ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have an update about our household Alexa situation.

00:00:05 ◼   ► - Oh, is this for everyone or just for the two of us?

00:00:08 ◼   ► Are we live? - Oh, we're live.

00:00:10 ◼   ► - Okay. - It's for every device

00:00:11 ◼   ► that responds to that trigger word that you just said.

00:00:14 ◼   ► - Apparently. (laughing)

00:00:16 ◼   ► - I decided to finally not say like,

00:00:18 ◼   ► "Hey, everybody, we're live!"

00:00:19 ◼   ► And started with that.

00:00:20 ◼   ► 'Cause it's very, like the first thing I do when,

00:00:23 ◼   ► so after we record the show, first thing I do,

00:00:26 ◼   ► usually I upload the bootleg while we are still talking

00:00:31 ◼   ► off the air, if we're doing like, you know,

00:00:32 ◼   ► scheduling discussions or whatever, like,

00:00:34 ◼   ► 'cause I wanna get the bootleg up as fast as possible

00:00:36 ◼   ► for the members, so normally I will upload the bootleg

00:00:39 ◼   ► like in the browser with the drag and drop thing

00:00:42 ◼   ► while we're still talking.

00:00:43 ◼   ► And I think it's the right file, 'cause you know,

00:00:45 ◼   ► like I have a system that has made it the right file

00:00:47 ◼   ► every time, but because I haven't actually listened

00:00:50 ◼   ► to it yet, I wanna make sure, like before I go to bed

00:00:54 ◼   ► that night, 'cause you know, we record at night,

00:00:56 ◼   ► usually I go to bed right afterwards, basically.

00:00:58 ◼   ► I'm in Casey's sleepy shirt, and--

00:01:01 ◼   ► - Nice.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - Anyway, normally I have to, you know,

00:01:04 ◼   ► my final task for the night after I close up the studio,

00:01:08 ◼   ► you know, leave, turn the lights off,

00:01:09 ◼   ► my final task for the night is to empty the dog before bed.

00:01:12 ◼   ► And so I bring him outside, and while I'm doing that,

00:01:16 ◼   ► I open up my Overcast app on my phone,

00:01:19 ◼   ► and I look for the bootleg that was released,

00:01:21 ◼   ► 10 minutes earlier, whatever it was, and I hit play

00:01:23 ◼   ► and just make sure that it's the right episode.

00:01:26 ◼   ► But because all of them begin with,

00:01:28 ◼   ► hi, everybody, we're live!

00:01:29 ◼   ► It's hard for me to really know whether it's the right one

00:01:34 ◼   ► or not until like at least a few seconds in.

00:01:36 ◼   ► So I was trying to save myself a few seconds of uncertainty

00:01:40 ◼   ► and time later tonight by beginning this one

00:01:44 ◼   ► with something else.

00:01:46 ◼   ► - I see.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Well, you know, it's funny you say that,

00:01:48 ◼   ► because I don't know if the two of you have noticed,

00:01:51 ◼   ► and I promised myself I wouldn't call attention to it,

00:01:53 ◼   ► but here we are.

00:01:54 ◼   ► I have been trying for the last several weeks

00:01:56 ◼   ► to have some sort of like, I don't wanna say icebreaker,

00:02:00 ◼   ► 'cause that has all the terrible connotations

00:02:02 ◼   ► of like awkward corporate gatherings,

00:02:03 ◼   ► but like some sort of fun question,

00:02:05 ◼   ► sorta kinda in the spirit of Snell Talk

00:02:08 ◼   ► at the beginning of Upgrade,

00:02:09 ◼   ► but just some sort of fun question that I come up with

00:02:13 ◼   ► that I can ask the two of you each week

00:02:14 ◼   ► that's kind of off the wall and totally random.

00:02:17 ◼   ► And the first couple of weeks I've decided to try this,

00:02:20 ◼   ► I was able to sneak it in right up front, it was great.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And the last two weeks,

00:02:24 ◼   ► I've been dedicated to doing it at some point,

00:02:26 ◼   ► but I've been doing it semi-randomly

00:02:28 ◼   ► in like the middle of the pre-show,

00:02:30 ◼   ► or like as the transition from pre-show to follow-up.

00:02:33 ◼   ► And I've been trying so hard not to call attention to it,

00:02:35 ◼   ► so it would be more natural and take you guys off guard,

00:02:38 ◼   ► but now you have ruined yet another one of my attempts.

00:02:41 ◼   ► And I think last time, in your defense,

00:02:42 ◼   ► last time was my fault, 'cause I made a clubhouse joke

00:02:44 ◼   ► and then everything went off the rails.

00:02:45 ◼   ► But you have ruined yet another attempt of mine,

00:02:48 ◼   ► because I do have a question for you all,

00:02:50 ◼   ► to have some sort of icebreaker in the beginning,

00:02:53 ◼   ► and it seems like this is a futile attempt

00:02:56 ◼   ► to add a new feature to the show.

00:02:58 ◼   ► - You both are overthinking this.

00:03:00 ◼   ► Marco's overthinking his like,

00:03:01 ◼   ► "Oh, I've gotta change what I would naturally say."

00:03:03 ◼   ► You're overthinking, like both the thing that you're doing,

00:03:05 ◼   ► Casey, it happens naturally, you don't need to plan to do it.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Just, we just gotta go with the flow, just,

00:03:10 ◼   ► I don't know why seven or eight years in,

00:03:12 ◼   ► it's all of a sudden you're trying to do this thing.

00:03:14 ◼   ► Just go, it'll be fine.

00:03:16 ◼   ► - Well, so here actually, since you've asked,

00:03:19 ◼   ► now we're really going off in the weeds,

00:03:21 ◼   ► I worry a lot, and worry is maybe too strong a word,

00:03:25 ◼   ► I think a lot, and I'm somewhat worried,

00:03:28 ◼   ► that one day we're gonna wake up

00:03:31 ◼   ► and we're gonna realize that we haven't really

00:03:35 ◼   ► changed with the times,

00:03:36 ◼   ► and we're gonna talk about that a little bit.

00:03:38 ◼   ► No, just hear me out for a second,

00:03:39 ◼   ► before you jump all over me. - Casey, I have news for you,

00:03:41 ◼   ► we already aren't changing with the times, and it's fine.

00:03:44 ◼   ► - No, no, and that's fair, and that's fair, and that's fair.

00:03:46 ◼   ► But I think that there are some things

00:03:48 ◼   ► that we can do while not destroying the spirit of the show,

00:03:52 ◼   ► and Ask ATP is an excellent example of that,

00:03:54 ◼   ► which we totally didn't steal from Upgrade, not one bit.

00:03:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's the new feature of the show

00:03:57 ◼   ► that we added five and a half years ago.

00:03:59 ◼   ► - Well, still. (laughing)

00:04:00 ◼   ► But no, I think that there are things that,

00:04:02 ◼   ► I just don't wanna look around in five or 10 years,

00:04:06 ◼   ► God willing, and be like, wow,

00:04:08 ◼   ► we really haven't done anything different

00:04:10 ◼   ► in a long, long time.

00:04:11 ◼   ► And I don't think we're really guilty of that yet.

00:04:13 ◼   ► I think membership almost a year ago now,

00:04:16 ◼   ► I think that was a great development,

00:04:18 ◼   ► and I really am pleased with how that's going.

00:04:20 ◼   ► And actually, I was thinking earlier today,

00:04:22 ◼   ► it's been a while since we've thanked everyone properly,

00:04:25 ◼   ► and thank you, everyone.

00:04:26 ◼   ► - Thanks, everyone.

00:04:27 ◼   ► - It really means a lot to all three of us.

00:04:29 ◼   ► I think membership is a nice change like that,

00:04:31 ◼   ► but I don't wanna be in a situation

00:04:33 ◼   ► where all of a sudden I realize the world has moved on,

00:04:36 ◼   ► and us three old dudes are sitting here

00:04:39 ◼   ► just talking to each other, which, for the record,

00:04:41 ◼   ► I would still be doing, even if no one was listening.

00:04:43 ◼   ► But if there's something that we can be doing differently,

00:04:45 ◼   ► or some little spice that we can add to the show

00:04:48 ◼   ► from time to time, I wanna do that.

00:04:49 ◼   ► And I'm scared that I'm gonna get complacent,

00:04:51 ◼   ► and I'll just speak for myself now,

00:04:52 ◼   ► that I'm gonna get complacent and just be like,

00:04:54 ◼   ► oh, I'm sure everything's great.

00:04:56 ◼   ► And then we become ever more irrelevant

00:04:59 ◼   ► with each passing day,

00:05:00 ◼   ► which is probably happening anyway.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - You're getting a head start

00:05:02 ◼   ► on your midlife crisis here or something.

00:05:04 ◼   ► You should relax, Casey, 'cause if you're wondering

00:05:07 ◼   ► if we're falling behind the times,

00:05:08 ◼   ► just watch to see on all of the Mac websites

00:05:11 ◼   ► whatever topic we've been talking about

00:05:13 ◼   ► for the past month suddenly appear,

00:05:14 ◼   ► and you will know that we are not behind the times.

00:05:16 ◼   ► We are, as always, slightly ahead.

00:05:17 ◼   ► - There's some attitudes to that,

00:05:20 ◼   ► and I hope that remains true.

00:05:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think a lot about

00:05:23 ◼   ► making sure our show is good.

00:05:25 ◼   ► I care a lot about that, as I know you both do.

00:05:29 ◼   ► And I think the key to a lot of this stuff

00:05:32 ◼   ► is to know who you are

00:05:35 ◼   ► and to know who your audience slash customers are,

00:05:39 ◼   ► and to do what keeps you comfortably

00:05:43 ◼   ► making something that's good for you and for them

00:05:46 ◼   ► without trying to be something you're not also.

00:05:48 ◼   ► Like this is something like,

00:05:50 ◼   ► you look around the tech business,

00:05:52 ◼   ► you got places like Twitter

00:05:54 ◼   ► that is famous for not knowing who they are,

00:05:58 ◼   ► always trying to be somebody else

00:06:00 ◼   ► to varying degrees of failure.

00:06:03 ◼   ► They never succeed, they just fail in different ways.

00:06:06 ◼   ► Twitter's always trying to be mostly Facebook

00:06:10 ◼   ► and oftentimes other things mixed in.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - How's your reels?

00:06:14 ◼   ► - Oh God, I don't even know what that is, I'm so glad.

00:06:16 ◼   ► - Isn't that the Instagram Stories--

00:06:18 ◼   ► - Oh, that's Instagram TikTok, I think, isn't it?

00:06:21 ◼   ► - I don't even know anymore.

00:06:22 ◼   ► - Or is it Twitter TikTok, Instagram, I don't know.

00:06:24 ◼   ► Anyway. (laughs)

00:06:26 ◼   ► If you try to be something you're not,

00:06:29 ◼   ► then that doesn't usually work.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Everyone can tell and it doesn't go well.

00:06:34 ◼   ► But I think if your customers

00:06:37 ◼   ► have a certain thing they want,

00:06:39 ◼   ► and you can keep giving it to them

00:06:41 ◼   ► in a good, high quality way that doesn't feel stale,

00:06:46 ◼   ► it just feels consistent,

00:06:48 ◼   ► there's nothing wrong with that,

00:06:49 ◼   ► as long as it's still good.

00:06:50 ◼   ► Usually when things start feeling stale

00:06:52 ◼   ► is when they start getting super repetitive

00:06:54 ◼   ► and they run out of things to talk about

00:06:57 ◼   ► and you're just fishing for topics every week.

00:07:01 ◼   ► That happens to podcasts after a while,

00:07:04 ◼   ► especially those that are not particularly news-based.

00:07:07 ◼   ► But that hasn't happened to us

00:07:08 ◼   ► because we are so news-based

00:07:09 ◼   ► and I think we also have a healthy amount of diversion

00:07:14 ◼   ► every episode that--

00:07:16 ◼   ► - Jeez, whatever do you mean?

00:07:17 ◼   ► - Keeps people interested.

00:07:18 ◼   ► - Maybe too much diversion.

00:07:20 ◼   ► - Possibly, yeah.

00:07:21 ◼   ► And we've actually had ebbs and flows

00:07:23 ◼   ► of the amount of diversion that we allow into the show

00:07:26 ◼   ► versus some kind of topic or structure,

00:07:28 ◼   ► the amount of follow-up we allow in,

00:07:30 ◼   ► the amount of questions, that fluctuates over time.

00:07:33 ◼   ► But I think as long as we keep putting out

00:07:34 ◼   ► a show that our listeners like,

00:07:36 ◼   ► that we don't really have to necessarily care

00:07:39 ◼   ► about what everyone else is doing

00:07:41 ◼   ► as long as what we are doing is working for our customers,

00:07:44 ◼   ► which so far it seems to be.

00:07:46 ◼   ► And there's lots, I mean, the good thing,

00:07:49 ◼   ► the tech business is so big.

00:07:51 ◼   ► Like, there's so much.

00:07:52 ◼   ► I love that we can go through entire episodes

00:07:56 ◼   ► not covering some massive story

00:07:59 ◼   ► that everyone else that we listen to

00:08:00 ◼   ► has covered on their shows.

00:08:02 ◼   ► And it doesn't matter.

00:08:03 ◼   ► No one complains to us like,

00:08:04 ◼   ► "Why didn't you talk about this big, like, you know,

00:08:07 ◼   ► "court drama or Android phone?"

00:08:09 ◼   ► It's like, well, that's just not, you know,

00:08:10 ◼   ► we ran out of time, we talk about other stuff more.

00:08:12 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:08:13 ◼   ► And I'm fine with that.

00:08:15 ◼   ► To keep making our show for our listeners

00:08:19 ◼   ► who seem to be fine with it,

00:08:21 ◼   ► and whatever everyone else does, that's up to them.

00:08:24 ◼   ► But as long as we know who we are and we know what we do

00:08:27 ◼   ► and we keep doing that for our customers

00:08:29 ◼   ► who keep wanting it, I think we're fine.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - Jon, thoughts?

00:08:33 ◼   ► - Don't worry, Casey, be happy.

00:08:35 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:08:36 ◼   ► - Marco, we got way derailed from,

00:08:38 ◼   ► you apparently have some Amazon tubes

00:08:41 ◼   ► that are in or out of your house.

00:08:44 ◼   ► - Well, the tubes that we haven't been able to get

00:08:45 ◼   ► for some time, we're now in the balls phase.

00:08:47 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:08:48 ◼   ► 'Cause that's all they make now,

00:08:49 ◼   ► they just make a series of balls.

00:08:50 ◼   ► But the recent Amazon Echo balls,

00:08:54 ◼   ► I talked about them when they first came out

00:08:57 ◼   ► a few months back, it seemed like a really good buy

00:08:59 ◼   ► 'cause they were something like 70 bucks or 100 bucks,

00:09:02 ◼   ► something like that.

00:09:04 ◼   ► And they were kind of between the HomePod Mini

00:09:07 ◼   ► and the big HomePod, and they sound pretty decent,

00:09:10 ◼   ► especially for their price.

00:09:12 ◼   ► And the Alexa ecosystem has historically been

00:09:16 ◼   ► just much more reliable for us,

00:09:18 ◼   ► it's been faster to respond to voice queries,

00:09:21 ◼   ► it had way more features, things like it had named

00:09:24 ◼   ► multiple timers many years ago now.

00:09:27 ◼   ► I regret to inform you all that tonight we unplugged

00:09:30 ◼   ► the last Echo in our house, and we've gone all HomePod/HomePod

00:09:35 ◼   ► Mini because a combination of two factors.

00:09:40 ◼   ► The HomePod Siri has gotten better enough

00:09:43 ◼   ► and more reliable enough that the gap has narrowed.

00:09:47 ◼   ► The Alexa ecosystem is still significantly faster

00:09:51 ◼   ► and more consistent to respond,

00:09:53 ◼   ► but the HomePod got close in many ways.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And it got close enough now that we're willing

00:09:58 ◼   ► to tolerate the difference most of the time.

00:10:00 ◼   ► In that regard.

00:10:02 ◼   ► But where the Echos have a problem is that the new

00:10:05 ◼   ► Echo Ball series, the hardware is terrible.

00:10:09 ◼   ► It's very buggy, and we've had, we own two of them,

00:10:13 ◼   ► we've had multiple issues with both of them.

00:10:16 ◼   ► And right now, I don't think I can recommend anybody

00:10:19 ◼   ► buy this generation of Echos, they're terrible.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Like we have issues where the tweeter will fail,

00:10:25 ◼   ► there's two drivers in there, I'm pretty sure,

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure there's a tweeter and a woofer.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And the tweeter, which does like the whole high range

00:10:31 ◼   ► of sound frequencies, will frequently fail

00:10:33 ◼   ► until a power cycle.

00:10:35 ◼   ► And the way this manifests is the sound sounds

00:10:38 ◼   ► really muffled, as though all the music and stuff

00:10:40 ◼   ► is playing through a pillow, because the high frequency

00:10:44 ◼   ► sound is just dying, it's just not being there.

00:10:46 ◼   ► And that will persist until a reboot.

00:10:47 ◼   ► And I thought it was a hardware issue, we did a return

00:10:50 ◼   ► and a repurchase of one of them, and they both,

00:10:54 ◼   ► both the returned one, the one that replaced it,

00:10:58 ◼   ► and the second one we have in the house,

00:11:00 ◼   ► all have this problem.

00:11:01 ◼   ► So I think it's just a problem with this whole generation.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And we also have software issues with them.

00:11:06 ◼   ► Like the Echo service has been really buggy on these.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And I don't know if that's just a thing recently

00:11:13 ◼   ► with Echo service with all Echos,

00:11:14 ◼   ► 'cause these are the only ones we've used recently,

00:11:16 ◼   ► but we are all in on HomePods now, and so far it's fine.

00:11:20 ◼   ► - Jon, are you still running like 44 different

00:11:22 ◼   ► voice assistants in the house?

00:11:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, when you're talking about this,

00:11:24 ◼   ► I was just thinking about the fact that I have

00:11:26 ◼   ► a Google Home Mini, still unopened, sealed in the box,

00:11:30 ◼   ► 'cause the last free one that we got

00:11:32 ◼   ► as part of whatever Google stuff we're paying for,

00:11:34 ◼   ► just no one in the house wanted.

00:11:36 ◼   ► So we have, yeah, I've got all of them I talk to,

00:11:40 ◼   ► most of them, at least once a week probably,

00:11:43 ◼   ► talk to my big Siri ball, the full-size Siri the most,

00:11:47 ◼   ► 'cause it controls my lights.

00:11:48 ◼   ► But yeah, I got a lot of these things in the house.

00:11:51 ◼   ► I don't know what I'm gonna do with that

00:11:54 ◼   ► completely sealed Google Home Mini.

00:11:57 ◼   ► It's pretty good as far as like,

00:11:59 ◼   ► it's better than the Amazon Dot, I feel like,

00:12:01 ◼   ► 'cause we've got one of those too.

00:12:02 ◼   ► Like it's better in terms of the speaker is slightly better,

00:12:04 ◼   ► it's nicer looking, and the Google Assistant

00:12:07 ◼   ► is actually pretty smart and good at answering questions.

00:12:10 ◼   ► It's just that we don't have that many rooms in the house,

00:12:12 ◼   ► and in general I don't bring these things

00:12:15 ◼   ► up into the second floor where the bedrooms are,

00:12:17 ◼   ► so it's all just first floor stuff, so I don't know.

00:12:20 ◼   ► I'll just give it away to a listener or something.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Like I feel like the, you know,

00:12:26 ◼   ► there's no way I would run the Google one in my house,

00:12:29 ◼   ► just 'cause, you know, privacy, trust, and everything.

00:12:31 ◼   ► Google, I mean, granted, Google and Amazon

00:12:34 ◼   ► are both creepy companies, but I feel like Google

00:12:36 ◼   ► is creepier in certain ways.

00:12:39 ◼   ► But the Amazon one, like I was willing to run it

00:12:41 ◼   ► all this time because it was so much better

00:12:44 ◼   ► than the alternatives.

00:12:45 ◼   ► Like first it was the only one for a while

00:12:47 ◼   ► that was really defining its category,

00:12:49 ◼   ► and then when the alternatives came out,

00:12:51 ◼   ► it was just so much better, you know?

00:12:53 ◼   ► And it remained so much better for quite some time.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And so when something is that much better,

00:12:59 ◼   ► it becomes worthwhile to a lot of people

00:13:00 ◼   ► to overlook or tolerate the downsides

00:13:04 ◼   ► of having that company's stuff in your house

00:13:06 ◼   ► for the upside it's providing.

00:13:08 ◼   ► But when that gap became smaller,

00:13:10 ◼   ► when the HomePods have slowly gotten better,

00:13:12 ◼   ► and when the Echo got way worse,

00:13:14 ◼   ► that was no longer worth overcoming.

00:13:16 ◼   ► So now, it's like, while the Echo is still better

00:13:19 ◼   ► at certain things, I'd rather not run them in my house

00:13:22 ◼   ► if they're not gonna be massively better than the HomePods,

00:13:24 ◼   ► and they're not anymore.

00:13:25 ◼   ► - All right, so I need my icebreaker.

00:13:28 ◼   ► It's required now.

00:13:29 ◼   ► That's the way the show works, despite what you guys made.

00:13:32 ◼   ► - You think you're gonna do an icebreaker.

00:13:33 ◼   ► You have like too many topics,

00:13:34 ◼   ► and now you think you still need to throw in an icebreaker?

00:13:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm trying to get it in every episode, man.

00:13:39 ◼   ► It's too much. - It's too much.

00:13:40 ◼   ► If you're gonna do that, see,

00:13:42 ◼   ► Marco's got his thing that he does before a follow-up,

00:13:44 ◼   ► and then you've got your thing you do before a follow-up,

00:13:45 ◼   ► and then sometimes Marco has two things they do.

00:13:48 ◼   ► You're just building a whole separate show

00:13:49 ◼   ► before we begin the show, you guys.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - You know what, that's bonus content.

00:13:52 ◼   ► You're welcome, everyone.

00:13:53 ◼   ► All right, so I would ask this question of Jon,

00:13:57 ◼   ► and I probably will try because I'm a fool,

00:13:59 ◼   ► but Marco, since you can deal with hypotheticals

00:14:03 ◼   ► that are not completely and perfectly fleshed out

00:14:05 ◼   ► in every measurable way, you are given the keys

00:14:08 ◼   ► to either a boat, and that can be a speedboat, a sailboat,

00:14:11 ◼   ► it doesn't matter, a yacht, whatever, or an airplane,

00:14:15 ◼   ► and let's assume something more in the direction of Cessna

00:14:18 ◼   ► and probably with a boat less in the direction of yacht,

00:14:21 ◼   ► more in the direction of a speedboat or sailboat.

00:14:23 ◼   ► You're given the keys to something like a personal-ish size,

00:14:27 ◼   ► you know, seating maybe four to 10 people, plane or boat.

00:14:31 ◼   ► All of the expenses are paid for.

00:14:33 ◼   ► You are magically, through the magic of the Matrix,

00:14:37 ◼   ► able to pilot whatever it is that you choose.

00:14:40 ◼   ► What kind of vehicle are you choosing?

00:14:43 ◼   ► - Boat, no question, I'll tell you why.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I don't particularly love boats, honestly,

00:14:48 ◼   ► but two things, number one, you know,

00:14:50 ◼   ► you said I have the skill to drive them,

00:14:52 ◼   ► however, I still think I'd be more comfortable

00:14:55 ◼   ► driving a boat because I'd be way less likely

00:14:57 ◼   ► to die while doing it.

00:14:58 ◼   ► So that's number one.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Number two, again, while this is not something

00:15:05 ◼   ► I actually plan to ever indulge myself in in real life,

00:15:09 ◼   ► having a boat would provide some utility for my actual life

00:15:14 ◼   ► in the sense that we frequently have to travel

00:15:16 ◼   ► across a body of water, and having your own boat

00:15:19 ◼   ► does make that better in certain ways,

00:15:21 ◼   ► whereas I don't really have any problems

00:15:23 ◼   ► that having a small plane would solve for me.

00:15:25 ◼   ► I'm not frequently traveling moderate distances

00:15:28 ◼   ► across the country, I don't particularly have any drive

00:15:32 ◼   ► to fly, to get in the sky and fly my own plane.

00:15:36 ◼   ► I'm not super-driven to do that,

00:15:37 ◼   ► so they wouldn't have a lot of utility for me,

00:15:39 ◼   ► whereas the boat would have utility,

00:15:41 ◼   ► and I'd be way less likely to die doing it.

00:15:44 ◼   ► - You know, I didn't want you to visit me anyway, then.

00:15:45 ◼   ► Fine.

00:15:49 ◼   ► Now, all kidding aside, if you had a motorboat,

00:15:52 ◼   ► and define that however you want,

00:15:54 ◼   ► I'm not necessarily saying a cigarette boat,

00:15:57 ◼   ► but let's say you had some sort of motorized boat

00:16:00 ◼   ► that moved with some amount of quickness,

00:16:03 ◼   ► I presume there is a place where you are right now

00:16:06 ◼   ► that you could dock it, probably for $11 gazillion,

00:16:08 ◼   ► and then there is a place on the other side of the sound

00:16:11 ◼   ► that you could also dock it temporarily

00:16:13 ◼   ► when you're trying to go to the mainland, is that fair?

00:16:16 ◼   ► - Not the sound. - The bay, and yes.

00:16:18 ◼   ► I knew I probably had that wrong,

00:16:19 ◼   ► and I was like, no, I think it is, sorry.

00:16:21 ◼   ► - It's the Great South Sound, anyway.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - Sorry.

00:16:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's in Long Island.

00:16:25 ◼   ► So the issue with boats here is exactly that.

00:16:30 ◼   ► It's like, you don't just have to buy the boat,

00:16:33 ◼   ► which itself is a whole thing, right?

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:16:35 ◼   ► - All the jokes about it being a hole in the water

00:16:37 ◼   ► you throw money into, there's that,

00:16:39 ◼   ► but then also, you have to pay for parking,

00:16:42 ◼   ► boat parking on both sides.

00:16:43 ◼   ► They don't call it that, they call it, I think, slips,

00:16:45 ◼   ► but you're basically buying boat parking spots,

00:16:48 ◼   ► and yeah, you have to buy them on both sides

00:16:49 ◼   ► of the body of water.

00:16:51 ◼   ► You can't have them year round.

00:16:54 ◼   ► You have to take the boat out of the water for the winter

00:16:56 ◼   ► because it freezes sometimes, as it recently did.

00:16:59 ◼   ► So you have to have boat parking on both sides,

00:17:02 ◼   ► which is, as you mentioned, limited and expensive,

00:17:05 ◼   ► and the boat, which is very expensive

00:17:07 ◼   ► and highly maintenance intensive,

00:17:10 ◼   ► and you have to then have a place and a method

00:17:14 ◼   ► to lift the boat out of the water for the winter

00:17:16 ◼   ► and put it somewhere and wrap it

00:17:19 ◼   ► and do whatever care is required to do that.

00:17:22 ◼   ► And so it's just, it's such a massive pain in the butt

00:17:25 ◼   ► that I feel like it's only worth it

00:17:26 ◼   ► if you really love boating as a thing.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And I don't care about boating as a thing.

00:17:33 ◼   ► Like, I would appreciate the utility in transportation

00:17:37 ◼   ► that it would provide me,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but for the cost of having a boat,

00:17:42 ◼   ► I could hire my own private water taxi

00:17:44 ◼   ► from the ferry company every single time across the bay

00:17:46 ◼   ► and still come out way ahead.

00:17:48 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting.

00:17:49 ◼   ► I didn't think it that way.

00:17:50 ◼   ► I hear you, though.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I don't think it's ever gonna be worth it.

00:17:52 ◼   ► The only reason I indulge this is that you said

00:17:54 ◼   ► all expenses were paid for magically.

00:17:55 ◼   ► - Sure, sure, sure.

00:17:57 ◼   ► All right, Jon, I know you're gonna tear this all apart,

00:17:59 ◼   ► but let's go ahead, make me earn it.

00:18:02 ◼   ► What would you choose?

00:18:03 ◼   ► - You're not gonna add any more constraints to this thing?

00:18:08 ◼   ► - Not yet.

00:18:09 ◼   ► I will fill in blanks if you need me to,

00:18:11 ◼   ► but let's just go with it as presented.

00:18:13 ◼   ► - You can't just change it after I have my answer,

00:18:15 ◼   ► 'cause you're not gonna like my answer,

00:18:17 ◼   ► but given what you've said, my answer fits just fine.

00:18:20 ◼   ► I would pick the one that has the highest resale value

00:18:23 ◼   ► and I would sell it because I do not wanna be on a boat

00:18:25 ◼   ► and I do not wanna be on a plane.

00:18:27 ◼   ► I don't like being on either one of those things.

00:18:29 ◼   ► I wouldn't wanna own them.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I get seasick, I get airsick.

00:18:31 ◼   ► I don't wanna die in a plane crash.

00:18:33 ◼   ► Just none of them appeal to me whatsoever.

00:18:35 ◼   ► It was all about resale value.

00:18:37 ◼   ► - I do not want green eggs and ham.

00:18:38 ◼   ► I do not like you, Sam.

00:18:39 ◼   ► I am.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - All right, that's fair, that's fair.

00:18:41 ◼   ► For me, in this magical world where I could

00:18:45 ◼   ► just snap my fingers and know how to fly a plane

00:18:47 ◼   ► and have a Cessna or something like that,

00:18:50 ◼   ► it is appealing, but I come back to what you had said,

00:18:53 ◼   ► Marco, as much as I was giving you grief about it.

00:18:55 ◼   ► There's not a lot of places that I could just casually

00:18:57 ◼   ► fly my Cessna to, right?

00:19:00 ◼   ► If I'm going to go somewhere, in all likelihood,

00:19:02 ◼   ► I would be driving, and if I don't drive,

00:19:05 ◼   ► then I would need to acquire a rental

00:19:07 ◼   ► or use the piece of garbage,

00:19:09 ◼   ► I forget the term for it, but my understanding

00:19:11 ◼   ► is general aviation has the house car, so to speak,

00:19:14 ◼   ► where it's some beat-up Caprice from 50 years ago

00:19:17 ◼   ► that you can borrow to make a quick errand

00:19:20 ◼   ► or run a quick errand or whatever.

00:19:22 ◼   ► And so, as much as I think flying,

00:19:24 ◼   ► knowing how to fly a plane would be fun,

00:19:25 ◼   ► and flying it would be incredible fun,

00:19:28 ◼   ► the whole falling from the sky thing notwithstanding,

00:19:31 ◼   ► I think I would definitely wanna boat.

00:19:32 ◼   ► And when I was growing up, my family had a Yamaha jet boat,

00:19:38 ◼   ► and it was phenomenally fun.

00:19:40 ◼   ► We used to go on Candlewood Lake in western Connecticut,

00:19:43 ◼   ► and I think we even had it in the lake

00:19:46 ◼   ► that Marco and I met each other at a couple of times.

00:19:50 ◼   ► - You did.

00:19:51 ◼   ► - I remember my grandfather was furious about it

00:19:53 ◼   ► 'cause he hated anything other than a rowboat in that lake,

00:19:55 ◼   ► but here we are.

00:19:56 ◼   ► And then we also brought it to Lake Wallop-Paul-Pack

00:19:59 ◼   ► in Pennsylvania, which you might know from the office,

00:20:03 ◼   ► 'cause it was very near Scranton, actually.

00:20:06 ◼   ► And my grandparents lived there,

00:20:07 ◼   ► and they had a pontoon boat, and that was impossibly fun,

00:20:10 ◼   ► because you could either drive all of these boats

00:20:12 ◼   ► right up on the sand on an island or on the shore,

00:20:16 ◼   ► because a jet boat has an extremely small draft,

00:20:18 ◼   ► a pontoon boat has an extremely small draft.

00:20:20 ◼   ► You didn't need a lot of depth to run them.

00:20:22 ◼   ► Or the pontoon boat made a great floating anchor,

00:20:25 ◼   ► so to speak, where you could just tie up to the pontoon boat

00:20:28 ◼   ► and it was extremely fun, and I miss that dearly.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Gosh, I miss that so much.

00:20:33 ◼   ► And in this fantasy world where I could,

00:20:36 ◼   ► snap my fingers and have whatever boat I wanted,

00:20:38 ◼   ► I would totally get some obnoxious, ridiculous cigarette boat

00:20:41 ◼   ► with two humongous supercharged V8s in it,

00:20:45 ◼   ► and be that jerk that's blowing up and down the lake

00:20:49 ◼   ► at 100 miles an hour, which is probably illegal.

00:20:52 ◼   ► It would just be impossibly fun.

00:20:53 ◼   ► I remember when I was really young,

00:20:56 ◼   ► my dad, who was a mechanic professionally

00:20:59 ◼   ► for a brief window of time before he started working for IBM,

00:21:02 ◼   ► I guess he was just doing this as a side gig.

00:21:04 ◼   ► He took a very wealthy friend of a friend's cigarette boat

00:21:09 ◼   ► and was doing something to the motor,

00:21:11 ◼   ► 'cause there was a Chevy motor in it.

00:21:12 ◼   ► I don't remember what exactly it was.

00:21:14 ◼   ► But I remember when dad was done,

00:21:16 ◼   ► the guy who at the time I think was running

00:21:19 ◼   ► a Chiquita banana distributor in Newburgh,

00:21:23 ◼   ► he took us on the boat on the Hudson,

00:21:25 ◼   ► which is kind of hazardous in many ways.

00:21:27 ◼   ► But nevertheless, I remember doing like 50 or 60

00:21:31 ◼   ► on the water, maybe even more than that,

00:21:33 ◼   ► going under the Newburgh Beacon Bridge and thinking,

00:21:35 ◼   ► well, I usually am in the car with mom and dad up there,

00:21:37 ◼   ► and now I'm on a boat blasting under it,

00:21:39 ◼   ► probably even faster than the cars are going.

00:21:42 ◼   ► It was a lot of fun.

00:21:43 ◼   ► And so I think that's what I would do.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Fastmail.

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00:24:11 ◼   ► - All right, let's start with some follow up

00:24:17 ◼   ► because we haven't been talking for half an hour already.

00:24:20 ◼   ► We have some smart tools doubts from Jeff E.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And Jon, can you tell me about this please?

00:24:26 ◼   ► - This is the topic I was alluding to

00:24:28 ◼   ► and the part before which may or may not make it

00:24:29 ◼   ► into the show where a bunch of Mac websites

00:24:32 ◼   ► have picked up on the story we've been talking about

00:24:33 ◼   ► for a few weeks about potential SSD ware on M1 Macs.

00:24:38 ◼   ► And as we discussed on the past several shows,

00:24:43 ◼   ► this is all derived from people's doubts

00:24:47 ◼   ► about the output of this smart mon tools command line tool.

00:24:53 ◼   ► And as we said earlier, we don't know if that tool

00:24:57 ◼   ► is correct or accurate or able to give valid statistics.

00:25:02 ◼   ► We also don't know how much to compare it to

00:25:04 ◼   ► because unless you've been using this tool for years,

00:25:07 ◼   ► maybe what you're seeing is normal, maybe it's not,

00:25:08 ◼   ► everyone's comparing their numbers, they're not sure.

00:25:10 ◼   ► So Jeff's doubt is based on the tools.

00:25:13 ◼   ► He says, "Drive makers often use raw values

00:25:16 ◼   ► and may obfuscate numbers in the smart fields.

00:25:18 ◼   ► Attributes are not really required to follow any format.

00:25:21 ◼   ► Makers can use their own attributes

00:25:22 ◼   ► and they may not share how to translate them.

00:25:25 ◼   ► Your mileage may vary by vendor."

00:25:26 ◼   ► So the tool to read these attributes from the drive,

00:25:31 ◼   ► obviously the tool is not endorsed by Apple

00:25:33 ◼   ► or blessed by the drive.

00:25:35 ◼   ► And also there's not even a good standard

00:25:37 ◼   ► for tools to comply to to make sure

00:25:39 ◼   ► that they're interpreting the values correctly.

00:25:41 ◼   ► So who knows what's going on?

00:25:42 ◼   ► And in case you were wondering,

00:25:43 ◼   ► all the different stories in Mac websites about this

00:25:46 ◼   ► have added as far as I've been able to tell

00:25:48 ◼   ► zero new information.

00:25:49 ◼   ► So if there was more information,

00:25:51 ◼   ► we would give it to you here,

00:25:52 ◼   ► but there isn't, it's just a bunch of people

00:25:55 ◼   ► running that tool, looking at the numbers

00:25:57 ◼   ► and feeling afraid in varying amounts.

00:26:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seems like there's definitely some smoke here.

00:26:02 ◼   ► You know, one of the things-- - Is there though?

00:26:04 ◼   ► - Well, so it's funny you say that.

00:26:06 ◼   ► So one of the things that I've been wrestling with of late

00:26:11 ◼   ► with regard to the show is when we should indulge

00:26:16 ◼   ► the latest (gasps)

00:26:17 ◼   ► because I feel like there's always a (gasps)

00:26:19 ◼   ► that's happening in this community

00:26:20 ◼   ► and I don't think that's unique to us.

00:26:22 ◼   ► - That's such a great way to put it.

00:26:23 ◼   ► - And I think that's what this is,

00:26:25 ◼   ► like the pearl clutching, oh no.

00:26:28 ◼   ► And I feel like all of us, I'm certainly guilty of this,

00:26:31 ◼   ► like I am no angel, but we all have something

00:26:33 ◼   ► that we've gotten worked up about,

00:26:35 ◼   ► like I don't know, maybe SMS messages for example.

00:26:38 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:26:38 ◼   ► We all have this thing that we're,

00:26:40 ◼   ► perfectly executed, thank you.

00:26:42 ◼   ► So we all have this thing that we're worked up about

00:26:44 ◼   ► and a lot of times if you just give it a week or two,

00:26:48 ◼   ► the thing will get resolved or it'll blow over,

00:26:51 ◼   ► more information will come out or so on and so forth.

00:26:53 ◼   ► And there's a bunch of topics in the show notes document

00:26:56 ◼   ► that nobody can see but us where this thing

00:27:00 ◼   ► was like super dramatic and then it got resolved

00:27:03 ◼   ► and we never had the time to talk about it

00:27:04 ◼   ► and so the three of us keep arguing as to whether or not

00:27:08 ◼   ► we should give it any air time at this point.

00:27:10 ◼   ► And I feel like this is one of those things

00:27:12 ◼   ► that we're right on the cusp between,

00:27:15 ◼   ► yes this is something to legitimately be worked up about

00:27:18 ◼   ► or no, this is just this week's (gasps)

00:27:21 ◼   ► and I'm not sure which one it is

00:27:22 ◼   ► but we'll see over time, I'm quite sure.

00:27:24 ◼   ► - My criteria for deciding which way to go on those things

00:27:27 ◼   ► is is there something technically interesting to discuss?

00:27:30 ◼   ► Because even for stories, like that's why I'm the big

00:27:32 ◼   ► defender of the one story you're referring to

00:27:33 ◼   ► down on the topics 'cause even if the thing is over,

00:27:35 ◼   ► even if the controversy is over,

00:27:37 ◼   ► very often there is some related technical detail

00:27:40 ◼   ► that is not over and is very relevant as a thing

00:27:43 ◼   ► that listeners of the podcast I think would be well served

00:27:47 ◼   ► to know about, right?

00:27:49 ◼   ► And the reason I brought up this whole SSD ware thing

00:27:52 ◼   ► is entirely because I was hoping and expecting

00:27:54 ◼   ► that we would get to some kind of technical explanation.

00:27:58 ◼   ► Yes, in the beginning it's all dramatic and like,

00:28:00 ◼   ► oh well, you know, something weird is going on

00:28:02 ◼   ► and the M1s are new or whatever, but at this point,

00:28:04 ◼   ► if you look at these stories, it's like,

00:28:06 ◼   ► people have it on Intel Macs, people have it on old Macs,

00:28:08 ◼   ► on new Macs, on Macs with lots of RAM,

00:28:09 ◼   ► on Macs with not a lot of RAM, look at my numbers,

00:28:11 ◼   ► look at your numbers, it's all over the map.

00:28:13 ◼   ► Like it's getting less clear instead of more clear.

00:28:16 ◼   ► So this may be one of those things

00:28:18 ◼   ► that we'll have to revisit.

00:28:19 ◼   ► Like when it starts to manifest in a way

00:28:23 ◼   ► that is consistent enough for someone to take action.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So for example, if Apple does like a repair program

00:28:29 ◼   ► where like, oh, if you got one of these early M1 Macs,

00:28:32 ◼   ► there was a problem that was causing the SSDs to wear out

00:28:34 ◼   ► and we'll replace them for free, right?

00:28:37 ◼   ► And then we'll know it's absolutely definitely a thing,

00:28:39 ◼   ► right?

00:28:40 ◼   ► But for now, it's still just a bunch of people

00:28:41 ◼   ► running a command line tool that may or may not be accurate

00:28:44 ◼   ► and looking at numbers that they have no comparison for

00:28:46 ◼   ► except for other people who ran the same thing

00:28:48 ◼   ► 10 minutes ago.

00:28:49 ◼   ► I hope there's some kind of reason for the variance,

00:28:54 ◼   ► but the reason may very well be just like Jeff said,

00:28:57 ◼   ► oh, well actually it's different vendors drives

00:28:59 ◼   ► and they return bogus numbers

00:29:00 ◼   ► or the tool doesn't know how to interpret them.

00:29:01 ◼   ► So that's why it looks like somebody

00:29:03 ◼   ► is writing 100 terabytes an hour

00:29:05 ◼   ► and the other person is writing 100 terabytes every 10 years.

00:29:09 ◼   ► - We spoke last week about Clubhouse

00:29:11 ◼   ► and we're probably gonna talk about that

00:29:12 ◼   ► more in a little bit in how we were all kind of grossed out

00:29:14 ◼   ► to varying degrees about the contacts API in iOS

00:29:18 ◼   ► and how you're allowed to basically slurp up

00:29:22 ◼   ► an entire address book full of data.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And Rick Santos wrote us to point out

00:29:26 ◼   ► that there is an API to auto fill email addresses

00:29:29 ◼   ► without asking for contacts permission.

00:29:31 ◼   ► And this was mentioned in WWDC 2020 sessions.

00:29:34 ◼   ► They're called and we'll put links in the show notes,

00:29:37 ◼   ► build trust through better privacy and auto fill everywhere.

00:29:40 ◼   ► I didn't have the chance to go through these

00:29:42 ◼   ► and kind of look through them

00:29:43 ◼   ► and I'm guessing that neither of you did either,

00:29:46 ◼   ► but nevertheless it sounds like there is

00:29:48 ◼   ► at least some amount of motion in this direction

00:29:50 ◼   ► and where was it?

00:29:52 ◼   ► Was it on dithering that I think that there was some call

00:29:55 ◼   ► like we had said for having a photos-esque front end

00:30:00 ◼   ► from a user perspective to the contacts API?

00:30:04 ◼   ► You can bless a small series of contacts

00:30:06 ◼   ► or yeah you can just slurp everything up, have at it.

00:30:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe I was half remembering this WWDC session

00:30:12 ◼   ► when I was proposing an API like this

00:30:14 ◼   ► because I did watch a lot of these

00:30:16 ◼   ► and I probably had it in the back of my mind.

00:30:18 ◼   ► So I'm glad that's a thing.

00:30:19 ◼   ► The other thing that people have talked about

00:30:20 ◼   ► that I think doesn't quite exist yet

00:30:21 ◼   ► but that I was also alluding to in past episodes

00:30:24 ◼   ► is even for situations where you want to answer the question,

00:30:28 ◼   ► hey, has anybody else in my contact

00:30:31 ◼   ► signed up for this service?

00:30:32 ◼   ► So I can know to like friend them or whatever.

00:30:34 ◼   ► You can even answer that question

00:30:36 ◼   ► without giving out your contacts.

00:30:37 ◼   ► If you just do one-way hashes of everything

00:30:39 ◼   ► and have a standardized system

00:30:40 ◼   ► for sharing those one-way hashes,

00:30:42 ◼   ► you can find out sort of in a secure way

00:30:45 ◼   ► where all you pass over is a bunch of one-way hashes

00:30:48 ◼   ► that cannot be turned into contact information

00:30:50 ◼   ► and then people can match them up.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Now obviously this is up to the existence of these APIs

00:30:56 ◼   ► and also the willingness of the service

00:30:58 ◼   ► to be nice about it, right?

00:30:59 ◼   ► Because currently there's, if you give contact access,

00:31:04 ◼   ► they have access to your actual contacts.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So they could be nice and say,

00:31:06 ◼   ► oh no, we only make hashes of them

00:31:07 ◼   ► and compare them, we don't store them,

00:31:08 ◼   ► but that's not what they're doing.

00:31:09 ◼   ► So, you know, baby steps here.

00:31:12 ◼   ► But the point that we tried to make last week

00:31:15 ◼   ► is lots of things like this are technically possible

00:31:17 ◼   ► where you can get almost all of the features you have now

00:31:20 ◼   ► without giving your contacts to anybody, which is ideal.

00:31:24 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:31:25 ◼   ► We also spoke last week about the rumor

00:31:28 ◼   ► that the iPhone will get an astrophotography mode

00:31:30 ◼   ► and we were fairly clueless about it.

00:31:32 ◼   ► And a handful of people have written in

00:31:34 ◼   ► to point us in the direction of Google,

00:31:37 ◼   ► who has already been doing this,

00:31:38 ◼   ► which we should have known.

00:31:40 ◼   ► And there's an excerpt from Android authority

00:31:43 ◼   ► that I'd like to read.

00:31:44 ◼   ► The Pixel 4 combines 16, 15 second exposures

00:31:47 ◼   ► into a single four minute mega exposure,

00:31:50 ◼   ► for lack of a better term,

00:31:51 ◼   ► while the Pixel 3a and the Pixel 3 combine

00:31:53 ◼   ► four of these frames into a one minute exposure.

00:31:55 ◼   ► To actually capture astrophotography shots,

00:31:58 ◼   ► you'll need a tripod or some other makeshift way

00:32:00 ◼   ► of holding your phone completely still.

00:32:01 ◼   ► And then you'll have to enter night shift mode

00:32:03 ◼   ► for the phone to automatically enter astrophotography mode.

00:32:06 ◼   ► If you click through to this link,

00:32:08 ◼   ► it actually does have some darned impressive images.

00:32:11 ◼   ► And I know that Google phones still images

00:32:14 ◼   ► are generally speaking accepted to be

00:32:16 ◼   ► really, really, really good.

00:32:17 ◼   ► And these are no exception.

00:32:19 ◼   ► They're very impressive and worth checking out.

00:32:21 ◼   ► And obviously the link will be in the show notes.

00:32:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, whether or not Apple actually does this,

00:32:25 ◼   ► the fact that there was a rumor about it

00:32:27 ◼   ► and the fact that Google already does a thing likes it,

00:32:29 ◼   ► puts strong weight towards Apple doing whatever,

00:32:32 ◼   ► whatever they need to do to be competitive

00:32:33 ◼   ► with what Google's doing.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Or they could just not do it at all

00:32:35 ◼   ► and that rumor is totally wrong.

00:32:36 ◼   ► But knowing that this feature exists on Android

00:32:39 ◼   ► really pushes heavily in the direction of Apple saying,

00:32:42 ◼   ► we're gonna do that too.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Or we're gonna do that same thing,

00:32:45 ◼   ► but we have a better way that like doesn't require

00:32:47 ◼   ► a tripod or something.

00:32:48 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:32:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, absolutely.

00:32:51 ◼   ► All right, and then we spoke,

00:32:52 ◼   ► I don't remember if it was the last week, the week before,

00:32:54 ◼   ► but recently we've spoken about magnets and MagSafe

00:32:57 ◼   ► and anti-soder home rates.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Regarding magnets and MagSafe,

00:33:00 ◼   ► accessories can use magnets of their own

00:33:03 ◼   ► to make the attachment stronger.

00:33:04 ◼   ► I've got a car mount for my phone that uses MagSafe.

00:33:06 ◼   ► It has its own magnets to make the attachment stronger

00:33:09 ◼   ► so that the phone doesn't come loose

00:33:10 ◼   ► when you hit a bump while driving.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I'm actually a little confused about this.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Isn't MagSafe, doesn't that require magnets

00:33:16 ◼   ► on both the receptacle and the phone itself?

00:33:19 ◼   ► So like there's going to be quote unquote magnets

00:33:21 ◼   ► of their own regardless, right?

00:33:24 ◼   ► I think I'm just confused.

00:33:25 ◼   ► - I think this is just the idea that like,

00:33:28 ◼   ► so there's probably some standard for MagSafe

00:33:30 ◼   ► or you're supposed to make these many magnets

00:33:32 ◼   ► in these positions of these strengths,

00:33:33 ◼   ► but there's nothing saying that you can't put much,

00:33:38 ◼   ► much stronger magnets on the accessory side

00:33:40 ◼   ► to try to help out, you know what I mean?

00:33:42 ◼   ► So this is the theory.

00:33:45 ◼   ► We got a lot of feedback from people saying,

00:33:47 ◼   ► I have a bunch of MagSafe accessories in my car

00:33:49 ◼   ► and they're just plain old MagSafe,

00:33:51 ◼   ► no super strong magnets,

00:33:52 ◼   ► just like the same ones you'd get from a puck.

00:33:55 ◼   ► And my phone doesn't fall off when I go over a bump.

00:33:57 ◼   ► So apparently it's good enough to work for a lot of people.

00:34:01 ◼   ► The other factor that we talked about,

00:34:03 ◼   ► I forget what Marco called it.

00:34:04 ◼   ► What did you call the force that?

00:34:07 ◼   ► - No, sandwich closing force.

00:34:09 ◼   ► - Anyway, to be a little bit more precise about that,

00:34:14 ◼   ► the magnets are pushing the two surfaces together.

00:34:16 ◼   ► - More precise than sandwich closing force.

00:34:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, the magnets are pushing the two surfaces together,

00:34:19 ◼   ► but the thing you care about in a car mount

00:34:22 ◼   ► is the friction between the two surfaces.

00:34:25 ◼   ► And Apple's puck has terrible friction

00:34:27 ◼   ► because it's hard metal.

00:34:28 ◼   ► It's like a ring of, you see what it looks like.

00:34:30 ◼   ► It's like a little silver ring of metal

00:34:32 ◼   ► and then a slightly indented reason.

00:34:33 ◼   ► That metal region is the surface

00:34:35 ◼   ► that is pressing against your phone.

00:34:38 ◼   ► If you have nothing on your phone,

00:34:40 ◼   ► then it's a ring of smooth metal

00:34:43 ◼   ► against smooth or matte finish glass.

00:34:46 ◼   ► There's not a lot of friction between those surfaces.

00:34:48 ◼   ► If you have leather case,

00:34:49 ◼   ► then it's a ring of smooth metal against leather.

00:34:53 ◼   ► What you really want is tacky rubber against tacky rubber.

00:34:56 ◼   ► And given the same magnetic force,

00:34:58 ◼   ► if you have tacky rubber against tacky rubber

00:35:00 ◼   ► with that same sandwich closing force,

00:35:02 ◼   ► as Mark recalls it, that's actually pretty strong.

00:35:05 ◼   ► That said, it really depends

00:35:06 ◼   ► on the size of the potholes in your area.

00:35:08 ◼   ► I can't imagine any mag-safe thing

00:35:09 ◼   ► surviving some of the things that I've hit

00:35:11 ◼   ► that have bent my actual wheels.

00:35:13 ◼   ► - All right, then we had a little bit more

00:35:18 ◼   ► on supervised iPhones from Mark Wichens.

00:35:20 ◼   ► If you recall, this is an iPhone

00:35:21 ◼   ► that is owned by your employer,

00:35:23 ◼   ► and thus they can do a lot with it.

00:35:25 ◼   ► And we were talking about how,

00:35:27 ◼   ► while there's not actually that much they can do with it

00:35:29 ◼   ► from Apple's perspective,

00:35:30 ◼   ► in terms of snooping what you're doing

00:35:32 ◼   ► and your web browsing and whatnot.

00:35:34 ◼   ► And Mark wrote in a good point that I had considered,

00:35:37 ◼   ► but I don't think I mentioned on the show

00:35:38 ◼   ► and certainly glossed over if I did.

00:35:40 ◼   ► And Mark writes, "Regarding managed devices and privacy,

00:35:42 ◼   ► something I don't think you mentioned

00:35:43 ◼   ► is that it's possible for an employer

00:35:45 ◼   ► to enforce an always-on VPN via a configuration profile.

00:35:49 ◼   ► You should know about it if your employer has done this,

00:35:51 ◼   ► but just in case anyone thought,

00:35:52 ◼   ► based on your recent follow-up,

00:35:53 ◼   ► that everything was guaranteed to be private,

00:35:56 ◼   ► if the device is sending all internet traffic

00:35:58 ◼   ► via your employer's VPN,

00:35:59 ◼   ► then they can monitor a lot more."

00:36:02 ◼   ► See earlier episodes when we mentioned

00:36:03 ◼   ► Facebook VPN app that got banned.

00:36:06 ◼   ► There's a page that has instructions

00:36:08 ◼   ► to find out if this is the case,

00:36:09 ◼   ► and we'll put a link in the show notes.

00:36:10 ◼   ► And that's a really excellent point.

00:36:12 ◼   ► So basically, your employer could, hypothetically,

00:36:15 ◼   ► force all of your internet traffic to funnel through them,

00:36:17 ◼   ► and if they're gonna be, effectively, your ISP,

00:36:20 ◼   ► then yeah, they can look at whatever they want,

00:36:21 ◼   ► and that's worth considering.

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00:38:14 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:38:17 ◼   ► - John, you have some Clubhouse thoughts.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Tell me about it.

00:38:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've used Clubhouse a lot more since last.

00:38:24 ◼   ► Episode and you know, at all, I mean.

00:38:26 ◼   ► - More than zero.

00:38:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was sad to learn that my username

00:38:30 ◼   ► was already taken.

00:38:31 ◼   ► In fact, it had already been taken

00:38:32 ◼   ► when we were discussing it.

00:38:33 ◼   ► But it was taken by someone who I think is actually Italian.

00:38:36 ◼   ► So I guess that's fine, but I'd really wish

00:38:39 ◼   ► I'd gotten that first.

00:38:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:38:42 ◼   ► There's a lot of people with my last name in the world.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Not all of them are in Italy.

00:38:45 ◼   ► Anyway, a few points to note before I talk

00:38:49 ◼   ► about my experiences on there.

00:38:52 ◼   ► The sign up for Clubhouse is that you sign up

00:38:56 ◼   ► with your phone number.

00:38:57 ◼   ► You don't sign up with your email address,

00:38:59 ◼   ► although you can enter an email address and everything,

00:39:00 ◼   ► but you sign up with your phone number.

00:39:02 ◼   ► And that's interesting for a couple of reasons

00:39:05 ◼   ► having to do with social network.

00:39:07 ◼   ► But before we get to that, there's an aspect

00:39:08 ◼   ► that Marco will love, which is they don't have passwords.

00:39:11 ◼   ► They use the Marco login system.

00:39:13 ◼   ► So every time you wanna sign in,

00:39:15 ◼   ► it's like the things that Marco makes

00:39:16 ◼   ► that drive me up a wall where you go to sign in

00:39:18 ◼   ► and it says, hey, you wanna sign in,

00:39:19 ◼   ► enter your identifier here.

00:39:21 ◼   ► And then it says, okay, great.

00:39:22 ◼   ► We'll email you a link.

00:39:23 ◼   ► And they email you a link and you click the link

00:39:24 ◼   ► and you log in.

00:39:25 ◼   ► That's it.

00:39:26 ◼   ► That's the only way.

00:39:27 ◼   ► I mean, for now.

00:39:28 ◼   ► I mean, maybe they'll change it, but I think

00:39:29 ◼   ► that was interesting. - Hey, you really feel

00:39:30 ◼   ► just now. (laughs)

00:39:32 ◼   ► - I know, I don't like having to go.

00:39:33 ◼   ► I'm at the login page.

00:39:35 ◼   ► I wanna log in.

00:39:36 ◼   ► I don't wanna be at the login page

00:39:37 ◼   ► and have to go back to my email client.

00:39:38 ◼   ► But that's what they do.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Apparently, if you're going to invite somebody,

00:39:43 ◼   ► we were talking last time, oh, I don't wanna share

00:39:45 ◼   ► my contacts 'cause it forces you to share your contacts.

00:39:46 ◼   ► It's like, oh, Casey, just get another phone

00:39:48 ◼   ► and empty out all your contacts and turn off iCloud.

00:39:51 ◼   ► And then do it.

00:39:53 ◼   ► And then invite me.

00:39:54 ◼   ► Apparently, the app only lets you invite somebody

00:39:57 ◼   ► who's in your contacts.

00:39:58 ◼   ► So if you were to empty out your contacts

00:40:00 ◼   ► and then say, okay, here you go.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Here's my contacts.

00:40:03 ◼   ► Ha ha, there's nothing there.

00:40:04 ◼   ► Now please let me invite somebody.

00:40:06 ◼   ► When you went to invite me, it wouldn't work.

00:40:07 ◼   ► So you'd have to add me specifically to your contacts

00:40:10 ◼   ► and then invite me, which is silly.

00:40:12 ◼   ► Again, this is a young service.

00:40:13 ◼   ► Things change a lot.

00:40:14 ◼   ► So who's to say how this will be?

00:40:16 ◼   ► But all this is to say is they're very adamant

00:40:18 ◼   ► about getting your contacts.

00:40:20 ◼   ► 'Cause really, there's no reason they need your contacts

00:40:23 ◼   ► for you to invite people.

00:40:24 ◼   ► And then even if you try to work around it,

00:40:26 ◼   ► it's like forcing you to at least add the people

00:40:29 ◼   ► you wanna invite to your contacts.

00:40:31 ◼   ► And the phone number thing and the contacts thing

00:40:35 ◼   ► brings to mind a topic that is near and dear

00:40:39 ◼   ► to any new social network's heart,

00:40:40 ◼   ► which is how do you bootstrap any kind of social network?

00:40:44 ◼   ► How do you start building the web of people

00:40:47 ◼   ► who are friends or followers

00:40:49 ◼   ► or whatever terminology you use

00:40:51 ◼   ► to make your social graph in your network,

00:40:53 ◼   ► how do you get that going?

00:40:55 ◼   ► A while back, various social networks used to allow you

00:40:58 ◼   ► to essentially hijack their social network

00:41:03 ◼   ► by saying please tell me all the relationships

00:41:06 ◼   ► between this person and any other person

00:41:08 ◼   ► that they have as friends or followers or whatever.

00:41:11 ◼   ► And that turned out to be a bad idea

00:41:14 ◼   ► as far as those companies were concerned

00:41:16 ◼   ► and they started locking it down.

00:41:18 ◼   ► - So it used to be like, for example,

00:41:19 ◼   ► that if you went on a social network,

00:41:21 ◼   ► you could give your Twitter a handle

00:41:22 ◼   ► and then it could crawl your Twitter relationship graphs

00:41:26 ◼   ► and just say oh, we know all these people,

00:41:27 ◼   ► looks like that you know and we'll invite them

00:41:29 ◼   ► and you can invite them here.

00:41:31 ◼   ► - That honestly, I'm pretty sure that is

00:41:33 ◼   ► what made Instagram take off.

00:41:35 ◼   ► Like Instagram took off massively

00:41:38 ◼   ► because they were sucking in the Twitter graph

00:41:41 ◼   ► and then Twitter cut it off about a few months into that

00:41:44 ◼   ► once they realized like oh, this is probably strategically

00:41:47 ◼   ► not a great thing to do.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's in some ways,

00:41:50 ◼   ► it's a little bit of a cat and mouse game

00:41:52 ◼   ► 'cause you can get this, it's not,

00:41:54 ◼   ► the information is available to a human

00:41:56 ◼   ► with a webpage clicking with a mouse.

00:41:57 ◼   ► It's supposedly not available through APIs.

00:42:00 ◼   ► It depends on how devious you wanna be

00:42:02 ◼   ► and how much you anticipate being sued or whatever.

00:42:05 ◼   ► But anyway, it's a problem every social network faces.

00:42:10 ◼   ► People don't wanna go in and have to be like

00:42:11 ◼   ► oh, I'm on this thing and I don't have any friends

00:42:14 ◼   ► or followers or people who I follow.

00:42:16 ◼   ► How do I find people to follow?

00:42:18 ◼   ► Why can't you just tell me if any of my friends are on here

00:42:20 ◼   ► so I can follow them?

00:42:22 ◼   ► Or better yet, why don't you just make me

00:42:24 ◼   ► automatically follow everybody who I already follow

00:42:27 ◼   ► on Twitter or who I already am friends with on Facebook

00:42:31 ◼   ► and while that's good for users,

00:42:33 ◼   ► it's bad for Twitter and Facebook.

00:42:35 ◼   ► That's why they can't do it.

00:42:36 ◼   ► So the phone number thing as the way to build

00:42:40 ◼   ► a social network is interesting

00:42:43 ◼   ► because well, for a couple reasons.

00:42:44 ◼   ► One, as was discussed on Dithering recently,

00:42:48 ◼   ► most people only have one or maybe two phone numbers.

00:42:51 ◼   ► So it's more of a, it's a slightly more reliable

00:42:55 ◼   ► identifier for a person.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Whereas things like email addresses or usernames,

00:43:01 ◼   ► you can make an unlimited number of those.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Bots can make them really quickly.

00:43:05 ◼   ► Any individual human probably already has

00:43:07 ◼   ► many email addresses and it's really easy to make new ones.

00:43:10 ◼   ► And so it's hard to say what the actual social graph is

00:43:14 ◼   ► if people can just make up usernames.

00:43:16 ◼   ► I have multiple Twitter accounts, they're all me,

00:43:18 ◼   ► but there's no real way for Twitter to know that

00:43:21 ◼   ► unless they're doing some kind of IP tracking

00:43:22 ◼   ► and even then that can be unreliable.

00:43:24 ◼   ► But if you have phone numbers, it's harder to make bots

00:43:28 ◼   ► and I say this and knowing full well that next episode

00:43:31 ◼   ► someone's gonna send us follow ups saying,

00:43:32 ◼   ► oh you don't understand how easy it is to grind out

00:43:34 ◼   ► new phone numbers for these giant spam farms.

00:43:36 ◼   ► So I'm saying it's harder, not impossible, right?

00:43:38 ◼   ► But it's harder to make bots

00:43:40 ◼   ► and it ties your identity for regular people

00:43:44 ◼   ► who don't easily have access to get new phone numbers

00:43:47 ◼   ► constantly or it's just a big hassle.

00:43:49 ◼   ► It ties your identity and reputation more closely

00:43:52 ◼   ► to the thing that you are signing in with.

00:43:54 ◼   ► And then for your social network,

00:43:57 ◼   ► although you might not have knowing all the Facebook names

00:44:02 ◼   ► and Twitter handles of everybody,

00:44:04 ◼   ► in your context the most likely thing you are to have

00:44:06 ◼   ► is either an email address or a phone number.

00:44:09 ◼   ► And if it's on your phone, maybe,

00:44:11 ◼   ► and especially if you're not,

00:44:13 ◼   ► if everyone you know doesn't use iMessage or whatever,

00:44:15 ◼   ► you probably have their phone numbers,

00:44:16 ◼   ► which is their identifier as far as you're concerned

00:44:18 ◼   ► for text messaging and other things

00:44:20 ◼   ► that you do from your phone.

00:44:21 ◼   ► So if you can't get access to the Twitter graph

00:44:24 ◼   ► and you can't get access to the Facebook graph

00:44:25 ◼   ► or the Instagram graph or whatever,

00:44:28 ◼   ► your best bet for building that network

00:44:30 ◼   ► is to go with telephone numbers from people's cell phones

00:44:34 ◼   ► that are more reliably, uniquely identify people

00:44:39 ◼   ► and that are likely to be in their contacts database.

00:44:41 ◼   ► And you can ask that for access for it.

00:44:43 ◼   ► So it makes perfect sense why Clubhouse is very enthusiastic,

00:44:48 ◼   ► let's say, about getting your contacts

00:44:50 ◼   ► 'cause it wants to build its network

00:44:52 ◼   ► and it wants to build its network in a reliable way

00:44:55 ◼   ► that's harder to spam or pollute or fill with garbage.

00:45:01 ◼   ► Part of this identity-based, more reliable,

00:45:06 ◼   ► identity-based system where you can't easily make

00:45:10 ◼   ► a million throwaway accounts is that when you get

00:45:13 ◼   ► on to Clubhouse, I don't know how long

00:45:14 ◼   ► this is gonna be there, but when I was invited on

00:45:17 ◼   ► and I go to my profile page,

00:45:19 ◼   ► at the bottom of my profile page it says,

00:45:22 ◼   ► nominated by, and then the person who invited me.

00:45:25 ◼   ► And I don't know how long that's gonna stay there.

00:45:27 ◼   ► Is that gonna stay there forever?

00:45:28 ◼   ► And so it's like, if you invite someone to Clubhouse,

00:45:32 ◼   ► forever you are responsible for any garbage thing they do

00:45:35 ◼   ► 'cause everything is going to their profile and say,

00:45:37 ◼   ► this person was nominated by so-and-so.

00:45:39 ◼   ► Why did so-and-so invite this guy on?

00:45:41 ◼   ► He's a jerk.

00:45:42 ◼   ► I don't know how long it's gonna last,

00:45:43 ◼   ► but I thought it was interesting,

00:45:44 ◼   ► especially given how hard it would be to sort of,

00:45:47 ◼   ► again, make throwaway accounts or disassociate yourself

00:45:50 ◼   ► from your number, it's a hassle to change your phone number,

00:45:53 ◼   ► it's real easy to make a new Twitter handle.

00:45:54 ◼   ► So I will continue to be nominated by the nice person

00:45:58 ◼   ► who gave me an invite.

00:45:59 ◼   ► When someone gets, when you've shared your contacts,

00:46:06 ◼   ► and someone in your contacts comes on to Clubhouse,

00:46:10 ◼   ► I don't know if they do this all the time,

00:46:12 ◼   ► but many people have been reporting

00:46:13 ◼   ► that they get a notification that says,

00:46:15 ◼   ► hey, welcome your friend Joe Schmo to Clubhouse,

00:46:18 ◼   ► like an iOS notification on your phone,

00:46:21 ◼   ► which is A, kinda creepy 'cause it's like

00:46:25 ◼   ► they're rubbing it in your face

00:46:26 ◼   ► that they have all your contacts.

00:46:27 ◼   ► Wait, how did you know that I know,

00:46:29 ◼   ► oh, I gave you all my contacts,

00:46:30 ◼   ► I thought you weren't gonna look at those.

00:46:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:46:33 ◼   ► Like that's the thing, when people give access

00:46:35 ◼   ► to their contacts, they're like, okay,

00:46:36 ◼   ► well this is probably just for something

00:46:38 ◼   ► that makes it easier to do in the program or whatever,

00:46:40 ◼   ► but it's like, no, they actually look at those and use them,

00:46:43 ◼   ► and so every time they say,

00:46:45 ◼   ► we noticed something that happened,

00:46:46 ◼   ► and then you're like, ugh, it's depressing.

00:46:49 ◼   ► But the second aspect of this that's creepy

00:46:51 ◼   ► and disconcerting and has already caught me is,

00:46:55 ◼   ► if you tap that notification that says,

00:46:57 ◼   ► hey, your friend Joe Schmo joined Clubhouse,

00:47:00 ◼   ► why don't you welcome them?

00:47:01 ◼   ► If you tap that notification,

00:47:04 ◼   ► it launches you directly into a live,

00:47:07 ◼   ► real-time, two-way audio conversation with that person.

00:47:11 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:47:12 ◼   ► With no intervening, like it makes a room in Clubhouse,

00:47:15 ◼   ► like it just throws you right in there.

00:47:17 ◼   ► Like not even like a, 'cause there's nothing

00:47:20 ◼   ► in the welcome message that makes you think

00:47:22 ◼   ► that's going to happen, 'cause you're like,

00:47:23 ◼   ► well, I can tap this and it'll probably like

00:47:25 ◼   ► show me their profile page or at the very least prompt me,

00:47:28 ◼   ► hey, do you wanna talk to so-and-so?

00:47:29 ◼   ► Nope, I'm making a room, here you are, they're invited in,

00:47:32 ◼   ► and you could be suddenly in a real-time audio conversation

00:47:36 ◼   ► you had no expectation would happen, so--

00:47:38 ◼   ► - Oh my God. - That seems like--

00:47:38 ◼   ► - That can backfire in so many ways.

00:47:41 ◼   ► - A part of the app that the Clubhouse folks

00:47:43 ◼   ► might wanna reconsider, because that is going

00:47:47 ◼   ► from zero to 60 awful fast.

00:47:49 ◼   ► I get a creepy notification, I tap it,

00:47:51 ◼   ► and now they can hear what I'm saying

00:47:53 ◼   ► and I can hear what they're saying.

00:47:55 ◼   ► - No, that's not good.

00:47:57 ◼   ► - Oh God, yeah, 'cause I mean, Jesus,

00:47:59 ◼   ► you think about every possible scenario

00:48:01 ◼   ► that you could be in, who could they be?

00:48:03 ◼   ► Like people you have in your contacts,

00:48:05 ◼   ► I don't know a lot of people who frequently go through

00:48:09 ◼   ► and delete people out of their contacts.

00:48:11 ◼   ► Most people have contacts in their phone

00:48:13 ◼   ► and the numbers just always increase,

00:48:15 ◼   ► they never go through and fill it in their mouth,

00:48:16 ◼   ► 'cause there's usually not much reason

00:48:17 ◼   ► to go delete contacts.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Like I went through mine when I had that sync issue

00:48:22 ◼   ► a few months back with Big Sur, I went through that,

00:48:24 ◼   ► and that was the first time I deleted contacts

00:48:26 ◼   ► in probably 12 years.

00:48:28 ◼   ► Like I was going through deleting people

00:48:30 ◼   ► who I literally haven't talked to since 2006.

00:48:33 ◼   ► And I had their constant info from back then,

00:48:36 ◼   ► but there was no reason to ever go through.

00:48:37 ◼   ► So imagine like ex-boyfriends could be in there,

00:48:41 ◼   ► ex-bosses, like oh God, that could go very badly.

00:48:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, those are two things brought up

00:48:46 ◼   ► by a lot of our listeners, like all these social networks.

00:48:50 ◼   ► They're just trying to make edges, make lines between nodes,

00:48:55 ◼   ► but they don't have the knowledge based on,

00:49:00 ◼   ► oh, we got all your contacts.

00:49:02 ◼   ► Is this your abusive ex-boyfriend or girlfriend?

00:49:06 ◼   ► Is this the boss that you hate?

00:49:08 ◼   ► Is this your ex-wife who you're currently not speaking to?

00:49:11 ◼   ► Is this just someone who you just don't wanna be talking to?

00:49:16 ◼   ► It doesn't know that, it just knows,

00:49:17 ◼   ► well, here's some contact information.

00:49:19 ◼   ► It's not like people annotate them with the desirability

00:49:22 ◼   ► of suddenly being in a real-time conversation with them.

00:49:24 ◼   ► So this seems like not the correct default for anyone.

00:49:29 ◼   ► I mean, in many ways, it's similar to the problem

00:49:33 ◼   ► that Facebook and everything had forever

00:49:35 ◼   ► where they'll try to bring up memories from your past,

00:49:39 ◼   ► but they have no idea if they're good memories

00:49:41 ◼   ► or bad memories, even if it's something like,

00:49:43 ◼   ► oh, look, it's a picture of your dog,

00:49:44 ◼   ► and your dog just died.

00:49:48 ◼   ► They're trying to be helpful,

00:49:50 ◼   ► but they don't know what they don't know,

00:49:52 ◼   ► and it's a dangerous thing to do at scale,

00:49:54 ◼   ► so I would suggest that Clubhouse reconsider this.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I have heard a lot of reports of people

00:49:58 ◼   ► who are on Clubhouse way earlier,

00:49:59 ◼   ► 'cause Clubhouse has been around for a while.

00:50:01 ◼   ► I haven't seen Twitter discussions of it forever,

00:50:03 ◼   ► and I could not for the life of me figure out what it was.

00:50:05 ◼   ► Like, for whatever, however many months

00:50:07 ◼   ► people have been talking about it.

00:50:09 ◼   ► Maybe they're talking about two different things,

00:50:10 ◼   ► 'cause I think there might be two things called Clubhouse.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Anyway, I've heard that the app has changed a lot

00:50:16 ◼   ► in the short time that it has existed,

00:50:19 ◼   ► and it's still in closed beta invite only,

00:50:21 ◼   ► so these are some suggestions

00:50:22 ◼   ► that Clubhouse might want to change.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Now, as for experiences, I intentionally tried to,

00:50:27 ◼   ► once I got on the thing and finished mourning

00:50:30 ◼   ► about not getting my username, I wanted to be--

00:50:32 ◼   ► - You're still on over that.

00:50:33 ◼   ► - No, it's really upsetting.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Now, as many people said, sort of facetiously,

00:50:38 ◼   ► but not really facetiously,

00:50:39 ◼   ► now I'm rooting for the service to fail,

00:50:41 ◼   ► 'cause if I can't get my username,

00:50:42 ◼   ► it just needs to be burned down.

00:50:43 ◼   ► - That's it, it's over. - Wow.

00:50:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I mean, they'll just get bought by Facebook

00:50:48 ◼   ► or whatever the heck happens to social media.

00:50:51 ◼   ► - I bet they're bought within six months.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - Or they just get Instagram storied.

00:50:55 ◼   ► - Oh, to be fair, I think both will happen.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I think they're gonna be bought by somebody

00:50:58 ◼   ► within six months, and also they're gonna

00:51:00 ◼   ► get Instagram storied.

00:51:01 ◼   ► - Yep, I tried to get into a bunch of rooms

00:51:04 ◼   ► to try to use this thing.

00:51:05 ◼   ► That was tricky for me, because I haven't given it

00:51:08 ◼   ► my contacts, so I don't have much of a social graph

00:51:11 ◼   ► on the network.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I mean, I'm doing it the old-fashioned way,

00:51:14 ◼   ► which is follow one person that you know is there,

00:51:17 ◼   ► like the person who invited me,

00:51:18 ◼   ► and then look at who they follow,

00:51:19 ◼   ► and then follow all the people you know who they follow,

00:51:21 ◼   ► and then just keep iterating, and then look at those people,

00:51:24 ◼   ► and then look who they follow,

00:51:25 ◼   ► and then look who they follow.

00:51:25 ◼   ► So I'm bootstrapping my social network

00:51:27 ◼   ► by digging down the tree of people I know

00:51:30 ◼   ► and just scrolling through all of their contacts

00:51:32 ◼   ► until I don't recognize anybody, you know what I mean?

00:51:34 ◼   ► - That is so much better than how I did it.

00:51:37 ◼   ► So I decided, normally, my problem usually

00:51:40 ◼   ► with news services is I usually wait,

00:51:44 ◼   ► usually anything that comes out

00:51:45 ◼   ► that everyone's talking about I'm too skeptical of,

00:51:48 ◼   ► or I'm too slow to it, so I'll be like,

00:51:50 ◼   ► ah, it's not gonna, yeah, Twitter's gonna be a passing fad.

00:51:53 ◼   ► I don't need to sign up on Twitter.

00:51:54 ◼   ► But usually, that results in me missing

00:51:57 ◼   ► some huge activity there, and then I get there late,

00:52:00 ◼   ► and I regret having missed the earlier stuff.

00:52:03 ◼   ► And so this time I thought, let me do it right,

00:52:04 ◼   ► even though I know it's, again, as you said,

00:52:06 ◼   ► it's been around for a while, but I thought,

00:52:07 ◼   ► let me do it right.

00:52:08 ◼   ► I'm gonna go into this all optimistic.

00:52:11 ◼   ► And so I went in, and I actually did the thing

00:52:13 ◼   ► where you fill out your interests up front,

00:52:14 ◼   ► which are hilarious, by the way.

00:52:16 ◼   ► One of the interests you could pick was podcasts, period.

00:52:20 ◼   ► Just podcasts.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Like, okay, that's a bit broad, but okay.

00:52:24 ◼   ► - Well, they all find TV in movies,

00:52:25 ◼   ► but I was baffled by those lists too,

00:52:27 ◼   ► because they were so short.

00:52:29 ◼   ► There was a list of seven things,

00:52:31 ◼   ► and it's like, is that the world of entertainment,

00:52:33 ◼   ► those seven things?

00:52:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:52:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so I went through that.

00:52:37 ◼   ► I actually look, honestly, like, all right,

00:52:40 ◼   ► well, yes, I do like podcasts, so I picked that.

00:52:42 ◼   ► I picked probably five or six other things

00:52:44 ◼   ► on the list of poorly chosen blobs.

00:52:48 ◼   ► And then I went to, and then it shows this list

00:52:50 ◼   ► of people you might like to follow.

00:52:53 ◼   ► And it was all just investor dicks.

00:52:57 ◼   ► It was just like, it was nobody I want to follow.

00:53:00 ◼   ► It was just a whole bunch of trendy futurists

00:53:04 ◼   ► and all those people who I just have no tolerance for,

00:53:08 ◼   ► and I accepted every single recommendation.

00:53:11 ◼   ► I followed all of them.

00:53:13 ◼   ► I'm like, I want to know what people are at,

00:53:15 ◼   ► like, how this service is actually being experienced

00:53:20 ◼   ► by the people who are saying how great it is.

00:53:22 ◼   ► I want to see why it's so great.

00:53:24 ◼   ► And so I followed every single person they recommended,

00:53:27 ◼   ► and it's all these people who I would never

00:53:29 ◼   ► in a million years choose to follow on any other service.

00:53:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:53:33 ◼   ► But I thought, hey, I want to get a good picture

00:53:35 ◼   ► of this thing.

00:53:36 ◼   ► And so, yeah, the list of channels that I was exposed to

00:53:41 ◼   ► during my time trying it, oh, man,

00:53:44 ◼   ► I did not find anything good.

00:53:46 ◼   ► - I don't know why you would do that.

00:53:48 ◼   ► I mean, I get your idea of like,

00:53:50 ◼   ► I want to see what other people are seeing,

00:53:51 ◼   ► but you know you don't want to see what other people are seeing.

00:53:54 ◼   ► - It's funny, 'cause I think I did something

00:53:56 ◼   ► in between you guys.

00:53:57 ◼   ► I definitely and honestly filled out that interest,

00:54:01 ◼   ► like questionnaire isn't the right word for it,

00:54:03 ◼   ► but you know, the like, what do you like?

00:54:05 ◼   ► Do you like this, do you like that?

00:54:06 ◼   ► And I filled that out honestly.

00:54:08 ◼   ► And then I saw, or I tried to look up a handful of people

00:54:11 ◼   ► that I thought were already there that I know

00:54:13 ◼   ► or enjoy their work and I started following them.

00:54:16 ◼   ► But I feel like the suggestions that I get 99% of the time

00:54:20 ◼   ► are at least the suggestions from people

00:54:24 ◼   ► that I'm not following.

00:54:25 ◼   ► So it's one thing if like, I think it's this coming Friday,

00:54:30 ◼   ► Matt Bischoff is doing some sort of thing on Clubhouse

00:54:33 ◼   ► that sounded reasonably interesting.

00:54:35 ◼   ► But for like just random things, like I'm getting,

00:54:39 ◼   ► oh God, I keep tapping into these rooms like an idiot.

00:54:42 ◼   ► I'm getting housing around,

00:54:44 ◼   ► which is a bunch of people I don't recognize.

00:54:47 ◼   ► Welcome to Clubhouse in convo with Mike Judge.

00:54:51 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the Mike Judge or not.

00:54:53 ◼   ► - I like Mike Judge.

00:54:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, that'd be kind of cool if that's the case.

00:54:55 ◼   ► - I would love to listen to that some other time when I can.

00:54:58 ◼   ► - Exactly, exactly.

00:54:59 ◼   ► - I'm not sure of most modern media.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - Right, State of Crypto Policy and Houston Lives,

00:55:05 ◼   ► Benefit Concert.

00:55:06 ◼   ► And that's the things that are offered to me

00:55:08 ◼   ► on like the main screen.

00:55:10 ◼   ► And I'm not particularly interested in any of that.

00:55:13 ◼   ► And every time I open up Clubhouse,

00:55:15 ◼   ► which I keep doing to just see like,

00:55:17 ◼   ► okay, what is there that people are talking about right now

00:55:20 ◼   ► that may or may not be interesting to me?

00:55:22 ◼   ► And it's just never interesting to me,

00:55:24 ◼   ► which isn't by necessity a failing of Clubhouse.

00:55:26 ◼   ► Like that could be a failing on my part

00:55:28 ◼   ► because I just don't like the sorts of things

00:55:30 ◼   ► that Clubhouse seems to like.

00:55:31 ◼   ► It could be a failing on my part

00:55:32 ◼   ► because I don't follow the right people.

00:55:33 ◼   ► And so it's not bubbling up the right stuff.

00:55:35 ◼   ► But I don't know, it's,

00:55:38 ◼   ► there was a lot of talk about this on Upgrade this week.

00:55:41 ◼   ► And I really, really thought it was an excellent,

00:55:44 ◼   ► excellent discussion.

00:55:45 ◼   ► And a lot of it was around,

00:55:47 ◼   ► and this is what I was kind of referring to earlier

00:55:49 ◼   ► in our show, you know,

00:55:51 ◼   ► are we getting passed by, says Mike and Jason,

00:55:54 ◼   ► because we're not particularly interested in this.

00:55:56 ◼   ► And I think Jason in particular said,

00:55:58 ◼   ► I don't want to approach any new thing

00:56:00 ◼   ► and be like, oh, that sucks.

00:56:01 ◼   ► You know, I want to at least invest,

00:56:03 ◼   ► and you were saying this more, also, both of you were.

00:56:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've done that in the past.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I regretted doing that in the past.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And I'm trying to get better at not doing that,

00:56:11 ◼   ► you know, to new things now.

00:56:13 ◼   ► - Same, same, completely agree.

00:56:15 ◼   ► And I don't know, I just,

00:56:17 ◼   ► the impression I had before having gotten an invite

00:56:22 ◼   ► was that it seemed very like Silicon Valley broey,

00:56:26 ◼   ► which I have a deep repulsion to.

00:56:30 ◼   ► Like, I just find all of that just repulsive

00:56:33 ◼   ► in so many ways.

00:56:34 ◼   ► And I do think Clubhouse is more than that,

00:56:39 ◼   ► but it also seems pretty clear to me

00:56:42 ◼   ► that that's where the bread and butter is still right now.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Like, you know, growth hacking and influencing

00:56:48 ◼   ► and doing all that stuff that like is just,

00:56:50 ◼   ► I don't know, I find it icky.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And that's not to say that it will always be that way.

00:56:55 ◼   ► I think obviously it started that way

00:56:57 ◼   ► because that's the people who made it, you know,

00:57:00 ◼   ► or VC people and they showed it to their VC friends

00:57:03 ◼   ► and they're all having VC fantasy lives

00:57:05 ◼   ► in their VC, you know, fake world.

00:57:08 ◼   ► But nevertheless, I haven't seen anything yet

00:57:12 ◼   ► that makes me say, oh, that's totally sweet.

00:57:14 ◼   ► And I can envision ways that it might be totally sweet.

00:57:17 ◼   ► And like, if the two of you wanted to sometime

00:57:20 ◼   ► and get on and do a show or whatever it's called,

00:57:23 ◼   ► whatever the vernacular is,

00:57:24 ◼   ► and do something for a few minutes just for funsies,

00:57:26 ◼   ► I'd totally try it.

00:57:27 ◼   ► But I don't know, nothing about it has really grabbed me

00:57:31 ◼   ► in the way that it like only took a few minutes

00:57:34 ◼   ► or maybe, I don't know, a day for Twitter to really land

00:57:36 ◼   ► once I gave it an honest shake,

00:57:38 ◼   ► because I had the same impression as you did, Marco.

00:57:40 ◼   ► Like, who cares?

00:57:42 ◼   ► Like, no, I don't want this in my life, no.

00:57:45 ◼   ► And then once you give Twitter an honest shake,

00:57:47 ◼   ► was at least back in 2008 before it was truly toxic,

00:57:50 ◼   ► it was pretty obvious pretty quick that it was good stuff.

00:57:53 ◼   ► And Instagram, holy crap, Instagram,

00:57:55 ◼   ► it was like four seconds before you realized,

00:57:57 ◼   ► oh, this is delightful.

00:57:58 ◼   ► And I just, I haven't yet gotten that from Clubhouse.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And maybe this is just reason 7,455,002 that I'm an old man.

00:58:07 ◼   ► But I don't know, it just hasn't stuck with me quite yet.

00:58:10 ◼   ► - Well, I feel like these communities are influenced

00:58:12 ◼   ► by the sort of founding members,

00:58:14 ◼   ► and whether or not it's because they're a VC-backed company

00:58:16 ◼   ► that it seems VC brewery,

00:58:17 ◼   ► or whether that's just like the first people who are there.

00:58:20 ◼   ► I think things like Twitter benefited from the fact

00:58:22 ◼   ► that the sort of the founding settlers,

00:58:24 ◼   ► the first people who had Twitter accounts

00:58:26 ◼   ► were in our circle of friends.

00:58:28 ◼   ► So of course it's gonna feel welcoming and normal to us.

00:58:30 ◼   ► And as I was trying to say last time

00:58:32 ◼   ► about introverts versus extroverts,

00:58:34 ◼   ► it could be that there is a community of people

00:58:36 ◼   ► that is ill-served by the current services,

00:58:38 ◼   ► and those are exactly the people

00:58:39 ◼   ► who are sort of the founding members of this one.

00:58:41 ◼   ► So when they show up here,

00:58:42 ◼   ► it's all their people doing things that they wanna do.

00:58:45 ◼   ► And so it may be awesome for them.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Like the reason we're looking at it at all

00:58:48 ◼   ► is because it has some amount of buzz.

00:58:51 ◼   ► You know, that said, it's a young servicing,

00:58:52 ◼   ► young application, and there's lots of complexities.

00:58:55 ◼   ► The whole thing of how do you,

00:58:57 ◼   ► again, bootstrapping your social network,

00:58:59 ◼   ► that thing where it asks you your interests

00:59:01 ◼   ► is an attempt to do that, because okay,

00:59:03 ◼   ► if you wouldn't give us your contacts,

00:59:04 ◼   ► we can't help you there.

00:59:05 ◼   ► But even if you did give them,

00:59:06 ◼   ► we can't really make heads or tails of most of it,

00:59:09 ◼   ► 'cause again, we don't know which person in those contacts

00:59:13 ◼   ► is the type of person you'd like to talk to on Clubhouse,

00:59:15 ◼   ► and which is the type of person

00:59:15 ◼   ► you'd never wanna talk to again,

00:59:17 ◼   ► and they just happen to still be in your contacts.

00:59:19 ◼   ► So the interests thing, which you know, music services,

00:59:21 ◼   ► of course, do this for recommendation engines

00:59:23 ◼   ► and you know, anything.

00:59:24 ◼   ► Pick from this big giant cloud of stuff

00:59:26 ◼   ► and tell us what you're into,

00:59:27 ◼   ► and then we'll try to give you

00:59:28 ◼   ► some kind of intelligent suggestion.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Obviously, that is undercut if what you pick

00:59:33 ◼   ► as your interests, no one is talking about that in Clubhouse

00:59:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's still invite only,

00:59:37 ◼   ► it's a small group of people,

00:59:38 ◼   ► and those people are of a particular type

00:59:41 ◼   ► or a particular circle of friends or whatever,

00:59:43 ◼   ► 'cause remember, people get onto Clubhouse

00:59:44 ◼   ► by being invited by other people,

00:59:46 ◼   ► so it's kind of, you know, it's growing

00:59:47 ◼   ► from whatever that original core was.

00:59:49 ◼   ► If there's no one discussing your thing,

00:59:51 ◼   ► you can pick it as an interest,

00:59:52 ◼   ► but you're not gonna see it.

00:59:53 ◼   ► But you know, as I was mentioning before

00:59:55 ◼   ► about the interests thing, when I was filling them out,

00:59:57 ◼   ► I was shocked at how bad the interest interface was

01:00:01 ◼   ► just because there are things I'm interested in

01:00:03 ◼   ► that I couldn't select and they weren't super weird,

01:00:06 ◼   ► so Marco picked podcasts, I picked television

01:00:09 ◼   ► and gaming or whatever.

01:00:10 ◼   ► This one really drives it home.

01:00:12 ◼   ► This one should really drive it home for everybody.

01:00:14 ◼   ► They have a category for sports.

01:00:16 ◼   ► Here are the sports that you can select.

01:00:18 ◼   ► This is, as far as Clubhouse is concerned,

01:00:22 ◼   ► this is the entire world of sports.

01:00:25 ◼   ► - The whole world of sports.

01:00:26 ◼   ► - Yep, football, soccer, MMA, cycling, baseball,

01:00:31 ◼   ► cricket, tennis, Formula One, basketball, golf.

01:00:33 ◼   ► That's it, there are no other sports.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Nothing else exists in the world of sports

01:00:39 ◼   ► except for those 10 things.

01:00:41 ◼   ► - I'm pretty sure I can go with a better list than that.

01:00:43 ◼   ► - I'm pretty sure, like, that's not even like,

01:00:45 ◼   ► even if you wanted to be charitable

01:00:47 ◼   ► and say, "Oh, it's a very US-centric list," it's not.

01:00:49 ◼   ► They're trying to cover the literal world of sports,

01:00:51 ◼   ► the entire globe, and they come up with 10 things.

01:00:54 ◼   ► Sports is a little bit, and I'm pretty sure sports

01:00:56 ◼   ► is not an obscure topic that they wouldn't have

01:00:59 ◼   ► lots of detail on.

01:01:00 ◼   ► Now, maybe these categories are fed by people

01:01:04 ◼   ► creating rooms, maybe I don't understand

01:01:05 ◼   ► how they're coming in here, but if you can't get

01:01:08 ◼   ► a good social graph and recommendations for your contacts,

01:01:11 ◼   ► because say you didn't share them

01:01:12 ◼   ► or they're just not anything to go for,

01:01:14 ◼   ► and people try to diligently fill out their interests,

01:01:17 ◼   ► like Casey was doing, I'm gonna say what I'm interested in,

01:01:19 ◼   ► and then they go back to your main screen

01:01:21 ◼   ► and they're trying to say, "Show me something,

01:01:24 ◼   ► "I wanna do this thing.

01:01:26 ◼   ► "I filled out my interests, I gave you my contacts,

01:01:30 ◼   ► "I don't know what to do next."

01:01:31 ◼   ► Clubhouse needs to find a way to throw up something

01:01:36 ◼   ► that you can tap on and get into and understand it.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Now, the one thing they have that does work

01:01:42 ◼   ► a little bit better than these two things

01:01:43 ◼   ► is what worked for me is if you enable notifications,

01:01:48 ◼   ► which I never do for any app, but pretty quickly

01:01:50 ◼   ► I learned with Clubhouse, I'm never going to,

01:01:53 ◼   ► I'm gonna be like Casey, where you launch the app,

01:01:54 ◼   ► you look at it and go, "Nah," and you turn it off.

01:01:56 ◼   ► And I did that for like a couple days in a row,

01:01:58 ◼   ► I'm like, "I'm not using Clubhouse,

01:01:59 ◼   ► "I'm just launching the app and then saying,

01:02:01 ◼   ► "no, nothing interested me," and leave it.

01:02:03 ◼   ► So I've gotta do something else,

01:02:05 ◼   ► and what I did was I enabled notifications,

01:02:07 ◼   ► which is very rare for me, I enabled notifications,

01:02:08 ◼   ► almost nothing on my phone.

01:02:10 ◼   ► And the reason I enabled them is because I understood

01:02:13 ◼   ► that if you follow people, I did do the thing

01:02:16 ◼   ► that I was describing where I would follow someone

01:02:18 ◼   ► and then go through the list of everybody they follow

01:02:20 ◼   ► and follow those people and so on and so forth,

01:02:21 ◼   ► so I built a little graph for myself

01:02:23 ◼   ► of a bunch of people who I follow.

01:02:25 ◼   ► If one of the people you follow starts a room,

01:02:29 ◼   ► subject to whatever algorithm they're using,

01:02:31 ◼   ► they may or may not send you a notification that says,

01:02:33 ◼   ► "Hey, your friend Joe Schmoe just made a room on Clubhouse,

01:02:36 ◼   ► "do you want to join?"

01:02:38 ◼   ► And again, if you tap that notification,

01:02:40 ◼   ► you are in that room instantly.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Although you probably won't have the ability to speak.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Anyway, so that's what I did,

01:02:50 ◼   ► and I was lucky enough of the small handful

01:02:52 ◼   ► of people that I was following,

01:02:53 ◼   ► one of them was actually experimenting with Clubhouse

01:02:57 ◼   ► by creating rooms and doing stuff,

01:03:00 ◼   ► and that was Paul Hudson of, what's his website,

01:03:02 ◼   ► Hacking with Swift, I think.

01:03:04 ◼   ► He was just trying the thing out,

01:03:07 ◼   ► and the way he was trying it out is,

01:03:09 ◼   ► as a bit more of an extrovert than I am,

01:03:11 ◼   ► he was making rooms and inviting people in

01:03:13 ◼   ► and saying, "Okay, we're gonna have a room."

01:03:16 ◼   ► One of the first ones I was in, he was like,

01:03:18 ◼   ► "Let's do iOS interview questions,"

01:03:21 ◼   ► where he was going to pull people from the audience

01:03:25 ◼   ► and give them a question that they might receive

01:03:27 ◼   ► if they were interviewing for a job as an iOS developer.

01:03:30 ◼   ► And the person from the audience would try to answer it,

01:03:33 ◼   ► and then they would talk about it.

01:03:35 ◼   ► That was it, that was the whole room,

01:03:37 ◼   ► and he did that for hours.

01:03:40 ◼   ► And I just listened to it. - That's super clever.

01:03:41 ◼   ► - I listened to it ambiently like you would listen

01:03:43 ◼   ► to a podcast.

01:03:44 ◼   ► It's the type of, it's kind of like a call-in show,

01:03:49 ◼   ► but here's me bringing my own interest to Clubhouse.

01:03:54 ◼   ► It's basically like a tech podcast, right?

01:03:58 ◼   ► Like talk radio and people calling in to tell you

01:04:01 ◼   ► that what their coach or their favorite sports team

01:04:04 ◼   ► should have been doing, or political talk radio,

01:04:06 ◼   ► or stuff like that.

01:04:09 ◼   ► That would work in this format as well,

01:04:11 ◼   ► but I'm not interested in any of those things.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Same deal with growth hacking and how to get press

01:04:17 ◼   ► for your startup or Bitcoin, or all sorts of other things

01:04:19 ◼   ► that I'm not interested in, and they have rooms

01:04:21 ◼   ► that where people are talking about.

01:04:22 ◼   ► But what I'm interested in is tech nerdy stuff,

01:04:25 ◼   ► and people who run websites to tell you how to program

01:04:27 ◼   ► in Swift, right?

01:04:28 ◼   ► And so when he made a room and started doing

01:04:30 ◼   ► these interview questions, it was like a nerdy version

01:04:34 ◼   ► of talk radio, where instead of the people coming

01:04:37 ◼   ► on the line and yelling about their favorite sports team,

01:04:40 ◼   ► they would politely answer questions about iOS.

01:04:43 ◼   ► And so I got two things from it.

01:04:47 ◼   ► One, I actually learned a lot about iOS and Swift, right?

01:04:51 ◼   ► 'Cause how can you not?

01:04:52 ◼   ► Like it was just question after question after question,

01:04:54 ◼   ► most of which I didn't know the answer to

01:04:56 ◼   ► until they were answered, and then they discussed

01:04:57 ◼   ► the answers, so that was fun.

01:04:58 ◼   ► And two, it has the same entertainment value

01:05:01 ◼   ► as a call-in show, where there's a host

01:05:04 ◼   ► who is doing a good job, and Paul does a really good job

01:05:07 ◼   ► of being a host.

01:05:08 ◼   ► He's cheating by being British, but whatever.

01:05:10 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:05:11 ◼   ► Sounds very proper and correct and official

01:05:16 ◼   ► and important to our American ears.

01:05:19 ◼   ► And he's also super smart and knows everything.

01:05:21 ◼   ► And then you're the participants who were unfailingly,

01:05:26 ◼   ► polite and conscientious and humble and smart

01:05:34 ◼   ► and just all the things that you would expect.

01:05:36 ◼   ► Nobody yelled Baba Booey, no one was being a jerk, right?

01:05:39 ◼   ► It was just a bunch of programmers

01:05:40 ◼   ► answering programmer questions.

01:05:41 ◼   ► So I felt like I was in my element for that type of thing.

01:05:43 ◼   ► He did a bunch of other rooms, and every time he started one

01:05:46 ◼   ► I would join it and just listen to it.

01:05:48 ◼   ► I forget what his other ones were.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Some general discussions of things, like Q&A type stuff.

01:05:53 ◼   ► And then the final one I did was,

01:05:57 ◼   ► this is the first big wiggy thing that I've been in.

01:06:00 ◼   ► It was a room, I don't know how I got invited.

01:06:02 ◼   ► It was probably someone I followed,

01:06:03 ◼   ► but it was some famous person that I follow,

01:06:06 ◼   ► famous in Apple circles, and it was Steve Jobs stories.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I think people were mentioning this on Twitter,

01:06:11 ◼   ► so maybe people might have joined it

01:06:13 ◼   ► from just seeing tweets about it.

01:06:15 ◼   ► It was a bunch of people who knew Steve Jobs

01:06:17 ◼   ► when he was alive and who worked with him

01:06:18 ◼   ► in various capacities telling stories about Steve Jobs.

01:06:22 ◼   ► Granted, most of which I'd heard already,

01:06:23 ◼   ► but if you read every single book that comes out

01:06:26 ◼   ► about Steve Jobs and fallen for your whole life,

01:06:28 ◼   ► you probably know a lot of these stories,

01:06:29 ◼   ► but some of them you won't know.

01:06:30 ◼   ► In fact, even some of the people who are telling the stories

01:06:32 ◼   ► you won't know because they worked with Steve

01:06:34 ◼   ► in a very obscure capacity, obscure enough

01:06:37 ◼   ► that they haven't been in Seven Forbes profiles

01:06:40 ◼   ► telling their stories or whatever.

01:06:42 ◼   ► And this was this entire room.

01:06:44 ◼   ► I don't even know which of the famous people was hosting it,

01:06:46 ◼   ► but a bunch of people were in there

01:06:48 ◼   ► from the original Mac team and old ex-Apple people,

01:06:50 ◼   ► and they would just get invited on stage,

01:06:52 ◼   ► and they would tell their story,

01:06:54 ◼   ► and then someone else would come up as a speaker,

01:06:56 ◼   ► and they would tell their story,

01:06:57 ◼   ► and I was at hours and hours of people

01:06:59 ◼   ► telling stories about Steve Jobs.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Some of the people who told stories

01:07:02 ◼   ► were really good storytellers.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Some of them weren't.

01:07:04 ◼   ► Some of the stories you heard, some of them you hadn't,

01:07:07 ◼   ► but that's what it was.

01:07:08 ◼   ► Now, that was interesting because it was like,

01:07:12 ◼   ► you know, famous people, right?

01:07:13 ◼   ► So in that way, it's a lot like regular people's

01:07:16 ◼   ► relationship to podcasts where it's by some,

01:07:18 ◼   ► you know, I almost said Joe Rogan.

01:07:21 ◼   ► I didn't mean to say that, but I don't know.

01:07:23 ◼   ► Like famous NPR personalities

01:07:26 ◼   ► or a podcast featuring Barack Obama, right?

01:07:29 ◼   ► Like actual famous people who just happen to be appearing

01:07:32 ◼   ► in the medium of podcasts.

01:07:33 ◼   ► This was, you know, semi-famous and nerd circle people

01:07:37 ◼   ► who were on Clubhouse.

01:07:40 ◼   ► It was the type of thing that you can imagine

01:07:43 ◼   ► would be more to my taste, I was gonna say better,

01:07:47 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna say better.

01:07:48 ◼   ► I'm gonna say more to my taste if it had been a podcast

01:07:51 ◼   ► because if you did a podcast, oh, here's a podcast

01:07:55 ◼   ► with people telling stories about Steve Jobs,

01:07:57 ◼   ► you'd get only the best stories.

01:07:58 ◼   ► You'd edit them, right?

01:07:59 ◼   ► You'd, you know, you would produce it.

01:08:01 ◼   ► You'd get rid of all the dead air

01:08:03 ◼   ► and the parts that didn't work,

01:08:05 ◼   ► but making a podcast of people telling stories

01:08:07 ◼   ► about Steve Jobs would require hunting down

01:08:10 ◼   ► all the people who have stories,

01:08:11 ◼   ► getting them to agree to be on your podcast,

01:08:13 ◼   ► arranging a time for them to come and record,

01:08:15 ◼   ► making sure they're set up so they can record,

01:08:17 ◼   ► getting their recording, doing that 20 times,

01:08:20 ◼   ► editing it all down, producing it,

01:08:21 ◼   ► putting it in, you know, like it's way more work

01:08:24 ◼   ► than what seemed like this was more or less ad hoc,

01:08:27 ◼   ► hey, we're doing a stories about Steve Jobs Clubhouse

01:08:29 ◼   ► right now, and then people just come to you, right?

01:08:33 ◼   ► People just, people come and say,

01:08:35 ◼   ► oh, I see they're having a Clubhouse thing

01:08:36 ◼   ► and Andy Hertzfeld joins and Bill Atkinson joins

01:08:39 ◼   ► and they're all, and once they appear in the room,

01:08:41 ◼   ► the moderators like bless them and say,

01:08:43 ◼   ► oh, come on stage, you talk, you know what I mean?

01:08:45 ◼   ► And so it was ad hoc and messy

01:08:48 ◼   ► and not like a produced podcast,

01:08:50 ◼   ► but it was also a thing that probably

01:08:52 ◼   ► just wouldn't have happened period

01:08:54 ◼   ► unless there was someone with an established podcast

01:08:56 ◼   ► willing to put in the time and energy

01:08:58 ◼   ► to make a produced podcast version of this.

01:09:00 ◼   ► I saw lots of people saying like,

01:09:02 ◼   ► this is what Clubhouse is great about,

01:09:04 ◼   ► like you would never see this in a podcast.

01:09:06 ◼   ► No, you could absolutely see this in the podcast,

01:09:08 ◼   ► it would just be a lot harder.

01:09:10 ◼   ► Like I said, the result of that would be more to my tastes,

01:09:13 ◼   ► but some people may like this more freeform one.

01:09:16 ◼   ► And also of course, if you're in that room

01:09:17 ◼   ► and you happen to have a story about Steve Jobs,

01:09:19 ◼   ► you can raise your hand and maybe they'll let you

01:09:20 ◼   ► tell your story and you can never do that with a podcast

01:09:22 ◼   ► 'cause you're not there, you're not a participant,

01:09:24 ◼   ► you're just listening, right?

01:09:27 ◼   ► Both of these things though,

01:09:29 ◼   ► made me think of a few more features

01:09:31 ◼   ► that Clubhouse should add to their platform.

01:09:35 ◼   ► And we've been talking mostly about like,

01:09:37 ◼   ► what is it like in Clubhouse

01:09:38 ◼   ► and what kind of people are there,

01:09:39 ◼   ► what are they talking about?

01:09:40 ◼   ► But it's important not to lose sight of the fact

01:09:42 ◼   ► that like Twitter or email or Facebook or Instagram,

01:09:46 ◼   ► these things are essentially platforms.

01:09:48 ◼   ► It's a system that works in a certain way

01:09:52 ◼   ► and that system encourages certain behaviors

01:09:54 ◼   ► and discourages others, but it doesn't dictate subject matter

01:09:57 ◼   ► or like population or relationships really.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Anything that works in this way,

01:10:05 ◼   ► where you want to come into a room

01:10:06 ◼   ► where a bunch of other people can be

01:10:07 ◼   ► and you can nominate them to speak,

01:10:09 ◼   ► anything that fits within that platform

01:10:11 ◼   ► will work on Clubhouse.

01:10:13 ◼   ► It just so happens this is what we're getting now.

01:10:15 ◼   ► And so within that platform,

01:10:16 ◼   ► platform features that I think they could really use

01:10:19 ◼   ► are pausing and rewinding.

01:10:21 ◼   ► Now you may think that's totally counter to this,

01:10:23 ◼   ► it has to be live.

01:10:24 ◼   ► If you can pause and rewind,

01:10:25 ◼   ► like you're gonna be ruining the liveness of the experience

01:10:29 ◼   ► and you're gonna be behind other people

01:10:30 ◼   ► and you won't be able to participate

01:10:31 ◼   ► and all that other stuff.

01:10:33 ◼   ► But I feel like those two features are kind of essential

01:10:36 ◼   ► for the best functionality of the features they do have.

01:10:41 ◼   ► Because when something is live

01:10:45 ◼   ► and you're sort of listening to it the same way,

01:10:48 ◼   ► like, I don't know, like you listen to podcasts,

01:10:49 ◼   ► like you're doing dishes or whatever,

01:10:52 ◼   ► you don't wanna miss like the good part

01:10:54 ◼   ► of the person who's telling the story about Steve Jobs.

01:10:55 ◼   ► You don't wanna miss the good part of their story

01:10:57 ◼   ► because you had to talk to somebody

01:11:00 ◼   ► or you got distracted for a second or whatever,

01:11:03 ◼   ► or like a dog was barking or you're outside taking a walk

01:11:06 ◼   ► and a loud truck went by and you didn't hear that last part.

01:11:10 ◼   ► It's not actually that difficult

01:11:12 ◼   ► to add a little bit of a buffer

01:11:13 ◼   ► to allow you to pause or rewind

01:11:16 ◼   ► to figure out what somebody said or to pause for a moment,

01:11:19 ◼   ► as long as you have a good UI to say,

01:11:21 ◼   ► okay, well, when you're ready to catch back up

01:11:23 ◼   ► to real time, do so.

01:11:24 ◼   ► In fact, you could even use something like Smart Speed

01:11:27 ◼   ► that would let you catch back up

01:11:28 ◼   ► without actually skipping over anything.

01:11:30 ◼   ► I'm not saying the buffer should be a half an hour long,

01:11:33 ◼   ► but five or 10 seconds of grace would go a long way

01:11:36 ◼   ► towards making Clubhouse a more satisfying experience

01:11:39 ◼   ► because I missed a bunch of things that people said

01:11:41 ◼   ► because either I misheard them or there was noise

01:11:43 ◼   ► or I had to pause to do something

01:11:45 ◼   ► and there's no way for me to get that back.

01:11:47 ◼   ► And I'm sure the Clubhouse people would say,

01:11:48 ◼   ► well, that's the beauty of Clubhouse.

01:11:49 ◼   ► It's here and then it's gone.

01:11:51 ◼   ► It can't be recorded or, of course it can't be,

01:11:53 ◼   ► but anyway, we discourage it from being recorded

01:11:57 ◼   ► and it's all about being there in the moment

01:11:59 ◼   ► and it's not about recording or rewinding.

01:12:02 ◼   ► We just need you to be there in the moment

01:12:03 ◼   ► and if you miss it, that's the beauty of Clubhouse.

01:12:05 ◼   ► Sometimes you just miss it because the dog barks

01:12:07 ◼   ► and I'm not down with that particular beauty.

01:12:09 ◼   ► I feel like people want to go there to get the value

01:12:13 ◼   ► of hearing the cool stories about Steve Jobs.

01:12:15 ◼   ► And I love the fact that someone didn't have to arrange

01:12:18 ◼   ► all those interviews and make it into a big podcast

01:12:20 ◼   ► and everything and anyone could just join,

01:12:21 ◼   ► but I don't like the fact that if I missed

01:12:23 ◼   ► what somebody said because I was distracted for a moment,

01:12:26 ◼   ► that there's no way for me to get that back.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Just a little tiny buffer to pause and rewind would do it.

01:12:32 ◼   ► So I'm still not sure Clubhouse is for me.

01:12:36 ◼   ► I didn't actually participate.

01:12:38 ◼   ► I didn't raise my hand to participate in any of these things.

01:12:40 ◼   ► It's not my kind of MO.

01:12:41 ◼   ► I did think about types of things that ATP could do

01:12:43 ◼   ► in that scenario.

01:12:45 ◼   ► Just didn't seem like, I don't know.

01:12:48 ◼   ► For now, it just didn't seem like something

01:12:50 ◼   ► that I was enthusiastic about participating in as a,

01:12:54 ◼   ► I hate when people say that, as a creator, as they say.

01:12:57 ◼   ► That's not to say that that will change over time,

01:12:59 ◼   ► but I do think I understand some of the value

01:13:01 ◼   ► people get out of it.

01:13:03 ◼   ► Again, the people who want this type of experience

01:13:06 ◼   ► are probably not the same people as me.

01:13:08 ◼   ► I like podcasts for a reason and I would love

01:13:11 ◼   ► podcast versions of everything else that I listen to,

01:13:13 ◼   ► but I just think that there wouldn't be podcast versions

01:13:17 ◼   ► of those because it's so much more work

01:13:19 ◼   ► to make a podcast version of those things.

01:13:20 ◼   ► It's kind of like how Twitter was the low effort version

01:13:23 ◼   ► of blogging.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Clubhouse in some ways can be the low effort version

01:13:27 ◼   ► of doing an interview podcast.

01:13:29 ◼   ► - That's an interesting way of looking at it.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Some semi-real-time follow-up.

01:13:32 ◼   ► A long time ago, I think it was for a Twitter account.

01:13:36 ◼   ► I don't remember which one.

01:13:38 ◼   ► I needed a phone number in order to do something.

01:13:39 ◼   ► Maybe it was do something with an API

01:13:41 ◼   ► and I didn't want to give them my regular phone number

01:13:44 ◼   ► or I tried and I couldn't.

01:13:46 ◼   ► And so I was trying to figure out a way

01:13:47 ◼   ► to get another phone number so I could just hand it

01:13:49 ◼   ► to Twitter just for the purposes of clearing this hurdle

01:13:52 ◼   ► so I can do what I wanted to do.

01:13:54 ◼   ► And I had stumbled upon an app called Burner,

01:13:57 ◼   ► which makes sense.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And at the time, you could get a free burner

01:14:01 ◼   ► that would receive a handful of text messages

01:14:03 ◼   ► or only last a week or something like that.

01:14:05 ◼   ► I don't know if that's still the case.

01:14:06 ◼   ► I think you have to pay for everything.

01:14:08 ◼   ► But it worked really well and it gave me

01:14:11 ◼   ► a temporary phone number that I could use

01:14:13 ◼   ► for the purposes of what I was trying to do

01:14:15 ◼   ► and then it just went away.

01:14:17 ◼   ► And additionally, you could use something like Google Voice

01:14:19 ◼   ► or whatever the case may be.

01:14:20 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't negate your point earlier.

01:14:22 ◼   ► I'm just saying that the barrier of entry

01:14:24 ◼   ► for getting a new phone number is ever lower,

01:14:27 ◼   ► even lower than I would have expected a while ago.

01:14:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, the good thing about phone numbers

01:14:31 ◼   ► is that the namespace, so to speak,

01:14:33 ◼   ► at least in the US of phone numbers, is fairly limited.

01:14:36 ◼   ► Unlike the namespace of email addresses,

01:14:38 ◼   ► which is essentially unlimited.

01:14:40 ◼   ► I mean, it's not really unlimited

01:14:41 ◼   ► 'cause there are length limits,

01:14:42 ◼   ► but there are way more possible email addresses

01:14:45 ◼   ► in the world than there are possible phone numbers.

01:14:47 ◼   ► So I always wondered how Google Voice gets away

01:14:49 ◼   ► with just handing out free phone numbers.

01:14:51 ◼   ► I have a Google Voice number.

01:14:52 ◼   ► Like just, you know, it's very easy to get one.

01:14:55 ◼   ► But it is still more of a hassle

01:14:56 ◼   ► than getting an email address.

01:14:57 ◼   ► And most of us do not currently have seven phone numbers

01:15:00 ◼   ► that are just ready to pull out of our pocket

01:15:03 ◼   ► and sign up with a service for, you know, another way.

01:15:06 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:15:06 ◼   ► All right, let's see if we can get through

01:15:09 ◼   ► like two topics today before we run out of time.

01:15:13 ◼   ► Something flew by, flew across my desk a few days ago

01:15:17 ◼   ► that I wanted to briefly call attention to.

01:15:19 ◼   ► Apple Platform Security released,

01:15:23 ◼   ► I guess a series of pages or maybe it's a PDF, I don't know.

01:15:26 ◼   ► But one URL that I can give you

01:15:29 ◼   ► is about memory safe iBoot implementation.

01:15:32 ◼   ► And I just thought that this was cool.

01:15:34 ◼   ► And we don't necessarily need to talk about it a whole lot,

01:15:36 ◼   ► but it was something that I thought was very interesting.

01:15:38 ◼   ► And on this page, Apple writes,

01:15:42 ◼   ► in iOS 14, iPad OS 14,

01:15:45 ◼   ► Apple modified the C compiler tool chain

01:15:47 ◼   ► used to build the iBoot bootloader to improve its security.

01:15:50 ◼   ► The modified tool chain implements code

01:15:52 ◼   ► to prevent memory and type safety issues

01:15:54 ◼   ► that are typically encountered in C programs.

01:15:56 ◼   ► For example, it prevents buffer overflows

01:15:58 ◼   ► by ensuring that all pointers carry bounds information

01:16:01 ◼   ► that is verified when accessing memory.

01:16:03 ◼   ► It prevents heap exploitation by separating heap data

01:16:06 ◼   ► from its metadata and accurately detecting error conditions

01:16:09 ◼   ► such as double free errors.

01:16:10 ◼   ► It prevents type confusion

01:16:12 ◼   ► by ensuring that all pointers carry runtime type information

01:16:14 ◼   ► that's verified during pointer cast operations.

01:16:16 ◼   ► And finally, it prevents type confusion

01:16:19 ◼   ► caused by the use after free errors

01:16:21 ◼   ► by segregating all dynamic memory allocations

01:16:23 ◼   ► by static type.

01:16:24 ◼   ► This technology is available on iPhone

01:16:26 ◼   ► with Apple A13 Bionic or later in iPad with A14 Bionic chip.

01:16:31 ◼   ► That I just think this is so cool that,

01:16:32 ◼   ► hey, we wanna write something in C,

01:16:34 ◼   ► but C is inherently a little bit unsafe.

01:16:36 ◼   ► So we'll modify the C compiler

01:16:38 ◼   ► to make it a little more safe, please and thank you.

01:16:40 ◼   ► Like I just think that's super, super cool.

01:16:43 ◼   ► - So a bunch of discussion from some folks

01:16:46 ◼   ► who do low level programming at Apple and other places

01:16:49 ◼   ► about the general topic of C just being, you know,

01:16:54 ◼   ► an unsafe language to do any new development

01:16:57 ◼   ► in modern times, right?

01:16:59 ◼   ► Every time there's some kind of a bug