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ATP

415: Sent Without Pants

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Boy, the British are gonna love this title.

00:00:01 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:03 ◼   ► - They didn't even think about that.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - That's fine, they know how to, they do code switching.

00:00:07 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm on my Mac mini now.

00:00:11 ◼   ► I'm on my new setup.

00:00:14 ◼   ► My new, new, new setup.

00:00:15 ◼   ► So I kind of restored my iMac's installation onto this

00:00:20 ◼   ► with a few minor exceptions so it would fit,

00:00:23 ◼   ► but otherwise, it's mostly the iMac installation.

00:00:25 ◼   ► And I kind of regret doing that

00:00:29 ◼   ► because it's like I inherited all of the cruft

00:00:33 ◼   ► from my old desktop installation

00:00:34 ◼   ► and I had been using my nice clean, fresh install

00:00:38 ◼   ► on the MacBook Air as my only OS for,

00:00:42 ◼   ► I mean, what was that, like about a month and a half or so?

00:00:45 ◼   ► So I'm kind of like, oh, I kind of,

00:00:48 ◼   ► first of all, I kind of miss the MacBook Air as my primary

00:00:52 ◼   ► and there are some reasons why I'm gonna keep the Mac mini

00:00:55 ◼   ► as the primary for now, but I might do a clean install.

00:00:59 ◼   ► And honestly, going back to two computers again,

00:01:01 ◼   ► it is feeling a little bit more of a burden

00:01:05 ◼   ► than a worthwhile gain this time,

00:01:09 ◼   ► 'cause they're so similar.

00:01:11 ◼   ► They're basically the same computer,

00:01:12 ◼   ► but now you just have more ports on it.

00:01:14 ◼   ► But the Thunderbolt docks were good enough

00:01:17 ◼   ► at the port thing that I don't necessarily need that,

00:01:22 ◼   ► but there are some reasons why I benefit

00:01:25 ◼   ► from having a desktop in our current situation in life

00:01:27 ◼   ► and what our household needs here.

00:01:30 ◼   ► So I am gonna keep it this way,

00:01:32 ◼   ► but honestly, the MacBook Air is so good

00:01:35 ◼   ► and so similar in its capabilities that I might,

00:01:40 ◼   ► I don't know, down the road,

00:01:42 ◼   ► we'll see how our needs change with,

00:01:45 ◼   ► we kind of have to share the podcasting equipment

00:01:47 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and so we have some certain needs here

00:01:50 ◼   ► that I really benefit from the desktop.

00:01:52 ◼   ► But it is really tempting to just go to one computer

00:01:56 ◼   ► and have that one computer just be that MacBook Air

00:01:57 ◼   ► because that's what I was doing for a while,

00:01:59 ◼   ► and it was fine, it was great.

00:02:01 ◼   ► So we'll see, we'll see what the future holds.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - It's fascinating to me that, Mr. I Hate Laptops,

00:02:07 ◼   ► I don't like laptops at all.

00:02:10 ◼   ► Give me my desktop, Pride for my Cold,

00:02:11 ◼   ► well, I guess that's more John on the give me my desktop,

00:02:13 ◼   ► Pride for my Cold Dead Hands part,

00:02:15 ◼   ► but you were very devout in your belief

00:02:17 ◼   ► that laptops were not really for you,

00:02:19 ◼   ► and here it is, one different CPU,

00:02:22 ◼   ► and suddenly the world has changed,

00:02:24 ◼   ► the skies have opened, the sun is shining down,

00:02:26 ◼   ► the angels are singing, it's a whole new world, Marco.

00:02:28 ◼   ► - I mean, in all fairness, it's a heck of a CPU.

00:02:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:33 ◼   ► It's no small change.

00:02:34 ◼   ► It's like when you go from Windows to Mac,

00:02:37 ◼   ► it's like, it's just an OS.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Like, that's kind of a big deal.

00:02:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:02:41 ◼   ► And yeah, so in this case,

00:02:43 ◼   ► like, it is a pretty important CPU change,

00:02:46 ◼   ► and I was reminded when you were like,

00:02:49 ◼   ► you're social, like, you hate laptops.

00:02:51 ◼   ► I remember that scene in Clerks,

00:02:54 ◼   ► like, I work at a video store,

00:02:56 ◼   ► but I wanna go to a good video store.

00:02:58 ◼   ► It's like, I hate crappy laptops.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Like, I don't hate good laptops.

00:03:04 ◼   ► This is a really good laptop.

00:03:06 ◼   ► It's the best laptop I've ever had.

00:03:08 ◼   ► - I don't even like good laptops, so.

00:03:10 ◼   ► - I know, that's fair, but really,

00:03:12 ◼   ► like, so much of what made laptops suck in the past

00:03:17 ◼   ► is either gone or greatly minimized with this one,

00:03:20 ◼   ► and a lot of that's temporary.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Like, there will presumably still be

00:03:25 ◼   ► a larger performance gap between desktops and laptops

00:03:28 ◼   ► once the desktops are all updated,

00:03:30 ◼   ► and that's why, like, this is kind of a unique time

00:03:32 ◼   ► to be a Mac user right now,

00:03:33 ◼   ► because right now, the best Mac they sell

00:03:37 ◼   ► is the MacBook Air.

00:03:39 ◼   ► That presumably won't be the case in six months, maybe,

00:03:43 ◼   ► or maybe less, maybe more.

00:03:45 ◼   ► But like, you know, as soon as they release the iMac,

00:03:47 ◼   ► probably, like, you know, whenever that's coming,

00:03:48 ◼   ► spring, summer, whenever it is,

00:03:49 ◼   ► like, that's probably gonna have whatever the M1X

00:03:53 ◼   ► or similar is, and that's probably gonna be faster,

00:03:57 ◼   ► and it's gonna have a lot of built-in ports,

00:03:59 ◼   ► and it's gonna have probably more GPU power,

00:04:01 ◼   ► and it's gonna have, you know,

00:04:03 ◼   ► like, the great new design and everything.

00:04:05 ◼   ► So like, certainly, the shine will wear off

00:04:08 ◼   ► on this, you know, basic, like, entry-level,

00:04:12 ◼   ► you know, M1 silicon, Apple Silicon Mac

00:04:15 ◼   ► once the newer higher-end ones come out.

00:04:18 ◼   ► And there will come a time where I will rationalize

00:04:20 ◼   ► upgrading to one of those, I'm sure.

00:04:22 ◼   ► - But you? - Yeah, right.

00:04:24 ◼   ► But like, right, that's why,

00:04:25 ◼   ► this is why I keep trying to sell people on the MacBook Air,

00:04:27 ◼   ► 'cause like, it's such a cool thing right now

00:04:30 ◼   ► that the lowest-end laptop is the best laptop in the lineup.

00:04:34 ◼   ► Like, that's such a cool thing

00:04:35 ◼   ► that is almost never the case.

00:04:38 ◼   ► And really, for most of my needs,

00:04:40 ◼   ► it's like, all these M1 computers are totally fine.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I have yet to hear the fan in the Mac Mini.

00:04:47 ◼   ► And yeah, these are fantastic computers,

00:04:51 ◼   ► and it just makes me so excited that soon,

00:04:54 ◼   ► these are gonna be considered the low-end,

00:04:56 ◼   ► 'cause the high-end is gonna be even better than these.

00:05:00 ◼   ► This is just such a great time to use a Mac.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - So actually, let me pull on that thread for a second.

00:05:05 ◼   ► Do you suspect that the high-end of any of these devices,

00:05:10 ◼   ► so I'm eliminating the Mac Pro, let's leave that aside,

00:05:13 ◼   ► because it's kind of its own weird one-off,

00:05:15 ◼   ► do you think the high-end Mac Mini,

00:05:17 ◼   ► do you think the high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro,

00:05:19 ◼   ► do you think they will be that much faster

00:05:22 ◼   ► than the things that are out now?

00:05:24 ◼   ► Because history and momentum makes me think,

00:05:28 ◼   ► sure, of course it would be considerably faster.

00:05:30 ◼   ► That's the way these things work.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But what if it's not?

00:05:33 ◼   ► What if the differences really do boil down

00:05:35 ◼   ► to just port configurations, and touch bars are not,

00:05:39 ◼   ► and screen sizes are not?

00:05:41 ◼   ► I mean, what if we end up with a real iPhoneification

00:05:45 ◼   ► of, let's say, the laptop line,

00:05:47 ◼   ► where really you're not choosing what processor,

00:05:50 ◼   ► you don't choose what processor you're getting in an iPhone,

00:05:53 ◼   ► you're choosing what screen size you want,

00:05:55 ◼   ► you're choosing whether or not,

00:05:56 ◼   ► or at least in years past,

00:05:57 ◼   ► you're choosing whether or not you want a home button,

00:05:58 ◼   ► and things of that nature.

00:06:00 ◼   ► Do you reckon that the next,

00:06:02 ◼   ► whatever the next processor is,

00:06:04 ◼   ► it will be a bump from the M1, and it won't be that big.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And even the top of the line,

00:06:11 ◼   ► even if there's like a brand new iMac Pro,

00:06:14 ◼   ► it's still powered by an M1 with maybe a couple more cores,

00:06:18 ◼   ► or some special sauce.

00:06:20 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:06:21 ◼   ► I don't know if it's still gonna be that way.

00:06:24 ◼   ► - I think what we're gonna see is single core performance

00:06:28 ◼   ► is probably gonna be pretty similar across every generation.

00:06:31 ◼   ► So M1 anything, M1X, M1, whatever,

00:06:34 ◼   ► however they make the chip bigger and wider

00:06:37 ◼   ► for the higher end models,

00:06:39 ◼   ► I suspect single threaded performance

00:06:41 ◼   ► is gonna be very similar across all of them.

00:06:43 ◼   ► They might clock the higher end ones a little bit higher,

00:06:45 ◼   ► 'cause they'll have the thermal and power headroom to do it,

00:06:48 ◼   ► but ultimately I don't expect massive differences

00:06:51 ◼   ► in single threaded performance.

00:06:52 ◼   ► We're gonna see that same core

00:06:54 ◼   ► being used across the whole product line.

00:06:56 ◼   ► Then the question becomes how many of them?

00:06:58 ◼   ► How many high performance versus high efficiency cores

00:07:00 ◼   ► do you get?

00:07:01 ◼   ► And then the GPU power is the other big question mark.

00:07:04 ◼   ► And of course things like RAM sealing

00:07:06 ◼   ► might also be affected as we've discussed.

00:07:07 ◼   ► So I think ultimately we're gonna see

00:07:10 ◼   ► single core performance being very similar

00:07:12 ◼   ► across every model of a given chip year,

00:07:16 ◼   ► chip generation year, whatever it is.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But we will see, certainly like GPU stuff

00:07:22 ◼   ► is probably the easiest to scale,

00:07:25 ◼   ► because GPUs are very easy to scale.

00:07:28 ◼   ► You just give them more transistors and more heat

00:07:31 ◼   ► and more power and GPU performance scales up very easily.

00:07:35 ◼   ► And processor performance is close, up to a point.

00:07:41 ◼   ► You can add more high performance cores

00:07:43 ◼   ► and make this perform even better in parallel stuff.

00:07:46 ◼   ► But scaling the single threaded performance

00:07:49 ◼   ► is much harder and has, usually you hit ceilings

00:07:52 ◼   ► on that much faster than anything else.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Even, it gets to the point where even if you try

00:07:57 ◼   ► to clock it really, really, really high

00:07:59 ◼   ► and it sucks down tons of power,

00:08:01 ◼   ► you just get pretty diminishing returns pretty quickly

00:08:03 ◼   ► with that kind of thing.

00:08:04 ◼   ► So that's why I'm guessing we're gonna see

00:08:07 ◼   ► everything get wider, more cores, bigger GPU

00:08:11 ◼   ► with itself more cores, but probably not each one

00:08:16 ◼   ► being that much faster.

00:08:17 ◼   ► And if that's the future we see, or that we get,

00:08:20 ◼   ► then what's probably gonna happen is the higher end

00:08:25 ◼   ► machines and everything are gonna be very similar

00:08:29 ◼   ► in performance to the lower end machines

00:08:31 ◼   ► when you're not doing either high power GPU things

00:08:35 ◼   ► or very parallel tasks, which honestly is not that different

00:08:38 ◼   ► from the world that we're leaving with the Intel world.

00:08:40 ◼   ► That's largely where it got as well.

00:08:42 ◼   ► If you look at all the single threaded benchmarks

00:08:44 ◼   ► of Geekbench and everything else, most generations,

00:08:48 ◼   ► they improve the core occasionally, but for the most part,

00:08:50 ◼   ► single threaded performance doesn't change that much

00:08:51 ◼   ► between model families, 'cause that's just modern

00:08:54 ◼   ► chip design, thermals and stuff like that.

00:08:56 ◼   ► So I think largely the higher end machines

00:09:00 ◼   ► are gonna feel largely the same until you do something

00:09:04 ◼   ► like a video encode or something like that

00:09:06 ◼   ► where you're using massive parallel operations,

00:09:09 ◼   ► and then you'll probably see differences.

00:09:11 ◼   ► - This is what we've been talking about for a while

00:09:13 ◼   ► that we still don't know the answer to,

00:09:14 ◼   ► which is how much of an appetite does Apple have

00:09:16 ◼   ► to make things more exotic and weirder

00:09:19 ◼   ► for the higher end machines?

00:09:21 ◼   ► We just don't know, 'cause we've just got the low end ones,

00:09:22 ◼   ► and low end ones look so much like

00:09:24 ◼   ► the iPad chips essentially.

00:09:26 ◼   ► It's an open question as to how invested Apple

00:09:30 ◼   ► is going to be into really ringing out the power

00:09:34 ◼   ► from these things.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And I agree with everything Marco said.

00:09:36 ◼   ► The interesting part here though, as compared

00:09:39 ◼   ► to the Intel world that we were coming from,

00:09:41 ◼   ► and in fact on the Intel world, remember that

00:09:43 ◼   ► the higher end you got, the worse single core performance

00:09:46 ◼   ► got, because when you get the 28 cores in there,

00:09:47 ◼   ► they couldn't clock the single ones to match.

00:09:49 ◼   ► The fastest single core one was the iMac

00:09:51 ◼   ► with the low number of cores, because then you could

00:09:54 ◼   ► crank the speed up, but anyway.

00:09:56 ◼   ► In terms of what you can do to single core performance,

00:10:00 ◼   ► the advantage that the ARM chips have,

00:10:02 ◼   ► doesn't mean Apple's gonna take advantage of it,

00:10:03 ◼   ► but the advantage they have is they're so far below

00:10:06 ◼   ► the cooling potential that we know the size

00:10:10 ◼   ► of the class of an iMac has in it,

00:10:12 ◼   ► that Apple has actually the option to really turn

00:10:16 ◼   ► the screws on it and crank it up to an absurd degree,

00:10:18 ◼   ► because they're like, look, we've got this giant case.

00:10:22 ◼   ► We know we can put huge fans in there

00:10:24 ◼   ► that aren't actually that loud.

00:10:26 ◼   ► We have so much headroom, even if it's like Marco said,

00:10:30 ◼   ► it's going to be diminishing returns.

00:10:31 ◼   ► It's not a linear ramp, but it's like,

00:10:33 ◼   ► well, we've got all this headroom,

00:10:35 ◼   ► and are we really going to essentially make a fanless iMac?

00:10:38 ◼   ► We could, because if the case is so big

00:10:41 ◼   ► and you could just put a big passive heat sink in there,

00:10:43 ◼   ► and it would probably be fine, or an iMac with a fan

00:10:45 ◼   ► that you literally never heard, like the current M1

00:10:49 ◼   ► MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, but if Apple has an appetite

00:10:53 ◼   ► to really take it as high as they can on a high-end iMac,

00:10:57 ◼   ► whether it's called the iMac Pro or not,

00:10:59 ◼   ► you could also really just turn it up as far as it'll go.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Make an M something CPU that uses as much power

00:11:09 ◼   ► as the outgoing Intel model.

00:11:11 ◼   ► And that'll be a massive, like not overclocking,

00:11:14 ◼   ► but a massive increase in thermal headroom for the ship.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And I don't know where it tops out.

00:11:21 ◼   ► It's not like you can just keep making the clock speed

00:11:22 ◼   ► faster and faster and it'll just run forever, right?

00:11:25 ◼   ► Because we don't know a lot of details

00:11:27 ◼   ► like the pipeline depth and stuff like that of these chips,

00:11:29 ◼   ► but that's what I'm gonna be looking at

00:11:31 ◼   ► is sort of get Apple's philosophy.

00:11:34 ◼   ► Are they going to say we're gonna take

00:11:35 ◼   ► the thermal headroom win across all our models?

00:11:37 ◼   ► That's the most important thing to us.

00:11:39 ◼   ► Like basically, you should not be able to tell

00:11:40 ◼   ► that any Mac has a fan.

00:11:42 ◼   ► They can do that, and it will be exactly like Marco said,

00:11:45 ◼   ► where single core will be about the same,

00:11:46 ◼   ► multi-core will be scaling mostly linearly

00:11:49 ◼   ► with the number of cores if you have a highly parallel task,

00:11:52 ◼   ► bigger GPUs, and the philosophy,

00:11:55 ◼   ► kind of like the iPad 10-hour battery life,

00:11:57 ◼   ► will be, oh, Macs, you shouldn't hear their fans anymore.

00:12:00 ◼   ► Another philosophy is whatever case we have,

00:12:03 ◼   ► whatever thermal headroom is there,

00:12:05 ◼   ► if we can dissipate 200 watts of heat,

00:12:07 ◼   ► we're going to dissipate 200 watts of heat,

00:12:10 ◼   ► and we will do whatever it takes to generate 200 watts.

00:12:13 ◼   ► We'll make a bigger GPU, we'll increase the clock speed,

00:12:17 ◼   ► we'll add more cores or whatever,

00:12:18 ◼   ► because hey, we've got 200 watts.

00:12:20 ◼   ► Let's just do it, right?

00:12:22 ◼   ► And until Apple lands their first non-entry level

00:12:27 ◼   ► ARM-based Mac, we just don't know

00:12:31 ◼   ► what their philosophy is gonna be.

00:12:33 ◼   ► So, exciting times coming.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:12:36 ◼   ► All right, we should move on with some follow-up.

00:12:39 ◼   ► We have gotten so much feedback

00:12:42 ◼   ► about Marco's ethernet problem,

00:12:44 ◼   ► my eyes are spinning in my head.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Everyone is, and as with our feedback often goes,

00:12:51 ◼   ► everyone is unequivocally convinced they are correct,

00:12:54 ◼   ► and generally speaking, they are unequivocally convinced

00:12:56 ◼   ► that we are incorrect, which both of those things

00:12:58 ◼   ► are quite possibly true.

00:12:59 ◼   ► However, everyone seems to disagree with everyone else,

00:13:02 ◼   ► as far as I'm concerned.

00:13:04 ◼   ► So, I don't even know what's real.

00:13:06 ◼   ► I'm not even gonna touch this.

00:13:07 ◼   ► So, Jon, I guess, do you wanna tell me what's going on here?

00:13:10 ◼   ► - Sure, I think the biggest correction from last week

00:13:13 ◼   ► is the T568A versus T568B.

00:13:17 ◼   ► A lot of people wrote into bust myths about that,

00:13:20 ◼   ► myths that were in that article that we linked

00:13:22 ◼   ► and talked about in the last show.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And I think that, from the people who know,

00:13:26 ◼   ► it's pretty conclusive.

00:13:27 ◼   ► The difference between A and B

00:13:29 ◼   ► is which colored pairs of wires are on which pins,

00:13:32 ◼   ► and that's the only difference.

00:13:34 ◼   ► And as many people pointed out,

00:13:36 ◼   ► electrons don't know what color the insulation is.

00:13:38 ◼   ► So, the supposed performance and reliability

00:13:43 ◼   ► and interference resistance properties of B

00:13:47 ◼   ► are nonexistent, there is none.

00:13:49 ◼   ► They are electrically exactly identical,

00:13:51 ◼   ► 'cause again, the electrons don't know

00:13:52 ◼   ► what color things are.

00:13:53 ◼   ► Now, there are two different wiring standards,

00:13:56 ◼   ► and you shouldn't mix them up with each other

00:13:57 ◼   ► because you'll mess things up

00:13:59 ◼   ► and accidentally make crossover cables

00:14:00 ◼   ► where you're not supposed to, and all that stuff is true.

00:14:02 ◼   ► But that article, which was very highly ranked in Google,

00:14:05 ◼   ► which is how it ended up in our show notes,

00:14:07 ◼   ► and many people who, many similar articles

00:14:09 ◼   ► that tout the supposed benefits of B,

00:14:13 ◼   ► those are just, it's entirely a myth, right?

00:14:15 ◼   ► They're electrically identical.

00:14:17 ◼   ► - I'm so happy to hear this.

00:14:19 ◼   ► 'Cause when I read the article,

00:14:20 ◼   ► and I was looking at the wiring diagram between A and B,

00:14:24 ◼   ► I was like, why is it, what's the difference?

00:14:26 ◼   ► 'Cause I noticed, okay, it says pairs,

00:14:29 ◼   ► you know, which pair is split,

00:14:30 ◼   ► like pair number one, pair number three, whatever.

00:14:33 ◼   ► But it's like, it looks like, why would this be different?

00:14:36 ◼   ► And I assumed that maybe the pairs themselves

00:14:41 ◼   ► are not twisted around each other.

00:14:43 ◼   ► - They're not the same, yeah.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - If pair one is diagonally across from pair three

00:14:48 ◼   ► versus next to pair three, but I'm like,

00:14:50 ◼   ► that's probably not how they do this.

00:14:53 ◼   ► But I was looking at it thinking,

00:14:55 ◼   ► there must be something about this

00:14:56 ◼   ► that I'm not understanding,

00:14:57 ◼   ► 'cause I don't see why this would be different.

00:15:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I don't know how this myth propagated.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Probably because B was the new one, right?

00:15:05 ◼   ► Like, oh, you don't, you know,

00:15:06 ◼   ► when we do it for networking stuff,

00:15:08 ◼   ► we do it the B style versus the A.

00:15:10 ◼   ► And again, I wanna stress,

00:15:12 ◼   ► if you don't pay attention to this,

00:15:13 ◼   ► and make like one end A and one end B,

00:15:15 ◼   ► and then just like it's random throughout your thing,

00:15:17 ◼   ► like nothing will work right.

00:15:18 ◼   ► Like, don't do that, right?

00:15:19 ◼   ► You do want to pick one and stick to it,

00:15:21 ◼   ► but whichever one it is, it absolutely doesn't matter.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Now, speaking of weird myth stuffs,

00:15:25 ◼   ► in my like looking at more research on this

00:15:29 ◼   ► and YouTube videos, because Marco mentioned

00:15:31 ◼   ► the weird like cat seven connectors,

00:15:33 ◼   ► and I wanted to see what the heck are these connectors.

00:15:35 ◼   ► I watched a bunch of videos on cat six versus cat seven

00:15:38 ◼   ► versus cat eight, and what the differences are,

00:15:39 ◼   ► and how to make the connectors and everything.

00:15:42 ◼   ► At one point, one of the people who seemed like

00:15:44 ◼   ► they knew what they were talking about,

00:15:46 ◼   ► 'cause they, you know, they, you know,

00:15:48 ◼   ► were showing how to make the connectors

00:15:49 ◼   ► and giving all these tips, whatever they said,

00:15:52 ◼   ► they did one of the cables,

00:15:53 ◼   ► I think it was like in cat eight, or maybe it was cat seven,

00:15:55 ◼   ► that they changed the colors around.

00:15:57 ◼   ► So in the ethernet cables that most of us have in our home,

00:16:00 ◼   ► if you open them up, there's like a green wire,

00:16:04 ◼   ► and then there's a wire that has green and white stripes,

00:16:06 ◼   ► and they twist with each other.

00:16:08 ◼   ► So it's the green wire paired with the green

00:16:10 ◼   ► and white wire, right?

00:16:11 ◼   ► And so it's like, the green and white wire

00:16:13 ◼   ► is like green, white, green, white,

00:16:14 ◼   ► in little sections all the way down, right?

00:16:16 ◼   ► And the guy says in the video

00:16:19 ◼   ► that in whatever this higher standard was

00:16:20 ◼   ► that supports higher speeds, he said,

00:16:22 ◼   ► "You'll notice that it's not a green wire

00:16:25 ◼   ► and a green and white wire anymore,

00:16:26 ◼   ► it's just a green wire and a white wire."

00:16:29 ◼   ► Which is tricky, but he was like,

00:16:30 ◼   ► "Here's the technique I used not to get them mixed up,

00:16:32 ◼   ► because basically every colored wire

00:16:34 ◼   ► has its own corresponding white wire.

00:16:36 ◼   ► So there's the white wire that goes with the green wire,

00:16:38 ◼   ► then the white wire that goes with the blue wire,

00:16:39 ◼   ► then the white wire that goes with the red wire, right?

00:16:41 ◼   ► And the white wires are indistinguishable from each other.

00:16:43 ◼   ► So he's saying like when you're making the connector,

00:16:46 ◼   ► bend them in like this direction

00:16:47 ◼   ► so they don't get them mixed up with each other.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And he mentioned offhand, by the way,

00:16:52 ◼   ► the reason they got rid of the striping,

00:16:53 ◼   ► which seems like a good idea

00:16:54 ◼   ► so you don't mess them up in that way,

00:16:56 ◼   ► was because apparently printing the stripes

00:16:58 ◼   ► on the insulation caused interference problems.

00:17:01 ◼   ► - What? (laughs)

00:17:02 ◼   ► - And now I'm like, oh wait,

00:17:03 ◼   ► this is like 568 A versus B again?

00:17:06 ◼   ► Printing, like, do the electrons know what color is it?

00:17:10 ◼   ► Does the printing process change the insulation in some way?

00:17:13 ◼   ► And so I don't know if he was just pulling my leg

00:17:16 ◼   ► with very dry humor or anyway.

00:17:18 ◼   ► Obviously none of us are networking experts,

00:17:22 ◼   ► but our toe dip into the world of networking

00:17:24 ◼   ► has revealed all sorts of strange myths and urban legends,

00:17:27 ◼   ► and it's very uncomfortable.

00:17:29 ◼   ► - It seems like, again, I don't know anything about this,

00:17:32 ◼   ► but I would guess, I mean,

00:17:34 ◼   ► unless the ink itself was conductive and grounded.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - Or like the process of stamping the ink,

00:17:42 ◼   ► it doesn't make any sense.

00:17:43 ◼   ► - The only thing I can think of is

00:17:44 ◼   ► if the ink has some thickness to it,

00:17:47 ◼   ► and then maybe it's spacing out the twisted pair

00:17:51 ◼   ► every time it passes a stripe.

00:17:53 ◼   ► - I'm fine, how much, how thick is the ink?

00:17:55 ◼   ► - But then if you think,

00:17:56 ◼   ► the twisted pairs have to untwist

00:18:00 ◼   ► for some kind of short amount of distance at each connector.

00:18:04 ◼   ► And obviously you try to minimize that distance

00:18:05 ◼   ► to keep noise low and try to keep bandwidth high

00:18:09 ◼   ► and minimize cross-talk and all that other stuff.

00:18:12 ◼   ► But I have to imagine whatever amount that you,

00:18:15 ◼   ► whatever amount of signal degradation you'd be introducing

00:18:18 ◼   ► by just having a connector on the end of the wire

00:18:21 ◼   ► with that very slight amount of untwisting of the pairs

00:18:23 ◼   ► would have to be greater than whatever the ink printing

00:18:27 ◼   ► on the wire could possibly do.

00:18:30 ◼   ► - And on the flip side of that, though,

00:18:32 ◼   ► why would you ever make this change?

00:18:34 ◼   ► Because as the person was talking about

00:18:36 ◼   ► when making the connector,

00:18:37 ◼   ► when you're sort of separating the wires from each other,

00:18:39 ◼   ► you have to be really careful not to get the whites mixed up.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Like if you just have them as a big bundle of wire,

00:18:43 ◼   ► like wait, did this white one go with the green one?

00:18:45 ◼   ► And then you gotta take out your continuity tester

00:18:47 ◼   ► and figure it out again or whatever.

00:18:48 ◼   ► The system of having green with the green and white

00:18:50 ◼   ► and blue with the blue and white,

00:18:52 ◼   ► that's a good system for matching them up, right?

00:18:54 ◼   ► - Well, I would argue, though,

00:18:56 ◼   ► if you get the whites mixed up,

00:18:58 ◼   ► you have probably untwisted too much of distance of the wire.

00:19:02 ◼   ► Because again, you're supposed to try and minimize

00:19:03 ◼   ► the amount that you untwist

00:19:05 ◼   ► to make the connectors and stuff.

00:19:06 ◼   ► So I think if you have lost track of which whites

00:19:11 ◼   ► were twisted around which ones,

00:19:12 ◼   ► you've probably untwisted too long of a section.

00:19:15 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, it's like when you're trying

00:19:16 ◼   ► to put them on the pins, you know what I mean?

00:19:18 ◼   ► Like you've got the eight wires

00:19:19 ◼   ► sprayed out in front of you and they're all in order,

00:19:21 ◼   ► but then two of the whites get crossed over each other.

00:19:23 ◼   ► And of course, remember the twisted pairs

00:19:24 ◼   ► are themselves twisted around each other, right?

00:19:26 ◼   ► Through the length of the wire.

00:19:28 ◼   ► - Are they?

00:19:28 ◼   ► I didn't know that.

00:19:29 ◼   ► - Yes, they are.

00:19:30 ◼   ► So it's, anyway, I don't know the answer to this.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Networking is weird.

00:19:35 ◼   ► A versus B, there are no performance differences,

00:19:37 ◼   ► but you do need to know which one you're doing

00:19:39 ◼   ► and just stick to it.

00:19:40 ◼   ► - Oh my.

00:19:43 ◼   ► And here we are continuing with ethernet follow-up.

00:19:45 ◼   ► Travis P. writes, "The PowerBook G4 Titanium

00:19:47 ◼   ► also had auto-sensing ethernet.

00:19:50 ◼   ► I bought one in April of 2001,

00:19:51 ◼   ► which is before the original Xbox One,

00:19:54 ◼   ► One X, Xbox Box X release.

00:19:57 ◼   ► So the TiBook was January 9th of 2001.

00:20:00 ◼   ► The original Xbox November 15th of 2001."

00:20:03 ◼   ► - I just thought that was interesting,

00:20:04 ◼   ► but Margaret's point still stands.

00:20:05 ◼   ► The device that most people had

00:20:07 ◼   ► that first had auto-sensing ethernet

00:20:08 ◼   ► was surely the Xbox and not the TiBook.

00:20:10 ◼   ► - Right, well, 'cause at the time,

00:20:11 ◼   ► if I remember correctly, auto-sensing,

00:20:14 ◼   ► I think it's part of the gigabit standard.

00:20:16 ◼   ► So I think all gigabit jacks have always had auto-sensing.

00:20:19 ◼   ► At least that's how it seems to have worked out.

00:20:21 ◼   ► But at the time, not everybody had gigabit stuff

00:20:24 ◼   ► and the Xbox didn't either.

00:20:25 ◼   ► It was a 100 megabit port that supported auto-sensing.

00:20:29 ◼   ► And that was a very unusual combination.

00:20:31 ◼   ► Usually back then, your choices were 100 megabit NICs

00:20:34 ◼   ► and stuff that didn't have auto-sensing,

00:20:36 ◼   ► or the more expensive, you know,

00:20:38 ◼   ► like 50 or $60 gigabit equipment

00:20:41 ◼   ► that would all have auto-sensing.

00:20:42 ◼   ► So that's why I think it was weird to,

00:20:45 ◼   ► or at least unusual to have a 100 megabit thing

00:20:48 ◼   ► in the Xbox that had auto-sensing.

00:20:50 ◼   ► - All right, Ted Barnes writes,

00:20:51 ◼   ► "The 30-inch Apple Cinnamon display

00:20:53 ◼   ► "was very impressive at the time for print design.

00:20:56 ◼   ► "At 30 inches, designers could design

00:20:57 ◼   ► "a full magazine spread at 100%

00:20:59 ◼   ► "with room to spare for toolbars and panels

00:21:01 ◼   ► "for the very first time.

00:21:02 ◼   ► "That was huge."

00:21:03 ◼   ► That's a good pun.

00:21:04 ◼   ► - It was huge.

00:21:05 ◼   ► - It was huge.

00:21:07 ◼   ► "The Apple monitors, the Cinnamon display included,

00:21:09 ◼   ► "are also known for their stellar color fidelity.

00:21:11 ◼   ► "Most print shops would only guarantee color matching

00:21:13 ◼   ► "when using calibrated Apple monitors

00:21:15 ◼   ► "using their custom press color profiles.

00:21:17 ◼   ► "The print world ran on Cinnamon displays

00:21:19 ◼   ► "for over a decade from design

00:21:20 ◼   ► "through pre-press and printing."

00:21:22 ◼   ► You know, even though this,

00:21:25 ◼   ► I don't have a lot of energy to care about

00:21:27 ◼   ► the 30-inch Cinnamon display from way back when,

00:21:29 ◼   ► it is interesting to me that Apple really did

00:21:32 ◼   ► cater to these kinds of professionals

00:21:36 ◼   ► in a way that I don't think they do anymore.

00:21:39 ◼   ► And yeah, you can make a really solid argument

00:21:41 ◼   ► that who cares about print professionals

00:21:43 ◼   ► because print is a dying, to some degree, dying art.

00:21:46 ◼   ► You know, not a lot of people I know

00:21:48 ◼   ► get newspapers every day, for example.

00:21:50 ◼   ► But I think the point is still interesting

00:21:52 ◼   ► that it seems like Apple would do things

00:21:56 ◼   ► that one could argue were explicitly directed

00:22:00 ◼   ► at certain professions.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And I don't really see them doing a lot of that anymore.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And when they do it with your guys' ridiculous

00:22:08 ◼   ► $90,000 monitors, it doesn't seem like it's enough.

00:22:12 ◼   ► Like it seems like all the real true professionals

00:22:14 ◼   ► that are really truly wanting, what is it,

00:22:16 ◼   ► reference monitors, that they're still not buying

00:22:18 ◼   ► Pro Display XDRs.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Do we care about this?

00:22:21 ◼   ► I mean, it seems like it's a bummer to me.

00:22:22 ◼   ► - I mean, we know that they let the ball drop

00:22:25 ◼   ► on the pro market, right?

00:22:26 ◼   ► That's why they had to reverse course, right?

00:22:29 ◼   ► Which they're doing.

00:22:29 ◼   ► But in general, I think, ignoring the big dip

00:22:33 ◼   ► and neglecting the market,

00:22:34 ◼   ► it's the same situation that it's always been.

00:22:36 ◼   ► That Apple serves those markets in the way that,

00:22:40 ◼   ► I mean, how did it get that market in the first place?

00:22:42 ◼   ► It serves them by basically making a platform

00:22:46 ◼   ► that fundamentally has foundational technologies

00:22:51 ◼   ► that are suited to the platform.

00:22:52 ◼   ► So to give an example in this case,

00:22:55 ◼   ► or that are suited to the profession,

00:22:57 ◼   ► color matching, color fidelity, color sync,

00:22:59 ◼   ► like Apple made an OS level system framework technology API

00:23:04 ◼   ► for doing color calibration and matching.

00:23:09 ◼   ► And that was back in the classic Mac OS days.

00:23:11 ◼   ► And that's a thing that you could say,

00:23:14 ◼   ► well, who cares about color calibration?

00:23:16 ◼   ► Well, all of the print people do, right?

00:23:18 ◼   ► But that feature benefits everybody.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Having computers that are able to control

00:23:25 ◼   ► and deal with color on more than just guesswork,

00:23:29 ◼   ► like actually having color profiles

00:23:31 ◼   ► and having it be system-wide

00:23:32 ◼   ► and having it woven throughout the entire OS

00:23:36 ◼   ► benefits everybody who uses an Apple computer.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Most people don't care as much as the print people do,

00:23:42 ◼   ► but everyone benefits from it.

00:23:44 ◼   ► And if you think back to this era,

00:23:46 ◼   ► looking at your friend's PC versus your other friend's PC,

00:23:49 ◼   ► the colors could be all over the place

00:23:51 ◼   ► because it's a PC, whatever.

00:23:52 ◼   ► You connect the monitor, you connect the video card,

00:23:54 ◼   ► the color is what you get.

00:23:54 ◼   ► Like who knows about color calibration?

00:23:56 ◼   ► And it certainly wasn't baked into Windows, right?

00:23:58 ◼   ► But it was baked into Mac OS.

00:24:00 ◼   ► That's true of almost every feature that the Mac has,

00:24:02 ◼   ► proportional fonts, the retina as an example,

00:24:06 ◼   ► and the UI scaling.

00:24:07 ◼   ► Like there's tons of things that Apple builds in

00:24:10 ◼   ► to the foundation to benefit ostensibly,

00:24:13 ◼   ► oh, just people who care about this

00:24:15 ◼   ► and whatever weird market,

00:24:16 ◼   ► but everybody gets the benefits, right?

00:24:18 ◼   ► So part of the reason we like using Macs

00:24:20 ◼   ► is they have all sorts of nice things in high quality

00:24:23 ◼   ► above and beyond what we need.

00:24:24 ◼   ► I mean, hell, that's the entire,

00:24:26 ◼   ► all of our computers, maybe probably including Casey,

00:24:29 ◼   ► are more than we need.

00:24:31 ◼   ► And that's why we like them,

00:24:33 ◼   ► because they do give us way more

00:24:35 ◼   ► than the bare minimum that we need.

00:24:37 ◼   ► And though we don't need to have

00:24:40 ◼   ► all of this extra color fidelity,

00:24:42 ◼   ► or I don't need 1600 nits and the way retina works,

00:24:46 ◼   ► maybe we don't need that high DPI to look at text

00:24:49 ◼   ► in a code window or something,

00:24:51 ◼   ► but we enjoy it and like it and benefit from it

00:24:53 ◼   ► in sort of an ambient way, right?

00:24:55 ◼   ► So Apple at its best,

00:24:58 ◼   ► that's how they get those markets in the first place.

00:25:00 ◼   ► That's why desktop publishing came up on the Mac.

00:25:03 ◼   ► And that's how they keep them.

00:25:04 ◼   ► They lose them by just neglecting to give that market

00:25:08 ◼   ► what they really need.

00:25:09 ◼   ► We're not gonna make a tower computer for you anymore.

00:25:11 ◼   ► We're gonna stop making monitors,

00:25:13 ◼   ► you know, you take it or leave it, right?

00:25:15 ◼   ► And that's how you lose the market, right?

00:25:17 ◼   ► But you get it back by continuing to do things

00:25:21 ◼   ► like make an FPGA, a weird custom FPGA card

00:25:26 ◼   ► that is literally only useful for people doing

00:25:28 ◼   ► a particular kind of video and building support for it

00:25:32 ◼   ► into your video app that's for professional video editors

00:25:35 ◼   ► that you ship on your 1600 nit XDR display, yada yada.

00:25:39 ◼   ► - Christopher Klein writes,

00:25:40 ◼   ► "I never thought listening to a tech podcast

00:25:42 ◼   ► would change my life, but thank you.

00:25:43 ◼   ► As a 39 year old paramedic,

00:25:44 ◼   ► I knew I had moderate hearing loss from almost 20 years

00:25:48 ◼   ► of occupational exposure to sirens and other loud noises.

00:25:51 ◼   ► I followed your instructions to use Mimi

00:25:52 ◼   ► to create an audiogram in the health app,

00:25:54 ◼   ► used audio accommodations with my AirPods Pro

00:25:56 ◼   ► and started playing music.

00:25:57 ◼   ► I nearly wept.

00:25:58 ◼   ► What an amazing difference it makes."

00:26:00 ◼   ► I should try this.

00:26:01 ◼   ► I don't feel like I have hearing loss,

00:26:02 ◼   ► but I should still try this.

00:26:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I made a profile for myself.

00:26:07 ◼   ► I mean, you want, in some respects you're like,

00:26:11 ◼   ► I want the feel good story too.

00:26:13 ◼   ► But in other respects you're like,

00:26:14 ◼   ► I don't want to have hearing loss.

00:26:15 ◼   ► But that's the thing about these accessibility options

00:26:18 ◼   ► as we've said many times.

00:26:19 ◼   ► Accessibility is for everyone, including you,

00:26:22 ◼   ► if you live long enough and the alternative is worse.

00:26:25 ◼   ► So your choice is death

00:26:26 ◼   ► or you're going to use accessibility features.

00:26:29 ◼   ► So you may need them now and you might not know it

00:26:33 ◼   ► because you think, oh, I'm not an old person.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I don't have any hearing loss, but try it out.

00:26:36 ◼   ► Is this a thing built in?

00:26:38 ◼   ► This is another example of like serving the market

00:26:41 ◼   ► of people who need accessibility features.

00:26:42 ◼   ► That benefits everybody.

00:26:44 ◼   ► Eventually it literally will benefit everybody

00:26:46 ◼   ► again if you stay alive.

00:26:47 ◼   ► But even people who are young and healthy

00:26:50 ◼   ► and have no accessibility issues

00:26:51 ◼   ► and perfect hearing and perfect vision and everything,

00:26:54 ◼   ► they also benefit from having an OS

00:26:56 ◼   ► that supports these kinds of features.

00:26:58 ◼   ► Even if it's just preference,

00:26:59 ◼   ► they're like, hey, I can make the text bigger.

00:27:00 ◼   ► Not because I can't see it,

00:27:01 ◼   ► but that's just because that's what I prefer.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Or dark mode, which has some accessibility benefits.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Maybe you just like dark mode because it's cool.

00:27:08 ◼   ► So just like those pro features,

00:27:10 ◼   ► accessibility features can benefit everybody.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Say you have some hearing loss.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And when I took the test, I tried two different apps.

00:27:18 ◼   ► I did the Mimi one and I did another one

00:27:19 ◼   ► 'cause I thought the Mimi test was difficult to do.

00:27:22 ◼   ► But I tried a different testing app

00:27:23 ◼   ► that was a little bit more conclusive.

00:27:26 ◼   ► But either way, they showed that my hearing wasn't perfect,

00:27:29 ◼   ► but they both rated me as you don't have hearing loss.

00:27:31 ◼   ► They did still make a profile for me

00:27:33 ◼   ► and I listened with the profile

00:27:35 ◼   ► and I really couldn't detect much of a difference.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Like if you look at my little curves,

00:27:39 ◼   ► I'm assuming it's sort of like frequency sensitivity.

00:27:41 ◼   ► I think it's just sort of like the expected curve.

00:27:45 ◼   ► Like it wasn't perfect.

00:27:46 ◼   ► It would have been better if I took it when I was 18,

00:27:47 ◼   ► but all of them chunked you into like percentages

00:27:52 ◼   ► or whatever when I was in like the 90 something percent.

00:27:53 ◼   ► So the profile did not sound that different

00:27:56 ◼   ► than regular audio to me.

00:27:58 ◼   ► But who knows?

00:28:00 ◼   ► You won't know until you try it.

00:28:01 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:28:02 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by LickAbility.

00:28:05 ◼   ► LickAbility is a software studio in New York City

00:28:07 ◼   ► that designs and develops delightful apps

00:28:09 ◼   ► for iOS, Mac, and Android.

00:28:12 ◼   ► They're a small team of experts

00:28:13 ◼   ► who have been in business for over a decade,

00:28:15 ◼   ► building and scaling products to millions of users

00:28:18 ◼   ► across lots of different industries.

00:28:20 ◼   ► I have been following their work

00:28:22 ◼   ► and I know them for, I think for that entire decade

00:28:25 ◼   ► that they've been in business.

00:28:26 ◼   ► These are really good people, really sharp.

00:28:29 ◼   ► They really are incredibly skilled

00:28:31 ◼   ► and they make extremely high quality apps.

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00:29:46 ◼   ► - Dan Riccio begins a new chapter at Apple.

00:29:52 ◼   ► This was a very unusual press release

00:29:56 ◼   ► which I certainly did not expect.

00:29:58 ◼   ► I mean, we don't typically hear about these sorts

00:30:01 ◼   ► of machinations in advance, but this is weird.

00:30:04 ◼   ► So it's Riccio, Riccio, how am I supposed to pronounce this?

00:30:09 ◼   ► I'm probably getting it wrong, aren't I?

00:30:10 ◼   ► - I tried to look this up before the show.

00:30:11 ◼   ► I'm like, surely his name has been pronounced in a WWDC video

00:30:15 ◼   ► but A, I couldn't find anything.

00:30:17 ◼   ► I was trying to use Apple's transcript search

00:30:19 ◼   ► and that was just totally failing me.

00:30:21 ◼   ► And B, I realized that half the time

00:30:23 ◼   ► it's just like Tim says and now here's Dan.

00:30:26 ◼   ► Right, he never pronounces the last name.

00:30:29 ◼   ► So from the press release, Apple today announced

00:30:32 ◼   ► that old Danny boy will transition to a new role

00:30:34 ◼   ► focusing on a new project and reporting to CEO Tim Cook,

00:30:37 ◼   ► building on more than two decades of innovation,

00:30:39 ◼   ► service and leadership at Apple.

00:30:40 ◼   ► John Turnus will now lead Apple's hardware engineering

00:30:43 ◼   ► organization as a member of the executive team.

00:30:46 ◼   ► This press release was a little weird.

00:30:47 ◼   ► It seemed to bounce back and forth between Dan and John,

00:30:51 ◼   ► but I guess what we're gleaning from this is that

00:30:55 ◼   ► Dan is going into a bunker and will only come out

00:30:58 ◼   ► when something new has emerged,

00:31:00 ◼   ► or at least that's kind of what I took from it.

00:31:01 ◼   ► What did you guys take from this?

00:31:03 ◼   ► - I took the same thing as you did.

00:31:04 ◼   ► I mean, it doesn't sound like Dan Ritchie

00:31:07 ◼   ► was being promoted into the sky or onto the roof.

00:31:09 ◼   ► It sounds like he actually is going,

00:31:13 ◼   ► not reducing his role but simply changing it.

00:31:18 ◼   ► And that makes sense.

00:31:21 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know that much about

00:31:24 ◼   ► the various machinations, how do you pronounce that?

00:31:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:31:30 ◼   ► Of this area of Apple, but I don't think

00:31:34 ◼   ► Dan Ritchie would be slated for retirement yet

00:31:36 ◼   ► or anything like that, or have any reason

00:31:39 ◼   ► to be pushed out or anything like that.

00:31:40 ◼   ► So I don't think this is any kind of negative thing

00:31:43 ◼   ► in all likelihood, that seems unlikely.

00:31:45 ◼   ► So it is most likely that they're actually

00:31:48 ◼   ► not BSing us with this wording,

00:31:50 ◼   ► and that he actually is just going to something

00:31:53 ◼   ► super secret and therefore having to give up

00:31:55 ◼   ► the fairly broad role that he had.

00:31:58 ◼   ► It would be hard to continue in the role he had,

00:32:02 ◼   ► which was kind of above all hardware,

00:32:06 ◼   ► if what he was actually doing was going to do something,

00:32:09 ◼   ► some kind of big new hardware thing

00:32:10 ◼   ► that was one specific product.

00:32:12 ◼   ► And that's basically what they're saying here.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And we can debate what that product might be.

00:32:17 ◼   ► It seems obvious that it's most likely

00:32:19 ◼   ► either a car or the AR stuff.

00:32:22 ◼   ► But honestly, I'm not even sure how much

00:32:24 ◼   ► that matters right at this point.

00:32:25 ◼   ► But I do actually believe this press release

00:32:29 ◼   ► and the way they have spun this,

00:32:32 ◼   ► I think sounds like it's probably fairly accurate

00:32:35 ◼   ► and not a bad thing.

00:32:37 ◼   ► He's changing what he's focusing on.

00:32:41 ◼   ► - Nick, given that he's not becoming a fellow

00:32:44 ◼   ► or being phased out or whatever,

00:32:48 ◼   ► it is difficult to get a read on this,

00:32:49 ◼   ► but, and also knowing nothing about what's going on

00:32:52 ◼   ► inside the company.

00:32:53 ◼   ► It does seem to me that this is not a promotion for Dan.

00:32:58 ◼   ► Now I can be totally wrong.

00:33:00 ◼   ► It's hard to tell from the press release,

00:33:03 ◼   ► but being in charge of lots of stuff

00:33:06 ◼   ► actually is mostly like the latter, right?

00:33:11 ◼   ► The more stuff you're in charge of,

00:33:12 ◼   ► the higher you are on the ladder.

00:33:14 ◼   ► Tim Cook is in charge of everything.

00:33:15 ◼   ► He's at the top, right?

00:33:17 ◼   ► So being in charge of all hardware,

00:33:20 ◼   ► I mean, that seems bigger than working on

00:33:23 ◼   ► even a very important project.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Now that said, that's a very sort of mercenary way

00:33:29 ◼   ► to look at things, and maybe if you've been in the company

00:33:32 ◼   ► for a long time, what you wanna do is work on

00:33:34 ◼   ► the super cool new project, right?

00:33:35 ◼   ► Even if it's just the one thing.

00:33:36 ◼   ► You have less responsibility,

00:33:38 ◼   ► you're in charge of fewer things,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but maybe that's just what you wanna do.

00:33:44 ◼   ► Dan Ritchie has nothing to prove to anybody.

00:33:45 ◼   ► He's been there a long time.

00:33:47 ◼   ► He's been wildly successful and has overseen

00:33:50 ◼   ► tons of great products and everything,

00:33:51 ◼   ► and maybe this is just what he wants to do.

00:33:53 ◼   ► This is the type of thing you don't get

00:33:54 ◼   ► from a press release.

00:33:54 ◼   ► We don't know what the actual situation is, right?

00:33:57 ◼   ► But it still seemed to me in the absence

00:33:59 ◼   ► of any other information that maybe this is not really,

00:34:04 ◼   ► you did such a great job, now you get to be

00:34:07 ◼   ► heavily involved in this new project for VR goggles

00:34:10 ◼   ► or a car or whatever the heck it's gonna be.

00:34:13 ◼   ► But that's not really what I took from this thing.

00:34:15 ◼   ► Casey asked, "What did you take from this?"

00:34:16 ◼   ► The main thing I took from it is that John Turnus

00:34:19 ◼   ► is going to be the new Dan, right?

00:34:22 ◼   ► He's gonna be taking over Apple hardware engineering.

00:34:24 ◼   ► He's gonna be on the leadership page,

00:34:25 ◼   ► he's on the executive team.

00:34:28 ◼   ► And John Turnus is a name that I just started hearing

00:34:31 ◼   ► basically when the Mac stuff was turning around.

00:34:33 ◼   ► So I know very little about him other than

00:34:36 ◼   ► when I started hearing his name,

00:34:37 ◼   ► good things started happening to the Mac.

00:34:40 ◼   ► And I care a lot about the Mac,

00:34:41 ◼   ► and so I am very in favor based on

00:34:44 ◼   ► the small amount of information I have

00:34:46 ◼   ► of John Turnus being in charge

00:34:48 ◼   ► of Apple's hardware engineering.

00:34:49 ◼   ► This potentially ties into last week's show

00:34:52 ◼   ► and maybe even this week's show.

00:34:54 ◼   ► We went through a litany of rumors,

00:34:55 ◼   ► all of which were like wish fulfillment

00:34:57 ◼   ► for this podcast for Apple hardware, right?

00:34:59 ◼   ► So, yay John Turnus, I think.

00:35:02 ◼   ► Go John Turnus, I like you, it's good, keep doing that.

00:35:07 ◼   ► And on the flip side of that,

00:35:08 ◼   ► Dan Riccio was head of hardware

00:35:11 ◼   ► when a lot of bad things happened to hardware

00:35:13 ◼   ► that I care about at Apple.

00:35:14 ◼   ► Now, again, he was also in charge

00:35:17 ◼   ► when tons of awesome stuff happened,

00:35:18 ◼   ► but if you're going to try to assign blame

00:35:21 ◼   ► for dropping the ball on the Mac

00:35:23 ◼   ► or bad things happening,

00:35:26 ◼   ► the person in charge, like fair or not,

00:35:29 ◼   ► shoulders some of that responsibility.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Even if the person in charge disagreed

00:35:34 ◼   ► or was fed bad information or whatever,

00:35:36 ◼   ► it wasn't his fault, like in the end it is your fault,

00:35:38 ◼   ► you're the person in charge,

00:35:39 ◼   ► like that's the way it works, right?

00:35:40 ◼   ► That's why you can blame Tim Cook for all that stuff too,

00:35:42 ◼   ► because in the end he was the CEO

00:35:43 ◼   ► and they shipped the butterfly keyboard, right?

00:35:45 ◼   ► So that's on him, just as much as it's on anyone else, right?

00:35:48 ◼   ► So the higher you are in the org chart,

00:35:50 ◼   ► the more responsibility you bear for the bad decisions,

00:35:52 ◼   ► even if they happen 20 levels below you.

00:35:54 ◼   ► So I don't know what the fancy new project is,

00:35:58 ◼   ► but I'm enthusiastic about the future of Apple hardware

00:36:04 ◼   ► based on, again, the tiny circumstantial information

00:36:07 ◼   ► I have from the outside about John Turnus

00:36:10 ◼   ► and what has happened since I've been hearing his name.

00:36:12 ◼   ► Throughout his nearly 20 years at Apple,

00:36:14 ◼   ► Turnus has overseen hardware engineering work

00:36:16 ◼   ► on a variety of groundbreaking products,

00:36:17 ◼   ► including the first generation AirPods

00:36:19 ◼   ► and every generation of iPad.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Most recently, Turnus led the hardware team responsible

00:36:23 ◼   ► for the incredible iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro,

00:36:26 ◼   ► and he's been a key leader in the ongoing transition

00:36:28 ◼   ► of the Mac to Apple Silicon.

00:36:30 ◼   ► Turnus graduated with, whatever.

00:36:32 ◼   ► So basically it doesn't sound based on what they put

00:36:36 ◼   ► in the press release that he was that much into the Mac

00:36:39 ◼   ► until Apple Silicon,

00:36:40 ◼   ► but I'm not arguing with anything you're saying, John.

00:36:42 ◼   ► It's surely more than meets the eye.

00:36:44 ◼   ► - The wild card in all this too is like,

00:36:46 ◼   ► the way Apple's organized,

00:36:48 ◼   ► and especially with the people involved

00:36:50 ◼   ► in the past decade or two,

00:36:52 ◼   ► it's never been clear to me exactly how much control,

00:36:58 ◼   ► let's say, the senior vice president

00:37:00 ◼   ► of Apple hardware engineering has

00:37:02 ◼   ► over what makes the product, right?

00:37:05 ◼   ► So when Johnny Ive was rattling around in there,

00:37:10 ◼   ► he was swinging a lot of weight, right?

00:37:14 ◼   ► If Johnny Ive insists that your MacBooks only have USB-C

00:37:17 ◼   ► ports on them and you get rid of MagSafe,

00:37:20 ◼   ► does even the senior vice president

00:37:22 ◼   ► of hardware engineering have the ability to override that?

00:37:24 ◼   ► Is that more of a product decision

00:37:26 ◼   ► and the hardware engineering is not at that,

00:37:29 ◼   ► is that not something that you can control?

00:37:31 ◼   ► I don't know how that decision making works.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I don't know how product design happens at Apple.

00:37:36 ◼   ► Surely hardware and software and design

00:37:38 ◼   ► are all involved together,

00:37:39 ◼   ► but who is the final decision maker in those things?

00:37:42 ◼   ► I feel like when Johnny was there,

00:37:44 ◼   ► he was the one, the end all be all.

00:37:47 ◼   ► It was like him and then Tim Cook,

00:37:48 ◼   ► especially when he was put in charge of software,

00:37:50 ◼   ► UI and hardware and design and stuff like that.

00:37:53 ◼   ► But now that he's out, I don't know how that balance works.

00:37:57 ◼   ► So should we be blaming anybody in hardware engineering

00:38:00 ◼   ► for the butterfly keyboard?

00:38:01 ◼   ► Or is that something that was a decision made above them?

00:38:04 ◼   ► Right?

00:38:05 ◼   ► 'Cause again, the higher up you are,

00:38:07 ◼   ► the more responsibility you have.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Maybe the butterfly keyboard was a Johnny decision

00:38:10 ◼   ► and maybe Dan Riccio hated it

00:38:12 ◼   ► and just had to go along with it because that was the way.

00:38:15 ◼   ► And eventually it got reversed when he left, who knows?

00:38:18 ◼   ► That's why I would love to read a book about Apple

00:38:20 ◼   ► when all these people retire.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Somebody please write a book.

00:38:22 ◼   ► We had Ken Kachenda's book

00:38:25 ◼   ► about the software part of things.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And I mean, not that it was disappointing,

00:38:31 ◼   ► I thought it was great, but doing software for a living

00:38:34 ◼   ► gives me a reasonable feel for how software works

00:38:37 ◼   ► in any company and reading the book confirms that yeah,

00:38:39 ◼   ► even though they do things a little bit differently there,

00:38:41 ◼   ► software is software and that's how that comes together.

00:38:44 ◼   ► But I've never been a product designer as in like,

00:38:47 ◼   ► we're gonna make a hardware thing

00:38:49 ◼   ► and it's gonna have a software component

00:38:50 ◼   ► and we're gonna figure out how to do market fit

00:38:52 ◼   ► and what should we price it at

00:38:53 ◼   ► and what kind of things should we make

00:38:55 ◼   ► and what features should it have.

00:38:56 ◼   ► I would love to know how that has happened

00:38:58 ◼   ► historically at Apple.

00:38:59 ◼   ► Someone please write that book.

00:39:00 ◼   ► - One other thing I would caution us on

00:39:02 ◼   ► about trying to read into the timing of this and everything

00:39:06 ◼   ► is that the way Apple does things like this

00:39:10 ◼   ► in almost every case is usually pretty long

00:39:14 ◼   ► planned out stuff.

00:39:15 ◼   ► Probably the reason we've been seeing more

00:39:17 ◼   ► of John Turnus recently in the last couple years,

00:39:21 ◼   ► maybe they were planning this for a while

00:39:23 ◼   ► and so they wanted to raise the public profile

00:39:26 ◼   ► of John Turnus over time so that by the time

00:39:29 ◼   ► they finally made the move official,

00:39:31 ◼   ► we all knew who he was already.

00:39:32 ◼   ► - Well he was climbing the ladder.

00:39:34 ◼   ► Like the list of products Casey said

00:39:35 ◼   ► ended with the iPhone 12.

00:39:37 ◼   ► If you're in charge of the iPhone 12,

00:39:39 ◼   ► probably the previous year you weren't.

00:39:40 ◼   ► Like he was the iPad which is a lower profile product

00:39:43 ◼   ► but by the time you're in charge of the iPhone,

00:39:45 ◼   ► your next step up is okay now you're in charge

00:39:47 ◼   ► of everything, right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► So I feel like John Turnus has been climbing the ladder

00:39:51 ◼   ► and then Dan Ritchie was there at the top of the ladder

00:39:53 ◼   ► and then the shuffle takes place

00:39:55 ◼   ► and I think he started appearing in meetings

00:39:57 ◼   ► because he was climbing the ladder but you're right.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Like these transitions especially,

00:40:00 ◼   ► ones that are not sudden, you know,

00:40:02 ◼   ► like something like, what was it, Forstall and Ive,

00:40:07 ◼   ► butting heads and having an ultimatium,

00:40:09 ◼   ► like that's where you don't get a lot of time to react

00:40:11 ◼   ► but things like Phil Schiller becoming an Apple fellow

00:40:13 ◼   ► or this transition, probably you're right,

00:40:15 ◼   ► probably transitioned for a long time

00:40:16 ◼   ► but the transition takes place

00:40:18 ◼   ► because someone has been rising in the ranks

00:40:20 ◼   ► and I feel like half the reason we keep seeing them

00:40:22 ◼   ► is because they're rising in the ranks.

00:40:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's fair.

00:40:25 ◼   ► Anyway, this is probably a good thing

00:40:26 ◼   ► or at least a neutral thing.

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00:42:06 ◼   ► - All right, we do have some more Mac rumors

00:42:12 ◼   ► that came out after we recorded.

00:42:14 ◼   ► And Bloomberg had an article wherein they had

00:42:17 ◼   ► several interesting tidbits.

00:42:19 ◼   ► Apple Inc is working on a thinner and lighter version

00:42:22 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air.

00:42:23 ◼   ► This new computer is planned to be released

00:42:25 ◼   ► in the second half of this year or at the earliest

00:42:29 ◼   ► or in 2022.

00:42:30 ◼   ► It will include Apple's MagSafe charging technology

00:42:34 ◼   ► and the next generation version of the company's

00:42:36 ◼   ► in-house Mac processors.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Apple's discussed making the laptop smaller

00:42:40 ◼   ► by shrinking the border around the screen,

00:42:41 ◼   ► which will remain at 13 inches.

00:42:44 ◼   ► The company considered building a larger version

00:42:46 ◼   ► of the MacBook Air with a 15 inch screen,

00:42:47 ◼   ► but Apple isn't moving forward with this

00:42:49 ◼   ► for the next generation.

00:42:51 ◼   ► And this is where Marco and I sob.

00:42:53 ◼   ► I wish we were closer and the world hadn't ended

00:42:55 ◼   ► so we can give each other a very long hug.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Apple has also developed underlying Mac support

00:43:01 ◼   ► for both cellular connectivity and Face ID,

00:43:04 ◼   ► but neither feature appears to be coming soon.

00:43:06 ◼   ► They say it right there, developed underlying Mac support

00:43:10 ◼   ► for both cellular connectivity and Face ID,

00:43:13 ◼   ► but neither feature appears to be coming soon.

00:43:15 ◼   ► Why Marco, why did they do this to us?

00:43:16 ◼   ► Why?

00:43:17 ◼   ► And then it gets even worse for you.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I mean, I agree with this.

00:43:19 ◼   ► I just don't feel as strongly.

00:43:22 ◼   ► The upcoming MacBook Pro is an example

00:43:24 ◼   ► of Apple's renewed focus on Mac loyalists.

00:43:25 ◼   ► The company is planning to bring back an SD card slot

00:43:29 ◼   ► for the next MacBook Pros.

00:43:31 ◼   ► Marco, you want a justification to buy a new computer

00:43:33 ◼   ► in a few months?

00:43:34 ◼   ► Well, there you go.

00:43:35 ◼   ► - Well, they didn't say Air.

00:43:36 ◼   ► This is mixing a bunch of things.

00:43:37 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:43:38 ◼   ► You're saying, hold on.

00:43:40 ◼   ► You're saying that if there was a MacBook Pro

00:43:42 ◼   ► with an SD card and a MacBook Air that didn't have one,

00:43:45 ◼   ► that you would be like, oh no, I want it in my MacBook Air.

00:43:48 ◼   ► Oh, heck no.

00:43:49 ◼   ► You would get that SD card in a heartbeat.

00:43:50 ◼   ► - That depends on my overall priorities

00:43:53 ◼   ► and the overall products and everything.

00:43:54 ◼   ► I mean, I haven't been using an SD card a lot recently

00:43:57 ◼   ► because I haven't been going anywhere.

00:43:59 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:00 ◼   ► So my laptop mostly travels between upstairs and downstairs.

00:44:05 ◼   ► So I actually have really enjoyed the small lightness of it.

00:44:09 ◼   ► I'm frequently carrying glasses of water with it.

00:44:12 ◼   ► So I'll frequently be carrying two glasses of water,

00:44:15 ◼   ► one in each hand.

00:44:16 ◼   ► - Oh, are you?

00:44:17 ◼   ► - And then have the MacBook Air tucked under my arm.

00:44:21 ◼   ► It's really nice having it be the size and weight it is.

00:44:22 ◼   ► So I'm probably gonna stick with it for a while.

00:44:24 ◼   ► But I kind of got annoyed by this.

00:44:29 ◼   ► The upcoming MacBook Pro is an example

00:44:32 ◼   ► of Apple's renewed focus on Mac loyalists.

00:44:36 ◼   ► The word loyalist there,

00:44:38 ◼   ► I don't think it's an entirely positive thing here.

00:44:40 ◼   ► It's typically things that end in ists are not.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Entirely positive things.

00:44:44 ◼   ► It kind of sounds like they're not doing this

00:44:49 ◼   ► to make the product better.

00:44:51 ◼   ► They're doing this to please the fanatics.

00:44:54 ◼   ► And I don't like that framing of anything.

00:44:57 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, this is overall,

00:45:00 ◼   ► continuing the recent rumored dumps,

00:45:03 ◼   ► I think the one thing that tells you

00:45:06 ◼   ► everything you need to know about this, though,

00:45:08 ◼   ► is that it says it uses a next generation version

00:45:11 ◼   ► of the company's in-house Mac processors.

00:45:14 ◼   ► Meaning it uses the M2, meaning we're not gonna see it

00:45:17 ◼   ► this year in all likelihood.

00:45:18 ◼   ► This is gonna be like the 2022 MacBook Air in all likelihood.

00:45:23 ◼   ► So that's great, but it's not immediately on the horizon.

00:45:27 ◼   ► That being said, these all sound like interesting changes.

00:45:31 ◼   ► And what's nice about it, I think,

00:45:33 ◼   ► although I think didn't they say somewhere

00:45:34 ◼   ► that they're actually gonna keep the current MacBook Air

00:45:36 ◼   ► in the lineup in all likelihood

00:45:38 ◼   ► and have this be like a higher priced one?

00:45:40 ◼   ► But assuming not, I like that they're doing things

00:45:43 ◼   ► like bringing MagSafe to seemingly the entire lineup.

00:45:48 ◼   ► And not just the MacBook Pro.

00:45:50 ◼   ► I'm looking forward to a time when the laptops are,

00:45:53 ◼   ► like when they make something better about the laptops,

00:45:56 ◼   ► they all get it.

00:45:58 ◼   ► It's more about just how big do you want it to be,

00:46:01 ◼   ► like how big of a screen do you want,

00:46:03 ◼   ► and how many ports and how much power, basically.

00:46:06 ◼   ► But otherwise, if a lot more about them

00:46:08 ◼   ► can be the same or similar,

00:46:11 ◼   ► and if when something gets better,

00:46:13 ◼   ► it gets better for the entire lineup,

00:46:14 ◼   ► that's all good things.

00:46:16 ◼   ► So overall, this sounds good.

00:46:17 ◼   ► This is basically what I would hope to happen.

00:46:21 ◼   ► When the rumors of the imminent ARM transition

00:46:25 ◼   ► were really heating up over the last couple of years,

00:46:28 ◼   ► I had held the opinion, and I said multiple times

00:46:30 ◼   ► in the show, that I thought one of the launch models,

00:46:35 ◼   ► like one of the Apple Silicon or ARM-based Macs

00:46:39 ◼   ► that would be shown off at launch

00:46:42 ◼   ► would be a totally redesigned,

00:46:44 ◼   ► ultra slim, ultra small laptop.

00:46:47 ◼   ► Because I said they would probably want to show off

00:46:50 ◼   ► what they could make with their ARM chips.

00:46:53 ◼   ► And they didn't do that this time.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Like they instead changed nothing about the externals

00:46:59 ◼   ► and form factors and everything of the computers

00:47:02 ◼   ► they released as the first batch.

00:47:04 ◼   ► And so we haven't really seen them really flex

00:47:07 ◼   ► with like what kind of physical design

00:47:11 ◼   ► does this transition now enable them to do.

00:47:14 ◼   ► And all the designs that we got are also pretty old designs.

00:47:18 ◼   ► So while they are remarkable computers,

00:47:22 ◼   ► they look and feel kinda old.

00:47:25 ◼   ► So what I'm really happy to see here is that

00:47:29 ◼   ► this is actually coming relatively soon,

00:47:32 ◼   ► and will be coming presumably

00:47:34 ◼   ► to their smallest entry level laptop.

00:47:37 ◼   ► And that's gonna be great, I'm looking forward to it.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I was kind of disappointed that we didn't get it

00:47:44 ◼   ► at launch for Apple Silicon.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Although honestly, again, these computers are so good.

00:47:48 ◼   ► I'm so happy with them that like,

00:47:50 ◼   ► I guess we didn't need it after all.

00:47:52 ◼   ► But I am very optimistic to see like,

00:47:56 ◼   ► what does something designed for Apple Silicon

00:47:59 ◼   ► from the start, what can that look like?

00:48:01 ◼   ► And if these rumors are even partly or mostly true,

00:48:06 ◼   ► it sounds like it's gonna be pretty cool.

00:48:09 ◼   ► - The most interesting part of this rumor

00:48:12 ◼   ► aside from the sad parts, Casey,

00:48:13 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a minute,

00:48:15 ◼   ► is the fact that thinner and lighter

00:48:19 ◼   ► are back on the table for Apple product advancement.

00:48:24 ◼   ► And for the MacBook Air class of computer,

00:48:31 ◼   ► if you're gonna keep it as 13 inches,

00:48:33 ◼   ► but you're gonna make it thinner and lighter,

00:48:37 ◼   ► lighter is always good for a laptop.

00:48:40 ◼   ► But if you're making it thinner,

00:48:43 ◼   ► you're probably going to be sacrificing battery life

00:48:47 ◼   ► unless there's like a system on a chip shrink

00:48:50 ◼   ► between this generation and the next,

00:48:51 ◼   ► which is maybe plausible, right?

00:48:53 ◼   ► And I think that the, whatever problem

00:48:57 ◼   ► the current M1 MacBook Air has,

00:48:59 ◼   ► like its size, thickness, and weight are not on that list.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Like it's got a bad webcam.

00:49:09 ◼   ► You know, it's, maybe the speakers could be better,

00:49:13 ◼   ► but I don't know if I would want to sacrifice

00:49:17 ◼   ► any battery life on that amazing machine

00:49:21 ◼   ► for the sake of another millimeter or two.

00:49:23 ◼   ► A new design, maybe a redistribution of mass

00:49:26 ◼   ► to, you know, I don't know,

00:49:29 ◼   ► have thinner bezels on the screen or something,

00:49:31 ◼   ► or adjust the size of the track pad.

00:49:35 ◼   ► They're never gonna add more keys to the keyboard,

00:49:37 ◼   ► but I would.

00:49:38 ◼   ► There are things you can do with the design

00:49:40 ◼   ► to freshen it and modernize it,

00:49:41 ◼   ► make it come in colors as we've discussed before,

00:49:44 ◼   ► but I don't really want it to be thinner.

00:49:48 ◼   ► That said, I think there is a place

00:49:50 ◼   ► in Apple's laptop lineup that was previously filled

00:49:53 ◼   ► by the whatever we're calling that,

00:49:55 ◼   ► what was our, I've already forgotten all our names

00:49:57 ◼   ► of these things, the Adorable.

00:49:58 ◼   ► - The 12 inch, yeah, the MacBook One,

00:50:00 ◼   ► the MacBook Adorable, yeah, the 12 inch MacBook.

00:50:02 ◼   ► - Setting aside the one port thing,

00:50:05 ◼   ► making some product that is, look,

00:50:07 ◼   ► the whole point of this product is it's amazingly thin

00:50:09 ◼   ► and amazingly light.

00:50:11 ◼   ► They should absolutely make that product.

00:50:13 ◼   ► It just makes, I just don't want that to be the MacBook Air,

00:50:17 ◼   ► which goes back to what Marco said of the rumor

00:50:18 ◼   ► of like keeping around the fat air,

00:50:21 ◼   ► which has the amazing battery life that this curtain one has

00:50:23 ◼   ► and then having a thinner one.

00:50:24 ◼   ► Now, with these rumors, maybe what they're talking about

00:50:28 ◼   ► is the updated MacBook Adorable,

00:50:29 ◼   ► and they just keep calling it the Air

00:50:30 ◼   ► 'cause it's not like they have the product name stamped

00:50:32 ◼   ► on them, that's all product marketing,

00:50:33 ◼   ► who knows what the thing will be called.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Remember, they call it the last one, MacBook, right?

00:50:37 ◼   ► So that wasn't very helpful.

00:50:38 ◼   ► - But that wasn't the MacBook or the MacBook,

00:50:40 ◼   ► it was the MacBook.

00:50:41 ◼   ► - I know, it's so bad.

00:50:43 ◼   ► But anyway, so my objection is not to the existence

00:50:47 ◼   ► of a thinner and lighter laptop.

00:50:49 ◼   ► I think there is a place for that computer

00:50:50 ◼   ► in Apple's lineup, and finally, that computer

00:50:52 ◼   ► will actually be pretty darn good.

00:50:53 ◼   ► It'll be for the people who like it.

00:50:54 ◼   ► The most important thing about my laptop

00:50:56 ◼   ► is how thin and how light it is.

00:50:58 ◼   ► And by the way, it should also be a decent computer.

00:51:00 ◼   ► Bam, we can do that now.

00:51:01 ◼   ► Thank you, ARM, right?

00:51:02 ◼   ► But I don't want this to displace the air

00:51:05 ◼   ► because I think the beautiful thing about the air,

00:51:07 ◼   ► all the air is that we've loved.

00:51:08 ◼   ► This current M1, the 2011 design, right?

00:51:12 ◼   ► Those computers, it's because they're like,

00:51:14 ◼   ► they're the right set of compromises.

00:51:16 ◼   ► They have good battery life, they're not too big,

00:51:18 ◼   ► they're not too small, they're powerful enough,

00:51:21 ◼   ► they're cheap enough, like that's what you want.

00:51:24 ◼   ► They're the Honda Accord of Apple laptops, right?

00:51:27 ◼   ► They do all the things well, and if you care

00:51:30 ◼   ► about something more, you want more power,

00:51:32 ◼   ► you want less weight, then you can spread out

00:51:34 ◼   ► to the more exotic models, but that's sort of

00:51:36 ◼   ► the meat and potatoes, right?

00:51:37 ◼   ► So I really hope they don't mess up that balance,

00:51:39 ◼   ► especially because I like the fact that the current

00:51:43 ◼   ► MacBook Air is like over-provisioned on battery life.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Like the battery is too good.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:51:48 ◼   ► - Like they accidentally made the battery

00:51:49 ◼   ► last too darn long.

00:51:50 ◼   ► Apple would, I don't think Apple would,

00:51:52 ◼   ► I think I said this in the first show,

00:51:53 ◼   ► I don't think they're ever targeting battery life that good,

00:51:56 ◼   ► but they didn't want to change the case,

00:51:58 ◼   ► and so this is how much battery fits in that case,

00:52:01 ◼   ► and it's an embarrassing amount of battery for the M1,

00:52:04 ◼   ► and so the battery just lasts all day,

00:52:05 ◼   ► and I think that's fantastic.

00:52:06 ◼   ► Like that's part of the thing that makes

00:52:08 ◼   ► these laptops amazing is they exceed expectations

00:52:11 ◼   ► in so many areas, not just performance,

00:52:13 ◼   ► but also battery life, and I don't want to go back

00:52:15 ◼   ► from exceeding expectations on battery life

00:52:17 ◼   ► to just merely meeting, right?

00:52:18 ◼   ► So I'm rooting for the fatter MacBook Air to soldier on.

00:52:23 ◼   ► And as for the 15-inch MacBook Air,

00:52:25 ◼   ► I'm intrigued by that idea partially because

00:52:29 ◼   ► if you make a 15-inch MacBook Air,

00:52:31 ◼   ► you're probably gonna end up putting bigger batteries.

00:52:33 ◼   ► You just have more square inches,

00:52:34 ◼   ► 'cause the laptop got bigger.

00:52:36 ◼   ► What are you gonna fill that space with?

00:52:37 ◼   ► You're gonna fill it with more battery.

00:52:38 ◼   ► Granted, you have a bigger screen to power too,

00:52:40 ◼   ► but I'm hoping that net net, a 15-inch MacBook Air

00:52:43 ◼   ► would be like the MacBook Air Max or Plus or whatever.

00:52:46 ◼   ► Like it's the bigger laptop, and the only difference,

00:52:49 ◼   ► it has the same guts, but the only difference is

00:52:51 ◼   ► it's got a bigger screen but also bigger battery,

00:52:53 ◼   ► so in the same way the big iPhones

00:52:54 ◼   ► get the best battery life, the 15-inch MacBook Air

00:52:57 ◼   ► could be like the Battery Camel.

00:52:59 ◼   ► It's got the wimpier CPU,

00:53:00 ◼   ► like it's not the MacBook Pro CPU.

00:53:03 ◼   ► It's got a huge battery,

00:53:05 ◼   ► and in exchange for that huge battery,

00:53:07 ◼   ► it's bigger in your backpack 'cause it's a 15-inch.

00:53:10 ◼   ► I would love that machine,

00:53:11 ◼   ► and I'm kinda sad they're bailing on that.

00:53:13 ◼   ► For face ID and cellular,

00:53:16 ◼   ► I like the fact that this rumor says

00:53:18 ◼   ► that they're at least considering it,

00:53:20 ◼   ► so at least it's someone in Apple said,

00:53:21 ◼   ► "Hey, you know what?

00:53:22 ◼   ► "People are staring at their Macs all day.

00:53:23 ◼   ► "Why don't we read their face?"

00:53:24 ◼   ► Yes, please, do that, but I'm so sad that this won't,

00:53:26 ◼   ► this is apparently, according to this rumor,

00:53:28 ◼   ► not coming in the big redesign

00:53:30 ◼   ► because I feel like that's the,

00:53:31 ◼   ► that's what, you know, once we knew

00:53:33 ◼   ► that they're not gonna do the radical redesign

00:53:34 ◼   ► for the first round, it's like, okay, well, fine.

00:53:37 ◼   ► Second round, when you redesign the iMac,

00:53:38 ◼   ► when you make all new designs,

00:53:39 ◼   ► that's when you come out with the face ID and everything,

00:53:41 ◼   ► and you're like, nah, nah, we're gonna wait on that.

00:53:44 ◼   ► So the only thing I have to left hope for

00:53:46 ◼   ► is like better front-facing cameras, but honestly, Apple.

00:53:50 ◼   ► In anything that sits on our desk

00:53:52 ◼   ► that we stare at all the time,

00:53:54 ◼   ► that we constantly have to unlock, face ID, face ID.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Cellular is by far my lower priority,

00:54:00 ◼   ► but I understand people want it for laptops and everything.

00:54:02 ◼   ► - Oh, it's much higher for me

00:54:04 ◼   ► because touch ID on laptops works fantastically,

00:54:06 ◼   ► and so does watch unlock.

00:54:08 ◼   ► - You have to reach your hand out,

00:54:09 ◼   ► and you have to use your hands?

00:54:10 ◼   ► It's like a baby's toy.

00:54:11 ◼   ► - Not for watch unlock.

00:54:12 ◼   ► You don't even have to be looking at it.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't wear those things.

00:54:15 ◼   ► - Well, that's your own fault.

00:54:16 ◼   ► - You don't wear that thing either, Mark.

00:54:17 ◼   ► Are you wearing your fancy watch?

00:54:19 ◼   ► - I've been wearing an Apple watch full-time

00:54:20 ◼   ► for a few months.

00:54:22 ◼   ► - What?

00:54:23 ◼   ► Wait, wait, wait, wait.

00:54:25 ◼   ► - You know-- - No, no, stop, stop.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Marco is familiar with Tide charts now.

00:54:29 ◼   ► We need a Marco hardware Tide chart to see.

00:54:33 ◼   ► Is the Apple watch coming in or going out?

00:54:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:54:36 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:54:38 ◼   ► - You're not wrong.

00:54:38 ◼   ► Wait, what changed that you're not wearing

00:54:40 ◼   ► your fancy watches 'cause nobody else is looking at you?

00:54:42 ◼   ► - I'm not going anywhere.

00:54:44 ◼   ► - He doesn't need to be seen, the paparazzi.

00:54:46 ◼   ► - No, and I'm doing more fitness stuff recently,

00:54:49 ◼   ► and I had the COVID thing,

00:54:51 ◼   ► so I wanted to do oxygen monitoring for a long time

00:54:54 ◼   ► and everything, so a bunch of stuff is stacked up

00:54:55 ◼   ► such that I've been doing the Apple watch

00:54:58 ◼   ► full-time for a while now.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - Have you ever been in a double watch phase?

00:55:02 ◼   ► - Like wearing two at the same time?

00:55:04 ◼   ► No, no, no, no.

00:55:05 ◼   ► I was never at all tempted to do that.

00:55:07 ◼   ► - I mean, because one is your watch

00:55:09 ◼   ► and one is your fitness tracker,

00:55:10 ◼   ► so you could just put 'em on different arms.

00:55:11 ◼   ► - Nope, not for me.

00:55:13 ◼   ► - Well, you know what you could do?

00:55:14 ◼   ► You could just put the watch, the Apple watch on your ankle.

00:55:17 ◼   ► It'll be a little ankle thing.

00:55:18 ◼   ► - I think it's calibrated for ankles.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Oh, come on, it'll work just fine.

00:55:21 ◼   ► - But what's great about WatchUnlock too

00:55:23 ◼   ► is that if you're using clamshell mode

00:55:26 ◼   ► or if you have a non-Apple screen

00:55:28 ◼   ► or an Apple screen that doesn't have a camera in it,

00:55:30 ◼   ► it still works, which is not true for Face ID or Touch ID,

00:55:35 ◼   ► which is awesome.

00:55:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, but you gotta wear a watch.

00:55:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, that's the downside.

00:55:38 ◼   ► Going back to what you said a few minutes ago

00:55:40 ◼   ► about the different trade-offs and everything,

00:55:43 ◼   ► I had heard a phrase a while back,

00:55:45 ◼   ► especially during some of the bad old days

00:55:48 ◼   ► of Apple's laptop design,

00:55:51 ◼   ► they had apparently justified

00:55:53 ◼   ► making one of the batteries smaller

00:55:55 ◼   ► and making a laptop thinner and lighter

00:55:56 ◼   ► that really needed its battery life

00:55:57 ◼   ► and was giving it up unwillingly,

00:56:00 ◼   ► as I heard it described as shedding excess battery.

00:56:04 ◼   ► And that phrase made me so angry.

00:56:08 ◼   ► 'Cause I was like, what do you mean?

00:56:10 ◼   ► Are the batteries good enough for everyone yet?

00:56:12 ◼   ► No, then they're not excess.

00:56:15 ◼   ► Then we shouldn't be shedding this excess.

00:56:18 ◼   ► It's not excess.

00:56:19 ◼   ► I loved, I had to, this past weekend,

00:56:21 ◼   ► I had to take a trip back home so Hops could go to the vet.

00:56:25 ◼   ► And so of course I brought my MacBook Air.

00:56:29 ◼   ► I grabbed it from the house as I was leaving

00:56:32 ◼   ► to take it with me for an overnight trip.

00:56:34 ◼   ► I didn't check to see whether I had plugged it in all day.

00:56:38 ◼   ► It wasn't plugged in when I took it off the table.

00:56:41 ◼   ► I didn't know what the battery life was

00:56:43 ◼   ► or what the battery level was.

00:56:44 ◼   ► I just figured it'd probably be fine.

00:56:47 ◼   ► And I used it at a supercharger for a while on the way.

00:56:49 ◼   ► And then I brought it home and I used it

00:56:52 ◼   ► for various work things that evening

00:56:54 ◼   ► and various work things the next morning.

00:56:57 ◼   ► And then I came back to the beach.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I never plugged it in the entire trip.

00:57:02 ◼   ► And I don't even know what the battery level was.

00:57:06 ◼   ► I never looked because I hardly ever need to

00:57:09 ◼   ► because it's amazing.

00:57:11 ◼   ► That's how I've always been able to work with my iPad.

00:57:14 ◼   ► 'Cause iPads have really good battery life

00:57:16 ◼   ► and really good standby life and everything else.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I love the idea to not be like, is it topped off?

00:57:22 ◼   ► Is it topped off?

00:57:23 ◼   ► Is it topped off?

00:57:23 ◼   ► And have to be constantly babysitting that all the time.

00:57:27 ◼   ► Or stressing about it or worrying about it.

00:57:29 ◼   ► I love that I'm able to take my laptop on an overnight trip

00:57:34 ◼   ► and not plug it in the entire time and be fine.

00:57:39 ◼   ► That's amazing.

00:57:40 ◼   ► And I really hope that we get to keep this battery camel

00:57:45 ◼   ► aspect as John called it.

00:57:47 ◼   ► I love it so much.

00:57:48 ◼   ► It really radically changes the relationship

00:57:51 ◼   ► you're able to have with a laptop.

00:57:54 ◼   ► That's one of the reasons these M1s are so good.

00:57:56 ◼   ► And so I really do hope that the hardware engineering team

00:57:59 ◼   ► at Apple has not decided that this is a lot of excess

00:58:02 ◼   ► battery they need to shed.

00:58:04 ◼   ► When I operate my MacBook Air, when I'm carrying it,

00:58:07 ◼   ► when I'm handling it, when I'm using it,

00:58:10 ◼   ► at no point have I ever thought, this is too thick.

00:58:15 ◼   ► This is too heavy.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Never.

00:58:18 ◼   ► And while I respect the former market of the 12 inch,

00:58:23 ◼   ► probably wants something in that range, that's great.

00:58:28 ◼   ► I hope that, assuming Apple does get something

00:58:32 ◼   ► that's closer to that, presumably in part

00:58:34 ◼   ► by shedding their excess battery, I hope that they don't make

00:58:39 ◼   ► that trade off the only trade off.

00:58:43 ◼   ► One of my main criticisms of the bad years

00:58:45 ◼   ► of the laptop design is that they applied

00:58:48 ◼   ► the same priorities and the same trade offs

00:58:51 ◼   ► to the entire lineup.

00:58:53 ◼   ► So if you wanted something that had more ports,

00:58:57 ◼   ► a better keyboard, the things that you might think

00:59:00 ◼   ► would require a bigger, bulkier design,

00:59:04 ◼   ► but that's what you wanted, you didn't have any choice

00:59:06 ◼   ► in the entire lineup at any size, at any price.

00:59:09 ◼   ► There was no option for you.

00:59:11 ◼   ► 'Cause they were applying the ultra thin, ultra light

00:59:14 ◼   ► priority set to the entire lineup.

00:59:17 ◼   ► So I hope that they have learned from that.

00:59:20 ◼   ► And I hope that, while I'm not saying

00:59:23 ◼   ► keep the laptops giant bricks or anything,

00:59:25 ◼   ► the reality is they're not giant bricks now.

00:59:27 ◼   ► They're already very well proportioned

00:59:30 ◼   ► for their size classes and compared to everything

00:59:33 ◼   ► the PC market is doing.

00:59:35 ◼   ► I would like to see them do things

00:59:36 ◼   ► like shrink the screen bezels, that'd be nice.

00:59:38 ◼   ► That's something where they're falling behind

00:59:39 ◼   ► in the design department a little bit from the PC world.

00:59:42 ◼   ► But I don't really need my MacBook Air

00:59:47 ◼   ► to be substantially thinner or lighter.

00:59:49 ◼   ► And if they do make a substantially thinner

00:59:52 ◼   ► and lighter computer for people who do want and need that,

00:59:55 ◼   ► I hope that they don't apply those same trade offs

00:59:57 ◼   ► to all of the other laptops.

01:00:00 ◼   ► Because people have different needs and different priorities

01:00:04 ◼   ► and something in the lineup, whatever your priorities are,

01:00:07 ◼   ► something in the lineup should come pretty close

01:00:09 ◼   ► to being your ideal computer rather than forcing them

01:00:13 ◼   ► to all be like ultra thin and then doing something terrible

01:00:16 ◼   ► like the bad keyboards.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Although, God, one of the most frustrating things

01:00:21 ◼   ► about the keyboard thing is that when they brought in

01:00:23 ◼   ► the Magic Keyboard to replace them all,

01:00:25 ◼   ► they didn't have to make the computers bigger.

01:00:28 ◼   ► Which is like, so wait, so you didn't even need them

01:00:32 ◼   ► to be that thing?

01:00:33 ◼   ► - Well, they never did the MacBook Adorable

01:00:35 ◼   ► with that keyboard.

01:00:36 ◼   ► - That's true, that's true, that's fair.

01:00:37 ◼   ► But anyway.

01:00:39 ◼   ► - But yeah, and it was just uniformity for the other ones

01:00:41 ◼   ► because they have the same keyboards everywhere.

01:00:42 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:00:43 ◼   ► - To be clear on the thinnest thing,

01:00:46 ◼   ► the MacBook Air should continue to get thinner and lighter

01:00:49 ◼   ► but not at the cost of something else.

01:00:52 ◼   ► Like oh, we can make it thinner and lighter

01:00:53 ◼   ► if we shed excess battery.

01:00:55 ◼   ► It's like well, have you affected battery life

01:00:57 ◼   ► and is the battery life good enough?

01:00:58 ◼   ► Like if you look at the MacBook Air over time,

01:01:01 ◼   ► it has gotten thinner and lighter,

01:01:02 ◼   ► as it should at a steady rate.

01:01:04 ◼   ► We don't want that to stop.

01:01:05 ◼   ► We're not saying this is how big laptops should be forever.

01:01:08 ◼   ► 20 years from now, we better have a thinner

01:01:09 ◼   ► and lighter MacBook Air if that product is still around.

01:01:13 ◼   ► But what we're saying is don't take current technology

01:01:16 ◼   ► and then make this particular trade-off,

01:01:18 ◼   ► like you were saying, Marco, make this same trade-off

01:01:20 ◼   ► on all of the lines.

01:01:21 ◼   ► And I think the Adorable was a good sign in that regard.

01:01:23 ◼   ► It's like clearly there was one computer

01:01:25 ◼   ► that was making an extreme trade-off.

01:01:27 ◼   ► It's just that they never really made different trade-offs

01:01:30 ◼   ► for the rest of the line.

01:01:30 ◼   ► So this will be a good test to see how much diversity

01:01:33 ◼   ► is there in Apple's lineup of computers.

01:01:36 ◼   ► I think the M1 MacBook Air is a great data point

01:01:40 ◼   ► because it exactly fills the 2011 MacBook Air's role.

01:01:43 ◼   ► $999, fantastic laptop that does everything really well

01:01:47 ◼   ► for almost everybody is the easy no-brainer recommendation.

01:01:50 ◼   ► That spot in the lineup is filled, good job.

01:01:52 ◼   ► Now we'll be seeing, okay,

01:01:53 ◼   ► what does the 16-inch Pro look like?

01:01:55 ◼   ► What is whatever this super thin light thing look like?

01:01:58 ◼   ► And what choices they make.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And related to that is this SD card,

01:02:00 ◼   ► which last week the rumor was more IO ports.

01:02:03 ◼   ► And I was, you know, my mind was boggled

01:02:05 ◼   ► that you could have that rumor,

01:02:06 ◼   ► but not know what the port is.

01:02:08 ◼   ► Now we have a more concrete rumor that said,

01:02:10 ◼   ► oh, it's an SD card slot.

01:02:11 ◼   ► What computers, if any, will this appear on?

01:02:15 ◼   ► It should probably appear on the bigger ones.

01:02:17 ◼   ► They have more space inside.

01:02:19 ◼   ► You won't be cutting into battery life

01:02:20 ◼   ► and all that other stuff.

01:02:21 ◼   ► SD card used to be on the MacBook Air, if I'm not mistaken.

01:02:25 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:02:26 ◼   ► - And it didn't destroy that computer.

01:02:27 ◼   ► So that's plausible too.

01:02:29 ◼   ► Wherever they wanna put that, that's fine.

01:02:30 ◼   ► You don't need to put it everywhere,

01:02:32 ◼   ► but it shouldn't be nowhere.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Put it on the computer

01:02:33 ◼   ► and the people who care about that will get it.

01:02:35 ◼   ► And you know, like the main use that I have of this thing

01:02:38 ◼   ► is going on vacation.

01:02:39 ◼   ► You can't bring your desktop Mac with you.

01:02:40 ◼   ► You have to bring a laptop.

01:02:42 ◼   ► And if you wanna pull photos off

01:02:45 ◼   ► and edit them on your powerful laptop,

01:02:47 ◼   ► it's great to be able to just take the card out

01:02:48 ◼   ► instead of having to deal with a cable

01:02:50 ◼   ► or trying to do a wireless and all that good stuff.

01:02:51 ◼   ► So in some respects,

01:02:54 ◼   ► it's maybe like almost too little too late

01:02:56 ◼   ► given the vastly improving connectivity options

01:02:58 ◼   ► on modern cameras, but late is better than never.

01:03:02 ◼   ► So I endorse the SD card slot.

01:03:04 ◼   ► - Oh, I mean the SD card, it's an obvious thing

01:03:06 ◼   ► because again, as I've been arguing for a long time,

01:03:09 ◼   ► typically if you need SD cards in your workflow,

01:03:12 ◼   ► nothing about the advancement of ports

01:03:15 ◼   ► is likely to remove that need.

01:03:18 ◼   ► Certainly now, we've had significant market pressure.

01:03:22 ◼   ► Since 2016 when the touch-powered laptops came out,

01:03:25 ◼   ► we've had significant market pressure

01:03:27 ◼   ► from the computer side for device makers

01:03:29 ◼   ► and pros with their workflows and tools and everything

01:03:32 ◼   ► to move away from SD cards.

01:03:34 ◼   ► If it was reasonably possible to move away from them

01:03:37 ◼   ► and all we needed was a motivational push from Apple,

01:03:41 ◼   ► we've had that.

01:03:43 ◼   ► And we still need SD cards for a lot of things.

01:03:46 ◼   ► And this says, so users can insert memory cards

01:03:50 ◼   ► from digital cameras, which kind of makes it seem

01:03:52 ◼   ► like a point and shoot, kind of quaint, outdated thing

01:03:55 ◼   ► that nobody does anymore until you realize

01:03:58 ◼   ► that's a Bloomberg style guide simplification probably,

01:04:02 ◼   ► that's actually really useful for video cameras,

01:04:07 ◼   ► which people use a lot.

01:04:10 ◼   ► And it's also useful for audio recorders,

01:04:13 ◼   ► which people like us use a lot.

01:04:15 ◼   ► And it's also useful if you have any kind of

01:04:18 ◼   ► embedded hardware that uses SD cards as its medium

01:04:21 ◼   ► or for configuration, things like Raspberry Pis.

01:04:24 ◼   ► There's so much stuff out there

01:04:27 ◼   ► that uses either SD or micro SD.

01:04:30 ◼   ► And I'm aware that there are newer card standards

01:04:33 ◼   ► in certain high-end cameras and stuff,

01:04:35 ◼   ► but the fact is if you're gonna put one media slot

01:04:38 ◼   ► for some kind of flash media,

01:04:40 ◼   ► if you're gonna pick one of them to maximize the utility

01:04:44 ◼   ► for the broadest segment of the population, it's SD.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And you don't need to take my word for it.

01:04:49 ◼   ► You can look at what has happened in the market.

01:04:52 ◼   ► If you look at the dongles that every single person

01:04:55 ◼   ► who has bought an Apple laptop since 2016

01:04:58 ◼   ► has had to or chosen to buy,

01:05:01 ◼   ► you don't see a huge variety

01:05:04 ◼   ► of different port types on these.

01:05:06 ◼   ► And you don't see them changing much over time.

01:05:09 ◼   ► What you see is the exact same three ports

01:05:13 ◼   ► on every single dongle out there,

01:05:16 ◼   ► USB-A, HDMI, and an SD card slot.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Every single dongle out there has those three things

01:05:25 ◼   ► that people are actually buying

01:05:27 ◼   ► because the need for those ports is not going away

01:05:32 ◼   ► anytime soon for almost anybody who buys these laptops.

01:05:35 ◼   ► So I think the most likely answer

01:05:38 ◼   ► and the most useful answer,

01:05:40 ◼   ► if they're gonna add more ports to the laptops,

01:05:42 ◼   ► is those three things,

01:05:44 ◼   ► USB-A, HDMI, and SD card.

01:05:48 ◼   ► And I know the USB-A is a stretch

01:05:51 ◼   ► 'cause they wanna move forward and everything.

01:05:52 ◼   ► And that's the one that over time is slowly,

01:05:56 ◼   ► very painfully slowly, the need for that is decreasing.

01:06:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like we're turning the corner on USB-A

01:06:02 ◼   ► or close to turning the corner on USB-A.

01:06:04 ◼   ► - Right, and I think it seems like it kinda feels

01:06:06 ◼   ► too old for them, so I think,

01:06:09 ◼   ► and it is a larger port, it would be hard to fit that.

01:06:12 ◼   ► So I don't see that coming in.

01:06:13 ◼   ► - I mean, and that's why also on the SD card thing,

01:06:16 ◼   ► like CF is the main competitor

01:06:17 ◼   ► and CF continues to advance,

01:06:18 ◼   ► but it's just too darn big to fit in a laptop.

01:06:20 ◼   ► And the fact is, it doesn't have as broad

01:06:22 ◼   ► of compatibility as SD does.

01:06:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's like super high-end pro.

01:06:25 ◼   ► It would be great for the super high-end pro models,

01:06:26 ◼   ► but kind of like HDMI and Ethernet,

01:06:28 ◼   ► it has been sized out of the edge of your laptop.

01:06:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, and yeah, that's the problem with HDMI.

01:06:34 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't think they could fit HDMI,

01:06:37 ◼   ► and I hope they wouldn't do something

01:06:38 ◼   ► like one of the micro HDMI standards.

01:06:40 ◼   ► - I was just gonna make that joke.

01:06:41 ◼   ► He took it from--

01:06:42 ◼   ► - That wouldn't solve the problem in a great way.

01:06:45 ◼   ► It would possibly be better,

01:06:47 ◼   ► but it wouldn't solve the problem in an amazing way.

01:06:49 ◼   ► - No, but nobody likes micro HDMI.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I'm assuming what we're gonna see

01:06:54 ◼   ► for the new ports is just MagSafe,

01:06:58 ◼   ► and of course keeping USB-C and the addition of SD,

01:07:03 ◼   ► and that might be it.

01:07:04 ◼   ► And that's fine.

01:07:05 ◼   ► I mean, if you think about, you know,

01:07:06 ◼   ► by adding MagSafe back as a power option,

01:07:09 ◼   ► you effectively add one more port to all of the computers,

01:07:13 ◼   ► assuming they don't lose any of their USB-C ports

01:07:15 ◼   ► in the process, because so often,

01:07:18 ◼   ► we're using one of our USB-C ports just for power.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And so it's kind of wasted,

01:07:22 ◼   ► which is another reason why this is a weird

01:07:23 ◼   ► engineering decision to go in this direction.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And so to basically be able to offload the power

01:07:29 ◼   ► to its own dedicated port,

01:07:31 ◼   ► you are effectively adding one USB-C port

01:07:34 ◼   ► to every computer they make, which is fantastic.

01:07:36 ◼   ► So I do hope to see that happen,

01:07:41 ◼   ► and the SD card slot and everything.

01:07:44 ◼   ► I do think ideally they would have a single USB-A port

01:07:48 ◼   ► for those times when you don't have your USB dongle

01:07:51 ◼   ► with you or whatever, and a single HDMI port,

01:07:53 ◼   ► because so many people need it.

01:07:55 ◼   ► But I don't see those happening.

01:07:56 ◼   ► That being said, I do wanna push back

01:07:58 ◼   ► on one other little quick thing

01:08:00 ◼   ► before I let go of the floor here.

01:08:02 ◼   ► You know, earlier when talking about the thinness trade-offs

01:08:06 ◼   ► and things like that, so often when we talk about things

01:08:11 ◼   ► like this would be a lot more useful a lot of the time

01:08:15 ◼   ► if it just had one USB-A port and an HDMI port.

01:08:18 ◼   ► So often the response to that is,

01:08:20 ◼   ► well they can't, it wouldn't fit, it's too thick.

01:08:24 ◼   ► And the thickness of your laptop lineup

01:08:28 ◼   ► is a self-imposed, self-created problem.

01:08:30 ◼   ► And so if a product line could benefit from something

01:08:35 ◼   ► that would require the case of the laptop

01:08:37 ◼   ► to be a little bit thicker,

01:08:39 ◼   ► it shouldn't be blanketly ruled out as,

01:08:42 ◼   ► oh we can't do this because it's too thin, period.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Like, well, you can change the thickness.

01:08:48 ◼   ► Not every computer, again, not every computer

01:08:51 ◼   ► has to have the same trade-offs.

01:08:52 ◼   ► Not every laptop Apple makes has to prioritize

01:08:56 ◼   ► the thickness over everything else.

01:08:58 ◼   ► So for instance, at some point,

01:08:59 ◼   ► as we get into these smaller and smaller case designs,

01:09:03 ◼   ► we will start hitting limits of things like

01:09:06 ◼   ► how many USB-C ports can you fit into the thickness

01:09:09 ◼   ► of something like a MacBook Air,

01:09:11 ◼   ► or especially a next generation MacBook Air.

01:09:12 ◼   ► Like, can you still have two side by side?

01:09:15 ◼   ► Or will the case tapering become so severe

01:09:18 ◼   ► or so thin at the starting point

01:09:20 ◼   ► that you can only have one on each side

01:09:22 ◼   ► like the old 12 inch had, like with just the headphone

01:09:25 ◼   ► on one side, USB-C on the other.

01:09:27 ◼   ► If that's the case, you can't fit more ports

01:09:30 ◼   ► because it's too thin is not a great defense

01:09:35 ◼   ► for not having the number of ports

01:09:36 ◼   ► that you would need to make it a useful product.

01:09:39 ◼   ► And so I wanna keep that framework in mind.

01:09:41 ◼   ► Like, as we judge future products,

01:09:42 ◼   ► like if it comes out with, you know,

01:09:44 ◼   ► there's a new MacBook Air, and instead of having

01:09:47 ◼   ► the two USB-Cs that the current one has,

01:09:49 ◼   ► it goes down to one USB-C on one side

01:09:52 ◼   ► and one headphone on the other, like the little 12 inch.

01:09:54 ◼   ► Or if they get rid of the headphone jack

01:09:56 ◼   ► and just have one USB-C on each side,

01:09:59 ◼   ► I would argue that was a bad trade-off

01:10:02 ◼   ► because the computer didn't need to be made so thin

01:10:06 ◼   ► that it has to lose the useful ports.

01:10:09 ◼   ► Like that is a self-imposed restriction

01:10:12 ◼   ► that, you know, there's a trade-off to everything

01:10:15 ◼   ► and that trade-off should not be made

01:10:18 ◼   ► in a way that reduces utility on other computers.

01:10:21 ◼   ► - If you remember the original MacBook Air,

01:10:23 ◼   ► obviously the design-- - I sure do.

01:10:25 ◼   ► I had it. - As the first unibody

01:10:27 ◼   ► and it has to be beautiful and elegant and curved

01:10:30 ◼   ► and it's like, oh, but with this beautiful design,

01:10:32 ◼   ► we can't put any ports on it.

01:10:33 ◼   ► And they solved that by making a door, right?

01:10:35 ◼   ► 'Cause they didn't wanna give up the,

01:10:37 ◼   ► like the curves, essentially, on the side.

01:10:39 ◼   ► People don't remember the original MacBook Air.

01:10:40 ◼   ► The sides were not flat.

01:10:42 ◼   ► They were, it was kind of like curved

01:10:43 ◼   ► like an airplane wing in all places, right?

01:10:46 ◼   ► And there was a little door and you folded it on a door

01:10:48 ◼   ► and there was a flat surface with the USB-A port

01:10:50 ◼   ► and whatever the other port thing,

01:10:52 ◼   ► like the headphone was on there as well.

01:10:53 ◼   ► - Headphone and monitor out.

01:10:55 ◼   ► It started out being a really weird, like, custom,

01:10:58 ◼   ► like mini HDMI kind of thing or mini DVI thing

01:11:02 ◼   ► and then later on it moved to Thunderbolt, I think.

01:11:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so that was an example where, okay, well,

01:11:07 ◼   ► so design dictated that this thing had to be shaped

01:11:09 ◼   ► like an airplane wing, but they didn't say,

01:11:11 ◼   ► well, that means we can't have any ports, right?

01:11:13 ◼   ► 'Cause they didn't have that much courage back then.

01:11:15 ◼   ► So instead they put a door on it.

01:11:16 ◼   ► And the door wasn't elegant, but if you,

01:11:19 ◼   ► if Apple ever finds itself in that situation again

01:11:22 ◼   ► where they really want to include a port

01:11:25 ◼   ► that has just been sized out of laptops

01:11:27 ◼   ► but it's still super useful, there are things you can do.

01:11:29 ◼   ► You can find the fatter edge.

01:11:31 ◼   ► You can put a port on the back or something.

01:11:32 ◼   ► You can have a little bit of a door

01:11:34 ◼   ► or something that folds down

01:11:35 ◼   ► or you can have just a little area

01:11:36 ◼   ► that is a flat sort of port,

01:11:40 ◼   ► like a dock on the edge of your computer.

01:11:43 ◼   ► Like, you know what I mean, like a dock on the water

01:11:45 ◼   ► as in the side of your computer is beautiful

01:11:47 ◼   ► and thin and curved and there's this little bulge area

01:11:49 ◼   ► to just give you enough flat space for a USB-C port.

01:11:52 ◼   ► Something like that that would seem inelegant

01:11:54 ◼   ► but is solving the customer's problem

01:11:56 ◼   ► because having dongles is, as we've all learned,

01:11:59 ◼   ► mostly worse.

01:12:00 ◼   ► And getting to this final item here,

01:12:01 ◼   ► which is even more up in the air,

01:12:04 ◼   ► random rumor, patent-related thing.

01:12:06 ◼   ► When I think about the area

01:12:07 ◼   ► where Apple's laptops can improve,

01:12:10 ◼   ► aside from like having a thinner, lighter model,

01:12:12 ◼   ► however, the bigger model with more ports and more stuff,

01:12:15 ◼   ► the main thing I think about as time progresses

01:12:17 ◼   ► is not so much at this point getting thinner and lighter,

01:12:20 ◼   ► although I still think that should happen,

01:12:21 ◼   ► but the main area where Apple's laptops are lacking

01:12:25 ◼   ► and all laptops are lacking is durability.

01:12:28 ◼   ► Right now, they're very vulnerable,

01:12:30 ◼   ► as Casey will tell us, to liquid

01:12:32 ◼   ► in a way that our phones are not.

01:12:34 ◼   ► I don't like that.

01:12:35 ◼   ► If you drop a laptop, they don't like that.

01:12:38 ◼   ► They're not as durable as phones,

01:12:40 ◼   ► obviously, but phones are lighter, so it's easier for them,

01:12:42 ◼   ► but I don't even think they're as durable as iPads.

01:12:45 ◼   ► I know 'cause I've seen my kids drop their iPads

01:12:47 ◼   ► down the stairs so many times

01:12:48 ◼   ► and I'm amazed they haven't broken yet.

01:12:50 ◼   ► If they had dropped one of our laptops

01:12:51 ◼   ► down the stairs like that, it would not survive.

01:12:54 ◼   ► So if Apple wants to concentrate technology-wise

01:12:59 ◼   ► on physical advancements of the design of their laptops,

01:13:04 ◼   ► I would encourage them to water seal those suckers

01:13:07 ◼   ► and make them more durable to drops, right?

01:13:11 ◼   ► As they make them thinner and lighter

01:13:12 ◼   ► and as they go into book bags,

01:13:14 ◼   ► I don't want them to be subject

01:13:15 ◼   ► to compression cracking of the screen.

01:13:17 ◼   ► I don't want them to be, if you drop them

01:13:19 ◼   ► and they land on a corner from a foot and a half

01:13:21 ◼   ► off the ground that they shatter the entire screen.

01:13:24 ◼   ► Like aluminum is great and it's very durable

01:13:26 ◼   ► and there's no moving parts

01:13:27 ◼   ► and there's no spinning hard drive

01:13:28 ◼   ► and we're all set except that keyboard is a giant place

01:13:31 ◼   ► for water to destroy your computer

01:13:32 ◼   ► and the screens are still very breakable.

01:13:34 ◼   ► I don't know what they can do about this.

01:13:36 ◼   ► I don't know what the solution is.

01:13:37 ◼   ► This is a very difficult problem.

01:13:38 ◼   ► It's not like Apple is behind in this area in general,

01:13:41 ◼   ► but even just something as simple as one model laptop

01:13:43 ◼   ► that's essentially made to go into a kid's backpack

01:13:46 ◼   ► and go to school.

01:13:47 ◼   ► Having just discussed on the last show,

01:13:49 ◼   ► searching for cases to put these beautiful,

01:13:53 ◼   ► expensive aluminum laptops inside

01:13:55 ◼   ► so my kids can take them to and from school as kids do

01:13:58 ◼   ► and not worry that they're gonna break them,

01:14:00 ◼   ► I would love a laptop that is ruggedized for that purpose.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Arguably, the crappy plastic Chromebooks

01:14:06 ◼   ► that every kid in my kid's school get are more durable

01:14:11 ◼   ► than the much nicer looking, much better Apple laptops.

01:14:14 ◼   ► They're made of crappy plastic and they're ugly,

01:14:16 ◼   ► but I feel like that crappy plastic is more resistant

01:14:20 ◼   ► to denting and maybe absorbs more energy

01:14:23 ◼   ► rather than transferring it through to the screen.

01:14:24 ◼   ► That said, the first week my son had a Chromebook

01:14:26 ◼   ► when he was in middle school, he broke it in his backpack.

01:14:28 ◼   ► So, you know, laptops are more fragile,

01:14:31 ◼   ► but that is a potential area of advancement.

01:14:34 ◼   ► This final little bit of rumor here is a patent

01:14:36 ◼   ► that Apple came out with, I don't know,

01:14:39 ◼   ► I think it's an older patent.

01:14:40 ◼   ► We always find out these things after the fact,

01:14:42 ◼   ► about using titanium parts in,

01:14:44 ◼   ► and showed a little picture of a laptop, right?

01:14:46 ◼   ► Obviously, Apple already made a titanium laptop,

01:14:48 ◼   ► but this was about having a sandblasted surface texture

01:14:51 ◼   ► that's glossy and it's all this crazy, you know,

01:14:55 ◼   ► patent jargon in the description.

01:14:57 ◼   ► But the bottom line is, it's a patent about Apple

01:15:00 ◼   ► using different materials to make their laptops.

01:15:02 ◼   ► And they already did titanium once,

01:15:04 ◼   ► but titanium is, you know,

01:15:05 ◼   ► lighter and stronger than aluminum, also more expensive.

01:15:08 ◼   ► It has different materials trade-offs.

01:15:11 ◼   ► I would love to see an advancement in Apple laptops

01:15:14 ◼   ► that really uses some different materials.

01:15:16 ◼   ► Titanium, carbon fiber, God forbid, plastic.

01:15:19 ◼   ► We love the unibodies, they're great, they're wonderful,

01:15:22 ◼   ► but in the spirit of diversifying their product line,

01:15:24 ◼   ► I would love one, one model of the laptop lineup

01:15:28 ◼   ► that's the rugged one.

01:15:30 ◼   ► For kids, for education, for anybody who just wants

01:15:33 ◼   ► to chuck it into their backpack without treating it gingerly,

01:15:35 ◼   ► the same way people do with their phones.

01:15:37 ◼   ► Yeah, and they should--

01:15:39 ◼   ► - That was years ago, y'all, years ago.

01:15:41 ◼   ► - And they should all be waterproof, to be clear.

01:15:43 ◼   ► I think they should all be waterproof.

01:15:45 ◼   ► I know it's a hard problem 'cause they've got the keyboard

01:15:47 ◼   ► and everything and you don't wanna screw up

01:15:48 ◼   ► the keyboard feel and stuff like that,

01:15:50 ◼   ► but they should all be waterproof.

01:15:51 ◼   ► And especially now with the Arm Max

01:15:54 ◼   ► and how tiny the motherboard is

01:15:56 ◼   ► because of the system on a chip,

01:15:57 ◼   ► like if they could just cordon off

01:16:00 ◼   ► and seal off the motherboard elsewhere,

01:16:02 ◼   ► and so then you could like spill water into it

01:16:04 ◼   ► and then just like let the water drain out

01:16:06 ◼   ► through the keyboard and the computer would be fine.

01:16:07 ◼   ► I don't, again, I don't know what the solution is,

01:16:09 ◼   ► but if you're thinking what areas,

01:16:11 ◼   ► what physical design areas can Apple advance in laptops,

01:16:15 ◼   ► merely keeping the exact set of current trade-offs

01:16:18 ◼   ► that we have now in terms of it's a single piece of aluminum

01:16:20 ◼   ► that's carved out, has a screen in it

01:16:22 ◼   ► and has a system on a chip and an SSD,

01:16:24 ◼   ► and if you put water on it, it dies,

01:16:25 ◼   ► and if you drop it, it dies, it's time to revisit that.

01:16:27 ◼   ► So I really hope, if not this titanium rumor

01:16:30 ◼   ► or the various carbon fiber rumors or whatever,

01:16:33 ◼   ► I really hope five years from now,

01:16:34 ◼   ► Apple's making some inroads on the physical design

01:16:38 ◼   ► of their laptops that have something to do with factors

01:16:43 ◼   ► other than how thin it is.

01:16:45 ◼   ► - I keep coming back to you,

01:16:47 ◼   ► what I was talking about earlier during follow-up,

01:16:49 ◼   ► which is if the processors are the same

01:16:51 ◼   ► throughout the lineup, and let's just go bananas

01:16:54 ◼   ► and let's say even the amount of RAM may be the same.

01:16:58 ◼   ► So the things that vary may be SSDs,

01:17:01 ◼   ► and maybe that's it, like GPUs may be the same.

01:17:03 ◼   ► If the only thing you're really choosing

01:17:05 ◼   ► is maybe how big an SSD or how big an SSD and RAM,

01:17:12 ◼   ► why wouldn't you also get the option to upgrade to cellular

01:17:15 ◼   ► for 130 bucks or probably 200 bucks,

01:17:17 ◼   ► because it's always more expensive than it needs to be?

01:17:19 ◼   ► Like why wouldn't you get the option to upgrade,

01:17:22 ◼   ► or maybe not even upgrade as like a line item,

01:17:25 ◼   ► but choose a different line that is the super-duper pro,

01:17:29 ◼   ► that not pro maxes in size, but pro maxes in more pro,

01:17:33 ◼   ► where you get the SD card slot and things like that,

01:17:35 ◼   ► and you get an HDMI port,

01:17:37 ◼   ► and maybe you have the education version,

01:17:39 ◼   ► which is not a tough book, but something like it.

01:17:44 ◼   ► And I feel like I'm probably underselling in my own mind

01:17:49 ◼   ► how many different SKUs Apple has,

01:17:51 ◼   ► and I know that there's all these different laptops

01:17:53 ◼   ► in all different sizes with all different colors,

01:17:55 ◼   ► with all different SSDs, with the different CPUs,

01:17:57 ◼   ► with different RAM, with different GPUs in some cases.

01:18:01 ◼   ► Like I understand that if I really properly think about it,

01:18:04 ◼   ► there's a lot more variation in the lineup today

01:18:06 ◼   ► than I think there is.

01:18:08 ◼   ► But I, for one, would really strongly consider,

01:18:12 ◼   ► or be willing to trade the ability

01:18:15 ◼   ► to choose how much RAM I have,

01:18:17 ◼   ► which is something, just an episode or two ago,

01:18:18 ◼   ► I said is something I feel like I want more than 16 gigs,

01:18:22 ◼   ► but I've yet to hear anyone complain about 16 gigs,

01:18:24 ◼   ► including New Marco, so I would almost be willing

01:18:28 ◼   ► to make the trade-off that I don't get

01:18:31 ◼   ► to choose the processor, I don't get to choose how much RAM,

01:18:34 ◼   ► I get to choose SSD and like one or two other things.

01:18:37 ◼   ► And that might be worth it to me,

01:18:39 ◼   ► because I don't care about what GPU I get.

01:18:41 ◼   ► If the RAM really doesn't matter,

01:18:43 ◼   ► I don't care how much RAM it has.

01:18:44 ◼   ► I do care about how much storage.

01:18:45 ◼   ► I do care about cellular,

01:18:47 ◼   ► and I might care about HDMI and SD cards.

01:18:49 ◼   ► So I don't see Apple going this way.

01:18:52 ◼   ► I don't think this is the way,

01:18:54 ◼   ► this isn't the style of computer manufacturer they wanna be.

01:18:58 ◼   ► They don't wanna be the Gateway 2000s of the late 90s,

01:19:01 ◼   ► but it would be really sweet if they did.

01:19:04 ◼   ► It would be super cool.

01:19:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, to be fair, I would love more RAM.

01:19:08 ◼   ► I just don't need more RAM,

01:19:12 ◼   ► and I'm choosing these computers right now

01:19:14 ◼   ► because they are so good overall,

01:19:16 ◼   ► like as overall like rounded things.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But if more RAM was an option, I would definitely take it.

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01:20:32 ◼   ► That's flatfile.io.

01:20:34 ◼   ► Thank you so much to FlatFile for sponsoring our show.

01:20:37 ◼   ► - All right, we haven't done Ask ATP in a long time,

01:20:43 ◼   ► so let's see how long we can go

01:20:45 ◼   ► and how many of these we can get through.

01:20:48 ◼   ► Starting with Brendan Beckerer,

01:20:50 ◼   ► how much do you think Mac OS or iOS costs?

01:20:52 ◼   ► People pricing out Apple's new hardware

01:20:53 ◼   ► seem to want to take all the components

01:20:56 ◼   ► and add up their costs and say the rest is Apple's margins.

01:20:59 ◼   ► They seem to ignore that the software component

01:21:01 ◼   ► has a cost of the device.

01:21:03 ◼   ► And I'm curious what you think that is.

01:21:04 ◼   ► This is a great question and something

01:21:06 ◼   ► that I think I forget about as well.

01:21:08 ◼   ► In terms of a number, oh golly, I can't even imagine.

01:21:11 ◼   ► I'm sure some way somehow we could compute it

01:21:13 ◼   ► and I'm sure we could guesstimate

01:21:15 ◼   ► like how many source lines of code there are

01:21:17 ◼   ► and about how much each line of code costs

01:21:19 ◼   ► and things of that nature,

01:21:20 ◼   ► but that's something that I never found

01:21:23 ◼   ► particularly interesting.

01:21:25 ◼   ► I don't even know how to put a finger in the wind to guess.

01:21:29 ◼   ► I don't know, John, what do you think?

01:21:31 ◼   ► - The most salient point is not actually the cost.

01:21:33 ◼   ► It's the difference in these kinds of costs.

01:21:35 ◼   ► So Mac OS and iOS are fixed costs.

01:21:37 ◼   ► You need to make that once, right?

01:21:41 ◼   ► But the other costs you're talking about

01:21:43 ◼   ► when like selling Mac hardware,

01:21:44 ◼   ► those are variable costs, right?

01:21:45 ◼   ► And so every time you make a new Mac,

01:21:47 ◼   ► you have to pay for making that new Mac.

01:21:50 ◼   ► You have to pay for the materials,

01:21:50 ◼   ► the labor, so on and so forth.

01:21:52 ◼   ► And the more Macs you sell,

01:21:53 ◼   ► for every single new one you sell,

01:21:55 ◼   ► you have to pay whatever the cost to make that Mac.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Not true of the OS.

01:21:59 ◼   ► That's fixed.

01:22:00 ◼   ► You have to pay it once.

01:22:01 ◼   ► No matter how many Macs you make,

01:22:02 ◼   ► you don't have to keep paying for that OS

01:22:03 ◼   ► 'cause you're not licensing it for Microsoft, right?

01:22:05 ◼   ► So the reason most people don't talk about this

01:22:07 ◼   ► is because compared to the number of things

01:22:10 ◼   ► that Apple sells,

01:22:11 ◼   ► the fixed cost to develop the software that runs on them

01:22:14 ◼   ► is dwarfed by the variable costs

01:22:16 ◼   ► of the literally millions of individual instances

01:22:19 ◼   ► of that product that get produced.

01:22:20 ◼   ► That's why people care more about

01:22:22 ◼   ► how much does it cost to make a physical iPhone object

01:22:26 ◼   ► than how much does iOS cost.

01:22:27 ◼   ► So if you had to do the math and you said,

01:22:28 ◼   ► okay, well, iOS costs Apple $150 million this year, right?

01:22:32 ◼   ► And every year it costs that much or whatever it is.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Divide that by how many iPhones are sold

01:22:38 ◼   ► and suddenly you're like,

01:22:38 ◼   ► oh, it's like two cents of every iPhone.

01:22:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:22:41 ◼   ► And who knows, like obviously they already have Mac OS and iOS

01:22:45 ◼   ► so the cost on a year to year basis

01:22:46 ◼   ► that I'm writing it over from scratch.

01:22:48 ◼   ► So whatever they paid to make it in the first place,

01:22:52 ◼   ► whether it be Mac OS X or the classic Mac OS,

01:22:54 ◼   ► the original iOS,

01:22:55 ◼   ► that gets spread over years and years and years.

01:22:56 ◼   ► So I think the reason it's not discussed

01:22:58 ◼   ► is because the fixed costs are so diluted

01:23:01 ◼   ► by the volume of things Apple sells

01:23:03 ◼   ► that the variable costs are really dominated.

01:23:06 ◼   ► - Rohit Sharma asks, if you use Siri to send a message,

01:23:09 ◼   ► I recently learned that Apple now includes a bit of text

01:23:11 ◼   ► that informs the recipient that you use Siri.

01:23:13 ◼   ► That text is also a link to an ad

01:23:15 ◼   ► within iMessage to use Siri.

01:23:17 ◼   ► Is it just me or does this feel like an email signature

01:23:19 ◼   ► that you can't turn off

01:23:20 ◼   ► and is not a great move for privacy conscious Apple?

01:23:23 ◼   ► I don't know how to put this gently,

01:23:24 ◼   ► but I could not disagree more.

01:23:26 ◼   ► Like this is just letting somebody know

01:23:28 ◼   ► that if there are transcription errors,

01:23:30 ◼   ► it's probably not that person's fault.

01:23:33 ◼   ► It's probably the fault of the robot

01:23:35 ◼   ► that's doing the transcription.

01:23:36 ◼   ► And if anything,

01:23:37 ◼   ► I almost feel like this is a very un-Apple thing

01:23:39 ◼   ► to kind of implicitly say,

01:23:41 ◼   ► hey, we screwed up, it's our fault.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:23:43 ◼   ► So I can see, I guess,

01:23:48 ◼   ► how Rohit got to this perspective,

01:23:50 ◼   ► but I very strongly disagree with it.

01:23:54 ◼   ► - I very strongly disagree with you.

01:23:56 ◼   ► - Okay, tell me why.

01:23:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is this thing that I started,

01:24:00 ◼   ► when the first time I saw one

01:24:02 ◼   ► where under somebody's message, in iMessage,

01:24:04 ◼   ► it said sent with Siri, learn more, dot, dot, dot.

01:24:07 ◼   ► I thought, oh no, I wish they didn't do that.

01:24:12 ◼   ► To be clear, part of it is a privacy issue,

01:24:16 ◼   ► I think in the sense that it is unintended

01:24:20 ◼   ► and undisclosed to the sender.

01:24:23 ◼   ► Information disclosure about this message

01:24:26 ◼   ► and the person who sent it and how they sent it.

01:24:28 ◼   ► I don't want people to know how I typed it.

01:24:30 ◼   ► What if it said sent without pants?

01:24:32 ◼   ► Like what if I was sent from the bathroom?

01:24:35 ◼   ► Like that could be a fun one.

01:24:37 ◼   ► You don't want to send that information

01:24:39 ◼   ► as metadata to your messages unless you're aware of it

01:24:41 ◼   ► and you choose to do that.

01:24:43 ◼   ► And so to have Apple be adding metadata to the recipient,

01:24:47 ◼   ► unbeknownst to the sender,

01:24:49 ◼   ► you don't know that it's gonna say sent with Siri

01:24:51 ◼   ► and be an ad for Siri on the bottom

01:24:55 ◼   ► of the message that you sent.

01:24:56 ◼   ► What if you don't want the person to know

01:24:58 ◼   ► that it was sent with Siri?

01:24:59 ◼   ► What if the fact that it was sent with Siri

01:25:02 ◼   ► implicitly discloses something to the recipient

01:25:05 ◼   ► that you didn't want them to know?

01:25:06 ◼   ► Like that maybe you're on the go right now.

01:25:08 ◼   ► It's a recipe for potential problems

01:25:11 ◼   ► and the goal it achieves.

01:25:13 ◼   ► See, I didn't think of it as to excuse transcription errors.

01:25:18 ◼   ► I thought of it especially because of the learn more link

01:25:21 ◼   ► that is literally like an ad for using Siri basically.

01:25:25 ◼   ► I looked at that more like Apple is adding promo stuff

01:25:30 ◼   ► to my messages for their benefit.

01:25:32 ◼   ► This is like to get people more using Siri.

01:25:35 ◼   ► - Oh please, come on.

01:25:37 ◼   ► - There's been an issue in the OS recently

01:25:41 ◼   ► that Apple has been adding ever more ads

01:25:46 ◼   ► for upsells into their services

01:25:48 ◼   ► into various parts of the OS recently.

01:25:50 ◼   ► - That I agree with, yes.

01:25:52 ◼   ► - And people who don't subscribe to all the stuff

01:25:54 ◼   ► Apple sells are really getting quite annoyed about it.

01:25:57 ◼   ► They've been egregious in the music app

01:26:00 ◼   ► for a few years now.

01:26:01 ◼   ► The more recent, even more egregious ones

01:26:04 ◼   ► are like the entire banner in settings that will appear.

01:26:08 ◼   ► Hey, try Apple Arcade or whatever.

01:26:10 ◼   ► At the top of your settings screen

01:26:13 ◼   ► as what looks like a setting

01:26:15 ◼   ► but then it's actually just a promo for some Apple service

01:26:18 ◼   ► that you haven't signed up for yet.

01:26:20 ◼   ► They're walking over a lot of lines

01:26:23 ◼   ► that I don't think they should be walking over

01:26:25 ◼   ► for user experience or even in some ways

01:26:28 ◼   ► possibly ethical reasons all to promote more

01:26:32 ◼   ► of their own services and stuff

01:26:34 ◼   ► to their existing user base and I find that really gross.

01:26:37 ◼   ► It's probably just a relatively unavoidable side effect

01:26:42 ◼   ► of them becoming more of a services company

01:26:44 ◼   ► for their revenue growth.

01:26:45 ◼   ► This kind of stuff will definitely happen.

01:26:47 ◼   ► Any time a company benefits significantly

01:26:50 ◼   ► from upselling you with stuff you already bought from them,

01:26:53 ◼   ► they're going to slowly ruin the user experience

01:26:56 ◼   ► to sell more of their crap to you

01:26:58 ◼   ► because that is directly tied

01:26:59 ◼   ► to their most important area of revenue growth.

01:27:02 ◼   ► So this has been a long time coming

01:27:04 ◼   ► but Apple's kind of gross feeling

01:27:06 ◼   ► and kind of overstepping promos

01:27:08 ◼   ► are infecting the UI of their products

01:27:11 ◼   ► to a degree that I don't think they should be comfortable

01:27:14 ◼   ► with 'cause they're supposed to be a company with taste

01:27:15 ◼   ► and I think this oversteps that line.

01:27:17 ◼   ► And while the Siri promo that we're talking about

01:27:20 ◼   ► in this question, Siri itself is not an add-on service

01:27:24 ◼   ► for Apple that they could make more money with

01:27:26 ◼   ► directly if people used it.

01:27:27 ◼   ► So it doesn't quite have that same feel

01:27:30 ◼   ► as like sent with Apple Music Premium or whatever.

01:27:33 ◼   ► It's not quite that bad but it's in the ballpark

01:27:37 ◼   ► of that kind of thing where this seems like a promo

01:27:40 ◼   ► that Apple has inserted without your knowledge or permission

01:27:43 ◼   ► and as far as I can tell, no way to turn it off,

01:27:46 ◼   ► like for the sender to turn it off

01:27:48 ◼   ► to not disclose that you sent this message with Siri.

01:27:50 ◼   ► So it's like information leakage

01:27:54 ◼   ► of the sender's implementation details

01:27:57 ◼   ► of how they sent this message,

01:27:58 ◼   ► how they composed this message

01:28:00 ◼   ► for no really clear benefit to the sender

01:28:05 ◼   ► and seemingly a benefit only to Apple.

01:28:07 ◼   ► And that's gross and I think it's a mistake

01:28:10 ◼   ► and I hope that they revert this.

01:28:12 ◼   ► - I, oh God, I could not possibly disagree with you more.

01:28:15 ◼   ► It's not a frickin' ad.

01:28:16 ◼   ► It's not you can't buy anything in there.

01:28:18 ◼   ► It's not an ad.

01:28:19 ◼   ► - Then why is the learn more a link there?

01:28:21 ◼   ► What's that for?

01:28:22 ◼   ► If they take the learn more sent with Siri,

01:28:24 ◼   ► I still would disagree with the information disclosure,

01:28:27 ◼   ► the like unintended information disclosure.

01:28:30 ◼   ► 'Cause again, what if it's sent from the bathroom?

01:28:32 ◼   ► Again, like I know that's a common example.

01:28:34 ◼   ► - But that's not what it says.

01:28:35 ◼   ► That's not what it says.

01:28:36 ◼   ► - Can you imagine a situation in which

01:28:38 ◼   ► you wouldn't want someone to know

01:28:39 ◼   ► that you sent a message with Siri?

01:28:41 ◼   ► - Well you know what, Marco?

01:28:42 ◼   ► You could use a kitchen knife to murder someone.

01:28:44 ◼   ► You could imagine that that's possible.

01:28:45 ◼   ► So we shouldn't have kitchen knives.

01:28:47 ◼   ► - All right, all right.

01:28:48 ◼   ► I have to come in and settle this for you too.

01:28:50 ◼   ► So it's all the things that you all said, right?

01:28:53 ◼   ► So it's not just one thing, right?

01:28:55 ◼   ► So Marco's right that the services infecting the UI

01:29:00 ◼   ► is definitely a thing that's happening.

01:29:01 ◼   ► - Oh yes, and I agree with that.

01:29:03 ◼   ► - But even in those cases,

01:29:04 ◼   ► like there are multiple aspects to it.

01:29:07 ◼   ► And it depends like whether or not

01:29:09 ◼   ► how you value those aspects, they do definitely exist.

01:29:12 ◼   ► One aspect is absolutely for sure

01:29:14 ◼   ► to excuse transcription errors, right?

01:29:16 ◼   ► It's kind of similar in a strange way

01:29:18 ◼   ► to the original sent from my iPhone signature

01:29:20 ◼   ► that was the default on like Apple Mail and stuff

01:29:23 ◼   ► on the original iPhone.

01:29:24 ◼   ► That was partly there to yes, advertise the iPhone

01:29:27 ◼   ► and show that you were cool.

01:29:28 ◼   ► But it very quickly came to serve a function

01:29:31 ◼   ► in our society of excusing the idea

01:29:33 ◼   ► that I typed this with my thumbs on a little phone screen.

01:29:36 ◼   ► So maybe excuse some typos, right?

01:29:39 ◼   ► So regardless of the intention sent with Siri,

01:29:43 ◼   ► and I've seen this in real life for myself,

01:29:45 ◼   ► absolutely functions as a way for you to parse

01:29:47 ◼   ► whatever gibberish that just got sent in that message

01:29:50 ◼   ► to say, what is this?

01:29:51 ◼   ► Oh, they sent it with Siri, that explains it.

01:29:53 ◼   ► They're not having a stroke.

01:29:54 ◼   ► It was just Siri transcription, right?

01:29:56 ◼   ► The learn more link serves multiple functions,

01:29:59 ◼   ► most of which are advertising promotion.

01:30:02 ◼   ► And I would say that there is something

01:30:03 ◼   ► they want you to buy if you get used to Siri,

01:30:05 ◼   ► which is like HomePods and stuff, right?

01:30:06 ◼   ► 'Cause it is an evaluated product.

01:30:09 ◼   ► But it also serves the function of letting people know

01:30:12 ◼   ► that this is a thing that their phone can do.

01:30:13 ◼   ► - Bingo. - And it's difficult

01:30:14 ◼   ► to walk that line, but part of designing the OS

01:30:18 ◼   ► is to make it so that all the features

01:30:20 ◼   ► you worked hard to put into the phone,

01:30:22 ◼   ► somehow the person who's paid all that money for it

01:30:24 ◼   ► realizes that they can use the phone to do this thing.

01:30:28 ◼   ► Like Apple does it themselves and like,

01:30:29 ◼   ► hey, did you know you can scan documents with the Notes app?

01:30:31 ◼   ► Nobody freaking knows that

01:30:32 ◼   ► until Apple starts telling everybody.

01:30:34 ◼   ► And yeah, they're advertising

01:30:36 ◼   ► that it's a feature of their phone,

01:30:37 ◼   ► but also people who have phones and don't realize

01:30:39 ◼   ► like that there's a magnifier on it

01:30:41 ◼   ► are missing out on a feature that they paid for.

01:30:43 ◼   ► And so you want to tell them the things

01:30:46 ◼   ► that their phone can do,

01:30:47 ◼   ► but you don't wanna nag them 'cause that's terrible.

01:30:49 ◼   ► So you know, and again, it feels worse if it's like,

01:30:52 ◼   ► hey, pay for this premium service.

01:30:53 ◼   ► But in general, trying to figure out

01:30:55 ◼   ► how to make people aware that their phone can do thing,

01:30:57 ◼   ► one way to do it is to say,

01:30:58 ◼   ► hey, your friend talked into their phone

01:31:00 ◼   ► to send you this message.

01:31:01 ◼   ► Did you know that's a thing you can do

01:31:02 ◼   ► that you can talk into your phone to send a message

01:31:04 ◼   ► if you can't like, don't have time to type right now,

01:31:06 ◼   ► or maybe you have difficulty typing?

01:31:08 ◼   ► And it's also an ad, right?

01:31:11 ◼   ► And it is also an unexpected information disclosure.

01:31:15 ◼   ► All of that is true.

01:31:16 ◼   ► You just have to look at this feature and say,

01:31:18 ◼   ► are these the correct trade-offs, right?

01:31:21 ◼   ► I think it's, we would all agree

01:31:22 ◼   ► that there should be some way to turn it off.

01:31:24 ◼   ► We could debate whether it should be on by default, right?

01:31:28 ◼   ► But like, it serves all of those purposes.

01:31:31 ◼   ► And I think it's less important

01:31:33 ◼   ► what Apple's motivation was for putting in it,

01:31:35 ◼   ► although I can imagine having worked in big companies,

01:31:37 ◼   ► that everything I just said to justify it

01:31:39 ◼   ► would absolutely be used to sort of explain

01:31:43 ◼   ► why we have to include the feature,

01:31:44 ◼   ► when in reality, maybe someone's motivation is like,

01:31:46 ◼   ► we should drive up brand satisfaction with Siri

01:31:49 ◼   ► and sell more HomePods or whatever.

01:31:51 ◼   ► But regardless of what their motivation is

01:31:53 ◼   ► for putting the feature,

01:31:54 ◼   ► it does serve all those functions in real life.

01:31:56 ◼   ► And some of those functions are good,

01:31:58 ◼   ► and some of them are not so great.

01:32:00 ◼   ► So I don't think this feature is as bad as Margot's saying,

01:32:04 ◼   ► and it's not as good as Casey's saying.

01:32:06 ◼   ► It's you really have to decide for yourself

01:32:08 ◼   ► what you think about it.

01:32:08 ◼   ► And I would imagine the only thing we can all agree on is,

01:32:12 ◼   ► disclosure and options are better.

01:32:13 ◼   ► Because then if you don't like it, you can disable it.

01:32:16 ◼   ► - See, and I appreciate the value

01:32:19 ◼   ► that you're talking about,

01:32:20 ◼   ► about telling people what the features are,

01:32:22 ◼   ► and improving discoverability.

01:32:24 ◼   ► - And explaining why the message is a garbled mess.

01:32:26 ◼   ► - Yes, those are all, those have positive value,

01:32:30 ◼   ► but I think this is an inappropriate place and way to do it.

01:32:34 ◼   ► And I think the downsides are significantly worse

01:32:38 ◼   ► than the upside.

01:32:39 ◼   ► Like for example, and just a separate version of this,

01:32:41 ◼   ► almost every feature that is annoying to a lot of people

01:32:45 ◼   ► has benefit to somebody, or has upside to somebody.

01:32:49 ◼   ► Like there's this feature that's been in mail,

01:32:51 ◼   ► I think since about iOS 12 or 13,

01:32:54 ◼   ► where if you move a couple, if you do a multi-select,

01:32:58 ◼   ► and do a move to a message to a folder,

01:33:02 ◼   ► sometimes it will try to figure,

01:33:05 ◼   ► it'll try to guess what folder you're likely to move it to

01:33:07 ◼   ► based on something, and it will put up,

01:33:10 ◼   ► instead of the folder selection screen,

01:33:13 ◼   ► it will put up an action sheet first,

01:33:17 ◼   ► saying move messages to junk mail, or other, or like other.

01:33:22 ◼   ► And you gotta click the other to then bring up the sheet

01:33:25 ◼   ► to pick the folder.

01:33:27 ◼   ► And I can imagine the discussion that went into

01:33:29 ◼   ► the design of this feature of like,

01:33:30 ◼   ► hey, if we can guess based on the senders

01:33:33 ◼   ► of what you have selected,

01:33:35 ◼   ► where you're moving these three messages,

01:33:38 ◼   ► we should ask the user to be cool and smart and do that,

01:33:42 ◼   ► and maybe that'll delight them.

01:33:44 ◼   ► The problem is, for me at least,

01:33:46 ◼   ► this feature guesses wrong the vast majority of the time.

01:33:49 ◼   ► And it only comes up about maybe a third or a quarter

01:33:53 ◼   ► or a fifth the time that I try to move messages.

01:33:56 ◼   ► And so, my experience of using this is,

01:33:59 ◼   ► I try to move messages in mail,

01:34:01 ◼   ► and most of the time, I hit the move button,

01:34:04 ◼   ► and then the sheet comes up to move it,

01:34:06 ◼   ► and it lists all my folders,

01:34:07 ◼   ► and I tap the one to move to.

01:34:08 ◼   ► Sometimes, I'm interrupted in this workflow

01:34:13 ◼   ► by this sheet trying to be smart

01:34:15 ◼   ► and trying to guess what I want.

01:34:18 ◼   ► If it guesses right, I can tap that top button,

01:34:23 ◼   ► and I have saved no taps,

01:34:27 ◼   ► I have saved no time,

01:34:29 ◼   ► I've just been kind of like jarred, kind of interrupted,

01:34:32 ◼   ► because what I was expecting to happen,

01:34:34 ◼   ► which happened most of the time,

01:34:35 ◼   ► this was different this time.

01:34:38 ◼   ► So, I would say that's not a clear benefit, actually.

01:34:41 ◼   ► It's at most a lateral move.

01:34:43 ◼   ► If you think about the even worse case,

01:34:46 ◼   ► which is for me the more common case,

01:34:48 ◼   ► which is it guesses wrong,

01:34:51 ◼   ► now you've interrupted me,

01:34:53 ◼   ► you've jarred my flow,

01:34:56 ◼   ► and I have to do now an additional tap

01:34:58 ◼   ► than I would have had to do before

01:35:00 ◼   ► to say other or whatever that button is.

01:35:03 ◼   ► Then I have to pick my folder

01:35:06 ◼   ► that wasn't the thing it guessed,

01:35:08 ◼   ► and by the way, it never learns,

01:35:10 ◼   ► and I'll make the same mistake tomorrow.

01:35:12 ◼   ► And so, this is a feature where,

01:35:15 ◼   ► yeah, it sounds like a good idea on paper,

01:35:17 ◼   ► and it does have some kind of potential benefit

01:35:20 ◼   ► to somebody, maybe, if you think about it,

01:35:23 ◼   ► but in practice, the downsides should outweigh that,

01:35:28 ◼   ► and the downsides are clearly,

01:35:30 ◼   ► okay, when this guess is wrong, it's really bad.

01:35:32 ◼   ► When a guess is right, it's only kinda good.

01:35:35 ◼   ► So, that feature should be removed.

01:35:37 ◼   ► I don't know why it's still there.

01:35:38 ◼   ► It should be removed.

01:35:39 ◼   ► It's been there for probably two or three years.

01:35:41 ◼   ► - You just need to improve that,

01:35:42 ◼   ► because Apple's just bad at doing those features,

01:35:44 ◼   ► but I love apps that keep track of what I do

01:35:47 ◼   ► and give me the most common things,

01:35:49 ◼   ► but if you do it badly like that,

01:35:50 ◼   ► where it's a two-tiered system,

01:35:51 ◼   ► and also a guess is wrong, of course, that's just terrible,

01:35:54 ◼   ► but just to give a simplified example,

01:35:56 ◼   ► if you just did it based on recency

01:35:57 ◼   ► and sorted by recent usage and it had a single list

01:36:00 ◼   ► and everything was on the list,

01:36:02 ◼   ► the only difference would be what's sorted to the top.

01:36:04 ◼   ► You would never need to go to another screen

01:36:05 ◼   ► to find another one, and if it was working well,

01:36:08 ◼   ► the ones that you do use would be at the top.

01:36:10 ◼   ► So, that type of feature can be done better,

01:36:13 ◼   ► but yeah, I get what you're saying,

01:36:14 ◼   ► that this is a feature that has downsides

01:36:16 ◼   ► that outweigh the benefits.

01:36:18 ◼   ► In the case of sent with Siri,

01:36:20 ◼   ► I mean, it really depends about how you feel

01:36:22 ◼   ► about all the things that we just outlined.

01:36:24 ◼   ► How much value do you apply to keeping it a secret

01:36:26 ◼   ► that you sent with Siri and having ads thrown in your face

01:36:31 ◼   ► versus the benefits of maybe this will teach people

01:36:34 ◼   ► how to use the phone better versus even stuff like that

01:36:37 ◼   ► with the learning.

01:36:38 ◼   ► This is the tricky part about learning features.

01:36:40 ◼   ► Once you know that your phone can do this,

01:36:41 ◼   ► you should never have to see that message again

01:36:43 ◼   ► from somebody else, but how does the phone know

01:36:44 ◼   ► that you know that your phone can do this?

01:36:46 ◼   ► That's why it's difficult to make those kind of features

01:36:47 ◼   ► and not have them annoying, but I would guess

01:36:51 ◼   ► that most people don't even know this feature exists

01:36:53 ◼   ► because they never even look at that text.

01:36:55 ◼   ► - Right, and also, I would assume,

01:36:58 ◼   ► I've only seen the sent with Siri thing a couple of times,

01:37:02 ◼   ► and I don't know if that's because my friends

01:37:04 ◼   ► don't usually use Siri or if it has some kind of

01:37:08 ◼   ► time-based throttling where maybe it only shows it

01:37:11 ◼   ► once a day from a given recipient or something like that.

01:37:14 ◼   ► - Or it could be like those annoying things

01:37:15 ◼   ► these drive me nuts in macOS where when you first install

01:37:17 ◼   ► like a new version of the macOS, it's like,

01:37:19 ◼   ► learn about the new features of Big Sur,

01:37:20 ◼   ► and the only way to make it shut up is to click the link,

01:37:23 ◼   ► click through it and say, fine, open the webpage for me.

01:37:25 ◼   ► - Right, and then instantly close it.

01:37:26 ◼   ► - And now I never wanna see you again.

01:37:27 ◼   ► So I do wonder if you hit learn more once,

01:37:29 ◼   ► does that make it go away?

01:37:30 ◼   ► This is also, by the way, for people who don't know,

01:37:32 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure the solution to most of the terrible ads

01:37:35 ◼   ► in Apple stuff for you to sign up for their services

01:37:37 ◼   ► and crap is to click through them

01:37:40 ◼   ► and sort of begin the process, but then bail,

01:37:43 ◼   ► and then you can usually make the thing go away,

01:37:45 ◼   ► which is terrible, I'm not promoting this.

01:37:46 ◼   ► I'm just saying like if you wanna solve

01:37:48 ◼   ► the annoyance problem on your phone,

01:37:50 ◼   ► like people just like leave it on their,

01:37:52 ◼   ► the setting screen forever and they just get angry about it.

01:37:54 ◼   ► Go into it and say, set up Apple Wallet,

01:37:56 ◼   ► set up Apple Wallet, it's like,

01:37:57 ◼   ► but I don't want to, set up Apple,

01:37:58 ◼   ► just start the process and then bail,

01:38:00 ◼   ► and usually it will stop bugging you

01:38:03 ◼   ► in the same way that when it wants to tell me

01:38:05 ◼   ► about Big Sur, I have to click show,

01:38:07 ◼   ► let it open a page in Safari,

01:38:08 ◼   ► and then hopefully never have to see it again.

01:38:10 ◼   ► - So Casey just sent us a test message,

01:38:13 ◼   ► and what's interesting, I see it on my phone

01:38:15 ◼   ► running the iOS 14.4 RC, and it says sent with Siri,

01:38:20 ◼   ► but it does not say learn more.

01:38:23 ◼   ► - No way, are you serious?

01:38:24 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:38:25 ◼   ► - I have sent with Siri and learn more.

01:38:26 ◼   ► - So I think I did once tap on that

01:38:30 ◼   ► to see what the heck it's doing.

01:38:31 ◼   ► - I'm gonna learn more now.

01:38:32 ◼   ► - Oh no, don't learn more.

01:38:34 ◼   ► - No, I'm gonna learn more.

01:38:36 ◼   ► All right, it's a tiny single page,

01:38:39 ◼   ► it just says this message was sent using Siri,

01:38:42 ◼   ► and then it tells how to use Siri, blah, blah, blah,

01:38:44 ◼   ► but that's it, and it's just a done button,

01:38:45 ◼   ► so now I've hit done.

01:38:46 ◼   ► All right, it still says learn more.

01:38:49 ◼   ► I'm back on the messages screen.

01:38:50 ◼   ► Let me go out of the conversation and back in.

01:38:53 ◼   ► Still says learn more.

01:38:54 ◼   ► You wanna send me another message, Casey,

01:38:56 ◼   ► and I'll see if it--

01:38:56 ◼   ► - Send a message to John Siracusa and Marco Arment.

01:38:59 ◼   ► - What would you like the message to say?

01:39:00 ◼   ► - Hello, fellas, period.

01:39:02 ◼   ► - Would you like me to search the web for hello, fellas?

01:39:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:39:06 ◼   ► - You're the worst.

01:39:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, see, I got it again, same thing.

01:39:10 ◼   ► - All right, so now the previous message

01:39:12 ◼   ► just says sent with Siri, but to learn more

01:39:14 ◼   ► only appears on the newest message.

01:39:16 ◼   ► - Oh, that's weird.

01:39:17 ◼   ► - So it says sent with Siri, and the next one says

01:39:18 ◼   ► sent with Siri, learn more.

01:39:19 ◼   ► - What if you force quit messages and go back in?

01:39:22 ◼   ► - We're not reflexively force quitting our apps anymore,

01:39:24 ◼   ► Casey. - Yes, I know.

01:39:25 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:39:26 ◼   ► - Anyway.

01:39:27 ◼   ► - I go back, I just did that, no change.

01:39:30 ◼   ► - Okay, that's worth a shot.

01:39:31 ◼   ► - Anyway, the point is this,

01:39:34 ◼   ► I do not think this is an appropriate use

01:39:37 ◼   ► of this kind of thing.

01:39:38 ◼   ► I don't think that the messages stream

01:39:41 ◼   ► is an appropriate place for Apple to inject

01:39:44 ◼   ► any kind of promo, and I don't think this type

01:39:48 ◼   ► of unintended information disclosure is a good idea

01:39:52 ◼   ► or appropriate for iMessage, regardless of whether,

01:39:55 ◼   ► the benefits that this feature has

01:39:57 ◼   ► of possibly excusing typos and everything else,

01:40:00 ◼   ► by the way, I mean, when you type a message in messages,

01:40:03 ◼   ► it's full of typos 'cause autocorrect sucks,

01:40:05 ◼   ► so people are used to that, right?

01:40:08 ◼   ► - But there are different kind of typos,

01:40:09 ◼   ► because Siri really can just be completely not even close

01:40:14 ◼   ► to what you said, in a way that autocorrect, at least,

01:40:16 ◼   ► like the letters are probably near on the keyboard,

01:40:19 ◼   ► but Siri is just in the wilderness sometimes,

01:40:22 ◼   ► and you get things that look like someone's having a stroke,

01:40:24 ◼   ► it's like a Markov chain, right?

01:40:25 ◼   ► And I never see that kind of failure mode with typos.

01:40:29 ◼   ► You see maybe one or two words,

01:40:30 ◼   ► you can guess what they were trying to type,

01:40:32 ◼   ► but I don't know, I think this feature is very much

01:40:36 ◼   ► like read receipts or read receipts,

01:40:39 ◼   ► depending on how you wanna pronounce it,

01:40:40 ◼   ► in that I think it should be something

01:40:44 ◼   ► that people can opt out of if they want,

01:40:47 ◼   ► but in the case of sent with Siri,

01:40:50 ◼   ► I think the default should be on,

01:40:51 ◼   ► kind of like in the new versions of the OSes.

01:40:54 ◼   ► It's not that they default read receipts to be on,

01:40:57 ◼   ► but they prompt you.

01:40:59 ◼   ► Like, so I think there's no way to set up a new phone

01:41:01 ◼   ► or a new Mac without, and use messages without it asking you,

01:41:04 ◼   ► hey, do you wanna send read receipts?

01:41:06 ◼   ► And you having to at least answer that question.

01:41:08 ◼   ► I wouldn't prompt people with the sent with Siri.

01:41:11 ◼   ► I think it should just be a setting,

01:41:12 ◼   ► but I kind of think the default should be yes,

01:41:14 ◼   ► just because until they can make their transcription better,

01:41:17 ◼   ► like that should be their goal.

01:41:18 ◼   ► Make a transcription better enough

01:41:19 ◼   ► that that feature of this is no longer useful,

01:41:21 ◼   ► and then it shouldn't be on by default.

01:41:23 ◼   ► But it really depends on how you value,

01:41:27 ◼   ► what values you place on the various aspects of this feature.

01:41:30 ◼   ► It has upsides, it has downsides.

01:41:31 ◼   ► Markov clearly puts way more weight on the downsides,

01:41:33 ◼   ► and so thinks it shouldn't be there.

01:41:35 ◼   ► I bet most people are neutral on it

01:41:37 ◼   ► because they don't care about this crap.

01:41:38 ◼   ► I fall slightly in favor of leaving sent with Siri

01:41:42 ◼   ► to explain the inexplicable messages by default.

01:41:45 ◼   ► - What if it said sent from the iPhone 13 Pro Max?

01:41:49 ◼   ► - But as Casey said, it doesn't.

01:41:51 ◼   ► It doesn't say that.

01:41:52 ◼   ► Like, it's a slippery slope argument, right?

01:41:53 ◼   ► It says what it says.

01:41:54 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:41:55 ◼   ► Well, what if the feature that it was advertising

01:41:58 ◼   ► was only available on the newest phone?

01:42:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it could be worse.

01:42:02 ◼   ► Like, I don't disagree that it could be worse.

01:42:04 ◼   ► Like, and there are, as you point out,

01:42:05 ◼   ► there are things that are worse.

01:42:06 ◼   ► Like, hey, sign up for Apple TV Plus

01:42:07 ◼   ► and add stuff to Apple wall.

01:42:08 ◼   ► Those are worse, like unequivocally, right?

01:42:10 ◼   ► And more annoying to get rid of.

01:42:11 ◼   ► But that's why I think I'm mostly okay with this one

01:42:14 ◼   ► because it's not worse.

01:42:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, we could find a million ways

01:42:18 ◼   ► where I would find it to be really gross.

01:42:20 ◼   ► But the thing is, it just says, you know,

01:42:23 ◼   ► send with Siri, learn more.

01:42:24 ◼   ► - It is another data point in the trend, though.

01:42:25 ◼   ► Like, because they basically have opened the door

01:42:29 ◼   ► to doing this, to like putting in little messages

01:42:32 ◼   ► under messages, you know, slippery slope arguments say

01:42:35 ◼   ► once they've done this one thing,

01:42:36 ◼   ► they're not gonna do the most terrible thing.

01:42:38 ◼   ► But there is some argument to be made

01:42:40 ◼   ► that they have coded up the ability to communicate

01:42:43 ◼   ► this sideband data and display it in little messages.

01:42:45 ◼   ► That makes it ever so slightly easier

01:42:47 ◼   ► for them to do something else.

01:42:48 ◼   ► So it's worth watching.

01:42:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, as soon as this is possible to use

01:42:52 ◼   ► for more direct promotional, like financial gain ways,

01:42:56 ◼   ► I think this increases the odds, they'll do it.

01:42:58 ◼   ► - I mean, the other aspect of it is like I talked about,

01:43:00 ◼   ► like, you know, the learning aspect is absolutely true.

01:43:03 ◼   ► And I think that is actually something they should do

01:43:07 ◼   ► in the OS, like when you send someone money,

01:43:09 ◼   ► the question may that with Apple pay cash or whatever,

01:43:11 ◼   ► they'd be like, how did that work?

01:43:13 ◼   ► How did that happen?

01:43:14 ◼   ► That's a question a new user is likely to have.

01:43:16 ◼   ► And just in time info that says, hey, you just figured out

01:43:19 ◼   ► how to receive this money from this person,

01:43:22 ◼   ► you can send them to other people too.

01:43:24 ◼   ► Click here to learn more.

01:43:26 ◼   ► Like right there at the time it happened

01:43:27 ◼   ► when you might have that question, that's a, you know,

01:43:30 ◼   ► again, you have to strike the right balance,

01:43:31 ◼   ► but I think that's a useful thing that the OS should do

01:43:34 ◼   ► to teach people who are using it what it can do for them

01:43:38 ◼   ► at the right time in the right context.

01:43:39 ◼   ► And I think that something like this qualifies,

01:43:41 ◼   ► like I'm not against having decorations on messages,

01:43:45 ◼   ► you know, because Apple pays happens in messages

01:43:48 ◼   ► to explain the features.

01:43:50 ◼   ► It's just that you can't nag people about it.

01:43:52 ◼   ► You don't want it to seem too spammy.

01:43:54 ◼   ► You don't want to disclose information

01:43:55 ◼   ► that you don't have to so on and so forth.

01:43:57 ◼   ► So the Apple pay cash is a cleaner case and it's like,

01:44:00 ◼   ► you know, sent with Apple pay cash,

01:44:01 ◼   ► you know they sent it with Apple pay cash.

01:44:03 ◼   ► You're using Apple pay cash, right?

01:44:04 ◼   ► But maybe you have no idea what Apple pay cash is

01:44:07 ◼   ► and you think it's cool and would like to use it

01:44:08 ◼   ► and you want to learn more.

01:44:10 ◼   ► That's the time to have that little blue link, right?

01:44:14 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's tricky.

01:44:16 ◼   ► OS design is tricky.

01:44:17 ◼   ► You don't want to seem creepy,

01:44:18 ◼   ► but you also want to progressively disclose functionality

01:44:23 ◼   ► to people who otherwise wouldn't show it

01:44:24 ◼   ► and you do want to explain your ridiculous typos.

01:44:27 ◼   ► - And it's funny to me because there are two examples

01:44:29 ◼   ► of things that I don't think are promotional,

01:44:31 ◼   ► but I find to be far more frustrating,

01:44:34 ◼   ► both with regard to messages.

01:44:35 ◼   ► First of all, I have the feature that I think came out

01:44:38 ◼   ► a couple of iOS's ago.

01:44:39 ◼   ► The feature where it'll announce incoming text messages

01:44:42 ◼   ► if you have AirPods in.

01:44:43 ◼   ► So it'll say, you know, message from Mark O'Armond.

01:44:44 ◼   ► Hey man, how's it going?

01:44:46 ◼   ► - Does that work reliably for you by the way?

01:44:48 ◼   ► - No, it does not.

01:44:49 ◼   ► - I have that on and it seems, at first,

01:44:51 ◼   ► like you know, it seems like it'll read

01:44:53 ◼   ► about one to two thirds of the messages I get.

01:44:58 ◼   ► And the other ones, it just won't read

01:45:00 ◼   ► and I can't figure out why.

01:45:01 ◼   ► It's like some of them are short, some of them are long,

01:45:03 ◼   ► some of them have pictures, some of them don't have pictures.

01:45:06 ◼   ► I can't figure out the pattern.

01:45:07 ◼   ► - Have you had it explained to you that it's bailing,

01:45:10 ◼   ► that it's not gonna read it

01:45:11 ◼   ► 'cause the message is super long?

01:45:12 ◼   ► I think it's been very consistent for me

01:45:14 ◼   ► 'cause I get, for whatever reason,

01:45:16 ◼   ► I get a lot of messages when I'm like doing dishes, right?

01:45:18 ◼   ► So I have my AirPods in and 100% of them

01:45:20 ◼   ► are announced in some form,

01:45:21 ◼   ► but sometimes I think there's one like phrasing or line

01:45:25 ◼   ► where it's like, you got a message from this person

01:45:27 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna read it 'cause it's super long.

01:45:29 ◼   ► So if you wanna read it, go to your phone.

01:45:31 ◼   ► Like that's obviously not what they say,

01:45:32 ◼   ► but that's the gist of it, right?

01:45:34 ◼   ► And you know, so I kind of appreciate that

01:45:37 ◼   ► 'cause I don't want a giant long message to be read,

01:45:39 ◼   ► but it's been pretty consistent.

01:45:41 ◼   ► The only time it totally messed up

01:45:42 ◼   ► is I got a message in a day and it, you know,

01:45:46 ◼   ► Siri does this not just in the context of messages

01:45:49 ◼   ► being announced in your AirPods, but just in general.

01:45:51 ◼   ► You know, with all the videos of Siri

01:45:53 ◼   ► getting caught in a loop or something, this happened.

01:45:55 ◼   ► It was reading a message and then Siri just started saying,

01:45:59 ◼   ► see, see, see, see, see, see.

01:46:02 ◼   ► - I've never seen that.

01:46:03 ◼   ► - For a very, very long time.

01:46:04 ◼   ► And I went and looked at the message

01:46:05 ◼   ► and it had an E with an accent on it.

01:46:08 ◼   ► You know, like the little E with a little accente-gu

01:46:11 ◼   ► or whatever on the thing.

01:46:12 ◼   ► It's the only weird character in the message.

01:46:14 ◼   ► It was a short message.

01:46:16 ◼   ► It did not have the letter C, the word S-E-E

01:46:18 ◼   ► or any word that sounds like that anywhere in it

01:46:21 ◼   ► and just Siri said, see, see, see

01:46:24 ◼   ► for, I don't know, a good minute.

01:46:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:46:26 ◼   ► - I've never had that happen.

01:46:27 ◼   ► But the thing that happens to me constantly

01:46:30 ◼   ► when this is what I was starting to bring up.

01:46:31 ◼   ► - Wait, can I guess real fast?

01:46:33 ◼   ► - Mm-hmm.

01:46:34 ◼   ► - By the way, do you know you can reply by saying reply?

01:46:36 ◼   ► - Oh my God, it's so annoying.

01:46:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:46:38 ◼   ► It's so annoying.

01:46:39 ◼   ► Like the first time, the first time,

01:46:41 ◼   ► I was genuinely like, oh, I didn't know that.

01:46:44 ◼   ► I have now learned more.

01:46:46 ◼   ► This is excellent.

01:46:47 ◼   ► But it happens all the time.

01:46:50 ◼   ► And what's even worse to me is that in one session,

01:46:54 ◼   ► I've put my AirPods in, I've received several text messages

01:46:57 ◼   ► and then I will later take them out.

01:46:59 ◼   ► In that one time, between the time I've put in the AirPods

01:47:04 ◼   ► and the time I've taken them out,

01:47:05 ◼   ► I'll receive that friggin' prompt four or five times

01:47:09 ◼   ► and it's so annoying.

01:47:11 ◼   ► I've got it.

01:47:12 ◼   ► - Well, it's like learning more about Big Sur.

01:47:14 ◼   ► You have to maybe once say, did you know that?

01:47:17 ◼   ► Answer and say, yes, I did know that.

01:47:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:47:20 ◼   ► Or just actually reply.

01:47:22 ◼   ► But I'm with you, Casey.

01:47:23 ◼   ► I get this all the time.

01:47:25 ◼   ► - Or do it once, yeah.

01:47:26 ◼   ► - It sets me on fire every time

01:47:28 ◼   ► because usually what has happened is I'm walking somewhere,

01:47:32 ◼   ► my hands are in pockets in the winter

01:47:35 ◼   ► or they're pulling a wagon full of stuff or something

01:47:37 ◼   ► so I can't easily operate the controls

01:47:40 ◼   ► and I'm trying to listen to a podcast.

01:47:44 ◼   ► And so all I want, when I'm hearing it try to read out

01:47:48 ◼   ► the automated message that my bank is sending me

01:47:50 ◼   ► that a bill paycheck went through.

01:47:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:47:55 ◼   ► So by the way, I will never need to respond to the contact

01:47:59 ◼   ► that is the five digit code or whatever

01:48:01 ◼   ► that my bank texts me from.

01:48:03 ◼   ► But it always says, by the way, you can reply.

01:48:06 ◼   ► And I'm like, you just read out this huge long message

01:48:09 ◼   ► that I don't even need to hear

01:48:10 ◼   ► and now you're adding this long promo to the end of it.

01:48:13 ◼   ► I just wanna get back to the podcast I was listening to.

01:48:16 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:48:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's an example of trying to explain functionality

01:48:19 ◼   ► gone terribly wrong

01:48:21 ◼   ► because it is good for people to know that once

01:48:24 ◼   ► or maybe twice, but not constantly.

01:48:26 ◼   ► And the other problem with it is

01:48:28 ◼   ► if we're complaining about Siri,

01:48:29 ◼   ► my major complaint with Siri recently has been

01:48:31 ◼   ► Siri refuses to disengage.

01:48:34 ◼   ► Siri will activate because I will try to summon my sweetie.

01:48:39 ◼   ► And that unfortunately sounds like Siri.

01:48:41 ◼   ► In fairness, I chose the pet name

01:48:46 ◼   ► for my wife long before Siri existed.

01:48:48 ◼   ► Unfortunately, it sounds a lot like Siri.

01:48:51 ◼   ► And so Siri often activates in my home

01:48:53 ◼   ► and I cannot get Siri to disengage

01:48:55 ◼   ► because whatever I said after that,

01:48:57 ◼   ► Siri's off to the races with like,

01:48:59 ◼   ► oh, let me tell you about the restaurants near your house

01:49:03 ◼   ► or whether the haircutting place is open.

01:49:05 ◼   ► There's like, I don't know what Siri heard or whatever,

01:49:08 ◼   ► but it goes off on this thing.

01:49:10 ◼   ► And it's like, do you want me to,

01:49:12 ◼   ► it tells me at a restaurant,

01:49:13 ◼   ► do you want me to call this restaurant

01:49:14 ◼   ► and make an order or whatever?

01:49:16 ◼   ► And it's like, I want, you know, it's the classic,

01:49:20 ◼   ► I don't even want to say if it's a Dubai Friday

01:49:22 ◼   ► or back to work, Alexa, stop, right?

01:49:24 ◼   ► I just want to end the interaction.

01:49:26 ◼   ► I want, I want just cease, desist, no more.

01:49:29 ◼   ► I did not summon you, go away.

01:49:31 ◼   ► And I cannot figure out what to say to Siri

01:49:33 ◼   ► to make that happen.

01:49:34 ◼   ► Siri, stop, Siri, okay?

01:49:35 ◼   ► I don't want to have to engage and say like,

01:49:38 ◼   ► no, not that restaurant,

01:49:39 ◼   ► 'cause then she'll read the next restaurant.

01:49:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:49:42 ◼   ► You know, I just, I need to,

01:49:44 ◼   ► like that was something,

01:49:45 ◼   ► maybe that might've been Google,

01:49:46 ◼   ► I forget which one it was,

01:49:47 ◼   ► but one of the voice assistants in my house

01:49:49 ◼   ► misheard something and was giving me a litany

01:49:52 ◼   ► of things to choose from.

01:49:53 ◼   ► And I couldn't figure out how to bail out of there too.

01:49:55 ◼   ► And it's like, do I have to now order food

01:49:56 ◼   ► from a restaurant to make this stop?

01:49:58 ◼   ► Like, is there no way to say,

01:50:00 ◼   ► I'm not going to pick any of these.

01:50:02 ◼   ► I wasn't, you misheard me.

01:50:05 ◼   ► So operator, there needs to be like command period

01:50:09 ◼   ► for voice assistants of just like, whatever escape, no more.

01:50:13 ◼   ► Like I did not summon you, you have misheard me.

01:50:15 ◼   ► I'm talking to my wife,

01:50:17 ◼   ► whatever it is that you're doing, stop it immediately.

01:50:19 ◼   ► To be fair, most voice assistants, including Siri,

01:50:21 ◼   ► are pretty good about like, they're playing audio

01:50:23 ◼   ► and you just want them to stop.

01:50:24 ◼   ► But if they're trying to engage you

01:50:27 ◼   ► in what they think is this useful interaction

01:50:30 ◼   ► about whatever the heck they thought you said,

01:50:32 ◼   ► I can't make them stop.

01:50:33 ◼   ► Please, Siri, disengage.

01:50:35 ◼   ► - Have you tried asking, learn more?

01:50:37 ◼   ► - Oh God.

01:50:39 ◼   ► Yeah, like, I mean, that's what I said.

01:50:40 ◼   ► Maybe I just have to order food.

01:50:41 ◼   ► It's like, oh, well, that's the rules.

01:50:43 ◼   ► You gotta order food now.

01:50:44 ◼   ► Just pick one of these restaurants in your area

01:50:48 ◼   ► and buy food from it, that's it.

01:50:49 ◼   ► - So my favorite thing with the,

01:50:53 ◼   ► did you know you can reply,

01:50:54 ◼   ► is that oftentimes the failure mode for a, you know,

01:50:58 ◼   ► reading out an incoming text message is,

01:51:00 ◼   ► new message from Aaron Liss.

01:51:02 ◼   ► Did you know you could reply?

01:51:04 ◼   ► Like it skips the actual message.

01:51:07 ◼   ► And so it's like, yes, that's wonderful that I can reply,

01:51:11 ◼   ► but I don't know what I'm replying to.

01:51:13 ◼   ► - Unfortunately, Aaron probably doesn't listen

01:51:14 ◼   ► to the program, but if she did,

01:51:15 ◼   ► I would tell her the next message you send

01:51:17 ◼   ► to your husband should be,

01:51:18 ◼   ► did you know you can reply to Siri?

01:51:21 ◼   ► Make that the text of your message.

01:51:23 ◼   ► And then you get like double bonus points

01:51:24 ◼   ► if Siri inserts that declaration before reading the message,

01:51:29 ◼   ► which contains the same text as that declaration.

01:51:31 ◼   ► - Oh my God, it's so bad.

01:51:32 ◼   ► - Maximum trolling.

01:51:33 ◼   ► - Then really quickly, the other thing that drives me nuts,

01:51:35 ◼   ► it's message related, but not Siri related,

01:51:38 ◼   ► is as I've mentioned a couple of times on the show,

01:51:41 ◼   ► I am in several group conversations with mixed phone OS's.

01:51:46 ◼   ► So some Android users, some iOS users.

01:51:49 ◼   ► And I understand why this is the way it is,

01:51:53 ◼   ► but oftentimes I will find myself doing a tap back

01:51:57 ◼   ► in these mixed mode conversations.

01:51:59 ◼   ► And so instead of, well, I guess if I recall correctly,

01:52:03 ◼   ► my phone will parse the tap back correctly.

01:52:06 ◼   ► So if I like some other message,

01:52:08 ◼   ► it will show the little thumbs up on it.

01:52:10 ◼   ► But everyone else in that conversation,

01:52:13 ◼   ► including other iPhone users,

01:52:15 ◼   ► will see Casey liked some other message, blah, blah, blah.

01:52:19 ◼   ► And it's so frustrating.

01:52:20 ◼   ► Like if tap backs aren't a thing in SMS and MMS, that's fine.

01:52:25 ◼   ► But don't give me the freaking option.

01:52:27 ◼   ► Like I get it's consistency or whatever,

01:52:29 ◼   ► but I don't want the option.

01:52:30 ◼   ► Like it's so frustrating.

01:52:32 ◼   ► And it's especially bad when you're like sending images

01:52:35 ◼   ► back and forth in a group chat.

01:52:37 ◼   ► And you'll see Erin Liss liked an image.

01:52:41 ◼   ► Well, that's great.

01:52:41 ◼   ► Which freaking image did she like?

01:52:43 ◼   ► Oh God, it's so frustrating.

01:52:45 ◼   ► - The worst part about the text version of that

01:52:47 ◼   ► is because what you did in your UI

01:52:49 ◼   ► was you pressed the menu or whatever and picked a picture,

01:52:53 ◼   ► which was a thumbs up.

01:52:54 ◼   ► And then their system is saying,

01:52:58 ◼   ► I know you picked a picture,

01:52:59 ◼   ► but I think I know the words that represent the feeling

01:53:02 ◼   ► that you meant when you picked that picture.

01:53:03 ◼   ► So I'm gonna send those words,

01:53:04 ◼   ► which is so dumb because there's a thumbs up emoji.

01:53:07 ◼   ► So just send the thumbs up emoji.

01:53:09 ◼   ► It's the same picture more or less.

01:53:10 ◼   ► - Right, like imagine if when you typed emoji,

01:53:14 ◼   ► that when that appeared on Android,

01:53:16 ◼   ► it was just the emoji names replacing it.

01:53:18 ◼   ► - Oh God, that'd be so bad.

01:53:19 ◼   ► - Right, especially with the emoji that we use in context

01:53:22 ◼   ► that don't match the names, right?

01:53:23 ◼   ► Because of what they look like.

01:53:24 ◼   ► I mean, that's the danger of emoji in general,

01:53:25 ◼   ► is that you don't know what it's gonna look like

01:53:26 ◼   ► on the other person's computer.

01:53:27 ◼   ► - Why are you always talking about peaches and eggplants?

01:53:29 ◼   ► - But yeah, tap backs.

01:53:30 ◼   ► Tap backs are useful,

01:53:31 ◼   ► but like I feel like the text iteration of tap backs

01:53:35 ◼   ► could be much closer,

01:53:36 ◼   ► especially in cases where there's a very similar emoji.

01:53:39 ◼   ► - Thanks to our sponsors this week,

01:53:40 ◼   ► FlatFile, HelloFresh, and Lickability.

01:53:44 ◼   ► And thanks to our members who support us directly.

01:53:46 ◼   ► You can do that if you want to join us at atp.fm/join.

01:53:50 ◼   ► You get things like ad-free shows

01:53:52 ◼   ► and the raw unedited bootleg and stuff like that.

01:53:55 ◼   ► And thank you very much, everybody.

01:53:57 ◼   ► We will talk to you next week.

01:53:59 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:54:02 ◼   ► ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:54:04 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:54:06 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:54:08 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:54:09 ◼   ► ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:54:11 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:54:12 ◼   ► ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:54:14 ◼   ► ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:54:17 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:54:19 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:54:20 ◼   ► ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:54:21 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:54:23 ◼   ► ♪ And you can find the show notes at atp.fm ♪

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01:54:31 ◼   ► ♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪

01:54:36 ◼   ► ♪ So that's Casey List ♪

01:54:38 ◼   ► ♪ M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪

01:54:41 ◼   ► ♪ Auntie Marco Arment ♪

01:54:44 ◼   ► ♪ S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:54:46 ◼   ► ♪ U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-S-A ♪

01:54:49 ◼   ► ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:54:50 ◼   ► ♪ It's accidental ♪

01:54:52 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't mean to accidental ♪

01:54:55 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:54:57 ◼   ► ♪ Tech podcast so long ♪

01:55:00 ◼   ► - I'm clearly a little punchy tonight.

01:55:03 ◼   ► And so I think the only way to make myself feel better

01:55:06 ◼   ► is for the three of us to agree

01:55:08 ◼   ► that whatever these pictures are that flew by my screen

01:55:12 ◼   ► right as we started recording of the new Model S interior,

01:55:15 ◼   ► holy crap, they're bad.

01:55:19 ◼   ► Holy crap, what's going on?

01:55:21 ◼   ► - Here's the thing.

01:55:23 ◼   ► What we're all talking about and why we're all moaning,

01:55:25 ◼   ► I think is 90 something percent about the steering wheel.

01:55:28 ◼   ► Let's ignore the steering wheel for a second

01:55:31 ◼   ► and just look at the rest of this interior.

01:55:33 ◼   ► It's got a big screen in the middle of the dashboard.

01:55:35 ◼   ► It's landscape instead of portrait,

01:55:37 ◼   ► but otherwise does not look that ridiculously different

01:55:40 ◼   ► than the Model 3.

01:55:41 ◼   ► And in fact, not really that different from the Model S.

01:55:43 ◼   ► It's got a little instrument cluster

01:55:45 ◼   ► in front of the steering wheel

01:55:47 ◼   ► that looks like a regular instrument

01:55:49 ◼   ► crossing over the screen.

01:55:50 ◼   ► It looks fine.

01:55:51 ◼   ► And everything else in the interior looks not that radical.

01:55:55 ◼   ► It's got a center armrest.

01:55:56 ◼   ► It's got places for like phones to go.

01:55:59 ◼   ► It's got a rear view mirror on the windshield.

01:56:02 ◼   ► Everything looks pretty much normal.

01:56:03 ◼   ► So is it fair to say

01:56:05 ◼   ► that we are entirely moaning about the steering wheel

01:56:07 ◼   ► or is there something else about this interface

01:56:09 ◼   ► that you think is awful?

01:56:10 ◼   ► - I don't like that it's landscape, I don't think.

01:56:13 ◼   ► Now it's a little unfair of me,

01:56:16 ◼   ► more than a little unfair of me to make this declaration

01:56:18 ◼   ► because although I have driven Model 3s

01:56:20 ◼   ► and I have driven Model Ss, including back to back,

01:56:23 ◼   ► I haven't driven either in at least a year, I don't think.

01:56:28 ◼   ► But I think I much prefer the portrait operation

01:56:33 ◼   ► of the old Model S like Marco has

01:56:36 ◼   ► than I do the landscape operation of the Model 3

01:56:39 ◼   ► because it feels to me more like everything is nearby.

01:56:43 ◼   ► And maybe that's my own hang up, I don't know,

01:56:45 ◼   ► but it feels like everything's nearby.

01:56:47 ◼   ► Whereas within landscape,

01:56:48 ◼   ► it feels like there's that crap way over on the other side

01:56:50 ◼   ► of the car and then there's the crap by me.

01:56:52 ◼   ► - Marco, is it just the steering wheel?

01:56:54 ◼   ► Or I know you don't like the Model 3

01:56:55 ◼   ► and you like the Model S better,

01:56:56 ◼   ► but would you, again ignoring the steering wheel,

01:56:59 ◼   ► would you pitch a fit over the landscape screen

01:57:01 ◼   ► or is it mostly just the steering wheel

01:57:03 ◼   ► that's freaking you out?

01:57:04 ◼   ► - First of all, I think wheel is a generous term.

01:57:06 ◼   ► I think it may be the steering bucket.

01:57:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:57:09 ◼   ► - We're not getting that yet.

01:57:10 ◼   ► - We'll get there, we'll get there.

01:57:11 ◼   ► We'll talk about the steering bucket in a minute.

01:57:12 ◼   ► But the things I didn't like when I test drove the 3

01:57:16 ◼   ► were not necessarily because the screen was landscape.

01:57:20 ◼   ► That being said, I do like the portrait screen

01:57:23 ◼   ► of the Model S and I think the only reason

01:57:25 ◼   ► they're doing this is for, again,

01:57:29 ◼   ► reasons that benefit them, but not necessarily the drivers.

01:57:33 ◼   ► - So you can play Witcher on it

01:57:34 ◼   ► because Witcher doesn't run portrait.

01:57:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I love the game,

01:57:37 ◼   ► they're showing off you can play games in this.

01:57:38 ◼   ► One of them is Stardew Valley.

01:57:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I love Stardew Valley.

01:57:41 ◼   ► I would never play it in my car.

01:57:42 ◼   ► I'm not gonna sit in my car for hours on end

01:57:45 ◼   ► playing a deep involved game.

01:57:47 ◼   ► - Well, when you're at the supercharger killing time

01:57:51 ◼   ► and because you have kids in the car,

01:57:52 ◼   ► that's why there's a screen in the backseat.

01:57:54 ◼   ► Like I understand why they're advertising gaming

01:57:56 ◼   ► as a feature, although I think it is absurd

01:57:58 ◼   ► to have the promo shot for your car to show games.

01:58:01 ◼   ► Like it's great that they can do that,

01:58:03 ◼   ► but this isn't a minivan or a camper.

01:58:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think the reason that they are moving

01:58:08 ◼   ► the Model S to a landscape screen

01:58:10 ◼   ► is for reasons that benefit them specifically,

01:58:13 ◼   ► so that they can share more of the UI and stuff

01:58:16 ◼   ► between the Model 3 and the Model S,

01:58:17 ◼   ► 'cause the Model 3 has a landscape screen.

01:58:19 ◼   ► I think that's the main reason they're doing this.

01:58:21 ◼   ► It's not because it's better.

01:58:23 ◼   ► What they're doing is basically like making everything

01:58:25 ◼   ► be able to share the same UI and parts,

01:58:28 ◼   ► regardless of whether it's like the better choice

01:58:30 ◼   ► for that vehicle or not.

01:58:32 ◼   ► And so I see why they're doing it.

01:58:33 ◼   ► It makes sense for them to do it.

01:58:35 ◼   ► It doesn't mean it does anything for me.

01:58:37 ◼   ► As for the actual being landscape instead of portrait,

01:58:41 ◼   ► the stuff that's gonna be on the far right of that screen

01:58:43 ◼   ► is gonna be very hard to reach.

01:58:44 ◼   ► - Stuff on the left is closer.

01:58:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, that being said, this is not gonna be a,

01:58:51 ◼   ► like I'll get used to it, but I'm not gonna like it

01:58:54 ◼   ► for the first little while, if I ever get one of these.

01:58:56 ◼   ► And I'll get to that in a little while.

01:58:58 ◼   ► But the main reason I don't like the 3 so much

01:59:02 ◼   ► is the lack of having the directly in front

01:59:04 ◼   ► of the driver screen.

01:59:06 ◼   ► And this, fortunately, I was afraid they would get rid

01:59:08 ◼   ► of that second screen on the S.

01:59:10 ◼   ► Well, first, first I was afraid they would never make

01:59:13 ◼   ► another S and they would discontinue it.

01:59:15 ◼   ► Because they sell so many more 3s that the S really

01:59:20 ◼   ► is not a high priority for them.

01:59:21 ◼   ► It's their Mac Pro, basically.

01:59:22 ◼   ► So I didn't think, I thought there was a reasonable chance

01:59:26 ◼   ► that the S would never get rid of the design

01:59:28 ◼   ► and would eventually stop being made in favor

01:59:31 ◼   ► of their higher volume cars.

01:59:32 ◼   ► So I'm glad they're working on it.

01:59:34 ◼   ► I'm very glad they're working on it.

01:59:35 ◼   ► And I'm glad that they have put in the effort

01:59:37 ◼   ► to make it new in some way.

01:59:40 ◼   ► Even if it does look like that they are trying to,

01:59:43 ◼   ► by doing this redesign, trying to reduce the amount

01:59:46 ◼   ► of work that they're putting into it by doing things

01:59:49 ◼   ► like giving it the same screen layout and stuff as the 3.

01:59:53 ◼   ► Anyway, that being said, so glad they're working on it,

01:59:56 ◼   ► glad they're updating it.

01:59:57 ◼   ► And I'm very, very glad that it retained that

02:00:00 ◼   ► directly in front of the driver second screen.

02:00:02 ◼   ► Because I find that screen very important.

02:00:04 ◼   ► And one of the things I don't like about the 3

02:00:07 ◼   ► is how much you have to do on the center screen

02:00:10 ◼   ► because there isn't that second screen.

02:00:12 ◼   ► And how much you have to look at that center screen,

02:00:14 ◼   ► again, because there isn't that second screen.

02:00:16 ◼   ► So by having the second screen at all,

02:00:17 ◼   ► I'm very happy about that.

02:00:19 ◼   ► The rest of it, John, you're right,

02:00:23 ◼   ► this looks largely like the current Model S

02:00:25 ◼   ► in many of the general themes.

02:00:29 ◼   ► Again, leaving us at the steering bucket for a minute.

02:00:32 ◼   ► One thing I'm disappointed that they didn't change,

02:00:35 ◼   ► apparently, every Tesla so far has done something stupid

02:00:40 ◼   ► with opening the doors.

02:00:42 ◼   ► The Model S has its pop-out door handles.

02:00:47 ◼   ► The Model 10 has the whole gull wing thing.

02:00:50 ◼   ► The Model 3 has its weird handles where it's like,

02:00:53 ◼   ► if you push it the way that it looks like you should push it,

02:00:57 ◼   ► it yells at you that you pushed it wrong

02:00:58 ◼   ► and that you might have heard it.

02:01:00 ◼   ► Tesla makes amazing drive trains

02:01:05 ◼   ► and they have a lot of really good ideas,

02:01:07 ◼   ► but it seems like they are desperate

02:01:09 ◼   ► to prove their innovation in areas

02:01:12 ◼   ► that we don't really care about,

02:01:13 ◼   ► like doors and door handles.

02:01:16 ◼   ► And when they do that, they make problems for drivers

02:01:21 ◼   ► because the way they choose to do that

02:01:23 ◼   ► is usually finicky or unreliable or unintuitive or all three.

02:01:28 ◼   ► The Model S, I've had two now,

02:01:31 ◼   ► the only problems I've ever had with the Model S

02:01:35 ◼   ► are mostly door handle problems.

02:01:37 ◼   ► The first one, I had, I think two of them just die

02:01:41 ◼   ► and have to be replaced.

02:01:42 ◼   ► Even the current one, which is about three years old,

02:01:46 ◼   ► almost three years old, the current one,

02:01:48 ◼   ► I haven't had any failures with the door handles,

02:01:51 ◼   ► but I will often have the thing

02:01:53 ◼   ► that every Model S owner has at some point had happen

02:01:55 ◼   ► where you're walking around the car,

02:01:58 ◼   ► like maybe you're loading it up

02:01:59 ◼   ► and so it unlocks itself 'cause the key's nearby,

02:02:01 ◼   ► and then as soon as you go to grab the handle to get in,

02:02:04 ◼   ► it's about to retract them.

02:02:06 ◼   ► And so you grab the handle and it kinda bounces back out

02:02:10 ◼   ► 'cause it's canceling the retraction

02:02:12 ◼   ► that it was about to do,

02:02:14 ◼   ► and then you get stuck in this loop

02:02:15 ◼   ► where you just grab it and it just bounces,

02:02:17 ◼   ► and you grab it and it just bounces.

02:02:18 ◼   ► You kinda have to lock the car from the key in your pocket,

02:02:21 ◼   ► let it retract all the way,

02:02:22 ◼   ► then unlock it, open it back up again.

02:02:26 ◼   ► It's just, oh, and by the way, they don't work in the ice.

02:02:28 ◼   ► That's another fun thing.

02:02:30 ◼   ► - I don't eat.

02:02:30 ◼   ► - Ice freezes them over so that makes them work a lot less.

02:02:33 ◼   ► Similar problem with the auto-folding side mirrors.

02:02:37 ◼   ► And used to be a problem on the charging door.

02:02:39 ◼   ► It's a little bit less of a problem there now.

02:02:41 ◼   ► Anyway, so they had this cool door handle

02:02:44 ◼   ► that makes it look really cool and futuristic,

02:02:46 ◼   ► a little bit, I guess,

02:02:47 ◼   ► but it makes problems in practice for owners of it.

02:02:51 ◼   ► It makes it less reliable, less predictable,

02:02:54 ◼   ► and it causes problems in extreme conditions

02:02:57 ◼   ► like cold, like super cold weather.

02:02:59 ◼   ► And I understand that the reason why they have

02:03:02 ◼   ► their tractable door handles is in part to look cool,

02:03:04 ◼   ► but in part because it probably also reduces drag

02:03:06 ◼   ► by some very tiny percentage.

02:03:08 ◼   ► That being said, a redesign of the car,

02:03:11 ◼   ► I would expect to identify whatever significant problems

02:03:15 ◼   ► existed in the previous version and try to fix them,

02:03:18 ◼   ► try to address them in some way.

02:03:20 ◼   ► And I don't know how anybody who's ever owned an S

02:03:23 ◼   ► could possibly ever say,

02:03:25 ◼   ► "Keep the door handles exactly the same.

02:03:27 ◼   ► "They're no problems."

02:03:28 ◼   ► (laughs)

02:03:29 ◼   ► I hope the next S keeps these same door handles.

02:03:31 ◼   ► Nope, never.

02:03:33 ◼   ► I don't know any owners who have not had problems

02:03:35 ◼   ► with door handles at some point.

02:03:36 ◼   ► So that's the first thing I would have fixed.

02:03:38 ◼   ► Fix the door handles.

02:03:39 ◼   ► Put regular door handles on there.

02:03:41 ◼   ► I'll take the 0.5% reduction in range.

02:03:43 ◼   ► Fine, just put regular door handles on there

02:03:46 ◼   ► and make them operate like regular door handles.

02:03:47 ◼   ► And I would say that about literally all of Tesla's models,

02:03:51 ◼   ► 'cause they keep messing with door handles.

02:03:53 ◼   ► And I don't know what they're doing.

02:03:55 ◼   ► - And you don't even need it for the aerodynamics,

02:03:57 ◼   ► because every electric car feels they need to do that

02:03:59 ◼   ► for mileage, but you don't have to have a weird door handle

02:04:03 ◼   ► for it to be smooth.

02:04:05 ◼   ► I was thinking of this,

02:04:06 ◼   ► I mean, obviously this is not in the same price class,

02:04:08 ◼   ► but there's some Ferrari that I was watching a review of,

02:04:11 ◼   ► and they had flush door handles.

02:04:13 ◼   ► It's just entirely smooth over the surface of the door.

02:04:15 ◼   ► Nothing sticks out.

02:04:16 ◼   ► So aerodynamically, it's the same

02:04:17 ◼   ► as all of the Tesla door handles.

02:04:18 ◼   ► The whole point is they're flat.

02:04:19 ◼   ► They don't stick out into the airflow.

02:04:21 ◼   ► The only difference is there was this little outline,

02:04:23 ◼   ► and you basically shove your fingers into it,

02:04:25 ◼   ► and it's a little door that opens inward.

02:04:27 ◼   ► And once you tuck your fingers into there,

02:04:28 ◼   ► you pull on what is now the handle,

02:04:30 ◼   ► 'cause you looped your fingers over.

02:04:33 ◼   ► And that uses the advanced technology called a hinge.

02:04:36 ◼   ► It's not electronic. (laughing)

02:04:39 ◼   ► It's a piece of metal that hinges in.

02:04:41 ◼   ► Unlike your gas cap or your charging cap that hinges out,

02:04:45 ◼   ► this one just hinges in.

02:04:47 ◼   ► It's not as good as obviously,

02:04:49 ◼   ► the other thing I just posted in the chat,

02:04:51 ◼   ► which is a picture of my door handle,

02:04:52 ◼   ► which is the epitome of door handle,

02:04:54 ◼   ► but my door handle is not aerodynamic, so I understand.

02:04:57 ◼   ► But my door handle is a handle that you grab with your hand,

02:05:00 ◼   ► and it works every single time.

02:05:03 ◼   ► And it is fairly resistant to ice

02:05:04 ◼   ► because you have a big metal thing to grab onto

02:05:06 ◼   ► and you just yank it, and it cracks through the ice.

02:05:09 ◼   ► The aerodynamic ones where you have to poke in,

02:05:11 ◼   ► I can imagine them being more vulnerable to ice.

02:05:14 ◼   ► But yeah, you're totally right.

02:05:15 ◼   ► This is not the area to innovate.

02:05:16 ◼   ► We talked about this many, many moons ago

02:05:18 ◼   ► when we were talking about Tesla.

02:05:19 ◼   ► Part of it, especially in the beginning,

02:05:21 ◼   ► was to make the Tesla seem futuristic and cool

02:05:23 ◼   ► because that was part of the selling proposition.

02:05:25 ◼   ► It's part of what attracted buyers to it,

02:05:27 ◼   ► and it's part of what made you think you were cool

02:05:29 ◼   ► for owning it because hey, look, the door handle's come out.

02:05:31 ◼   ► But at this point, Tesla needs to let go of that.

02:05:34 ◼   ► - It instantly loses its cool

02:05:36 ◼   ► the first time you can't open your door in public.

02:05:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

02:05:41 ◼   ► I'm not saying, if it was 100% reliable,

02:05:44 ◼   ► it would still be kind of annoying,

02:05:45 ◼   ► but if it was unreliable, it's terrible.

02:05:46 ◼   ► But as far as Tesla's concerned,

02:05:48 ◼   ► they've already got your money,

02:05:48 ◼   ► which is why they should have revised it

02:05:51 ◼   ► sort of when the second round of Tesla buyers

02:05:53 ◼   ► were buying their next Tesla

02:05:54 ◼   ► because the novelty is worn off,

02:05:56 ◼   ► they don't want the unreliability.

02:05:57 ◼   ► It's like, just put a door handle on.

02:06:00 ◼   ► And here's the thing, the door handle aerodynamics,

02:06:03 ◼   ► it's real, you can measure it,

02:06:04 ◼   ► but it is much less significant than, say,

02:06:07 ◼   ► the wheel covers, right?

02:06:08 ◼   ► And tons of Tesla owners pick

02:06:10 ◼   ► the less aerodynamic wheel covers because they look nicer.

02:06:15 ◼   ► If Tesla had the option to pick

02:06:17 ◼   ► a normal Honda Accord door handle,

02:06:19 ◼   ► but people would take that in a second

02:06:21 ◼   ► 'cause it's less annoying,

02:06:22 ◼   ► and they don't care about the aerodynamics.

02:06:25 ◼   ► The coolest looking wheels destroy your mileage

02:06:27 ◼   ► much worse than those door handles would.

02:06:30 ◼   ► - Yep.

02:06:30 ◼   ► The good news is though, Marco,

02:06:32 ◼   ► since they've solved all the other low-hanging fruit,

02:06:35 ◼   ► like panel gaps and build quality and things of that nature,

02:06:38 ◼   ► I'm sure the door handles are coming next.

02:06:40 ◼   ► - I mean, they took a second swing at it with the 3,

02:06:43 ◼   ► and their solution, I think, is probably more reliable

02:06:46 ◼   ► than the five-store handles,

02:06:47 ◼   ► just because it doesn't involve electronics,

02:06:49 ◼   ► but still not great, and I think kind of weird and awkward.

02:06:53 ◼   ► So they should keep trying,

02:06:54 ◼   ► but apparently they're not trying.

02:06:55 ◼   ► But anyway, we need to talk about the five steering.

02:06:57 ◼   ► - We'll get there, we'll get there.

02:06:58 ◼   ► One other major change that I am very sad to see

02:07:03 ◼   ► is that in the latest builds of the S,

02:07:06 ◼   ► like before this change that was announced,

02:07:09 ◼   ► like it just recently, new build to the S,

02:07:11 ◼   ► lost the ability to have a sunroof.

02:07:14 ◼   ► - What?

02:07:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, the S no longer offers a sunroof.

02:07:17 ◼   ► The 3 has never offered one.

02:07:19 ◼   ► And I don't know if the 10 ever did,

02:07:21 ◼   ► 'cause it has that same solid glass roof as this.

02:07:23 ◼   ► I probably didn't.

02:07:24 ◼   ► So they no longer make sunroofs, it seems.

02:07:28 ◼   ► I don't like that at all.

02:07:29 ◼   ► Again, I love my car, which has a sunroof and is fine.

02:07:34 ◼   ► Like, I don't know why they would delete the sunroof.

02:07:36 ◼   ► I'm sure it was, again, for some kind of,

02:07:38 ◼   ► you know, parts savings thing,

02:07:40 ◼   ► like make things more uniform across the line.

02:07:42 ◼   ► Whatever benefits the all glass panoramic roof has,

02:07:46 ◼   ► you know, maybe, but I love a sunroof.

02:07:49 ◼   ► And I really don't want to buy a car

02:07:52 ◼   ► that doesn't have one if I can avoid it.

02:07:54 ◼   ► I use it all the time.

02:07:55 ◼   ► - Been there, been there.

02:07:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, I use it all the time.

02:07:59 ◼   ► I just use it, again, on this trip,

02:08:00 ◼   ► 'cause it's the winter.

02:08:02 ◼   ► And a lot of times in the winter,

02:08:04 ◼   ► it's too cold to have a window open right next to you,

02:08:07 ◼   ► but a little bit of ventilation from a sunroof is nice.

02:08:11 ◼   ► It's just, I don't know, I don't know what they're doing.

02:08:13 ◼   ► Anyway, so that's one of the things.

02:08:15 ◼   ► When I heard that they had stopped offering the sunroof,

02:08:18 ◼   ► I was hoping that it was like a temporary thing

02:08:20 ◼   ► as they, you know, cleared out inventory.

02:08:22 ◼   ► And then when they heard there was a refresh,

02:08:24 ◼   ► I thought, oh, maybe they found a way to put it back.

02:08:26 ◼   ► But nope, it's just gone.

02:08:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's really too bad.

02:08:29 ◼   ► Very quickly, one thing that I really do like about this,

02:08:32 ◼   ► and I don't know how to verbalize why I like it,

02:08:36 ◼   ► but the front and rear look more like car fronts

02:08:41 ◼   ► and car rears than they do,

02:08:43 ◼   ► like I think it was your second Tesla Marco

02:08:46 ◼   ► where it was just like a slab of plastic.

02:08:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the current, that's what I have now, yeah.

02:08:51 ◼   ► - And this looks like it has a front air dam

02:08:54 ◼   ► like in the front.

02:08:55 ◼   ► Oh, that's repetitive, but you know what I mean.

02:08:57 ◼   ► It looks like it has an air dam in the front.

02:08:59 ◼   ► The back has some like lines on it that aren't remarkable,

02:09:04 ◼   ► but there's enough difference to my eye

02:09:07 ◼   ► that it makes it look far more appealing

02:09:09 ◼   ► and far more like a car-shaped car than it used to.

02:09:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll give you that.

02:09:14 ◼   ► - Marty, you have a good picture of the new S back.

02:09:16 ◼   ► I don't see the--

02:09:17 ◼   ► - On the Verge article, I will put a link in there.

02:09:19 ◼   ► - It's also, they have a whole configurator up.

02:09:20 ◼   ► You can go on the website and look,

02:09:22 ◼   ► and there is one up there.

02:09:23 ◼   ► - I think the front is a downgrade.

02:09:24 ◼   ► I actually like Marco's front

02:09:28 ◼   ► 'cause they added like flaps and gills and wrinkles,

02:09:31 ◼   ► and it looks-- - Yes, I love it.

02:09:32 ◼   ► - No, it looks too busy.

02:09:33 ◼   ► The back looks like it has a bigger,

02:09:36 ◼   ► more emphasized sort of diffuser area.

02:09:38 ◼   ► - Yes.

02:09:39 ◼   ► - I mean, really these are the type of tweaks

02:09:41 ◼   ► that you would expect within a generation

02:09:43 ◼   ► from model year to model year,

02:09:44 ◼   ► only with Tesla you gotta wait like five years

02:09:46 ◼   ► for them to happen.

02:09:47 ◼   ► - I would also argue I don't think either wheel option

02:09:51 ◼   ► is good for my needs.

02:09:52 ◼   ► Like I don't like the default Tempest wheels.

02:09:56 ◼   ► I don't like that weird kind of like,

02:09:58 ◼   ► two-color weird flat design they have,

02:10:01 ◼   ► and I would never get the 21s

02:10:02 ◼   ► because I live in a place with winter,

02:10:04 ◼   ► and I would break those skinny tires in a second

02:10:07 ◼   ► 'cause we have potholes here and bad roads.

02:10:10 ◼   ► So I would need to get 19s,

02:10:12 ◼   ► and these 19s are terrible, in my opinion.

02:10:14 ◼   ► - The arachnid wheels are very pretty,

02:10:18 ◼   ► but yeah, you do not want 21-inch wheels, I don't think.

02:10:21 ◼   ► - We appear to have lost

02:10:22 ◼   ► my light wood interior option as well.

02:10:24 ◼   ► Like there's very few options here,

02:10:27 ◼   ► which is, they've been going this direction for a while,

02:10:29 ◼   ► but there are way fewer options than there used to be.

02:10:33 ◼   ► And none of them have light wood anymore.

02:10:35 ◼   ► So let's go to the steering bucket.

02:10:38 ◼   ► - Why are you calling it a bucket?

02:10:39 ◼   ► Why does this resemble a bucket, Tio?

02:10:41 ◼   ► It doesn't look like it contains anything.

02:10:43 ◼   ► - Like the U shape, it looks like if you cut a bucket in half

02:10:45 ◼   ► like the cross-section of a bucket.

02:10:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a reach.

02:10:48 ◼   ► Anyway. - Oh, no, hey, you know what?

02:10:49 ◼   ► If you guys ever wanted to drive a Knight Industries 2000,

02:10:52 ◼   ► now's your chance.

02:10:53 ◼   ► - Yep, I mean, it's a little bit different

02:10:55 ◼   ► than I ride around.

02:10:56 ◼   ► So this is part of the trend that kind of started

02:10:59 ◼   ► with flat-bottom steering wheels from race cars.

02:11:01 ◼   ► I believe, Casey, correct me if I'm wrong,

02:11:04 ◼   ► but I believe flat-bottom steering wheels

02:11:06 ◼   ► came into race cars just because race car cockpits

02:11:08 ◼   ► are incredibly cramped and it makes it easier

02:11:10 ◼   ► to get the driver's body and legs

02:11:12 ◼   ► under the steering wheel in tight quarters.

02:11:14 ◼   ► Does that sound true to you, Casey?

02:11:15 ◼   ► - I don't know if that's factual,

02:11:17 ◼   ► but that absolutely sounds true.

02:11:18 ◼   ► And my Golf R does have a flat-bottom steering wheel.

02:11:20 ◼   ► - Right, and so if my recollection

02:11:23 ◼   ► of how flat-bottom steering wheels started to be a thing

02:11:26 ◼   ► is correct in racing, then flat-bottom steering wheels

02:11:29 ◼   ► in non-race cars is essentially skeuomorphism.

02:11:32 ◼   ► It's a physical feature that no longer serves a purpose,

02:11:35 ◼   ► but is carried over just because it's done that way

02:11:38 ◼   ► in race cars.

02:11:39 ◼   ► And it's not just skeuomorphism,

02:11:40 ◼   ► but it's also aspirational.

02:11:42 ◼   ► Well, race cars have flat-bottom steering wheels,

02:11:44 ◼   ► so your car has one, so that makes your car

02:11:46 ◼   ► more like a race car.

02:11:47 ◼   ► When in reality, if your car was as cramped as a race car,

02:11:49 ◼   ► you would never buy it because you would say

02:11:51 ◼   ► this car has no room in the interior

02:11:53 ◼   ► and I can't fit and it's ridiculous, right?

02:11:55 ◼   ► And so they had flat-bottoms for a while,

02:11:57 ◼   ► and Ferrari steering wheels and supercar steering wheels

02:11:59 ◼   ► have been getting even flatter bottoms.

02:12:01 ◼   ► Meanwhile, in the actual race car world,

02:12:04 ◼   ► like F1 steering quote-unquote wheels

02:12:06 ◼   ► have looked unlike wheels entirely.

02:12:09 ◼   ► They don't have flat-bottoms, they are essentially

02:12:11 ◼   ► fighter pilot kind of airplane yoke things

02:12:15 ◼   ► that are like, well, there's a thing attached

02:12:17 ◼   ► to a thing that you turn, but it is not a wheel,

02:12:21 ◼   ► it is not round, it's not even continuous,

02:12:23 ◼   ► it's more like the Knight Rider thing of like,

02:12:24 ◼   ► there's a handle on the left and a handle on the right

02:12:27 ◼   ► and a bazillion buttons in the middle

02:12:28 ◼   ► for all your functions of your F1 car.

02:12:30 ◼   ► That's what race car steering wheels look like

02:12:32 ◼   ► in the Formula 1 type things now.

02:12:35 ◼   ► Cars don't yet look like that.

02:12:37 ◼   ► So the logical conclusion of constantly chasing

02:12:40 ◼   ► race car steering wheels because race cars are cool

02:12:43 ◼   ► is that the way F1 steering wheels look,

02:12:46 ◼   ► slowly our cars, our steering wheels start to look like that.

02:12:49 ◼   ► Ferrari steering wheels do look a lot like F1 steering wheels

02:12:53 ◼   ► but they're still a continuous shape in a, you know,

02:12:58 ◼   ► you start with a circle and you squish sides of it

02:13:00 ◼   ► and you make it flatter and you make it bulge here

02:13:02 ◼   ► and you put some spokes on it or whatever.

02:13:04 ◼   ► Tesla, I think, is the first, at least the first

02:13:06 ◼   ► mass market car company or close to mass market car company

02:13:09 ◼   ► that has decided they're going to finally ditch

02:13:13 ◼   ► the idea that it is a shape, like a ring of any kind.

02:13:18 ◼   ► And instead, like Marco said, it's more like a U.

02:13:20 ◼   ► So it looks like kind of like an airplane yoke

02:13:22 ◼   ► only you can't push it in and out.

02:13:24 ◼   ► You just twist it from side to side.

02:13:26 ◼   ► But it's not a wheel, it's not a ring, it's a rectangle

02:13:29 ◼   ► and the rectangle sort of extends downward from the center

02:13:34 ◼   ► which is great for visibility of the instrument cluster

02:13:36 ◼   ► if you're going straight 'cause there's nothing

02:13:38 ◼   ► blocking its view but it's bad if you have any fondness

02:13:43 ◼   ► or appreciation of the utility of a wheel

02:13:45 ◼   ► which means that you can turn it hand over hand

02:13:48 ◼   ► you can slide through your fingers as it unwinds

02:13:50 ◼   ► and do all those things that cars which have

02:13:53 ◼   ► a way larger distance, you know, number of rotations

02:13:57 ◼   ► lock to lock on the steering than say an F1 car does.

02:14:00 ◼   ► So I really, really question what it's going to be like

02:14:04 ◼   ► to drive a normal car with a normal turning radius

02:14:07 ◼   ► with a thing that is not a wheel

02:14:09 ◼   ► and that is very rectangular and very low.

02:14:13 ◼   ► So I, having not used this thing,

02:14:15 ◼   ► are giving it a tentative double thumbs down.

02:14:18 ◼   ► - Agreed.

02:14:21 ◼   ► I just, I don't, I can't imagine why

02:14:24 ◼   ► this would be an improvement in any way

02:14:26 ◼   ► and I could swear, and I can't back this up,

02:14:29 ◼   ► but I could swear that I had read an interview

02:14:32 ◼   ► with like Hasselhoffer, a stunt driver

02:14:33 ◼   ► or something like that saying that it was really dangerous

02:14:37 ◼   ► to drive the Knight Rider car on account of the wheel

02:14:41 ◼   ► and that it was so unlike anything else

02:14:43 ◼   ► and it was, you would go to grab it

02:14:45 ◼   ► and it wouldn't be there and it was just terrible.

02:14:48 ◼   ► And I can't believe that I'm looking at a configurator

02:14:52 ◼   ► where this is the wheel.

02:14:53 ◼   ► Like I could totally believe that some promo shots

02:14:57 ◼   ► had the wheel in it, like when we were looking

02:14:58 ◼   ► at the Verge article that'll be linked in the show notes,

02:15:00 ◼   ► oh yeah, of course they have this ridiculous yoke,

02:15:02 ◼   ► whatever, that's fine.

02:15:03 ◼   ► But Marco, I didn't realize that the configurator's up

02:15:05 ◼   ► and I'm looking at the configurator and it's there

02:15:08 ◼   ► and it's scaring me because this is an absolute deal breaker

02:15:12 ◼   ► for me, I mean, I would test drive one, I suppose,

02:15:15 ◼   ► but unless I was bowled over by how much better

02:15:19 ◼   ► and easier it was than I expect,

02:15:21 ◼   ► this in and of itself is a deal breaker for me.

02:15:24 ◼   ► - And to be clear, like in the case this wasn't clear

02:15:26 ◼   ► from my earlier explanation, the reason this works

02:15:28 ◼   ► in race cars is race cars, you don't have to turn the wheel

02:15:33 ◼   ► like three and a half revolutions to go from full left

02:15:36 ◼   ► to full right, their steering is much quicker.

02:15:39 ◼   ► Like you can go from all the wheels as far left

02:15:42 ◼   ► as they can go to the wheels as far right as they can go

02:15:44 ◼   ► without doing multiple revolutions of the wheel.

02:15:46 ◼   ► And in general, racetracks don't have lots of places

02:15:49 ◼   ► where you have to do hand over hand turning.

02:15:50 ◼   ► It's mostly just twist the wheel to the right,

02:15:53 ◼   ► twist the wheel to left, two hands of the wheel

02:15:55 ◼   ► the entire time, no crossing over your hands

02:15:57 ◼   ► and no need to ever fully rotate a race car steering wheel.

02:16:00 ◼   ► But we don't drive race cars, we drive regular cars

02:16:02 ◼   ► with normal turning radiuses and steering ratios

02:16:06 ◼   ► that often require the wheel to turn more than 90 degrees

02:16:09 ◼   ► to negotiate turns in a parking lot or whatever.

02:16:12 ◼   ► So you will be, unless they've massively changed

02:16:15 ◼   ► the steering ratio in a terrifying way in this car,

02:16:17 ◼   ► you will be in fact rotating the steering wheel

02:16:19 ◼   ► through more than 90 degrees, which means like Casey said,

02:16:23 ◼   ► maybe you'll reach for that wheel when you cross

02:16:25 ◼   ► your hands over and the wheel won't be there

02:16:26 ◼   ► 'cause there is no wheel to rectangle

02:16:28 ◼   ► and now you have to keep track of where the grabby parts

02:16:30 ◼   ► of the rectangle are, which is why steering wheels

02:16:33 ◼   ► have utility.

02:16:34 ◼   ► So I, you know, it's hard to say without actually driving

02:16:38 ◼   ► this how terrible it's going to be,

02:16:39 ◼   ► but I can imagine many problems with this.

02:16:43 ◼   ► And of course the main problem, even if this was vastly

02:16:46 ◼   ► superior, is that people are used to wheels in cars.

02:16:49 ◼   ► And so, especially for old people like us

02:16:52 ◼   ► who are set in our ways or whatever,

02:16:54 ◼   ► it may be difficult for people who are used to a wheel

02:16:56 ◼   ► to suddenly not have a wheel.

02:16:58 ◼   ► And I do wonder how many people are gonna get

02:17:00 ◼   ► into accidents just because they're not used

02:17:01 ◼   ► to not having a wheel.

02:17:02 ◼   ► Even this turns out to be the better design.

02:17:05 ◼   ► Like in the future, all cars are like this,

02:17:06 ◼   ► this is a superior design.

02:17:08 ◼   ► For something like a car that's been so similar

02:17:11 ◼   ► for so long, messing with the primary controls

02:17:14 ◼   ► is dangerous because there is a population of people

02:17:17 ◼   ► who are just used to the way it used to work.

02:17:19 ◼   ► You really have to change things slowly to sort of allow

02:17:22 ◼   ► the old people to age out and die and allow the young people

02:17:24 ◼   ► to learn the new thing, and this is not a slow change.

02:17:27 ◼   ► This is, hey, you had a wheel, now you don't.

02:17:29 ◼   ► Now it's a weird rectangle, good luck.

02:17:31 ◼   ► - Well, and it gets worse, I think.

02:17:33 ◼   ► Well, actually, no, that's the worst part

02:17:35 ◼   ► is the wheel shape.

02:17:36 ◼   ► However, they've also deleted the two stalks

02:17:40 ◼   ► that were next to the wheel, which served a lot of functions.

02:17:44 ◼   ► - Just use the touchscreen.

02:17:45 ◼   ► - And well, you see the close-up picture of the Virg,

02:17:48 ◼   ► I'll place the link here.

02:17:49 ◼   ► The close-up picture that the Virg has suggests

02:17:52 ◼   ► that there are touch controls now on the wheel

02:17:54 ◼   ► for things like your turn signals.

02:17:57 ◼   ► - Oh, hell no.

02:17:59 ◼   ► - Speaking of Ferraris, the new Ferrari thing

02:18:01 ◼   ► also had touch controls on the steering wheel.

02:18:03 ◼   ► I'm like, touch controls on the steering wheel,

02:18:05 ◼   ► how does that get out of the first brainstorming session?

02:18:08 ◼   ► It's like, your hands are all over the steering wheel,

02:18:10 ◼   ► especially if you're gonna be crossing over

02:18:12 ◼   ► on this weird rectangle on the steering wheel,

02:18:13 ◼   ► grasping your hands, accidentally activating

02:18:15 ◼   ► every capacitive touch thing all over the friggin' thing.

02:18:19 ◼   ► Touch controls on the steering wheel,

02:18:20 ◼   ► please, manufacturers, just say no.

02:18:21 ◼   ► Like, what are you even thinking?

02:18:23 ◼   ► Like, your hands are all over there.

02:18:24 ◼   ► It's like the touch bar all over again.

02:18:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, and people who see the Model S before

02:18:31 ◼   ► but have not driven one or don't have a lot of experience

02:18:34 ◼   ► with one often think, mistakenly, to date,

02:18:39 ◼   ► that you have to do everything via touch screen

02:18:42 ◼   ► and that's kind of odd and maybe unsafe

02:18:45 ◼   ► and certainly not a good thing.

02:18:46 ◼   ► But the reality of driving the S up until now

02:18:49 ◼   ► is that it actually has physical controls

02:18:52 ◼   ► for so much of the most common stuff

02:18:54 ◼   ► that you don't need to touch the touch screen

02:18:57 ◼   ► constantly during driving.

02:18:59 ◼   ► The most common need you would have to touch it

02:19:01 ◼   ► would be either navigation, which I think is fine,

02:19:03 ◼   ► it's fine to have that be a touch function.

02:19:05 ◼   ► It's actually better than any other car

02:19:07 ◼   ► I've ever used for that purpose.

02:19:08 ◼   ► Or things like adjusting the climate control.

02:19:11 ◼   ► You do have to tap it for that.

02:19:12 ◼   ► But the common stuff like your turn signals,

02:19:15 ◼   ► windshield wipers, volume up and down,

02:19:17 ◼   ► track forward, track back on audio,

02:19:19 ◼   ► all of that stuff you can do now via physical controls

02:19:23 ◼   ► either on the stalks that are next to the wheel

02:19:26 ◼   ► or on a handful of buttons and the little scroll wheels

02:19:28 ◼   ► that are on the wheel.

02:19:30 ◼   ► This gets rid of the stalks

02:19:33 ◼   ► and looks like it might be moving things like turn signals

02:19:37 ◼   ► to these big flat touch areas that are on top of it.

02:19:40 ◼   ► And that I really, really don't think

02:19:44 ◼   ► is going to be a good move.

02:19:45 ◼   ► Because having to do everything via touch controls

02:19:49 ◼   ► for a device that you're literally not supposed to

02:19:52 ◼   ► or allowed to and safely can't because you might die,

02:19:55 ◼   ► look at while you're operating,

02:19:57 ◼   ► that's not a good idea, I don't think.

02:20:01 ◼   ► And even little stuff like on the S to date,

02:20:06 ◼   ► you've been able to adjust the current cruise control

02:20:09 ◼   ► set speed via a stalk on the side.

02:20:13 ◼   ► On the Model 3, as far as I know,

02:20:15 ◼   ► I don't think that was ever an option.

02:20:17 ◼   ► I don't think the 3 has enough stalks to do it.

02:20:19 ◼   ► So on the 3, you've always had to adjust the set speed,

02:20:22 ◼   ► again as far as I know, correct me if I'm wrong please,

02:20:25 ◼   ► via the touch screen.

02:20:28 ◼   ► And when I drive with cruise control,

02:20:30 ◼   ► adjusting the set speed is a very common operation for me.

02:20:34 ◼   ► Maybe that's just me, it's very common

02:20:36 ◼   ► that I make adjustments to that speed.

02:20:38 ◼   ► One of the big reasons why I'm not interested in the 3

02:20:41 ◼   ► is that it makes that harder.

02:20:43 ◼   ► And I don't want that to be made harder.

02:20:45 ◼   ► What this new version of the S appears to do

02:20:48 ◼   ► is make tons of stuff that I do all the time,

02:20:51 ◼   ► like turn, harder.

02:20:53 ◼   ► And I don't know why they would do this

02:20:58 ◼   ► in a way that would result in anything that's better.

02:21:00 ◼   ► It looks like the actual controls

02:21:05 ◼   ► of using the steering wheel

02:21:07 ◼   ► for everything the outgoing Model S's steering wheel

02:21:10 ◼   ► was used for, from steering,

02:21:13 ◼   ► to all the controls that were on and around it,

02:21:16 ◼   ► they all appear visually to be worse with this new one.

02:21:21 ◼   ► And I have to wonder what the hell

02:21:22 ◼   ► they're thinking with this.

02:21:24 ◼   ► And when I see this, this makes me not want to ever upgrade.

02:21:29 ◼   ► - Yep, I don't blame you.

02:21:31 ◼   ► - I'm looking at the steering wheel closer

02:21:32 ◼   ► on this picture, the close-up picture.

02:21:34 ◼   ► And not only do the turn signals appear

02:21:37 ◼   ► to be on capacitive buttons on the steering wheel,

02:21:39 ◼   ► but they're both on the left side.

02:21:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, isn't that great?

02:21:42 ◼   ► - Like, to be clear, turn signals on the steering wheel

02:21:46 ◼   ► is fairly common in the industry now,

02:21:48 ◼   ► and it's actually pretty cool, you know,

02:21:50 ◼   ► like in some ways it is superior to stock,

02:21:52 ◼   ► some ways it's worse because the stock's not moving,

02:21:54 ◼   ► the signals do.

02:21:55 ◼   ► But I've never seen anybody

02:21:57 ◼   ► not take the obvious design, which is button on the left,

02:22:00 ◼   ► doesn't the left side of the steering wheel,

02:22:01 ◼   ► and button for the right turn signal

02:22:03 ◼   ► on the right side of the steering wheel,

02:22:04 ◼   ► it kind of just makes sense.

02:22:05 ◼   ► But no, Tesla didn't do that.

02:22:07 ◼   ► But yeah, capacitive is just, is maddening.

02:22:09 ◼   ► I'm looking at what these buttons are.

02:22:10 ◼   ► The horn is one of them?

02:22:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah,

02:22:13 ◼   ► there's a horn icon on the right side.

02:22:14 ◼   ► - The horn, the turn signals, the horn, the headlights,

02:22:19 ◼   ► like, just imagine, it's like the Apple TV remote.

02:22:23 ◼   ► The whole, and they put the rotaty ball,

02:22:26 ◼   ► except they have scroll wheels on either side,

02:22:27 ◼   ► which are cool, hey, hey, physical controls.

02:22:29 ◼   ► To get to those physical controls,

02:22:31 ◼   ► you must reach across the no man's land

02:22:33 ◼   ► of the capacitive touch buttons,

02:22:34 ◼   ► which can turn on your turn signals.

02:22:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, or spray the windshield.

02:22:37 ◼   ► - Your windshield squirter thing.

02:22:39 ◼   ► People who are gonna be driving this Tesla

02:22:41 ◼   ► are gonna have one of their blinkers constantly on,

02:22:43 ◼   ► their lights going on and off,

02:22:44 ◼   ► the horn occasionally blaring

02:22:45 ◼   ► and squirting going on in their window,

02:22:47 ◼   ► and then activating like the,

02:22:48 ◼   ► the hey Siri microphone thing,

02:22:50 ◼   ► what is that in the lower right corner?

02:22:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's their voice control thing.

02:22:53 ◼   ► - Now, we don't know that these are capacitive,

02:22:55 ◼   ► we don't know that they're Apple TV,

02:22:56 ◼   ► maybe you actually have to press on them or something,

02:22:58 ◼   ► but either way, they do not have anything

02:23:01 ◼   ► that lets you feel for them, right?

02:23:02 ◼   ► So even if they are pressure sensitive

02:23:04 ◼   ► and not, they won't activate when you brush across them,

02:23:06 ◼   ► like maybe we're wrong about that,

02:23:08 ◼   ► to figure out where the left and the right are,

02:23:10 ◼   ► you're just gonna have to memorize the zones they're in,

02:23:12 ◼   ► because there's no ridge, there's no indentation,

02:23:14 ◼   ► there's no physical way that you can feel

02:23:16 ◼   ► for these controls, which is so dumb.

02:23:18 ◼   ► Like look at the F1 steering wheels,

02:23:20 ◼   ► not a lot of capacitive touch controls

02:23:22 ◼   ► on an F1 steering wheel,

02:23:24 ◼   ► 'cause they don't have time for that crap.

02:23:25 ◼   ► They need a button that they can press

02:23:27 ◼   ► and a wheel that they can turn,

02:23:28 ◼   ► and that's how you don't have to look at things

02:23:30 ◼   ► if they're just where they are.

02:23:31 ◼   ► Do you have to look to find your left and right turn signal

02:23:33 ◼   ► on the stalks on your car right now?

02:23:35 ◼   ► No, you never look at them, you just use them,

02:23:37 ◼   ► it becomes unconscious because their physical controls,

02:23:39 ◼   ► this is such a terrible idea.

02:23:41 ◼   ► - I don't see anything about this new steering wheel

02:23:45 ◼   ► that makes me think, oh, I wanna try that,

02:23:47 ◼   ► that looks interesting, or that looks good,

02:23:48 ◼   ► or that looks like an improvement.

02:23:50 ◼   ► It looks like 100% regression.

02:23:52 ◼   ► - Yep.

02:23:53 ◼   ► - It looks like they made everything worse.

02:23:54 ◼   ► - Well, the one improvement is you can see

02:23:56 ◼   ► the instrument cluster more clearly.

02:23:58 ◼   ► - I can see it now.

02:23:58 ◼   ► - When you're going straight,

02:23:59 ◼   ► it provides a clearer view of the thing.

02:24:01 ◼   ► - I can see it now, there's a hole,

02:24:03 ◼   ► there's a big gap when you have a steering wheel between.

02:24:06 ◼   ► - It really depends on how tall you are,

02:24:07 ◼   ► that's actually a tricky problem because--

02:24:09 ◼   ► - No, you can adjust the wheel, it's height adjustable.

02:24:13 ◼   ► - So you can adjust the wheel so it's the right distance

02:24:15 ◼   ► for your arm comfort, or you can adjust the wheel

02:24:18 ◼   ► so you can see the entire instrument cluster

02:24:20 ◼   ► without obstruction, but it's hard to do both,

02:24:22 ◼   ► and plus your head moves around when you're driving

02:24:24 ◼   ► 'cause you're looking for traffic.

02:24:25 ◼   ► So that is the one, I'm gonna give that one,

02:24:27 ◼   ► the yoke style steering wheel gives you a less obstructed

02:24:31 ◼   ► view of the instrument cluster.

02:24:32 ◼   ► Now, on the flip side of that, the Model 3,

02:24:34 ◼   ► not having an instrument cluster gives you

02:24:36 ◼   ► a slightly less obstructed view of the road,

02:24:38 ◼   ► especially for people who are not tall.

02:24:40 ◼   ► So there's a benefit to not having that cluster there,

02:24:42 ◼   ► what is it, Toyota Echo style, or whatever the first car

02:24:44 ◼   ► to do that was to get rid of the--

02:24:46 ◼   ► - Saturn, I thought a Saturn might have done it first.

02:24:49 ◼   ► - No, I think the Echo, yeah,

02:24:50 ◼   ► that might have been the first one.

02:24:51 ◼   ► Boy, that was a terrible car.

02:24:52 ◼   ► So I don't see zero benefits, but whoa,

02:24:56 ◼   ► the downsides are so massive.

02:24:58 ◼   ► And some of them are just like the capacitive stuff.

02:25:00 ◼   ► Like I said, Ferrari has capacitive controls

02:25:02 ◼   ► on one of their new models, and they have a steering wheel,

02:25:05 ◼   ► a regular steering wheel with a flat bottom.

02:25:07 ◼   ► But no, capacitive controls on your steering wheel

02:25:10 ◼   ► are just a bad idea, and I hope not too many people

02:25:14 ◼   ► have to die for us to learn that.

02:25:15 ◼   ► Both turn signals on one side is a bad idea,

02:25:17 ◼   ► independent of the thing, and then the shape,

02:25:19 ◼   ► you know, I feel like we all have to have

02:25:21 ◼   ► an open enough mind about this that maybe the shape

02:25:23 ◼   ► does have advantages that we're not seeing,

02:25:25 ◼   ► but right now, I think it's terrible.

02:25:28 ◼   ► - I don't know how any Model S owner can look at this

02:25:31 ◼   ► and say, ooh, I want the new one.

02:25:33 ◼   ► Like, it just looks like it made so many things worse.

02:25:36 ◼   ► - Like many things in Tesla, like,

02:25:38 ◼   ► I don't think any of us have our,

02:25:40 ◼   ► it's not a mystery why this car looks like this.

02:25:43 ◼   ► The reason many things at Tesla are the way they are

02:25:46 ◼   ► is because somebody important, probably Elon,

02:25:49 ◼   ► thought they were cool.

02:25:51 ◼   ► Look at the Cybertruck, look at half the weird,

02:25:52 ◼   ► look at the freaking door handles,

02:25:53 ◼   ► like, sometimes things are the way they are.

02:25:56 ◼   ► A lot of the things that are good about Tesla

02:25:58 ◼   ► are because there is someone in charge who just,

02:26:00 ◼   ► you know, Steve Jobs style dictates

02:26:02 ◼   ► that you're gonna do a thing because it's cool.

02:26:06 ◼   ► And clearly, someone thinks this steering wheel is cool.

02:26:10 ◼   ► And I think a lot of buyers will also think it's cool.

02:26:13 ◼   ► And maybe they'll be thinking that just as they reach

02:26:15 ◼   ► for the steering wheel that's not there

02:26:16 ◼   ► and hit their, you know, brand new Tesla

02:26:19 ◼   ► into the corner of a building in a parking lot.

02:26:21 ◼   ► But we'll see.

02:26:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, it just, to me, Tesla is more like Twitter

02:26:26 ◼   ► than Apple, they have some incredible assets

02:26:29 ◼   ► and they do certain things so incredibly well.

02:26:32 ◼   ► But it seems like they're always trying to innovate

02:26:34 ◼   ► in ways they don't need to, in ways that actually

02:26:38 ◼   ► don't benefit their customers and that possibly suggest

02:26:41 ◼   ► that they don't understand their appeal.

02:26:43 ◼   ► That they don't, maybe they don't understand

02:26:45 ◼   ► why they make such good cars and why people love them

02:26:48 ◼   ► so much 'cause they innovate on weird things.

02:26:51 ◼   ► They make tons of like self-own, you know, mistakes

02:26:55 ◼   ► that are totally not necessary to make.

02:26:58 ◼   ► - They did throw a giant steel ball bearing

02:27:01 ◼   ► at their new car window.

02:27:03 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, exactly.

02:27:04 ◼   ► - Live on stage and it shattered so that is a perfect,

02:27:07 ◼   ► that is a perfect, I wouldn't say it's a metaphor

02:27:09 ◼   ► but it's just another instance of exactly

02:27:11 ◼   ► what you're talking about.

02:27:12 ◼   ► No one forced you to do that, Tesla.

02:27:13 ◼   ► You threw a steel ball into your own car

02:27:16 ◼   ► to try to brag about the window and it broke.

02:27:18 ◼   ► - Yeah.

02:27:19 ◼   ► - You made this steering wheel, you did it to yourself.

02:27:20 ◼   ► Like people would be excited about this car

02:27:22 ◼   ► if you just made it better than the S in incremental ways

02:27:26 ◼   ► but you said, you know what, let's screw up a steering wheel.

02:27:28 ◼   ► (door slams)