00:01:21 ◼   ► although actually the new ones

00:01:22 ◼   ► are actually pretty efficient,

00:01:23 ◼   ► but yeah, they do actually function

00:01:26 ◼   ► as air conditioners considerably well

00:01:29 ◼   ► if you're willing to let them.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Oh, I have to warn you,

00:01:32 ◼   ► I've bought many in-window air conditioners.

00:01:35 ◼   ► There are definitely good ones and bad ones.

00:01:36 ◼   ► Like, it's hard to tell.

00:01:38 ◼   ► It's definitely not weight-based, I can tell you that,

00:01:40 ◼   ► because I have some very heavy ones

00:01:42 ◼   ► that are just not great.

00:01:45 ◼   ► I like, the one that's in our room now

00:01:47 ◼   ► is I think it was like a wire cutter picker or whatever,

00:01:49 ◼   ► and it is by far the most powerful,

00:01:51 ◼   ► but we have like, for example, the one in my son's room,

00:01:54 ◼   ► I got him like one of those quiet ones,

00:01:56 ◼   ► And it's quiet, but it's like one third as good

00:01:59 ◼   ► as the non-quiet one in terms of cooling.

00:02:02 ◼   ► So I guess it depends on what your priorities are.

00:02:05 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:02:06 ◼   ► I still think, as we mentioned, I don't know,

00:02:08 ◼   ► it was a couple months ago I think that we went around

00:02:11 ◼   ► with Jon about this, but I still maintain

00:02:15 ◼   ► mini splits all the way, Jon.

00:02:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, frankly that is the best option.

00:02:18 ◼   ► - Oh, and you wanna destroy your house, sure.

00:02:21 ◼   ► - They're professionals, they do this for a living,

00:02:23 ◼   ► they're not gonna destroy your house.

00:02:24 ◼   ► - All the little people around here have them,

00:02:26 ◼   ► and you can see all the houses,

00:02:27 ◼   ► they look like something like an "Aliens" movie

00:02:29 ◼   ► with all the tubing going around

00:02:31 ◼   ► for the little refrigerant lines.

00:02:34 ◼   ► And then inside the house,

00:02:34 ◼   ► you got a bunch of giant things on your wall.

00:02:36 ◼   ► And there's no place for them on the inside of my walls,

00:02:38 ◼   ► and I don't want all the tubes on the outside.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And also, on top of that, on my stupid property,

00:02:42 ◼   ► there's not even any place for the fan thingy.

00:02:46 ◼   ► - You know there's also holes in your house

00:02:48 ◼   ► and stuff on your walls for electricity, right?

00:02:52 ◼   ► - No, there's one hole in my house for electricity,

00:02:55 ◼   ► and there's outlets on the wall that are very small

00:02:57 ◼   ► and in my house they're very sparse.

00:02:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:00 ◼   ► - I guess that's true, you don't have that many.

00:03:01 ◼   ► And you know, there's things like,

00:03:03 ◼   ► we've decided that it's nice to have water

00:03:05 ◼   ► and plumbing in the house,

00:03:06 ◼   ► and so we make a hole inside of the house

00:03:08 ◼   ► to allow pipes in.

00:03:09 ◼   ► We also have all these things in the house

00:03:11 ◼   ► that emit water, but--

00:03:13 ◼   ► - And my water and my gas come in underground,

00:03:16 ◼   ► so those are holes in the basement.

00:03:18 ◼   ► - There's still holes.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - But the mini splits, you gotta have a refrigerant line

00:03:22 ◼   ► going to wherever you have one.

00:03:24 ◼   ► I see them on people's houses, they look so bad.

00:03:26 ◼   ► Even when you try to paint them,

00:03:27 ◼   ► it just looks like a bunch of bulging veins

00:03:28 ◼   ► all over people's houses.

00:03:30 ◼   ► - I'm just saying, the point, you know,

00:03:32 ◼   ► we are willing to make exceptions

00:03:34 ◼   ► to the aesthetic purity of our houses

00:03:36 ◼   ► in order to achieve essential services.

00:03:39 ◼   ► So if you feel that cooling is an essential service--

00:03:42 ◼   ► - Amen, brother.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - I'm doing that with window units,

00:03:45 ◼   ► and I think it is less of a permanent damaging of the house,

00:03:49 ◼   ► and it does just fine.

00:03:51 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Let's start with some follow-up. Let's talk about the M2 MacBook Air, which surprise surprise thermal throttles

00:03:59 ◼   ► But it's still better than M1 MacBook Air, which is pretty exciting

00:04:02 ◼   ► So there's been reviews actually the first shipments happened yesterday as we record we are recording on the evening of Saturday the 16th and

00:04:10 ◼   ► Some people were lucky enough to receive some of theirs. Although I haven't personally seen too much of that, but the reviews are up

00:04:16 ◼   ► Jason Snell, I'm sorry, just Jason at six colors put up a great review

00:04:22 ◼   ► There's a great review at the verge. I read a groupers review, which I thought was very very good as well

00:04:27 ◼   ► Just earlier today

00:04:29 ◼   ► So yeah, apparently it's pretty freaking great all things considered not as great as the m1 MacBook Air though

00:04:36 ◼   ► I mean

00:04:36 ◼   ► This is the thing we talked about

00:04:37 ◼   ► to the m2 MacBook Pro with all its weirdness being in the old case and having the touch bar and not having magsafe and

00:04:43 ◼   ► then we got on talking about the

00:04:45 ◼   ► Single chip SSD that's half the speed of when you have two chips and that's a problem

00:04:50 ◼   ► And of course the potential for thermal throttling there which still seems fuzzy to me.

00:04:55 ◼   ► But anyway, knockbook air is out now and in the reviews

00:04:57 ◼   ► It seems pretty clear that it throttles everybody who's done even the most casual tests and then what they're testing it against by the way

00:05:03 ◼   ► Is they're testing it against the m2 MacBook Pro

00:05:05 ◼   ► so it's basically like the same chip but with a fan and without a fan and

00:05:09 ◼   ► the one with a fan does better than the one without a fan on the same tests and

00:05:14 ◼   ► Thermal throttling is the obvious thing to blame and it makes sense. You know, one of them has a fan one of them doesn't

00:05:19 ◼   ► There was a teardown of the m2 MacBook Air and there's not much going on in there cooling for cooling other than like thermal pads

00:05:26 ◼   ► And stuff I just want to say like there's no magic inside there. There's not some exotic cooling solution

00:05:32 ◼   ► There's no liquid metal cooling like in the PlayStation 5. It's just thermal pads and stuff. And so yeah, it's a tougher a thermal environment

00:05:38 ◼   ► this is not what I think is a is an issue with the m2 MacBook Air because

00:05:42 ◼   ► If you're gonna have a machine that's going to sacrifice

00:05:45 ◼   ► you know, thermals for being fanless, make it this one,

00:05:50 ◼   ► because most people are never gonna thermal throttle

00:05:52 ◼   ► 'cause they're not buying an M2 MacBook Air

00:05:54 ◼   ► so they can export 8K video on it, right?

00:05:56 ◼   ► Not what the machine is made for.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So I think this is exactly the right choice.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I would definitely prefer to have no fan

00:06:03 ◼   ► and have it thermal throttle on their max load

00:06:05 ◼   ► than the reverse, because there's the whole point

00:06:07 ◼   ► of the real MacBook Pro line, not the M2 MacBook Pro,

00:06:11 ◼   ► but the real whole point of that is those are the ones

00:06:13 ◼   ► that are bigger and thicker and have fans

00:06:14 ◼   ► and are high performance and blah, blah, blah.

00:06:16 ◼   ► And these ones, even though they're very powerful,

00:06:18 ◼   ► not intended for that purpose.

00:06:19 ◼   ► They're supposed to be slim and light

00:06:21 ◼   ► and fanlessness is an incredibly valuable feature to me

00:06:25 ◼   ► and I think most people like it.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And even if they don't even know about it,

00:06:28 ◼   ► even if they don't care that it's fanless,

00:06:29 ◼   ► it's just one less thing to go wrong.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Less cat hair, less bugs, less everything

00:06:34 ◼   ► that being sucked through that case all the time.

00:06:37 ◼   ► So I think that's great.

00:06:39 ◼   ► But the base storage is slow, right?

00:06:42 ◼   ► So it's only got the one chip

00:06:43 ◼   ► And so it's got the same gotcha as the M2 MacBook Pro.

00:06:46 ◼   ► And the M2 MacBook Pro has all sorts of reasons to avoid it.

00:06:48 ◼   ► The M2 MacBook Air would be nice if it didn't, but it does.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Don't buy the base model M2 MacBook Air

00:06:54 ◼   ► because it has very slow SSD

00:06:57 ◼   ► as compared to the one that has two chips, which is a shame.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, I would clarify that.

00:07:02 ◼   ► Don't buy the base model storage

00:07:04 ◼   ► because it's not enough space.

00:07:05 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Yeah.

00:07:06 ◼   ► - It isn't like this is gonna feel like a hard drive.

00:07:07 ◼   ► It's not.

00:07:08 ◼   ► It's still one SSD and it's gonna be very, very fast

00:07:11 ◼   ► and you're not gonna really notice

00:07:12 ◼   ► unless you're doing some very specific things.

00:07:16 ◼   ► And if you are doing those specific things,

00:07:17 ◼   ► you probably need more space.

00:07:19 ◼   ► 256 is very, very small.

00:07:21 ◼   ► It is likely to irritate you unless you know exactly

00:07:25 ◼   ► that you really don't need more than that.

00:07:27 ◼   ► If you are currently on a computer that has 256

00:07:31 ◼   ► and you are not slamming against it, then fine,

00:07:33 ◼   ► maybe you can have it.

00:07:34 ◼   ► But I would say for literally anybody else, get 512.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And in fact, if you have to,

00:07:41 ◼   ► I was listening to the Six Colors member special live stream

00:07:46 ◼   ► where Jason and Dan Morin were going through

00:07:48 ◼   ► different questions and I totally agree

00:07:51 ◼   ► with what their conclusion was.

00:07:52 ◼   ► First of all, you should become a Six Colors member

00:07:54 ◼   ► so you can hear this as well,

00:07:56 ◼   ► as well as other great content

00:07:57 ◼   ► and I love their subscriber podcast.

00:07:59 ◼   ► But anyway, if you can't afford to update the storage

00:08:04 ◼   ► to 512 on that low-end MacBook Air,

00:08:07 ◼   ► maybe get the M1 MacBook Air instead

00:08:10 ◼   ► and use the savings to get 512 on that.

00:08:12 ◼   ► That's how important that is

00:08:13 ◼   ► and how much of a pain in the butt

00:08:15 ◼   ► that is likely to be for you in the future.

00:08:16 ◼   ► 'Cause you can't ever upgrade the storage.

00:08:18 ◼   ► You should get what you can now

00:08:20 ◼   ► because you don't really have a choice later

00:08:22 ◼   ► and 512 is what almost everybody should get at least.

00:08:26 ◼   ► - So related to this, I guess this is related

00:08:28 ◼   ► to both the M2 MacBook Pro and the M2 MacBook Air

00:08:32 ◼   ► because they both have the one chip

00:08:34 ◼   ► and they both suffer from the slow speeds because of it.

00:08:36 ◼   ► If you get the one chip model, the 256 gig SSD,

00:08:41 ◼   ► and you also get the base RAM, eight gigs of RAM,

00:08:45 ◼   ► when you do anything that pushes these machines into swap,

00:08:49 ◼   ► the slow SSD punishes the swapping much more so

00:08:52 ◼   ► in other computers.

00:08:52 ◼   ► So in a lot of the tests that I saw

00:08:54 ◼   ► in the MaxTech YouTube channel,

00:08:56 ◼   ► they would do the M2 MacBook Pro or M2 MacBook Air

00:09:01 ◼   ► versus another computer with similar specs

00:09:04 ◼   ► with the bigger SSD.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And they were very similar until you push one of them to swap.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And they were doing it by just opening Chrome tabs,

00:09:12 ◼   ► as most people would do.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And it didn't take much to push it into swap.

00:09:15 ◼   ► They'd say, OK, here it is without Chrome running,

00:09:16 ◼   ► and they're about the same speed.

00:09:18 ◼   ► And here it is with Chrome open with 10 tabs, which I don't

00:09:20 ◼   ► think is unreasonable, but that's me.

00:09:21 ◼   ► Well, you wouldn't.

00:09:23 ◼   ► But still, I feel like you could find yourself

00:09:25 ◼   ► pretty quickly in a situation where you have Chrome with 10

00:09:27 ◼   ► tabs open, and it just destroys performance.

00:09:29 ◼   ► Because as soon as you get close to swap,

00:09:31 ◼   ► now your performance is dependent on that SSD speed,

00:09:33 ◼   ► and the SSD is slower.

00:09:35 ◼   ► On top of that, Ars Technica review,

00:09:37 ◼   ► did I put the link in there?

00:09:38 ◼   ► I should put it in, anyway.

00:09:39 ◼   ► The Ars Technica review of the M2 MacBook Air

00:09:42 ◼   ► shows that even if you get the one terabyte model,

00:09:45 ◼   ► the SSD is slower in some circumstances

00:09:48 ◼   ► than the one in the M1 MacBook Air.

00:09:50 ◼   ► Why?

00:09:51 ◼   ► I don't know, but you can look at their tests, right?

00:09:53 ◼   ► It's slower in read, but it was faster in write.

00:09:55 ◼   ► And that doesn't make sense because there's two chips

00:09:58 ◼   ► in both of them, maybe they went to a different vendor,

00:10:00 ◼   ► maybe there's something else we don't know.

00:10:01 ◼   ► So the M1 MacBook Air, like we were praising that machine

00:10:05 ◼   ► to high heaven ages ago,

00:10:06 ◼   ► because it basically didn't have any downsides.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Now with the advent of the M2 MacBook Air,

00:10:12 ◼   ► the downside that it has is there's an alternative

00:10:14 ◼   ► with MagSafe, right?

00:10:16 ◼   ► So it has dimmed the shining light

00:10:18 ◼   ► of the M1 MacBook Air a tiny bit.

00:10:20 ◼   ► But beyond that, the M1 MacBook Air

00:10:22 ◼   ► is still a phenomenal machine.

00:10:23 ◼   ► So if you wanna save money, get that one.

00:10:26 ◼   ► Oh, and speaking of the SSDs,

00:10:28 ◼   ► so here's the official spokesperson.

00:10:30 ◼   ► So this is from The Verge, and The Verge

00:10:32 ◼   ► has a policy now of naming-- they

00:10:34 ◼   ► put the name of the person who speaks to them.

00:10:37 ◼   ► Do you remember when The Verge posted their thing,

00:10:38 ◼   ► like we have a new policy for the company?

00:10:40 ◼   ► No more on background.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Yeah, no more just saying Apple says.

00:10:43 ◼   ► That's a good policy.

00:10:45 ◼   ► I like that.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Yeah, but anyway, you get to know people's names now.

00:10:47 ◼   ► So here it is.

00:10:48 ◼   ► Apple spokesperson Michelle DeRio provided the following

00:10:51 ◼   ► statement on the SSD speed of the base model MacBook Air.

00:10:53 ◼   ► So this is Apple's spin on the fact

00:10:56 ◼   ► that they've got one chip in there, and it's slower.

00:10:59 ◼   ► Thanks to the performance increases of M2,

00:11:01 ◼   ► the new MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:11:03 ◼   ► are incredibly fast, even compared to Mac laptops

00:11:05 ◼   ► with the powerful M1 chip.

00:11:07 ◼   ► These new systems use a higher density NAND

00:11:09 ◼   ► that delivers 256 gigabyte storage using a single chip.

00:11:12 ◼   ► While benchmarks of the 256 gigabyte SSD

00:11:14 ◼   ► may show a difference compared to the previous generation,

00:11:17 ◼   ► the performance of these M2-based systems

00:11:19 ◼   ► for real-world activities are even faster.

00:11:22 ◼   ► So what they're saying is--

00:11:23 ◼   ► - I love that those two things don't follow from each other.

00:11:26 ◼   ► - Well, they're saying it's smaller.

00:11:27 ◼   ► Look, it's higher density.

00:11:28 ◼   ► It's like, yep, it's one chip, now we get it, right?

00:11:31 ◼   ► But they're basically saying,

00:11:32 ◼   ► it's slower if you benchmark just the storage,

00:11:35 ◼   ► but if you do a real-world task, it's faster.

00:11:37 ◼   ► And that's borne out by most of the benchmarks.

00:11:39 ◼   ► If you compare the M2 MacBook Air

00:11:40 ◼   ► versus the M1 MacBook Air, if you don't push it to swap,

00:11:44 ◼   ► even if the M2 MacBook Air throttles,

00:11:46 ◼   ► it still usually tends to beat the M1 MacBook Air.

00:11:50 ◼   ► But the swap factor is the big thing.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Like, if you're not doing a disk benchmark,

00:11:54 ◼   ► like, oh, I don't care, I just wanna care

00:11:55 ◼   ► about real-world tasks.

00:11:56 ◼   ► but you might be doing a real-world task

00:11:58 ◼   ► while having literally anything else open,

00:12:00 ◼   ► or like you're waiting for a job to finish

00:12:02 ◼   ► and you're browsing the web

00:12:03 ◼   ► and it's slaughtering your performance,

00:12:04 ◼   ► making it significantly slower than the M1 model.

00:12:07 ◼   ► Something to think about.

00:12:08 ◼   ► So again, I don't think this is that big of a deal

00:12:12 ◼   ► because most people won't notice this.

00:12:14 ◼   ► If you only ever use it for email and web browsing

00:12:16 ◼   ► and sending people messages and stuff,

00:12:19 ◼   ► you're probably fine no matter what.

00:12:20 ◼   ► So don't freak out about this,

00:12:21 ◼   ► but for those in the know,

00:12:23 ◼   ► Do not get the base model of the M2 MacBook Air.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Do not get the base model of the M2 MacBook Pro or probably any model of the M2 MacBook

00:12:31 ◼   ► Pro unless you're really interested in battery life.

00:12:33 ◼   ► That's another thing that came up.

00:12:34 ◼   ► The M2 MacBook Pro does have bigger batteries, again, at the sacrifice of MagSafe and you

00:12:38 ◼   ► have a Touch Bar and yada yada.

00:12:39 ◼   ► And we'll talk a little bit more about the Touch Bar later, believe it or not.

00:12:42 ◼   ► There's Touch Bar news somehow.

00:12:45 ◼   ► It's important, I think, to put all this in context though.

00:12:48 ◼   ► These machines, this is Apple's cheapest series of laptops.

00:12:52 ◼   ► I guess I know they're still selling the old ones,

00:12:53 ◼   ► that's why I'm saying series, the MacBook Air series.

00:12:56 ◼   ► This is their cheapest series of laptops.

00:12:59 ◼   ► And to get significantly higher, pro-level stuff,

00:13:02 ◼   ► it does cost significantly more money.

00:13:04 ◼   ► So you're looking at something that's in the 1200

00:13:07 ◼   ► to 1500 dollar price range in most configurations

00:13:09 ◼   ► people are gonna be buying.

00:13:11 ◼   ► And when you compare that to the differences between

00:13:15 ◼   ► the low-end and high-end products 10 years ago,

00:13:18 ◼   ► or maybe even five years ago,

00:13:21 ◼   ► There were vast differences,

00:13:23 ◼   ► and you'd buy the low-end product,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and it would actually feel slow right from day one.

00:13:28 ◼   ► These machines are not like that.

00:13:30 ◼   ► The gap between how these feel and how they perform

00:13:35 ◼   ► in almost every task that almost everybody does,

00:13:38 ◼   ► between the base models of,

00:13:40 ◼   ► the cheapest MacBook Air you can get,

00:13:42 ◼   ► even the base model M1 version, even that,

00:13:45 ◼   ► or heck, let's hobble the SSD, the base model M2 version.

00:13:48 ◼   ► Okay, the cheapest model of that.

00:13:50 ◼   ► Compare that to the top of the line Mac Studio,

00:13:55 ◼   ► and in almost every kind of task that most people do,

00:13:59 ◼   ► you won't even feel a difference between those two products,

00:14:02 ◼   ► except one has a loud fan,

00:14:04 ◼   ► and the other one has a very small screen.

00:14:07 ◼   ► But otherwise, the difference between the low end

00:14:10 ◼   ► and the high end is pretty much not noticeable anymore

00:14:15 ◼   ► for a vast quantity of tasks.

00:14:17 ◼   ► And it isn't just like, you can't just say like,

00:14:21 ◼   ► oh well now, I'm a developer, so I will notice everything.

00:14:24 ◼   ► I must have the absolute highest everything,

00:14:27 ◼   ► maxed out everything, just so I can do my development work.

00:14:30 ◼   ► Nope, don't need it.

00:14:31 ◼   ► I mean, it helps, it might make certain things

00:14:33 ◼   ► a little bit faster, but the difference,

00:14:36 ◼   ► if you haven't used one of these M1 or M2 based machines yet

00:14:41 ◼   ► you might be overthinking how much these upgrades

00:14:45 ◼   ► will matter for you.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And in reality, these are so fast at almost everything,

00:14:52 ◼   ► you don't even know what you're in for.

00:14:53 ◼   ► Like you don't need, if you're like really stressing

00:14:57 ◼   ► about not being able to afford or justify

00:15:00 ◼   ► certain spec improvements, don't get them.

00:15:03 ◼   ► You probably don't need them.

00:15:04 ◼   ► Like, you know, storage space is one thing,

00:15:07 ◼   ► 'cause that's something that you kinda can't, you know,

00:15:08 ◼   ► mess around too much with.

00:15:11 ◼   ► RAM is a little tricky because the SSD

00:15:16 ◼   ► and bus subsystems on these are so fast

00:15:18 ◼   ► that if you do have to swap here and there,

00:15:20 ◼   ► it's a lot less of a hit than it used to be

00:15:23 ◼   ► in terms of noticeability and performance

00:15:25 ◼   ► in most workloads.

00:15:26 ◼   ► And you only really need like the really high core count

00:15:30 ◼   ► Pro and Max chips or the really high core count GPUs

00:15:33 ◼   ► if you're doing workloads that really do stress

00:15:35 ◼   ► those things and most workloads don't.

00:15:38 ◼   ► Even things that we used to call Pro.

00:15:41 ◼   ► Like if you're doing photo editing, development work,

00:15:44 ◼   ► even a lot of types of video editing,

00:15:46 ◼   ► like maybe more casual style video editing,

00:15:49 ◼   ► most of that, you're not gonna notice much of a difference

00:15:52 ◼   ► between the cheapest laptop they sell

00:15:54 ◼   ► and the most expensive desktop they sell these days.

00:15:57 ◼   ► That's how great all these are.

00:15:59 ◼   ► So if you need to make a tough decision

00:16:01 ◼   ► about what specs or what model to get,

00:16:04 ◼   ► you kinda can't go wrong with any of these,

00:16:06 ◼   ► except the M2 MacBook Pro, don't get that.

00:16:07 ◼   ► But with the exception of pretty much

00:16:10 ◼   ► everything else, they're all great.

00:16:13 ◼   ► They're all amazing machines, they're all good dogs brand.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Even the very cheapest one of these laptops

00:16:18 ◼   ► is gonna be significantly better than you think it is.

00:16:22 ◼   ► - Although I would say the thing that some regular people do

00:16:26 ◼   ► like if you're doing anything that's like a batch job

00:16:27 ◼   ► like where you set it to do something

00:16:29 ◼   ► and it shows up progress where you go have dinner.

00:16:31 ◼   ► Like if you literally do anything like that ever,

00:16:34 ◼   ► depend if you get one of the ones with the single chip

00:16:37 ◼   ► and 8GB of RAM, it can end up being twice as slow as an M2 MacBook Air was with the

00:16:44 ◼   ► two chips because it's a disk-bound task or it pushes it into a swap.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Very easily, now if you don't have anything to compare that to, are you comparing it to

00:16:51 ◼   ► an Intel thing, yeah it'll still be fast.

00:16:52 ◼   ► But it is a shame to know that you buy this fancy new machine, especially if you're upgrading

00:16:56 ◼   ► from an M1 model or something and you expect it to be faster and it goes half the speed

00:16:59 ◼   ► because you're swapping and the SSD kills it.

00:17:02 ◼   ► So I would still keep that in mind.

00:17:04 ◼   ► If you ever do anything that has a progress bar that you're impatiently waiting for that

00:17:07 ◼   ► takes more than 10 minutes or whatever, and it's not that hard to do that.

00:17:11 ◼   ► You won't notice the difference while you're editing the video, you're in iMovie, you're

00:17:14 ◼   ► moving things around, everything's fine.

00:17:15 ◼   ► It's when you do export or send it to YouTube or whatever, that type of thing that takes

00:17:20 ◼   ► a while to run, you don't want that to run at half the speed of an M1 MacBook Air and

00:17:24 ◼   ► you could find yourself in that situation if you're not careful with the base config.

00:17:28 ◼   ► So I'll throw that in there.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Oh, and since you mentioned the Mac Studio and the fans, I just want to give you an update

00:17:31 ◼   ► on that. For people who haven't heard past episodes, I got the Mac Studio. I don't like

00:17:35 ◼   ► fan noise. I put it on the desk. I decided I could still hear the fan, so I bought this

00:17:40 ◼   ► 3D printed plastic cage from Etsy that exactly fits the Mac Studio and I stuck it to the

00:17:45 ◼   ► underside of my desk. This is not my desk, this is my wife's desk. I stuck it to the

00:17:47 ◼   ► underside of her desk. And I have to say, that solution, it is 100% silent. Like, even

00:17:54 ◼   ► if I try really hard to hear the fan, I can't. If I'm sitting at the desk and literally everything

00:18:00 ◼   ► else in the entire neighborhood is quiet, not just everything in my house is quiet,

00:18:04 ◼   ► but anything in the neighborhood to be quiet, I can maybe pick it up.

00:18:08 ◼   ► So as we know, the Mac Studio, no matter what you do to it, the Mac Studio with the M1 Mac

00:18:14 ◼   ► strip in it, no matter what you do to it, the fans never get any faster, so it is effectively

00:18:19 ◼   ► silent.

00:18:20 ◼   ► So now it is not only silent, but also invisible, because it's not on my wife's desk anymore.

00:18:23 ◼   ► She just has the Apple Studio display with cables that go down the back, and a keyboard

00:18:27 ◼   ► and a mouse.

00:18:28 ◼   ► That's her whole computer.

00:18:29 ◼   ► iMac without the iMac inside. Stuck to the bottom of her desk is this little

00:18:33 ◼   ► thing but it's completely out of sight and out of mind so I'm pretty happy with

00:18:36 ◼   ► the solution. I was nervous about the 3d printed cage you know getting stress

00:18:42 ◼   ► fractures or cracking because I don't know you know how strong this 3d

00:18:44 ◼   ► printed plastic is so I did actually get some safety straps for the thing.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Sent by a listener to ADP especially since that's a place where my

00:18:55 ◼   ► dog goes she stays under there a lot like under that desk and just kind of

00:18:58 ◼   ► snoozes down there, I don't want a Mac Studio falling on her.

00:19:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:01 ◼   ► - That's a heavy thing.

00:19:02 ◼   ► - Two feet away, but yeah, anyway.

00:19:04 ◼   ► So I got some safety straps, I'll put a link in the show

00:19:06 ◼   ► on these things that listeners of the show sent me.

00:19:09 ◼   ► They're like perfect for this application.

00:19:10 ◼   ► I was wondering what I was gonna buy for this,

00:19:12 ◼   ► and I got these things, and they're absolutely perfect.

00:19:14 ◼   ► They're overkill, they're metal cables

00:19:16 ◼   ► with metal eyelets at the end.

00:19:18 ◼   ► But yeah, I just put a bunch of those across there

00:19:21 ◼   ► and screwed them in, so now I've got

00:19:23 ◼   ► belt and suspenders for that Mac Studio.

00:19:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:19:27 ◼   ► - All right, so to go back to the M2 MacBook Air,

00:19:30 ◼   ► you teased a little bit about a tear down.

00:19:32 ◼   ► So what was going on in Max Tech's tear down?

00:19:34 ◼   ► - They tore it down and what they do on that channel

00:19:37 ◼   ► always fascinates me because, yeah,

00:19:39 ◼   ► so they're gonna crack the machine open,

00:19:40 ◼   ► you know, it's a thing you do.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Like a lot of these things are not easy to take apart

00:19:45 ◼   ► or you take it apart once and that's it,

00:19:47 ◼   ► but they tore it apart before they did

00:19:49 ◼   ► their thermal testing.

00:19:50 ◼   ► It's like, do the thermal testing first.

00:19:52 ◼   ► You're invalidating all of your work, why?

00:19:55 ◼   ► 'Cause now all you're doing is testing

00:19:56 ◼   ► how well you put the thing back together.

00:19:58 ◼   ► And let me tell you, when you take this thing apart

00:20:00 ◼   ► and strip it down to like,

00:20:01 ◼   ► so you can see the M2 chip on there,

00:20:04 ◼   ► it's never going back to the way it was.

00:20:06 ◼   ► If you look at how it is,

00:20:07 ◼   ► like the motherboard is covered with this,

00:20:09 ◼   ► covered on like both sides with a full length,

00:20:11 ◼   ► like thermal pad sticker with thicker thermal pads

00:20:14 ◼   ► in different places,

00:20:15 ◼   ► plus, you know, thermal paste on top of the M2.

00:20:19 ◼   ► It's a mess in there.

00:20:20 ◼   ► But anyway, you should watch the tear down video

00:20:22 ◼   ► if you wanna see what it's like

00:20:24 ◼   ► and why you should never do what they did.

00:20:26 ◼   ► It's just, you know, but like I said, it's not exotic.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's thermal pads.

00:20:30 ◼   ► Have you ever seen the little pads

00:20:31 ◼   ► that use them in the consoles a lot, right?

00:20:33 ◼   ► It's fairly cheap.

00:20:34 ◼   ► It's just some material that spreads the heat

00:20:35 ◼   ► and it spreads it to these little metal plates

00:20:37 ◼   ► that are inside there.

00:20:38 ◼   ► There may be like a very thin vapor chamber thing,

00:20:41 ◼   ► but according to their tests,

00:20:42 ◼   ► when you look at it with like one of those IR cameras,

00:20:45 ◼   ► the heat spreader is not spreading the heat much.

00:20:46 ◼   ► The heat, the hotspot on the thermal camera is the M2

00:20:51 ◼   ► and it spreads a little bit or whatever.

00:20:53 ◼   ► So, but that seems to be adequate

00:20:55 ◼   ► for it to do okay thermal throttling

00:20:58 ◼   ► on the other extreme conditions,

00:20:59 ◼   ► and I think that's fine for their lowest end laptop,

00:21:02 ◼   ► and I definitely appreciate it not having a fan.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Oh, and then one more thing they found in the teardown

00:21:07 ◼   ► is they found what they say,

00:21:09 ◼   ► I haven't confirmed this or anything,

00:21:10 ◼   ► but they found what they think is an ultra wideband chip

00:21:13 ◼   ► in the M2 MacBook Air.

00:21:14 ◼   ► And I think that would be the first

00:21:17 ◼   ► ultra wideband chip in a Mac.

00:21:19 ◼   ► Do you recall for that one?

00:21:21 ◼   ► - I thought all of the Apple Silicon Series models had one,

00:21:24 ◼   ► but I could be misremembering.

00:21:26 ◼   ► - Well, anyway, I don't think there's any application

00:21:29 ◼   ► for ultra wideband in the Mac yet.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Like unlike the phones where they have the thing

00:21:35 ◼   ► where you could be close to somebody

00:21:37 ◼   ► and the airdrop and stuff, like whatever they made up

00:21:39 ◼   ► before the AirTags were out.

00:21:41 ◼   ► Yeah, so this makes me think of the previous rumor

00:21:45 ◼   ► about AirPods, you know, going away from Bluetooth

00:21:47 ◼   ► and moving to ultra wideband for audio

00:21:49 ◼   ► for a bunch of reasons.

00:21:50 ◼   ► It'll be, you know, better, more efficient, lower power,

00:21:53 ◼   ► better bandwidth for lossless audio,

00:21:55 ◼   ► and hopefully better in all the ways that Bluetooth is bad.

00:21:59 ◼   ► So we'll see, we'll see if anything comes of that,

00:22:02 ◼   ► but just throw that out there,

00:22:04 ◼   ► we'll probably follow up in the coming months

00:22:07 ◼   ► if whether there really is an ultra wide matchup.

00:22:09 ◼   ► - We are brought to you this week by Squarespace,

00:22:13 ◼   ► the all-in-one platform for building your brand

00:22:15 ◼   ► and growing your business online.

00:22:17 ◼   ► Squarespace makes it super easy for you

00:22:19 ◼   ► to make great websites,

00:22:21 ◼   ► whether it's for personal things, hobby things,

00:22:24 ◼   ► or a full-blown business site.

00:22:26 ◼   ► This can be things, maybe you're selling something.

00:22:28 ◼   ► With Squarespace, you can sell your products,

00:22:31 ◼   ► content you create, even your time.

00:22:33 ◼   ► They have full-blown support for any kind of business

00:22:36 ◼   ► you wanna run online, and it's just a really great platform.

00:22:39 ◼   ► My wife runs a Squarespace storefront,

00:22:41 ◼   ► and I've seen myself, right, you know,

00:22:43 ◼   ► first of all, I didn't have to help her at all

00:22:44 ◼   ► to set it up, and she's not a programmer, you know?

00:22:47 ◼   ► And anybody who's not a programmer can do Squarespace,

00:22:49 ◼   ► because there's no coding, there's no server maintenance,

00:22:51 ◼   ► There's no software upgrades or anything like that.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And so they just have these amazing sales tools.

00:22:57 ◼   ► And so she sells things, she ships things,

00:22:59 ◼   ► it figures out sales tax, all that stuff.

00:23:02 ◼   ► That's all part of Squarespace.

00:23:04 ◼   ► They have whatever you might need to sell

00:23:05 ◼   ► physical or digital goods.

00:23:07 ◼   ► They also have things like membership support.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So if you want to sell memberships,

00:23:11 ◼   ► and you might have private content for members,

00:23:14 ◼   ► or maybe you're selling your expertise

00:23:16 ◼   ► and you have people taking up slots in a schedule for you,

00:23:19 ◼   ► They have support for all of that at Squarespace.

00:23:21 ◼   ► They have SEO tools, email campaigns,

00:23:24 ◼   ► everything you might need to run your business.

00:23:27 ◼   ► And it's a great site, really to build any kind of website.

00:23:30 ◼   ► You know, whether it's a business or not,

00:23:31 ◼   ► but they really shine in the business area

00:23:33 ◼   ► in these recent years.

00:23:34 ◼   ► They've done so many great updates

00:23:35 ◼   ► and they make it so easy to run a business there.

00:23:37 ◼   ► See for yourself at squarespace.com/atp

00:23:41 ◼   ► because there you can start a free trial

00:23:43 ◼   ► and you can actually build whatever site you have in mind.

00:23:45 ◼   ► You can go to squarespace.com/atp, start a free trial.

00:23:48 ◼   ► There's no credit card required and build the site and when you want to sign up finally after that you'll be ready to launch the site

00:23:53 ◼   ► Go back there squarespace.com slash ATP use offer code ATP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or a domain

00:24:00 ◼   ► once again squarespace.com

00:24:02 ◼   ► slash ATP code ATP for 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain

00:24:06 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Squarespace for sponsoring our show

00:24:09 ◼   ► Tell me about what happens when somebody changes their phone number this was based on an ask ATP from last week

00:24:17 ◼   ► if I'm not mistaken.

00:24:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, that was my frustration at having

00:24:21 ◼   ► lots of contact info for people,

00:24:23 ◼   ► but then when I initiate a form of contact,

00:24:26 ◼   ► say for example, I want to share a funny thing

00:24:28 ◼   ► that I see on the web with the share.

00:24:29 ◼   ► You know, I'm on my phone and I wanna use

00:24:31 ◼   ► a little share icon, the box with the arrow pointing up,

00:24:33 ◼   ► and I go share, and if the person I wanna share to

00:24:37 ◼   ► isn't in the recent ones, like the little thing

00:24:39 ◼   ► that shows their face and like messages or whatever,

00:24:41 ◼   ► I have to hit the messages icon

00:24:42 ◼   ► and then you have to type their name,

00:24:43 ◼   ► so I wanna share it with my son,

00:24:44 ◼   ► and he's not visible in the recent,

00:24:46 ◼   ► So I hit messages, I type the first few letters of his name

00:24:49 ◼   ► and it auto completes to his name.

00:24:50 ◼   ► And next to his name is his phone number.

00:24:52 ◼   ► And I never want to send him messages to his phone number.

00:24:55 ◼   ► I always want to send them to his Apple ID.

00:24:58 ◼   ► And no matter how many times I go over to that line

00:25:00 ◼   ► and click the little chevron and go pick the Apple ID

00:25:02 ◼   ► and then send the message to his app.

00:25:03 ◼   ► No matter how many times I override the default

00:25:05 ◼   ► that it's sending to me, next time I do it,

00:25:08 ◼   ► I type the first few letters of his name,

00:25:09 ◼   ► shows his phone number.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So people had some theories about how to fix that.

00:25:12 ◼   ► So first, here's an Apple document

00:25:15 ◼   ► that explains, tries to explain something

00:25:18 ◼   ► that sounds like what it is, but it's not.

00:25:19 ◼   ► So this document, which I'll put a link in the show notes,

00:25:22 ◼   ► it says to change the default phone number

00:25:24 ◼   ► or email address for a contact method,

00:25:26 ◼   ► touch and hold the button for that method

00:25:27 ◼   ► below the contact's name,

00:25:28 ◼   ► and tap a selection in the list.

00:25:31 ◼   ► This is in the contact card,

00:25:32 ◼   ► like if you're in the contacts app

00:25:34 ◼   ► or any place that shows the contacts card,

00:25:35 ◼   ► you see the person and their name,

00:25:37 ◼   ► and then you see these little icons,

00:25:38 ◼   ► messages, call, FaceTime, mail, pay,

00:25:40 ◼   ► with the little, you know, right?

00:25:42 ◼   ► If you tap and hold on those,

00:25:44 ◼   ► Like if you tap and hold on messages,

00:25:45 ◼   ► you see all the ways you can message them.

00:25:46 ◼   ► You can message them with your Apple ID,

00:25:48 ◼   ► you can message them with their phone number, whatever.

00:25:50 ◼   ► And they say, oh, pick one of those,

00:25:52 ◼   ► and that will set the default.

00:25:53 ◼   ► But all it actually does is set the default

00:25:56 ◼   ► for the next time you're on this specific screen

00:25:59 ◼   ► and you tap messages without holding them.

00:26:00 ◼   ► - Oh, no.

00:26:01 ◼   ► - That doesn't help me.

00:26:02 ◼   ► I'm not on this screen, right?

00:26:04 ◼   ► I'm, you know, I hit share messages,

00:26:07 ◼   ► then type the first few letters of their name

00:26:08 ◼   ► and see that it is autocompleted

00:26:10 ◼   ► to my son and his phone number.

00:26:12 ◼   ► So that's frustrating.

00:26:14 ◼   ► Jen Gobble had another theory.

00:26:16 ◼   ► According to a friend at Apple, iMessage picks the way

00:26:19 ◼   ► you contact people via each person's iMessage pref.

00:26:22 ◼   ► If you have your phone number in this,

00:26:23 ◼   ► and I have your phone number and email

00:26:25 ◼   ► and my contact card for you,

00:26:26 ◼   ► then iMessage will address it to the phone number.

00:26:28 ◼   ► So this is the thing where if you go

00:26:30 ◼   ► on the Mac version of messages,

00:26:31 ◼   ► and you go to the preferences,

00:26:32 ◼   ► it says start new conversations from, right?

00:26:35 ◼   ► And you can pick where do you want

00:26:36 ◼   ► to start new conversations from.

00:26:38 ◼   ► But that does not, I mean, this may be true,

00:26:41 ◼   ► but A, it doesn't make a lot of sense,

00:26:43 ◼   ► and B, it doesn't really help me.

00:26:44 ◼   ► So it doesn't make a lot of sense

00:26:45 ◼   ► because what you're saying with that preference is,

00:26:46 ◼   ► when I message other people,

00:26:49 ◼   ► who do they see the message coming from?

00:26:51 ◼   ► Like, you can pick, whenever I message somebody,

00:26:54 ◼   ► I want it to be sent through my phone number

00:26:57 ◼   ► so that what they will see is a message

00:26:59 ◼   ► from my phone number.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Or you can say, I wanna start new conversations

00:27:02 ◼   ► from my Apple ID, and so when they see the message coming in

00:27:05 ◼   ► they'll see it coming from my Apple ID.

00:27:07 ◼   ► That's for me sending outgoing messages, right?

00:27:09 ◼   ► That's who it appears to be coming from.

00:27:12 ◼   ► But what I wanna control is how I send it to the person.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And this theory is that the only way to get it to work

00:27:19 ◼   ► is I'd have to go to my son's phone

00:27:21 ◼   ► and change his preference to say,

00:27:23 ◼   ► start new conversations from your Apple ID

00:27:26 ◼   ► instead of from your phone number.

00:27:28 ◼   ► And that seems weird to me that on my phone,

00:27:30 ◼   ► when I hit share and I hit messages

00:27:32 ◼   ► and I type my son's name,

00:27:34 ◼   ► that the only way for me to tell my phone

00:27:36 ◼   ► to pick his Apple ID is to go to his phone

00:27:39 ◼   ► and tell him to change it to Apple ID when he sends to me.

00:27:43 ◼   ► So I really hope that's not true.

00:27:44 ◼   ► I suppose I'll try it and if it fixes the problem,

00:27:46 ◼   ► then I will, 'cause my son probably doesn't care

00:27:48 ◼   ► what he sends his conversations from.

00:27:51 ◼   ► But this is all very confusing and it gets back

00:27:53 ◼   ► to the larger issue, which is contacts.

00:27:56 ◼   ► You can have many things in each category,

00:27:58 ◼   ► many email addresses, many phone numbers,

00:28:00 ◼   ► someone and so forth, and there is apparently no way

00:28:03 ◼   ► in contacts to tell it.

00:28:05 ◼   ► These are the, this is the priority order.

00:28:07 ◼   ► These are old ones, these are new ones.

00:28:09 ◼   ► It's just a completely unordered stew.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Sometimes, I don't know if you've done this thing,

00:28:12 ◼   ► but like, I delete all of them and re-add them

00:28:14 ◼   ► in the order that I want them to be.

00:28:16 ◼   ► Just crossing my fingers at the order that they display

00:28:18 ◼   ► in the contact card has some meaning,

00:28:20 ◼   ► but it probably doesn't, let's be honest.

00:28:22 ◼   ► - So to back up way to the beginning,

00:28:24 ◼   ► and perhaps I missed something, I'm sorry,

00:28:25 ◼   ► but why is it such a travesty to send something

00:28:29 ◼   ► to Alex's phone number?

00:28:30 ◼   ► Because you can send something to my phone number

00:28:33 ◼   ► or my Apple ID email address,

00:28:34 ◼   ► and they both end up in the same spot as far as I'm concerned.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Like they don't always end up in the same spot.

00:28:39 ◼   ► So the reason you want to send to an Apple idea is a good question though.

00:28:41 ◼   ► The reason why I sent,

00:28:42 ◼   ► why I want to send you an Apple ID instead of a phone number is not everybody

00:28:45 ◼   ► has their max set up to receive messages sent to their phone number.

00:28:50 ◼   ► And even if you do have it set up to do that,

00:28:53 ◼   ► I think your phone needs to be nearby for it to work. Is that correct? No, no,

00:28:56 ◼   ► no, no. You're thinking of SMS,

00:28:57 ◼   ► like the SMS relay thing that was introduced many, many years ago.

00:29:00 ◼   ► So if you receive an SMS from an Android person or from your bank,

00:29:05 ◼   ► it's like two factor that does need to be set up explicitly.

00:29:09 ◼   ► And I always forget how to do it.

00:29:10 ◼   ► I wrote actually a blog post about it way, way, way back when this was new. But,

00:29:13 ◼   ► um, but that your phone does need to be nearby, I think.

00:29:17 ◼   ► And that actually might've changed since the feature was new.

00:29:19 ◼   ► But anyway, there's still a settings in them and Mac messages that says, Hey,

00:29:23 ◼   ► where do you want to receive messages from on this Mac?

00:29:26 ◼   ► And not everybody has their phone number checked off.

00:29:28 ◼   ► So they might just have their Apple ID.

00:29:29 ◼   ► You always have your Apple ID checked off

00:29:31 ◼   ► because when you sign in with your Apple ID

00:29:33 ◼   ► and create an account on your Mac,

00:29:35 ◼   ► I think that there's no way to stop that.

00:29:37 ◼   ► But you might not have your phone number checked.

00:29:39 ◼   ► So I don't want to be in a situation

00:29:41 ◼   ► where I send a message where he's on his Mac

00:29:43 ◼   ► and he doesn't see it.

00:29:43 ◼   ► It shows up on his phone,

00:29:44 ◼   ► but his phone is over on the bed and he hasn't looked at it

00:29:46 ◼   ► and he doesn't see it on his Mac.

00:29:47 ◼   ► So if I send him the Apple ID,

00:29:48 ◼   ► I know no matter where he is, it's going to show up.

00:29:51 ◼   ► - I mean, I guess, but I can't think of anyone I know

00:29:55 ◼   ► who has that situation.

00:29:57 ◼   ► - I have very frequently found when I go to my preferences

00:30:00 ◼   ► that it is not set.

00:30:02 ◼   ► And I don't remember un-setting it,

00:30:03 ◼   ► so it must be, I don't know if it's something to do

00:30:05 ◼   ► with upgrading OS's or like who knows

00:30:07 ◼   ► what makes that become un-set.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Who can, but like, you know, I'm always on,

00:30:12 ◼   ► you know, you don't have to do anything

00:30:13 ◼   ► to be on your Apple ID.

00:30:14 ◼   ► Your Apple ID is your Apple ID

00:30:16 ◼   ► and it is everywhere that you were assigned

00:30:17 ◼   ► to your Apple ID and that makes perfect sense.

00:30:18 ◼   ► But your phone number is tied to your phone

00:30:20 ◼   ► and your Mac is not a phone, at least not yet.

00:30:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, I get that.

00:30:23 ◼   ► I think this is one of those cases,

00:30:25 ◼   ► and I should not be throwing stones on this,

00:30:26 ◼   ► but it's one of those cases where I think you're fretting

00:30:28 ◼   ► about something that's not really an issue.

00:30:29 ◼   ► - No, it's happened, it's actually happened.

00:30:31 ◼   ► That's why I'm obsessed with this,

00:30:33 ◼   ► because it's like, I'm sending you a message,

00:30:34 ◼   ► why aren't you responding?

00:30:35 ◼   ► It's like, oh, I didn't see them, they're just on my phone.

00:30:36 ◼   ► I'm like, but you're on your Mac, weren't you?

00:30:37 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, but I didn't see them there.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And then you find out why not, and you go,

00:30:40 ◼   ► and it says, it's just not the, anyway.

00:30:43 ◼   ► - If it's only happened with people that,

00:30:45 ◼   ► at least for the next month or so, are living in your house,

00:30:47 ◼   ► may I suggest an easier solution,

00:30:49 ◼   ► which would be to march up to his MacBook Air

00:30:51 ◼   ► and just fix it for him?

00:30:53 ◼   ► - I know, I do that on my own, I do that on my own, Max.

00:30:55 ◼   ► I'm gonna go look right now, everybody launch messages.

00:30:57 ◼   ► - All right, well, all right, hold on.

00:30:59 ◼   ► - And go to see in preferences where it says

00:31:01 ◼   ► that you're set to receive messages from.

00:31:03 ◼   ► All right, it is checked online,

00:31:04 ◼   ► although one of my Apple IDs is not checked.

00:31:07 ◼   ► Do you have three Apple IDs listed

00:31:09 ◼   ► for each one of your Apple IDs?

00:31:10 ◼   ► At Mac, at me, and at iCloud?

00:31:12 ◼   ► - I have, at iCloud, I have at me,

00:31:15 ◼   ► I have my third party email that is basically my Apple ID,

00:31:20 ◼   ► and then I also have my phone number.

00:31:22 ◼   ► So I have my phone number, iCloud, me, and my domain.

00:31:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I also have all of those things.

00:31:29 ◼   ► - You don't have that Mac?

00:31:30 ◼   ► - No, my Apple idea I think was created after .Mac

00:31:34 ◼   ► 'cause I joined during the MobileMe era.

00:31:36 ◼   ► - Mm, that's interesting.

00:31:38 ◼   ► - But yeah, but I mean, I have never had,

00:31:40 ◼   ► in all of the Macs I've owned,

00:31:42 ◼   ► and granted it's been quite a bit fewer than you,

00:31:44 ◼   ► but in all the Macs I've owned,

00:31:45 ◼   ► I've never, to my recollection,

00:31:48 ◼   ► had that setting just magically uncheck itself.

00:31:51 ◼   ► So far be it for me to argue with your experience,

00:31:54 ◼   ► but this is not a problem that I have seen

00:31:57 ◼   ► in my personal day-to-day.

00:31:59 ◼   ► - And the other thing, now that I'm looking at this thing,

00:32:00 ◼   ► is, oh, well, you don't have to worry about that,

00:32:02 ◼   ► because even if they just get it on their phone,

00:32:03 ◼   ► if you have iMessages in the cloud set,

00:32:05 ◼   ► it'll show up on their Mac anyway.

00:32:06 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, maybe, eventually.

00:32:10 ◼   ► I have to say that iMessages in the cloud,

00:32:12 ◼   ► it is, has not up to the standards of,

00:32:15 ◼   ► let's say, iCloud Photo Library,

00:32:16 ◼   ► in terms of reliably and quickly syncing changes.

00:32:21 ◼   ► I mean, to the message's credit is the only application

00:32:26 ◼   ► that I'm aware from Apple that has a sync now button,

00:32:28 ◼   ► but I can also tell you from experience

00:32:29 ◼   ► that when you click that sync now button,

00:32:31 ◼   ► boy, you're in for a wait, and there's no progress bar.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Of course.

00:32:35 ◼   ► - All right, and then finally for follow up,

00:32:38 ◼   ► tell me about IPsec and whether or not

00:32:40 ◼   ► it's required for IPv6, please.

00:32:42 ◼   ► - This is from Brian Peterson who pointed to

00:32:44 ◼   ► some information, but I just pulled from Wikipedia

00:32:46 ◼   ► because it says it succinctly,

00:32:47 ◼   ► IPsec was a mandatory part

00:32:49 ◼   ► of all IPv6 protocol implementations,

00:32:51 ◼   ► and the Internet key exchange was recommended.

00:32:53 ◼   ► But with RFC 6434,

00:32:55 ◼   ► the inclusion of IPsec and IPv6 implementations

00:32:57 ◼   ► was downgraded to a recommendation

00:32:59 ◼   ► because it was considered impractical

00:33:01 ◼   ► to require full IPsec implementation

00:33:02 ◼   ► for all types of devices that may use IPv6.

00:33:05 ◼   ► And Squoze it on Twitter,

00:33:07 ◼   ► you know, says it in a slightly different way.

00:33:09 ◼   ► IPsec is quote-unquote mandatory in IPv6

00:33:12 ◼   ► in the sense that everything running IPv6

00:33:14 ◼   ► must be capable of supporting it,

00:33:15 ◼   ► but that doesn't mean all IPv6 traffic

00:33:17 ◼   ► automatically uses IPsec.

00:33:19 ◼   ► It must still be explicitly configured between two hosts.

00:33:21 ◼   ► So it seems like this is a thing they wanted to do

00:33:23 ◼   ► and they had it in the original RSC,

00:33:24 ◼   ► but then backed off because probably people complained,

00:33:26 ◼   ► like, oh, even for my whatever, you know,

00:33:29 ◼   ► smart home toaster I gotta use IPsec,

00:33:31 ◼   ► we're using TLS for everything.

00:33:32 ◼   ► Why do you need to use IPsec?

00:33:33 ◼   ► Seems overkill.

00:33:34 ◼   ► So now it is not mandatory everywhere,

00:33:36 ◼   ► as of like what now?

00:33:37 ◼   ► As of like 2011 or something, it's not mandatory.

00:33:39 ◼   ► It is just you have to support it,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but it doesn't mean that you have to use it

00:33:43 ◼   ► for all of your communications.

00:33:45 ◼   ► And everyone cited TLS, basically, HTTPS,

00:33:48 ◼   ► that you see on your URLs, as the predominant way

00:33:51 ◼   ► that information is encrypted in transit.

00:33:53 ◼   ► And having IPVStack on top of that

00:33:55 ◼   ► just probably seems like overkill

00:33:56 ◼   ► and requires too much of the people implementing

00:33:59 ◼   ► their smart toasters, I suppose.

00:34:02 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by RevenueCat.

00:34:05 ◼   ► I'm an app developer.

00:34:06 ◼   ► My least favorite part of my code to work on

00:34:09 ◼   ► is the in-app purchase code and my least favorite part

00:34:13 ◼   ► of my server stuff to work on is the in-app purchase subscription management.

00:34:18 ◼   ► In-app purchases and subscriptions are a big pain.

00:34:21 ◼   ► The code can be tricky, it can be time consuming to maintain, there's so many edge cases to

00:34:26 ◼   ► consider.

00:34:27 ◼   ► RevenueCat makes it super simple.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So you can focus on building literally anything else with your time, your features, things

00:34:35 ◼   ► that will benefit your customers, not your in-app purchase infrastructure.

00:34:38 ◼   ► With RevenueCat you also get out of the box subscription metrics and charts that you can't

00:34:42 ◼   ► get from App Store Connect.

00:34:44 ◼   ► Plus, pre-built integrations and web hooks

00:34:46 ◼   ► make it easy to sync customer events and revenue data

00:34:49 ◼   ► to every tool in your stack.

00:34:51 ◼   ► It is super simple to use RevenueCat.

00:34:53 ◼   ► You just put a couple lines of code in,

00:34:55 ◼   ► and they handle all of those trickiness and edge cases

00:34:58 ◼   ► and all that other stuff for you.

00:34:59 ◼   ► So see for yourself at RevenueCat.com

00:35:02 ◼   ► and see why thousands of the world's best apps

00:35:06 ◼   ► trust RevenueCat to power subscriptions,

00:35:08 ◼   ► internet purchases on iOS, Android, and the web.

00:35:11 ◼   ► Once again, revenuecat.com, see for yourself,

00:35:15 ◼   ► it's a great service, I strongly recommend it,

00:35:17 ◼   ► it is so much better than writing

00:35:20 ◼   ► in-app purchase code yourself.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Revenuecat.com, thank you so much to Revenuecat

00:35:25 ◼   ► for making this easy and for sponsoring our show.

00:35:27 ◼   ► - So apparently, if you have a Touch Bar Mac,

00:35:35 ◼   ► which in and of itself, I'm sorry,

00:35:38 ◼   ► If you put an AirPlay button on your touch bar,

00:35:42 ◼   ► you can expect that your networking

00:35:45 ◼   ► will just kind of pause periodically, always.

00:35:49 ◼   ► What is going on here?

00:35:51 ◼   ► - This is a good article of someone debugging a problem

00:35:53 ◼   ► they were having and tracking it down

00:35:55 ◼   ► to this thing that's in the touch bar

00:35:56 ◼   ► that periodically checks for stuff on the network.

00:36:00 ◼   ► I'm not a network expert.

00:36:01 ◼   ► My question with all these things is like,

00:36:03 ◼   ► all right, so this kills this person's network.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Will it kill everybody's network?

00:36:06 ◼   ► when I say kill, I mean make everything slower

00:36:09 ◼   ► than it would otherwise be.

00:36:10 ◼   ► 'Cause it seems like what it's doing,

00:36:12 ◼   ► yeah, it's being wasteful

00:36:13 ◼   ► and it's constantly checking for a thing.

00:36:14 ◼   ► It's like the AirPlay button,

00:36:16 ◼   ► and it's like looking for things that it can AirPlay to.

00:36:18 ◼   ► Any kind of thing where you have polling,

00:36:20 ◼   ► where something is saying,

00:36:21 ◼   ► what's around here that I can AirPlay to?

00:36:23 ◼   ► What's around here that I can AirPlay to?

00:36:24 ◼   ► What's around here that I can AirPlay to?

00:36:25 ◼   ► That's polling, right?

00:36:26 ◼   ► That's not good, it's inefficient,

00:36:28 ◼   ► and it's inefficient for the thing

00:36:30 ◼   ► that is asking the question constantly,

00:36:31 ◼   ► and it's inefficient for your network,

00:36:33 ◼   ► 'cause there's constantly a pulse going out,

00:36:35 ◼   ► messages going out saying,

00:36:36 ◼   ► hey, who's out there, who's out there

00:36:37 ◼   ► that I can AirPlay to, right?

00:36:39 ◼   ► But it doesn't seem like that should make

00:36:41 ◼   ► your network performance so incredibly awful

00:36:43 ◼   ► that you notice it.

00:36:44 ◼   ► So maybe there's something else bad with the network,

00:36:46 ◼   ► but I just thought this was an interesting story

00:36:47 ◼   ► just because the touch bar, everybody's favorite thing,

00:36:51 ◼   ► is still out there causing problems for people

00:36:54 ◼   ► who probably just wanna use it as a row of function keys.

00:36:57 ◼   ► And I just wanted to bring this to people's attention

00:37:00 ◼   ► because it's the type of problem

00:37:01 ◼   ► that most people would never figure out.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Like it takes a fairly heroic level.

00:37:04 ◼   ► You can look at the article here.

00:37:07 ◼   ► It takes a fairly heroic level of debugging

00:37:09 ◼   ► to track it down to something in your touch bar

00:37:11 ◼   ► because that's not what you're thinking

00:37:13 ◼   ► when you're like, why is my network slow?

00:37:14 ◼   ► And you're checking everything you can think of.

00:37:16 ◼   ► You're not looking at what buttons

00:37:18 ◼   ► are in my touch bar right now.

00:37:19 ◼   ► But the solution is just to not have that AirPlay thing

00:37:22 ◼   ► in your touch bar and then it solves this problem.

00:37:24 ◼   ► But I thought this was funny and also,

00:37:27 ◼   ► hey, if you have a touch bar

00:37:28 ◼   ► and you're having network difficulties,

00:37:29 ◼   ► or put it this way, if you have a touch bar

00:37:31 ◼   ► and you never use that AirPlay button,

00:37:32 ◼   ► remove it just in case.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - It's a good thing they're not making any more, oh wait.

00:37:37 ◼   ► - Well, don't worry, they're constantly updating Touch Bar

00:37:40 ◼   ► and improving it, so.

00:37:41 ◼   ► - All right, Apple in the last couple of weeks

00:37:46 ◼   ► apparently patented a dual Pro stand

00:37:49 ◼   ► for Studio Display and Pro Display XDR users.

00:37:52 ◼   ► And in a way, this is like kind of exactly for me,

00:37:57 ◼   ► because if you recall, I had my semi beloved LG 5K

00:38:03 ◼   ► that I hate yet love.

00:38:05 ◼   ► I love hate.

00:38:06 ◼   ► Anyway, I had that, then I got the studio display

00:38:08 ◼   ► and I currently have the studio display

00:38:12 ◼   ► sitting directly in front of me.

00:38:14 ◼   ► And then off to my right with the screen angled

00:38:17 ◼   ► at about a 45 degree angle, I have the LG 5K.

00:38:20 ◼   ► And it is sitting on a single stand

00:38:23 ◼   ► that is just sitting on top of the desk

00:38:26 ◼   ► because I still have my glass desk,

00:38:28 ◼   ► which eventually I will replace.

00:38:29 ◼   ► But one way or another, I didn't really trust

00:38:32 ◼   ► a clamp onto glass without,

00:38:34 ◼   ► I just didn't think that was a good idea.

00:38:35 ◼   ► So I have this kind of meh freestanding stand,

00:38:40 ◼   ► which I will put a link in the show notes

00:38:41 ◼   ► if you're interested.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Again, it is meh.

00:38:43 ◼   ► It is very much the LG 5K of stands,

00:38:46 ◼   ► but one way or another--

00:38:48 ◼   ► - It's ultra fine.

00:38:51 ◼   ► - It is extremely, extremely fine.

00:38:53 ◼   ► But anyway, but this Pro Stand,

00:38:56 ◼   ► excuse me, dual Pro Stand that Apple seems to have patented

00:39:00 ◼   ► looks like a kind of similar thing, but with mine there's a single stand and a post that comes up,

00:39:06 ◼   ► and then off of that single post are two arms that hold up the screens. This is kind of the opposite,

00:39:12 ◼   ► actually. It's two posts, one at each end, and then a connecting rod, if you will, between them.

00:39:17 ◼   ► But what's very interesting is because if you look at the MacRumors post, well I'm saying post a lot

00:39:23 ◼   ► all of a sudden, but anyway if you look at the MacRumors article, there's this, you know, straight

00:39:28 ◼   ► crossbar between the two vertical posts, the two supports. And I thought to myself, "Well,

00:39:33 ◼   ► that doesn't do what I want it to do because I want it kind of at an angle. I want the

00:39:38 ◼   ► one screen directly in front of me and then perpendicular to my face, and then I want

00:39:42 ◼   ► the other one at a 45-degree angle." And as you scroll down, hey, sure enough, right in

00:39:45 ◼   ► the middle of the horizontal support, you can bend it. So if I were to get myself a

00:39:50 ◼   ► second studio display, which I totally if not considered, no, of course not, why would

00:39:54 ◼   ► would I do such a silly thing,

00:39:56 ◼   ► I could pair it potentially with this very fancy schmancy

00:40:00 ◼   ► pro stand, dual pro stand, which looks very cool

00:40:02 ◼   ► and I'm sure is super cheap.

00:40:04 ◼   ► - With the disclaimers that patents don't often

00:40:06 ◼   ► result in products, I think this,

00:40:10 ◼   ► there is no way in heck that KC would ever get this

00:40:13 ◼   ► because the stand itself would probably cost $2,500.

00:40:17 ◼   ► - You're so right, you are so right.

00:40:19 ◼   ► - It's like only 2,000 'cause it's like two regular

00:40:22 ◼   ► thousand dollar stands.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh.

00:40:24 ◼   ► - So this looks a lot like patents that come out

00:40:28 ◼   ► after they've already decided not to make it.

00:40:31 ◼   ► So it's like several years ago,

00:40:32 ◼   ► they're making the Pro Display XDR

00:40:33 ◼   ► and they have a bunch of ideas for stands.

00:40:35 ◼   ► And this is one of the ideas.

00:40:36 ◼   ► And they just said, actually,

00:40:37 ◼   ► we're not gonna make this one,

00:40:38 ◼   ► we're just gonna make a regular stand,

00:40:39 ◼   ► we'll charge $1,000 for it, here's the XDR.

00:40:41 ◼   ► And that's what they decided to do.

00:40:42 ◼   ► But then eventually it's like,

00:40:43 ◼   ► but we did think about and design this double stand,

00:40:46 ◼   ► so eventually the patent goes out.

00:40:47 ◼   ► We should still patent it,

00:40:48 ◼   ► 'cause that's what companies do,

00:40:49 ◼   ► 'cause patents are dumb and they have to patent everything.

00:40:51 ◼   ► So they patent it and it comes out,

00:40:54 ◼   ► but it's like, by the time you're seeing the patent,

00:40:56 ◼   ► it's a product they long ago decided not to make,

00:40:59 ◼   ► which I think was a wise decision

00:41:00 ◼   ► because to Marco's point, this would cost so much money,

00:41:03 ◼   ► as evidenced by the single stand that costs $1,000.

00:41:06 ◼   ► Can't imagine what this even fancier double stand would cost.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And it's kind of like the situation with my TV

00:41:11 ◼   ► where Casey's ugly central stand thing,

00:41:15 ◼   ► you can have your two monitors extending out pretty wide

00:41:19 ◼   ► and you've just got one stand in the middle.

00:41:20 ◼   ► These things, it's like soccer goalposts.

00:41:23 ◼   ► Your desk needs to be as wide as your two displays

00:41:26 ◼   ► so that the feet, because the feet are all the way

00:41:28 ◼   ► at the edges, the feet aren't in the middle

00:41:30 ◼   ► of the two monitors, the feet are at the far edges

00:41:33 ◼   ► of the monitor, the left monitor of the foot

00:41:34 ◼   ► is at the left edge of that monitor,

00:41:36 ◼   ► the right monitor of the foot is at the right edge

00:41:38 ◼   ► of that monitor, so you need to have a desk that wide,

00:41:41 ◼   ► and then you need those feet, those feet are like,

00:41:43 ◼   ► 'cause if you do do it on an angle,

00:41:44 ◼   ► those feet are kind of toed in,

00:41:48 ◼   ► just look at your desk and think of where those feet

00:41:49 ◼   ► would be and think of what, maybe you have speakers there,

00:41:52 ◼   ► or maybe you have, like, they're taking up desk space.

00:41:54 ◼   ► The good thing about a central stand

00:41:56 ◼   ► with just the one thing is,

00:41:58 ◼   ► yeah, you've got a foot in front of you,

00:41:59 ◼   ► but it's right in front of you

00:42:01 ◼   ► and you can put stuff on top of it

00:42:02 ◼   ► and you can still have stuff flanking it.

00:42:05 ◼   ► This is not, I don't think this is a good design

00:42:07 ◼   ► for a stand and if you read the patent filings,

00:42:09 ◼   ► the things they talk about,

00:42:10 ◼   ► like what are the features of this,

00:42:11 ◼   ► why is this patentable or, you know,

00:42:13 ◼   ► what's good about this?

00:42:15 ◼   ► And they say some things that I guess appeal

00:42:18 ◼   ► to people's sense of precision,

00:42:20 ◼   ► like well you can just have two stands

00:42:22 ◼   ► or something like Casey's,

00:42:23 ◼   ► but it's hard to get the monitors

00:42:24 ◼   ► exactly even with each other.

00:42:26 ◼   ► And if you adjust one,

00:42:27 ◼   ► and you have to adjust the other one

00:42:28 ◼   ► to be exactly the same.

00:42:29 ◼   ► I think the idea with this is they move as a unit, right?

00:42:32 ◼   ► So that you don't have to,

00:42:34 ◼   ► like if you wanted them to be higher or lower,

00:42:36 ◼   ► if you raise and lower,

00:42:37 ◼   ► they both go up and down exactly the same amount.

00:42:40 ◼   ► They're both always perfectly aligned,

00:42:41 ◼   ► and they're never crooked,

00:42:43 ◼   ► and don't meet it the right way or whatever.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Is that a big deal?

00:42:46 ◼   ► If you have a traditional stand,

00:42:48 ◼   ► you can probably just move them so they're both the way you want them and then you probably

00:42:50 ◼   ► never touch them again and it's fine.

00:42:51 ◼   ► But again, this is a product they didn't make and I hope they never make because it seems

00:42:56 ◼   ► like it's not a great idea but boy I like to think that, I mean I'm going to say they're

00:43:01 ◼   ► over there.

00:43:02 ◼   ► The time spent making this stand, I wish they had spent it getting the Apple Studio display

00:43:07 ◼   ► out sooner or trying to source better cameras for it.

00:43:11 ◼   ► It's always easy to look at the things.

00:43:14 ◼   ► They try lots of different things, but this looks pretty detailed for a product that didn't

00:43:19 ◼   ► come out.

00:43:20 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, that was kind of like a dead end where you wasted some time looking

00:43:23 ◼   ► into something and decided to bail on it.

00:43:25 ◼   ► I'm glad they bailed on it, but I'm kind of sad that they even spent as much time as it

00:43:29 ◼   ► was required to make this patent.

00:43:31 ◼   ► You know, you were saying a minute ago, where would the two uprights go?

00:43:36 ◼   ► It is worth noting that the way I have my particular setup, the stand, the support for

00:43:43 ◼   ► for my two monitors is basically in the back right corner

00:43:46 ◼   ► of the desk.

00:43:47 ◼   ► So the LG 5K, it crosses the edge of my desk

00:43:51 ◼   ► about halfway down the LG 5K.

00:43:54 ◼   ► So the right half of the LG 5K is effectively floating

00:43:58 ◼   ► over nothing.

00:43:58 ◼   ► So in this case, it didn't even occur to me

00:44:01 ◼   ► until you said something.

00:44:02 ◼   ► But in this case, I would be putting the right hand stand

00:44:05 ◼   ► on thin air, which would probably not work too well.

00:44:08 ◼   ► So this is perhaps not for me,

00:44:11 ◼   ► even leaving aside the fact, as Marko so astutely pointed out,

00:44:15 ◼   ► that this will be a trillion dollars.

00:44:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it would be if they made it.

00:44:19 ◼   ► I don't think they would. - Yeah, exactly.

00:44:20 ◼   ► - It's just like my stupid TV stand.

00:44:21 ◼   ► I don't have enough room for a wide piece of furniture

00:44:24 ◼   ► for my television to go on,

00:44:25 ◼   ► so the right and left edges of my television,

00:44:27 ◼   ► they're floating over the ground, right?

00:44:29 ◼   ► And they have a central stand.

00:44:31 ◼   ► Any stand that has feet at the extremities

00:44:33 ◼   ► just assumes everybody has a very, very wide pieces

00:44:36 ◼   ► of furniture, which a lot of people do, but not everybody,

00:44:38 ◼   ► especially if you're in New England

00:44:40 ◼   ► and you have no place to put your TV,

00:44:41 ◼   ► except for on an angle in a corner.

00:44:43 ◼   ► And it's very difficult to find pieces of furniture

00:44:45 ◼   ► that are very wide and also fit in a corner.

00:44:48 ◼   ► - So we have had this thing in the show notes forever.

00:44:52 ◼   ► And I feel like now is as good a time as any

00:44:56 ◼   ► since we are recording from the future

00:44:58 ◼   ► to talk about what went on,

00:45:01 ◼   ► what is this, September of last year.

00:45:03 ◼   ► The EU proposed, and I think they since accepted

00:45:07 ◼   ► or ratified or whatever, mandatory USB-C on all devices,

00:45:12 ◼   ► including iPhones.

00:45:13 ◼   ► So I think it was John put some very useful excerpts,

00:45:17 ◼   ► which I will now read to you from the Verge article,

00:45:18 ◼   ► which we put in the show notes.

00:45:20 ◼   ► The rules are intended to cut down on electronic waste

00:45:22 ◼   ► by allowing people to reuse existing chargers and cables

00:45:24 ◼   ► when they buy new electronics.

00:45:25 ◼   ► In addition to phones,

00:45:26 ◼   ► the rules will apply to other devices like tablets,

00:45:28 ◼   ► headphones, portable speakers, video game consoles,

00:45:30 ◼   ► and cameras.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Manufacturers will also be forced

00:45:32 ◼   ► to make their fast charging standards interoperable

00:45:35 ◼   ► and to provide information to customers

00:45:36 ◼   ► what charging standards their device supports. The proposals only cover devices using wired,

00:45:42 ◼   ► not wireless, chargers, EU Commissioner Terry Bretton said in a press conference, adding that

00:45:46 ◼   ► "there's plenty of room for innovation on wireless." A spokesperson for the commission

00:45:51 ◼   ► subsequently confirmed to The Verge that a USB-C port is only mandatory for devices that charge

00:45:55 ◼   ► using a cable. But if a device charges exclusively via wireless, like Apple's rumored portless iPhone,

00:46:01 ◼   ► there would be no requirement for a USB-C charging port.

00:46:05 ◼   ► If adopted, manufacturers will eventually have 24 months

00:46:07 ◼   ► to comply with the new rules.

00:46:09 ◼   ► So what do we think?

00:46:10 ◼   ► -So this first point, cut down electronic waste

00:46:14 ◼   ► by allowing people to reuse existing chargers.

00:46:17 ◼   ► So we'll talk a little bit about the wisdom

00:46:21 ◼   ► of a single charging standard in a second,

00:46:24 ◼   ► but in the short term, requiring everybody

00:46:27 ◼   ► who has a million lightning cables

00:46:29 ◼   ► to throw them in the garbage and get USB-C cables

00:46:32 ◼   ► does not cut down on electronic waste.

00:46:34 ◼   ► And I'm gonna say there's a lot of lightning cables

00:46:36 ◼   ► out there in the world at this point, right?

00:46:38 ◼   ► Not a small number of them.

00:46:39 ◼   ► So, citing specifically that this new proposal

00:46:43 ◼   ► will cut down on electronic waste does not ring true to me.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Now, I'm sure people do have USB-C chargers,

00:46:49 ◼   ► but I don't think people buy enough USB-C chargers

00:46:52 ◼   ► for all the devices and then only use half of them

00:46:54 ◼   ► because the other half use lightning.

00:46:55 ◼   ► No, you buy as many chargers as you need.

00:46:57 ◼   ► You buy the lightning cables and chargers

00:46:58 ◼   ► for your lightning devices and you buy the USB-C cables and chargers for your USB-C devices

00:47:02 ◼   ► and you don't have a million extras of both. So if this standard came out and you know

00:47:08 ◼   ► if Apple goes USB-C on their phones, the short-term effect is a lot of lightning cables in the

00:47:13 ◼   ► landfill or recycling or whatever we do with them. So that seems a little bit silly.

00:47:18 ◼   ► Well but I mean long-term though like I see what they're doing long-term. Now that being

00:47:22 ◼   ► so this is one of those things like you know the arguments that we've heard so far from

00:47:28 ◼   ► in the tech community I think hold water,

00:47:30 ◼   ► which is first of all from a convenience point of view,

00:47:34 ◼   ► this would be incredible to be in a world of all USBC.

00:47:38 ◼   ► You know, if you look at how we might get there

00:47:41 ◼   ► might be messy, but to be in this world of all USBC today

00:47:45 ◼   ► would be great.

00:47:47 ◼   ► That being said, you know, there's also a significant

00:47:50 ◼   ► downside to the idea of a government forcing tech companies

00:47:55 ◼   ► to use and keep indefinitely into the future

00:48:00 ◼   ► this particular type of connector.

00:48:02 ◼   ► Now, the USB connector type does not change

00:48:05 ◼   ► as frequently as most things in our tech world do.

00:48:08 ◼   ► I mean, my first computer with a USB-A port,

00:48:12 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure was 1999.

00:48:14 ◼   ► That was 23 years ago,

00:48:19 ◼   ► and USB-A is just now getting around

00:48:21 ◼   ► to slowly, painfully being replaced.

00:48:25 ◼   ► And so if we say we're gonna stick with this connector,

00:48:27 ◼   ► on one hand you can say, it's probably not a good thing

00:48:30 ◼   ► for governments to mandate things like this

00:48:33 ◼   ► to tech companies, because what if we wanna change it

00:48:35 ◼   ► in the future, it's gonna be a slow and painful process.

00:48:37 ◼   ► On the other hand, you can say, well,

00:48:39 ◼   ► this actually doesn't change that frequently.

00:48:41 ◼   ► And maybe that wouldn't be that bad,

00:48:43 ◼   ► because the actual lifespan of something like this,

00:48:46 ◼   ► especially in the context of mobile charging and stuff,

00:48:51 ◼   ► where you're almost certainly only or primarily using it

00:48:54 ◼   ► for supplying power and not for rapid data transfer

00:48:59 ◼   ► in most cases for this kind of device.

00:49:01 ◼   ► So you don't have to worry that much about like,

00:49:03 ◼   ► oh, what if it won't support Thunderbolt 17?

00:49:07 ◼   ► Chances are for this type of use,

00:49:11 ◼   ► it's not gonna matter for a very long time.

00:49:13 ◼   ► So I think this would be a great world to get to.

00:49:17 ◼   ► I still am hesitant to say that requiring it

00:49:22 ◼   ► by government action is the way to get there.

00:49:25 ◼   ► Because again, like, there is some conservatism

00:49:29 ◼   ► about letting government control something like tech

00:49:33 ◼   ► that tends to move quickly is probably warranted.

00:49:37 ◼   ► - And if you look at past, you know,

00:49:39 ◼   ► government or quasi-government mandating technologies,

00:49:44 ◼   ► we tend to get stuck with them for a long time.

00:49:46 ◼   ► Power plugs that are in our walls, telephone cables,

00:49:50 ◼   ► even things like ethernet, which are vaguely related to telephone things.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Part of that is you build up a lot of infrastructure and it takes a lot of money to tear it all

00:49:58 ◼   ► down and everything.

00:50:00 ◼   ► Part of it is that once it's a government type of thing, everyone just gets on board

00:50:03 ◼   ► with it and it assumes like the safe bet or whatever.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But in the world, in the faster pace, let's say, the moving world of internet-related

00:50:12 ◼   ► technologies like the telecom era back in the '67, '80s, the internet age, things move

00:50:19 ◼   ► faster now and there is more development, like as people in the chat room are talking

00:50:24 ◼   ► about, micro USB, the terrible connector that we all hate, the one that is asymmetrical

00:50:29 ◼   ► but it's so small it's hard to tap.

00:50:31 ◼   ► >> Well, it's the worst.

00:50:32 ◼   ► >> And you know, if they had standardized on that, maybe we wouldn't have USB-C, right?

00:50:38 ◼   ► Or if it had standardized on something before lightning came out, we never would have had

00:50:40 ◼   ► lightning and lightning was a big leap over what came before it, right?

00:50:44 ◼   ► So the idea that the government should do something because left to their own devices,

00:50:49 ◼   ► Apparently Apple is refusing to budge on this, right?

00:50:52 ◼   ► So everyone else is going to USB-C,

00:50:53 ◼   ► but Apple's out there and they sell a lot of phones.

00:50:55 ◼   ► It makes sense that, you know,

00:50:57 ◼   ► there's apparently not enough motivation

00:51:01 ◼   ► for these companies to get together on their own.

00:51:04 ◼   ► But I think the mistake is not in governments

00:51:07 ◼   ► requiring something, but in governments requiring something

00:51:10 ◼   ► and specifically saying what it is.

00:51:12 ◼   ► If, for instance, they had instead said,

00:51:15 ◼   ► "There has to be a common charging standard.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Decide amongst yourself what it would be."

00:51:18 ◼   ► everyone would pick USB-C, but the good thing about that

00:51:21 ◼   ► is that years in the future,

00:51:23 ◼   ► when there's some newer standard,

00:51:24 ◼   ► like an Apple wants to use Thunderbolt 19

00:51:26 ◼   ► on their new hollow iPads or whatever,

00:51:29 ◼   ► but we can't do it because everyone has to use USB-C

00:51:33 ◼   ► and we don't know how to put two ports,

00:51:34 ◼   ► eventually everybody in the industry

00:51:36 ◼   ► will be in a similar situation with like,

00:51:37 ◼   ► oh, there's a new standard and it's better,

00:51:39 ◼   ► or I have a new thing in mind and it's better,

00:51:41 ◼   ► but we're all stuck on the stupid USB-C

00:51:43 ◼   ► because we all agreed back in 2022

00:51:45 ◼   ► that we had the one standard requirement

00:51:47 ◼   ► and we all agreed it would be USB-C,

00:51:48 ◼   ► 'cause duh, of course it would be, right?

00:51:51 ◼   ► At that point in the future,

00:51:53 ◼   ► there would be enough companies that wanna move on

00:51:55 ◼   ► to their own particular innovation

00:51:57 ◼   ► to come back together again and say,

00:51:58 ◼   ► okay everybody, let's get together again,

00:52:00 ◼   ► let's all agree on a new standard,

00:52:02 ◼   ► because we all agree that USB-C is holding back

00:52:04 ◼   ► all of our products, because now in the future

00:52:06 ◼   ► we all have different, and then they'd have to agree

00:52:07 ◼   ► on like, well what is the new standard,

00:52:09 ◼   ► let's fight over that or whatever,

00:52:10 ◼   ► but they would be motivated to do that,

00:52:12 ◼   ► because everybody would want to have

00:52:14 ◼   ► newer, better devices, right?

00:52:15 ◼   ► If we had standardized on 30-pin, eventually everyone would be like, "Well, 30-pin has

00:52:20 ◼   ► served us well, but we all have something better in mind, and let's talk about what

00:52:23 ◼   ► that would be."

00:52:24 ◼   ► Because with all us being stuck on 30-pin, it sucks because we have to add a second port

00:52:28 ◼   ► off to the side and it's awkward or whatever, so you've got to use a 30-pin for…

00:52:33 ◼   ► There is motivation for companies to get together on standards.

00:52:36 ◼   ► Just look at the matter standard, which may come to nothing, but still, those companies

00:52:40 ◼   ► spent years killing each other in the market trying to see who's going to become dominant,

00:52:44 ◼   ► And eventually, nobody became dominant enough to just like dictate the world, and they all

00:52:49 ◼   ► came together and said, "All right, now this is hurting us more than it's helping us.

00:52:52 ◼   ► We all have our own standards or whatever, but people are, every one of us has people,

00:52:56 ◼   ► customers who won't buy our products because their house is already set up for Hue, or

00:52:59 ◼   ► it's already set up for Google Home, or it's already set up for HomeKit or whatever, and

00:53:03 ◼   ► they won't buy our products because they have a different, so we need to decide on a standard

00:53:08 ◼   ► because that will help all of us."

00:53:10 ◼   ► That is the market working correctly.

00:53:12 ◼   ► When everyone agrees that we have to get together on this, or just look at any other standard,

00:53:17 ◼   ► Blu-ray versus, what was the competing thing on Blu-ray?

00:53:20 ◼   ► HD DVD versus Divix.

00:53:23 ◼   ► Oh God.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Beta, VHS, or whatever.

00:53:26 ◼   ► Whatever the standard you ended up picking, the industry does have motivation to consolidate

00:53:30 ◼   ► on a standard.

00:53:32 ◼   ► But historically speaking, the government is very bad at dictating the specific technology

00:53:37 ◼   ► that standards should be.

00:53:38 ◼   ► When they do do so, it kind of gives people the excuse to say, "Well, we're just stuck

00:53:42 ◼   ► with it and we have to use this forever."

00:53:44 ◼   ► I'm not saying this is not what they're doing.

00:53:46 ◼   ► I don't know the details of the EU proposal.

00:53:48 ◼   ► Maybe the EU proposal has a time limit.

00:53:49 ◼   ► Maybe the EU proposal has a way where they can get back together and deal with this.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Even if it doesn't, the EU itself, in 15 years, can get back together and say, "Okay, we all

00:53:57 ◼   ► agree now that the USBC thing of time has come and we should redo it."

00:54:01 ◼   ► But why leave that to chance?

00:54:02 ◼   ► Why not bake it into the thing?

00:54:04 ◼   ► One standard policy for some something as big as the EU to say all phone manufacturers have to agree on a standard

00:54:10 ◼   ► decide amongst yourself

00:54:13 ◼   ► Would have the same results and would be a better policy

00:54:16 ◼   ► Now that's that's just like pie in the sky how I think this could be different or better and hopefully it will work out

00:54:22 ◼   ► Right, practically speaking. I'm not sure what this means. Does this mean that in two years?

00:54:28 ◼   ► starting from whatever date Apple has to switch their iPhones to USB-C or make them wireless?

00:54:34 ◼   ► It seems like it does. Was Apple going to do that anyway? Maybe. I don't know. There's the

00:54:41 ◼   ► Ultra Wideband wildcard that we talked about for a lot of this stuff. There's the wireless MagSafe

00:54:45 ◼   ► puck charging thing that's going to send data as well as power through everything. And then

00:54:50 ◼   ► there's just they'll go to USB-C and it will be fine, right? You know, and this proposal, like,

00:54:58 ◼   ► It's like the EU mandating a standard or whatever,

00:55:01 ◼   ► but really this is just an Apple ruling, right?

00:55:03 ◼   ► 'Cause everybody is already doing USB-C.

00:55:06 ◼   ► No one else is out there with their own proprietary

00:55:08 ◼   ► connection, it's just Apple, but Apple's so big

00:55:10 ◼   ► that they have to make this law

00:55:11 ◼   ► because Apple wasn't doing it on their own.

00:55:12 ◼   ► So in many ways this is another case where Apple

00:55:15 ◼   ► could have made a change on their own to avoid this.

00:55:17 ◼   ► If Apple had just gone to USB-C like last year,

00:55:20 ◼   ► they could have maybe prevented this.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Because then there would be a situation

00:55:23 ◼   ► where everybody is on USB-C, the EU is happy,

00:55:26 ◼   ► This thing doesn't pass because when they were trying

00:55:28 ◼   ► to get votes on it, everyone would say,

00:55:29 ◼   ► "Why are we voting on this?

00:55:30 ◼   ► "Everybody already uses USBC.

00:55:32 ◼   ► "What's the point of this law?"

00:55:33 ◼   ► And that would free them later to go to Thunderbolt 19

00:55:36 ◼   ► without having to wait for the EU to do something.

00:55:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I agree with you that I think the thing

00:55:42 ◼   ► I find most offensive about this is that

00:55:45 ◼   ► it's the government deciding specifically USBC

00:55:49 ◼   ► is the way forward because like you said,

00:55:50 ◼   ► it's so obviously the way forward today,

00:55:53 ◼   ► but we don't know when that's gonna change.

00:55:55 ◼   ► We don't know what the situation is.

00:55:57 ◼   ► And it's funny because I'm not that offended

00:56:02 ◼   ► that the iPhone isn't USB-C.

00:56:05 ◼   ► Like I absolutely would prefer it to be without question,

00:56:07 ◼   ► but I'm not that bothered by it.

00:56:09 ◼   ► And I think that's in part because I've decided

00:56:12 ◼   ► to embrace either USB-C

00:56:15 ◼   ► or just wireless charging for everything.

00:56:18 ◼   ► And I still have a trillion lightning cables

00:56:22 ◼   ► just strewn throughout the house, just like you said, Jon.

00:56:25 ◼   ► but I'm going on a trip somewhat soon

00:56:29 ◼   ► and I use that as an excuse to spend money.

00:56:33 ◼   ► Hi Marco.

00:56:33 ◼   ► - Hey. (laughs)

00:56:35 ◼   ► - I've known you too long.

00:56:36 ◼   ► - I was just looking at chargers today

00:56:38 ◼   ► 'cause I keep that my family seems to eat

00:56:41 ◼   ► USB-C charging equipment and so I'm out

00:56:44 ◼   ► of multi-port chargers and relevant to the story.

00:56:48 ◼   ► My wife is away this weekend and she requested chargers

00:56:54 ◼   ► for her trip, 'cause of course I'm in charge of wires,

00:56:56 ◼   ► she's in charge of soft things.

00:56:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:56:59 ◼   ► I look at my wire cabinet,

00:57:01 ◼   ► all my multi-port chargers are gone,

00:57:02 ◼   ► so I had to give her separate bricks

00:57:04 ◼   ► with just one output each,

00:57:06 ◼   ► and she wanted to take with her,

00:57:08 ◼   ► this is not unreasonable,

00:57:09 ◼   ► an iPhone, an Apple Watch, and an iPad.

00:57:13 ◼   ► I had to give her three chargers.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - That's not a good look.

00:57:20 ◼   ► You don't want that.

00:57:21 ◼   ► And so this is something that I was running into.

00:57:23 ◼   ► So many, many moons ago, I wrote a couple of different blog posts, both talking about

00:57:28 ◼   ► the same thing, which was, "What is what I like to call my Go Pack?"

00:57:31 ◼   ► And I've preached the gospel on here many, many times before, but the short, short version

00:57:35 ◼   ► is I like to have a pack, like a small bag, full of all the cables and doodads and whatnots

00:57:41 ◼   ► and wizards that I need in order to charge all my stuff when I travel.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And that Go Pack, that pack of cables and whatnot, that is never touched and never pilfered

00:57:52 ◼   ► through when I am not traveling. I never just, "Oh, I'll just grab this from..." Nope, nope. It has to be

00:57:58 ◼   ► a completely untouchable thing when you're at home. And so in that Go Pack, I used to have a

00:58:05 ◼   ► five USB-A plug. You know, so you plug into the wall once because five USB-A coming out the other

00:58:10 ◼   ► end because I need, you know, two phones, two watches, and potentially one other thing. But I feel like

00:58:17 ◼   ► that's just so many cables especially since I typically bring a couple of USB extensions so that

00:58:22 ◼   ► Erin doesn't have to like hand me her phone before she goes to sleep I can get the the you know cable

00:58:27 ◼   ► all the way over to her side of the bed or whatever and it was just too much it was just too much and

00:58:31 ◼   ► so I did the most Marco thing possible what do you think I did Marco bought a bunch of new stuff

00:58:37 ◼   ► bought new stuff to fix my problems so I spent and in just absolutely preposterous amounts of money

00:58:44 ◼   ► And I bought two Mophie three-in-one travel chargers with MagSafe, which was recommended to me many moons ago in the relay slack

00:58:50 ◼   ► this is a MagSafe puck in the center a

00:58:53 ◼   ► An iPhone puck on the right and then just a Qi charger really really really intended for

00:59:00 ◼   ► Air air pods on the left and it folds up and it has a nice little like canvas II bag thing

00:59:06 ◼   ► Each of these and you need to if you're part of a pair

00:59:10 ◼   ► each of these is

00:59:13 ◼   ► $50 and is only available at Apple. That is the only place you can buy them is from Apple. So I spent

00:59:20 ◼   ► 300 friggin dollars to get chargers that just replace a bunch of cables that already worked just fine

00:59:28 ◼   ► I did it because I've spent way too much time being Marco's friend and

00:59:32 ◼   ► because it's going to make my life so much nicer that all I have to do is

00:59:36 ◼   ► Plug each of these in and guess how they plug in gentlemen?

00:59:40 ◼   ► USB-C baby they I plug these in either to the USB C charger that they come with or I could

00:59:46 ◼   ► repurpose my two-port USB C charger that I'll use for my laptop and I could you know bring it to the bedroom at night and

00:59:51 ◼   ► and I will plug these into some USB C power adapter and

00:59:57 ◼   ► Then I will get Aaron's watch

01:00:00 ◼   ► And Aaron's phone my watch and my phone and my air pods if I so choose all

01:00:04 ◼   ► charging using just one cable per person as opposed to

01:00:08 ◼   ► You know two USB a extension cables a lightning cable or two lightning cables to watch cables

01:00:14 ◼   ► It's just this is gonna be so much better and I'm so excited about it

01:00:16 ◼   ► but I all of this is relevant because I

01:00:20 ◼   ► Want to get away from lightning like I don't have a problem with lightning except that it's it's its own bespoke thing

01:00:27 ◼   ► I don't want lightning in my life anymore

01:00:29 ◼   ► except when I'm doing development

01:00:31 ◼   ► which is something that we've only glanced off

01:00:33 ◼   ► of the outer atmosphere of, but for charging purposes,

01:00:36 ◼   ► just give me Qi charging or MagSafe charging,

01:00:38 ◼   ► give it to me everywhere.

01:00:39 ◼   ► I don't want it, I don't want to charge via lightning

01:00:42 ◼   ► unless I absolutely have to.

01:00:44 ◼   ► And I think that moving away from wired charging,

01:00:49 ◼   ► for me anyway, I'm all in, baby.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like, let's just go all wireless all the time.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Where this gets really, really squishy

01:00:57 ◼   ► is what happens when I'm sitting at my desk,

01:00:59 ◼   ► use an Xcode because if the watch tells us anything,

01:01:03 ◼   ► oh boy, I do not want wireless debugging for my phone.

01:01:08 ◼   ► No, thank you.

01:01:09 ◼   ► And I know you can do it now.

01:01:10 ◼   ► I have done it from time to time,

01:01:11 ◼   ► particularly when I was using my adorable.

01:01:13 ◼   ► No, thank you.

01:01:15 ◼   ► Like I do not want any part of that.

01:01:17 ◼   ► - Everything about it is worse.

01:01:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I do not want any part of that.

01:01:21 ◼   ► No, thank you at all.

01:01:22 ◼   ► So like if Apple comes out with some,

01:01:24 ◼   ► we've talked about this in the past.

01:01:26 ◼   ► If Apple comes out with some new phone

01:01:27 ◼   ► that's completely sealed and charges only wirelessly.

01:01:32 ◼   ► All of the consumer side of me is ready, baby.

01:01:35 ◼   ► Sign me up.

01:01:36 ◼   ► But the developer side of me is going to be devastated

01:01:39 ◼   ► unless they have some sort of solution

01:01:42 ◼   ► that actually freaking works for doing debugging

01:01:45 ◼   ► and development against a wired

01:01:48 ◼   ► or some new replacement for wire device.

01:01:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'm not holding my breath on that.

01:01:53 ◼   ► - Nope.

01:01:54 ◼   ► - One thing I'll miss about Lightning is the,

01:01:56 ◼   ► Well, I have one of the things we use for charging the house

01:01:59 ◼   ► is kind of like, I don't know what you call it,

01:02:00 ◼   ► like a dish rack, bookshelf type thing.

01:02:03 ◼   ► You know those things that like you put your devices

01:02:04 ◼   ► in sideways?

01:02:05 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - Right, and you can put iPads in there.

01:02:08 ◼   ► It's got like a bunch of little slats

01:02:11 ◼   ► and I'm trying to think of what analogous thing.

01:02:14 ◼   ► It's like a comb, right?

01:02:16 ◼   ► Or like where you put your dishes in the dishwasher, right?

01:02:18 ◼   ► Anyway, but the point is that the devices are sideways

01:02:21 ◼   ► and it's nice because no matter what size

01:02:22 ◼   ► of device you have, it fits.

01:02:23 ◼   ► It's big, small, short, tall, doesn't matter.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And so it connects to the power and everything

01:02:28 ◼   ► and it has a whole bunch of ports

01:02:30 ◼   ► along with one side of it.

01:02:31 ◼   ► And I got these very stubby little

01:02:34 ◼   ► like rubberized connectors.

01:02:36 ◼   ► On one end there's USB A, this is a really old thing

01:02:38 ◼   ► and that plugs into the base.

01:02:40 ◼   ► And the other end is lightning connectors, right?

01:02:42 ◼   ► And they're long enough to reach an iPad, right?

01:02:44 ◼   ► But they're not, they're like four inches long.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Like they're just long enough to curl around.

01:02:48 ◼   ► And when they're not plugged in,

01:02:49 ◼   ► they're just kind of like waving there

01:02:50 ◼   ► like little tentacles, right?

01:02:51 ◼   ► It's cute, right?

01:02:52 ◼   ► And it's great.

01:02:53 ◼   ► The whole family puts their devices there, they charge.

01:02:55 ◼   ► You know, it's a great place in the house

01:02:56 ◼   ► to be able to charge anything you want.

01:02:58 ◼   ► And they're all lightning, right?

01:02:59 ◼   ► And the lightning connector is curved on the sides,

01:03:02 ◼   ► so when you plug something in sideways,

01:03:04 ◼   ► you don't have to get the wire exactly perpendicular

01:03:06 ◼   ► to the port before you put it in.

01:03:07 ◼   ► You can just kind of like angle it in and it goes in.

01:03:10 ◼   ► So I'll kind of miss that.

01:03:11 ◼   ► I'm not saying that's the reason

01:03:12 ◼   ► lightning should stay around or anything.

01:03:13 ◼   ► It's just one thing that I think I'll miss

01:03:15 ◼   ► is the easy ability to plug things in at a slight angle

01:03:18 ◼   ► because USB-C really wants you to line it up

01:03:20 ◼   ► a little bit better than that.

01:03:21 ◼   ► But I'm sure it'll be fine.

01:03:22 ◼   ► And speaking of tech details,

01:03:24 ◼   ► Here is an older Q&A article about what I was talking about before of like, oh, you're

01:03:27 ◼   ► dictating USB-C, but what about when something better comes along?

01:03:31 ◼   ► This is from the focus, this is when they were proposing it.

01:03:33 ◼   ► So here's a suggestion that this proposal encourages innovation for wired and wireless

01:03:37 ◼   ► technology.

01:03:38 ◼   ► Well, I'm sure it encourages innovation for wireless because then you'd be exempt and

01:03:42 ◼   ► you can come up with a good wireless thing if you're worried about this.

01:03:45 ◼   ► But anyway, the thing they say that will help is, "Any technological developments in wired

01:03:49 ◼   ► charging will be reflected in the timely adjustment of the technical requirements/specific standards

01:03:54 ◼   ► under the Radio Equipment Directive.

01:03:55 ◼   ► This would ensure that technology is not outdated.

01:03:58 ◼   ► At the same time, the implementation

01:04:00 ◼   ► of any new standards and further revisions

01:04:02 ◼   ► of the Radio Equipment Directive would

01:04:03 ◼   ► need to be developed in a harmonized manner,

01:04:05 ◼   ► respecting the objective's full interoperability.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Industry is therefore expected to continue

01:04:08 ◼   ► the work already undertaken on standardized interface led

01:04:11 ◼   ► by the USB IF organization-- those are the people who

01:04:14 ◼   ► make the USB standards-- in the view of developing

01:04:17 ◼   ► new interoperable and open noncontroversial solutions.

01:04:19 ◼   ► So they're basically saying, don't worry, we can adjust it.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Like, as new things come out, we'll just revise things.

01:04:26 ◼   ► Well, that's exactly what I was talking about.

01:04:27 ◼   ► You don't wanna have to wait for the EU to revise things.

01:04:30 ◼   ► And this whole proposal, led by the USB IF,

01:04:35 ◼   ► gives so much power to the USB group.

01:04:38 ◼   ► The USB group didn't come up with Lightning.

01:04:39 ◼   ► Innovation doesn't mean just better versions of USB-C.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Innovation means things like Lightning

01:04:44 ◼   ► that are not coming from the same people

01:04:46 ◼   ► who made the old standard, but it's like,

01:04:47 ◼   ► oh, we have an idea for a new plug for our devices,

01:04:49 ◼   ► and it has nothing to do with USB, really.

01:04:51 ◼   ► It's our own thing, it's a lightning connector,

01:04:53 ◼   ► look at it, it's pretty weird, but we like it, right?

01:04:55 ◼   ► That's an example of innovation.

01:04:57 ◼   ► The USBIF slowly and steadily coming up

01:04:59 ◼   ► with better versions of USB and then renaming them all

01:05:01 ◼   ► so we have no idea what's what,

01:05:02 ◼   ► that is not an example of innovation.

01:05:04 ◼   ► And waiting for the EU to revise the technical requirements

01:05:08 ◼   ► of this law is also not an example

01:05:10 ◼   ► of the kind of innovation we want.

01:05:11 ◼   ► So again, I reiterate that,

01:05:13 ◼   ► I think it would have been better to use the government

01:05:16 ◼   ► to force one standard, but not to be in such strict control

01:05:21 ◼   ► over what that standard is.

01:05:22 ◼   ► Because I believe in the self-interest

01:05:26 ◼   ► of big tech companies be enough to get

01:05:29 ◼   ► them to standardize on something reasonable at intervals.

01:05:35 ◼   ► There's always chaos, and then we consolidate.

01:05:37 ◼   ► They go on a standard, you use it for a while,

01:05:39 ◼   ► and then there's another round of innovation.

01:05:41 ◼   ► Eventually, that second round of innovation

01:05:42 ◼   ► becomes unbearable for everyone involved,

01:05:45 ◼   ► and they eventually do get together,

01:05:46 ◼   ► if the government was asking them to get together and decide

01:05:49 ◼   ► on a standard.

01:05:50 ◼   ► The government doesn't ask them to get together.

01:05:51 ◼   ► They kill each other until someone comes up with a standard.

01:05:54 ◼   ► Or they do the matter thing,

01:05:55 ◼   ► which is everybody's stuff sucks so bad

01:05:57 ◼   ► that they all decide we do need to come together

01:05:59 ◼   ► on the standard.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Remains to be seen if matter sucks any worse

01:06:02 ◼   ► than the existing stuff,

01:06:03 ◼   ► but at least it's a push in the right direction.

01:06:06 ◼   ► I think there's a similar,

01:06:07 ◼   ► we don't have anything in the notes about this,

01:06:09 ◼   ► but maybe we'll talk about it on a future show.

01:06:11 ◼   ► There's another thing about the similar type

01:06:13 ◼   ► of standardization situation where one group

01:06:17 ◼   ► that comes up with the standards is given a lot of power

01:06:19 ◼   ► because they are the blessed group and that is,

01:06:21 ◼   ► I don't know what the group is or whatever,

01:06:22 ◼   ► but the people who come up with like HEVC and H.264

01:06:25 ◼   ► and H.265, whatever that group is,

01:06:27 ◼   ► and all the people who own the patents in it

01:06:29 ◼   ► and all that stuff, like those sort of standardized formats

01:06:32 ◼   ► for video, for compressed video over the internet,

01:06:35 ◼   ► all that stuff, it's great that there's standards there.

01:06:37 ◼   ► It's really important that there's no standards there.

01:06:39 ◼   ► It powers our whole modern age

01:06:41 ◼   ► of streaming video everywhere,

01:06:42 ◼   ► but they are patent encumbered in many cases

01:06:45 ◼   ► and certain people are in control of it

01:06:46 ◼   ► and certain people make money.

01:06:47 ◼   ► And so now there is a competing standard,

01:06:50 ◼   ► I think it's called AV1,

01:06:51 ◼   ► that's either less patent-encumbered or not patent-encumbered

01:06:54 ◼   ► and more like free and open or whatever.

01:06:57 ◼   ► And the people who are in control of the previous standards

01:06:59 ◼   ► do not like that.

01:07:00 ◼   ► Because they're like,

01:07:01 ◼   ► "Hey, you're taking away our money and power.

01:07:03 ◼   ► "We just want there to be one standard,

01:07:04 ◼   ► "but we also like the idea that we have lots of money

01:07:06 ◼   ► "and power related to that one standard."

01:07:07 ◼   ► And a new open standard violates that.

01:07:09 ◼   ► And it just goes to show that the motivations of,

01:07:12 ◼   ► like once you give a group like the USBIF

01:07:14 ◼   ► this kind of power to say,

01:07:15 ◼   ► "Oh, you are the new standard,

01:07:17 ◼   ► and by the way, you're in charge of future innovation,

01:07:19 ◼   ► that goes bad really quickly.

01:07:21 ◼   ► So I would prefer the more chaotic approach

01:07:24 ◼   ► of demanding there be a standard,

01:07:27 ◼   ► but allowing that standard to arise semi-organically

01:07:29 ◼   ► at regular intervals every decade or two.

01:07:33 ◼   ► - You know, I was thinking more about my whole travel setup

01:07:35 ◼   ► because it's so relevant to me coming up soon,

01:07:38 ◼   ► and of the things that I could potentially travel with,

01:07:42 ◼   ► my drone, my Nintendo Switch, my Playdate,

01:07:45 ◼   ► my laptop, my iPad, all of those things charge via USB-C.

01:07:50 ◼   ► The only things that don't that I'm likely to,

01:07:52 ◼   ► oh, the GoPro, I didn't even think about that,

01:07:55 ◼   ► the GoPro would.

01:07:56 ◼   ► The only thing I can think of,

01:07:58 ◼   ► the only things I can think of that wouldn't

01:07:59 ◼   ► are my iPhone potentially.

01:08:02 ◼   ► Now, again, I've resolved this

01:08:03 ◼   ► by throwing money at the problem.

01:08:04 ◼   ► My watch, same story, and my Kindle,

01:08:07 ◼   ► which is not particularly new,

01:08:08 ◼   ► I don't know what the new ones are using,

01:08:09 ◼   ► and it uses that god awful micro USB connector.

01:08:13 ◼   ► - The good thing is the Kindle charge lasts forever,

01:08:15 ◼   ► so you can probably just charge it before you leave.

01:08:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't need to bring Kindle chargers on trips.

01:08:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I charged it yesterday

01:08:20 ◼   ► and it'll last me until the end of the month.

01:08:21 ◼   ► So basically the only stuff that doesn't charge via USB-C

01:08:26 ◼   ► are my phone and my watch.

01:08:28 ◼   ► Basically everything else I can charge via USB-C

01:08:31 ◼   ► and I don't need to bring a bespoke charger

01:08:33 ◼   ► for any of this stuff.

01:08:34 ◼   ► Like I could just plug the switch into my computer

01:08:37 ◼   ► if I really wanted to and charge it that way.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Same with like the drone batteries.

01:08:41 ◼   ► You know, I could show the battery pack

01:08:43 ◼   ► that charges three batteries at once.

01:08:44 ◼   ► That's USB-C.

01:08:46 ◼   ► And so all of this stuff,

01:08:47 ◼   ► I can just charge by using my computer as a hub.

01:08:50 ◼   ► And since I have a MacBook Pro,

01:08:51 ◼   ► I have ports for days kind of, sort of.

01:08:54 ◼   ► But I have at least a few options for ports.

01:08:56 ◼   ► So yeah, it's that inconsistency

01:09:00 ◼   ► in that the phone and to some degree the watch

01:09:02 ◼   ► are like the lone devices standing off saying,

01:09:05 ◼   ► "No, I need my own special cable."

01:09:08 ◼   ► Like it's just, "No, just come on.

01:09:09 ◼   ► "Can we just either go all wireless

01:09:11 ◼   ► "or just jump on board with USB-C?"

01:09:14 ◼   ► I know it's not as good in a handful of ways,

01:09:16 ◼   ► but can we just do it anyway, please?

01:09:18 ◼   ► - The watch is the next downside here,

01:09:21 ◼   ► like another place where Apple's gonna spoil it

01:09:23 ◼   ► for everybody, right?

01:09:23 ◼   ► 'Cause the watch, it makes sense,

01:09:25 ◼   ► like you don't plug anything into it 'cause it's so tiny,

01:09:26 ◼   ► you probably wouldn't wanna plug in the cable,

01:09:28 ◼   ► like that makes perfect sense.

01:09:29 ◼   ► But Apple, what Apple chose to do for their quote unquote

01:09:32 ◼   ► wireless charging for the watch

01:09:34 ◼   ► is not what anybody else is doing.

01:09:37 ◼   ► It's a watch charger, right?

01:09:38 ◼   ► And I think you can put watches on Qi chargers

01:09:41 ◼   ► and maybe you can get them to charge?

01:09:43 ◼   ► - No. - I don't think so.

01:09:44 ◼   ► - People have occasionally gotten them to work that way,

01:09:47 ◼   ► but it's not reliable.

01:09:48 ◼   ► I've tried so many times.

01:09:49 ◼   ► - And so we're rapidly approaching another situation

01:09:53 ◼   ► with the watches where there's a wireless standard

01:09:55 ◼   ► for charging.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I mean, Qi is pretty widespread at this point,

01:09:58 ◼   ► but there's a wireless standard for starting.

01:09:59 ◼   ► You know, if you use all wireless stuff,

01:10:01 ◼   ► you just have to get Qi chargers and you'll be fine,

01:10:03 ◼   ► and Qi 2 came out and Qi 3 is even better,

01:10:04 ◼   ► and so on and so forth, and everyone's on the same page.

01:10:06 ◼   ► And so when you travel, you just need to bring one charger.

01:10:08 ◼   ► It's a Qi wireless charger,

01:10:10 ◼   ► and also your Apple Watch charger.

01:10:12 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - It's a big pain in the butt.

01:10:13 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep.

01:10:15 ◼   ► - But ultimately this is something that like,

01:10:18 ◼   ► the move to USBC I think is,

01:10:21 ◼   ► it'll be a great thing if it happens.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And I think if you look at like,

01:10:26 ◼   ► if you kind of read the tea leaves a little bit,

01:10:28 ◼   ► you know Apple is no fan of having governments

01:10:32 ◼   ► tell them what to do.

01:10:33 ◼   ► And I think they will take many opportunities

01:10:37 ◼   ► to just say no and to fight them

01:10:40 ◼   ► and to pay fines or whatever it is.

01:10:43 ◼   ► However, if you read the tea leaves,

01:10:45 ◼   ► I think they're actually about to do a big USB-C move.

01:10:50 ◼   ► If you, the latest rumors were that the base model iPad,

01:10:55 ◼   ► when it gets its next update, is gonna go USB-C.

01:10:58 ◼   ► It is, that'll make it the last iPad,

01:11:00 ◼   ► it's the last iPad on Lightning.

01:11:01 ◼   ► So the entire iPad lineup is almost all USB-C.

01:11:05 ◼   ► By the way, that change happened over the last few years

01:11:08 ◼   ► and the world didn't end.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Like they used to all be Lightning,

01:11:11 ◼   ► now they're almost all and about to be probably all USB-C

01:11:15 ◼   ► and everybody was all right.

01:11:18 ◼   ► So that's, it's a good data point.

01:11:21 ◼   ► Obviously not as big as the iPhone

01:11:22 ◼   ► and people tend to not have as many iPad chargers

01:11:25 ◼   ► as they have iPhone chargers.

01:11:26 ◼   ► So it's a different situation

01:11:28 ◼   ► but it's at least a data point.

01:11:30 ◼   ► So that, iPad is almost all USB-C.

01:11:33 ◼   ► MacBook, all USB-C.

01:11:35 ◼   ► Like the whole Mac, everything, all USB-C.

01:11:38 ◼   ► there have been rumors for quite some time

01:11:41 ◼   ► that the iPhone 14 coming out in a couple of months

01:11:44 ◼   ► is not gonna be USB-C,

01:11:46 ◼   ► but that it might be the last lightning iPhone,

01:11:47 ◼   ► that the one after the 14 is,

01:11:50 ◼   ► depending on which rumor you read,

01:11:52 ◼   ► either USB-C or no ports at all.

01:11:55 ◼   ► - I really hope it's USB-C, but yeah,

01:11:56 ◼   ► the one after the 14 is also supposed

01:11:58 ◼   ► to have the periscope cameras,

01:11:59 ◼   ► the one after the 14 is the one we all want.

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Right, it sounds like that's probably gonna be

01:12:03 ◼   ► the next case design revision,

01:12:05 ◼   ► which would be the time to switch to USB-C.

01:12:07 ◼   ► And this is something that they've seen

01:12:08 ◼   ► that they've been planning for some time,

01:12:10 ◼   ► as iPhones tend to be.

01:12:12 ◼   ► So I think what we'll really be telling

01:12:15 ◼   ► is watching what other hardware gets released from Apple

01:12:20 ◼   ► that currently has a Lightning port

01:12:22 ◼   ► that maybe gains a USB-C port instead.

01:12:24 ◼   ► So things to look out for would be things like

01:12:26 ◼   ► the next AirPods case, peripherals, mice, keyboards,

01:12:30 ◼   ► like Apple TV remote.

01:12:32 ◼   ► - I was gonna say, you were listing

01:12:34 ◼   ► all of the MacBooks have USB-C.

01:12:36 ◼   ► - Well, the desktop Macs sure don't,

01:12:37 ◼   ► 'cause my keyboard is connected with lightning

01:12:39 ◼   ► on both of these Macs.

01:12:40 ◼   ► - Right, but Apple doesn't update the peripherals

01:12:43 ◼   ► very frequently.

01:12:44 ◼   ► - It's a brand new keyboard with the full-size touch bar.

01:12:47 ◼   ► You know, it boggles my mind why it's lightning.

01:12:50 ◼   ► It's not as if there's any kind of inertia

01:12:52 ◼   ► for lightning on the Mac,

01:12:53 ◼   ► and they were making a brand new keyboard

01:12:55 ◼   ► with the full-size Touch ID key

01:12:56 ◼   ► for the brand new Mac Studio,

01:12:57 ◼   ► and it connects with a cable, if people wanna know.

01:13:00 ◼   ► One end of it is USB-C that plugs into your computer,

01:13:02 ◼   ► and the other end that plugs into the keyboard is lightning.

01:13:05 ◼   ► - Why, why?

01:13:07 ◼   ► - Well, in all fairness, like these keyboards,

01:13:09 ◼   ► they seem very, very similar in overall build

01:13:13 ◼   ► and engineering and guts to the ones that we've had

01:13:16 ◼   ► for a long time before them.

01:13:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I suppose, it's just disappointing.

01:13:20 ◼   ► And I know this seems weird to people,

01:13:21 ◼   ► like, oh, it's just like an iPhone,

01:13:22 ◼   ► you're just supposed to charge it with that cable.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Yeah, you can, but for people who don't know,

01:13:26 ◼   ► if you plug it in with that cable,

01:13:27 ◼   ► it becomes a wired USB keyboard, and that's how I use it.

01:13:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I actually, I never told you I actually have one.

01:13:33 ◼   ► I did the thing where you stick it under your desk

01:13:36 ◼   ► so you can have touch ID on a desktop.

01:13:37 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh.

01:13:38 ◼   ► - It's actually really great.

01:13:39 ◼   ► And the reason I, so you know, it's the small one

01:13:43 ◼   ► that has the touch ID in the corner.

01:13:44 ◼   ► And you stick it under, you know,

01:13:46 ◼   ► Velcro it to the desk upside down.

01:13:47 ◼   ► And so I just reach under this one spot on my desk

01:13:49 ◼   ► and poke and it's touch ID.

01:13:50 ◼   ► And it's awesome 'cause otherwise my, you know,

01:13:52 ◼   ► my laptop is in clamshell mode so I can't reach that sensor

01:13:55 ◼   ► and I don't use an Apple keyboard to type on

01:13:56 ◼   ► so that doesn't have one.

01:13:58 ◼   ► So it's great, I have full touch ID

01:13:59 ◼   ► and it works fantastically.

01:14:01 ◼   ► But I did notice if the computer has been idle

01:14:04 ◼   ► and I walk up to it and try to unlock it,

01:14:05 ◼   ► it unlocks much faster when I have it wired.

01:14:08 ◼   ► My theory is that if you touch it and it's Bluetooth mode,

01:14:13 ◼   ► maybe it takes like a split second to connect back

01:14:15 ◼   ► to the computer before it starts the authentication process.

01:14:18 ◼   ► Whereas when I have it wired,

01:14:19 ◼   ► it works 100% of the time instantly.

01:14:22 ◼   ► So it's fantastic.

01:14:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's another thing that I missed for years

01:14:27 ◼   ► on the Mac from like the super old classic Mac days,

01:14:30 ◼   ► Apple desktop bus connected keyboards.

01:14:34 ◼   ► I used to have a power button on them

01:14:36 ◼   ► that you would power the computer on from the keyboard,

01:14:39 ◼   ► and also obviously wake it from sleep

01:14:40 ◼   ► and do a lot of this stuff.

01:14:41 ◼   ► And this kind of reminds me of that.

01:14:43 ◼   ► So with the Mac Studio with the Touch ID,

01:14:46 ◼   ► you can walk up to a computer that is locked

01:14:49 ◼   ► and running the screen share or whatever,

01:14:51 ◼   ► and all you do is you don't do anything else.

01:14:53 ◼   ► You just put your finger on Touch ID

01:14:54 ◼   ► and it wakes the computer and unlocks it.

01:14:57 ◼   ► It's so fast and it's so much nicer than like,

01:14:59 ◼   ► go hit the space bar to wake it up,

01:15:00 ◼   ► then type in your password or anything like that.

01:15:02 ◼   ► You don't have to wait, what I'm saying is

01:15:03 ◼   ► you don't have to wake it up before you put your finger

01:15:05 ◼   ► on the touch ID.

01:15:05 ◼   ► You just put your finger on the touch ID

01:15:07 ◼   ► and it does everything for you, it's great.

01:15:09 ◼   ► Face ID would be better, but you know.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Oh, and so related to your discussion

01:15:14 ◼   ► of the lightning cable and how they changed the iPads

01:15:17 ◼   ► and no one freaked out about it,

01:15:19 ◼   ► because the iPhone is such a,

01:15:21 ◼   ► you know, it looms larger in pop culture

01:15:23 ◼   ► and practically speaking there are literally billions more

01:15:25 ◼   ► of those devices than there are iPads,

01:15:27 ◼   ► people are going to complain,

01:15:29 ◼   ► but that is not a complaint that is founded

01:15:31 ◼   ► in any kind of facts.

01:15:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's difficult when any kind of transition

01:15:35 ◼   ► takes place.

01:15:36 ◼   ► People didn't like changing from DVD to Blu-ray

01:15:37 ◼   ► if people even did that.

01:15:38 ◼   ► People didn't like changing from cassette to CD.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Like everyone always complains,

01:15:41 ◼   ► "I gotta replace my connection,

01:15:42 ◼   ► "I gotta buy all new things," or whatever.

01:15:45 ◼   ► When, you know, Lightning replaced 30 pin,

01:15:47 ◼   ► I had to throw away all my cables and blah, blah, blah.

01:15:49 ◼   ► But it's been a decade, people.

01:15:51 ◼   ► Like, Lightning has been here for 10 years.

01:15:53 ◼   ► It's okay once a decade to improve the connector.

01:15:58 ◼   ► And then on top of that, with Apple seemingly not complaining

01:16:02 ◼   ► or pushing back against this, my understanding

01:16:04 ◼   ► is that Apple was heavily involved

01:16:06 ◼   ► in the creation of USB-C, which is why it doesn't suck.

01:16:10 ◼   ► And so it's not like they're like, oh, they're forcing me

01:16:12 ◼   ► to use this weird connector.

01:16:13 ◼   ► It's a connector that they had a hand in creating that they

01:16:15 ◼   ► apparently like a lot and put on a lot of their products.

01:16:18 ◼   ► So it's not like Apple is anti-USB-C,

01:16:21 ◼   ► and there is no perfect time to do this.

01:16:24 ◼   ► And so when this happens, and there's

01:16:27 ◼   ► it's gonna be some story for iPhone 15,

01:16:29 ◼   ► like oh, I have to throw out all my cables or whatever.

01:16:30 ◼   ► It's like, give it a rest.

01:16:32 ◼   ► Apple's constantly changing the cable.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Constantly?

01:16:35 ◼   ► Every decade?

01:16:36 ◼   ► It's okay.

01:16:37 ◼   ► It'll be fine, I promise.

01:16:38 ◼   ► The idea that there'll be one technical standard

01:16:41 ◼   ► and you'll never have to change it,

01:16:42 ◼   ► like that was true of the telephone system maybe,

01:16:44 ◼   ► but even then, they never changed the telephone connector.

01:16:47 ◼   ► It's still whatever, what's the small telephone on RJ?

01:16:49 ◼   ► - RJ11. - 11.

01:16:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, they never changed the RJ11 connector,

01:16:53 ◼   ► but you know what, it stayed around for so long

01:16:55 ◼   ► that it became obsoleted by,

01:16:56 ◼   ► people don't have landline phones anymore.

01:16:58 ◼   ► So like, if you did have landline phone, it's got RJ11,

01:17:00 ◼   ► but guess what, it's not a thing in your life anymore

01:17:02 ◼   ► 'cause everyone just uses their cell phones, right?

01:17:04 ◼   ► We don't want that to happen.

01:17:05 ◼   ► We want better, faster innovation than that.

01:17:08 ◼   ► And Apple voluntarily choosing to change the connector

01:17:11 ◼   ► for all their peripherals once every decade

01:17:13 ◼   ► is a perfectly fine cadence.

01:17:15 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Trade Coffee.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Trade connects you to the freshest and best tasting coffee

01:17:23 ◼   ► you've ever had at home by partnering

01:17:25 ◼   ► with 60 of the country's best craft roasters

01:17:28 ◼   ► and having a great quiz so you can figure out

01:17:31 ◼   ► which of these roasts is right for you

01:17:32 ◼   ► and having them sent directly to you.

01:17:35 ◼   ► Now, the secret to great coffee at home

01:17:38 ◼   ► is freshly roasted beans.

01:17:40 ◼   ► That's it.

01:17:41 ◼   ► It's not like a special coffee maker

01:17:42 ◼   ► or a special grinder or even a special process.

01:17:46 ◼   ► If you wanna make great coffee at home,

01:17:48 ◼   ► start with great, freshly roasted beans

01:17:50 ◼   ► and everything else matters a lot less.

01:17:53 ◼   ► And that's what trade helps you do.

01:17:55 ◼   ► So Trade has these experts who taste coffee,

01:17:58 ◼   ► they profile it, they select only the best coffee.

01:18:01 ◼   ► And so what you do is you go to their website

01:18:03 ◼   ► and you tell them in their quiz

01:18:05 ◼   ► what kinds of things you're looking for in coffee.

01:18:07 ◼   ► How light, how dark, certain flavor preferences.

01:18:10 ◼   ► You can have it ground or whole bean,

01:18:11 ◼   ► whatever you need there.

01:18:13 ◼   ► And then they will mail you

01:18:14 ◼   ► from all these great craft roasters around the country,

01:18:17 ◼   ► they'll mail you selections that fit your taste.

01:18:19 ◼   ► And in fact, they actually have a first match guarantee.

01:18:22 ◼   ► They're so confident they're gonna match your taste

01:18:24 ◼   ► that if you don't like your first batch,

01:18:26 ◼   ► they'll take your feedback and an actual human

01:18:28 ◼   ► will work with you to send you a brand new bag

01:18:30 ◼   ► for free that you'll like even more.

01:18:32 ◼   ► And I gotta say, I've used Trade before

01:18:34 ◼   ► and I often go back to them whenever I want

01:18:36 ◼   ► like a bunch of variety because there's so many

01:18:39 ◼   ► coffee roasters they have there.

01:18:41 ◼   ► So many flavors, so many types.

01:18:43 ◼   ► They even have decaf if you need that.

01:18:44 ◼   ► Like it's just great being a Trade customer.

01:18:47 ◼   ► Right now Trade is offering new subscribers

01:18:50 ◼   ► a total of $30 off your first order

01:18:52 ◼   ► plus free shipping when you go to DrinkTrade.com/ATP.

01:18:57 ◼   ► That's more than 40 cups of coffee for free.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Get started by taking that quiz at DrinkTrade.com/ATP.

01:19:04 ◼   ► Let trade find you a coffee you will love.

01:19:06 ◼   ► That's DrinkTrade.com/ATP for $30 off.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Thanks to Trade for sponsoring our show.

01:19:12 ◼   ► - Well, let's do some Ask ATP.

01:19:17 ◼   ► Michael Chan writes, "How do you guys manage

01:19:19 ◼   ► "mail notifications on your various devices?

01:19:21 ◼   ► What mail apps do you use and how do you categorize and control what emails you consider worth

01:19:26 ◼   ► getting notifications for?

01:19:27 ◼   ► And what emails you consider best looked at on your own time?

01:19:29 ◼   ► Do you use Priority Inbox or something like Outlook's Focus Inbox?

01:19:33 ◼   ► First step is don't have a real job.

01:19:35 ◼   ► So you don't have to worry about this near as much.

01:19:39 ◼   ► But for me, I think I established this when I was at my jobby job.

01:19:44 ◼   ► I have my family, like Aaron and my parents,

01:19:48 ◼   ► like a couple of my brothers,

01:19:50 ◼   ► and marked as favorites, I think it is,

01:19:53 ◼   ► and contacts for VIPs, whatever it is in contacts,

01:19:55 ◼   ► and marked them as basically whatever that is,

01:19:58 ◼   ► the first tier.

01:19:59 ◼   ► And I have notifications for them and for nothing else.

01:20:03 ◼   ► And I just use the mail app pretty much everywhere.

01:20:06 ◼   ► Like I don't, I personally don't understand

01:20:09 ◼   ► how any person can use the web as their primary email app.

01:20:13 ◼   ► I'm looking both at my wife and at John.

01:20:16 ◼   ► It is just not for me.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And so I just use MailApp everywhere.

01:20:19 ◼   ► I did really like-- what was it--

01:20:21 ◼   ► MimeStream, which is a very not great name.

01:20:23 ◼   ► But I used that before I had moved to FastMail.

01:20:28 ◼   ► And that was really good.

01:20:29 ◼   ► And there's-- oh, shoot.

01:20:31 ◼   ► I can't think of the name of the app.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Somebody's writing a similar style app, but specifically

01:20:39 ◼   ► for FastMail and JMap servers.

01:20:41 ◼   ► If I remember, I'll put it in the show notes.

01:20:43 ◼   ► But I just use MailApp and I just let VIPs come through

01:20:47 ◼   ► in terms of notifications, that's what I do.

01:20:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't even have that because nobody

01:20:53 ◼   ► I would have as a VIP ever really emails me.

01:20:55 ◼   ► So I just don't have mail notifications.

01:20:59 ◼   ► I let it badge the icon only on the Mac,

01:21:02 ◼   ► not even on my phone, and that's it.

01:21:04 ◼   ► And so I look at mail, if I have time,

01:21:08 ◼   ► I look at it when I see that little badge up there.

01:21:11 ◼   ► I will say one thing too, this is not at all related,

01:21:13 ◼   ► well it's very loosely related to this question.

01:21:16 ◼   ► So I've been using the iOS 16 beta for,

01:21:18 ◼   ► I don't know, a few weeks now, and I really like it.

01:21:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:21:22 ◼   ► Old joke.

01:21:23 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep.