ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► we now have purchased as a family

00:00:02 ◼   ► our first Apple TV channel.

00:00:05 ◼   ► Do you remember that this was even a thing?

00:00:07 ◼   ► - I do not.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - Vaguely, so is this where you like sign up

00:00:11 ◼   ► for like NBC or something through Apple TV

00:00:13 ◼   ► or something like that?

00:00:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, so in this case,

00:00:17 ◼   ► so our kid was home sick today with a stomach ache

00:00:20 ◼   ► and we said, okay, well, you know,

00:00:23 ◼   ► if you're gonna stay home,

00:00:24 ◼   ► you're not gonna just play video games all day

00:00:27 ◼   ► 'cause you wanna make sure that it's like a real thing.

00:00:29 ◼   ► So, you know, when just like, you know, it's,

00:00:31 ◼   ► "Oh, my stomach hurts."

00:00:32 ◼   ► That could be a lot of things, or it could be nothing.

00:00:34 ◼   ► And so you're like, "Well, you know,

00:00:34 ◼   ► "you're not gonna just use this as an excuse

00:00:36 ◼   ► "to play video games all day, but if you want,

00:00:40 ◼   ► "you can stay home and you can sit on the couch

00:00:42 ◼   ► "and you can watch 'The Price is Right.'"

00:00:44 ◼   ► - That is the requisite thing to do

00:00:46 ◼   ► when you are sick and home from school.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Why would you pass on this suffering to a new generation?

00:00:52 ◼   ► - What?

00:00:53 ◼   ► What do you mean suffering?

00:00:54 ◼   ► Explain yourself.

00:00:55 ◼   ► - You know, I used to be so angry at daytime TV,

00:00:58 ◼   ► And yes, Price is Right in particular.

00:00:59 ◼   ► It's like just, there was no internet.

00:01:02 ◼   ► This is all you had was you turn on the TV

00:01:03 ◼   ► and it was this or soap operas and just boy.

00:01:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the Price is Right is delightful.

00:01:07 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:01:09 ◼   ► - Explain why it's not delightful.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I mean, admittedly it is an hour long commercial,

00:01:12 ◼   ► but explain why it's not delightful.

00:01:14 ◼   ► - It's just not, I mean, it's not what I prefer

00:01:17 ◼   ► as a 10 year old staying home from school.

00:01:19 ◼   ► I'll tell you that.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - That's the best reason to stay home from school.

00:01:22 ◼   ► - No, no.

00:01:23 ◼   ► - If I'm sick at 40 years old,

00:01:25 ◼   ► I'm watching the Price is Right.

00:01:26 ◼   ► In fact, this is not a lie.

00:01:27 ◼   ► This is not a lie.

00:01:28 ◼   ► I use the prior sponsor and absolutely lovely app

00:01:32 ◼   ► called Channels, which I believe is getchannels.com.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I have it record that day's price is right

00:01:39 ◼   ► every single day and just overwrite the prior days.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So that this way, don't listen, hear me out.

00:01:44 ◼   ► So that this way, if one of the kids is homesick, or me,

00:01:47 ◼   ► is homesick, then we have at least one price is right

00:01:50 ◼   ► available and waiting at all times.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - That's your hot spare price is right.

00:01:54 ◼   ► - That's right, yes.

00:01:55 ◼   ► - Just got ready to go at a moment's notice.

00:01:57 ◼   ► - That's exactly right.

00:01:59 ◼   ► - I mean, can't you just watch it on YouTube?

00:02:00 ◼   ► Like, I'm assuming there's whole episodes

00:02:02 ◼   ► of "Price is Right" like available on demand anywhere.

00:02:04 ◼   ► You don't need to keep wearing a spot

00:02:06 ◼   ► in your SSD re-recording "Price is Right"

00:02:09 ◼   ► over and over again.

00:02:10 ◼   ► - It's on the Synology, it's fine.

00:02:12 ◼   ► - Hold on.

00:02:13 ◼   ► - Hey, what was I gonna say?

00:02:15 ◼   ► I dropped that on you, you weren't prepared.

00:02:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

00:02:17 ◼   ► - But, so other than the fact that you're a monster

00:02:20 ◼   ► who does not enjoy "The Price is Right,"

00:02:21 ◼   ► all right, so Adam is staying home

00:02:23 ◼   ► to watch "The Price is Right," as he should.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - Well, here's the question.

00:02:26 ◼   ► - When you said that, did Adam,

00:02:28 ◼   ► does Adam know what The Price is Right is?

00:02:30 ◼   ► - He didn't until today.

00:02:32 ◼   ► - And did he love it?

00:02:33 ◼   ► - Well first, we explained to him,

00:02:35 ◼   ► like first of all, you know,

00:02:36 ◼   ► Mommy and I used to watch this

00:02:37 ◼   ► whenever we were home sick as a kid,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but we would only get one episode of it

00:02:42 ◼   ► available to us in that day.

00:02:44 ◼   ► It would go from like, what was it,

00:02:45 ◼   ► like 11 or 12 I believe?

00:02:46 ◼   ► - Yep, that's right.

00:02:47 ◼   ► - And you'd have to sit through whatever

00:02:49 ◼   ► morning news crap shows were on before it,

00:02:51 ◼   ► and afterwards you'd just have to watch

00:02:53 ◼   ► soap operas or whatever.

00:02:54 ◼   ► There was not much else that was on it.

00:02:56 ◼   ► So you'd only get one, it was full of commercials

00:02:58 ◼   ► between the giant commercial that is the show.

00:03:01 ◼   ► And so, I'm telling them how great this is.

00:03:03 ◼   ► Anyway, so we try to find it on Apple TV.

00:03:05 ◼   ► We do the usual dance of like, all right,

00:03:06 ◼   ► so first, use the Siri search

00:03:08 ◼   ► to try to find the prices right.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Find out that you can only get it through paid services,

00:03:13 ◼   ► check Netflix, go to their search,

00:03:15 ◼   ► hold down the Siri thing on the remote

00:03:17 ◼   ► to ask the prices right there.

00:03:19 ◼   ► See, it's not there.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Then go back to the Apple Siri global search

00:03:24 ◼   ► to then go back and give up and go pay for it.

00:03:27 ◼   ► But it ends up it's on whatever Paramount Plus means,

00:03:31 ◼   ► it's on that.

00:03:32 ◼   ► - There's a bunch of shows on that.

00:03:34 ◼   ► You can watch Halo, you can watch the Star Trek

00:03:37 ◼   ► Strange New Worlds, you can watch Star Trek Picard.

00:03:39 ◼   ► What else can you do?

00:03:40 ◼   ► How much is that?

00:03:41 ◼   ► - You're really selling it there, John.

00:03:43 ◼   ► - The Halo one is worth watching just to watch someone else

00:03:45 ◼   ► try to make a show out of a video game.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - Anyway, so for those of you who don't remember,

00:03:51 ◼   ► which is almost everybody, when Apple launched Apple TV Plus.

00:03:56 ◼   ► In the same event, they also announced something called

00:03:58 ◼   ► Apple TV channels, or just Apple channels,

00:04:00 ◼   ► or just TV channels, or just Plus channels,

00:04:02 ◼   ► I don't know, whatever the heck it's called,

00:04:03 ◼   ► it's called something channels.

00:04:04 ◼   ► And this is something that Amazon's been offering

00:04:06 ◼   ► for I think a couple years before that.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And it's just like a very basic reseller thing

00:04:13 ◼   ► where you can subscribe to some service

00:04:16 ◼   ► that doesn't have its own app,

00:04:18 ◼   ► or at least doesn't need to use its own app.

00:04:20 ◼   ► And so it's displayed in the native Apple TV interfaces,

00:04:24 ◼   ► but it's someone else's content.

00:04:26 ◼   ► So that's what this is, and so it's free trial,

00:04:29 ◼   ► and then 10 bucks a month whenever I forget to cancel it

00:04:31 ◼   ► in a week or a day or whatever the interval is.

00:04:34 ◼   ► And there's a whole bunch of these,

00:04:37 ◼   ► and they launched it at that event a couple years back,

00:04:39 ◼   ► and we never heard about it again.

00:04:42 ◼   ► - That's so true.

00:04:43 ◼   ► - But it turns out it's still there,

00:04:44 ◼   ► and it still seemed to work, and with a few clicks,

00:04:47 ◼   ► we got a free trial to watch as much Price is Right

00:04:50 ◼   ► as we want to.

00:04:52 ◼   ► And it's not the same as the Bob Barker era,

00:04:54 ◼   ► but the only, the things that were weird about it,

00:04:57 ◼   ► you know, like, I was never watching it

00:05:00 ◼   ► during the Drew Carey era,

00:05:01 ◼   ► and I never really knew Drew Carey's stuff before anyway,

00:05:04 ◼   ► so he's like a nothing to me,

00:05:06 ◼   ► but he seemed to do an okay job of it.

00:05:08 ◼   ► I noticed that the microphone, like he tries,

00:05:11 ◼   ► you know, Bob Barker always had

00:05:12 ◼   ► a little skinny stick microphone he would hold in his hand,

00:05:15 ◼   ► but it was a cabled microphone.

00:05:16 ◼   ► he would have this giant long mic cable

00:05:18 ◼   ► that he would drag around the stage with him.

00:05:20 ◼   ► And as a result, the microphone could be very, very slim

00:05:24 ◼   ► and very small itself.

00:05:26 ◼   ► Whereas Drew Carey is holding a big wireless mic pack

00:05:29 ◼   ► stuck on the bottom of a stick mic,

00:05:31 ◼   ► and it's really clunky looking, it does not look good.

00:05:34 ◼   ► And it's just much more bulbous and clunky.

00:05:37 ◼   ► But anyway, biggest thing I noticed is that the products

00:05:40 ◼   ► that they would have on there,

00:05:41 ◼   ► it was all just kinda like,

00:05:43 ◼   ► that like random Amazon no-name brand stuff.

00:05:47 ◼   ► It's really weird.

00:05:48 ◼   ► There were very few brands I recognized

00:05:52 ◼   ► and most of the products were kind of weird,

00:05:54 ◼   ► like wannabe sharper image kind of things

00:05:57 ◼   ► but from no-name brands.

00:05:59 ◼   ► And so it's like asking how much is this random piece

00:06:01 ◼   ► of Amazon garbage?

00:06:02 ◼   ► It's like I don't know.

00:06:03 ◼   ► That could be anywhere from eight to $45.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:06:07 ◼   ► So it was a little bit odd to see the modern day version

00:06:11 ◼   ► of this show that is definitely past its prime.

00:06:15 ◼   ► But certainly Adam really enjoyed it actually.

00:06:18 ◼   ► He said he really liked this show.

00:06:20 ◼   ► I don't know how often we're gonna use it.

00:06:21 ◼   ► I think we're gonna save it only for sick days,

00:06:23 ◼   ► but I'm probably not gonna spend 10 bucks a month on it,

00:06:26 ◼   ► but we'll see.

00:06:27 ◼   ► - Does he, this may be like the first

00:06:29 ◼   ► traditional game show he's seen,

00:06:30 ◼   ► so it could be just the novelty of,

00:06:32 ◼   ► this is interesting, a television show

00:06:33 ◼   ► where they play a game, hmm.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and certainly I think the attitude

00:06:37 ◼   ► of the contestants on The Price is Right is very fun.

00:06:40 ◼   ► It's like, you know, 'cause it's so kind of like,

00:06:43 ◼   ► woo, party, like everyone's so like over the top happy

00:06:47 ◼   ► to get up there and everything.

00:06:48 ◼   ► So I think that part of it's fun, even though,

00:06:51 ◼   ► like, you know, he doesn't know what things cost,

00:06:53 ◼   ► 'cause he's a kid, you know.

00:06:54 ◼   ► Kids don't have to buy stuff in grocery stores,

00:06:55 ◼   ► so he doesn't know how much laundry description costs,

00:06:57 ◼   ► you know, but it was still kind of a fun experience,

00:06:59 ◼   ► and he really enjoyed it.

00:07:01 ◼   ► - So one of my crowning achievements in life,

00:07:03 ◼   ► which should really explain a lot about,

00:07:05 ◼   ► well, everything about me, was I was watching,

00:07:08 ◼   ► I think as a young adult, I was watching Price is Right,

00:07:10 ◼   ► And as you do, you shout out your own guesses for everything,

00:07:14 ◼   ► for whatever the row of four,

00:07:16 ◼   ► I forget what the term is for that,

00:07:18 ◼   ► and particularly when they do the showcases

00:07:19 ◼   ► at the end of the show.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And by pure circumstance, I guessed whatever,

00:07:23 ◼   ► let's call it $18,143, or whatever it was.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Did you win both showcases?

00:07:29 ◼   ► - And the contestant guessed $18,143.

00:07:33 ◼   ► - What? - And I'll be darned,

00:07:35 ◼   ► or I'm sure it wasn't that specific,

00:07:37 ◼   ► but just for the sake of discussion.

00:07:38 ◼   ► - But you had the same guess to the dollar?

00:07:39 ◼   ► I had the same guess to the dollar.

00:07:41 ◼   ► It was probably like $18,500 or something like that,

00:07:43 ◼   ► whatever, the point is I had the same guess to the dollar.

00:07:46 ◼   ► And they won both showcases.

00:07:49 ◼   ► So I clearly won both showcases.

00:07:53 ◼   ► That is one of my crowning achievements in life.

00:07:55 ◼   ► It doesn't get better than that.

00:07:56 ◼   ► - So you deserve the bedroom set and the motorhome.

00:07:58 ◼   ► - And the motorhome and the trip to Paris.

00:08:01 ◼   ► All of the above.

00:08:03 ◼   ► If you'll permit me, if you gentlemen could open

00:08:06 ◼   ► a web browser and type the following URL,

00:08:08 ◼   ► which is both extremely cool and extremely clunky

00:08:11 ◼   ► all at once.

00:08:12 ◼   ► The URL is as follows.

00:08:13 ◼   ► Try .appletvapp.apple/channels.

00:08:18 ◼   ► - What the? - Which I think

00:08:20 ◼   ► is the land, right?

00:08:22 ◼   ► Which I think is the landing page

00:08:23 ◼   ► for what you're talking about.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Isn't that such a weird URL?

00:08:26 ◼   ► - I didn't even know .apple was a TLD.

00:08:27 ◼   ► When did that start? - Neither did I.

00:08:29 ◼   ► I don't know, but here we are.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - Can we get .ATP?

00:08:33 ◼   ► - Maybe.

00:08:34 ◼   ► I'm sure if we paid a billion dollars.

00:08:36 ◼   ► So, ATP.FM/join.

00:08:38 ◼   ► - Remember the dot sucks TLD, did that ever go anywhere?

00:08:41 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:08:42 ◼   ► Can you imagine if we had HTTP colon slash slash join dot ATP

00:08:47 ◼   ► that would be pretty cool.

00:08:49 ◼   ► I would like that.

00:08:50 ◼   ► - I'm confused people with different URLs Casey.

00:08:52 ◼   ► All the wood behind one arrow here.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - ATP FM slash join.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - See I said ahead and remember this channel's things

00:08:58 ◼   ► but I subscribe to a whole bunch of these little circles

00:09:00 ◼   ► that are on this page.

00:09:01 ◼   ► I just never look at them.

00:09:02 ◼   ► I never look at them through the TV app.

00:09:04 ◼   ► I use their individual apps which are of varying quality

00:09:07 ◼   ► but at least each time it's like rolling the dice,

00:09:10 ◼   ► you might get lucky and one of them

00:09:11 ◼   ► might have a good interface.

00:09:13 ◼   ► With Apple TV, it's kind of a known quantity

00:09:15 ◼   ► that still makes me scroll through an extremely long list

00:09:19 ◼   ► of languages every time I wanna turn subtitles on and off.

00:09:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:23 ◼   ► - That is annoying. - Not that you're upset.

00:09:25 ◼   ► - So angry.

00:09:26 ◼   ► So I'm watching shows, especially I'm watching

00:09:28 ◼   ► Slow Horses now, which is like a British show,

00:09:30 ◼   ► people doing British accents and everything,

00:09:32 ◼   ► and sometimes you can't understand

00:09:33 ◼   ► 'cause their accent's real thick.

00:09:34 ◼   ► And I just, I don't want the subtitles on all the time

00:09:36 ◼   ► 'cause I'm not that type of person, I find it distracting.

00:09:39 ◼   ► But when somebody says something, I'm like,

00:09:40 ◼   ► ah, and you know, why don't you just use the remote

00:09:42 ◼   ► and say, what did he say?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Well, I'm watching on my iPad and there's no remote

00:09:45 ◼   ► and I can't talk to Siri when I'm bed next to my wife,

00:09:47 ◼   ► she's trying to sleep.

00:09:48 ◼   ► So I gotta hit pause, go to the menu,

00:09:51 ◼   ► scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll,

00:09:53 ◼   ► English, not English CC and not auto-recommended,

00:09:56 ◼   ► but English, and then tap outside the thing

00:09:58 ◼   ► to dismiss the menu, then back five seconds, then play.

00:10:01 ◼   ► All right, subtitle, subtitle, okay, that's what he said.

00:10:04 ◼   ► Pause, subtitles, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, off.

00:10:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:10:08 ◼   ► It's so bad, I just, I don't understand.

00:10:11 ◼   ► And meanwhile, I'm looking at a giant iPad screen

00:10:14 ◼   ► with so much empty space on it for a million controls,

00:10:17 ◼   ► and that's how I have to turn subtitles on and off.

00:10:19 ◼   ► Anyway, that's, see, previous episodes for that rant.

00:10:22 ◼   ► - Well, try channels, it's actually pretty decent.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Like, as you mentioned, it does put it all

00:10:26 ◼   ► in the okay Apple TV interface,

00:10:28 ◼   ► but at least it's the okay interface you know.

00:10:29 ◼   ► - That is, I'm saying Slow Horse is an Apple TV+ show,

00:10:32 ◼   ► that is in the Apple TV interface.

00:10:34 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, well.

00:10:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, so that's why I tried the other apps.

00:10:36 ◼   ► I think maybe some of them are, you know,

00:10:38 ◼   ► have a chance of being better.

00:10:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I mean, how good are those chances?

00:10:42 ◼   ► - So a lot of them do actually have either a subtitle button

00:10:45 ◼   ► or at the very least they, you know,

00:10:46 ◼   ► they sort English to the top of the subtitle menu

00:10:49 ◼   ► or like, I mean, there's so many things they could do here.

00:10:52 ◼   ► Maybe the last language I picked

00:10:53 ◼   ► is the one I'm likely to pick again

00:10:54 ◼   ► when I enable and disable subtitles, imagine that.

00:10:56 ◼   ► Or maybe the language of the OS is in,

00:10:58 ◼   ► is it the language I'm likely to pick?

00:11:00 ◼   ► But no, how about an alphabetical list

00:11:01 ◼   ► every language in the world. Oh God, sorry everyone I set them off. Well I'm sorry and

00:11:06 ◼   ► you're welcome. We had a little bit of feedback from Matthias Korhonen who wrote with regard

00:11:15 ◼   ► to what I called Medusa cables or I think the official term is power over Ethernet splitters.

00:11:20 ◼   ► Matthias writes improper use can apparently lead to damaged equipment. The important takeaway

00:11:24 ◼   ► is that most PoE splitters are intended to be used with devices like security cameras

00:11:28 ◼   ► that don't have any other gear plugged into them.

00:11:29 ◼   ► This is due to the lack of galvanic,

00:11:32 ◼   ► galvanic, whatever, isolation for the DC output.

00:11:35 ◼   ► To be safe, it's best to only buy PoE splitters

00:11:38 ◼   ► from reputable companies that are explicitly advertised

00:11:41 ◼   ► as being isolated.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Personally, I went for a splitter

00:11:43 ◼   ► from the German brand Digitas,

00:11:45 ◼   ► but I'm not sure if those are available in the US.

00:11:47 ◼   ► I'm sure you'll be amused to learn that Digitas

00:11:49 ◼   ► is owned by the wonderfully named Assman Group.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - I was very amused to learn this, for the record.

00:11:54 ◼   ► - And I was very amused to learn this,

00:11:57 ◼   ► because I am a child.

00:11:58 ◼   ► - Butts are always funny.

00:12:00 ◼   ► - We need to move into the pro fiber propaganda section

00:12:03 ◼   ► of the program.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Adam Papamarcos writes, "I ran fiber for two main reasons,

00:12:08 ◼   ► "faster speeds and less interference."

00:12:10 ◼   ► - Oh, that kind of fiber.

00:12:11 ◼   ► Sorry, I just--

00:12:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:13 ◼   ► It was right after the joke, come on.

00:12:16 ◼   ► - To keep you regular, just ask the ass man.

00:12:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:21 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh, now I've just been railroaded

00:12:24 ◼   ► right out of here.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Let me try this again, okay.

00:12:26 ◼   ► So Adam, we're a mess.

00:12:31 ◼   ► We're an absolute mess.

00:12:32 ◼   ► Uh, I ran fiber for two main reasons that at Adam faster speeds and less

00:12:36 ◼   ► interference that I wanted this set up to be future proof.

00:12:38 ◼   ► So I only need to open the walls once interference was less of a factor, but

00:12:41 ◼   ► having tight groups of cable runs or running gear near electrical lines

00:12:44 ◼   ► inside walls can cause interference.

00:12:45 ◼   ► I like the idea that pulses of light running through fiber

00:12:48 ◼   ► optics is not susceptible to EMI.

00:12:50 ◼   ► In some ways running the fiber was actually easier than ethernet, a cat

00:12:54 ◼   ► 6a, even the unshielded riser stuff that I got is pretty thick. By contrast, the fiber is quite

00:12:59 ◼   ► small and flexible, isn't very expensive, and seems to be fairly robust. Later on, Adam added,

00:13:04 ◼   ► after a couple emails back and forth, the OM4 fiber cable that I used is advertised as quote

00:13:08 ◼   ► "bend insensitive" quote and specifies that a minimum bend radius of seven and a half

00:13:13 ◼   ► millimeters or three tenths of an inch. There's also specs for 20d or diameter for dynamic or

00:13:19 ◼   ► under tension as in while it's being pulled and 10D for static or after installation. So even using

00:13:25 ◼   ► the worst case of 20D for this two millimeter diameter cable that's only 40 millimeters or

00:13:30 ◼   ► an inch and a half or 20 millimeters or a little under an inch of bend after installation. So I

00:13:37 ◼   ► think that's pretty reasonable for 90 degree bend and I didn't really worry about it at all. So in

00:13:41 ◼   ► other words you can bend fiber a lot more than even I thought you could as it turns out which

00:13:46 ◼   ► which was surprising.

00:13:47 ◼   ► - Can I just interject here for a moment

00:13:48 ◼   ► based on the section in the follow-up I hear.

00:13:50 ◼   ► This is the pro-fiber propaganda section.

00:13:53 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:13:54 ◼   ► - I've got a few more items to have.

00:13:54 ◼   ► I noticed I don't see an anti-fiber propaganda segment,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but I, I mean, I didn't,

00:13:59 ◼   ► maybe I didn't read all of the feedback about this,

00:14:01 ◼   ► but I read a lot of it, and I have to say,

00:14:03 ◼   ► there was definitely a category of feedback

00:14:06 ◼   ► about this topic from people who had lots of experience

00:14:09 ◼   ► installing fiber optics that basically said,

00:14:10 ◼   ► "No way would I ever do this in a house."

00:14:12 ◼   ► And I noticed that is not represented in the follow-up.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Would you like to comment on that, Casey?

00:14:16 ◼   ► So moving right along Eli Block, no I'm kidding,

00:14:19 ◼   ► so here's the thing, all jokes and snark aside,

00:14:22 ◼   ► I really don't know what I'm gonna end up doing

00:14:25 ◼   ► and what I'd like to do and what I have started doing

00:14:28 ◼   ► and unfortunately I've just had a really busy week

00:14:30 ◼   ► so I haven't had the time to finish this homework assignment

00:14:33 ◼   ► but what I'm going to do,

00:14:34 ◼   ► and I don't think I brought this up last week,

00:14:35 ◼   ► is I'm going to build basically a bill of materials

00:14:38 ◼   ► or a best case guess of literally what do I need to buy

00:14:42 ◼   ► to do a full fiber installation where I'm running fiber

00:14:44 ◼   ► all the way to a room.

00:14:46 ◼   ► What do I need to buy for a like hybrid installation where I'm running fiber into the crawl space and into the attic and then

00:14:52 ◼   ► You know maybe cat six or something after that and then what do I need to buy in order to do just a plain vanilla?

00:14:57 ◼   ► cat six installation no fiber whatsoever and I've started down this path with the full fiber like 10 gigabit where I can

00:15:05 ◼   ► absolutely absurd Marco style installation and

00:15:09 ◼   ► It's already getting way more expensive than I'm comfortable with but I want to come up with an actual number because as much as I'm waving

00:15:15 ◼   ► my arms in the air saying "oh it's not gonna be that expensive sure" and you guys are saying "oh

00:15:19 ◼   ► oh it's gonna be your fortune you're ridiculous" well which one the only way to figure out which

00:15:22 ◼   ► one of us is right is to actually do the homework and I am working on it but I haven't finished it

00:15:26 ◼   ► yet and so hopefully once WWDC stuff settles down in a month I'll finally find the time

00:15:34 ◼   ► yeah right yeah I'll find oh god help me if there's a Mac Pro um and so in a month if there's

00:15:39 ◼   ► no Mac Pro in 12 months if there is a Mac Pro, then I really will probably put on Google

00:15:44 ◼   ► Sheets like here's what I think is my bill of materials for full 10 gig fiber for 1 gig

00:15:51 ◼   ► fiber where I'm simply future-proofing and I'm not trying to get anything fancy today,

00:15:56 ◼   ► and then what if I do just Cat6? And I do plan to disclose whatever, even if the answer

00:16:01 ◼   ► is that fiber's 8x. I think that's useful to know. It's useful for me to know and it's

00:16:06 ◼   ► and it's useful for listeners to know.

00:16:07 ◼   ► So I will come back.

00:16:10 ◼   ► I think so.

00:16:11 ◼   ► Maybe it's just me.

00:16:13 ◼   ► But even if I quote unquote lose, I don't care.

00:16:16 ◼   ► Then I know, at least I know the answer.

00:16:17 ◼   ► And I'll talk about it on the show when the time comes.

00:16:20 ◼   ► And I'll share the spreadsheets when I'm ready.

00:16:22 ◼   ► But I'm nowhere near that point.

00:16:24 ◼   ► So yeah, so moving right along, Eli Block writes,

00:16:26 ◼   ► take my word for it as someone who runs a network

00:16:28 ◼   ► on a 200 acre property, totally what I'm doing

00:16:30 ◼   ► on my one third of an acre,

00:16:31 ◼   ► who is doing exactly what you're proposing

00:16:33 ◼   ► with fiber backbone.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Go for the fiber wherever possible.

00:16:35 ◼   ► Copper 10 gigabit is a abomination.

00:16:38 ◼   ► Let's just leave it at that.

00:16:39 ◼   ► When it comes to heat and power consumption,

00:16:42 ◼   ► you wanna use copper absolutely nowhere

00:16:44 ◼   ► once you see how much power it consumes

00:16:45 ◼   ► and how much heat it throws off.

00:16:47 ◼   ► And then back to Adam from before,

00:16:49 ◼   ► Adam writes, "I was very much in your shoes.

00:16:51 ◼   ► I felt this was a good learning experience

00:16:52 ◼   ► and I knew very little about fiber going into it

00:16:54 ◼   ► and I just wanted to future proof things.

00:16:55 ◼   ► At least that's how I justified it to myself."

00:16:57 ◼   ► And then finally, the piece de resistance, Greg writes,

00:17:01 ◼   ► "If Marco was allowed to over-specify

00:17:03 ◼   ► almost every technology problem, why not you?

00:17:06 ◼   ► - That's a fair point. - Marco doesn't overspecify.

00:17:09 ◼   ► Is he trying to say, Marco buys fancier,

00:17:13 ◼   ► more expensive stuff than he needs

00:17:14 ◼   ► to solve all his tech problems?

00:17:16 ◼   ► Is that what overspecify is trying to say?

00:17:17 ◼   ► - I'm pretty sure Marco didn't need most of the Mac Pros

00:17:21 ◼   ► in your life, you probably don't need the XDR.

00:17:24 ◼   ► I mean, you probably need two laptops.

00:17:26 ◼   ► - But I'm quibbling with the phrasing overspecify,

00:17:29 ◼   ► because the spec in when you spec something

00:17:31 ◼   ► stands for specifications, as in the attributes of the thing

00:17:34 ◼   ► that you're buying, right?

00:17:35 ◼   ► And so if the specifications of the stuff

00:17:38 ◼   ► that Marco buys is excessive, like their specifications are

00:17:42 ◼   ► too high for what he needs, that kind of makes sense.

00:17:45 ◼   ► Sorry, Greg, to pick at your wording here.

00:17:47 ◼   ► But overspecify sounds more like Marco knows precisely

00:17:51 ◼   ► every fastener and cable tie and cable and product

00:17:57 ◼   ► down to the SKU that he needs to get for a thing.

00:18:00 ◼   ► and I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing.

00:18:02 ◼   ► - I would also like to point out,

00:18:02 ◼   ► in the realm of what Greg meant here,

00:18:06 ◼   ► Jon is talking to you from a Mac Pro.

00:18:09 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:18:10 ◼   ► - With an XDR. - With an XDR.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And I'm not.

00:18:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:18:15 ◼   ► - 10 years of, what do you call it,

00:18:17 ◼   ► 10 years of equity in my previous Mac Pro.

00:18:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, right.

00:18:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, fair. - In the defense--

00:18:21 ◼   ► - It averages out, it's just really lumpy.

00:18:24 ◼   ► Yell at me again when I replace this thing

00:18:26 ◼   ► when it's three years old,

00:18:27 ◼   ► then you'll have a stronger argument.

00:18:29 ◼   ► [LAUGHS]

00:18:31 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by New Relic.

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00:18:56 ◼   ► Dig deeper, and there's another set of errors in Kubernetes

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00:20:00 ◼   ► New Relic.com/ATP.

00:20:04 ◼   ► Thanks so much to New Relic for sponsoring our show.

00:20:07 ◼   ► - Ad blockers on desktops.

00:20:12 ◼   ► This is, John, you had made a kind of in passing remark

00:20:15 ◼   ► that you don't run an ad blocker on your desktops

00:20:18 ◼   ► because you don't seem to think it's really worth it.

00:20:20 ◼   ► You don't need to worry about power savings, et cetera.

00:20:22 ◼   ► And so we got some feedback about this from Ryan.

00:20:25 ◼   ► I cut a lot of context, but the short short of it

00:20:27 ◼   ► is that Ryan's parents were running like a 2014 Mac mini

00:20:30 ◼   ► with a spinning hard disk, which was fine

00:20:32 ◼   ► until suddenly their internet speed increased

00:20:35 ◼   ► and then web pages seemed to get really bloated.

00:20:37 ◼   ► So now this is Ryan's words,

00:20:40 ◼   ► "Since then I've been running ad blockers on all my Macs

00:20:42 ◼   ► "with similar system resource usage improvements

00:20:45 ◼   ► "and my web experience is so much more pleasant

00:20:48 ◼   ► "and cooler on my i9 MacBook Pro that it's hard to describe

00:20:50 ◼   ► "other than to say that anytime they get turned off

00:20:53 ◼   ► "or fail in some way, browsing the web

00:20:54 ◼   ► is like being repeatedly hit in the face with a dead catfish. I'm not opposed to

00:20:57 ◼   ► ads in principle, you gotta pay the bills somehow, but as long as the

00:21:01 ◼   ► implementations are such power-hungry, privacy-consuming beasts, I have no qualms

00:21:04 ◼   ► about blocking everyone that I can. P.S. I have actually been hit in the face with

00:21:09 ◼   ► a dead catfish, I'm from the south, so I know of whence I speak.

00:21:12 ◼   ► I like being hit in the face with a live catfish. There's a little bit of extra thrash in the live catfish.

00:21:20 ◼   ► So anyway, I think that was worth it just for the postscript, but nevertheless I thought that was an

00:21:23 ◼   ► - That's an interesting point.

00:21:24 ◼   ► And also, I thought it was fascinating,

00:21:26 ◼   ► and I don't think Ryan was trying to say this was factual,

00:21:29 ◼   ► it was just his anecdotal data,

00:21:30 ◼   ► but to say that suddenly when the internet speed

00:21:34 ◼   ► went way up, so did all of the bloat in these web pages,

00:21:37 ◼   ► that seems like that shouldn't be something

00:21:40 ◼   ► that a web server should know.

00:21:41 ◼   ► I mean, I haven't done real web development in a long time,

00:21:43 ◼   ► so maybe they do, but I thought that was fascinating.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - You can time the download to see what the bandwidth

00:21:48 ◼   ► you're getting in the connection

00:21:49 ◼   ► and choose which resources to load based on that,

00:21:51 ◼   ► But who knows, I mean a 2014 Mac Mini

00:21:54 ◼   ► with a spinning hard disk is a tough situation.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Like I was saying, I ran an ad blocker on my phone

00:21:58 ◼   ► to try to like preserve the scarce resources there,

00:22:01 ◼   ► but I'm pretty sure every phone I've had for many years

00:22:03 ◼   ► has been faster than a 2014 Mac Mini

00:22:05 ◼   ► with a spinning hard drive.

00:22:05 ◼   ► So by all means, yes, if you have limited computing

00:22:09 ◼   ► and storage resources, an ad blocker is a good way

00:22:12 ◼   ► to optimize the usage of those things.

00:22:15 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:22:16 ◼   ► With regard to sign in with X, you know,

00:22:18 ◼   ► sign in with Apple, sign in with Google, whatever,

00:22:19 ◼   ► from Brian Donovan, "Like you, I choose email and password

00:22:23 ◼   ► "for 99% of the time.

00:22:24 ◼   ► "However, my small employer recommends that for work stuff

00:22:27 ◼   ► "we use sign in with Google.

00:22:28 ◼   ► "This is primarily because we're required to use 2FA

00:22:31 ◼   ► "with our work Google accounts,

00:22:33 ◼   ► "and that's likely a stronger protection

00:22:34 ◼   ► "than whatever the site we're logging into offers."

00:22:36 ◼   ► I thought that was a very interesting point

00:22:37 ◼   ► that I hadn't considered.

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, most people just don't wanna have to think

00:22:41 ◼   ► of another password or whatever,

00:22:42 ◼   ► but if you're gonna sign in with something,

00:22:45 ◼   ► Google has pretty good security on its stuff.

00:22:47 ◼   ► All right, with regard to the bespoke app

00:22:50 ◼   ► for listening to concerts, which was in Ask ATP last week,

00:22:54 ◼   ► Jonathan Deco writes, "In Apple Music on the Mac,

00:22:57 ◼   ► "if you get info on the song or concert,

00:22:59 ◼   ► "there's a checkbox to 'Remember playback position.'

00:23:02 ◼   ► "This option syncs to the phone

00:23:03 ◼   ► "so you can play another song, such as 'Baby Shark,'

00:23:05 ◼   ► "and then go back to the concert

00:23:06 ◼   ► "and pick up where you left off."

00:23:07 ◼   ► I didn't try this for myself, but that's very cool.

00:23:10 ◼   ► I did not know that was a thing.

00:23:11 ◼   ► - I didn't mention it on the previous episode.

00:23:12 ◼   ► I thought everybody knew about this,

00:23:13 ◼   ► but that's how podcasts work.

00:23:15 ◼   ► That's why podcasts remember their position,

00:23:16 ◼   ► It's not just because they're like, you know set to like media type podcast or whatever remember play acquisition

00:23:21 ◼   ► It's been a boolean setting and iTunes since the day and I didn't since it was called iTunes

00:23:25 ◼   ► But I feel like this is not really a solution to the problem as posed last time because as Marco pointed out

00:23:31 ◼   ► It doesn't help you when you sit down for work

00:23:34 ◼   ► The next day and you launch the music app and it has no idea what you were doing the last time you're running the music

00:23:39 ◼   ► App so yeah, maybe the playback position is remembered within the track you were going

00:23:43 ◼   ► but what track are we listening to?

00:23:44 ◼   ► In what album?

00:23:45 ◼   ► In what concert?

00:23:46 ◼   ► Music doesn't know and it's not telling you.

00:23:48 ◼   ► That's the problem.

00:23:49 ◼   ► The problem is not like remembering playback position

00:23:51 ◼   ► within a single song.

00:23:52 ◼   ► It's remembering what I was doing period,

00:23:55 ◼   ► like sort of state restoration, big picture,

00:23:57 ◼   ► not small picture.

00:23:58 ◼   ► And the other thing I'll warn about the

00:24:00 ◼   ► remember playback position,

00:24:01 ◼   ► I mean, maybe if you carefully said it only

00:24:04 ◼   ► on the things that are songs and albums,

00:24:06 ◼   ► but depending on how savvy the implementation

00:24:09 ◼   ► of your player is, you could find yourself, you know,

00:24:12 ◼   ► skimming around or scrubbing around for things,

00:24:14 ◼   ► or you listen to a few seconds of something

00:24:16 ◼   ► and skip to the next track,

00:24:17 ◼   ► then the next time it plays that previous one,

00:24:19 ◼   ► it's gonna start from five seconds into the song,

00:24:21 ◼   ► 'cause it's trying to remember playback position,

00:24:23 ◼   ► and that might catch you off guard.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Like if it's a month later,

00:24:26 ◼   ► it will still remember that playback position,

00:24:28 ◼   ► and so you, like, you're basically leaving a trail

00:24:31 ◼   ► of state behind you as you jump through the songs,

00:24:34 ◼   ► whether you're doing it manually

00:24:35 ◼   ► or just forgetting to hit next track in the car

00:24:37 ◼   ► 'cause you're distracted by traffic or something, right?

00:24:39 ◼   ► That has now saved, oh, you're three seconds into the song.

00:24:42 ◼   ► So the next time that song comes up on shuffle or something,

00:24:44 ◼   ► it starts in three seconds in.

00:24:45 ◼   ► I don't think it's actually,

00:24:46 ◼   ► I think there is like a buffer of like,

00:24:47 ◼   ► it doesn't save the player 'cause until you've got

00:24:49 ◼   ► a certain distance in and same thing with being near the end

00:24:52 ◼   ► but it really depends on the smarts of the player app

00:24:55 ◼   ► you're using to implement a feature like that

00:24:57 ◼   ► in a way that's not annoying.

00:24:59 ◼   ► - We also got some very interesting feedback from Amber

00:25:02 ◼   ► and this was with regard to the Apple Fitness Plus

00:25:05 ◼   ► behind the scenes videos.

00:25:07 ◼   ► This is a little bit long but I found this riveting

00:25:09 ◼   ► and we actually cut down quite a bit

00:25:11 ◼   ► And all of it was riveting, but we're giving you the

00:25:12 ◼   ► riveting parts of the riveting parts.

00:25:14 ◼   ► So here we go.

00:25:15 ◼   ► Amber writes, John was curious about the white markings on a

00:25:18 ◼   ► few of the control room screens.

00:25:19 ◼   ► Yes, some of that appears to be action-safe

00:25:21 ◼   ► HDTV framing guides.

00:25:23 ◼   ► Which are closer to the edges than title-safe that you'd

00:25:25 ◼   ► use to contain text.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And yes, it is kind of silly to think about that much

00:25:29 ◼   ► overscan on HDTVs.

00:25:30 ◼   ► Old habits never die.

00:25:32 ◼   ► But the interesting one is the two gutters on the

00:25:35 ◼   ► right and the left.

00:25:36 ◼   ► To my eye, those look like pretty typical 4 by 3 standard

00:25:39 ◼   ► definition action-safe markings.

00:25:41 ◼   ► Why would Apple have old-school 4x3 markings on a product that is almost exclusively viewed

00:25:45 ◼   ► on 16x9 screens?

00:25:47 ◼   ► Because Apple doesn't make multi-view systems, video switchers, and CG systems for live TV,

00:25:51 ◼   ► so they had to buy them from somewhere else.

00:25:53 ◼   ► That guide overlay could come from one of two places, either the switcher itself, as

00:25:56 ◼   ► you can see with the little purple buttons being operated by the technical director or

00:26:00 ◼   ► TD, the person in the front row on the far right at about 40 seconds of the KCAU clip,

00:26:05 ◼   ► or from the multi-view system.

00:26:07 ◼   ► In most modern video switchers, you can have the option to turn on those overscan guidelines

00:26:11 ◼   ► in your preview window to make sure that the upcoming shot is well framed and any potential

00:26:14 ◼   ► graphics are safe.

00:26:15 ◼   ► In most switchers I've encountered, they're either all or nothing.

00:26:18 ◼   ► So if the switcher manufacturer thinks, "We think you'll need 4x3 safe guides!" then you're

00:26:22 ◼   ► getting 4x3 safe guides when you turn guides on.

00:26:25 ◼   ► The other place that those overlays could come from is a multiview system which looks

00:26:29 ◼   ► like they're using it Fitness Plus.

00:26:32 ◼   ► And yes, you guessed it, most multiview systems I've worked with also have a stock set of

00:26:36 ◼   ► these guide overlays that you can put on any virtual screen you want.

00:26:40 ◼   ► And despite all the customizations elsewhere in the system, you usually can't customize

00:26:43 ◼   ► which specific overlay guides you want.

00:26:46 ◼   ► In the MultiView Hardware manufacturer, if the MultiView Hardware manufacturer thinks

00:26:49 ◼   ► you need 4x3 in your overlays, your overlays will have 4x3.

00:26:51 ◼   ► Also, why would you have a live control room for a show that isn't even necessarily live,

00:26:55 ◼   ► but always just on demand?

00:26:56 ◼   ► Because it massively cuts down on post-production staff time.

00:26:59 ◼   ► If they have a good clean show, they can just trim the beginning and end from the output

00:27:02 ◼   ► program recording feed and send it out.

00:27:04 ◼   ► If they need to fix a mistake, they're probably recording each camera individually so an editor

00:27:08 ◼   ► can go in with synced time codes and fix a technical mistake in a matter of minutes and

00:27:12 ◼   ► send it out.

00:27:13 ◼   ► The alternative would be recording all the cameras individually and spending hours in

00:27:18 ◼   ► an edit room, splicing it all together with the camera cuts and the graphics and whatnot.

00:27:22 ◼   ► That gets expensive quickly, more expensive over the long term than the initial build

00:27:26 ◼   ► costs of the control room.

00:27:27 ◼   ► I thought that was absolutely fascinating.

00:27:29 ◼   ► I didn't even think of the idea that why the heck do they have a control room for a show

00:27:33 ◼   ► that's not live.

00:27:34 ◼   ► Obviously, it's not like Peloton where people are watching people, if you don't know how

00:27:38 ◼   ► fitness plus works, it's not like you're seeing the person live, they pre-record them and

00:27:42 ◼   ► then distribute them that way.

00:27:44 ◼   ► But as a cost-saving way, you think it would cost more to have a room full of people saying,

00:27:51 ◼   ► "Ready one, take one," and doing all the things and doing all the control and have all the

00:27:53 ◼   ► stuff, but apparently that's more cost-effective than getting all the raw material and dumping

00:27:58 ◼   ► on the head of a bunch of editors and having them slice things together.

00:28:01 ◼   ► I guess it's like essentially the skill set

00:28:04 ◼   ► of cutting together a live show in real time,

00:28:06 ◼   ► which is a skill set that has been developed

00:28:08 ◼   ► over many decades for people who do this for a living

00:28:10 ◼   ► for live events, sports, awards shows,

00:28:14 ◼   ► everything you possibly imagine that's live,

00:28:15 ◼   ► like that skill set that a lot of people have.

00:28:18 ◼   ► It's kind of like, I don't know,

00:28:19 ◼   ► I can't think of an equivalent.

00:28:20 ◼   ► Like we think of everything with computers

00:28:23 ◼   ► as being like offline, right?

00:28:24 ◼   ► You get the materials and you use a computer

00:28:26 ◼   ► to sort of munch them together,

00:28:27 ◼   ► but sort of, it's like doing that as a performance.

00:28:29 ◼   ► Those people in those room are,

00:28:30 ◼   ► they are doing their own performance,

00:28:31 ◼   ► or they're building the performance

00:28:33 ◼   ► from the raw materials in real time.

00:28:35 ◼   ► And it's kind of like a, I don't know,

00:28:37 ◼   ► it's like a high wire act where,

00:28:39 ◼   ► yeah, we could wait until later and do it.

00:28:41 ◼   ► But if we try to do it in real time,

00:28:43 ◼   ► it's, you know, we have people who have been trained

00:28:45 ◼   ► to know how to do that, and we can use those skills now,

00:28:48 ◼   ► even though this is not like a live sporting event

00:28:50 ◼   ► or a live award show.

00:28:52 ◼   ► The other thing I thought was funny about this

00:28:53 ◼   ► is that Apple is forced to use software

00:28:56 ◼   ► that doesn't have the settings that they want, right?

00:28:59 ◼   ► 'cause they absolutely don't.

00:29:01 ◼   ► Apple Fitness is never being viewed on 4x3 screens.

00:29:03 ◼   ► It's not made for that whatsoever,

00:29:05 ◼   ► but it's like, oh, I guess you can't.

00:29:07 ◼   ► It would be nice if you had a setting to turn that off,

00:29:09 ◼   ► wouldn't it, Apple?

00:29:10 ◼   ► But sorry, you get the 4x3 gutters

00:29:12 ◼   ► whether you like it or not.

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00:31:06 ◼   ► - John, tell me about Fido.

00:31:12 ◼   ► - This is a story from, I don't know,

00:31:14 ◼   ► back in early May sometime,

00:31:16 ◼   ► and it is actually referencing a technology

00:31:18 ◼   ► that was described at WWC 2001,

00:31:22 ◼   ► almost exactly a year ago as we're recording this.

00:31:25 ◼   ► They don't have session numbers anymore,

00:31:26 ◼   ► but the session name was from WWDC 2021

00:31:29 ◼   ► and it was move beyond passwords.

00:31:31 ◼   ► I think we talked about it at the time,

00:31:33 ◼   ► but if you're not familiar,

00:31:35 ◼   ► you can still find it on developer.apple.com.

00:31:37 ◼   ► I believe it is freely available to everybody.

00:31:38 ◼   ► I don't think you even have to have a developer account.

00:31:41 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes.

00:31:42 ◼   ► I do wonder if the number in the URL,

00:31:44 ◼   ► is that the session number?

00:31:45 ◼   ► It's developer.apple.com/WWDC21/10106.

00:31:49 ◼   ► - I think it might be.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - This used to be three digit numbers.

00:31:53 ◼   ► I don't understand.

00:31:53 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:31:54 ◼   ► - It's a weird new world.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Anyway, it's about trying to move beyond passwords, right?

00:32:00 ◼   ► Which is something that people have attempted

00:32:03 ◼   ► for a long time.

00:32:04 ◼   ► The presentation kind of goes through it

00:32:06 ◼   ► from first principle saying, you know,

00:32:08 ◼   ► well, if you make people pick passwords,

00:32:10 ◼   ► they can't think of good passwords if they reuse passwords.

00:32:13 ◼   ► So they can use a password manager, which helps,

00:32:16 ◼   ► but not all your passwords are in one basket

00:32:18 ◼   ► and you gotta make sure the password manager works well.

00:32:22 ◼   ► And it's hard to recover them

00:32:23 ◼   ► if you lose your one password to one password,

00:32:24 ◼   ► you know, anyway.

00:32:25 ◼   ► And then we have passwords plus one-time passwords,

00:32:28 ◼   ► the two-factor thing and security keys,

00:32:31 ◼   ► which probably most people listening

00:32:32 ◼   ► don't even know what that is,

00:32:33 ◼   ► but it's like a literal hardware device,

00:32:35 ◼   ► like a little USB thingy that has some other secret on it.

00:32:39 ◼   ► So in addition to you being the person

00:32:41 ◼   ► who knows your username and password,

00:32:42 ◼   ► you also have this little hardware dongle that you shove in

00:32:45 ◼   ► and it does a thing.

00:32:46 ◼   ► And then there's the thing they're proposing here,

00:32:48 ◼   ► which they called in the session,

00:32:50 ◼   ► pass keys and iCloud key chain.

00:32:51 ◼   ► We all know passwords suck.

00:32:54 ◼   ► Like everyone we've talked about even on the show,

00:32:56 ◼   ► picking username sucks and picking password sucks.

00:32:58 ◼   ► So it's why we use password managers.

00:33:00 ◼   ► If you're good with password hygiene,

00:33:01 ◼   ► you know not to use the same password in multiple places,

00:33:04 ◼   ► but it's hard to pick good passwords.

00:33:06 ◼   ► And if you pick really good passwords,

00:33:07 ◼   ► there's no way you're gonna remember them.

00:33:08 ◼   ► So now you need a password manager,

00:33:09 ◼   ► but you gotta be careful with that.

00:33:11 ◼   ► It's a hassle and it's terrible.

00:33:13 ◼   ► And there's just too many things to sign up for,

00:33:16 ◼   ► too many places to use passwords.

00:33:18 ◼   ► So Marco is trying to use one password

00:33:20 ◼   ► in iCloud Keychain at the same time.

00:33:22 ◼   ► I kind of have a bit of a problem

00:33:23 ◼   ► because I'm using Chrome and Safari everywhere,

00:33:26 ◼   ► at least on my Macs.

00:33:27 ◼   ► And of course Safari does everything in iCloud Keychain,

00:33:29 ◼   ► but Chrome has its own thing.

00:33:31 ◼   ► So now I have to remember,

00:33:32 ◼   ► first I certainly don't know any of my passwords, right?

00:33:35 ◼   ► So when I sign into something, I have to remember,

00:33:37 ◼   ► did I originally sign into that in Chrome or in Safari?

00:33:41 ◼   ► So since passwords suck,

00:33:43 ◼   ► what can we do that is better than passwords?

00:33:46 ◼   ► And a lot of people have had ideas,

00:33:48 ◼   ► but most of those ideas have a problem in that,

00:33:51 ◼   ► like passwords for all their faults

00:33:54 ◼   ► work pretty much everywhere.

00:33:56 ◼   ► You're on your phone, you're on somebody else's phone,

00:33:58 ◼   ► you're on your computer, you're on someone else's computer.

00:34:00 ◼   ► We can put a text box on a webpage,

00:34:02 ◼   ► we can put a text box in an app,

00:34:03 ◼   ► you can type in an email address and a password,

00:34:07 ◼   ► and you can get in.

00:34:08 ◼   ► And they push all the details of that

00:34:10 ◼   ► under the covers of the user, right?

00:34:11 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, just type stuff in these text boxes.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Problem solved, it works everywhere,

00:34:15 ◼   ► it's completely cross-platform.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Okay, but what do I type in the password box?

00:34:18 ◼   ► Oh, you type your password there.

00:34:19 ◼   ► And it's like, then we're back to where we were before.

00:34:21 ◼   ► Oh, but picking passwords is hard,

00:34:22 ◼   ► and I have a good password, I can't remember it,

00:34:24 ◼   ► and there's too many to memorize anyways,

00:34:25 ◼   ► and I don't need a password manager.

00:34:27 ◼   ► So this whole like, passwords work everywhere.

00:34:30 ◼   ► So nothing can ever displace them.

00:34:32 ◼   ► It's not really true, because if you use them the right way,

00:34:34 ◼   ► passwords don't work everywhere,

00:34:35 ◼   ► because if you don't have access to your one password stuff,

00:34:37 ◼   ► if you're over someone's house,

00:34:39 ◼   ► and I mean, I suppose if you don't have your phone with you

00:34:41 ◼   ► or, you know, if you're in any other situation

00:34:43 ◼   ► where you don't have access to your passwords,

00:34:45 ◼   ► it's hard to be able to log in, right?

00:34:48 ◼   ► So if you try to just match that, like say, okay,

00:34:50 ◼   ► let's not just assume that like we have to be the type

00:34:52 ◼   ► of thing where you can log in anywhere,

00:34:53 ◼   ► 'cause that's not, that hasn't been true in ages.

00:34:55 ◼   ► Like maybe that was true back when we had three accounts

00:34:57 ◼   ► and we all had those three passwords memorized,

00:34:59 ◼   ► but it's no longer true.

00:35:00 ◼   ► If we just need to be able to log in where we have access

00:35:02 ◼   ► to one of our devices, the problem gets a little bit easier.

00:35:05 ◼   ► So the FIDO thing and this passkey is an iCloud keychain.

00:35:09 ◼   ► The FIDO thing is just an alliance of other companies

00:35:13 ◼   ► to try to be interoperable.

00:35:14 ◼   ► The idea is basically the same.

00:35:15 ◼   ► If you know anything about public key encryption,

00:35:17 ◼   ► it's very similar to that.

00:35:17 ◼   ► So rather than you tapping your password in a text box

00:35:20 ◼   ► and hitting a button and it's sending that password

00:35:23 ◼   ► across the internet, you know, over a TLS connection

00:35:26 ◼   ► or whatever, but still sending that password

00:35:27 ◼   ► over the internet to a server,

00:35:29 ◼   ► which then you hope does something reasonable with it

00:35:31 ◼   ► to see if it's the correct password,

00:35:32 ◼   ► you have a situation where with these, you know,

00:35:36 ◼   ► public encryption, you never have to send

00:35:38 ◼   ► your secret anywhere.

00:35:39 ◼   ► So your secret is safe on your local computer

00:35:41 ◼   ► and you give the, you know, you send your public key

00:35:44 ◼   ► over the internet and you give the server your public key

00:35:46 ◼   ► and then you sign something with your private key

00:35:48 ◼   ► and the way private public key encryption works is

00:35:50 ◼   ► you can sign something with your private key

00:35:51 ◼   ► and anybody with your public key can cryptographically prove

00:35:54 ◼   ► whether or not it was signed with your private key

00:35:56 ◼   ► even though none of them know your private key.

00:35:58 ◼   ► That's not new technology, that's what PGP is based on

00:36:01 ◼   ► ages ago or whatever.

00:36:02 ◼   ► But this is sort of taking that technology

00:36:04 ◼   ► that's been around for a long time

00:36:05 ◼   ► and baking it into the operating system

00:36:07 ◼   ► and taking advantage of all the things

00:36:08 ◼   ► that our Apple devices specifically

00:36:11 ◼   ► have to make this very secure, right?

00:36:13 ◼   ► So if we take the system where we're not going to send

00:36:16 ◼   ► passwords to anybody, right?

00:36:17 ◼   ► We're just going to have a private key,

00:36:19 ◼   ► and it's literally never going to leave our device.

00:36:22 ◼   ► How can we make that even more secure?

00:36:24 ◼   ► Well, pretty much at this point, all of our devices,

00:36:26 ◼   ► if you buy like a current generation Apple product,

00:36:28 ◼   ► and even for several years back,

00:36:30 ◼   ► have really, really secure ways

00:36:32 ◼   ► to store stuff only on your device,

00:36:34 ◼   ► the secure enclave, right?

00:36:35 ◼   ► Where no programs can get it out.

00:36:37 ◼   ► In theory, it's very secure.

00:36:38 ◼   ► It's inside there.

00:36:39 ◼   ► That's where all the stuff is kept

00:36:40 ◼   ► for the decryption of your SSDs

00:36:42 ◼   ► and iCloud keychain and all sorts of other unlocking things.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Like the secure enclave is very secure.

00:36:48 ◼   ► We have biometrics to get into it, and we have passwords.

00:36:50 ◼   ► We have all these ways, you know, our face ID, touch ID,

00:36:54 ◼   ► all that stuff is tied into the secure enclave

00:36:56 ◼   ► and tied into the security of our individual devices.

00:36:59 ◼   ► We can use that existing security infrastructure

00:37:02 ◼   ► and all the authentication methods

00:37:03 ◼   ► that we decide to use for that,

00:37:05 ◼   ► whether you decide to configure face ID with or without masks,

00:37:08 ◼   ► with or without attention, touch ID, passcode, you know,

00:37:11 ◼   ► So it's like whatever we decide is the security,

00:37:14 ◼   ► you know, setup for our device,

00:37:16 ◼   ► that can also be the thing that logs us in everywhere.

00:37:19 ◼   ► And from there, we'll just use public key encryption

00:37:21 ◼   ► where the private key will be in the secure enclave,

00:37:23 ◼   ► protected by all those normal things

00:37:25 ◼   ► that we protect our stuff with.

00:37:26 ◼   ► And the public key will be used to send over the internet

00:37:30 ◼   ► to services, which will then verify

00:37:31 ◼   ► that we're allowed to log in, all that stuff.

00:37:33 ◼   ► Never have to pick a password,

00:37:34 ◼   ► never have to hopefully pick a username or anything like that

00:37:38 ◼   ► is all just completely secure.

00:37:41 ◼   ► And you're thinking, well, when I send my password

00:37:44 ◼   ► over the internet, it's not like, you know,

00:37:46 ◼   ► that end is getting hashed anyway.

00:37:48 ◼   ► It's not like they're storing my password.

00:37:49 ◼   ► They're just hashing it and then comparing it

00:37:50 ◼   ► to a hash they have or whatever.

00:37:52 ◼   ► Yeah, that's how it's supposed to work.

00:37:54 ◼   ► But you are literally sending your password

00:37:57 ◼   ► over the internet to the server and you will be shocked,

00:37:59 ◼   ► or maybe not shocked depending on how much

00:38:01 ◼   ► you've been involved in this,

00:38:02 ◼   ► how many servers decide to just take your password

00:38:04 ◼   ► and store it in plain text in a database,

00:38:06 ◼   ► which then gets breached.

00:38:07 ◼   ► And now someone has thousands and thousands of passwords.

00:38:10 ◼   ► And you would think, well, maybe fly-by-night websites

00:38:13 ◼   ► have plain text passwords saved,

00:38:15 ◼   ► but surely nothing important or secure

00:38:17 ◼   ► like a bank or a healthcare company,

00:38:19 ◼   ► and you'd be wrong about that

00:38:21 ◼   ► because some of those have the worst security.

00:38:24 ◼   ► I mean, they're not supposed to,

00:38:25 ◼   ► and often there are laws dictating that they shouldn't,

00:38:28 ◼   ► but look at the history of data breaches

00:38:30 ◼   ► where you'll just be incredibly shocked

00:38:32 ◼   ► that a cybersecurity company or something

00:38:36 ◼   ► has plain text passwords stored.

00:38:38 ◼   ► It's still a problem.

00:38:39 ◼   ► The WDC video does a good job of going to this.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Having a system where trust is between you

00:38:46 ◼   ► and your hardware device,

00:38:47 ◼   ► and your trust is never between you and any random server

00:38:50 ◼   ► is way better because

00:38:51 ◼   ► there still has to be a trust relationship.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Like you trust Apple to securely implement all the things

00:38:54 ◼   ► that they implement on their devices,

00:38:56 ◼   ► and you trust them to defend their hardware and software

00:38:58 ◼   ► against hacks and bugs and so on and so forth.

00:39:00 ◼   ► But that's way better than having a trust relationship

00:39:02 ◼   ► with every single server that you log into,

00:39:05 ◼   ► and just hoping that none of them get breached.

00:39:08 ◼   ► And while it's nice that all of our web browsers

00:39:10 ◼   ► now have a thing that lets you know,

00:39:12 ◼   ► hey, there was a security breach

00:39:13 ◼   ► and we found one of your passwords in it.

00:39:15 ◼   ► I'm sure a lot of people here have gotten that message

00:39:17 ◼   ► and either Safari or Chrome, right?

00:39:19 ◼   ► Where it'll tell you when there's been a data breach, right?

00:39:22 ◼   ► But that's, I mean, that's kind of like, you know,

00:39:24 ◼   ► closing the barn door after the horse has left.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Well, you gave your passwords to a thousand websites

00:39:29 ◼   ► and some percentage of them were breached

00:39:30 ◼   ► and some percentage of them held their passwords

00:39:32 ◼   ► in plain text and you used,

00:39:34 ◼   ► passed your it a couple of times 'cause you were lazy.

00:39:36 ◼   ► And now just to let you know, FYI,

00:39:38 ◼   ► all these accounts are compromised,

00:39:39 ◼   ► so go in them and set up new passwords for them.

00:39:42 ◼   ► That's not a great experience.

00:39:43 ◼   ► It would be much better if we just had sort of one,

00:39:46 ◼   ► I'm not gonna say one password,

00:39:47 ◼   ► but one secure way to do things,

00:39:50 ◼   ► which is unlocking your phone

00:39:52 ◼   ► or signing into your Mac or whatever,

00:39:54 ◼   ► as protected to the degree that we feel comfortable with,

00:39:57 ◼   ► again, deciding which one of the authentication methods

00:39:59 ◼   ► you wanna use and how secure you wanna get.

00:40:00 ◼   ► Do you wanna have a four-digit passcode,

00:40:02 ◼   ► or do you wanna have a 20-digit passphrase?

00:40:04 ◼   ► Do you wanna use Face ID or not?

00:40:06 ◼   ► Do you wanna use Touch ID or not?

00:40:07 ◼   ► all that stuff, have that be sort of the linchpin

00:40:11 ◼   ► of security and have it work everywhere, right?

00:40:14 ◼   ► So your Macs can do that, your phones can do that,

00:40:16 ◼   ► your iPad can do that.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Yes, you have to have one of those devices with you then

00:40:20 ◼   ► to sign in, but it is, that's, like I said,

00:40:23 ◼   ► that's the same thing with our modern,

00:40:25 ◼   ► with best practices and modern passwords.

00:40:27 ◼   ► It's not like you have memorized

00:40:29 ◼   ► the extremely complicated password

00:40:31 ◼   ► to all the thousand sites you log into.

00:40:33 ◼   ► You probably only have one or two passwords memorized

00:40:35 ◼   ► if that, depending on how good you are with password hygiene.

00:40:39 ◼   ► And so in the WSC video, they show a little demo

00:40:41 ◼   ► of what this looks like with a demonstration app.

00:40:43 ◼   ► And it looks very similar to like sign in with Apple,

00:40:46 ◼   ► only it's not that.

00:40:47 ◼   ► You sign in by giving them an email address, a username,

00:40:51 ◼   ► or whatever you want to pick, and that's it.

00:40:53 ◼   ► There's no other step.

00:40:54 ◼   ► You're like, great.

00:40:55 ◼   ► You're signed in, because the device does the web auth,

00:41:00 ◼   ► public key passing back and forth, and authentication,

00:41:03 ◼   ► and all that other stuff.

00:41:04 ◼   ► When this session was made, one of the limitations of it

00:41:08 ◼   ► was like, OK, well, that's great,

00:41:09 ◼   ► but does that mean that each individual device needs

00:41:11 ◼   ► to register itself with the site?

00:41:13 ◼   ► And that used to be true in part of this Fido announcement

00:41:15 ◼   ► from earlier in May.

00:41:16 ◼   ► It was like, oh, they're going to add a system

00:41:19 ◼   ► to the specification that allows your credentials to be synced

00:41:23 ◼   ► among devices.

00:41:24 ◼   ► And so once you sign in with one device,

00:41:26 ◼   ► you're signed in with all devices,

00:41:28 ◼   ► sort of like what Apple does with iCloud keychain syncing.

00:41:31 ◼   ► And this is a consortium with Apple, Google, and Microsoft,

00:41:34 ◼   ► which I feel like is probably sufficient

00:41:36 ◼   ► to make this technology spread across most of the web

00:41:39 ◼   ► because with those three companies behind it,

00:41:41 ◼   ► everyone else will probably follow along.

00:41:44 ◼   ► And I think, you know, so sign in with Apple's great.

00:41:47 ◼   ► If you trust Apple, if you're super into Google,

00:41:49 ◼   ► sign in with Google's great.

00:41:50 ◼   ► No one should ever sign in with Facebook.

00:41:52 ◼   ► But anyway, the sign in with services,

00:41:55 ◼   ► I think people prefer those just because it's like,

00:41:57 ◼   ► oh, I don't have to remember another password.

00:41:58 ◼   ► But as we talked about last time,

00:41:59 ◼   ► now you're putting all your trust on this other party

00:42:02 ◼   ► that might not even care about you and your accounts.

00:42:05 ◼   ► There's a second party in the trust relationship.

00:42:11 ◼   ► Just having it be between you and your device,

00:42:13 ◼   ► and that's the only trust relationship,

00:42:14 ◼   ► well, you and your device and a device vendor,

00:42:17 ◼   ► is a lot simpler, and you've already chosen

00:42:19 ◼   ► that relationship by buying your device.

00:42:21 ◼   ► You don't have to then enter into another arrangement,

00:42:23 ◼   ► and remember, like we talked about in the Ask ADP question,

00:42:26 ◼   ► when I signed up for this service,

00:42:27 ◼   ► did I use sign in with Apple,

00:42:29 ◼   ► did I use sign in with Google,

00:42:30 ◼   ► or did I use a username and password, right?

00:42:31 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

00:42:33 ◼   ► - I think you'll probably still,

00:42:34 ◼   ► might still have to remember this,

00:42:35 ◼   ► but I think it'll probably try the web auth thing

00:42:38 ◼   ► if it exists at all, and then if not,

00:42:39 ◼   ► ask you for username and password.

00:42:41 ◼   ► Anyway, I would love for this to be a real thing

00:42:44 ◼   ► because I hate managing passwords.

00:42:45 ◼   ► Everybody hates managing passwords.

00:42:47 ◼   ► The security of this seems,

00:42:51 ◼   ► probably about equal to best practices now.

00:42:54 ◼   ► Like, I'm not gonna say it's like tons more secure.

00:42:57 ◼   ► I think the session goes a little bit overboard

00:43:00 ◼   ► and pitching on how much more secure this is.

00:43:02 ◼   ► It depends.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Like, it is equally secure as someone

00:43:07 ◼   ► using all of the best practices of password hygiene,

00:43:11 ◼   ► but nobody does that for every site.

00:43:12 ◼   ► So in practice, it's more secure,

00:43:14 ◼   ► because you don't have to do anything to get these benefits.

00:43:16 ◼   ► You just use it, and there's no way

00:43:18 ◼   ► not to get all of these benefits.

00:43:20 ◼   ► And you also get to use all of the sort of

00:43:24 ◼   ► password recovery flow stuff that's built into, like,

00:43:28 ◼   ► your device and your Apple ID and all that,

00:43:32 ◼   ► that stuff just has to be implemented once,

00:43:33 ◼   ► essentially, by your platform vendor.

00:43:35 ◼   ► And Apple's already implemented all of that.

00:43:36 ◼   ► There's so much stuff around your Apple ID password

00:43:41 ◼   ► and I forgot dot apple dot com and backup codes

00:43:44 ◼   ► and multi-factor authentication and biometrics

00:43:47 ◼   ► and all that stuff that already exists

00:43:48 ◼   ► and to be able to just leverage that to say,

00:43:50 ◼   ► once I've done that once, I can now sign up for,

00:43:53 ◼   ► sign into any service anywhere on the entire web

00:43:57 ◼   ► and the entire internet without ever having

00:43:58 ◼   ► to pick another password, that is the world I want to live in.

00:44:01 ◼   ► So I am totally rooting for this thing.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And I like the fact that there is a multi-company alliance

00:44:05 ◼   ► trying to make this happen.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And I really hope this year, WWC 2022,

00:44:08 ◼   ► there is another session about this.

00:44:11 ◼   ► In the move beyond password session,

00:44:14 ◼   ► they said at the end that this is the first step

00:44:17 ◼   ► in a multi-year effort to move beyond passwords.

00:44:20 ◼   ► And it was basically like, here's a bunch of APIs,

00:44:22 ◼   ► but they're all prototypes.

00:44:24 ◼   ► Maybe this year we'll have a more concrete set of APIs

00:44:26 ◼   ► that you're allowed to use in production,

00:44:28 ◼   ► and then maybe the year after that,

00:44:29 ◼   ► they'll sort of start rolling out the applications,

00:44:31 ◼   ► and then maybe the year after that,

00:44:32 ◼   ► we'll all be signing in everywhere

00:44:34 ◼   ► without ever having to pick another password.

00:44:36 ◼   ► - I hope so.

00:44:37 ◼   ► I mean, as somebody who has tried to get rid of passwords

00:44:40 ◼   ► on numerous occasions in numerous different ways,

00:44:43 ◼   ► every time I've done it,

00:44:47 ◼   ► I have learned about some shortcoming of my system

00:44:51 ◼   ► that just having passwords would solve.

00:44:54 ◼   ► Because we all think, again, this is one of those areas

00:44:58 ◼   ► where everyone thinks they have some idea

00:45:01 ◼   ► to get rid of passwords,

00:45:02 ◼   ► and it always contains the word just.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Why don't we just blank?

00:45:07 ◼   ► And that's a wonderful phrase that usually suggests

00:45:11 ◼   ► that the person does not understand

00:45:13 ◼   ► the full complexity of the problem.

00:45:15 ◼   ► And in reality, passwords, as you were saying earlier,

00:45:18 ◼   ► passwords actually have a lot of benefits

00:45:21 ◼   ► compared to a lot of these systems.

00:45:22 ◼   ► like for instance, once you get into the realm of having multiple people who might need access

00:45:31 ◼   ► to the password for something, many of these systems become much more complicated or break

00:45:36 ◼   ► down. Whereas one password is great. Earlier today, as within our family, we're multiple

00:45:42 ◼   ► people who often need to share passwords for something. And there was something that our

00:45:47 ◼   ► our kid had a password for that I had set up,

00:45:50 ◼   ► like just on my phone one day, I had set it up,

00:45:52 ◼   ► and so it was only in my one password vault,

00:45:56 ◼   ► which is like their data silo.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And I was able, and Tiff was asking for it,

00:46:00 ◼   ► and I was able to just go on my phone

00:46:02 ◼   ► and open up one password and move it

00:46:03 ◼   ► to our shared family vault, and then seconds later,

00:46:07 ◼   ► Tiff had it on her phone, and she could help Adam

00:46:09 ◼   ► set up his thing.

00:46:10 ◼   ► And once he's old enough to manage all this stuff himself,

00:46:13 ◼   ► we'll be able to just move all that stuff over to him.

00:46:15 ◼   ► And that becomes very easy.

00:46:17 ◼   ► When you have families or businesses,

00:46:19 ◼   ► any situation where multiple people

00:46:22 ◼   ► need to share a credential,

00:46:24 ◼   ► or you need to send it to somebody,

00:46:25 ◼   ► you look, I mean the three of us host on the show,

00:46:27 ◼   ► we have some shared social media accounts and stuff

00:46:30 ◼   ► that we all can log into.

00:46:32 ◼   ► And the way we've done that is we just,

00:46:35 ◼   ► one of us generates a crazy password

00:46:36 ◼   ► in our password manager,

00:46:38 ◼   ► and we just send it to the others in some secure way.

00:46:41 ◼   ► And then we can all log in then

00:46:43 ◼   ► for services that don't support

00:46:44 ◼   ► multiple user accounts for the same access thing or whatever.

00:46:47 ◼   ► So that's just, that's one of the many things where

00:46:50 ◼   ► passwords actually really help a lot.

00:46:55 ◼   ► And passwordless systems or systems move on

00:46:58 ◼   ► beyond passwords make a lot of that stuff more difficult.

00:47:01 ◼   ► And because of that, I think passwords are going

00:47:04 ◼   ► to stick around for longer than we think.

00:47:07 ◼   ► Because there's a reason they've stuck around this long

00:47:09 ◼   ► and it's not because they're great.

00:47:11 ◼   ► It's because they're really versatile

00:47:13 ◼   ► and they enable a bunch of use cases and kind of failsafes

00:47:17 ◼   ► that we end up actually using quite a lot in reality.

00:47:19 ◼   ► - I mean, the thing you described

00:47:22 ◼   ► of putting into a shared vault,

00:47:23 ◼   ► if Apple got its acts together and realized how families

00:47:26 ◼   ► work, you can imagine iCloud Keychain working exactly

00:47:29 ◼   ► the same way.

00:47:30 ◼   ► There would be a family iCloud Keychain because hey,

00:47:32 ◼   ► Apple already has an organization called a family

00:47:35 ◼   ► that has multiple members.

00:47:36 ◼   ► Apple knows about that.

00:47:37 ◼   ► It is a thing that exists.

00:47:38 ◼   ► It would be, you know, like it makes sense for them

00:47:41 ◼   ► to eventually expand iCloud Keychain to be family aware,

00:47:45 ◼   ► family savvy, I would say back in the system of seven days.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I hope they do photos first,

00:47:50 ◼   ► but still this is definitely a solvable problem

00:47:52 ◼   ► because like in the end,

00:47:54 ◼   ► like if you look at this from a programmer's perspective,

00:47:56 ◼   ► what's actually happening here is like, you know,

00:47:59 ◼   ► 80s, when was PGP?

00:48:01 ◼   ► The 80s, the 90s, this is not super advanced technology.

00:48:04 ◼   ► Public key encryption has existed forever.

00:48:07 ◼   ► It's a great example of how somebody did some clever math

00:48:10 ◼   ► a long time ago and came up with the system

00:48:12 ◼   ► and it is very clever and has very good security

00:48:15 ◼   ► and sort of security that you can scale

00:48:16 ◼   ► to your level of comfort.

00:48:17 ◼   ► It's really neat, right?

00:48:18 ◼   ► So why don't we use it everywhere?

00:48:20 ◼   ► The reason it's not used everywhere

00:48:21 ◼   ► are the non-technical aspects.

00:48:24 ◼   ► How do I implement this in my operating system

00:48:26 ◼   ► in a secure way across all my devices?

00:48:28 ◼   ► How do I get it implemented across the entire industry?

00:48:30 ◼   ► How do I make all the websites or whatever

00:48:32 ◼   ► that I'm signing into implement this system

00:48:34 ◼   ► and building up the standards around this,

00:48:36 ◼   ► you know, I'm not gonna say very basic method,

00:48:38 ◼   ► building up the standards around

00:48:39 ◼   ► this well understood thing, public key encryption,

00:48:42 ◼   ► building that up and building the infrastructure

00:48:43 ◼   ► and making the web off an API

00:48:45 ◼   ► and making a JavaScript API for it

00:48:46 ◼   ► and building into web browsers and building into the OS

00:48:49 ◼   ► and having a secure enclave and everything.

00:48:51 ◼   ► It's taken us so long to get to the point

00:48:53 ◼   ► where we can assume that modern hardware,

00:48:55 ◼   ► phones, NPCs will have something on it,

00:48:58 ◼   ► whether it's the TPM module or the secure enclave

00:49:00 ◼   ► will have some way on it to securely store

00:49:03 ◼   ► private credentials that's not just like a file

00:49:05 ◼   ► on a disc or something like we have a way

00:49:07 ◼   ► to do that in devices finally.

00:49:09 ◼   ► and it seems like we're finally getting to the point

00:49:10 ◼   ► where we're gonna have the plumbing

00:49:12 ◼   ► in the operating system and the support for it

00:49:15 ◼   ► in the web browsers, and then it's just a matter

00:49:17 ◼   ► of getting the websites on board.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And I think websites will wanna get on board with this

00:49:21 ◼   ► in the same way they've got on board with the sign-in

00:49:23 ◼   ► with this, 'cause they're all about reducing friction.

00:49:25 ◼   ► If they can make it easier for you to sign up

00:49:27 ◼   ► for an account at their website

00:49:28 ◼   ► that makes fewer people run away screaming

00:49:30 ◼   ► when they say, "Oh, I have to make an account?

00:49:31 ◼   ► "Oh, nevermind," right?

00:49:33 ◼   ► If they don't have to go through that process,

00:49:35 ◼   ► if it's just literally like one click

00:49:37 ◼   ► with an auto-filled email address or something,

00:49:40 ◼   ► they're gonna wanna use it too.

00:49:41 ◼   ► So I feel like we're kind of finally getting

00:49:43 ◼   ► through critical mass, but that last little bit of like,

00:49:46 ◼   ► but what about the weird use cases, like a family Apple,

00:49:51 ◼   ► what are we gonna do then?

00:49:52 ◼   ► Passwords might be superior then.

00:49:54 ◼   ► It's like, just please just do the obvious thing

00:49:56 ◼   ► and make iCloud Keychain, you know, work with families

00:50:00 ◼   ► and have a family Keychain and share their credentials.

00:50:02 ◼   ► 'Cause what are you sharing?

00:50:03 ◼   ► There's private keys and there's public keys.

00:50:06 ◼   ► and those are just little bits of information.

00:50:08 ◼   ► You can put them in text files.

00:50:09 ◼   ► It's, you know, as long as we have a secure place

00:50:11 ◼   ► to store them, you can have the private key be shared

00:50:14 ◼   ► among all members of a family.

00:50:15 ◼   ► And it's problem solved.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Like it's not rocket science.

00:50:19 ◼   ► It's not a huge amount of data.

00:50:20 ◼   ► It's not gigs and gigs of data.

00:50:21 ◼   ► It's not an unknowable, unsolvable problem.

00:50:23 ◼   ► But if they don't do that, you're right, Marco.

00:50:26 ◼   ► It's gonna be like, oh, well I don't,

00:50:27 ◼   ► well I signed up for this.

00:50:29 ◼   ► Like imagine if Netflix used this Fido,

00:50:32 ◼   ► you know, Pescis and iCloud keychain.

00:50:34 ◼   ► You sign up for Netflix and you're like,

00:50:35 ◼   ► And your wife's like, "Oh, I want to sign into Netflix."

00:50:37 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, well, I guess you have to sign out

00:50:41 ◼   ► of your account on your laptop

00:50:42 ◼   ► and sign into my account on your laptop

00:50:44 ◼   ► so you'll be signed in with my Apple ID

00:50:45 ◼   ► and then you can use my passkey."

00:50:47 ◼   ► And you're like, "Why don't you just give me the password?"

00:50:49 ◼   ► Well, there's not passwords anymore.

00:50:50 ◼   ► What do you mean there's not passwords?

00:50:51 ◼   ► Yeah, they use a different,

00:50:52 ◼   ► you don't want to have to have this conversation.

00:50:54 ◼   ► It's terrible, right?

00:50:55 ◼   ► And I know Netflix doesn't want you

00:50:56 ◼   ► to share passwords anyway, so maybe Netflix loves this.

00:50:58 ◼   ► But either way, like, if they just implement

00:51:01 ◼   ► iCloud Keychain, a family-shared iCloud Keychain,

00:51:04 ◼   ► you don't have to have this conversation.

00:51:06 ◼   ► You'll do exactly what you do with one password,

00:51:07 ◼   ► which is you drag it from your individual one

00:51:09 ◼   ► into the shared family one, done and done.

00:51:11 ◼   ► - Well, and that's if it works.

00:51:12 ◼   ► I mean, I think the password sharing example

00:51:15 ◼   ► is a really good window into the potential pitfalls of this.

00:51:19 ◼   ► In reality, we often design technology in a way

00:51:23 ◼   ► that is quickly defeated by post-it notes

00:51:27 ◼   ► and emailing files to ourselves

00:51:28 ◼   ► and other low-tech hacks that tons of people end up doing

00:51:33 ◼   ► because the cool, complicated thing that we developed

00:51:36 ◼   ► doesn't work well enough, or is too hard,

00:51:38 ◼   ► or has some kind of use case where it falls over

00:51:41 ◼   ► where the Post-it note wins.

00:51:43 ◼   ► And when trying to do something as lofty

00:51:46 ◼   ► as replacing passwords, we're gonna have to really

00:51:49 ◼   ► make sure it works really well, and is really easy,

00:51:53 ◼   ► and is really versatile.

00:51:55 ◼   ► And that's hard to do while maintaining security.

00:51:59 ◼   ► - I mean, that's why I think this multi-company alliance

00:52:01 ◼   ► gives it hope, because it's a standard,

00:52:03 ◼   ► It's not just Apple devices, not just Microsoft devices.

00:52:06 ◼   ► Apple, Google, Microsoft all do it.

00:52:08 ◼   ► People will get in line because they own--

00:52:11 ◼   ► what is Microsoft?

00:52:12 ◼   ► Anyway, Apple and Google own the two most important platforms,

00:52:15 ◼   ► right?

00:52:15 ◼   ► iOS and Android.

00:52:17 ◼   ► And Apple and Microsoft own the two most important desktop

00:52:20 ◼   ► platforms.

00:52:20 ◼   ► And that pretty much covers all of your bases.

00:52:23 ◼   ► If they implement all this stuff,

00:52:25 ◼   ► it's only a matter of time and polishing to get it to work.

00:52:28 ◼   ► And because it has to work across

00:52:29 ◼   ► all these different platforms, it

00:52:30 ◼   ► doesn't mean there's no room for innovation.

00:52:32 ◼   ► So if you look at the Apple things,

00:52:34 ◼   ► they're making APIs in their various OSs to do this.

00:52:36 ◼   ► And Apple chose to make the APIs such that you basically throw up

00:52:40 ◼   ► an authentication thing, and you give it

00:52:41 ◼   ► a list of possible authentication methods

00:52:43 ◼   ► that you want to support.

00:52:44 ◼   ► And it still gives the user the choice.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Do you want to do the passkey sign-in thing?

00:52:48 ◼   ► Do you want to use a username and password,

00:52:50 ◼   ► in which case all your autofill stuff works?

00:52:52 ◼   ► Do you want to sign in with Apple?

00:52:53 ◼   ► Maybe it's annoying that there's this big list of things,

00:52:55 ◼   ► but it's a cascade and a hierarchy

00:52:57 ◼   ► that, as someone writing--

00:52:59 ◼   ► I suppose a website, but certainly

00:53:01 ◼   ► if you're writing an iOS app or a Mac app,

00:53:03 ◼   ► you can present the authentication,

00:53:06 ◼   ► you know, kick off the authentication flow

00:53:08 ◼   ► and you don't have to write any of that.

00:53:09 ◼   ► Apple's got an API that does it all.

00:53:11 ◼   ► You just tell it what methods you want to support

00:53:13 ◼   ► and what their priority order is,

00:53:14 ◼   ► and it will put up a UI and deal with all that stuff.

00:53:16 ◼   ► And that is another great way to let Apple be Apple

00:53:20 ◼   ► and make like a better user experience

00:53:22 ◼   ► and make it easy for developers to implement this

00:53:24 ◼   ► so you don't have to write all this code yourself

00:53:26 ◼   ► and also make it more secure.

00:53:27 ◼   ► But if under the covers, it's the same exact standard

00:53:29 ◼   ► that's supported in Google and Microsoft,

00:53:31 ◼   ► and Google usually does a good job of these APIs too,

00:53:32 ◼   ► especially on the web,

00:53:34 ◼   ► then you can be sure that anywhere you go,

00:53:36 ◼   ► you'll be able to use this system to log in

00:53:38 ◼   ► as long as you have with you a thing

00:53:40 ◼   ► that has your private key in it, essentially.

00:53:43 ◼   ► And that's usually been the pushback,

00:53:45 ◼   ► like, oh, what if I don't have my phone

00:53:46 ◼   ► or I don't have access to my Mac or whatever,

00:53:48 ◼   ► or I can just type in my password.

00:53:50 ◼   ► But I really hope that's not the case for people

00:53:51 ◼   ► because if you feel like you can sit down

00:53:53 ◼   ► in front of any computer with nothing

00:53:55 ◼   ► but the clothes on your back

00:53:56 ◼   ► and sign into any of your accounts,

00:53:57 ◼   ► your passwords are not good.

00:53:58 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:54:24 ◼   ► was disrupting their end users,

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00:55:11 ◼   ► because they're just sitting in their downloads folder.

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00:55:16 ◼   ► it's educating them about the company's policies

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00:55:53 ◼   ► Get endpoint management that puts the user first.

00:55:56 ◼   ► - Hey, so do you think Apple really wants us

00:56:03 ◼   ► repairing our own phones?

00:56:05 ◼   ► - This whole thing, huh?

00:56:06 ◼   ► - I don't know, I don't know what to make of this.

00:56:09 ◼   ► Like when I'm in a grumpy mood, I feel like,

00:56:12 ◼   ► oh, Apple's just a big pile of jerks

00:56:14 ◼   ► and they hate everyone.

00:56:15 ◼   ► - A big pile of jerks.

00:56:17 ◼   ► - When I'm in a more--

00:56:18 ◼   ► - Picturing this.

00:56:20 ◼   ► - When I'm in a more happy mood, I'm like,

00:56:22 ◼   ► Well, you know, Apple's just trying to make sure people do the best job they can repairing everything themselves.

00:56:26 ◼   ► So what am I talking about?

00:56:28 ◼   ► Friend of the show, Quinn Nelson, Relay FM alumni, I think at this point, and a prolific YouTuber,

00:56:34 ◼   ► he put out a couple of videos where he got the tools and parts and whatnot in order to do a, I believe it was an iPhone mini,

00:56:43 ◼   ► screen and battery replacement if memory serves.

00:56:46 ◼   ► And Apple sent him all of the tools he needs to do this and the parts.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And I don't remember how much parts cost but I think he needed to pay between fifty and a hundred dollars

00:56:55 ◼   ► Deposit to rent the tools to rent the tools and he came or he got shipped

00:57:01 ◼   ► Something like 80 pounds worth of tools two humongous pelican cases with 80

00:57:07 ◼   ► pounds of tools in order to do these repairs and

00:57:11 ◼   ► You know the cynical take which is what the verge put up. I don't know

00:57:15 ◼   ► Yeah, we do have a link will put in the show notes. The cynical take is Apple's just making this difficult for everyone

00:57:20 ◼   ► They're doing this to be jerks because they're jerks. They're jerks from the top to the bottom. They're jerk jerk jerky jerk jerks and

00:57:26 ◼   ► That is a take that is a take for sure. I

00:57:29 ◼   ► Don't think that's what this is

00:57:33 ◼   ► But maybe maybe I'm being maybe I'm grading on too much of a curve here. So what do you fellas think about this?

00:57:39 ◼   ► It was 97 pounds not 80 pounds because he did the screen and the battery so you get more tools based on what you do

00:57:45 ◼   ► If you recall from past programs when we talked about this that Apple is gonna come up with a self-repair program so that anybody could

00:57:53 ◼   ► Get to could do repair to their phone

00:57:56 ◼   ► Which previously Apple didn't like people that you've been authorized Apple repair or whatever thing or you can go to an Apple store

00:58:01 ◼   ► But it's like hey Joe Schmall off the street

00:58:03 ◼   ► You want to replace the battery on your phone?

00:58:06 ◼   ► Well, feel free and the way you know, they have this plan to do it

00:58:10 ◼   ► You're gonna get genuine Apple parts and blah blah blah, right?

00:58:12 ◼   ► but now that the program is actually actually here people like Quinn have done it and

00:58:16 ◼   ► You know, it's it's not I guess what people expected

00:58:20 ◼   ► I guess you know

00:58:21 ◼   ► like this article that

00:58:22 ◼   ► Sean Hollister wrote in The Verge you kind of expected to get in the mail like a little baggie with a battery in it and

00:58:27 ◼   ► Then like some tools like iFixit toolkit or something, you know

00:58:31 ◼   ► Just like something to pry open your iPhone and like some screwdrivers with the weird tips on them and that's basically it, right?

00:58:38 ◼   ► But no, that's not what they send you. They send you the same tools that they use in Apple stores to do these repairs

00:58:45 ◼   ► Until they're big tools are heavy. The tools are weird. In fact Quinn has a second video where he

00:58:51 ◼   ► He says breaking into Apple's tools where he opens up Apple's tools

00:58:54 ◼   ► They all have these security labels on that tells you that makes it so you can't open them up

00:58:58 ◼   ► But he does open them all up to see what these tools are like on the inside and

00:59:02 ◼   ► All right, so the Apple or jerks side of this

00:59:07 ◼   ► I think has a little bit of merit to it,

00:59:11 ◼   ► but part of it is also like,

00:59:13 ◼   ► so if you want to replace the battery in your phone,

00:59:17 ◼   ► this is how Apple does it, right?

00:59:19 ◼   ► It's like, I don't want to pay Apple to do it,

00:59:20 ◼   ► I want to do it myself, right?

00:59:22 ◼   ► And Apple's saying, okay, well if you want to do it yourself,

00:59:25 ◼   ► we'll let you do it the same way we do it,

00:59:28 ◼   ► because we think, I mean, this is the way to do it,

00:59:31 ◼   ► because if you gave it to us, this is what we would do,

00:59:32 ◼   ► so if you're gonna do it yourself,

00:59:33 ◼   ► you should do it the same way,

00:59:34 ◼   ► only now you get to do it instead of us, so here you go.

00:59:37 ◼   ► and that involves a bunch of these tools.

00:59:39 ◼   ► And it kind of, I mean, part of what I think

00:59:43 ◼   ► it makes you realize if you're on the receiving end of this

00:59:45 ◼   ► is if you don't repair iPhones for a living as your job,

00:59:50 ◼   ► you probably don't need these tools.

00:59:54 ◼   ► But if you don't repair iPhones for a living as your job,

00:59:57 ◼   ► should you be repairing iPhones?

00:59:59 ◼   ► Should you be doing this?

01:00:01 ◼   ► It's kind of like the difference between like,

01:00:04 ◼   ► do it yourself mechanically.

01:00:05 ◼   ► I'm gonna change my oil,

01:00:06 ◼   ► I'm gonna change my brake pads versus, you know,

01:00:09 ◼   ► I'm going to, you know, change the timing belt on my car.

01:00:13 ◼   ► As your car repairs get more invasive, you know,

01:00:17 ◼   ► I'm going to replace the head gasket or whatever,

01:00:19 ◼   ► you start needing more sophisticated

01:00:22 ◼   ► and very expensive tools.

01:00:24 ◼   ► Like eventually you might need a lift for your car.

01:00:27 ◼   ► Lifts are expensive.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Are you gonna do everything on jack stands?

01:00:30 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:00:31 ◼   ► You're probably not gonna drop the engine

01:00:32 ◼   ► out of your car with jack stands.

01:00:33 ◼   ► So now all of a sudden you need a lift

01:00:34 ◼   ► and you need all these special tools.

01:00:35 ◼   ► and especially if you have a BMW where there's a special tool

01:00:37 ◼   ► to remove every single piece of the freaking thing

01:00:39 ◼   ► which BMW will sell you for a million dollars

01:00:40 ◼   ► 'cause you can't use regular wrenches.

01:00:42 ◼   ► - Too soon, too soon, John, too soon.

01:00:44 ◼   ► - You see, they have a tool for everything.

01:00:46 ◼   ► It's like, oh, the belt tension loosener thingy,

01:00:48 ◼   ► well, BMW sells a tool for that for $300,

01:00:51 ◼   ► but you can also try to use this wrench.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Anyway, you can do simple repairs to your car

01:00:56 ◼   ► with simple tools, but as the repairs get more invasive,

01:01:00 ◼   ► you can't, you have to buy more expensive tools,

01:01:02 ◼   ► and the tools get very expensive.

01:01:04 ◼   ► This is setting aside the weird DRME stuff of like,

01:01:06 ◼   ► you need a weird computer thing to interface to it.

01:01:09 ◼   ► I'm saying it like purely mechanical repairs.

01:01:11 ◼   ► Think of even cars before the age of computers in cars.

01:01:14 ◼   ► Eventually you needed expensive tools.

01:01:17 ◼   ► As it turns out,

01:01:18 ◼   ► a lot of the things that you have to replace in phones,

01:01:20 ◼   ► it's fairly invasive 'cause they're pretty well sealed

01:01:23 ◼   ► and they're really small and miniaturized

01:01:25 ◼   ► and it's tightly packed.

01:01:27 ◼   ► And so to do almost anything,

01:01:30 ◼   ► there's no equivalent of changing the oil on your phone.

01:01:33 ◼   ► It's not, there's no easy job.

01:01:35 ◼   ► There's no changing the brake pads on the phone.

01:01:37 ◼   ► You have to crack the thing open

01:01:38 ◼   ► and they're not put together in a straightforward way,

01:01:41 ◼   ► especially Apple's ones,

01:01:42 ◼   ► because they're made as small as they could possibly be

01:01:44 ◼   ► and they're made to be waterproof

01:01:45 ◼   ► and all this other stuff, right?

01:01:47 ◼   ► So I feel like these super expensive, big, heavy tools

01:01:50 ◼   ► is telling you,

01:01:51 ◼   ► this is probably not a thing you should be doing

01:01:53 ◼   ► because this is the way to do it.

01:01:55 ◼   ► Like it's telling you, like,

01:01:56 ◼   ► you shouldn't try to do this with just like

01:01:59 ◼   ► a flathead screwdriver and some sweat, right?

01:02:02 ◼   ► That's the wrong way to do it.

01:02:03 ◼   ► You'll break something, it won't work well,

01:02:06 ◼   ► like just you probably could pull it off,

01:02:09 ◼   ► but here's the right way to do it.

01:02:10 ◼   ► And by the way, as you can see, Quinn,

01:02:12 ◼   ► when he uses these tools, kind of like a mechanic.

01:02:15 ◼   ► If we give you a hoejillion dollar snap-on

01:02:18 ◼   ► and set of tools, right, and a lift,

01:02:20 ◼   ► and all sorts of, and you know, an impact driver,

01:02:22 ◼   ► and all like all the things, just we give you a full garage

01:02:26 ◼   ► filled with like $70,000 worth of tools.

01:02:30 ◼   ► Now can you repair the car?

01:02:31 ◼   ► and you're like, "Well, I've never used these tools before."

01:02:32 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:02:34 ◼   ► It takes skill to use the tools.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Well, if we give you the same tools

01:02:37 ◼   ► that Apple uses to repair your batteries,

01:02:39 ◼   ► it doesn't mean suddenly you know how to use them.

01:02:41 ◼   ► It doesn't mean suddenly you have the experience

01:02:43 ◼   ► to know exactly how, you know, what happens

01:02:45 ◼   ► if you put it in the little heater thing

01:02:47 ◼   ► and it still doesn't want to come apart

01:02:48 ◼   ► 'cause it's wintertime, the phone was a little bit colder

01:02:50 ◼   ► than you thought and how much you can put it back in

01:02:51 ◼   ► and how hard you have to pull on this connector

01:02:53 ◼   ► to disconnect it but without like ripping it

01:02:56 ◼   ► and where you have to be careful to pull vertically up

01:02:58 ◼   ► or where it's not in it.

01:02:59 ◼   ► Like that comes from experience, the same way it comes from experience of knowing how

01:03:03 ◼   ► to rebuild an engine or something or do an invasive repair on a car.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Just because you have the professional expensive tools doesn't mean you know how to do that.

01:03:10 ◼   ► Again sending the message, are you sure this is a thing you want to be doing?

01:03:16 ◼   ► And so you could say, well Apple's being a jerk because they should just sell me the

01:03:20 ◼   ► battery and say good luck.

01:03:23 ◼   ► Or they should just sell me the battery and a $20 iFixit toolkit with a couple of plastic

01:03:26 ◼   ► spudgers in it and say good luck.

01:03:29 ◼   ► That's all I want from Apple and they're being jerks by requiring me to rent these tools

01:03:32 ◼   ► for $50.

01:03:33 ◼   ► I don't want these tools.

01:03:34 ◼   ► I can replace my head gasket with just a flathead screwdriver and a 10mm wrench.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I don't need all this fancy stuff.

01:03:42 ◼   ► I can drop the engine by just putting logs under my car.

01:03:45 ◼   ► I don't need an engine lift.

01:03:46 ◼   ► I don't need anything.

01:03:48 ◼   ► Just sell me a genuine Apple battery and give me permission to do it and I'll figure it

01:03:52 ◼   ► out myself.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And Apple doesn't do that.

01:03:54 ◼   ► They want to give you the official tools.

01:03:56 ◼   ► So that's the only way I can look at this and say that Apple is not giving people what

01:03:59 ◼   ► they wanted for the people who wanted to just say, "Look, just give me the official Apple

01:04:03 ◼   ► part and I'll figure it out on my own."

01:04:05 ◼   ► But I think those people would be very unsuccessful and sad.

01:04:08 ◼   ► They're also probably going to be unsuccessful with the fancy tools, but in both cases, I

01:04:12 ◼   ► feel like if there's not a thing that you do for a living over and over and over again,

01:04:16 ◼   ► it's probably not something you should try to do.

01:04:18 ◼   ► But on the flip side of that is Apple's giving you the tools that it uses to do itself, and

01:04:24 ◼   ► It's giving them to you at what must be a loss,

01:04:26 ◼   ► because the $50 you pay to rent these tools

01:04:29 ◼   ► surely doesn't even cover the shipping,

01:04:31 ◼   ► because it's like, in Quinn's case,

01:04:32 ◼   ► it was 97 pounds of tools in these giant Pelican cases,

01:04:36 ◼   ► which themselves probably cost $500, right?

01:04:39 ◼   ► And then who knows how much the tools cost?

01:04:40 ◼   ► It's not like the tools are particularly fancy,

01:04:42 ◼   ► but they're all custom.

01:04:43 ◼   ► It's not like you can buy one of these tools anywhere.

01:04:45 ◼   ► It's something that was built just for Apple.

01:04:47 ◼   ► It's the exact specifications

01:04:48 ◼   ► of whatever specific phone you're repairing.

01:04:50 ◼   ► So if you say, "I'm repairing an iPhone mini,"

01:04:52 ◼   ► They will send you tools with little sleds and pieces exactly sized to the iPad mini

01:04:56 ◼   ► down to every nuance of where the antenna lines are on the outside of it, where all

01:05:01 ◼   ► the buttons are.

01:05:02 ◼   ► The tools are accustomed to the specific thing you're repairing.

01:05:06 ◼   ► There is no way that Apple is not losing money allowing you to rent these tools for $50 for

01:05:13 ◼   ► seven days or whatever it is.

01:05:15 ◼   ► And they put like a $1200 hold on your credit card for the tools.

01:05:18 ◼   ► There is no way that $1200 covers the tools, it probably barely covers the Pelican cases.

01:05:24 ◼   ► So in one respect, Apple is letting you do this, and people will be adding up the cost

01:05:29 ◼   ► and they're like, "Well, at this cost, I pay this much for the battery and I pay this much

01:05:33 ◼   ► for the tool rental."

01:05:34 ◼   ► And of course the labor is free because I do that myself.

01:05:37 ◼   ► But at that rate, it's practically the same price as bringing it to an Apple store.

01:05:40 ◼   ► And then Apple will be like, "Yes!"

01:05:42 ◼   ► And then if you do it in an Apple store, people who change your battery on your phone, or

01:05:46 ◼   ► who have changed 100 phone batteries.

01:05:48 ◼   ► How many phone batteries have you changed?

01:05:50 ◼   ► How successful do you think you will be

01:05:53 ◼   ► changing your very first iPhone battery on your iPhone

01:05:56 ◼   ► with the same tools Apple has

01:05:58 ◼   ► as the person who's changed 100 of them?

01:06:00 ◼   ► I'd probably rather the person who changed 100 of them

01:06:03 ◼   ► change my battery rather than trying to do it myself

01:06:05 ◼   ► because the people do it themselves,

01:06:06 ◼   ► like I'm gonna save money and time.

01:06:08 ◼   ► You're not gonna really save money

01:06:11 ◼   ► and I don't think you're gonna save time either.

01:06:14 ◼   ► Like again, if they just sold you the battery

01:06:16 ◼   ► and gave you a flathead screwdriver and said,

01:06:17 ◼   ► go nuts, you're just gonna break your phone.

01:06:19 ◼   ► That's just what's gonna happen.

01:06:21 ◼   ► So I don't know what else Apple could have done here.

01:06:25 ◼   ► If Apple just sold you the part and said,

01:06:29 ◼   ► we want no part of this,

01:06:30 ◼   ► but you can buy an official battery from us,

01:06:32 ◼   ► seems like that's the type of thing that could be abused.

01:06:35 ◼   ► But within the bounds of the way we know Apple wants to act,

01:06:40 ◼   ► like they want everything to be good and proper,

01:06:43 ◼   ► I think they did the best they possibly could

01:06:45 ◼   ► of this program, but in the end,

01:06:46 ◼   ► the program is basically like a teaching tool

01:06:48 ◼   ► to teach people this is not something you wanna do.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think both sides are right

01:06:55 ◼   ► in certain ways.

01:06:57 ◼   ► It is very clear that Apple wants you,

01:06:59 ◼   ► if you're going to tackle a self-service repair,

01:07:02 ◼   ► they want you to do it using the best tools that you can

01:07:05 ◼   ► and using their tools.

01:07:06 ◼   ► And they're basically treating you like a temporary,

01:07:09 ◼   ► authorized service provider just for yourself.

01:07:11 ◼   ► And on the other hand, it is very clear

01:07:16 ◼   ► that they are trying on some level

01:07:19 ◼   ► to make this look like as ridiculous a process as possible.

01:07:24 ◼   ► I don't think that's necessarily 100% malicious.

01:07:27 ◼   ► It's also not 0% malicious.

01:07:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:07:30 ◼   ► But I think the most likely explanation

01:07:34 ◼   ► for how incredibly over the top this situation is

01:07:39 ◼   ► where they're mailing you 80 pounds of gear.

01:07:42 ◼   ► Clearly, as John said, clearly at a loss.

01:07:44 ◼   ► Like there's no way they're making money

01:07:46 ◼   ► from any part of this.

01:07:47 ◼   ► They're clearly losing money each time they do this.

01:07:49 ◼   ► What I suspect is probably the case

01:07:52 ◼   ► is that when they designed all these phones

01:07:56 ◼   ► that are out there that are being able

01:07:58 ◼   ► to be serviced by this program,

01:08:00 ◼   ► I don't think most of them were designed

01:08:02 ◼   ► with a self-service program in mind.

01:08:04 ◼   ► Now, I don't know why they created the self-service program

01:08:07 ◼   ► or when they decided to do it,

01:08:09 ◼   ► or if it was in response to certain threats of legislation

01:08:12 ◼   ► or whatever it might have been.

01:08:14 ◼   ► - It almost seems like it's something

01:08:15 ◼   ► that you would implement to be compliant

01:08:17 ◼   ► with like a lawsuit settlement,

01:08:18 ◼   ► like you have to have a program like this,

01:08:20 ◼   ► therefore you could say, okay, we have one.

01:08:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:08:23 ◼   ► - No one should use it, but it exists.

01:08:25 ◼   ► - Exactly.

01:08:27 ◼   ► I think that is very likely,

01:08:28 ◼   ► it's very likely that this was created

01:08:32 ◼   ► for some reason other than we designed this

01:08:36 ◼   ► from the start to be an economical thing

01:08:39 ◼   ► that we could have people do in their homes

01:08:41 ◼   ► by having us send them a kit or whatever.

01:08:43 ◼   ► Now, I think it's a very reasonable thing to expect

01:08:47 ◼   ► that you should be able to self-service certain things

01:08:48 ◼   ► because yes, while this kit demonstrates

01:08:52 ◼   ► you should probably just bring it to an Apple store

01:08:53 ◼   ► and have them do it for 60 bucks or whatever,

01:08:55 ◼   ► that's assuming you're in a place

01:08:57 ◼   ► where you can easily get to an Apple store.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And so I think the main value of this

01:09:02 ◼   ► is going to be in places or situations

01:09:06 ◼   ► where you can't get to an Apple store

01:09:08 ◼   ► or any authorized reseller.

01:09:09 ◼   ► And there's lots of places around the world

01:09:11 ◼   ► where that's the case.

01:09:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, but in those places,

01:09:13 ◼   ► you're still stuck with getting a very big shipment

01:09:16 ◼   ► that may be a pain for you to ship back,

01:09:18 ◼   ► so that's one thing.

01:09:18 ◼   ► And the second thing is you're still then stuck

01:09:21 ◼   ► with a bunch of tools that you don't know how to use.

01:09:23 ◼   ► Again, with the big fancy garage scenario,

01:09:25 ◼   ► if you give me $100,000 worth of tools,

01:09:27 ◼   ► I can't suddenly repair a car.

01:09:29 ◼   ► I've never used these tools.

01:09:30 ◼   ► They're complicated tools.

01:09:31 ◼   ► I don't know what to do with them exactly.

01:09:33 ◼   ► And even with the best instructions,

01:09:35 ◼   ► fumbling through my very first, you know,

01:09:38 ◼   ► invasive surgery on a phone or a car is not gonna go well.

01:09:41 ◼   ► So I like, no matter how far you are from an Apple store,

01:09:44 ◼   ► like mail the phone out.

01:09:46 ◼   ► Put the phone in the mail, it's easier than putting

01:09:48 ◼   ► two giant Pelican cases in the mail.

01:09:50 ◼   ► - Well, yes, but if you have one and only phone,

01:09:54 ◼   ► what are you gonna do, put the phone in the mail for a week?

01:09:56 ◼   ► - Well, you're just gonna break your one and only phone

01:09:57 ◼   ► when you get the tools, and then what are you gonna do?

01:09:59 ◼   ► You won't even be able to call Apple to tell them

01:10:01 ◼   ► that you broke the phone with it.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I mean, this gets it back to what Margot was saying

01:10:05 ◼   ► with like, okay, so these phones are clearly not designed,

01:10:07 ◼   ► but the self-repair, not designed,

01:10:09 ◼   ► I don't think the Emperor had chewies in mind

01:10:11 ◼   ► when she designed her.

01:10:13 ◼   ► I messed up that line.

01:10:14 ◼   ► It's close, I was close.

01:10:15 ◼   ► I just watched the movie.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Don't think the Emperor had Wookiees in mind

01:10:18 ◼   ► when they designed her.

01:10:19 ◼   ► I think that's pretty close.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Yeah, these phones weren't designed for self-repair

01:10:24 ◼   ► and famously Apple has been making its products

01:10:28 ◼   ► less and less, let's say less and less modular over time.

01:10:31 ◼   ► I mean, it kind of started,

01:10:34 ◼   ► it came to public consciousness with, I think,

01:10:36 ◼   ► the what, 17-inch PowerBook?

01:10:37 ◼   ► Was that the first one that did not have,

01:10:39 ◼   ► first Apple laptop that did not have a replaceable battery?

01:10:42 ◼   ► As in like, you could take it out and put another one in.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Not like replaceable as in you open up the guts,

01:10:47 ◼   ► but like a, I don't know, a removable battery.

01:10:50 ◼   ► The battery was just sealed up inside,

01:10:52 ◼   ► and there was quite a bit of outrage about that.

01:10:54 ◼   ► What if I'm on a long plane flight

01:10:56 ◼   ► and I need a second battery?

01:10:57 ◼   ► I can't, I have a dead battery in here,

01:10:58 ◼   ► I can't take it out and put it in a fresh battery.

01:11:00 ◼   ► It used to be I could buy three batteries

01:11:02 ◼   ► and keep them in my carry-on bag,

01:11:03 ◼   ► and when one battery died, I would take out that battery

01:11:05 ◼   ► and slap it in another one, and I'd be good to go.

01:11:07 ◼   ► And now you've just destroyed that

01:11:09 ◼   ► and made these laptops much worse, right?

01:11:11 ◼   ► Fast forward many years, and all of Apple's laptops

01:11:14 ◼   ► have sealed-in batteries, and of course,

01:11:16 ◼   ► Apple's phones have sealed-in batteries,

01:11:17 ◼   ► which wasn't always the case before.

01:11:18 ◼   ► Used to be able to get a feature phone or a dumb phone

01:11:21 ◼   ► or whatever we call them these days.

01:11:22 ◼   ► You usually be able to swap the batteries.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Sometimes you had to open up the whole back of the case,

01:11:25 ◼   ► but you could take out a battery and put in a fresh one.

01:11:28 ◼   ► yourself at home, it was pretty easy to do.

01:11:31 ◼   ► And so there have been a couple of projects to say,

01:11:34 ◼   ► wouldn't it be cool if a modern smartphone was like that?

01:11:37 ◼   ► I had to go to Google for a bunch of these

01:11:39 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't remember how long ago they were

01:11:40 ◼   ► or what they were called.

01:11:41 ◼   ► There is a bunch of them.

01:11:42 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes to a CNET article

01:11:45 ◼   ► that actually has a roundup of seven modular phones.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Apparently a lot of people have made a run at this idea

01:11:51 ◼   ► because it's an intriguing idea.

01:11:53 ◼   ► Imagine, picture an iPhone, but imagine it was modular

01:11:56 ◼   ► where the back was a bunch of little Lego pieces

01:11:58 ◼   ► and you could pick which camera you want

01:12:00 ◼   ► and how much SSD space and how big the battery is

01:12:04 ◼   ► and a bunch of different modules

01:12:05 ◼   ► that you could slap on the back.

01:12:06 ◼   ► So you could, A, you could sort of build your own phone

01:12:08 ◼   ► like you build your own PC.

01:12:09 ◼   ► Well, I care a lot about the camera,

01:12:10 ◼   ► so I'm gonna be expensive one,

01:12:11 ◼   ► but I'm willing to sacrifice storage.

01:12:14 ◼   ► So I'll buy a small storage module,

01:12:15 ◼   ► but I want a really big battery,

01:12:17 ◼   ► so I'm gonna buy the big battery module.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Apple used to do this on its laptops

01:12:20 ◼   ► where you could get a laptop

01:12:21 ◼   ► or you'd have two removable slots

01:12:24 ◼   ► and you could either put two batteries in,

01:12:25 ◼   ► one battery and left one battery on the right,

01:12:27 ◼   ► or you could just put a battery on the left

01:12:28 ◼   ► and the floppy drive on the right,

01:12:30 ◼   ► depending if you needed a floppy drive or not,

01:12:32 ◼   ► like a modular smartphone.

01:12:34 ◼   ► The one people may remember is Project Aura from Google.

01:12:38 ◼   ► That was in 2014, I never would have picked that.

01:12:39 ◼   ► I thought it was more recent than that,

01:12:41 ◼   ► but apparently it was a while ago.

01:12:43 ◼   ► And the reason you haven't heard of most of these

01:12:45 ◼   ► is because I don't think any of them shipped.

01:12:48 ◼   ► I may be wrong.

01:12:48 ◼   ► I know someone did ship a modular laptop,

01:12:50 ◼   ► and I forget the name of that one,

01:12:51 ◼   ► but not sure any of these modular phones shipped.

01:12:55 ◼   ► And so this idea is, it's very attractive

01:13:00 ◼   ► because then you wouldn't need a self repair kit.

01:13:01 ◼   ► Like if you could just snap the battery out,

01:13:03 ◼   ► like a little Lego piece off the back of your phone,

01:13:05 ◼   ► A, you could change batteries real easily during the day,

01:13:07 ◼   ► which would be a game changer for people

01:13:09 ◼   ► with giant battery cases and backup batteries

01:13:12 ◼   ► and recharging their phone every Friday morning.

01:13:13 ◼   ► But if you could just like slap off a little piece

01:13:16 ◼   ► of your phone and slap on another one,

01:13:17 ◼   ► that would be amazing.

01:13:18 ◼   ► And B, it really would let people sort of customize

01:13:21 ◼   ► and hot rod their phones and specify them

01:13:25 ◼   ► according to their priorities.

01:13:27 ◼   ► If someone, all they care about is battery,

01:13:28 ◼   ► they would fill the whole back of their thing with battery.

01:13:31 ◼   ► And you know, even take the camera slot thing

01:13:33 ◼   ► as like, I don't need a camera, I just need battery all day

01:13:35 ◼   ► 'cause I'm on a construction site or whatever, you know,

01:13:36 ◼   ► like you could really customize these things

01:13:39 ◼   ► to the extent allowed by the size of the form factor,

01:13:40 ◼   ► obviously, but then people could choose

01:13:42 ◼   ► to have a really thick phone or a really thin phone

01:13:43 ◼   ► and so on and so forth.

01:13:44 ◼   ► But of course, the reason this doesn't exist

01:13:46 ◼   ► is because doing that,

01:13:48 ◼   ► this is kind of a naked robotic core thing,

01:13:50 ◼   ► every time you put like little cases

01:13:52 ◼   ► around each one of these components,

01:13:53 ◼   ► each one of the Lego bricks

01:13:54 ◼   ► has to have its own little case.

01:13:56 ◼   ► And then the cases have to have little connectors

01:13:58 ◼   ► and the connectors have to have little places

01:13:59 ◼   ► where the connectors connect

01:14:00 ◼   ► and then those have to be seated into something

01:14:02 ◼   ► that needs to be a superstructure.

01:14:04 ◼   ► That adds layers and layers and layers

01:14:06 ◼   ► and millimeters and millimeters and millimeters to the phone.

01:14:08 ◼   ► And it becomes thicker, heavier, more complicated,

01:14:12 ◼   ► probably delicate because these connectors

01:14:14 ◼   ► need to be small just because it has to fit

01:14:16 ◼   ► in a smartphone and problem prone, hard to make, waterproof.

01:14:19 ◼   ► Now you get Dorito crumbs underneath the little thing

01:14:21 ◼   ► you try to slap in your SSD and the Dorito crumb

01:14:23 ◼   ► gets in the way and it shortens something out

01:14:25 ◼   ► and it's just way more complicated

01:14:27 ◼   ► than a completely sealed thing like our smartphones, right?

01:14:30 ◼   ► But hey, we'll get rid of this whole self repair thing.

01:14:33 ◼   ► So this hasn't worked.

01:14:34 ◼   ► And I think it was something too,

01:14:37 ◼   ► it was either Dithering or the talk show,

01:14:39 ◼   ► one of those Gruber vehicles where they were discussing

01:14:41 ◼   ► these projects and saying, yeah, that's never gonna happen.

01:14:43 ◼   ► So people keep trying, it sounds like a good idea,

01:14:45 ◼   ► but it's just not gonna happen.

01:14:46 ◼   ► And you know, when someone says never, what happens?

01:14:48 ◼   ► The ghost of infinite timeline comes out and says,

01:14:51 ◼   ► "Did you say never?"

01:14:54 ◼   ► Ooh, you know, you can't say never, never say never.

01:14:57 ◼   ► What it made me think of is this.

01:15:00 ◼   ► So yeah, we don't have the tech to do this now.

01:15:02 ◼   ► It's a cool idea, people have tried, kudos for trying,

01:15:05 ◼   ► but we're not quite there yet.

01:15:06 ◼   ► We just, we don't have the tech for it, right?

01:15:08 ◼   ► But phones are not going to, phones as a thing,

01:15:14 ◼   ► like you hold it in your hand and it's got a screen on it

01:15:16 ◼   ► and you look at it and stuff.

01:15:17 ◼   ► There are limits on phones.

01:15:21 ◼   ► A phone the size of, you know,

01:15:23 ◼   ► like the head of a pin is useless.

01:15:25 ◼   ► You can't see anything, the screen's too small.

01:15:27 ◼   ► A phone the size of a dinner menu,

01:15:28 ◼   ► not particularly useful, even if it folds, right?

01:15:31 ◼   ► There is a limit to handheld phone size things.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So to the extent that we continue to have things

01:15:36 ◼   ► that we hold in our hands,

01:15:38 ◼   ► the size and form factor of phone has reasonable limits.

01:15:42 ◼   ► At a certain point, kind of like we always talk about

01:15:45 ◼   ► with like audio and to a lesser extent video,

01:15:48 ◼   ► we get to the point where technology is sufficient

01:15:51 ◼   ► to max out the form factor.

01:15:53 ◼   ► So we can make audio and distribute audio

01:15:57 ◼   ► over the internet that is good enough

01:15:58 ◼   ► for everybody's human ears.

01:16:00 ◼   ► Human ears are not changing particularly quickly.

01:16:03 ◼   ► Technology has caught up with them.

01:16:05 ◼   ► If you want to, you can stream lossless,

01:16:07 ◼   ► extremely high bit rate, totally saturates the ability

01:16:11 ◼   ► of any human ear over the internet in real time,

01:16:14 ◼   ► and like, we can do that.

01:16:15 ◼   ► We did it, right?

01:16:18 ◼   ► Everything else after that,

01:16:19 ◼   ► there's no point in making that any better, right?

01:16:22 ◼   ► If that fits within a particular constraint, it's fine.

01:16:26 ◼   ► At a certain point, the technology to make

01:16:29 ◼   ► a phone-sized thing with sufficient computing

01:16:33 ◼   ► and display prowess to be a phone-sized thing

01:16:37 ◼   ► will have enough headroom to support crap like this,

01:16:41 ◼   ► to support a superstructure,

01:16:43 ◼   ► a little shell around everything, all the little connectors,

01:16:46 ◼   ► because the parts of the phone will have gotten

01:16:48 ◼   ► small enough that we have that excess capacity to do that.

01:16:53 ◼   ► This has already happened with existing phones,

01:16:55 ◼   ► with us having the excess capacity to, you know,

01:16:59 ◼   ► make the batteries bigger,

01:17:00 ◼   ► because the computer parts are smaller.

01:17:01 ◼   ► If you look at like the original iPhone,

01:17:04 ◼   ► or any, like a Palm device or whatever,

01:17:06 ◼   ► used to be that the computer parts of it were way bigger compared to the rest of it.

01:17:10 ◼   ► But now if you open up an iPhone it's just basically a battery in there and like the

01:17:13 ◼   ► tiniest little logic board you could ever possibly imagine.

01:17:16 ◼   ► And that trend can then use over time, right?

01:17:18 ◼   ► So at a certain point you will be able to make a compromised phone where you sacrifice

01:17:25 ◼   ► absolute maximum computing power or whatever because you can always make a better phone

01:17:29 ◼   ► without all this crap, but you will be able to sacrifice it and still have an okay decent