ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► So I've never gotten a chance to ask this before.

00:00:03 ◼   ► John, what computer are you using?

00:00:04 ◼   ► (John laughs)

00:00:06 ◼   ► - I'm on my Mac Pro.

00:00:08 ◼   ► - How old is that Mac Pro?

00:00:09 ◼   ► Old enough to be in middle school or brand new?

00:00:12 ◼   ► - It's not yet old enough to vote.

00:00:14 ◼   ► - Well, but that doesn't narrow it down.

00:00:17 ◼   ► - Fair.

00:00:17 ◼   ► So you're on the old and busted.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - It's not busted.

00:00:20 ◼   ► No, it's busted.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Skype is busted.

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Well, join the club.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - So I presume we will talk about your Mac Pro,

00:00:29 ◼   ► and if you follow John--

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Wait, is John's Mac Pro older than Skype?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - Maybe.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - No way.

00:00:34 ◼   ► No way.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - When did Skype come out?

00:00:37 ◼   ► - At the end, oh no, no, no.

00:00:38 ◼   ► 2003, 16 years ago.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - The fact that we didn't know and it was close.

00:00:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's a real, real sad story.

00:00:46 ◼   ► - That's only five years off.

00:00:47 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:00:49 ◼   ► - Oh man, all right.

00:00:51 ◼   ► So what's your computer situation

00:00:53 ◼   ► if we don't follow you on Twitter?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Would you mind giving us a quick update, please?

00:00:57 ◼   ► - My Mac Pro was delivered.

00:01:00 ◼   ► My monitor and stand have not yet shipped.

00:01:03 ◼   ► - Have you connected any other displays

00:01:05 ◼   ► to your Mac Pro in the meantime?

00:01:07 ◼   ► - I have not.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Have you opened the box yet?

00:01:10 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:01:10 ◼   ► - Well, and to be clear, I don't mean the brown shipping box.

00:01:14 ◼   ► I mean the actual box.

00:01:15 ◼   ► - I did.

00:01:16 ◼   ► - I need to make sure there was a Mac in there,

00:01:18 ◼   ► not just like a bunch of cinder blocks.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - Have you installed it onto the stand,

00:01:22 ◼   ► or the little end table, whatever it is

00:01:24 ◼   ► that you intend to put it on?

00:01:26 ◼   ► - No.

00:01:27 ◼   ► No, I've figured, I have a bunch more podcasts to do.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I have this one, I have a Star Wars one tomorrow.

00:01:35 ◼   ► Like I need a break in podcasting

00:01:36 ◼   ► because there will be some instability

00:01:39 ◼   ► in my podcasting situation when I'm dealing with this.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And so a couple of reasons.

00:01:44 ◼   ► One, I didn't want to introduce any instability.

00:01:46 ◼   ► I don't know how long the transfer will make.

00:01:48 ◼   ► And two, I decided to change my data migration strategy,

00:01:51 ◼   ► trying to minimize the size of the window.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Like I decided I wanted to like get this thing installed

00:01:59 ◼   ► in the place where it's gonna be

00:02:00 ◼   ► and get everything set up and take out all the old stuff.

00:02:02 ◼   ► And then I don't want there to be

00:02:04 ◼   ► like a three-day data transfer thing.

00:02:06 ◼   ► And a lot of people are telling me

00:02:07 ◼   ► that doing it over ethernet with another computer hooked up

00:02:09 ◼   ► is like, it takes a long time

00:02:11 ◼   ► and is troublesome or whatever,

00:02:13 ◼   ► despite the supposed transfer speeds.

00:02:16 ◼   ► So I'm gonna try just taking a drive out of my old Mac Pro

00:02:20 ◼   ► and attaching it to my new one.

00:02:22 ◼   ► And I have a couple of things coming in the mail

00:02:24 ◼   ► to help me with that.

00:02:25 ◼   ► So I don't have to cannibalize any of their hardware.

00:02:28 ◼   ► So all of that combines to say that I am not ripping out

00:02:31 ◼   ► the old until probably Sunday at the earliest.

00:02:36 ◼   ► - But you have removed it from both the packing box,

00:02:40 ◼   ► the actual box, you have fondled it,

00:02:42 ◼   ► you have cuddled with it over one evening.

00:02:45 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:02:46 ◼   ► - No to what?

00:02:47 ◼   ► To all the above?

00:02:48 ◼   ► - I didn't take it, I didn't do any of that.

00:02:49 ◼   ► I didn't take it out of the box.

00:02:50 ◼   ► I have not cuddled with it.

00:02:52 ◼   ► - Oh, John.

00:02:53 ◼   ► So you just opened the box, looked at it,

00:02:55 ◼   ► and put the box back on?

00:02:57 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:02:57 ◼   ► - You have, if I had gone 11 years

00:03:02 ◼   ► without getting a new computer,

00:03:04 ◼   ► I would have significantly less self-control than this.

00:03:08 ◼   ► - But it's not self-control.

00:03:09 ◼   ► It's not like I want to get it.

00:03:10 ◼   ► I want it to be nice and contained in the box,

00:03:12 ◼   ► awaiting the time when I can disrupt everything.

00:03:14 ◼   ► And really, what I really need to do is,

00:03:16 ◼   ► when the time comes, I need to get that box farther away

00:03:19 ◼   ► and then tear out the old

00:03:21 ◼   ► and get all that stuff situated

00:03:24 ◼   ► and swap in all my new infrastructure.

00:03:27 ◼   ► - Now, normally, I would not suggest anything like this

00:03:30 ◼   ► 'cause it's kind of abuse of the retail system.

00:03:32 ◼   ► But if this were me in this context,

00:03:35 ◼   ► I would probably buy the LG 5K just for the 15 days

00:03:39 ◼   ► and then return it.

00:03:40 ◼   ► Just to have a span of having a monitor

00:03:42 ◼   ► so I could use this as my computer after 10 or 11 years.

00:03:46 ◼   ► I don't know how you could wait that long.

00:03:47 ◼   ► - I don't know what I'm gonna do

00:03:48 ◼   ► 'cause the problem is, as we've already established,

00:03:51 ◼   ► the only monitor I have that I can attach it to

00:03:52 ◼   ► is my gaming monitor.

00:03:53 ◼   ► But I use my gaming monitor for gaming.

00:03:56 ◼   ► So maybe when I have to podcast.

00:03:58 ◼   ► - What's more important?

00:03:59 ◼   ► - Oh, Destiny is more important.

00:04:01 ◼   ► - Oh, God, I vomited my mouth a little bit.

00:04:03 ◼   ► How can Destiny be more important

00:04:05 ◼   ► than a computer you've been waiting for?

00:04:06 ◼   ► - 'Cause Destiny is a more frequent activity

00:04:08 ◼   ► than podcasting. - Oh, John.

00:04:10 ◼   ► - Especially on vacation. - John Charles.

00:04:13 ◼   ► - John Charles, who the hell's that?

00:04:14 ◼   ► - John, I always get it wrong, John Craig.

00:04:16 ◼   ► - John Craig, come on.

00:04:17 ◼   ► - I got one sip of my holiday party.

00:04:18 ◼   ► Literally one sip.

00:04:19 ◼   ► - And you've already forgotten my name.

00:04:22 ◼   ► That's fine.

00:04:22 ◼   ► - I do that every time too.

00:04:23 ◼   ► I do it every time.

00:04:25 ◼   ► - So maybe I'm gonna be carrying that monitor

00:04:27 ◼   ► back and forth.

00:04:28 ◼   ► I don't know, but it remains to be seen.

00:04:29 ◼   ► Anyway, I've got the box right next to me right now.

00:04:32 ◼   ► It's just, I'm within arm's reach.

00:04:34 ◼   ► I'm putting my hand on it right now.

00:04:36 ◼   ► It's sitting there.

00:04:38 ◼   ► It's in the room.

00:04:38 ◼   ► It's my emotional support Mac Pro.

00:04:41 ◼   ► I just have to have it with me at all times.

00:04:44 ◼   ► And I feel better.

00:04:45 ◼   ► - How much of the room does that box take up?

00:04:47 ◼   ► - It's not actually that big.

00:04:48 ◼   ► I was actually trying to eyeball measure it

00:04:51 ◼   ► from the unboxing videos to see if I could,

00:04:53 ◼   ► at one point I was,

00:04:55 ◼   ► listen to the most recent rec diffs to hear this saga,

00:04:57 ◼   ► but at one point I was considering going

00:04:58 ◼   ► to the UPS warehouse thing to pick it up myself in my car.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And I'm like, is there gonna be a problem

00:05:03 ◼   ► getting this into my trunk?

00:05:05 ◼   ► Is the trunk opening big enough?

00:05:06 ◼   ► 'Cause I couldn't tell how big is that box.

00:05:08 ◼   ► You see it on YouTube and you're trying to estimate

00:05:10 ◼   ► the height of the people and whatever.

00:05:11 ◼   ► And it's not, of course, it's the outer box

00:05:13 ◼   ► and then the inner box, but it's actually not that big.

00:05:15 ◼   ► It's bigger than my old Mac Pro box, I think,

00:05:18 ◼   ► but it would easily fit in any car, any reasonable trunk.

00:05:21 ◼   ► Very heavy, but not all that big.

00:05:23 ◼   ► - You know, the advantage, Jon, of having a big ass car

00:05:26 ◼   ► is that you don't have to worry

00:05:28 ◼   ► about whether or not the box will fit.

00:05:30 ◼   ► - I probably have more trunk space in my accord

00:05:32 ◼   ► than you do in that behemoth SUV thing.

00:05:34 ◼   ► - That is patently untrue.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And I am too lazy to look up the actual measurements,

00:05:39 ◼   ► but I can assure you that is not true.

00:05:41 ◼   ► Now I need to back up a half step.

00:05:43 ◼   ► You had casually mentioned the most recent episode

00:05:46 ◼   ► of your other podcast, well, one of your 17 other podcasts,

00:05:49 ◼   ► Reconcilable Differences, episode 120,

00:05:52 ◼   ► Where the Packages Sleep.

00:05:54 ◼   ► It is too soon and too aggressive to say

00:05:57 ◼   ► that this rivals the Preparing the Way episode.

00:06:00 ◼   ► But oh, it's in the spirit of it and it was amazing.

00:06:04 ◼   ► And what made it even more amazing

00:06:07 ◼   ► is that I knew how this story ended

00:06:08 ◼   ► before this story even began.

00:06:11 ◼   ► And oh my goodness, hearing you fret

00:06:14 ◼   ► over the things you fretted over,

00:06:15 ◼   ► is that the right word, it doesn't matter,

00:06:16 ◼   ► hearing you fret and worry-- - Frat.

00:06:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, about the things you frat over.

00:06:20 ◼   ► Anyway, hearing you worry about all that

00:06:24 ◼   ► and knowing the eventual outcome

00:06:26 ◼   ► was both depressing and delicious.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Now, would you like to briefly recap the story?

00:06:32 ◼   ► Would you like me to briefly recap the story?

00:06:34 ◼   ► And would you like to, one way or another,

00:06:36 ◼   ► update the listeners, even if they have heard rectiffs,

00:06:39 ◼   ► as to what the final resolution was?

00:06:42 ◼   ► - I don't wanna recap the whole thing,

00:06:43 ◼   ► but it was a long saga of me expecting to get the package

00:06:47 ◼   ► and it not arriving during a very frustrating day.

00:06:50 ◼   ► And then the next day, basically having no new information

00:06:53 ◼   ► about when it might arrive and giving up on it entirely

00:06:56 ◼   ► and rescheduling it, I don't think that maybe

00:06:57 ◼   ► that did make it into the thing.

00:06:58 ◼   ► But anyway, eventually it did show up.

00:07:00 ◼   ► It, you know, all's well that ends well,

00:07:02 ◼   ► but I had one frustrating day and I have podcasts

00:07:04 ◼   ► that are about that frustrating day.

00:07:05 ◼   ► You can hear that on rectiffs.

00:07:06 ◼   ► But then the next day, it actually arrived

00:07:09 ◼   ► and it's unannounced.

00:07:10 ◼   ► - This is after you trying to schedule it

00:07:11 ◼   ► for the following day because you thought

00:07:14 ◼   ► that it just kind of never made it back on the truck

00:07:16 ◼   ► the day after it was actually supposed to arrive?

00:07:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, you know, UPS does not do a good job

00:07:22 ◼   ► of keeping track of where their things are.

00:07:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, seemingly not, which is not at all alarming.

00:07:28 ◼   ► - Well, and this is also, like, this is one

00:07:29 ◼   ► of the inherent risks of ordering something very expensive

00:07:33 ◼   ► to be shipped to you and depending on it

00:07:35 ◼   ► getting there on time, the week before Christmas.

00:07:38 ◼   ► - That is true.

00:07:39 ◼   ► - It's like every shipping carrier is a mess at that point

00:07:42 ◼   ► and the only one that is remotely reliable I have found

00:07:45 ◼   ► in high demand time or any time is the purple version

00:07:49 ◼   ► of FedEx, like FedEx has the green home version,

00:07:53 ◼   ► which is basically a different company.

00:07:54 ◼   ► The regular express service that FedEx offers

00:07:57 ◼   ► with the purple and white trucks, that is the only one

00:07:59 ◼   ► I've found to be reliable for, like, you know,

00:08:02 ◼   ► all the time it's always reliable, they always come

00:08:04 ◼   ► when they say they will.

00:08:05 ◼   ► Maybe, like, they might be late by a half hour

00:08:07 ◼   ► and they're like 10 30 window, you know,

00:08:09 ◼   ► if you're not that important, but otherwise,

00:08:10 ◼   ► like, they're there every day, whereas, like, everyone else,

00:08:13 ◼   ► UPS, the other FedEx, the, of course,

00:08:16 ◼   ► the postal service is a mess.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Like, anything else is very unreliable much of the year,

00:08:22 ◼   ► especially during busy days like the week before Christmas

00:08:25 ◼   ► or iPhone day.

00:08:26 ◼   ► - Now, you were stressed about the situation

00:08:32 ◼   ► with regard to the box and you were in the midst

00:08:34 ◼   ► of an ice storm, as you briefly mentioned moments ago.

00:08:36 ◼   ► You were shoveling your front walk, seemingly every hour

00:08:40 ◼   ► on the hour, and you were very concerned

00:08:42 ◼   ► that the box would be left in a puddle.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Was the box left in a puddle?

00:08:47 ◼   ► - Well, because it came the next day and, you know,

00:08:50 ◼   ► winter being winter, like the, you know,

00:08:52 ◼   ► and it had gotten colder, like, all the moisture

00:08:53 ◼   ► had evaporated, the thing had been shoveled,

00:08:55 ◼   ► so my walk was bone dry when they actually arrived.

00:08:58 ◼   ► Two people carried it from the truck to me, which is great.

00:09:01 ◼   ► There was no hand truck involved, no scraping of my stairs.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And even though they came unannounced, I was attuned enough

00:09:09 ◼   ► to the sound of the UPS truck engine that I did actually

00:09:12 ◼   ► have time to chuck the dog in a room and open the door

00:09:15 ◼   ► for them, open wide, you know, they're walking down my walk,

00:09:18 ◼   ► my door is already open to them, here I am,

00:09:21 ◼   ► here's my big package.

00:09:22 ◼   ► And what did they do?

00:09:23 ◼   ► They walked it over to me and I was like, here you go.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Like, I was ushering them into the already open

00:09:28 ◼   ► giant doorway and they just put it down on the walkway.

00:09:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:32 ◼   ► They put it down on the walkway, they turned around

00:09:34 ◼   ► and they walked back to the truck.

00:09:35 ◼   ► - Wonderful. - They left.

00:09:36 ◼   ► - No signature.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Well, they probably have rules against going

00:09:40 ◼   ► into your house.

00:09:41 ◼   ► - Maybe they do, they could have got it up onto the porch.

00:09:43 ◼   ► - Now, are you friendly with your usual UPS driver?

00:09:46 ◼   ► - No, I don't get as many packages as you do.

00:09:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is the advantage of both working at home

00:09:51 ◼   ► and ordering a crap ton of stuff from Amazon.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Our UPS driver, we give him a Christmas card every year.

00:09:56 ◼   ► We do holiday tips, including all the garbage men,

00:09:59 ◼   ► the UPS driver, we tip everybody and the UPS driver

00:10:01 ◼   ► is on that list when we can find them.

00:10:03 ◼   ► The only problem is that it's hard to find

00:10:05 ◼   ► your usual UPS driver during the holiday season

00:10:08 ◼   ► because they hire a bunch of temp workers

00:10:11 ◼   ► to take all the extra load and a lot of times,

00:10:14 ◼   ► you won't see your usual person 'cause their route

00:10:16 ◼   ► has gotten narrowed during that time.

00:10:19 ◼   ► - I don't know if I have a usual person

00:10:21 ◼   ► 'cause I see UPS people come to the house all the time

00:10:24 ◼   ► and I can't say that I've seen, I don't even know,

00:10:27 ◼   ► I'm a little bit more familiar with our mail carriers

00:10:29 ◼   ► but even our mail carriers have changed a lot

00:10:32 ◼   ► over the years, there's not a lot of consistency

00:10:34 ◼   ► but UPS or FedEx, god, I could not pick any of them

00:10:37 ◼   ► out of a lineup.

00:10:38 ◼   ► - You're missing out on a valuable relationship.

00:10:41 ◼   ► Once you get to know them, not only is it just nice

00:10:43 ◼   ► to be a human being but also they'll carry it

00:10:47 ◼   ► into your mudroom for you if you really want,

00:10:50 ◼   ► they'll bring it into your door.

00:10:51 ◼   ► If your hands are full, you're holding a dog

00:10:52 ◼   ► in one hand maybe, they'll bring treats for your dog.

00:10:55 ◼   ► Now, the UPS and the FedEx people,

00:10:58 ◼   ► both if they leave a package on our doorstep,

00:11:01 ◼   ► they will leave a little dog treat on top of it

00:11:03 ◼   ► 'cause they know we have a dog who appreciates those.

00:11:04 ◼   ► Isn't that cute?

00:11:05 ◼   ► - That is adorable but I think--

00:11:06 ◼   ► - So then Hops can bring in his package

00:11:08 ◼   ► and I bring in mine, it's adorable.

00:11:09 ◼   ► - Our current mail carrier is terrified of our dog,

00:11:12 ◼   ► won't even put the mail through the mail slot.

00:11:15 ◼   ► - Aw, that's too bad.

00:11:17 ◼   ► - So much for a treat, my dog does sound savage,

00:11:20 ◼   ► she's not but she does bark a lot at the mail carrier

00:11:23 ◼   ► and so he won't even, but I'm not here when the package

00:11:26 ◼   ► people usually arrive, that's why I wouldn't recognize them.

00:11:28 ◼   ► The only time I'm ever here is when I'm signing

00:11:30 ◼   ► for an Apple thing for me like once every couple of years

00:11:33 ◼   ► and I expected to have to sign for this but I did not.

00:11:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's also mildly alarming but you know--

00:11:38 ◼   ► - A little bit.

00:11:38 ◼   ► It's like here's this like $15,000,

00:11:41 ◼   ► or I guess like a $10,000 package.

00:11:43 ◼   ► - 80 pounds and very bulky so it's hard to steal I suppose.

00:11:46 ◼   ► - I guess but it's also big and obvious,

00:11:48 ◼   ► like you can't really hide that behind a bush or anything.

00:11:50 ◼   ► - It's not TV shaped.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:11:53 ◼   ► - So it does, it's like strangely shaped,

00:11:55 ◼   ► it looks like a big suitcase or something.

00:11:57 ◼   ► - What was the status of the inside box, John?

00:11:59 ◼   ► Was it unscathed as you had hoped?

00:12:01 ◼   ► - It was not unscathed, the outside looked beat to hell

00:12:03 ◼   ► as you would imagine is the point of the outside box.

00:12:05 ◼   ► - No!

00:12:06 ◼   ► - The outside box, I mean, was incredibly dirty,

00:12:09 ◼   ► not wet which is good, was my main concern,

00:12:11 ◼   ► not wet but very, very dirty.

00:12:13 ◼   ► - When you say the outside one,

00:12:14 ◼   ► you're talking about the brown shipping?

00:12:16 ◼   ► - Brown, yeah, the brown thing was incredibly dirty

00:12:18 ◼   ► but serving its function but it was also kind of dented in

00:12:21 ◼   ► and various things and on the inside you could see

00:12:22 ◼   ► the white box had some creases where they probably dropped

00:12:26 ◼   ► it on a corner or something and squished in

00:12:29 ◼   ► but that's one of the reasons I opened it up

00:12:31 ◼   ► to make sure the computer inside there looked like

00:12:33 ◼   ► it was fine and I think everything's fine.

00:12:35 ◼   ► Anyway, that's why you get AppleCare,

00:12:36 ◼   ► so if it's screwed up in some way, you know.

00:12:39 ◼   ► - So are you going to take your box to the Apple Store

00:12:41 ◼   ► and ask for refreshment replacement?

00:12:44 ◼   ► - No, no, I mean all of my boxes have some damage,

00:12:46 ◼   ► they used to just ship them with no outer box

00:12:48 ◼   ► and so I have a bunch of boxes upstairs

00:12:50 ◼   ► that are fairly beat up and that's part of the reason

00:12:51 ◼   ► I have those extra G5 boxes that I'm getting rid of

00:12:54 ◼   ► 'cause I got some G5 boxes that were in better condition

00:12:58 ◼   ► than my personal G5 box, I'm like well it's better

00:13:00 ◼   ► to have a box in ice condition but it'll be fine.

00:13:03 ◼   ► - I just realized that I see my UPS delivery guy

00:13:06 ◼   ► more often than I see most of my friends.

00:13:09 ◼   ► That's kind of sad.

00:13:10 ◼   ► - I think your UPS delivery person might be your best friend.

00:13:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:15 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, well I am,

00:13:17 ◼   ► all kidding aside, I am very excited that your Mac Pro

00:13:19 ◼   ► is in your house, I am a little distraught

00:13:22 ◼   ► with your priority system that Destiny is more important

00:13:25 ◼   ► than playing with this new toy.

00:13:26 ◼   ► I'm waiting 10 years for.

00:13:28 ◼   ► - More than that, almost 12, like when did you get your,

00:13:31 ◼   ► your '08, 'cause the '08 Mac Pro came out like in February

00:13:33 ◼   ► of '08. - I tried to do the math

00:13:35 ◼   ► but I didn't have the date that my 2008 Mac Pro arrived

00:13:39 ◼   ► at my house, I only had my order date so Casey has us

00:13:41 ◼   ► on Twitter and I did the math and it's like a little bit

00:13:44 ◼   ► over 4,100 days.

00:13:45 ◼   ► - Because when, if you ordered it right when it came out

00:13:47 ◼   ► it was like February '08 so you would've gotten it

00:13:49 ◼   ► like in March maybe.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - I don't think I ordered it right when it came out,

00:13:52 ◼   ► I think, remember I found, someone found some old tweets

00:13:56 ◼   ► for me 'cause they were looking back what I was doing

00:13:57 ◼   ► in 2008 and apparently I was waiting around to see

00:14:00 ◼   ► if they would come out with a new display,

00:14:03 ◼   ► everything going to new again.

00:14:04 ◼   ► Like the display I'm looking at now is the old one,

00:14:06 ◼   ► I'm like well maybe they're gonna revise the display

00:14:07 ◼   ► so I should wait a bit but I had a, there was a clock

00:14:10 ◼   ► because I had a Apple developer connection,

00:14:12 ◼   ► ADC discount, hardware discount, used to be able to pay

00:14:15 ◼   ► for developer membership and there were tiers

00:14:19 ◼   ► and the middle tier and the top tier of the three tiers

00:14:23 ◼   ► came with hardware discounts, either just one

00:14:25 ◼   ► or multiple and so made a bunch of my coworkers/friends

00:14:30 ◼   ► would chip in and by the $500 a year,

00:14:33 ◼   ► ADC select membership, each of five of us would pay $100

00:14:37 ◼   ► and then every year one of the group would get to use

00:14:39 ◼   ► the hardware discount whose value would be vastly

00:14:42 ◼   ► in excess of $100 if you bought a really expensive Mac.

00:14:45 ◼   ► So I had that discount and I had to use it

00:14:47 ◼   ► before the year expired but I wanted to wait

00:14:49 ◼   ► a little bit longer.

00:14:50 ◼   ► So anyway, I did, I do have the receipt from when

00:14:52 ◼   ► I actually ordered it so the math on that is about 4,100 days.

00:14:57 ◼   ► - Real time follow up, my Mac Pro in 2008

00:14:59 ◼   ► shipped on February 7th.

00:15:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, obviously you were buying yours earlier than mine,

00:15:03 ◼   ► surprise. - Yeah.

00:15:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:06 ◼   ► - And by the way, real time follow up on Trunk Space,

00:15:09 ◼   ► you will be very disappointed to learn that the Accord,

00:15:12 ◼   ► my year Accord and your Volvo XC90 have exactly the same

00:15:17 ◼   ► number of cubic feet of Trunk Space, 15.8.

00:15:20 ◼   ► - Wait, but hold on a second.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Is that, how many of the three rows of seats in Aaron's car?

00:15:26 ◼   ► - Not with the seats down, with the seats up,

00:15:28 ◼   ► that's what I'm talking about with FUV's.

00:15:30 ◼   ► They have dinky trunks with seats up.

00:15:31 ◼   ► - The back row--

00:15:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, my seats go down too.

00:15:34 ◼   ► - Oh come on, of the three rows in our car,

00:15:37 ◼   ► the backmost row is almost never up.

00:15:40 ◼   ► So that's gotta be double your Trunk Space right there.

00:15:43 ◼   ► - What if the back row is never up,

00:15:44 ◼   ► why'd you get a car with three rows of seats?

00:15:46 ◼   ► - Because there are occasions--

00:15:47 ◼   ► - For your seven other children?

00:15:49 ◼   ► - There are occasions when we wanna put more

00:15:51 ◼   ► than four people in the car.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And in fact, if I'm not mistaken,

00:15:54 ◼   ► you were in that very car in an instance.

00:15:57 ◼   ► - I sit in the front seat, I got long legs.

00:15:59 ◼   ► - Yes, I know, but you were in Aaron's car.

00:16:01 ◼   ► - As long as I help her navigate, it's a very important job.

00:16:04 ◼   ► - That is a very important job,

00:16:05 ◼   ► even though she's very good with navigation,

00:16:07 ◼   ► but nevertheless--

00:16:07 ◼   ► - I did, I didn't help at all.

00:16:09 ◼   ► - I can't tell if that's sarcasm, I wanna know.

00:16:11 ◼   ► - I did look at the weird touchscreen a lot though,

00:16:13 ◼   ► does that count for something?

00:16:14 ◼   ► - Sure, but anyway, but the point is,

00:16:16 ◼   ► we do on occasion put extra people in the back

00:16:19 ◼   ► and I believe you were in the car

00:16:21 ◼   ► when there were people in the backpack.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - I think it is fair to judge the car

00:16:25 ◼   ► in its normal thing with none of the seats folded.

00:16:28 ◼   ► And that position--

00:16:29 ◼   ► - But that isn't normal for me!

00:16:30 ◼   ► - Even your vast SUV that's like two of my cars

00:16:32 ◼   ► stacked on top of each other.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Oh my God, Jon.

00:16:35 ◼   ► - Has the same trunk space as mine.

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00:18:32 ◼   ► - Hey, you know what, Jon, your Mac Pro feet are removable.

00:18:38 ◼   ► That's exciting.

00:18:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, so between the last show and now,

00:18:42 ◼   ► there have been more unboxing videos,

00:18:43 ◼   ► there has been iFixit tear down,

00:18:45 ◼   ► there have been tear down videos, which were cool.

00:18:47 ◼   ► I mean, iFixit does those as well.

00:18:49 ◼   ► iFixit did rub soft cheese up

00:18:51 ◼   ► against the front of their computer,

00:18:52 ◼   ► which was very upsetting and honestly not a great idea.

00:18:56 ◼   ► The best part about them doing that gag,

00:18:58 ◼   ► you know, I mean, whatever, they did it, get some views.

00:19:01 ◼   ► Aha, right?

00:19:02 ◼   ► Was that the first step in their tear down video

00:19:07 ◼   ► was them carefully removing all the cheese

00:19:09 ◼   ► with one of their little spudger tools, you know?

00:19:11 ◼   ► 'Cause that's what you're thinking when you see them do it,

00:19:12 ◼   ► you're like, oh God, someone,

00:19:14 ◼   ► you know, that's an expensive computer,

00:19:15 ◼   ► someone is gonna have the job of going there

00:19:16 ◼   ► with like a Q-tip or like scraping out

00:19:20 ◼   ► all the little cheddar cheese or whatever it was

00:19:22 ◼   ► from every little nook and cranny

00:19:23 ◼   ► 'cause you can probably get it 100% clean,

00:19:26 ◼   ► but what a tedious job.

00:19:27 ◼   ► So anyway, that's what they did.

00:19:29 ◼   ► And so as part of the tear down,

00:19:31 ◼   ► we'll put a link in the show notes to this particular step,

00:19:34 ◼   ► they did take off the feet.

00:19:36 ◼   ► Apparently there are hex screws that come from the top,

00:19:40 ◼   ► like 'cause the sort of, what would you call it?

00:19:43 ◼   ► So yeah, the tubes, there are tubes at the four corners

00:19:45 ◼   ► of the Mac Pro frame,

00:19:46 ◼   ► but the tubes don't go straight from top to bottom.

00:19:49 ◼   ► Once they enter, you know, they go straight in

00:19:51 ◼   ► and once they enter, they kink to the side.

00:19:55 ◼   ► And in that kink, there's like a little hollow.

00:19:57 ◼   ► So you can go directly, sort of,

00:19:59 ◼   ► if you drew a straight line through the center of the foot,

00:20:02 ◼   ► that line would come up through where the kink is

00:20:05 ◼   ► and that's where the hex screw goes in.

00:20:06 ◼   ► So you can just take an Allen key

00:20:08 ◼   ► and stick it down in there and unscrew the little feet.

00:20:11 ◼   ► The little feet do have rubber on the bottom of them,

00:20:14 ◼   ► as predicted, and the little stainless steel field

00:20:17 ◼   ► also have two little cute pins

00:20:20 ◼   ► so that when you're screwing the screw into them

00:20:22 ◼   ► or unscrewing it, that the foot doesn't start rotating.

00:20:24 ◼   ► If you've ever screwed into a foot from the back

00:20:27 ◼   ► or anything like that, you know sometimes

00:20:28 ◼   ► when you're trying to loosen it or tighten it,

00:20:30 ◼   ► you may turn the little screw and instead of it unscrewing,

00:20:32 ◼   ► you will just turn the foot on the bottom,

00:20:33 ◼   ► but it's got those two little pins to keep it still.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Good attention to detail,

00:20:37 ◼   ► which also means that it will be very possible

00:20:39 ◼   ► to buy aftermarket wheels or first party wheels

00:20:43 ◼   ► if Apple ever sells them

00:20:44 ◼   ► and you wanna pay 400 bucks or whatever

00:20:46 ◼   ► and remove the feet and add wheels.

00:20:48 ◼   ► So if I ever do need to add wheels,

00:20:50 ◼   ► I'm really hoping that either Apple will sell it

00:20:51 ◼   ► or there'll be like some third party replacement wheels

00:20:53 ◼   ► that do not cost $100 a piece.

00:20:55 ◼   ► - Oh, Jon, you can always be my Dixie chicken.

00:20:58 ◼   ► All right, anyway, the 580X has two HDMI ports on the back.

00:21:01 ◼   ► That's exciting, right?

00:21:02 ◼   ► - That is, I mean, it shouldn't have been surprising.

00:21:06 ◼   ► This information was sitting on the website,

00:21:07 ◼   ► but it just never occurred to me, right?

00:21:08 ◼   ► So I got the base graphics card

00:21:11 ◼   ► and seeing people do these teardowns,

00:21:12 ◼   ► you know, you're not really paying too much attention

00:21:14 ◼   ► 'cause they're taking it apart, you know, whatever.

00:21:16 ◼   ► A lot of the, unsurprisingly,

00:21:17 ◼   ► a lot of the teardowns had the base graphics card as well

00:21:20 ◼   ► because they got like the cheapest one

00:21:21 ◼   ► that they could take apart, right?

00:21:24 ◼   ► And if you look at the back of the graphics card,

00:21:26 ◼   ► there's no ports that can connect to,

00:21:30 ◼   ► you know, Pro Display XDR there,

00:21:32 ◼   ► just two HDMI ports on the 580X.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Those are the only ports on the back of the video card.

00:21:38 ◼   ► And so you're like, well, wait a second,

00:21:40 ◼   ► can I not attach the base video card to the Pro Display XDR?

00:21:45 ◼   ► But you can, because that video card,

00:21:47 ◼   ► that 580X is an MPX module.

00:21:51 ◼   ► And I'm still trying to parse exactly what MPX module means

00:21:54 ◼   ► in Apple's parlance, but as far as I can tell,

00:21:55 ◼   ► it means it's got a connector, like a video card,

00:21:58 ◼   ► that connects in a PCI slot,

00:21:59 ◼   ► but it's got the second big connector.

00:22:01 ◼   ► And I think that big connector essentially connects

00:22:05 ◼   ► to like a Thunderbolt 3 bus inside the computer

00:22:09 ◼   ► or something, I don't know.

00:22:10 ◼   ► It's not entirely clear to me.

00:22:12 ◼   ► But anyway, here's how it works.

00:22:14 ◼   ► The video card sits there

00:22:15 ◼   ► and it's got two HDMI ports on the back of it.

00:22:17 ◼   ► But when you get your Pro Display XDR,

00:22:19 ◼   ► you connect the Thunderbolt 3 cable

00:22:21 ◼   ► to the back of the display,

00:22:22 ◼   ► and then you connect the other end of it

00:22:24 ◼   ► to the Thunderbolt 3 port on your Mac Pro

00:22:27 ◼   ► in the IO card thing, the little IO card at the top

00:22:30 ◼   ► that has two USB-A and two Thunderbolt 3.

00:22:33 ◼   ► That's where you connect the display.

00:22:35 ◼   ► And you're like, well,

00:22:36 ◼   ► the display isn't even connected to the video card.

00:22:37 ◼   ► How does it work?

00:22:38 ◼   ► MPX modules, and this card in particular,

00:22:40 ◼   ► I imagine this card actually has

00:22:41 ◼   ► like a Thunderbolt controller on it.

00:22:43 ◼   ► No one did a tear down of that,

00:22:44 ◼   ► but I bet if you tore the 580x MPX module apart

00:22:47 ◼   ► and looked at what's inside there,

00:22:48 ◼   ► you would see a regular, you know, the AMD GPU

00:22:51 ◼   ► and the VRAM and then another chip

00:22:53 ◼   ► for a Thunderbolt controller.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And that card connects to the Thunderbolt bus

00:22:58 ◼   ► and those ports are part of the Thunderbolt bus.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And as we discussed last show,

00:23:03 ◼   ► there's just enough bandwidth in Thunderbolt 3

00:23:05 ◼   ► to carry without display screen compression,

00:23:09 ◼   ► 6K at 60 Hertz to 10 bits per pixel,

00:23:11 ◼   ► the maximum display, the maximum bandwidth

00:23:14 ◼   ► you need to display the highest color depth

00:23:16 ◼   ► of the display can support,

00:23:18 ◼   ► plus a little bit leftover in the low speed lanes

00:23:20 ◼   ► for the USB 2 hub/firmware updates/brightness control

00:23:24 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:23:26 ◼   ► So that's how it works.

00:23:28 ◼   ► In theory, obviously I don't have a display

00:23:29 ◼   ► to test that, but I had a moment of panic

00:23:33 ◼   ► where I had to look at Apple's website

00:23:34 ◼   ► and be assured that yes, the 580x can drive

00:23:37 ◼   ► the Thunderbolt display, just not from the video card itself.

00:23:40 ◼   ► And I suppose you could plug in another monitor

00:23:43 ◼   ► to the HDMI ports, maybe two more monitors.

00:23:45 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know.

00:23:47 ◼   ► I don't, I suppose I could test that,

00:23:49 ◼   ► but I really don't want to have three monitors

00:23:50 ◼   ► hooked up to this thing, but I'll try it,

00:23:52 ◼   ► this interesting experiment.

00:23:54 ◼   ► - This reminds me, I know we've brought this up

00:23:55 ◼   ► several times on the show in the last six, seven years,

00:23:57 ◼   ► but back in the day when the, what was it,

00:24:00 ◼   ► the Voodoo cards, you know what I'm thinking of, right Marco?

00:24:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, 3Dfx, Voodoo, yeah.

00:24:04 ◼   ► These were like the very first 3D accelerators

00:24:06 ◼   ► because they were separate cards.

00:24:08 ◼   ► Like, you would have your 2D card

00:24:10 ◼   ► that came with your computer probably,

00:24:12 ◼   ► and then if you wanted to add 3D acceleration to it,

00:24:15 ◼   ► you would add like this 3D, the second card

00:24:18 ◼   ► that was just 3D processing.

00:24:19 ◼   ► - Right, but the best part was,

00:24:21 ◼   ► there was this little stubby VGA cable

00:24:23 ◼   ► that you would connect on the exterior of your computer,

00:24:26 ◼   ► and there would be a VGA in on the 3D accelerator

00:24:29 ◼   ► and a VGA out, and so you would go the output

00:24:33 ◼   ► from your stock video card into the input

00:24:35 ◼   ► of the 3D accelerator, and then you would plug your monitor

00:24:38 ◼   ► into the output of the 3D accelerator.

00:24:40 ◼   ► It was such a hack job, but it worked beautifully.

00:24:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, because like the 2D card would render,

00:24:44 ◼   ► in whatever portion of the screen would be

00:24:47 ◼   ► the 3D accelerator part, it would just render

00:24:49 ◼   ► like a blue square or something,

00:24:50 ◼   ► and then the 3D card would then overlay

00:24:52 ◼   ► just that section of the video signal

00:24:54 ◼   ► with its accelerated part.

00:24:57 ◼   ► - It was so wild.

00:24:59 ◼   ► I remember first time we got a Sound Blaster,

00:25:01 ◼   ► like Sound Blaster 32, oh those were the days,

00:25:03 ◼   ► God, I'm so old.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - Sound Blaster 16, man, what are you doing

00:25:06 ◼   ► with the Awe 32?

00:25:08 ◼   ► - Oh no, I had that first, but then I was excited

00:25:11 ◼   ► to get the 32, man, that was my jade.

00:25:13 ◼   ► - The funny thing is the Awe 32, I don't think was 32-bit,

00:25:15 ◼   ► I think it was just like 32-voice or something,

00:25:17 ◼   ► it was some other metric.

00:25:19 ◼   ► - Oh man, we're so old.

00:25:22 ◼   ► All right, why don't you tell me about Blackmagic eGPUs,

00:25:24 ◼   ► please.

00:25:26 ◼   ► - This is actually relevant to what you were just discussing.

00:25:29 ◼   ► So Andy, Sarah, wrote in to say,

00:25:32 ◼   ► "I think it's instructive to look at Blackmagic eGPUs

00:25:34 ◼   ► as they are the only non-Apple devices listed

00:25:37 ◼   ► as compatible with the Pro Display XDR."

00:25:39 ◼   ► Again, we discussed that last week.

00:25:40 ◼   ► You've got this big display with a lot of pixels,

00:25:42 ◼   ► and also it has other ports on it,

00:25:44 ◼   ► and also you wanna have some kind of software control

00:25:46 ◼   ► and firmware update or whatever.

00:25:47 ◼   ► How do you connect anything to it

00:25:49 ◼   ► that allows enough bandwidth to get a picture

00:25:52 ◼   ► plus a bunch of other signal for the other ports?

00:25:55 ◼   ► There are limited options, as we discussed.

00:25:57 ◼   ► So these eGPUs is like a box that connects to a MacBook Pro

00:26:02 ◼   ► that we show with or whatever,

00:26:03 ◼   ► like a big powerful GPU inside an external box

00:26:06 ◼   ► that connects via Thunderbolt,

00:26:08 ◼   ► and then out of that box comes usually another Thunderbolt

00:26:11 ◼   ► that connects to a display in the case of the XDR.

00:26:13 ◼   ► So how does that work?

00:26:14 ◼   ► How do you drive that monitor from a GPU?

00:26:17 ◼   ► So what Andy says is how they do it

00:26:19 ◼   ► is they take two DisplayPort outputs from the GPU.

00:26:21 ◼   ► So this is the GPU inside the little box,

00:26:24 ◼   ► two DisplayPort cables,

00:26:26 ◼   ► feed them into an Intel Titan Rich Thunderbolt controller.

00:26:28 ◼   ► Again, like I said, a Thunderbolt controller

00:26:30 ◼   ► in there with the GPU,

00:26:31 ◼   ► maybe not on the same card, but in the box,

00:26:33 ◼   ► which then combines the two DisplayPort outputs

00:26:35 ◼   ► and transmits them to display

00:26:36 ◼   ► over a Thunderbolt 3 connection.

00:26:37 ◼   ► So we'll have a link in the show notes

00:26:39 ◼   ► to a sort of iFixit-like teardown of the Blackmagic

00:26:42 ◼   ► that shows how it works.

00:26:44 ◼   ► And he says that hobbyists replicate this functionality

00:26:46 ◼   ► with their own GPUs by using a Thunderbolt 3 add-in card,

00:26:50 ◼   ► and we'll put a link to that in the show notes

00:26:51 ◼   ► and a link to an example setup.

00:26:53 ◼   ► It's quite a Frankenstein monster.

00:26:55 ◼   ► So it's like, if you want to do this as a hobbyist,

00:26:57 ◼   ► you get some GPU that's not supported,

00:27:00 ◼   ► you can't put it inside your MacBook or whatever,

00:27:03 ◼   ► so you get this big GPU.

00:27:04 ◼   ► And then you get this other card that's filling the role

00:27:07 ◼   ► that Titan Rich Thunderbolt controller,

00:27:09 ◼   ► and you connect those two to each other,

00:27:11 ◼   ► and then you connect from this Thunderbolt card

00:27:13 ◼   ► out to the monitor and to your Mac, right?

00:27:17 ◼   ► It's not something that I want to try and do my own,

00:27:21 ◼   ► like it's close to being a Hackintosh,

00:27:22 ◼   ► but it shows you essentially what you need.

00:27:24 ◼   ► You need somehow to make this video card

00:27:27 ◼   ► render all those pixels and somehow get that information

00:27:30 ◼   ► onto a Thunderbolt 3 bus,

00:27:32 ◼   ► the same bus that your computer is connected to

00:27:35 ◼   ► that also tunnels through the USB from your computer.

00:27:37 ◼   ► So that is quite a feat.

00:27:40 ◼   ► I imagine you could do the exact same setup

00:27:42 ◼   ► that these people are doing externally

00:27:44 ◼   ► for their Mac Minis and their MacBook Pros.

00:27:46 ◼   ► I imagine you do that same setup inside a Mac Pro.

00:27:49 ◼   ► I mean, surely it would work the same,

00:27:51 ◼   ► and there's plenty of room inside that box,

00:27:54 ◼   ► but it would be gross and I would worry about cooling.

00:27:56 ◼   ► And obviously the more elegant solution

00:27:58 ◼   ► is to have an MPX module,

00:27:59 ◼   ► which is exactly what I have in the 580,

00:28:01 ◼   ► but it's just a crappy GPU, right?

00:28:02 ◼   ► So if I can get a better GPU in an MPX module,

00:28:06 ◼   ► which doesn't have any other weird power cables

00:28:09 ◼   ► or anything, it's got the two connectors,

00:28:10 ◼   ► one to the PCI bus and one to the Thunderbolt Empower

00:28:13 ◼   ► or whatever, all in a nice, sleek,

00:28:15 ◼   ► passively cooled black thing.

00:28:18 ◼   ► That's what I'm looking for.

00:28:20 ◼   ► If I have to hack something up,

00:28:22 ◼   ► it's good to know there are a lot of options though.

00:28:25 ◼   ► - I think this whole thing between this

00:28:26 ◼   ► and the last follow-up point,

00:28:28 ◼   ► it kind of underlines quite how complicated it is

00:28:32 ◼   ► these days in computers that we have

00:28:35 ◼   ► these USB-C Thunderbolt 3 ports,

00:28:38 ◼   ► and we can plug in our monitors to any of them,

00:28:43 ◼   ► on the laptops that have USB-C,

00:28:45 ◼   ► on any Mac that have USB-C.

00:28:48 ◼   ► They just kind of all do all the same things,

00:28:51 ◼   ► and you gotta figure the complexity

00:28:53 ◼   ► of how that's routed internally

00:28:55 ◼   ► between the GPU, the Thunderbolt controller,

00:28:58 ◼   ► and all the various lanes and things

00:29:00 ◼   ► that go to all these ports,

00:29:02 ◼   ► that's gotta be really complicated.

00:29:03 ◼   ► And I think that's one of the reasons

00:29:05 ◼   ► why we didn't have external 5K monitors

00:29:08 ◼   ► for so long, because that's just complex

00:29:10 ◼   ► and requires a lot of craziness,

00:29:11 ◼   ► and we had 5K iMacs for long before that,

00:29:14 ◼   ► 'cause they didn't need to deal with that,

00:29:17 ◼   ► because the original 5K iMac,

00:29:18 ◼   ► it couldn't output to another 5K display,

00:29:20 ◼   ► so it only had to deal with itself internally.

00:29:22 ◼   ► It had the whole custom T-Con thing going on.

00:29:24 ◼   ► But I actually have no concept

00:29:27 ◼   ► of how modern architecture of Thunderbolt

00:29:31 ◼   ► and DisplayPort and video cards and everything,

00:29:33 ◼   ► how that handles this internally

00:29:34 ◼   ► of you have a GPU in your Mac Pro,

00:29:37 ◼   ► and you have these USB holes on the IO card

00:29:40 ◼   ► that's on the other side of the computer, basically,

00:29:42 ◼   ► and you can plug your monitor into that,

00:29:44 ◼   ► and it somehow figures out to correctly route

00:29:47 ◼   ► this massive high bandwidth display signal

00:29:50 ◼   ► over some bus over to that.

00:29:53 ◼   ► That's crazy to me.

00:29:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, that's what it is.

00:29:55 ◼   ► It's a bus, and if you can get on the bus,

00:29:57 ◼   ► you can get the data through.

00:29:58 ◼   ► Part of the reason we didn't have these larger displays

00:30:01 ◼   ► is because we were at bandwidth limits,

00:30:03 ◼   ► so until Thunderbolt 3, there just wasn't enough headroom

00:30:05 ◼   ► to do that without having multiple cables,

00:30:06 ◼   ► which was very inelegant, until it was done.

00:30:09 ◼   ► That's what the Mac has, essentially.

00:30:11 ◼   ► The other factor in this is rendering

00:30:13 ◼   ► a 6K frame buffer on a video card.

00:30:16 ◼   ► A lot of video cards,

00:30:17 ◼   ► it's not that they were too wimpy to do it,

00:30:19 ◼   ► it's that they just were not designed with the idea

00:30:21 ◼   ► that this would be a thing that you would do,

00:30:23 ◼   ► especially gaming cards,

00:30:24 ◼   ► 'cause no one was gaming at those resolutions

00:30:25 ◼   ► when these cards were designed many years ago.

00:30:28 ◼   ► So some of them, to drive a 6K display,

00:30:31 ◼   ► would tile it and render multiple frame buffers

00:30:33 ◼   ► and then recombine them,

00:30:34 ◼   ► which is also what I think the 5K iMac did,

00:30:37 ◼   ► at least with the first set of GPUs.

00:30:39 ◼   ► These days, the modern GPUs,

00:30:41 ◼   ► especially the ones that Apple is using,

00:30:43 ◼   ► assuming don't have to tile to,

00:30:45 ◼   ► but you would never know it's tiling.

00:30:46 ◼   ► It's not like a thing that's visible to you.

00:30:47 ◼   ► It's just like an internal implementation detail,

00:30:49 ◼   ► just showing that the assumptions of like,

00:30:52 ◼   ► how big is our maximum frame buffer that we rendered to?

00:30:55 ◼   ► Those assumptions have to change in a world

00:30:58 ◼   ► with 6K displays, and eventually 8K displays

00:31:00 ◼   ► will keep pushing that limit as the bus bandwidth goes up.

00:31:03 ◼   ► But yeah, it's complicated.

00:31:04 ◼   ► It's very high bandwidth,

00:31:06 ◼   ► but I think it's also cool in that you don't have to have

00:31:10 ◼   ► like this dedicated miniature computer

00:31:12 ◼   ► where the only possible place you can connect the display

00:31:14 ◼   ► is directly to the card,

00:31:15 ◼   ► because that's just the way it works.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Having sort of an add-in card that's more like

00:31:21 ◼   ► the 3DFX model where there's a GPU

00:31:23 ◼   ► that does a particular job,

00:31:25 ◼   ► and it renders the frame,

00:31:26 ◼   ► but when it comes time to get that signal

00:31:28 ◼   ► from your computer to the display,

00:31:29 ◼   ► it just sticks it on the bus

00:31:30 ◼   ► for all the rest of the stuff,

00:31:31 ◼   ► and it's one unified, very high-speed bus

00:31:33 ◼   ► that you can use for storage

00:31:35 ◼   ► and for any high-speed peripherals

00:31:38 ◼   ► and also for your display.

00:31:40 ◼   ► - All right, now, Jon,

00:31:42 ◼   ► I hear you're looking to run VR off of your Mac Pro.

00:31:46 ◼   ► - I am not, and nobody probably should, but--

00:31:49 ◼   ► - I was. (laughs)

00:31:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, Marco was looking,

00:31:52 ◼   ► 'cause Tiff is interested in playing the new VR

00:31:55 ◼   ► Half-Life game, which looks really cool,

00:31:57 ◼   ► and Marco's looking for an excuse to perhaps buy a Mac Pro,

00:32:00 ◼   ► but even--

00:32:01 ◼   ► - Well, I was thinking, like, all right,

00:32:03 ◼   ► so we were watching these videos about the new Alex game,

00:32:07 ◼   ► the upcoming Alex game,

00:32:09 ◼   ► and we figured we'd get the Valve VR thing

00:32:12 ◼   ► and plug it into something,

00:32:14 ◼   ► and Tiff has a gaming laptop,

00:32:16 ◼   ► but I'm guessing you want desktop performance

00:32:18 ◼   ► to run a high-end VR headset?

00:32:20 ◼   ► Just throwing out a guess there, right?

00:32:22 ◼   ► Jon, is that a safe bet?

00:32:23 ◼   ► - I don't know what her laptop is like.

00:32:25 ◼   ► There are actually powerful laptop CPUs,

00:32:27 ◼   ► and I also don't know what the Valve VR system is like

00:32:30 ◼   ► and if there's any processing onboard it,

00:32:31 ◼   ► but yeah, in general, you would want a powerful desktop

00:32:34 ◼   ► to do VR stuff.

00:32:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, she has some kind of Razer thing,

00:32:36 ◼   ► but it's still like a 15-inch mid-weight laptop,

00:32:38 ◼   ► so I don't think it's got some massive beefy GPU.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Like, it has a good,

00:32:43 ◼   ► I think it has a good GPU for a laptop,

00:32:45 ◼   ► but that's kind of grating on a curve, isn't it?

00:32:47 ◼   ► So I figure, like, we would probably want

00:32:49 ◼   ► something on a desktop.

00:32:50 ◼   ► Now there's eGPU support in things.

00:32:53 ◼   ► I don't know if this laptop supports it.

00:32:55 ◼   ► I don't know if maybe our iMac Pros would do it.

00:32:58 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:32:59 ◼   ► But that seems like probably too much trouble,

00:33:02 ◼   ► and so I thought, well, maybe I should get a Mac Pro,

00:33:06 ◼   ► because then I could put in a PC video card

00:33:09 ◼   ► just like what you were talking about last week,

00:33:11 ◼   ► and by the way, could you just do all of your PC gaming

00:33:15 ◼   ► in a VR headset?

00:33:15 ◼   ► Would that solve your monitor problem?

00:33:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:33:18 ◼   ► - I've never done VR, and I assume I would get motion sick,

00:33:21 ◼   ► but-- - Most likely.

00:33:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, but yeah, you could do what you're saying,

00:33:24 ◼   ► but that's like the most expensive way to get into VR.

00:33:27 ◼   ► Well, anyway, so yeah, so I was like, all right,

00:33:30 ◼   ► so I went over, and fortunately, the eight terabyte option

00:33:33 ◼   ► became available since we last recorded,

00:33:35 ◼   ► so I was able to see what my proposed true cost would be

00:33:39 ◼   ► to the configuration I would want,

00:33:40 ◼   ► and I think before a Pro Display XDR,

00:33:44 ◼   ► it was something like $12,000. (laughing)

00:33:48 ◼   ► And ideally, I don't think I'd even want

00:33:50 ◼   ► the base video card.

00:33:51 ◼   ► I think I'd want the one that's one model up

00:33:53 ◼   ► that isn't out yet, the 9,700, 5,700, whatever it is.

00:33:57 ◼   ► - Well, you said you're gonna add a PC video card,

00:33:59 ◼   ► so it would be $12,000 for the computer

00:34:00 ◼   ► that's gonna hold the video card,

00:34:01 ◼   ► and $350 for a very fast gaming video card.

00:34:05 ◼   ► - Right, and then I realized, well,

00:34:07 ◼   ► how much does a gaming PC cost?

00:34:08 ◼   ► And I went and looked, and apparently,

00:34:10 ◼   ► a really good gaming PC is like 2,000, 2,500.

00:34:14 ◼   ► - Not even.

00:34:14 ◼   ► You can make your own gaming PC for like 1,800 bucks,

00:34:19 ◼   ► and it would do VR fine.

00:34:21 ◼   ► - Right, and so I realized, okay,

00:34:23 ◼   ► this is like five to 10 times the cost of just building

00:34:27 ◼   ► a gaming PC, so yeah, I think when the time comes,

00:34:31 ◼   ► when this Half-Life game comes out, and we wanna play it,

00:34:34 ◼   ► I think what we're going to do is just either build

00:34:37 ◼   ► or buy a regular, you know, nice gaming PC

00:34:42 ◼   ► for an eighth of the cost of a Mac Pro. (laughing)

00:34:47 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - And you can get a lot smaller, too.

00:34:51 ◼   ► Like, it won't have to be the behemoth,

00:34:52 ◼   ► the size of the Mac, 'cause you just,

00:34:53 ◼   ► you know what you're gonna have in it, so.

00:34:55 ◼   ► Could be a much smaller thing.

00:34:56 ◼   ► - And I mean, we might wanna just try it

00:34:57 ◼   ► on Tiff's laptop first, although honestly,

00:34:59 ◼   ► I don't think it would go well.

00:35:02 ◼   ► Like, again, it's just a laptop.

00:35:02 ◼   ► - You should see if Tiff's laptop GPU is even as powerful

00:35:05 ◼   ► as the one that's in the iMac, 'cause her laptop is,

00:35:08 ◼   ► might be able to support the cooling of the ones

00:35:10 ◼   ► that's in the, you know, the current iMac Pro.

00:35:13 ◼   ► The current iMac Pro, as we said in the last show,

00:35:15 ◼   ► has a more powerful, a significantly more powerful GPU

00:35:18 ◼   ► than the base GPU on the Mac Pro.

00:35:20 ◼   ► So it's no slouch, and maybe you could cool it

00:35:23 ◼   ► in a giant gaming PXE.

00:35:24 ◼   ► But anyway, I think that could handle VR.

00:35:27 ◼   ► I honestly don't know what the demands of the Alex game are.

00:35:30 ◼   ► I looked at it, but I don't know what the,

00:35:32 ◼   ► if it's a higher resolution of the VR games,

00:35:33 ◼   ► is it really gonna tax your system,

00:35:35 ◼   ► or is it, would you be fine with anything?

00:35:36 ◼   ► - All right, real-time follow-up.

00:35:37 ◼   ► Tiff's laptop is a Razer Blade 15.

00:35:40 ◼   ► The GPU is the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Max-Q.

00:35:45 ◼   ► I don't know what most of that means.

00:35:47 ◼   ► - I do not know the specs of that,

00:35:49 ◼   ► but it sounds relatively recent.

00:35:51 ◼   ► - Yes, it's from this past summer.

00:35:53 ◼   ► - And, you know, could be kind of beefy.

00:35:55 ◼   ► I just am not familiar with NVIDIA's model numbers

00:35:57 ◼   ► to be able to tell you, you know,

00:35:59 ◼   ► how powerful that is compared to the Vega 64

00:36:01 ◼   ► that's in the iMac Pro.

00:36:03 ◼   ► - Oh, and the reality is, like,

00:36:04 ◼   ► I don't think the iMac Pro is gonna be a contender here,

00:36:07 ◼   ► knowing Apple and knowing how old these things are.

00:36:09 ◼   ► - You don't have the good GPUs in your iMac Pros anyway,

00:36:11 ◼   ► right, you've got older ones and you don't,

00:36:12 ◼   ► and they have done GPU upgrades,

00:36:14 ◼   ► and you got the base GPU both times, right?

00:36:16 ◼   ► - I have the Vega 56.

00:36:18 ◼   ► I think I got TIFF the bigger one, the 64,

00:36:20 ◼   ► but I'm not positive.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Anyway, regardless, I don't think this would be going

00:36:23 ◼   ► on the iMacs, I think this would be going on either

00:36:25 ◼   ► her current gaming PC or a theoretically new gaming PC

00:36:29 ◼   ► with a bigger GPU.

00:36:30 ◼   ► - You might wanna clear out the big glass table thing

00:36:32 ◼   ► and let her have the free reign of the middle of that room

00:36:35 ◼   ► so she doesn't bump into things.

00:36:37 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, right, you need, like, a space for VR, don't you?

00:36:40 ◼   ► - Well, I don't know, again, I don't know how much movement

00:36:42 ◼   ► this game asks of you, but it's nice to have.

00:36:46 ◼   ► - I assume you probably wanna do VR in a room

00:36:47 ◼   ► that doesn't have a lot of stuff around

00:36:49 ◼   ► that you care about, right?

00:36:50 ◼   ► - I don't think she's gonna be running around,

00:36:52 ◼   ► but I do, the Valve VR thing has things you hold

00:36:56 ◼   ► in your hand, right?

00:36:57 ◼   ► I think she's gonna be, at the very least,

00:36:59 ◼   ► waving her hands around and rotating

00:37:00 ◼   ► and looking up and down and, you know, all that stuff.

00:37:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think this needs a dedicated room.

00:37:05 ◼   ► All right, so first we gotta buy a new house.

00:37:06 ◼   ► Then we have to buy a new gaming PC.

00:37:08 ◼   ► - It's always the first step in any product purchase.

00:37:10 ◼   ► - It's still gonna be cheaper than the Mac Pro.

00:37:13 ◼   ► - All right, so anyway, so we are, or not,

00:37:15 ◼   ► we're not playing any VR on the Mac Pro,

00:37:18 ◼   ► but let's say you wanted to, Jon, how would you do that?

00:37:21 ◼   ► - Stetson Gafford had a little bit of a follow-up

00:37:23 ◼   ► on connecting monitors to your computer

00:37:27 ◼   ► while carrying something other than just video,

00:37:29 ◼   ► and apparently there is a newish standard for PCs

00:37:32 ◼   ► called Virtual Link, colon word, capital L,

00:37:34 ◼   ► which basically involves adding USB-C ports

00:37:37 ◼   ► with both DisplayPort and USB data

00:37:39 ◼   ► to PC graphics cards and laptops.

00:37:41 ◼   ► The primary purpose is this, to support VR headsets

00:37:43 ◼   ► over a single cable, 'cause as you can imagine,

00:37:45 ◼   ► a VR headset needs video signal,

00:37:46 ◼   ► but also there's all the controls and the accelerometers

00:37:49 ◼   ► and position sensors in the headset,

00:37:51 ◼   ► and then if you have little things in your hands,

00:37:53 ◼   ► a lot of the early VR stuff had this sort of, you know,

00:37:57 ◼   ► huge rat's nest of cables that would come off

00:37:59 ◼   ► of the headsets.

00:38:00 ◼   ► They make wireless ones too,

00:38:01 ◼   ► but they're usually not as good,

00:38:02 ◼   ► like the big beefy ones, they would have wires,

00:38:04 ◼   ► and you know, fewer wires is better.

00:38:06 ◼   ► So Virtual Link is a standard to put picture

00:38:09 ◼   ► plus a bunch of other stuff over a single nice small cable.

00:38:14 ◼   ► He goes on to say, "I'm not sure if this connection

00:38:16 ◼   ► would be fully supported by the Pro Display XDR,

00:38:18 ◼   ► but it does support both DisplayPort and USB-C 3.1

00:38:20 ◼   ► over a single USB-C style connector."

00:38:23 ◼   ► I don't think it's Thunderbolt,

00:38:24 ◼   ► he doesn't say it and look into it.

00:38:26 ◼   ► We will put a link in the show notes

00:38:27 ◼   ► to a longer story about this

00:38:28 ◼   ► that I obviously didn't read entirely.

00:38:30 ◼   ► The catch is that as far as I can tell,

00:38:32 ◼   ► it's only Nvidia RTX series cards

00:38:34 ◼   ► that are currently included in this port,

00:38:36 ◼   ► but AMD is on a list of supported suppliers,

00:38:38 ◼   ► so there's a possibility

00:38:39 ◼   ► that they'll be supported by other people.

00:38:40 ◼   ► So Virtual Link, as the name suggests,

00:38:43 ◼   ► seems like it's mostly aimed at VR headsets,

00:38:45 ◼   ► but really it's a general purpose way

00:38:47 ◼   ► to put a bunch more data over a single cable.

00:38:51 ◼   ► You know, and VR, notoriously, is low resolution

00:38:55 ◼   ► as compared to displays, and certainly low resolution

00:38:58 ◼   ► as compared to a 6K display.

00:39:00 ◼   ► So I don't think this probably has aspirations

00:39:03 ◼   ► to be a solution for something like Apple,

00:39:06 ◼   ► but it's good to know

00:39:08 ◼   ► that they're making some progress here,

00:39:09 ◼   ► because I think this is going to be the trend,

00:39:12 ◼   ► that setting aside Apple's displays

00:39:14 ◼   ► that always have some kind of hub inside them or whatever,

00:39:17 ◼   ► having a display, having a cable that only carries video

00:39:23 ◼   ► is such a throwback.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Like even HDMI carries ethernet and audio

00:39:27 ◼   ► and all that other stuff over it,

00:39:28 ◼   ► and so Thunderbolt 3 carries anything you want over it,

00:39:31 ◼   ► and Virtual Link carries USB and DisplayPort.

00:39:34 ◼   ► - Excellent.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Kyle Stay has some information

00:39:39 ◼   ► about Apple Thunderbolt adapters,

00:39:42 ◼   ► and I guess this is within the context

00:39:43 ◼   ► of connecting your cinema display to the new Mac Pro.

00:39:46 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:39:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, so there was two contexts

00:39:49 ◼   ► in which we were talking about a series of dongles

00:39:52 ◼   ► and adapters to try to get from my 2008 computer

00:39:54 ◼   ► to my 2019 computer,

00:39:56 ◼   ► and one of them involved going from Thunderbolt 3 to 2.

00:39:59 ◼   ► Stephen Hackett assured me that if you want to do that

00:40:01 ◼   ► for a Firewire 800 to Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3,

00:40:05 ◼   ► that that chain works, 'cause he's done it,

00:40:07 ◼   ► but many people, including Kyle, said,

00:40:09 ◼   ► if you are trying to get your mini DisplayPort monitor

00:40:13 ◼   ► to connect to your Mac Pro via a Thunderbolt thing,

00:40:17 ◼   ► even though you can physically make a chain of wires

00:40:19 ◼   ► that will do it, it will not work,

00:40:21 ◼   ► because the Apple's Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapter

00:40:24 ◼   ► cannot carry DisplayPort.

00:40:26 ◼   ► He says he learned this after he purchased one

00:40:28 ◼   ► in an open box deal from Best Buy for that very purpose

00:40:31 ◼   ► and had to return it,

00:40:32 ◼   ► and he assumes the person who originally purchased it

00:40:33 ◼   ► also returned it for the same reason.

00:40:36 ◼   ► And there are adapters that do it, by the way,

00:40:37 ◼   ► like Marco mentioned, the various dongles that have HDMI out

00:40:42 ◼   ► that go from Thunderbolt,

00:40:43 ◼   ► and there are dedicated ones that just have

00:40:45 ◼   ► either USB-C or Thunderbolt 3,

00:40:48 ◼   ► and that have mini DisplayPort.

00:40:50 ◼   ► At work, I have a little dock for my MacBook Pro

00:40:53 ◼   ► that connects with a single Thunderbolt cable.

00:40:56 ◼   ► Well, it's not actually Thunderbolt, it's a USB-C dock.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Anyway, it's so confusing.

00:41:00 ◼   ► I hate talking about this,

00:41:01 ◼   ► because whenever anyone else talks about it,

00:41:03 ◼   ► half the time they say,

00:41:04 ◼   ► if it's that little oval connector

00:41:05 ◼   ► that works both ways, it's USB-C,

00:41:08 ◼   ► whether it's Thunderbolt or not,

00:41:09 ◼   ► because people think of the physical form factor

00:41:11 ◼   ► as the defining characteristic,

00:41:13 ◼   ► but as we all know,

00:41:14 ◼   ► you can't usually look at the end of a cable

00:41:17 ◼   ► and know exactly what that cable is carrying

00:41:20 ◼   ► or what it's being asked to do.

00:41:22 ◼   ► Anyway, so there are adapters, but they cost money,

00:41:25 ◼   ► and I don't have any of them,

00:41:26 ◼   ► and I'm not going to buy them

00:41:27 ◼   ► for the hopefully short period of time

00:41:29 ◼   ► when I will be without my big, fat display.

00:41:32 ◼   ► - So hold on, so you put, or somebody provided to you,

00:41:35 ◼   ► and you put in the show notes,

00:41:36 ◼   ► a link to USB-C to Mini DisplayPort adapter,

00:41:39 ◼   ► and then there's another 300 characters in this name,

00:41:42 ◼   ► because it's Amazon,

00:41:43 ◼   ► and the very first bullet is this adapter will not work

00:41:47 ◼   ► with the Apple Thunderbolt Cinema Display.

00:41:49 ◼   ► Isn't that what we're talking about?

00:41:50 ◼   ► - No, they're saying it won't work with a,

00:41:53 ◼   ► there are Apple Thunderbolt displays

00:41:56 ◼   ► in the Thunderbolt 2 era that have connected,

00:41:59 ◼   ► do you remember Thunderbolt used to use the same connector

00:42:01 ◼   ► as Mini DisplayPort?

00:42:02 ◼   ► - Yes. - Do you remember that?

00:42:03 ◼   ► That's what they're talking about.

00:42:04 ◼   ► If you have a monitor that has a Thunderbolt 2-looking cable

00:42:08 ◼   ► coming from it, and you're like,

00:42:09 ◼   ► "I'm gonna connect that up

00:42:10 ◼   ► to my Thunderbolt 3-supported laptop and drive it,"

00:42:12 ◼   ► no, you're not.

00:42:13 ◼   ► You're not gonna do that, right?

00:42:15 ◼   ► - Wait, what about the one that came right before that

00:42:18 ◼   ► that has the exact same connector,

00:42:20 ◼   ► but is not Thunderbolt, it's Mini DisplayPort?

00:42:22 ◼   ► - Right, that one will work, right.

00:42:24 ◼   ► - And which one do you have?

00:42:25 ◼   ► - I have an ancient one,

00:42:27 ◼   ► way before Thunderbolt even existed.

00:42:28 ◼   ► Thunderbolt did not exist when my monitor came out,

00:42:30 ◼   ► so there's no Thunderbolt issues whatsoever.

00:42:32 ◼   ► It is plain old Mini DisplayPort,

00:42:34 ◼   ► and that would work with this connector,

00:42:35 ◼   ► 'cause this connector connects

00:42:37 ◼   ► to your Thunderbolt 3 port or USB-C port

00:42:39 ◼   ► and outputs plain old Mini DisplayPort,

00:42:42 ◼   ► which uses the same physical connector as Thunderbolt 2.

00:42:44 ◼   ► - So if you had one of these,

00:42:46 ◼   ► you could plug your ancient--

00:42:48 ◼   ► - Absolutely, yep.

00:42:50 ◼   ► - I believe the one you need is the LED display,

00:42:54 ◼   ► not the Thunderbolt display, right?

00:42:56 ◼   ► - The 24-inch LED display, that's the one I have at work.

00:42:58 ◼   ► - No, no, no, the 27, no, they're all 27s.

00:43:01 ◼   ► - No, it is a 24-inch LED display, I have it at work.

00:43:03 ◼   ► - But there was a 27-inch LED display

00:43:06 ◼   ► that came right before the Thunderbolt one

00:43:08 ◼   ► that looked the same, I think, but they flirted.

00:43:11 ◼   ► This is so confusing.

00:43:13 ◼   ► - The 24-inch does look very similar to the 27-inch.

00:43:16 ◼   ► Anyway, my thing is so ancient, it's Mini DisplayPort.

00:43:18 ◼   ► I'm not gonna buy, this adapter is 14 bucks.

00:43:20 ◼   ► It's not an expensive adapter,

00:43:21 ◼   ► but I'm not gonna buy it, I don't need it.

00:43:23 ◼   ► - Why not?

00:43:25 ◼   ► - 'Cause my display's gonna come within a week or two.

00:43:28 ◼   ► - But what about that week or two?

00:43:31 ◼   ► - I'll be carrying my gaming monitor back and forth

00:43:33 ◼   ► between two desks, connecting it with HDMI.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - Oh my God. - Maybe.

00:43:38 ◼   ► - You're a monster.

00:43:39 ◼   ► What are the odds that hardware and software

00:43:43 ◼   ► would support connecting two cables,

00:43:45 ◼   ► dedicating one to video and the other

00:43:47 ◼   ► from different internal lanes,

00:43:48 ◼   ► to full bandwidth Thunderbolt or USB?

00:43:50 ◼   ► It seems super unlikely, but also totally Apple.

00:43:52 ◼   ► This is from David Schwitz.

00:43:54 ◼   ► - This is kinda what I was getting at earlier,

00:43:56 ◼   ► that multi-cable solutions,

00:44:00 ◼   ► Apple has always wanted multifunctional solutions

00:44:04 ◼   ► to connecting quote-unquote displays.

00:44:06 ◼   ► There's a long history of Apple displays

00:44:08 ◼   ► ever since the very first one that did something

00:44:10 ◼   ► other than just show a picture

00:44:12 ◼   ► of connecting them to Apple computers

00:44:15 ◼   ► and making all the proper electrical connections.

00:44:18 ◼   ► They had monitors with ADB ports in them.

00:44:21 ◼   ► They had monitors with speakers in them,

00:44:24 ◼   ► eventually monitors with USB hubs inside them,

00:44:27 ◼   ► all sorts of other stuff.

00:44:30 ◼   ► And at various times there have been these

00:44:32 ◼   ► sometimes comical hydras of plastic and rubber connectors

00:44:37 ◼   ► that start as one big fat cable

00:44:41 ◼   ► and break out into these little tendrils

00:44:43 ◼   ► that you have to plug into all the right places

00:44:44 ◼   ► to get your thing to work.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Even the monitor I'm sitting in front of today,

00:44:47 ◼   ► this 23-inch Apple cinema display,

00:44:49 ◼   ► which connects with quote-unquote mini display port,

00:44:52 ◼   ► if you follow the wire out of the back of this computer,

00:44:54 ◼   ► there's a power connector that goes directly into power.

00:44:56 ◼   ► Then there's another cable that goes to, I believe,

00:44:59 ◼   ► a big white breakout box the size of like a Mac mini.

00:45:03 ◼   ► And I don't know, it's a little bit smaller than that.

00:45:05 ◼   ► And out of that comes a USB connector,

00:45:08 ◼   ► I think maybe an audio connector, I forget,

00:45:11 ◼   ► and maybe another power connector to power the brick

00:45:14 ◼   ► and then the mini display port.

00:45:16 ◼   ► Like there's lots more wires down there than you think

00:45:18 ◼   ► because on the back of my monitor,

00:45:19 ◼   ► I do have a bunch of USB ports.

00:45:21 ◼   ► In fact, I connect my phone charging, my lighting cable

00:45:24 ◼   ► to that thing, right?

00:45:25 ◼   ► 'Cause it is also a USB, I don't even know what it is,

00:45:28 ◼   ► USB 1.1 hub, whatever the hell it is.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Maybe it's USB 2.0, I don't remember.

00:45:32 ◼   ► And that's not a very Apple-like solution.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Apple doesn't like solutions like that.

00:45:38 ◼   ► Do you remember the display?

00:45:39 ◼   ► I think Mark was just talking about it.

00:45:40 ◼   ► The first one they came out with sort of

00:45:41 ◼   ► the rat tail MagSafe connector on it.

00:45:43 ◼   ► It was one cable coming down

00:45:45 ◼   ► and then there was a MagSafe little dongle

00:45:47 ◼   ► and then there was a USB connector

00:45:49 ◼   ► and then there was whatever the actual display connector was.

00:45:52 ◼   ► That's what my 24-inch Apple LED cinema display has at work.

00:45:56 ◼   ► And I don't have anything to connect the MagSafe to,

00:45:59 ◼   ► obviously, 'cause I've never had

00:46:01 ◼   ► a MagSafe-capable computer at work.

00:46:03 ◼   ► I went from a Mac Pro Tower, no MagSafe,

00:46:06 ◼   ► to a 2017 MacBook Pro, no MagSafe.

00:46:09 ◼   ► So I always have to find something to do

00:46:11 ◼   ► with that MagSafe thing.

00:46:12 ◼   ► And it's magnetic, so I don't want it leaning against a wire.

00:46:15 ◼   ► It's fairly powerfully magnetic.

00:46:18 ◼   ► I don't want it leaning against some other

00:46:19 ◼   ► little delicate cable that's going,

00:46:21 ◼   ► so I'm always like tucking it under.

00:46:23 ◼   ► It's very awkward, right?

00:46:25 ◼   ► Apple doesn't like those solutions.

00:46:27 ◼   ► The sort of coolest and worst simultaneous solution

00:46:31 ◼   ► that Apple's ever done, and recent memory for that is

00:46:34 ◼   ► another ADC, not Apple Developer Connection,

00:46:37 ◼   ► but Apple Display Connector.

00:46:39 ◼   ► And I have one of those up in the attic.

00:46:41 ◼   ► I have the 23-inch Apple Cinema display,

00:46:44 ◼   ► one of Apple's, I think Apple's first 23-inch LCD display.

00:46:47 ◼   ► It followed the 22-inch version of it.

00:46:49 ◼   ► It was the one with the clear feet, do you remember that?

00:46:52 ◼   ► It was like an easel where it had a little kickstand

00:46:55 ◼   ► that went out the back, and then in the front

00:46:57 ◼   ► were two big, beefy, clear feet.

00:46:59 ◼   ► It was in the sort of clear plastic around the pinstripe,

00:47:01 ◼   ► white plastic era of Apple design.

00:47:04 ◼   ► And that, that huge monitor, huge for the time, 23-inch,

00:47:08 ◼   ► can you even imagine?

00:47:09 ◼   ► People used to come over to my house and be like,

00:47:10 ◼   ► what is that, is that a TV?

00:47:11 ◼   ► I'm like, it's a computer monitor.

00:47:13 ◼   ► - No, that was amazing, 'cause that was the era

00:47:14 ◼   ► that one of my friends and I would go to Micro Center

00:47:16 ◼   ► to buy PC components in the late '90s.

00:47:19 ◼   ► That was the, those were like what was in the Mac room,

00:47:23 ◼   ► and you'd sneak over to the Mac room at Micro Center

00:47:25 ◼   ► and you'd be like, whoa, look at that giant monitor.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Yeah, it blew us away.

00:47:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, and not only was it giant,

00:47:31 ◼   ► 'cause there was 21-inch CRTs,

00:47:34 ◼   ► but 21-inch CRTs were huge.

00:47:36 ◼   ► They just, you took up the whole room.

00:47:37 ◼   ► They were deeper than they were wide,

00:47:39 ◼   ► and they were four by three,

00:47:40 ◼   ► and here was this more letterbox,

00:47:42 ◼   ► I don't know if it was exactly 16 by nine,

00:47:44 ◼   ► but more letterbox-oriented thing that was,

00:47:46 ◼   ► it looked much bigger than it was,

00:47:48 ◼   ► and of course it was a flat screen,

00:47:49 ◼   ► which wasn't a thing in really,

00:47:51 ◼   ► it wasn't particularly popular in TVs either,

00:47:53 ◼   ► so people just didn't even believe

00:47:54 ◼   ► that you had the thing hooked up to your computer.

00:47:56 ◼   ► It was amazing, and coming out of the back of that monitor

00:48:00 ◼   ► was a single cable that connected to your computer,

00:48:04 ◼   ► and that's it.

00:48:05 ◼   ► There was no power cable, there was no,

00:48:06 ◼   ► there was just one cable to connect from the display

00:48:09 ◼   ► into your computer, into my Power Mac G3,

00:48:13 ◼   ► and that was like a miracle.

00:48:14 ◼   ► It's like, how does it even work?

00:48:16 ◼   ► How is it, how are you powering the monitor?

00:48:19 ◼   ► And the monitor had like, you know, whatever,

00:48:22 ◼   ► did it have USB ports on it?

00:48:23 ◼   ► I don't remember what other bus features it had,

00:48:25 ◼   ► but anyway, it was basically,

00:48:27 ◼   ► it was an Apple proprietary connector

00:48:28 ◼   ► that carried power and essentially DVI

00:48:31 ◼   ► and whatever other things they were tunneling over,

00:48:32 ◼   ► and I forget what they were.

00:48:33 ◼   ► I don't know if it was a microphone or,

00:48:35 ◼   ► God, my memory's so bad.

00:48:35 ◼   ► Someone just pull up the webpage

00:48:36 ◼   ► and find out what else was in there,

00:48:37 ◼   ► but the important part was that it was power and DVI

00:48:40 ◼   ► over a single connector,

00:48:42 ◼   ► but that's definitely like old Apple.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Like it's super cool.

00:48:46 ◼   ► Like nobody else had a computer like that.

00:48:48 ◼   ► It was like a miracle,

00:48:49 ◼   ► but you can never find anything with an ADC connector, right?

00:48:53 ◼   ► It was Apple proprietary,

00:48:55 ◼   ► and if you wanted to get another video card

00:48:59 ◼   ► to connect your awesome monitor,

00:49:01 ◼   ► you need to have one with an ADC connector,

00:49:03 ◼   ► and if you didn't, it was a series of adapters

00:49:04 ◼   ► and you could plug it into a box that plugged into power

00:49:07 ◼   ► and that had DVI coming out of it,

00:49:09 ◼   ► and there's all these, but it's like,

00:49:09 ◼   ► that ruins the whole thing.

00:49:10 ◼   ► That ruins the elegant solution.

00:49:11 ◼   ► So the Pro Display XDR is in the era of the new Apple

00:49:15 ◼   ► that is much more hesitant

00:49:17 ◼   ► to make up its own weird proprietary connectors,

00:49:19 ◼   ► but they're also pushing the limits of displays

00:49:23 ◼   ► connected to regular people computers,

00:49:25 ◼   ► and that's why you don't find lots of quote unquote

00:49:28 ◼   ► PC video cards with Thunderbolt 3 ports in the back,

00:49:30 ◼   ► and in fact, even the ones that Apple is shipping

00:49:32 ◼   ► do not have Thunderbolt 3 ports in the back there.

00:49:33 ◼   ► Instead, in these MPX modules that connect,

00:49:36 ◼   ► that have multiple connectors,

00:49:38 ◼   ► one for PCI and one for everything else,

00:49:39 ◼   ► they connect them to your Thunderbolt 3 port

00:49:41 ◼   ► that lets you connect your monitor to a port

00:49:43 ◼   ► that's not even on the video card.

00:49:44 ◼   ► So I get a little bit of a whiff of that old thing,

00:49:47 ◼   ► but this is again on brand for me,

00:49:49 ◼   ► since I did buy that computer and did use it

00:49:51 ◼   ► with a single cable connecting it to my Power Mac G3

00:49:54 ◼   ► for years and years.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I went from a Power Mac G3 to a Power Mac G5.

00:50:01 ◼   ► So again, on brand for waiting a long time

00:50:04 ◼   ► between computers, and before the Power Mac G3,

00:50:06 ◼   ► it was an SE30, so there's some big gaps in there.

00:50:09 ◼   ► - Goodness.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Any other follow up?

00:50:12 ◼   ► - No, I mean, I suppose, you know,

00:50:17 ◼   ► I hate to drag this Mac Pro stuff on,

00:50:19 ◼   ► but I don't have all the components, it isn't set up yet.

00:50:22 ◼   ► When I take it out of the box and find out it doesn't work

00:50:24 ◼   ► or it's broken on the inside or something,

00:50:26 ◼   ► like the saga will continue, but right now,

00:50:30 ◼   ► it's Schrodinger's Mac Pro, I have no idea

00:50:34 ◼   ► what state it is inside that box.

00:50:36 ◼   ► I'm assuming everything's fine.

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00:52:33 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:52:36 ◼   ► - I would like to add one actual piece of follow-up.

00:52:39 ◼   ► I am personally deeply upset at you, Jon.

00:52:43 ◼   ► And I am deeply upset because you did not mention to me

00:52:47 ◼   ► that one of the characters in Watchmen

00:52:50 ◼   ► drives a Grand National.

00:52:52 ◼   ► - What's a Grand National?

00:52:54 ◼   ► - Oh!

00:52:55 ◼   ► - You said that, and now I'm trying to think,

00:52:57 ◼   ► who are you talking about?

00:52:58 ◼   ► - Marco!

00:52:59 ◼   ► Marco, you're killing me.

00:53:01 ◼   ► - Who are you talking about?

00:53:02 ◼   ► Is that a band?

00:53:03 ◼   ► I know what a Grand National is.

00:53:04 ◼   ► I know what it looks like,

00:53:05 ◼   ► but I'm thinking back to the show.

00:53:07 ◼   ► - It's in the very first episode, for goodness sakes.

00:53:10 ◼   ► - Is it a boat?

00:53:12 ◼   ► - No. - Looking Glass?

00:53:13 ◼   ► - No. - No, not Looking Glass,

00:53:15 ◼   ► the woman that's doing all the investigating.

00:53:18 ◼   ► - Oh, Angela?

00:53:19 ◼   ► - Yes, Angela whatever, Sister Knight or whatever her name is.

00:53:22 ◼   ► She drives a Grand National.

00:53:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, she doesn't spend a lot of time driving in the series

00:53:25 ◼   ► so it's not, didn't stand out to me, but okay.

00:53:27 ◼   ► - It sounds like a van or something.

00:53:29 ◼   ► - No, okay, so if you're not aware,

00:53:31 ◼   ► the Grand National is this like,

00:53:34 ◼   ► it's not a halo car, but it is,

00:53:36 ◼   ► it's like this mythical beast.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And what it was, it was a V6, not an inline six, right?

00:53:42 ◼   ► It was some sort of six cylinder Buick

00:53:45 ◼   ► with a tremendous turbocharger on it.

00:53:47 ◼   ► - A Buick? - Mm-hmm.

00:53:48 ◼   ► - By the way, if you search for Grand National,

00:53:51 ◼   ► the first result from the Siri knowledge is,

00:53:53 ◼   ► the 2019 Grand National was the 172nd annual running

00:53:56 ◼   ► of the Grand National horse race

00:53:57 ◼   ► at Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool, England.

00:53:59 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:54:00 ◼   ► - That is.

00:54:01 ◼   ► - So I'm guessing that's not what you're talking about?

00:54:03 ◼   ► You're not talking about a horse race?

00:54:04 ◼   ► Or both? - No, no.

00:54:07 ◼   ► - So it's a Buick then?

00:54:08 ◼   ► - It's a Buick Regal.

00:54:10 ◼   ► - Why does anybody care then?

00:54:12 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Because it was amazing.

00:54:15 ◼   ► - They care because it was an ugly American car

00:54:17 ◼   ► that actually had a big engine in it

00:54:18 ◼   ► and it looked like just a plain old ugly American car.

00:54:21 ◼   ► And it's like, but actually, it was cool.

00:54:22 ◼   ► - Oh my God, I'm looking at pictures of this thing?

00:54:24 ◼   ► - But actually it's not that cool.

00:54:26 ◼   ► - It wasn't actually that cool.

00:54:27 ◼   ► - It's not at all cool.

00:54:28 ◼   ► - Anyway.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - I'm pretty sure my grandparents had something like this

00:54:31 ◼   ► when I was a child and even they didn't think

00:54:33 ◼   ► it was cool at the time.

00:54:34 ◼   ► - But they didn't have a Grand National.

00:54:35 ◼   ► They probably had a plain old Buick Regal, which was crap.

00:54:38 ◼   ► - We'll put the Doug DiMuro review in the show notes

00:54:43 ◼   ► and I have watched it, although I don't recall it

00:54:46 ◼   ► 'cause I think I watched it many moons ago when it came out.

00:54:48 ◼   ► But the short, short version is it was this extreme,

00:54:51 ◼   ► well, I believe it to be extremely rare Buick,

00:54:54 ◼   ► a two-door coupe Buick that was extremely fast for the day.

00:54:59 ◼   ► And it is one of those cars that, like the STI or the WRX

00:55:04 ◼   ► was for people of our generation before,

00:55:07 ◼   ► or the Skyline perhaps even better,

00:55:09 ◼   ► one of those cars that everyone heard of

00:55:12 ◼   ► but nobody had ever seen.

00:55:14 ◼   ► - Like the Neo Geo.

00:55:15 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, actually, yes.

00:55:17 ◼   ► - My cousin has one, yeah, sure.

00:55:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, sure he does.

00:55:20 ◼   ► So anyway, so it was kinda like that.

00:55:22 ◼   ► It was a six-cylinder car with a tremendous turbocharger

00:55:25 ◼   ► on it, always automatic, which was unfortunate,

00:55:28 ◼   ► but they were considered to be,

00:55:30 ◼   ► and actually K-Ham in the chat have summarized it really well

00:55:32 ◼   ► it's one of the first from the factory sleeper cars.

00:55:34 ◼   ► So it doesn't look fast, but it was really fast.

00:55:37 ◼   ► And it's extremely rare and most normal gear heads

00:55:41 ◼   ► slash petrol heads really have a special place

00:55:43 ◼   ► in their hearts for them.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And I was expecting somebody would have told me

00:55:47 ◼   ► that Sister Night, whatever her name is,

00:55:49 ◼   ► drives a Grand National.

00:55:50 ◼   ► And of all people, John, you should have told me and no.

00:55:53 ◼   ► - I didn't think you needed to be notified.

00:55:55 ◼   ► - It does seem like these are very rare

00:55:56 ◼   ► because it's, like looking at listings,

00:55:59 ◼   ► it looks like they were all 1987?

00:56:01 ◼   ► - They were only a couple of years, I believe.

00:56:03 ◼   ► - And it seems like the going rate for them

00:56:05 ◼   ► is like 30 grand still for a Buick from 1987.

00:56:09 ◼   ► So that must be desirable to somebody.

00:56:12 ◼   ► - Yeah. - Think I'd rather

00:56:13 ◼   ► have a boat.

00:56:14 ◼   ► - This one's '86 that Regular Car Reviews did.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Fair warning, Regular Car Reviews is interesting,

00:56:21 ◼   ► to say the least, but which we've talked about

00:56:24 ◼   ► in the past, I believe.

00:56:25 ◼   ► And I haven't decided if it's a schtick or not

00:56:27 ◼   ► that the dude is terrible.

00:56:30 ◼   ► But anyways, you can, if you're interested,

00:56:32 ◼   ► watch these videos in the show notes.

00:56:34 ◼   ► But really, I just, I wanna stop talking to you two

00:56:37 ◼   ► so I can keep watching Watchmen.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Who watches the Watchmen?

00:56:39 ◼   ► - Also, real-time follow-up,

00:56:41 ◼   ► when you guys were talking about a car,

00:56:42 ◼   ► I don't understand, I figured out that apparently

00:56:45 ◼   ► the RTX 2080 Mobile Max-Q GPU in Tiff's laptop

00:56:49 ◼   ► apparently is actually pretty good. (laughs)

00:56:51 ◼   ► Who knew? - Yeah, no,

00:56:52 ◼   ► the modern, the RTX line is Nvidia's current line

00:56:56 ◼   ► with the supposed ray tracing hardware and yada yada,

00:56:58 ◼   ► so I'm assuming it's a laptop variant of that.

00:57:00 ◼   ► I just don't know how strong it is compared

00:57:01 ◼   ► to the quote unquote real RTX desktop things.

00:57:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, it seems from a very quick search

00:57:05 ◼   ► that it's just basically an underclocked version

00:57:07 ◼   ► of the desktop one that seems to manage something

00:57:10 ◼   ► like half to 2/3 its performance, which might be okay.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Like, if we're gonna do VR for a game

00:57:17 ◼   ► that we've been waiting like, you know, 15 years for,

00:57:19 ◼   ► it's totally fine.

00:57:21 ◼   ► Like, I wanna make it good.

00:57:22 ◼   ► I wanna have, like, I wanna be able

00:57:23 ◼   ► to run it at good settings.

00:57:25 ◼   ► - You haven't been waiting 15 years for this Alex VR thing.

00:57:28 ◼   ► You've been waiting 15 years for Half-Life 3.

00:57:30 ◼   ► This is not Half-Life 3.

00:57:31 ◼   ► - Well, it's kind of Half-Life 3.

00:57:32 ◼   ► I think it basically is. - This is not Half-Life 3.

00:57:34 ◼   ► - Well, I'm gonna call it roughly that.

00:57:36 ◼   ► Anyway, what's interesting is that the last PC I built

00:57:40 ◼   ► was the PC I built to play Half-Life 2.

00:57:42 ◼   ► (both laughing)

00:57:44 ◼   ► And so the next PC I build might be one to play this.

00:57:48 ◼   ► - Oh, my word.

00:57:49 ◼   ► All right, moving on.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Project Connected Home Over IP.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Not a very exciting name, unless, I guess,

00:57:54 ◼   ► if you skip the over, then it becomes chip,

00:57:56 ◼   ► which is kind of funny.

00:57:57 ◼   ► So Amazon, Apple, Google, the Zigbee Alliance,

00:58:00 ◼   ► and other people are forming a working group

00:58:03 ◼   ► to develop an open standard for smart home devices.

00:58:06 ◼   ► I have not taken very much time to look into this,

00:58:08 ◼   ► but the brief amount of time that I've looked into it,

00:58:12 ◼   ► I think this is actually good?

00:58:15 ◼   ► Am I allowed to say that in 2019,

00:58:18 ◼   ► that something good happened?

00:58:20 ◼   ► Somebody explain to me why this is bad.

00:58:22 ◼   ► - To be fair, it's almost 2020.

00:58:23 ◼   ► - Well, true.

00:58:25 ◼   ► What's going on?

00:58:26 ◼   ► - It's one of those things.

00:58:27 ◼   ► So they've formed this working group,

00:58:29 ◼   ► they've announced this partnership or whatever,

00:58:32 ◼   ► and it's the kind of thing that often would result

00:58:36 ◼   ► in an industry standard like Bluetooth or USB.

00:58:39 ◼   ► So in theory, if all works out,

00:58:41 ◼   ► this could be the unification of home standards,

00:58:44 ◼   ► like HomeKit Plus, Amazon's, whatever,

00:58:47 ◼   ► and Z-Wave and all these other weirdo things.

00:58:50 ◼   ► There's a whole bunch of things out there.

00:58:51 ◼   ► This could be the unified standard.

00:58:53 ◼   ► This could be the Bluetooth or WiFi of home stuff,

00:58:56 ◼   ► which would be great.

00:58:57 ◼   ► But that's a big if.

00:58:59 ◼   ► If this all works out, if they actually go forward with this,

00:59:01 ◼   ► this is the very first step towards that.

00:59:05 ◼   ► There's no guarantee that this will ever become anything.

00:59:08 ◼   ► This spec working group might fall apart

00:59:12 ◼   ► before they develop a spec.

00:59:13 ◼   ► They might develop a spec and then no one implements it.

00:59:15 ◼   ► They might develop a spec and then people implement it,

00:59:18 ◼   ► but not for very long and there aren't that many products

00:59:20 ◼   ► in the market that do it.

00:59:21 ◼   ► Or one of the big players like Apple or Amazon,

00:59:24 ◼   ► one of them drops out or something like that.

00:59:25 ◼   ► So there's a lot that can still fall apart

00:59:28 ◼   ► and make this not very useful.

00:59:29 ◼   ► But if everything goes to plan,

00:59:32 ◼   ► if they actually do develop a coherent spec

00:59:35 ◼   ► that they all agree on,

00:59:36 ◼   ► that everyone starts shipping products for,

00:59:38 ◼   ► and that that can kind of replace or supersede

00:59:40 ◼   ► the existing things like HomeKit that are out there now,

00:59:43 ◼   ► then that would be awesome for consumers.

00:59:45 ◼   ► But that's a lot of ifs.

00:59:46 ◼   ► And so I think it's too soon

00:59:48 ◼   ► to really get your hopes up on this.

00:59:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, if someone's gonna drop out,

00:59:52 ◼   ► it probably shouldn't be Apple.

00:59:54 ◼   ► It's kind of amazing that all these companies agree to this,

00:59:57 ◼   ► especially the ones that are doing well in the home market.

00:59:59 ◼   ► It just goes to show that when it comes to doing stuff

01:00:01 ◼   ► in your home, even the most powerful top players

01:00:04 ◼   ► in this market feel the pressure of basically,

01:00:08 ◼   ► if you've got something in your home,

01:00:10 ◼   ► a light switch, a smart light bulb, a talking cylinder,

01:00:14 ◼   ► anything like that that becomes part of your home,

01:00:16 ◼   ► there's a barrier to entry of you buying something

01:00:20 ◼   ► that doesn't work with it.

01:00:22 ◼   ► And they all feel that.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Like no one is so dominant, they're like,

01:00:24 ◼   ► we don't have to worry about interoperability,

01:00:26 ◼   ► we dominate, right?

01:00:27 ◼   ► Even if you have a house that's like 99% one thing,

01:00:31 ◼   ► and then 1% some other thing, that's annoying.

01:00:33 ◼   ► It's annoying to get them to work together

01:00:34 ◼   ► and to sort of harmonize it.

01:00:36 ◼   ► And a lot of these sort of proprietary systems

01:00:38 ◼   ► from non-tech companies will come in

01:00:42 ◼   ► and like home improvement things like,

01:00:43 ◼   ► we'll install a system that will run everything

01:00:45 ◼   ► in your house, but you gotta keep using this brand of thing.

01:00:47 ◼   ► Nobody likes that.

01:00:48 ◼   ► Amazon doesn't wanna be locked out

01:00:51 ◼   ► because you have like Lutron everything.

01:00:53 ◼   ► And all the big companies are trying to do deals

01:00:56 ◼   ► with everybody, like implement R standard,

01:00:58 ◼   ► work with Google Nest, work with whatever

01:01:00 ◼   ► the Amazon's automation stuff,

01:01:01 ◼   ► and Apple's trying to get everyone to work with HomeKit.

01:01:03 ◼   ► And a lot of these devices, like I did that thing

01:01:05 ◼   ► in my smart outlets, try to work with all of them.

01:01:08 ◼   ► Because if you're selling hardware, you're like,

01:01:09 ◼   ► oh, I don't want people to feel like they're locked in.

01:01:12 ◼   ► Now we have to implement HomeKit and the Amazon thing

01:01:15 ◼   ► and the Google thing or whatever the hell Zigbee is.

01:01:17 ◼   ► Like we gotta implement all this.

01:01:18 ◼   ► It makes the product so much more complicated

01:01:21 ◼   ► and expensive.

01:01:22 ◼   ► And even though they say they support all these things,

01:01:25 ◼   ► what version of all the things do they support?

01:01:26 ◼   ► Which one do they support the most?

01:01:28 ◼   ► If 90% of their customers use like Amazon's home automation

01:01:32 ◼   ► but they say they have the other one

01:01:33 ◼   ► says bullet point features,

01:01:34 ◼   ► are they gonna keep those up to date?

01:01:35 ◼   ► Are they gonna be buggy?

01:01:37 ◼   ► It's a bad situation for everybody.

01:01:38 ◼   ► And despite us being a few years into this battle,

01:01:42 ◼   ► I guess nobody feels comfortable saying,

01:01:45 ◼   ► if we just wait it out, we'll come out on top.

01:01:47 ◼   ► We'll leave our competitors in the dust

01:01:49 ◼   ► and we will dominate Microsoft style

01:01:50 ◼   ► and be the one true home automation standard,

01:01:54 ◼   ► will be our standard, will be Google Nest,

01:01:56 ◼   ► will be Amazon's thing, will be HomeKit, right?

01:01:58 ◼   ► HomeKit is far behind the leaders in this camp

01:02:02 ◼   ► for a variety of reasons.

01:02:03 ◼   ► The first one that they rolled out was very expensive

01:02:05 ◼   ► and very restrictive in terms of security,

01:02:06 ◼   ► which is good for the user, but bad for integration.

01:02:09 ◼   ► And Apple's been backing off that saying,

01:02:10 ◼   ► you don't have to implement all these security things,

01:02:12 ◼   ► not implement them yourself,

01:02:13 ◼   ► but you can do an open source one

01:02:14 ◼   ► and we don't have to give you the chips for it.

01:02:16 ◼   ► And now they have an open source thing.

01:02:18 ◼   ► We'll put a link to that in the show notes.

01:02:19 ◼   ► The HomeKit accessory development kit,

01:02:22 ◼   ► which is the HomeKit ADK, that's now open source.

01:02:25 ◼   ► Like this is from back when you used to have to sort of

01:02:28 ◼   ► get Apple's permission to even make one of these things

01:02:29 ◼   ► and now it's open source

01:02:30 ◼   ► and you can implement it yourself, right?

01:02:32 ◼   ► So they've come a long way,

01:02:33 ◼   ► but they're so far behind that Apple is like,

01:02:36 ◼   ► boy, I really hope this works

01:02:38 ◼   ► because this is our way to get into the market.

01:02:40 ◼   ► Whereas I think Amazon and Google are like,

01:02:42 ◼   ► they don't want to fight against each other.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Google doesn't want to have to

01:02:47 ◼   ► displace Amazon in your house.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Amazon doesn't want to have to displace Google

01:02:50 ◼   ► and they're both battling with the hardware makers.

01:02:52 ◼   ► They all have to go to them and say, support our thing

01:02:55 ◼   ► and support our thing as the best support.

01:02:57 ◼   ► Don't, you know, you can support Amazon's things,

01:02:58 ◼   ► but give us the good support, you know?

01:03:00 ◼   ► And it makes all the devices more expensive

01:03:03 ◼   ► because it costs more to develop them and everything.

01:03:05 ◼   ► So I'm glad to see this.

01:03:08 ◼   ► It's kind of miraculous that it's happening.

01:03:10 ◼   ► Like we had all these years of fighting with each other

01:03:12 ◼   ► and we have some dominant players,

01:03:14 ◼   ► but everybody looks around and says, this kind of sucks.

01:03:17 ◼   ► And you know, Marco decided the success stories.

01:03:20 ◼   ► If we had 20 different wireless standards

01:03:22 ◼   ► for wireless networking, it would be worse for everybody.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Right?

01:03:25 ◼   ► Same thing with Bluetooth,

01:03:26 ◼   ► even going far back as physical media,

01:03:29 ◼   ► we had these media format wars,

01:03:30 ◼   ► but everyone likes it better when you settle on,

01:03:33 ◼   ► even if you settle on the worst standard,

01:03:35 ◼   ► like VHS or whatever, settling on the CD standard,

01:03:39 ◼   ► Blu-ray as opposed to, what was it?

01:03:42 ◼   ► HD DVD. - HD DVD.

01:03:43 ◼   ► - And you know, the ones that we figured out,

01:03:46 ◼   ► like Super Audio CD.

01:03:47 ◼   ► Anyway, having a standard does eventually help everybody.

01:03:51 ◼   ► And even though everyone wants to be sort of the winner,

01:03:55 ◼   ► I guess the remaining battleground

01:03:57 ◼   ► is who has the patents on what.

01:03:58 ◼   ► But even that in this day and age,

01:04:00 ◼   ► like these other, these big players won't,

01:04:02 ◼   ► not won't go into an alliance,

01:04:04 ◼   ► but are hesitant to enter into an alliance

01:04:07 ◼   ► that is tied down by patents.

01:04:09 ◼   ► You know, just look at the Qualcomm stuff with them,

01:04:11 ◼   ► you know, licensing their patents

01:04:12 ◼   ► to anybody who asks for a very expensive price

01:04:15 ◼   ► and you know, that whole mess.

01:04:17 ◼   ► And then I guess the CD was like Philips and Sony.

01:04:19 ◼   ► And anyway, open standards are better for everybody.

01:04:23 ◼   ► It just took like many years of war

01:04:25 ◼   ► for them all to agree to that.

01:04:26 ◼   ► So here's hoping that this means that the devices

01:04:30 ◼   ► that we buy will be cheaper

01:04:32 ◼   ► and that eventually they will,

01:04:36 ◼   ► whatever support they have for the standard,

01:04:37 ◼   ► if this is the only thing they have to support,

01:04:39 ◼   ► then they will support it well

01:04:41 ◼   ► and be able to introduce new products over the years.

01:04:44 ◼   ► And you know, I mean, I suppose the worst it can be

01:04:48 ◼   ► is like wifi where eventually your router doesn't work

01:04:50 ◼   ► and your work is wifi standards have moved on,

01:04:52 ◼   ► but those at least move more slowly than, you know,

01:04:55 ◼   ► the differences between HomeKit and Google Nest

01:04:57 ◼   ► and all that other stuff.

01:04:57 ◼   ► So my fingers are crossed for this too.

01:05:00 ◼   ► I'm hoping all these, I don't know, Vipers,

01:05:03 ◼   ► I'm hoping they can all stay in the same basket

01:05:04 ◼   ► without killing each other for the greater good.

01:05:09 ◼   ► I give it a better than 50% chance, I think.

01:05:12 ◼   ► My fingers are crossed.

01:05:13 ◼   ► - I give it one chance and three.

01:05:16 ◼   ► I also would like to point out to all the people

01:05:18 ◼   ► that have already emailed us,

01:05:19 ◼   ► we are aware of XKCD number 927.

01:05:22 ◼   ► We will put a link in the show notes.

01:05:23 ◼   ► For some reason you haven't seen it,

01:05:25 ◼   ► but thank you to everyone who's already emailed us

01:05:27 ◼   ► to remind us of that thing that we already knew existed.

01:05:29 ◼   ► - I assume it's the like one new standard thing.

01:05:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I didn't even have to look to know.

01:05:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, the thing about all of these things is like,

01:05:37 ◼   ► this is trying to make a standard,

01:05:39 ◼   ► but unlike what that comic is about,

01:05:40 ◼   ► there aren't that many open standards.

01:05:44 ◼   ► Like you could say HomeKit is a standard,

01:05:46 ◼   ► but is it a standard?

01:05:48 ◼   ► It's just an Apple, it's an Apple proprietary thing

01:05:50 ◼   ► that other people can implement.

01:05:51 ◼   ► And it has become much more open of a standard now.

01:05:53 ◼   ► You can download this open source thing and do it,

01:05:56 ◼   ► but it's not like, I feel like a standard

01:05:58 ◼   ► is like more than just Apple has to agree

01:05:59 ◼   ► that this is the way things should work, right?

01:06:01 ◼   ► If only Apple agrees and Apple entirely controls

01:06:03 ◼   ► how that standard develops,

01:06:05 ◼   ► not really a standard in that sense.

01:06:07 ◼   ► The XKCD comic is more like web standards

01:06:11 ◼   ► where there's 20 different versions of HTML and XML.

01:06:14 ◼   ► And in theory, no one company controls them,

01:06:17 ◼   ► but there's so many different standards

01:06:18 ◼   ► that it's kind of a pain.

01:06:19 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, one more standard.

01:06:23 ◼   ► Might not be the solution, but the current situation,

01:06:26 ◼   ► if you were to leave it as is,

01:06:27 ◼   ► definitely isn't the solution because ask anybody

01:06:29 ◼   ► who's trying to get their home full of home automation

01:06:32 ◼   ► devices from 20 different vendors to all work together,

01:06:35 ◼   ► it's not great.

01:06:36 ◼   ► - So a week or two ago, Marco put in a Slack

01:06:40 ◼   ► that the three of us are in the following,

01:06:43 ◼   ► I'm gonna quote Marco to Marco,

01:06:45 ◼   ► but I thought it was really interesting

01:06:46 ◼   ► and I wanted to spend a couple of minutes talking about it.

01:06:48 ◼   ► Marco wrote, "The Tim Cook era of Apple

01:06:50 ◼   ► "doesn't seem to have good intuition

01:06:52 ◼   ► "on what products should be.

01:06:53 ◼   ► "So they rely heavily on external input,

01:06:55 ◼   ► "but they only seem to listen to such input

01:06:57 ◼   ► "through select narrow channels like the Pro Workflow Group.

01:06:59 ◼   ► "So the focus of their high-end products

01:07:01 ◼   ► "seems to be getting narrower."

01:07:03 ◼   ► I think I wholeheartedly agree with you on that.

01:07:08 ◼   ► And one of the things that struck me about the Mac Pro,

01:07:11 ◼   ► and we talked about this a bit last episode

01:07:14 ◼   ► and about how people like Steve Trout and Smith

01:07:17 ◼   ► or Paul Haddad are clinging to the idea,

01:07:20 ◼   ► perhaps justifiably, that the Mac Pro

01:07:24 ◼   ► should be for them, but isn't.

01:07:26 ◼   ► And we don't necessarily need to rehash

01:07:27 ◼   ► last week's conversation,

01:07:29 ◼   ► but what had occurred to me listening

01:07:32 ◼   ► to the three of us talk about it last week

01:07:34 ◼   ► and seeing this comment from Marco

01:07:36 ◼   ► was that it seems like Apple has started to listen

01:07:40 ◼   ► and listen well to some people,

01:07:42 ◼   ► which is exactly what Marco said,

01:07:44 ◼   ► but there are other people like me, like developers,

01:07:48 ◼   ► that maybe they're not listening to as much,

01:07:51 ◼   ► and that isn't necessarily a problem,

01:07:55 ◼   ► but it does bum me out,

01:07:57 ◼   ► because maybe in a perfect world

01:07:59 ◼   ► where I can design whatever magical Mac I want,

01:08:02 ◼   ► maybe I would want a reasonably priced,

01:08:05 ◼   ► small, like, mini tower or something like that.

01:08:07 ◼   ► Do mini towers even exist in the PC world anymore?

01:08:09 ◼   ► I don't even know.

01:08:09 ◼   ► But it seems like Apple's definitely listening

01:08:13 ◼   ► to the film editors and people in the film industry

01:08:19 ◼   ► that they're listening to YouTubers

01:08:20 ◼   ► and certainly trying to get on YouTubers' good side,

01:08:23 ◼   ► but what about developers, man?

01:08:25 ◼   ► Do we not count anymore?

01:08:26 ◼   ► So let's start with Marco.

01:08:27 ◼   ► Marco, do you wanna add any color to this?

01:08:29 ◼   ► Do you want to elaborate any,

01:08:31 ◼   ► or do you have any other thoughts

01:08:33 ◼   ► that you'd like to share?

01:08:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, some currency exchange headwinds

01:08:36 ◼   ► is what Marco sees.

01:08:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:08:39 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:08:40 ◼   ► Yeah, I think just kind of some elaboration

01:08:42 ◼   ► on what I meant by this.

01:08:44 ◼   ► You know, we heard about this Pro workflow group

01:08:47 ◼   ► being created back, I think they announced that

01:08:49 ◼   ► right after the Mac Pro Roundtable

01:08:50 ◼   ► or whenever they announced that that was a thing.

01:08:53 ◼   ► It seems like what they have made since then,

01:08:58 ◼   ► the marketing for it, and this is mostly about the Mac Pro.

01:09:03 ◼   ► I think if you look at the laptop lineup,

01:09:06 ◼   ► I think the 16 inch shows, like,

01:09:08 ◼   ► the 16 inch is basically the Mac Pro developer.

01:09:11 ◼   ► Like, it's like exactly what developers want.

01:09:13 ◼   ► It's a laptop, which most developers use.

01:09:15 ◼   ► It has the biggest screen in the laptop lineup,

01:09:17 ◼   ► which most developers want and the most horsepower,

01:09:19 ◼   ► and they give it a very developer-friendly keyboard finally.

01:09:22 ◼   ► So that, I think, I think it's very clear

01:09:25 ◼   ► that the computer that most developers use,

01:09:27 ◼   ► which is the largest MacBook Pro,

01:09:30 ◼   ► Apple is doing well to attract them on that.

01:09:32 ◼   ► And it is designed in such a way that,

01:09:36 ◼   ► besides the high entry price,

01:09:38 ◼   ► which is unchanged from the last few years,

01:09:40 ◼   ► so like, that's not really a new thing,

01:09:42 ◼   ► besides the high entry price to the 15 inch,

01:09:44 ◼   ► or now 16 inch model,

01:09:45 ◼   ► that is a fairly generalist computer again.

01:09:48 ◼   ► Now that it's gotten rid of the controversial keyboard,

01:09:50 ◼   ► and it's listed some of the limits that were there in 2016,

01:09:53 ◼   ► you know, that have been lifted over time,

01:09:55 ◼   ► it's a much more generalist versatile computer.

01:09:57 ◼   ► So I think in the laptop line, they're doing okay so far.

01:10:00 ◼   ► We'll see how that trickles down,

01:10:01 ◼   ► if that trickles down below the highest end models.

01:10:05 ◼   ► But they've done a good job of making

01:10:07 ◼   ► a kind of generalist 16 inch,

01:10:09 ◼   ► you know, top of the line model again.

01:10:11 ◼   ► Again, there are nitpicks I would love to have,

01:10:13 ◼   ► you know, different ports, SD card, things like that,

01:10:15 ◼   ► but you know, it will take a week to get here.

01:10:18 ◼   ► But when you look at the high end of the desktop line,

01:10:21 ◼   ► it's always been this like, this very narrow set of,

01:10:25 ◼   ► like, these like, these hyper focused products.

01:10:28 ◼   ► So you have things like the Mac Mini,

01:10:31 ◼   ► which is really good for what it is,

01:10:35 ◼   ► but what it is doesn't satisfy everyone's needs,

01:10:38 ◼   ► and by the way, it's super expensive for what it is.

01:10:40 ◼   ► And then you have the iMac and the iMac Pro,

01:10:44 ◼   ► both of which totally nail what they're going for,

01:10:49 ◼   ► which is like, you know, the kind of mid-range

01:10:51 ◼   ► desktop market, you know, you have,

01:10:54 ◼   ► at the low end you have like the kind of cheap

01:10:55 ◼   ► appliance ones that you like stick

01:10:57 ◼   ► in real estate offices to look pretty.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Then at the high end you have the iMac Pro

01:11:00 ◼   ► that is like, you know, this awesome workhorse that I love.

01:11:04 ◼   ► But it has limitations, it's a little bit narrower.

01:11:07 ◼   ► And if you want to break out of that,

01:11:09 ◼   ► or if this isn't the kind of computer you want,

01:11:11 ◼   ► then you have to go to the Mac Pro.

01:11:12 ◼   ► And the Mac Pro in 2006 when it came out,

01:11:17 ◼   ► and all the towers that John talked about

01:11:19 ◼   ► that came before it that were the PowerPC towers,

01:11:22 ◼   ► they were much more generalist machines.

01:11:24 ◼   ► They appealed to a wide range of possible uses,

01:11:27 ◼   ► possible customers, they span a wide range

01:11:30 ◼   ► of possible price points that started out fairly accessible.

01:11:34 ◼   ► They were always at the high end of accessible,

01:11:35 ◼   ► like, you know, $2,000 maybe, but you know,

01:11:37 ◼   ► they were still in the accessible range.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And then that crept up over time.

01:11:42 ◼   ► And now this new Mac Pro, in the 2013 Mac Pro,

01:11:47 ◼   ► the trash can Mac Pro seemed to be very narrow in its appeal.

01:11:51 ◼   ► That was like, if you happen to need Xeons,

01:11:55 ◼   ► and no expansion, and very little upgradeability,

01:11:59 ◼   ► and if you were willing to pay for two workstation class GPUs

01:12:03 ◼   ► and all this, like that was such an error product

01:12:06 ◼   ► that it failed in the marketplace.

01:12:07 ◼   ► Like, for lots of reasons, but it failed.

01:12:09 ◼   ► The new Mac Pro that they've made now,

01:12:12 ◼   ► the 2019/2020 Mac Pro, it seems like they made it

01:12:17 ◼   ► to appeal mostly just to the needs

01:12:21 ◼   ► of high end video professionals.

01:12:24 ◼   ► And that's not to say that they shouldn't appeal

01:12:26 ◼   ► to those needs, but it seems like that was pretty much

01:12:31 ◼   ► most of what they were going for,

01:12:32 ◼   ► and not really trying to appeal to a much wider market.

01:12:36 ◼   ► And there's all sorts of use cases where the market

01:12:40 ◼   ► just is not gonna pay that.

01:12:42 ◼   ► And there's all sorts of pro market segments

01:12:45 ◼   ► that are just gonna say either I can't or no thanks,

01:12:50 ◼   ► because of various, mostly about pricing,

01:12:53 ◼   ► or part selection.

01:12:56 ◼   ► There is a whole separate issue that I don't think

01:12:58 ◼   ► we're gonna do tonight about Nvidia and CUDA support.

01:13:01 ◼   ► That's a whole separate issue that I think

01:13:03 ◼   ► they've already lost that entire battle,

01:13:05 ◼   ► and they're never gonna go back there, I don't think.

01:13:08 ◼   ► So they've lost a lot of the scientific arena

01:13:11 ◼   ► to the CUDA machines.

01:13:13 ◼   ► But unless Apple makes up with Nvidia,

01:13:16 ◼   ► that's never gonna be fixed.

01:13:18 ◼   ► But within the realm they targeted here,

01:13:21 ◼   ► it seems like they made this pro workflow group,

01:13:25 ◼   ► which seems to consist mostly of video editors,

01:13:29 ◼   ► and people who do really big projects in logic.

01:13:31 ◼   ► It seems like this is like people who use Apple's

01:13:35 ◼   ► two remaining pro software apps, basically,

01:13:38 ◼   ► logic and Final Cut.

01:13:39 ◼   ► It's like people who use logic and Final Cut,

01:13:42 ◼   ► they are designing computers pretty much for them.

01:13:45 ◼   ► - And 3D, like think of what was in that room at WWDC.

01:13:47 ◼   ► They had the person with the crazy logic project.

01:13:49 ◼   ► They had a photographer, to be fair,

01:13:52 ◼   ► like they had photo editing or whatever.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Final Cut video editing, and then they had the Pixar folks,

01:13:58 ◼   ► which are running a non-Apple 3D program.

01:14:01 ◼   ► - So these are three industries,

01:14:04 ◼   ► and they're only showing very, very high end users

01:14:07 ◼   ► of this as well.

01:14:08 ◼   ► So you don't have, the kind of mid-range music producer

01:14:13 ◼   ► is not using this.

01:14:14 ◼   ► They're not making this like thousand instrument track.

01:14:18 ◼   ► The kind of mid-range 3D animator, it cannot afford this.

01:14:23 ◼   ► The mid-range film editor or animation studio

01:14:25 ◼   ► probably isn't buying these because it's too expensive

01:14:27 ◼   ► for them probably as well.

01:14:30 ◼   ► So they are making this product only for very, very high end

01:14:35 ◼   ► use that also has very high budgets and doesn't really care

01:14:39 ◼   ► about what they're spending.

01:14:40 ◼   ► And it seems like they can enter a dangerous feedback loop

01:14:45 ◼   ► here where they defined what this should be by seemingly

01:14:50 ◼   ► the feedback from the group that they created

01:14:56 ◼   ► that works for them.

01:14:58 ◼   ► Like the Pro Workflow group are Apple employees.

01:15:01 ◼   ► So they've created this group of people,

01:15:03 ◼   ► they pay them to do high end work,

01:15:06 ◼   ► and then they use their feedback presumably

01:15:09 ◼   ► to then inform the development of these products.

01:15:12 ◼   ► But it's kind of like, it's an artificial

01:15:15 ◼   ► closed feedback loop.

01:15:17 ◼   ► And I worry that without, it does seem like as the company

01:15:21 ◼   ► has gotten bigger under the Tim Cook era,

01:15:24 ◼   ► they've expanded, they've matured,

01:15:26 ◼   ► they've grown, whatever else,

01:15:27 ◼   ► it does seem like the lack of having that Steve Jobs

01:15:29 ◼   ► like visionary means that they're designing products

01:15:32 ◼   ► less on intuition and more on data,

01:15:37 ◼   ► but they're collecting data only from a seemingly