ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Could you Star Wars tickets everybody?

00:00:02 ◼   ► - Nope.

00:00:02 ◼   ► - What, there's another one?

00:00:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:05 ◼   ► - That is the most Marco answer I've ever heard.

00:00:06 ◼   ► - Keep making these, you believe that Marco?

00:00:08 ◼   ► I don't know why you'd think they'd stop but they don't.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Is this like the real series

00:00:13 ◼   ► or like an alternate series this time?

00:00:15 ◼   ► - The real one.

00:00:15 ◼   ► - Okay, is it supposed to be good?

00:00:17 ◼   ► - I don't know, I'm on an almost full media blackout

00:00:20 ◼   ► so I don't know.

00:00:21 ◼   ► - Oh is this the last one

00:00:22 ◼   ► or is it just kind of like a BS last one?

00:00:24 ◼   ► Like who's last one, Osteros can tell?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - I mean it's not the last one

00:00:27 ◼   ► but it's the last one in a set of nine

00:00:28 ◼   ► and then it'll start a new story sequence up after that.

00:00:31 ◼   ► - They aren't gonna follow the same characters

00:00:32 ◼   ► you think, you don't think?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - No.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - You think they would invest three,

00:00:35 ◼   ► you know, three movies into building up these new characters

00:00:38 ◼   ► and then just throw them away

00:00:38 ◼   ► and never print money with them again?

00:00:41 ◼   ► That seems unlikely.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Not these new characters, the old characters.

00:00:44 ◼   ► This is the end of the Skywalker saga

00:00:46 ◼   ► which only says that it's gonna be end of the Skywalker saga.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It doesn't say that some characters of this movie

00:00:51 ◼   ► won't appear in future movies.

00:00:52 ◼   ► - Oh, well so okay, so that doesn't mean anything

00:00:55 ◼   ► that basically is what--

00:00:56 ◼   ► - No, no, it's 'cause the nine movies

00:00:58 ◼   ► have basically been the story of the Skywalker family

00:01:01 ◼   ► and presumably the next movie will not be the story

00:01:04 ◼   ► of someone in the Skywalker family.

00:01:05 ◼   ► There's plenty of other people to tell stories about

00:01:07 ◼   ► but that's the deal.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - Are any of them left who haven't been vaporized

00:01:09 ◼   ► or anything?

00:01:10 ◼   ► - Spoilers!

00:01:11 ◼   ► - They sure are.

00:01:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:13 ◼   ► - I bet within like three years they put out episode 10,

00:01:17 ◼   ► even if it isn't called that

00:01:18 ◼   ► and it still has like Rey and Finn,

00:01:22 ◼   ► like it has like the same, like some of the same people.

00:01:25 ◼   ► - I think they'll probably restart the numbering

00:01:27 ◼   ► no matter what, even if it's like

00:01:28 ◼   ► about the same cast of young people,

00:01:30 ◼   ► they'll probably restart the numbering.

00:01:31 ◼   ► - Oh, they'll call it episode X.

00:01:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, maybe.

00:01:36 ◼   ► I would think they would restart the numbering

00:01:37 ◼   ► but we'll see.

00:01:39 ◼   ► Just because you get to have a number one then,

00:01:40 ◼   ► you know what I mean?

00:01:41 ◼   ► Like you get to, like they hired a bunch of directors

00:01:44 ◼   ► who are gonna be doing new things

00:01:45 ◼   ► and each one of these directors in theory

00:01:47 ◼   ► is getting their own trilogy or some crap

00:01:49 ◼   ► which is never gonna work out.

00:01:50 ◼   ► Like those plans will not actually fall through

00:01:53 ◼   ► but part of the way you get these big name directors

00:01:55 ◼   ► is like you'll get to start your own trilogy,

00:01:58 ◼   ► your own series and they'll all wanna start from one

00:02:00 ◼   ► because there he goes.

00:02:01 ◼   ► But we'll see.

00:02:02 ◼   ► - Star Wars X 10.1, Star Wars X 10.2, et cetera.

00:02:07 ◼   ► - All right, let's start with some follow up.

00:02:11 ◼   ► We have some follow up with regard to PYHOL.

00:02:13 ◼   ► If you recall, PYHOL is the--

00:02:16 ◼   ► - Did you shut yours, Casey?

00:02:17 ◼   ► - I actually did just moments ago shut my PYHOL

00:02:20 ◼   ► because something was broken on the internet

00:02:23 ◼   ► and I thought that might have had something to do with it.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:02:25 ◼   ► - I made it all of last episode without laughing at this

00:02:27 ◼   ► and making jokes about it but like it's just,

00:02:29 ◼   ► I can't, it's so funny.

00:02:30 ◼   ► - It's so good, it's so good.

00:02:33 ◼   ► Anyways, so PYHOL is this thing where you have your DNS,

00:02:38 ◼   ► you use it as your DNS server and it will just refuse

00:02:41 ◼   ► to acknowledge DNS lookups for things that it believes

00:02:46 ◼   ► to be like advertisements and tracking and things like that.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And we had talked last episode about how I discovered

00:02:52 ◼   ► a shortcut/workflow that would let you quickly

00:02:56 ◼   ► and easily disable PYHOL in case you find something

00:03:00 ◼   ► that isn't working on the internet.

00:03:01 ◼   ► And that doesn't happen that often.

00:03:02 ◼   ► I've only had to do it, I don't know, maybe 10 or 20 times

00:03:05 ◼   ► in the last almost month that I've been running it.

00:03:06 ◼   ► But it does happen.

00:03:08 ◼   ► And I had said on the show last week that,

00:03:10 ◼   ► "Oh, I couldn't really get it to work.

00:03:11 ◼   ► "It was, something was messed up and I didn't know what."

00:03:14 ◼   ► Well, I got a chance to play with it after the fact.

00:03:16 ◼   ► And then coincidentally, the original author, Chris Doley,

00:03:18 ◼   ► emailed me and pointed me to a Reddit thread

00:03:21 ◼   ► wherein he released that shortcut to the world.

00:03:25 ◼   ► So we'll put a link in the show notes

00:03:26 ◼   ► and so you can download it yourself.

00:03:27 ◼   ► It did work, as it turns out.

00:03:30 ◼   ► I think what had gone wrong was that I have a hostname

00:03:35 ◼   ► that points to my house and I was using that

00:03:40 ◼   ► as the hostname for this shortcut, this workflow,

00:03:43 ◼   ► to go issue an API request against.

00:03:46 ◼   ► But I didn't think things through in the two seconds

00:03:49 ◼   ► that I spent playing with it.

00:03:50 ◼   ► And I actually do not have the Pi-hole

00:03:53 ◼   ► admin interface port forwarded.

00:03:54 ◼   ► So it was reaching out to the internet

00:03:57 ◼   ► to get to my own network, but the firewall was stopping it

00:04:01 ◼   ► coming back into my own network,

00:04:03 ◼   ► if that makes any sense at all.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So in summary, what I needed to do

00:04:06 ◼   ► was just use an IP address instead.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Once I did that and once I plugged in the correct API key,

00:04:11 ◼   ► which if you're following along at home,

00:04:13 ◼   ► if you're in the Pi-hole admin interface,

00:04:14 ◼   ► you go to console, settings, API/web interface,

00:04:17 ◼   ► show API token, and that is the token you need

00:04:20 ◼   ► to plug into the shortcut.

00:04:21 ◼   ► And once you put all that magical special sauce together,

00:04:25 ◼   ► the shortcut worked no problem.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And it allows you to quickly and easily disable it

00:04:28 ◼   ► or disable it for 30 seconds or five minutes

00:04:30 ◼   ► or what have you.

00:04:31 ◼   ► So again, we will put a link in the show notes to that.

00:04:33 ◼   ► Additionally, somebody wrote to us, Billy Brauner,

00:04:37 ◼   ► who is apparently putting together a Swift UI app

00:04:39 ◼   ► that is open sourced in order to do a very similar thing.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I have not played with this at all.

00:04:44 ◼   ► I didn't even crack the code open.

00:04:45 ◼   ► I didn't have time, but it's something that we'll also put

00:04:48 ◼   ► in the show notes in case you wanted to look at that.

00:04:50 ◼   ► So those are ways that you can shut your Pi-hole, Marco.

00:04:53 ◼   ► - Thank you.

00:04:54 ◼   ► - All right, we talked last episode about indicating

00:05:00 ◼   ► or progress indicators and how they're all kind of garbage.

00:05:02 ◼   ► And Adam wrote in to point us to a YouTube video,

00:05:05 ◼   ► which again will be in the show notes,

00:05:07 ◼   ► wherein Microsoft kind of had an interesting take on this.

00:05:09 ◼   ► John, would you like to tell us about this?

00:05:12 ◼   ► - I'm trying to show something fancier

00:05:14 ◼   ► than just a bar that fills from left to right.

00:05:16 ◼   ► They're trying to show throughput to give people an idea

00:05:18 ◼   ► of like historically how fast have things been going

00:05:21 ◼   ► and how fast are they going now.

00:05:22 ◼   ► Watch the video.

00:05:24 ◼   ► I mean, it's a noble effort, but if you showed that

00:05:28 ◼   ► to your average computer user, they'd be like,

00:05:31 ◼   ► what is this?

00:05:32 ◼   ► Like it does fill from left to right, so that's still there,

00:05:36 ◼   ► but it's just complicated enough

00:05:38 ◼   ► that they would probably be blinded to the fact

00:05:40 ◼   ► that it is essentially filling from left to right.

00:05:41 ◼   ► And when it fills all the way to the right, it's done,

00:05:43 ◼   ► because it looks like a graph.

00:05:44 ◼   ► It's got numbers on it, the numbers change, it's got a line,

00:05:47 ◼   ► it's got a shaded region, it's like,

00:05:50 ◼   ► I get what they're trying to do,

00:05:53 ◼   ► I don't think they've really cracked it.

00:05:54 ◼   ► That's the problem when you say, you know,

00:05:56 ◼   ► this tool that we have is so crude

00:05:58 ◼   ► and we can't give accurate feedback

00:06:01 ◼   ► about how long things are going to take.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Can we put more information in the same area?

00:06:06 ◼   ► I've mentioned in the last show that like the old Aqua

00:06:10 ◼   ► progress bar from the original Mac OS X

00:06:13 ◼   ► had one second piece of information, which was,

00:06:15 ◼   ► it wasn't even a real piece of information.

00:06:16 ◼   ► It was an animation to let you know things are still

00:06:19 ◼   ► happening, even though this bar isn't moving.

00:06:21 ◼   ► But as I said, last show, that's mostly a lie.

00:06:23 ◼   ► That texture animates pretty much no matter what.

00:06:26 ◼   ► So it's not like that animation is telling you anything

00:06:30 ◼   ► other than your computer hasn't entirely frozen,

00:06:32 ◼   ► which is somewhat reassuring,

00:06:33 ◼   ► but I don't think the solution is to continue to add more

00:06:36 ◼   ► and more information.

00:06:37 ◼   ► That said, it's cool to see stuff like this,

00:06:39 ◼   ► and it would be nice if it was an option for people

00:06:42 ◼   ► who really did want to see lots of numbers change

00:06:44 ◼   ► or run diagnostics or whatever,

00:06:46 ◼   ► but I'm not sure it's the right default choice.

00:06:50 ◼   ► - Moving on, one of you guys put this in the show notes.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I'm embarrassed to admit it wasn't me that spotted this,

00:06:55 ◼   ► and I'm assuming this was Jon, but either way.

00:06:58 ◼   ► New Diagnostic Architecture Overview on Swift.org,

00:07:02 ◼   ► on the Swift programming language blog.

00:07:04 ◼   ► This is a post by Pavel Jaskovic,

00:07:09 ◼   ► that we're in, Pavel goes through and talks about

00:07:11 ◼   ► how error messaging is going to hopefully be

00:07:15 ◼   ► a whole lot better in the future,

00:07:18 ◼   ► thanks to some changes to how they're doing

00:07:21 ◼   ► type discovery and inference and things of that nature.

00:07:23 ◼   ► I feel like I know Swift okay, and a lot of this,

00:07:26 ◼   ► my eyes were rolling around in my head

00:07:28 ◼   ► in opposite directions trying to read through it.

00:07:30 ◼   ► However, if you get to the very end,

00:07:33 ◼   ► it is really, really worth it,

00:07:35 ◼   ► and there's a heading, Examples of Improved Diagnostics.

00:07:40 ◼   ► And again, I am a Swift apologist, I do quite like Swift.

00:07:44 ◼   ► Some of the code on this is just as inscrutable as C++,

00:07:48 ◼   ► which is about as damning a bit of,

00:07:51 ◼   ► what's the opposite of praise,

00:07:52 ◼   ► as damning an insult I can give to it.

00:07:54 ◼   ► But anyways, if you look at these examples

00:07:56 ◼   ► of improved diagnostics, you can see

00:07:58 ◼   ► some actually reasonable looking Swift,

00:08:00 ◼   ► and where it's wrong, and how these error messages

00:08:03 ◼   ► have gotten so much better.

00:08:06 ◼   ► And I am really, really excited for this.

00:08:08 ◼   ► And I think, and this was John I believe

00:08:10 ◼   ► who pointed this out, this is going to be

00:08:13 ◼   ► really, really interesting and important for Swift UI,

00:08:16 ◼   ► because as Marco and I both lamented,

00:08:18 ◼   ► Swift UI's error messaging is so bad

00:08:21 ◼   ► it's borderline insulting, and this really smells to me

00:08:25 ◼   ► like it's going to be getting a lot better.

00:08:27 ◼   ► And in fact, a lot of the examples they use

00:08:29 ◼   ► are for Swift UI.

00:08:31 ◼   ► - You know, I'm hoping they are, but honestly,

00:08:33 ◼   ► like I read through this too, and maybe it's 'cause

00:08:35 ◼   ► I don't know Swift or Swift UI well enough yet,

00:08:37 ◼   ► but I didn't think that the examples they were showing

00:08:41 ◼   ► really indicated that Swift UI's error messaging

00:08:44 ◼   ► is going to get that much better.

00:08:46 ◼   ► It seems like it's going to get a little bit better,

00:08:47 ◼   ► and that's great, it has a long way to go.

00:08:49 ◼   ► But like, in the way that a lot of the error messages

00:08:52 ◼   ► you get now have these like crazy long,

00:08:56 ◼   ► you know, huge type errors, some of which are actually

00:08:58 ◼   ► like parse errors, sort of, but it's really hard

00:09:00 ◼   ► to figure that out, some of which are like,

00:09:02 ◼   ► you know, you're somehow returning a value

00:09:04 ◼   ► somewhere inadvertently, or you're returning

00:09:05 ◼   ► the wrong value somehow inadvertently,

00:09:07 ◼   ► like, I don't think a lot of these,

00:09:09 ◼   ► like, while it's good that they're improving this,

00:09:11 ◼   ► it doesn't look like they're improving it enough

00:09:14 ◼   ► to make the difference between Swift UI error messages

00:09:16 ◼   ► being useful or totally inscrutable.

00:09:20 ◼   ► - I don't know about that, I think this might get,

00:09:23 ◼   ► it gets you to the point that it's at least actionable,

00:09:26 ◼   ► because one of the things that's actually conceded

00:09:29 ◼   ► early on in this post is that a lot of Swift error messaging,

00:09:32 ◼   ► you know, both for Swift UI and not,

00:09:34 ◼   ► it just plain isn't actionable,

00:09:36 ◼   ► and that's just not useful, and so that's what

00:09:39 ◼   ► a lot of this post is about, but I don't know,

00:09:40 ◼   ► John, what are your thoughts on this?

00:09:42 ◼   ► - This is kind of what I was talking about last week,

00:09:44 ◼   ► where it's not just a matter of finding some string

00:09:47 ◼   ► in the Swift compiler and saying, oh, this message is bad,

00:09:49 ◼   ► I'm gonna put a different string in there

00:09:51 ◼   ► to be more clear with the words that I put in.

00:09:53 ◼   ► So you can read this whole article and you can see

00:09:56 ◼   ► how, you know, it's not a question of phrasing,

00:10:01 ◼   ► it's a question of sort of metadata,

00:10:03 ◼   ► and even beyond that is that you have to

00:10:07 ◼   ► do some unexpected things like continue

00:10:09 ◼   ► the compilation process even after you've encountered

00:10:12 ◼   ► what you know to be a fatal error

00:10:13 ◼   ► so that you can produce a better message.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Like you need to have different awareness

00:10:18 ◼   ► and data structures and do some fairly Byzantine things,

00:10:22 ◼   ► like make a guess at a fix and allow the compiler

00:10:25 ◼   ► to continue to try to pinpoint where the actual error is

00:10:27 ◼   ► so you have enough information

00:10:30 ◼   ► to then construct a better message, right?

00:10:33 ◼   ► But even that, as Marco pointed out,

00:10:35 ◼   ► that is, this is all with the type checker,

00:10:37 ◼   ► the type inference engine.

00:10:40 ◼   ► A lot of Swift's errors are inscrutable because of that,

00:10:43 ◼   ► but because of the way SwiftUI is structured

00:10:45 ◼   ► in sort of this domain-specific language,

00:10:47 ◼   ► which is really just fancy word for,

00:10:50 ◼   ► you can make a bunch of specially named functions

00:10:52 ◼   ► with some implicit arguments or return values

00:10:55 ◼   ► or implicit state and then nest them inside each other

00:10:58 ◼   ► so it looks kind of like you're making this cool

00:11:00 ◼   ► sort of language of your own with curly braces

00:11:03 ◼   ► when really it's a series of chained function calls

00:11:05 ◼   ► with some stuff that, some implicit code

00:11:07 ◼   ► that doesn't actually appear visibly.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And because that's what it is

00:11:12 ◼   ► and because we're not accustomed to calling a function

00:11:14 ◼   ► that calls a function that calls a function

00:11:16 ◼   ► that calls a function that calls a function

00:11:17 ◼   ► and then like somewhere in the middle of that chain,

00:11:19 ◼   ► something went wrong,

00:11:20 ◼   ► that's why that even when you have

00:11:22 ◼   ► a much better type checker,

00:11:24 ◼   ► your message may not indicate to you

00:11:27 ◼   ► something useful or explicable

00:11:29 ◼   ► because you're not conceptualizing your code

00:11:31 ◼   ► as this giant nested series of function calls

00:11:34 ◼   ► where in fact that's what it is.

00:11:36 ◼   ► You're thinking of it as like, okay,

00:11:37 ◼   ► like here's this structure,

00:11:39 ◼   ► like you're thinking of it like you're declaring data,

00:11:41 ◼   ► like it's a big JSON structure or something

00:11:43 ◼   ► and you want it to show you where in the JSON

00:11:45 ◼   ► you've done something wrong,

00:11:46 ◼   ► where it's like the compiler doesn't look at it that way.

00:11:49 ◼   ► And so there's still some ways to go

00:11:51 ◼   ► in bridging the divide.

00:11:52 ◼   ► This is a necessary first step to say,

00:11:54 ◼   ► if you just had like normal Swift code

00:11:56 ◼   ► that you would write and not SwiftUI,

00:11:58 ◼   ► there's lots of situations where the type checker

00:12:00 ◼   ► will give you a garbage error

00:12:01 ◼   ► and you don't know what the heck it means.

00:12:02 ◼   ► This helps with that.

00:12:04 ◼   ► And it also happens to help with those same type of errors

00:12:06 ◼   ► that happen in SwiftUI,

00:12:07 ◼   ► but I still feel like the sort of novel structure of SwiftUI

00:12:12 ◼   ► that it's not structured the same way

00:12:14 ◼   ► as your like pre-SwiftUI and I guess pre-Rx or whatever,

00:12:18 ◼   ► like your quote unquote normal imperative Swift code

00:12:21 ◼   ► would be structured.

00:12:23 ◼   ► Because it's different, there's still some more work

00:12:26 ◼   ► that needs to be done to be able to give better messages.

00:12:29 ◼   ► And I think mostly, well, that will probably come down to,

00:12:31 ◼   ► I'm just guessing here, I know nothing about compiler design,

00:12:33 ◼   ► but I imagine that what it will come down to is some way

00:12:35 ◼   ► to better annotate the actual APIs that make up SwiftUI

00:12:40 ◼   ► so that the compiler knows more about

00:12:46 ◼   ► how they're expected to be used and what the semantics are

00:12:49 ◼   ► and how the developer is thinking about it.

00:12:51 ◼   ► As opposed to just like a function

00:12:53 ◼   ► that adds two numbers together

00:12:54 ◼   ► that you call just as a function somewhere

00:12:56 ◼   ► versus something like a function

00:12:59 ◼   ► that is used to generate a list

00:13:01 ◼   ► or a set of switches or something

00:13:03 ◼   ► and then three levels nested down,

00:13:05 ◼   ► you put something that isn't allowed to be nested in there.

00:13:07 ◼   ► It should know like, oh, this type of control

00:13:10 ◼   ► isn't allowed in a list of you switch thingy

00:13:14 ◼   ► and be able to phrase that in some way

00:13:17 ◼   ► other than referencing the type system.

00:13:19 ◼   ► 'Cause that's like Swift's tool for everything.

00:13:21 ◼   ► It's like, if your types all add up, everything's great.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And if they don't, we will tell you what you did wrong

00:13:27 ◼   ► in terms of the types.

00:13:29 ◼   ► But, and that goes a long way if you have well-chosen types,

00:13:33 ◼   ► but sometimes they're like invisible types

00:13:35 ◼   ► or types that you didn't declare

00:13:37 ◼   ► that you don't know the names of that get referenced

00:13:39 ◼   ► when in reality it's trying to tell you something simpler

00:13:42 ◼   ► that if someone's looking at the code,

00:13:43 ◼   ► like, oh, you can't put that type of control

00:13:44 ◼   ► in this container or if you do,

00:13:45 ◼   ► you have to have one of these things over there.

00:13:47 ◼   ► So still some ways to go, but progress is being made.

00:13:52 ◼   ► And I do think it's an interesting blog post.

00:13:54 ◼   ► It seems like it's a little,

00:13:56 ◼   ► might seem like it's a little over your head,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but if you just read it slowly and kind of understand

00:13:59 ◼   ► what they're saying and don't get too bogged down

00:14:01 ◼   ► into like the, you know, weird generics

00:14:04 ◼   ► and templated code they have in the examples,

00:14:06 ◼   ► I think it does make sense.

00:14:07 ◼   ► - So somebody pointed out to me, forgive me,

00:14:09 ◼   ► I don't recall who it was,

00:14:10 ◼   ► that the folks at NS Hipster have put together

00:14:15 ◼   ► an unbelievably great website.

00:14:18 ◼   ► And I am overjoyed that this exists

00:14:21 ◼   ► and that I didn't have to do it myself.

00:14:23 ◼   ► The name of this website is No Overview Available.

00:14:26 ◼   ► And it's at nooverviewavailable.com.

00:14:28 ◼   ► And it is subtitled,

00:14:30 ◼   ► A Survey of Apple Developer Documentation.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And so the NS Hipster folks have put together

00:14:36 ◼   ► a list of all the Apple frameworks.

00:14:38 ◼   ► So these are all the top level Apple code groupings,

00:14:43 ◼   ► I guess you could say.

00:14:44 ◼   ► I mean, it's, you know, like address book stuff

00:14:46 ◼   ► and audio stuff and things of that nature.

00:14:48 ◼   ► And there's a lot of them.

00:14:49 ◼   ► So it goes through all of these

00:14:50 ◼   ► and they have written some code to parse

00:14:53 ◼   ► how much of the documentation

00:14:55 ◼   ► for all of these different frameworks is actually available.

00:14:59 ◼   ► And, you know, the name of the website comes from,

00:15:02 ◼   ► oftentimes you will see the phrase,

00:15:03 ◼   ► "No Overview Available" in Apple documentation

00:15:05 ◼   ► if they just haven't done it yet.

00:15:06 ◼   ► And I gotta tell you, scrolling through this,

00:15:08 ◼   ► not good times.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Lot of orange, lot of red, not a lot of green.

00:15:13 ◼   ► And I actually did intend to count up

00:15:15 ◼   ► and get numbers in front of me

00:15:17 ◼   ► with regard to how many are green,

00:15:19 ◼   ► how many are orange and how many are red.

00:15:21 ◼   ► If somebody wants to take the time to do that,

00:15:22 ◼   ► please let me know on Twitter or via email.

00:15:26 ◼   ► Again, apologies, I didn't get to do it myself.

00:15:28 ◼   ► But just scrolling through this will give you a hint

00:15:30 ◼   ► that this does not look good.

00:15:31 ◼   ► And one of my favorites was looking down

00:15:34 ◼   ► at audio toolbox mark alarm, which is at 48.9%.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, all of the audio frameworks

00:15:40 ◼   ► have pretty poor showings here, which is not news to me.

00:15:44 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:15:45 ◼   ► - I have some questions about the methodology here, though.

00:15:48 ◼   ► They were trying to look,

00:15:49 ◼   ► they were looking up the symbols in the libraries

00:15:51 ◼   ► and finding out how many of those symbols have documentation.

00:15:53 ◼   ► Is that what the methodology is?

00:15:55 ◼   ► - I think, I didn't go parsing through the source

00:15:57 ◼   ► to figure out exactly what's going on here.

00:16:00 ◼   ► - That's what I, I mean, this is the thing,

00:16:03 ◼   ► like, that's all they can really do, I suppose,

00:16:06 ◼   ► because without documentation, there's no way to know

00:16:09 ◼   ► which symbols are meant to be public.

00:16:11 ◼   ► I know Apple has like the, what are they,

00:16:13 ◼   ► underscore, reserve for private, stuff like that.

00:16:14 ◼   ► But in general, I don't think it's safe to assume

00:16:17 ◼   ► that every symbol in the library

00:16:18 ◼   ► is supposed to have public documentation.

00:16:20 ◼   ► But that's the only tool they have.

00:16:21 ◼   ► So I think that might be making things look worse

00:16:23 ◼   ► than they actually are.

00:16:24 ◼   ► And the second thing is, maybe I've been in,

00:16:27 ◼   ► you know, corporate America too long,

00:16:29 ◼   ► but I scroll through this list

00:16:30 ◼   ► and I think it looks pretty good.

00:16:32 ◼   ► There's a lot of green and orange in there.

00:16:34 ◼   ► Like the state of documentation of code,

00:16:36 ◼   ► every place I've ever worked would not meet these standards.

00:16:39 ◼   ► I mean, obviously, I haven't worked at Apple,

00:16:41 ◼   ► and these are supposed to be public facing APIs.

00:16:43 ◼   ► - Exactly, yep.

00:16:44 ◼   ► - But I still think it looks pretty good.

00:16:46 ◼   ► I still, like, they expected this thing to come out.

00:16:49 ◼   ► That's a lot of green, a lot of green.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - Stop it, this does not fit my,

00:16:54 ◼   ► this does not fit my narrative

00:16:55 ◼   ► so you are booted off the podcast.

00:16:57 ◼   ► - I'm not saying it.

00:16:58 ◼   ► It's just, I mean, think of any place

00:17:00 ◼   ► you've ever worked, Casey.

00:17:01 ◼   ► Have you had this much documentation

00:17:02 ◼   ► for your public APIs? - Oh, God, no.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Absolutely not.

00:17:04 ◼   ► However, I was not vending a public API

00:17:08 ◼   ► for hundreds of thousands of developers.

00:17:11 ◼   ► - I have vented a public API and we haven't done this well.

00:17:13 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah. - John, come on, man.

00:17:15 ◼   ► - Obviously, all that matters is what your framework is.

00:17:18 ◼   ► You don't care that they have 100% coverage

00:17:21 ◼   ► and whatever, like, intense UI or something like that.

00:17:26 ◼   ► If you're using audio frameworks and they're in the red,

00:17:30 ◼   ► that's your whole life.

00:17:31 ◼   ► In fact, if you're using one particular subset

00:17:34 ◼   ► of one library and there's no docs, that's worse.

00:17:36 ◼   ► You could have, everything could be green

00:17:38 ◼   ► except for your one little corner of the library

00:17:40 ◼   ► and you still paid Apple for not having the docs.

00:17:42 ◼   ► So yes, the bar should be higher for Apple

00:17:44 ◼   ► because they have a lot of money

00:17:46 ◼   ► and in theory, documentation is parallelizable

00:17:50 ◼   ► and can be done with less investment

00:17:55 ◼   ► in long-term mental energy than something

00:18:00 ◼   ► like designing the frameworks to begin with.

00:18:03 ◼   ► One would hope.

00:18:04 ◼   ► - You know, it'd be one thing if this was, like,

00:18:06 ◼   ► all the new stuff they happened to release in iOS 13

00:18:09 ◼   ► and they haven't quite had enough time to get to it yet

00:18:11 ◼   ► and they'll get to it in the next six months.

00:18:13 ◼   ► But no, that isn't it.

00:18:14 ◼   ► - Well, I think that's inexcusable, too.

00:18:16 ◼   ► I take your point and I do agree with you,

00:18:18 ◼   ► but that is also inexcusable.

00:18:19 ◼   ► - But yeah, but that isn't even it.

00:18:21 ◼   ► It's even worse than that.

00:18:22 ◼   ► A lot of these frameworks are like five or 10 years old

00:18:25 ◼   ► and they haven't been documented over that entire time

00:18:27 ◼   ► and it seems like they're,

00:18:29 ◼   ► I think what bothers me about it is that,

00:18:32 ◼   ► not only what Jon said about,

00:18:33 ◼   ► it's not like they're so constrained

00:18:35 ◼   ► with all their resources that they can't hire people

00:18:38 ◼   ► to do this or task people to do this.

00:18:41 ◼   ► This is something that can be easily outsourced

00:18:43 ◼   ► or tasked to other teams and everything.

00:18:45 ◼   ► You don't need difficult engineering scaling problems

00:18:48 ◼   ► to solve this.

00:18:49 ◼   ► You just need the will and some resources,

00:18:51 ◼   ► which they have the resources.

00:18:53 ◼   ► I guess they don't have the will.

00:18:54 ◼   ► But I think what bothers me is, like,

00:18:56 ◼   ► enough about Apple's message to developers

00:19:00 ◼   ► over the last few months has been crappy.

00:19:01 ◼   ► This is just kind of insult upon injury.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Like, it's bad enough that all the platforms

00:19:06 ◼   ► that are shipping to customers right now

00:19:07 ◼   ► are causing so many problems for developers and customers

00:19:11 ◼   ► because they're still so lucky

00:19:12 ◼   ► and it was such a rough beta season.

00:19:14 ◼   ► And doing the early public beta really was a jerk move

00:19:18 ◼   ► by Apple to both their customers and their developers.

00:19:21 ◼   ► Launching Catalina without notifying any developers

00:19:24 ◼   ► ahead of time when that was gonna happen

00:19:25 ◼   ► was really a jerk move to all Mac developers too.

00:19:28 ◼   ► Like, this has been like not a great season

00:19:30 ◼   ► to be a developer in Apple's world right now.

00:19:33 ◼   ► And to add an insult upon injury is like,

00:19:34 ◼   ► yeah, you know what, none of this stuff seems documented

00:19:36 ◼   ► and it also seems like based on how long

00:19:39 ◼   ► some of these things go without being documented,

00:19:40 ◼   ► it seems like Apple thinks this is fine.

00:19:43 ◼   ► They don't care.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Apple thinks this is good enough.

00:19:46 ◼   ► And that, I think, is what I hope that websites like this

00:19:50 ◼   ► will help convince them differently on.

00:19:52 ◼   ► - Well, but that's the thing is that

00:19:54 ◼   ► I don't know that Apple thinks

00:19:55 ◼   ► this is good enough internally,

00:19:56 ◼   ► but I agree with you that because there is nothing

00:20:00 ◼   ► spoken about externally, this is all we have to go on.

00:20:04 ◼   ► And so by Apple releasing iOS 13 and all these new APIs

00:20:09 ◼   ► and to your point, leaving alone all the APIs

00:20:12 ◼   ► from many, many versions ago

00:20:14 ◼   ► and not having proper documentation about it,

00:20:16 ◼   ► that is them saying that this is good enough.

00:20:18 ◼   ► I do agree with you, but I'm waiting

00:20:20 ◼   ► for all the internal Apple people to be like,

00:20:21 ◼   ► well, guys, come on, we don't think this is good enough.

00:20:23 ◼   ► But, but, but, but, but.

00:20:24 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, I mean, look, go up the chain then, right?

00:20:26 ◼   ► Like someone at Apple thinks this is good enough.

00:20:29 ◼   ► You can keep going.

00:20:30 ◼   ► It's like, okay, maybe you, individual engineer,

00:20:32 ◼   ► are unhappy with this, great.

00:20:33 ◼   ► How does your boss feel about it?

00:20:35 ◼   ► Are they unhappy with it?

00:20:36 ◼   ► Okay, how does their boss feel about it?

00:20:37 ◼   ► Eventually you hit Tim Cook, right?

00:20:39 ◼   ► It's somebody's problem.

00:20:41 ◼   ► Somebody needs to care about this kind of stuff.

00:20:43 ◼   ► And if you or your boss care but can't get things done,

00:20:48 ◼   ► okay, why?

00:20:50 ◼   ► Why can't this be improved?

00:20:51 ◼   ► Go level up.

00:20:52 ◼   ► What, you know, go to that next person.

00:20:54 ◼   ► Why can't this be improved?

00:20:56 ◼   ► Like the company has seemingly infinite money.

00:21:01 ◼   ► I know it's hard to hire for certain things.

00:21:03 ◼   ► I know it's hard to scale certain things.

00:21:05 ◼   ► But this is one of those things that's actually

00:21:07 ◼   ► a lot easier to hire for and scale

00:21:09 ◼   ► than a lot of other engineering challenges, right?

00:21:11 ◼   ► This really is way closer to like,

00:21:14 ◼   ► you know what, you can just choose to allocate

00:21:16 ◼   ► resources to this and get it done.

00:21:17 ◼   ► Like that's, not everything in the company works that way,

00:21:20 ◼   ► but this is one of the things that works a lot more

00:21:22 ◼   ► that way than everything else.

00:21:23 ◼   ► So the fact is, they don't think it's important.

00:21:27 ◼   ► Someone somewhere up the chain has decided

00:21:30 ◼   ► this doesn't matter.

00:21:32 ◼   ► And so that's why I hope things like this website

00:21:35 ◼   ► can kind of help push that on the people

00:21:38 ◼   ► who might be hearing and reading about this kind of stuff.

00:21:41 ◼   ► - If done well, hiring more people to document libraries

00:21:46 ◼   ► can actually be a funnel into helping

00:21:49 ◼   ► with your engineering scalability problems.

00:21:52 ◼   ► It's not to say that most people want to start

00:21:54 ◼   ► by doing documentation to become, you know, programmers.

00:21:58 ◼   ► But some people who start in documentation

00:22:02 ◼   ► never really thinking that they're gonna be a programmer

00:22:05 ◼   ► will end up realizing that they have an aptitude for it.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And that's like kind of a farm team

00:22:10 ◼   ► for your larger engineering org.

00:22:12 ◼   ► And again, that's not to say that there's 100% overlap

00:22:15 ◼   ► between those skillsets.

00:22:16 ◼   ► People can be very good at documentation,

00:22:17 ◼   ► not very good at coding and vice versa.

00:22:19 ◼   ► But I think there will be at least some people

00:22:21 ◼   ► who start off documenting.

00:22:24 ◼   ► And if your documentation team is respected and paid well,

00:22:28 ◼   ► and expected to either know or understand

00:22:33 ◼   ► the fundamentals of API design,

00:22:36 ◼   ► they can find themselves in a position where guess what?

00:22:38 ◼   ► After a year or two in this job,

00:22:40 ◼   ► you know an awful lot about Apple's APIs.

00:22:43 ◼   ► And if you didn't know how to program before

00:22:45 ◼   ► or in this particular language before,

00:22:47 ◼   ► you probably almost know how to do it now.

00:22:48 ◼   ► And so you're perfectly positioned to transition

00:22:51 ◼   ► from documentation into the larger engineering org.

00:22:54 ◼   ► And vice versa, again, if you pay the documentation people

00:22:57 ◼   ► well and respect their position

00:22:58 ◼   ► and have a path for advancement,

00:23:00 ◼   ► you can see people going in the opposite direction.

00:23:02 ◼   ► Lots of the early Apple employees are justifiably famous,

00:23:07 ◼   ► not because they wrote Quickdraw or created Switcher

00:23:10 ◼   ► or whatever, all the engineering feats

00:23:12 ◼   ► of the original Mac team and stuff,

00:23:14 ◼   ► but because they wrote amazing documentation

00:23:17 ◼   ► for the Apple II or for the Macintosh.

00:23:19 ◼   ► And they weren't looked down upon.

00:23:21 ◼   ► It's like, well, you didn't write the code.

00:23:22 ◼   ► All you did was write the documentation.

00:23:24 ◼   ► Yeah, but the documentation was amazing.

00:23:25 ◼   ► And amazing documentation was part of the reason,

00:23:28 ◼   ► part of the way the good qualities of Apple's products

00:23:32 ◼   ► were communicated to developers to let them know,

00:23:35 ◼   ► you want to develop for this platform.

00:23:37 ◼   ► Isn't it cool?

00:23:38 ◼   ► And here, let me explain it to you.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Explain our thinking behind it.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Explain how things work.

00:23:43 ◼   ► Explain how it works together

00:23:44 ◼   ► so you appreciate the beauty of whatever system we've made.

00:23:47 ◼   ► That was an essential part of both the Apple II

00:23:49 ◼   ► and the early Macintosh in terms of gaining market share.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Not that iOS is in that position now,

00:23:54 ◼   ► but it's always a good thing to have.

00:23:57 ◼   ► - Well, and also, I feel like at this point,

00:24:00 ◼   ► when not only APIs are broadening and changing

00:24:04 ◼   ► at a crazy pace right now,

00:24:07 ◼   ► they introduced an entirely new programming language

00:24:10 ◼   ► five years ago, whenever that was.

00:24:12 ◼   ► Everything converted over to that.

00:24:14 ◼   ► That language has changed in that time.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Some of the original old sample code doesn't work anymore.

00:24:20 ◼   ► A lot of APIs and things don't have sample code

00:24:22 ◼   ► in the new language.

00:24:23 ◼   ► And now they're trying to also change

00:24:25 ◼   ► the entire UI framework.

00:24:27 ◼   ► This is a time when we desperately need great documentation,

00:24:33 ◼   ► great sample code, great tutorials.

00:24:36 ◼   ► We need Apple writing their own code

00:24:39 ◼   ► against these new APIs and sharing it with us.

00:24:42 ◼   ► We need there to never be anything we run into

00:24:45 ◼   ► that says no overview available in the new frameworks

00:24:49 ◼   ► and new languages we're supposed to be using now.

00:24:51 ◼   ► This is an incredibly critical time

00:24:53 ◼   ► that they're trying to really move things forward

00:24:56 ◼   ► in some pretty big ways,

00:24:57 ◼   ► and there seems to be no guidance

00:25:00 ◼   ► on how to use any of this new stuff.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Are they ever gonna document any of this stuff?

00:25:04 ◼   ► Are they ever gonna have good documentation

00:25:06 ◼   ► for SwiftUI, for instance?

00:25:07 ◼   ► I don't know, but right now they don't,

00:25:09 ◼   ► and they're asking us all to learn it.

00:25:11 ◼   ► And I don't know what they expect us to do exactly.

00:25:13 ◼   ► - So one way to highlight the problems

00:25:15 ◼   ► with this methodology is to look at something

00:25:17 ◼   ► like the kernel, where they have 28,000 symbols,

00:25:21 ◼   ► only 2,000 of which are documented,

00:25:23 ◼   ► but there's probably almost nothing in the kernel

00:25:25 ◼   ► that you're supposed to call directly.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Like Apple has been really tightening down

00:25:28 ◼   ► the public interface to the kernel.

00:25:30 ◼   ► Kernel extensions themselves are so incredibly locked down.

00:25:34 ◼   ► Now they're basically frowned upon, period,

00:25:37 ◼   ► and they have the whole userspace driver thing, right?

00:25:39 ◼   ► So it's always, you know, the kernel line on this graph

00:25:42 ◼   ► is always gonna be a tiny little dot.

00:25:43 ◼   ► There's actually a one with zero as well,

00:25:45 ◼   ► and I'm not sure about that one.

00:25:46 ◼   ► I owe USB hosts.

00:25:47 ◼   ► But anyway, this is all to say that, like,

00:25:50 ◼   ► third parties doing this is all well and good,

00:25:52 ◼   ► but one way Apple can address this problem,

00:25:56 ◼   ► start addressing this problem,

00:25:57 ◼   ► is by coming up with their own metrics,

00:25:59 ◼   ► because they know, in theory,

00:26:01 ◼   ► which APIs are supposed to be public and which aren't.

00:26:04 ◼   ► I mean, they certainly know, because I'm sure the tools

00:26:06 ◼   ► that they run against your app store submissions know,

00:26:07 ◼   ► because if you call a private one,

00:26:09 ◼   ► they're gonna reject your app, right?

00:26:10 ◼   ► So at the very least, they know, like,

00:26:12 ◼   ► okay, this kernel percentage is way off.

00:26:14 ◼   ► We, you know, it says 8%, but they don't realize

00:26:17 ◼   ► that almost all those symbols are private.

00:26:19 ◼   ► For all we know, the kernel has 100% documentation,

00:26:21 ◼   ► but Apple knows, right?

00:26:22 ◼   ► So they should put on every one of their frameworks

00:26:24 ◼   ► and every one of their pages a little bar like this.

00:26:26 ◼   ► It says what percent is documented,

00:26:28 ◼   ► because if they can see it internally

00:26:29 ◼   ► and they're willing to show it to the world,

00:26:31 ◼   ► that will hopefully motivate/shame them

00:26:34 ◼   ► into making those metrics go up, you know,

00:26:36 ◼   ► make it part of people's goals, put it on, you know,

00:26:38 ◼   ► however you need to motivate the organization,

00:26:41 ◼   ► but especially if you're willing to put a public face in it

00:26:43 ◼   ► so that every time someone goes to a particular library,

00:26:46 ◼   ► they see this library, this framework is X percent documented

00:26:49 ◼   ► like maybe with a date on it, the last time that, you know,

00:26:52 ◼   ► so you can historically see a graph of percentage,

00:26:55 ◼   ► and then you have actionable data from Apple itself

00:26:57 ◼   ► to say, hey, this library has been 42% documented

00:27:01 ◼   ► for the past five years, what the hell, right?

00:27:03 ◼   ► But we don't have any of that,

00:27:04 ◼   ► so all we've got is third-party websites like this,

00:27:07 ◼   ► which are a start, but really,

00:27:08 ◼   ► Apple should be doing this internally

00:27:10 ◼   ► and should be brave enough, courage,

00:27:12 ◼   ► to put this on their docs and show it to the outside world.

00:27:15 ◼   ► - Agreed, and real-time follow-up,

00:27:17 ◼   ► there is in the GitHub repo a brief about the methodology.

00:27:21 ◼   ► I'll read a portion of it.

00:27:22 ◼   ► This project uses a scraper to crawl

00:27:23 ◼   ► and download API symbol documentation

00:27:24 ◼   ► from Apple's official documentation website.

00:27:26 ◼   ► An API symbol is any page navigable from and within

00:27:30 ◼   ► developer.apple.com/documentation that has a declaration,

00:27:33 ◼   ► i.e. articles and sample code are not counted.

00:27:35 ◼   ► An API symbol is undocumented if an HTML element

00:27:38 ◼   ► matches a selector, no documentation,

00:27:40 ◼   ► the class, no documentation.

00:27:42 ◼   ► So that's the methodology.

00:27:43 ◼   ► It is clearly not flawless nor foolproof,

00:27:46 ◼   ► but as a reasonably consistent first step,

00:27:50 ◼   ► I don't think it's unreasonable.

00:27:52 ◼   ► - They can post their test coverage too on the pages.

00:27:54 ◼   ► That'd be scary.

00:27:54 ◼   ► - Oh, that would be amazing.

00:27:56 ◼   ► Well, that's the thing though.

00:27:57 ◼   ► I used to work at a government contractor

00:27:59 ◼   ► many, many moons ago, and we were using the Rational Suite,

00:28:03 ◼   ► which was awful in a million different ways,

00:28:07 ◼   ► but it made sense given the context.

00:28:08 ◼   ► And what that meant was I couldn't check in code

00:28:11 ◼   ► unless I specifically in the tools associated it

00:28:14 ◼   ► with a issue number or ticket or what have you

00:28:17 ◼   ► that that change was for.

00:28:19 ◼   ► And they could have,

00:28:21 ◼   ► although I don't recall this being the case,

00:28:22 ◼   ► they could have gone to the level of not allowing me

00:28:25 ◼   ► to check in code unless there's code coverage

00:28:28 ◼   ► on that new code.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And I could have not been able to check in code

00:28:32 ◼   ► if I didn't have documentation coverage

00:28:35 ◼   ► against that new code.

00:28:35 ◼   ► Like the big businesses where they take this stuff

00:28:39 ◼   ► this seriously, this is a solvable problem,

00:28:42 ◼   ► which is exactly what you two have been saying.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Like if Apple really did care about this,

00:28:45 ◼   ► this would get solved.

00:28:47 ◼   ► But the problem is whether or not the rank and file care,

00:28:50 ◼   ► I could not agree with you more, Marco,

00:28:51 ◼   ► someone somewhere does not care enough

00:28:53 ◼   ► to make this a priority.

00:28:54 ◼   ► And that's just one more reason why,

00:28:57 ◼   ► again, to quote you, Marco,

00:28:58 ◼   ► this season of being an Apple developer

00:28:59 ◼   ► has really just not been fun.

00:29:01 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:31:13 ◼   ► - It is October as we record it is the 21st of October

00:31:20 ◼   ► and we have yet to hear about the October event

00:31:21 ◼   ► that I guess isn't happening.

00:31:24 ◼   ► What's going on here?

00:31:25 ◼   ► - All the rumors say we're getting a 16 inch MacBook Pro

00:31:28 ◼   ► with a hardware escape key and scissor switch keyboard.

00:31:31 ◼   ► Any day now, yeah, I put this item in here

00:31:34 ◼   ► and there was a one word item but Casey exactly picked up

00:31:37 ◼   ► on what I was getting at.

00:31:38 ◼   ► The one word says just October.

00:31:40 ◼   ► It's the 21st.

00:31:41 ◼   ► This episode will come out on the 23rd or whatever.

00:31:44 ◼   ► I know Apple doesn't like to give a lot of notice

00:31:47 ◼   ► and they can have an event in early November

00:31:49 ◼   ► but I really do hope before the end of the year,

00:31:52 ◼   ► obviously A, they put it with the Mac Pro configurator

00:31:54 ◼   ► but B, 16 inch MacBook Pro with a new keyboard.

00:31:58 ◼   ► If you don't wanna have an event Apple

00:32:01 ◼   ► and you just wanna do a private press thing,

00:32:03 ◼   ► whatever, we just want the machine.

00:32:04 ◼   ► - I originally thought like weeks ago

00:32:06 ◼   ► when we were trying to predict this,

00:32:07 ◼   ► I thought well, you know, would they really introduce

00:32:09 ◼   ► like a brand new laptop without demoing it

00:32:12 ◼   ► like in a public way?

00:32:13 ◼   ► That leaked alleged image is in 10.15.1 beta, right?

00:32:19 ◼   ► Whatever it is.

00:32:21 ◼   ► It was all over the rumor sites a few years ago.

00:32:23 ◼   ► It's one of those like rendered icons

00:32:25 ◼   ► that like you see where the system has to show

00:32:29 ◼   ► an icon for a certain Apple device

00:32:31 ◼   ► and it has like these stock icon images

00:32:34 ◼   ► of every Apple device, every model and everything.

00:32:37 ◼   ► It shows in things like the about window

00:32:38 ◼   ► or in like connecting to network share, stuff like that.

00:32:41 ◼   ► There's this image resource that claims

00:32:45 ◼   ► to be the MacBook Pro 16 inch and by various conventions

00:32:48 ◼   ► and by looking at it next to the other one,

00:32:50 ◼   ► it does seem like that's very likely.

00:32:52 ◼   ► So it appears that we have Apple's official rendering

00:32:55 ◼   ► of this device from the front

00:32:57 ◼   ► and there was this helpful little animated GIF

00:33:02 ◼   ► on the MacRumors post in the comment section.

00:33:05 ◼   ► I'll put it in the show notes

00:33:06 ◼   ► by user Stanley.OK that shows you can very quickly

00:33:10 ◼   ► see them compared like the old 15 inch and the new 15 inch.

00:33:14 ◼   ► And you can tell that the 16 inch one

00:33:17 ◼   ► is clearly a bigger screen, smaller bezels

00:33:20 ◼   ► proportionally to the screen and you can tell

00:33:22 ◼   ► there's a very, very, very slight difference

00:33:25 ◼   ► on the keyboard at the top where it does appear

00:33:29 ◼   ► as though there is a hardware escape key

00:33:31 ◼   ► to the left of the touch bar

00:33:32 ◼   ► and a separated power button to the right of the touch bar.

00:33:35 ◼   ► But what's interesting is how little else appears different.

00:33:40 ◼   ► They appear to be very, very similar

00:33:44 ◼   ► and so I'm not sure Apple's really going to want

00:33:47 ◼   ► to very loudly announce this is a brand new laptop.

00:33:51 ◼   ► And there's all the complicated reasons

00:33:53 ◼   ► with the keyboard issues they've had,

00:33:55 ◼   ► they might actually try to downplay this a little bit.

00:33:57 ◼   ► They might actually just be like,

00:33:59 ◼   ► here's our new 16 inch MacBook Pro

00:34:02 ◼   ► and not much else about it might be changed

00:34:06 ◼   ► besides the screen proportion

00:34:08 ◼   ► and that it now has a scissor switch keyboard.

00:34:10 ◼   ► It wouldn't surprise me if it has like all the same ports.

00:34:14 ◼   ► It looks like from this image,

00:34:16 ◼   ► it looks like things like the trackpad area

00:34:19 ◼   ► which many people thought was too large

00:34:20 ◼   ► and it got in the way of your thumbs

00:34:22 ◼   ► and would cause accidental input.

00:34:24 ◼   ► That appears to be unchanged by this image.

00:34:26 ◼   ► The spacing between the keys which I've always said

00:34:31 ◼   ► because it got smaller on the butterfly keyboard generation,

00:34:34 ◼   ► it actually made it harder to feel where the key caps ended

00:34:37 ◼   ► and therefore I think that's part of what made me

00:34:40 ◼   ► less accurate of a typist on these new keyboards.

00:34:42 ◼   ► That appears to be unchanged as well.

00:34:45 ◼   ► The distance that the keys appear to be raised up

00:34:48 ◼   ► from the like bed they sit on

00:34:51 ◼   ► also appears unchanged in this image.

00:34:53 ◼   ► So granted this is not a super high resolution image

00:34:56 ◼   ► of the keyboard itself and it's also a marketing image

00:34:58 ◼   ► and everything so you know, it's sanitized

00:35:00 ◼   ► probably in certain ways but this doesn't look like

00:35:03 ◼   ► it's that different of a laptop from the 15 inch

00:35:06 ◼   ► that we've had for three years.

00:35:08 ◼   ► And so therefore I'm guessing that,

00:35:12 ◼   ► you know combine that with all the you know,

00:35:15 ◼   ► embarrassing and legally problematic keyboard problems

00:35:18 ◼   ► Apple has had, they might just downplay it.

00:35:21 ◼   ► They might just be like hey, here's the new update.

00:35:23 ◼   ► You know, have a few briefings here and there

00:35:26 ◼   ► and you know, do a big press release.

00:35:28 ◼   ► Some YouTubers have them do like some rendering tests

00:35:30 ◼   ► or whatever and that might be it.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Because you know, they might just want to like

00:35:35 ◼   ► get this out there and quietly start solving

00:35:38 ◼   ► the keyboard problem and if not much else has changed

00:35:42 ◼   ► there actually isn't that much more for them

00:35:44 ◼   ► to have an event about.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And we kept thinking you know, beyond the 16 inch

00:35:48 ◼   ► MacBook Pro, we've been trying to figure out for a while

00:35:51 ◼   ► in the rumor mill like okay well if they had an event

00:35:53 ◼   ► what else would be in the event?

00:35:55 ◼   ► Is it just this new laptop?

00:35:56 ◼   ► That seems like they wouldn't have a whole event

00:35:58 ◼   ► just for that especially if it's you know,

00:36:00 ◼   ► not a huge revision.

00:36:01 ◼   ► So okay, what else is there?

00:36:04 ◼   ► iPad Pros have been pretty definitively ruled out

00:36:06 ◼   ► by the rumor mill for like you know, not this fall.

00:36:09 ◼   ► Other laptops also ruled out probably not this fall.

00:36:13 ◼   ► So we're basically left with like the possible AirPods

00:36:17 ◼   ► with the squishy tips and the possible noise cancellation

00:36:19 ◼   ► that we talked about last week and the alleged like

00:36:23 ◼   ► tile tracker thing that uses the ultra wideband chip

00:36:26 ◼   ► and maybe a HomePod update.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Like it seems like there's not quite enough there.

00:36:32 ◼   ► And if you think back to this past spring, Apple in the span

00:36:36 ◼   ► of a week had I think four product releases all done

00:36:39 ◼   ► by press releases like one each day.

00:36:41 ◼   ► They had like the new iPad Mini and the newish iPad Air

00:36:46 ◼   ► at the time and then they had I believe that was when,

00:36:49 ◼   ► was that when new AirPods came out?

00:36:51 ◼   ► I forget when that, anyway.

00:36:52 ◼   ► So like this past spring they had like a few days in a row

00:36:55 ◼   ► where they had press releases for just a few product releases

00:36:57 ◼   ► and that was it.

00:36:58 ◼   ► They might just be doing the same thing this fall.

00:37:00 ◼   ► Like they might just have you know, press release for this.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Maybe a couple days or a week later they might have,

00:37:05 ◼   ► hey here's you know, AirPods with in-ear tips.

00:37:08 ◼   ► These might not be major event worthy things.

00:37:11 ◼   ► - You know like many of their icons they have in the OS,

00:37:15 ◼   ► I'm assuming these aren't actually photos

00:37:17 ◼   ► but are just renders.

00:37:18 ◼   ► And they're not even like, a lot of things

00:37:19 ◼   ► in Apple's websites are renders but the icons tend

00:37:22 ◼   ► to be renders that aren't even meant to be photo realistic.

00:37:25 ◼   ► They're a little bit iconic if that makes sense.

00:37:27 ◼   ► Like a little bit painterly.

00:37:29 ◼   ► So it wouldn't actually surprise me if like 3D models

00:37:32 ◼   ► they just copied and pasted the keyboard.

00:37:34 ◼   ► Like that's why they look the same height.

00:37:36 ◼   ► In other words I'm not willing to believe that the,

00:37:39 ◼   ► you know all the rumors say that these have more travel

00:37:42 ◼   ► distance but they don't stick up anymore because this

00:37:45 ◼   ► is a rendering and they wouldn't bother with that.

00:37:47 ◼   ► But they did apparently bother with separating.

00:37:48 ◼   ► - I would bet against that John.

00:37:50 ◼   ► I would bet, 'cause the reason why.

00:37:51 ◼   ► - I mean this, there was a rumor that they have more travel

00:37:53 ◼   ► than they have twice the travel of the previous ones.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Right, it was like one millimeter keyboard versus .5.

00:37:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, they call this one millimeter keyboard

00:38:01 ◼   ► and I think the butterfly has about .5 millimeters of travel

00:38:06 ◼   ► but, and this is allegedly a scissor mechanism

00:38:08 ◼   ► and everything, I was hoping for more,

00:38:11 ◼   ► it's hard to tell whether you have inverted T arrows or not.

00:38:14 ◼   ► You can't really tell from this.

00:38:15 ◼   ► - I don't think that's changed but like I think--

00:38:17 ◼   ► - Basically it looks like almost nothing else has changed.

00:38:19 ◼   ► And I think a lot of our perception of Apple is resting

00:38:24 ◼   ► on this laptop release.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Like they're gonna communicate a whole lot to us with this.

00:38:29 ◼   ► And what they might be communicating to us is we're gonna do

00:38:32 ◼   ► the least amount of change possible to alleviate the issue

00:38:36 ◼   ► that's hurting them, you know not us.

00:38:39 ◼   ► Like you know users have had lots of issues with this

00:38:43 ◼   ► generation of laptops.

00:38:44 ◼   ► Many people want a no touch bar option.

00:38:48 ◼   ► Many people are not happy with the track pad size.

00:38:50 ◼   ► Many people are not happy with the ports being so limited.

00:38:54 ◼   ► Many people aren't happy with losing the SD card.

00:38:56 ◼   ► Like there's so many things, so many things on this laptop

00:38:59 ◼   ► have really polarized and angered and lost people

00:39:03 ◼   ► or cost them a lot of money or made things worse for them.

00:39:06 ◼   ► And Apple so far to date has changed almost nothing

00:39:11 ◼   ► about them since their introduction in 2016.

00:39:14 ◼   ► Almost nothing has been changed.

00:39:16 ◼   ► Apple has seemed to be doing the bare minimum possible

00:39:20 ◼   ► for these last few years to just eke out a little bit more

00:39:24 ◼   ► out of this.

00:39:25 ◼   ► And like you know as a Mac person obviously like this has

00:39:27 ◼   ► bothered the crap out of me.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Everyone listening to this show knows that.

00:39:30 ◼   ► Like this has bothered the crap because this generation

00:39:33 ◼   ► of laptop has just felt punitive.

00:39:35 ◼   ► It has just felt like Apple hates us.

00:39:37 ◼   ► They hate Macs, they hate us, they hate these laptops

00:39:40 ◼   ► and they hate everything that we like about them.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Like that's how it has seemed to their customers.

00:39:45 ◼   ► And they have just done like little band-aid

00:39:47 ◼   ► after little band-aid after little band-aid

00:39:48 ◼   ► over and over again to like just get the least change

00:39:51 ◼   ► possible with this.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And you know and I said last year like when you compare

00:39:55 ◼   ► this to what's going on with the iPad line.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Like look at the iPad Pro.

00:39:59 ◼   ► The iPad Pro is fantastic.

00:40:01 ◼   ► Like every time they touch that it gets so much better.

00:40:05 ◼   ► And it seemed like they're just like showering iPad Pro

00:40:09 ◼   ► users with like awesome advances all the time.

00:40:11 ◼   ► You know it's like a gift.

00:40:14 ◼   ► Every year or every 18 months whatever it's like a gift.

00:40:16 ◼   ► Look how much better the iPad Pro is.

00:40:18 ◼   ► And on the Mac side it's like we hate you.

00:40:20 ◼   ► Stop using these.

00:40:22 ◼   ► Why we, that's how it feels.

00:40:24 ◼   ► Like to be a Mac laptop owner for the last four years.

00:40:28 ◼   ► That's how it feels.

00:40:29 ◼   ► It feels like they hate us honestly.

00:40:31 ◼   ► It feels like they don't like these machines.

00:40:33 ◼   ► They don't want to be using them.

00:40:34 ◼   ► They don't want us to be using them.

00:40:36 ◼   ► They hate everything good about them.

00:40:37 ◼   ► They hate that they're versatile computers.

00:40:39 ◼   ► Honestly it feels like they hate these machines right.

00:40:42 ◼   ► It matters so much what direction they've chosen to take

00:40:46 ◼   ► with the new 16 inch.

00:40:47 ◼   ► This is going to be the first totally new hardware design

00:40:50 ◼   ► since 2016.

00:40:52 ◼   ► What have they done?

00:40:53 ◼   ► Have they only changed the keyboard to a scissor mechanism?

00:40:58 ◼   ► Which will only fix a couple of issues with it.

00:41:02 ◼   ► Or have they taken a more holistic approach

00:41:05 ◼   ► to actually fixing a lot of the other problems

00:41:07 ◼   ► people have with it.

00:41:08 ◼   ► So is it only to fix the problem that was costing them

00:41:11 ◼   ► a lot of money and causing lawsuits?

00:41:13 ◼   ► Or are they actually making a product

00:41:16 ◼   ► that their customers are going to love?

00:41:17 ◼   ► That's the big question.

00:41:19 ◼   ► That's why so much is riding on this.

00:41:22 ◼   ► - I hope you feel better but I was just talking

00:41:24 ◼   ► about the keyboard.

00:41:25 ◼   ► You said that the keyboard, the keys didn't look like

00:41:27 ◼   ► they were any higher in the picture.

00:41:29 ◼   ► And I was saying it's just a render.

00:41:31 ◼   ► Even though the keys and the keyboard don't look like

00:41:33 ◼   ► they're any higher, there will be twice as much travel.

00:41:36 ◼   ► I agree with you on everything else though.

00:41:37 ◼   ► I totally believe that the trackpad's going to be

00:41:39 ◼   ► the same size.

00:41:40 ◼   ► The key layout's going to be the same thing

00:41:43 ◼   ► as it was before with a slave to symmetry

00:41:45 ◼   ► with annoying arrow keys.

00:41:46 ◼   ► I agree that all the ports are going to be the same.

00:41:49 ◼   ► That much, as I said I think several shows ago,

00:41:54 ◼   ► all I want is a new keyboard and one more port

00:41:56 ◼   ► and we're going to get one of those things.

00:41:58 ◼   ► It's going to be the keyboard.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Yeah, part of it also looking at these images

00:42:02 ◼   ► is kind of the design corner they've painted themselves into

00:42:05 ◼   ► in that aside from better key layout and more ports,

00:42:09 ◼   ► they have to make some different decisions about

00:42:11 ◼   ► just the overall design if they want to do anything else

00:42:15 ◼   ► interesting with these laptops.

00:42:17 ◼   ► Even something as simple as the long, long overdue

00:42:20 ◼   ► face ID on a Mac.

00:42:21 ◼   ► In theory, given the size of the bezels

00:42:25 ◼   ► and the rumored face ID hardware that's not going to

00:42:28 ◼   ► require a notch on the next iPhone,

00:42:30 ◼   ► they could sneak those into a laptop style form factor maybe

00:42:34 ◼   ► or maybe put them someplace else.

00:42:36 ◼   ► There are things you can do to innovate in laptop design

00:42:40 ◼   ► to incorporate more features than Apple has wanted to

00:42:42 ◼   ► and based on these drawings and based on what we all

00:42:45 ◼   ► expected, this is not that laptop.

00:42:47 ◼   ► It's almost like they took how many years?

00:42:49 ◼   ► Three, three years, three and a half years?

00:42:53 ◼   ► Took like three and a half years to apply a bandaid.

00:42:55 ◼   ► We don't want to call it that because there have been

00:42:57 ◼   ► so many bandaids between all the different revisions

00:43:00 ◼   ► to that keyboard but this looks a lot like

00:43:02 ◼   ► that previous keyboard.

00:43:05 ◼   ► Imagine if this laptop came out after the first

00:43:07 ◼   ► bad butterfly keyboard.

00:43:09 ◼   ► It would be like, well, they didn't have time to redesign

00:43:11 ◼   ► the whole laptop.

00:43:11 ◼   ► All they could do is replace the keyboard

00:43:13 ◼   ► and that required a bit of a redesign so here it is.

00:43:15 ◼   ► But instead, we got to wait three years

00:43:17 ◼   ► for what is essentially, we haven't changed our philosophy

00:43:20 ◼   ► of this product.

00:43:21 ◼   ► We haven't changed the product design.

00:43:22 ◼   ► We've just changed the component part.

00:43:24 ◼   ► So the screen is better and bigger, a little bit bigger

00:43:27 ◼   ► and the keyboard isn't crappy anymore.

00:43:29 ◼   ► But every other sort of design decision about this laptop

00:43:33 ◼   ► remains the same, at least as far as we can tell

00:43:35 ◼   ► in this picture.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Now, that said, as a laptop hater, I hate all laptops,

00:43:40 ◼   ► not just the Apple ones, one thing that you can do

00:43:44 ◼   ► in a laptop design, even if you don't sort of change

00:43:46 ◼   ► any of the things that we've discussed,

00:43:49 ◼   ► that can have a big effect on how people feel

00:43:51 ◼   ► about the laptop is all the stuff that's hidden

00:43:53 ◼   ► on the inside.

00:43:54 ◼   ► So in particular, cooling and packaging,

00:43:58 ◼   ► like if you can figure out how to sort of iMac Pro

00:44:01 ◼   ► this thing, like, oh, it's the same size and shape case

00:44:04 ◼   ► as it was before, but compare the sort of experience

00:44:08 ◼   ► of using a 5K iMac and the experience of using an iMac Pro.

00:44:11 ◼   ► Outside, they look the same except one is darker.

00:44:14 ◼   ► But you love the iMac Pro because it's quiet and it cools,

00:44:18 ◼   ► the parts and the parts inside are faster.

00:44:21 ◼   ► If you could do that with this one,

00:44:22 ◼   ► where externally it looks more or less the same,

00:44:24 ◼   ► it's also the flat laptop, they all kind of look the same,

00:44:27 ◼   ► the screen is bigger, but boy, this one never overheats

00:44:30 ◼   ► or this one doesn't throttle down under speed

00:44:32 ◼   ► or this one I never hear the fan spin up.

00:44:35 ◼   ► That is a significant sort of quality of life improvement,

00:44:39 ◼   ► even if you're gonna continue to be stingy with ports

00:44:41 ◼   ► and have a bad keyboard layout, yada, yada, yada.

00:44:44 ◼   ► Can't tell that from render.

00:44:46 ◼   ► And you know, it might just be wishful thinking

00:44:48 ◼   ► because there's a lot less room to work in a laptop

00:44:50 ◼   ► than otherwise, but I think the iMac Pro shows

00:44:53 ◼   ► that it is possible if we get lucky

00:44:57 ◼   ► and if Apple is inspired to take an existing form factor

00:45:00 ◼   ► and basically make a better computer inside

00:45:03 ◼   ► more or less the same design.

00:45:04 ◼   ► And this case actually is bigger.

00:45:06 ◼   ► Like if you hold the next video,

00:45:07 ◼   ► it's not just the screen that's bigger,

00:45:09 ◼   ► the actual thing that holds the battery and the CPU

00:45:12 ◼   ► and all that stuff also looks a little bit bigger,

00:45:15 ◼   ► so maybe there is more room to do cooling.

00:45:16 ◼   ► So if you want to get your hopes up,

00:45:19 ◼   ► don't get your hopes up about ports,

00:45:20 ◼   ► don't get your hopes up about key layout,

00:45:22 ◼   ► don't get your hopes up about face ID, that's for sure.

00:45:25 ◼   ► But maybe best case scenario,

00:45:27 ◼   ► you can get your hopes up about cooling and NVH,

00:45:30 ◼   ► as they say in the auto industry.

00:45:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:45:34 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:45:35 ◼   ► Something I've been thinking about a little bit lately

00:45:37 ◼   ► is what is Apple's kind of long-term plan

00:45:41 ◼   ► with their computers?

00:45:43 ◼   ► Because if you look at both the iMac line

00:45:45 ◼   ► and the MacBook Pro line, as you guys have mentioned,

00:45:49 ◼   ► they're all getting a bit long in the tooth design-wise.

00:45:51 ◼   ► And I can't decide if I think that's a problem or not.

00:45:57 ◼   ► Because I exchanged just a couple of tweets

00:45:59 ◼   ► with Steve Trout and Smith,

00:46:00 ◼   ► and he was saying in so many words,

00:46:03 ◼   ► and I'm probably painting it unfairly,

00:46:05 ◼   ► but what I heard him say, whether or not he actually said it,

00:46:08 ◼   ► was Apple's laptop line is boring

00:46:12 ◼   ► and they're not trying anymore.

00:46:14 ◼   ► And I can't decide if he's right

00:46:16 ◼   ► and they should be trying new and clever things,

00:46:18 ◼   ► or if it's that they have realized what they believe

00:46:23 ◼   ► to be the naked robotic core of computing

00:46:26 ◼   ► and they just don't feel like there's anything else to do.

00:46:29 ◼   ► If you look at a computer, it's generally speaking,

00:46:31 ◼   ► it's a mouse, a keyboard, and a screen.

00:46:33 ◼   ► And be that an iMac or be that a MacBook Pro,

00:46:36 ◼   ► they may have reached what is almost peak,

00:46:41 ◼   ► keyboard, monitor, and mouse.

00:46:43 ◼   ► And am I okay with that?

00:46:45 ◼   ► And so I wanted to go back and forth with Steve about it,

00:46:48 ◼   ► and I guess I could have privately,

00:46:50 ◼   ► but I didn't want all the drive-bys on Twitter.

00:46:53 ◼   ► But a lot of the stuff like the Surface line,

00:46:56 ◼   ► Steve had cited as something that's really exciting to him.

00:46:59 ◼   ► And I don't know, I just,

00:47:01 ◼   ► I don't find myself getting really excited

00:47:03 ◼   ► about new and different takes on keyboard, mouse, and monitor

00:47:08 ◼   ► and maybe I'm old, maybe I'm boring, maybe both,

00:47:12 ◼   ► but I don't think I necessarily want like a grand revamp

00:47:17 ◼   ► of a MacBook Pro or an iMac.

00:47:19 ◼   ► Like I'm okay with the design.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I'd like smaller bezels.

00:47:22 ◼   ► Yes, I'd like Face ID.

00:47:24 ◼   ► But I don't know, am I being crazy?

00:47:27 ◼   ► Is it silly to kind of be okay

00:47:29 ◼   ► with the general gist of what we've got?

00:47:32 ◼   ► - No, that's not crazy at all.

00:47:33 ◼   ► The reason why we are pretty much okay with our iMacs

00:47:37 ◼   ► looking the same for a pretty long time

00:47:39 ◼   ► is because it's fine.

00:47:40 ◼   ► They actually work really well this way.

00:47:43 ◼   ► And they don't look as modern and cool as they might

00:47:47 ◼   ► with things like smaller bezels, as you said.

00:47:49 ◼   ► But like it's not like a problem that's really a big deal

00:47:52 ◼   ► to us, like I look at an iMac every single day

00:47:56 ◼   ► and I notice the bezel almost never.

00:47:58 ◼   ► And I look at the big chin on the bottom almost never

00:48:04 ◼   ► because there's a giant bright glowing screen

00:48:06 ◼   ► in the middle that's taking all of my attention.

00:48:09 ◼   ► I don't need to look at the case of my iMac very often.

00:48:13 ◼   ► I don't see it, I don't handle it or touch it

00:48:16 ◼   ► or move it very often.

00:48:18 ◼   ► Although I move them more than most people do.

00:48:20 ◼   ► - That's a fact.

00:48:21 ◼   ► - But like you know, so it's not a thing

00:48:24 ◼   ► that's really a critical part of the experience

00:48:26 ◼   ► of owning this computer.

00:48:27 ◼   ► Like the way the iMac looks is fine.

00:48:30 ◼   ► It's totally ignorable and asking them to redesign the iMac

00:48:34 ◼   ► is kind of like asking them to redesign

00:48:36 ◼   ► like the power brick of a laptop.

00:48:38 ◼   ► It's like yeah, you know it's a thing,

00:48:39 ◼   ► it's a part of using it but like it's not a huge deal.

00:48:42 ◼   ► - Well I agree that it's in a good place

00:48:44 ◼   ► compared to laptops but the iMac,

00:48:47 ◼   ► not the case so much but the stand.

00:48:49 ◼   ► The stand is ripe for improvement

00:48:51 ◼   ► and Apple has been known to do some interesting innovations

00:48:55 ◼   ► in the stand area.

00:48:56 ◼   ► If it was height adjustable and could rotate,

00:48:59 ◼   ► that would be a better iMac.

00:49:01 ◼   ► And again, I'm not comparing it to laptops

00:49:03 ◼   ► which are in much worse place.

00:49:04 ◼   ► The iMac is fine and it's been fine for seven years

00:49:07 ◼   ► and I don't think it's desperately dying to be redesigned

00:49:09 ◼   ► but if you wanted to redesign it,

00:49:11 ◼   ► if you made it adjustable height,

00:49:13 ◼   ► adjustable angle and rotatable,

00:49:16 ◼   ► no one's gonna frown at that iMac.

00:49:17 ◼   ► That would be awesome.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Keep all the good things about it

00:49:19 ◼   ► and make the one part of it even better.

00:49:21 ◼   ► So there is definitely room for improvement on the iMac.

00:49:24 ◼   ► It's just that the current one,

00:49:26 ◼   ► especially the iMac Pro is really good.

00:49:28 ◼   ► So no one is dying for that change to happen

00:49:31 ◼   ► but I do think about it.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - That's true although the problem is now we do know

00:49:35 ◼   ► that if they did that, they would charge

00:49:36 ◼   ► an extra $1000 for it.

00:49:37 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:38 ◼   ► - They're gonna make it, don't make the iMac one

00:49:40 ◼   ► out of unobtainium or whatever the hell.

00:49:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:49:44 ◼   ► - No but like-- - XDR.

00:49:45 ◼   ► - So yeah, so like the iMac is obviously like,

00:49:49 ◼   ► you know, it's fine.

00:49:50 ◼   ► It's a design that doesn't get in the way.

00:49:53 ◼   ► Whereas like the laptops have so many problems.

00:49:57 ◼   ► There are so many shortcomings and incredibly polarizing

00:50:01 ◼   ► or unreliable things or limiting things.

00:50:05 ◼   ► That's why people who think that laptop innovation is over

00:50:10 ◼   ► aren't looking at it enough or aren't trying very hard

00:50:12 ◼   ► to think about like, you know, how could this be better

00:50:16 ◼   ► or how could this be brought forward?

00:50:18 ◼   ► Like there are so many ways that laptops can get better.

00:50:22 ◼   ► Look at what the entire rest of the industry is doing.

00:50:25 ◼   ► Apple doesn't make the best laptops anymore.

00:50:27 ◼   ► They simply don't.

00:50:28 ◼   ► If you look at the PC world, especially like what Microsoft

00:50:30 ◼   ► is doing, again, like we made fun of them a long time ago

00:50:33 ◼   ► when their like weird laptops and Surface things sucked

00:50:36 ◼   ► but they don't anymore.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Now they're pretty good and people like them a lot

00:50:38 ◼   ► and they sell a pretty good number of them now

00:50:40 ◼   ► and they are objectively good by many people's measures

00:50:44 ◼   ► and many people's experiences.

00:50:47 ◼   ► You know, I'm not saying that Apple needs to make

00:50:49 ◼   ► as many crazy bets as Microsoft does

00:50:51 ◼   ► but I would like them to try.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I would like them to not have stopped trying.

00:50:57 ◼   ► The impression I've gotten since the touch bar introduction

00:51:01 ◼   ► in 2016 is like that was their big try

00:51:04 ◼   ► and then they just stopped.

00:51:06 ◼   ► And that wasn't that big or that good of a try.

00:51:09 ◼   ► We haven't seen yet what this new thing is.

00:51:12 ◼   ► I sure hope John is right that this image

00:51:14 ◼   ► is not incredibly detailed or accurate

00:51:17 ◼   ► but I fear that it is.

00:51:19 ◼   ► I fear that this is literally all they have for us.

00:51:22 ◼   ► - I think it's accurate.

00:51:23 ◼   ► You just can't see the sides so you could continue

00:51:25 ◼   ► to fantasize that there's more ports there.

00:51:27 ◼   ► But proportion wise and everything else about it,

00:51:29 ◼   ► I think the trackpad will be the size they show.

00:51:31 ◼   ► I think the overall laptop will be the size

00:51:32 ◼   ► and I think the key layout will be the way they show it.

00:51:35 ◼   ► I just think there'll be twice as much travel

00:51:37 ◼   ► and there'll be scissors switches

00:51:38 ◼   ► and maybe the screen will be a little bit brighter.

00:51:40 ◼   ► I think what they need in the laptop line

00:51:42 ◼   ► is they need their Mac Pro moment.

00:51:44 ◼   ► They need to make one model of their laptops

00:51:46 ◼   ► that has more ports and is more versatile.

00:51:49 ◼   ► I don't know what the equivalent of the Mac Pro is

00:51:52 ◼   ► but the Mac Pro as compared to the iMac Pro,

00:51:55 ◼   ► first of all they're starting off with the iMac Pro

00:51:56 ◼   ► which is itself a great computer.

00:51:58 ◼   ► But the Mac Pro is like, how can I,

00:52:01 ◼   ► we talked about this so many times

00:52:03 ◼   ► before the computer came out,

00:52:05 ◼   ► what can we use to justify the Mac Pro

00:52:07 ◼   ► and the iMac Pro exists?

00:52:09 ◼   ► And they have plenty of answers.

00:52:10 ◼   ► There's ridiculous things the Mac Pro does

00:52:12 ◼   ► that the iMac can't even imagine,

00:52:14 ◼   ► in terms of expandability and yes also cost

00:52:17 ◼   ► and stuff like that.

00:52:17 ◼   ► There's no equivalent to that in the laptop line.

00:52:20 ◼   ► If they just innovated in that direction,

00:52:24 ◼   ► I feel like they could be their laptop halo car

00:52:26 ◼   ► where they could try a ridiculous expensive laptop

00:52:29 ◼   ► that is hugely versatile in the same way

00:52:31 ◼   ► that the Mac Pro is hugely versatile.

00:52:33 ◼   ► Hell, make it hugely expensive.

00:52:35 ◼   ► Probably can't literally make it huge

00:52:37 ◼   ► because that's not a good quality in a laptop

00:52:39 ◼   ► but you could make it a little bit bigger.

00:52:41 ◼   ► And experimenting with that very expensive,

00:52:43 ◼   ► very versatile, very powerful laptop,

00:52:46 ◼   ► again there are lots of examples of this in the PC world,

00:52:48 ◼   ► gaming laptops and other like,

00:52:50 ◼   ► laptops made for versatility and performance

00:52:52 ◼   ► that seem weird and obscene but I guarantee you

00:52:55 ◼   ► that if there's a market for the Mac Pro at all,

00:52:57 ◼   ► there's a market for a, let's call it a MacBook Pro.

00:53:01 ◼   ► Maybe they'll have to come up with a new name.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And by doing that, it would be an interesting test bed

00:53:06 ◼   ► to see like if they start driving people up market

00:53:08 ◼   ► and like no one buys the regular MacBook Pro,

00:53:11 ◼   ► they all buy the MacBook Pro XDR

00:53:13 ◼   ► or whatever the hell thing they call it,

00:53:16 ◼   ► it would show them, hey, maybe if we put an SD card slot

00:53:18 ◼   ► in our supposed MacBook Pro,

00:53:20 ◼   ► I don't know what the market is asking for.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Is it a key layout?

00:53:23 ◼   ► Is it ditching the touch bar for something else?

00:53:26 ◼   ► But it's clear that there's a lot of dissatisfaction

00:53:28 ◼   ► with the current sort of design trend

00:53:30 ◼   ► and all the way up and down the line,

00:53:32 ◼   ► even though one of them's called the MacBook Air

00:53:34 ◼   ► and they used to have a thing called the MacBook

00:53:36 ◼   ► and the MacBook Pros and like,

00:53:37 ◼   ► even though they have this differentiation in price

00:53:41 ◼   ► and in like the chips they use in them,

00:53:43 ◼   ► in general, the design makes very similar decisions,

00:53:46 ◼   ► you know, right down to my original complaint

00:53:48 ◼   ► when they went to loan them

00:53:50 ◼   ► is they use the same freaking keyboard

00:53:51 ◼   ► no matter how big the laptop is.

00:53:52 ◼   ► The same keyboard, the same key layout,

00:53:54 ◼   ► pretty much the same compliment of ports

00:53:56 ◼   ► who just decrease the number as the prices go down.

00:53:59 ◼   ► It's getting very samey

00:54:00 ◼   ► and there's not a lot of differentiation.

00:54:02 ◼   ► So if they had a Mac Pro moment and went and said,

00:54:05 ◼   ► "We've heard you, we're gonna make

00:54:07 ◼   ► "a versatile laptop for pros,"

00:54:09 ◼   ► I don't know how they would phrase this,

00:54:11 ◼   ► I think they could learn a lot from that.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Maybe they'd learned that we're wrong

00:54:14 ◼   ► and really nobody wants that laptop

00:54:16 ◼   ► except for people on Nerdy Tech Podcasts, fine,

00:54:19 ◼   ► but you know, I don't know,

00:54:22 ◼   ► maybe we're still living in a tech nerd bubble

00:54:24 ◼   ► but I don't hear lots of people who are super duper

00:54:26 ◼   ► in love with their MacBook Pros over the past few years.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this, actually I don't, hilarious idea.

00:54:33 ◼   ► So I realize this might be the last episode of this show

00:54:38 ◼   ► that gets recorded and released

00:54:40 ◼   ► before this new laptop is unveiled.

00:54:42 ◼   ► And I thought, when this happens to iPhones,

00:54:45 ◼   ► we usually have an exit interview.

00:54:47 ◼   ► - Oh God, no, please never.

00:54:49 ◼   ► - And I realized we don't need to do an exit interview

00:54:51 ◼   ► for this current generation of MacBook Pros.

00:54:53 ◼   ► The entire last three years of our show

00:54:55 ◼   ► have been the exit interview for these MacBook Pros.

00:54:58 ◼   ► - Exit interview slash funeral.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - Oh God, I hope, I hope this is it.

00:55:05 ◼   ► I hope this is the end of this horrible era.

00:55:07 ◼   ► You know, not to make a political analogy

00:55:10 ◼   ► but you kind of feel like,

00:55:11 ◼   ► boy I made a lot of mistakes over the last few years.

00:55:13 ◼   ► Let's hope the world is coming out of things.

00:55:15 ◼   ► And this is just part of that for me.

00:55:18 ◼   ► I just want to end this era

00:55:20 ◼   ► and be able to look back on it

00:55:21 ◼   ► and make jokes without them being so painful

00:55:23 ◼   ► because it's still our present day.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, and honestly, we said like,

00:55:26 ◼   ► oh, they're just fixing the thing that's painful to Apple.

00:55:28 ◼   ► Just fixing the keyboard is a lot.

00:55:30 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

00:55:31 ◼   ► - That is, that's gonna really, really help

00:55:34 ◼   ► in ways that it might make you feel better

00:55:36 ◼   ► about the fact that the ports haven't changed.

00:55:38 ◼   ► 'Cause you're like, well, the ports annoy me

00:55:41 ◼   ► but I've already got my dongles.

00:55:42 ◼   ► The screen is bigger and nicer.

00:55:44 ◼   ► And every time I type on a key, it makes the key,

00:55:46 ◼   ► it makes the character that it's supposed to make.

00:55:48 ◼   ► And that will go a long way

00:55:50 ◼   ► to making everybody a lot less better.

00:55:52 ◼   ► I say as someone who has just recently

00:55:54 ◼   ► tried to pull down a Bluetooth keyboard from the attic

00:55:57 ◼   ► because my space bar on my work laptop is going wonky

00:56:00 ◼   ► and I don't want to be without it

00:56:02 ◼   ► long enough to get it replaced.

00:56:03 ◼   ► So I am using a second keyboard on my MacBook Pro.

00:56:06 ◼   ► - You know, it's only a small percentage of customers, John.

00:56:08 ◼   ► - God, it's killing me.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Like, this--

00:56:09 ◼   ► - It's a small percentage, it's just everybody we know.

00:56:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:56:13 ◼   ► - I just feel like I can,

00:56:15 ◼   ► and now I know why people pry the keycaps off

00:56:17 ◼   ► because I so want to pry it.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Because you just feel it, you're like, there's a crumb.

00:56:20 ◼   ► I can feel it under my thumb.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Get out!

00:56:24 ◼   ► The key doesn't go down all the way.

00:56:25 ◼   ► And the worst part is, if I bang it,

00:56:28 ◼   ► every four bangs on the space bar with my thumb,

00:56:31 ◼   ► it'll make a space.

00:56:32 ◼   ► So it's just enough to make, like, you can't,

00:56:34 ◼   ► I can use it, I don't have to copy and paste the space.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Oh, it's the worst.

00:56:39 ◼   ► And then I took out my ancient Bluetooth Apple keyboard

00:56:42 ◼   ► with the, it takes the AA batteries.

00:56:45 ◼   ► And those keys have so much travel.

00:56:49 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:56:49 ◼   ► - It's like, I feel like I'm--

00:56:50 ◼   ► - It feels like a Model M by comparison.

00:56:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think they're supposed to,

00:56:54 ◼   ► basically I think they're the same key mechanisms

00:56:56 ◼   ► as the one that I'm using on my Mac Pro right now.

00:56:58 ◼   ► Like I have the Apple Extended.

00:56:59 ◼   ► I think they're the same key mechanisms,

00:57:01 ◼   ► but I guess the Bluetooth one isn't sort of like broken in

00:57:04 ◼   ► and it feels so much stiffer.

00:57:06 ◼   ► And it makes me realize, like Casey, I think,

00:57:09 ◼   ► I actually have come around to liking

00:57:12 ◼   ► the butterfly key mechanism, limited travel and all,

00:57:15 ◼   ► in the context of a laptop.

00:57:16 ◼   ► - I thought we were friends.

00:57:17 ◼   ► - Maybe not that extreme.

00:57:18 ◼   ► Like I could use a little bit more travel.

00:57:19 ◼   ► I still hate the key layout

00:57:21 ◼   ► and I still hate the reliability, right?

00:57:22 ◼   ► But I don't mind the lower travel clicky keys

00:57:26 ◼   ► in a laptop context.

00:57:28 ◼   ► I probably wouldn't want to use it on a desktop,

00:57:29 ◼   ► but I don't mind it.

00:57:30 ◼   ► So like I'm all primed to really like the key mechanism

00:57:35 ◼   ► in this new laptop, even as I continue

00:57:37 ◼   ► to dislike the key layout.

00:57:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, generally speaking,

00:57:41 ◼   ► I really do like my MacBook Adorable.

00:57:44 ◼   ► It annoys me from time to time.

00:57:46 ◼   ► There are a few simple ways it could be

00:57:49 ◼   ► an almost perfect computer.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I don't think I have nearly the hatred

00:57:53 ◼   ► that either of you do for the modern Apple laptops,

00:57:57 ◼   ► but I've never owned a Touch Bar laptop.

00:58:00 ◼   ► I've never had the occasion to.

00:58:01 ◼   ► I've never really used one

00:58:02 ◼   ► for more than a few minutes at a time.

00:58:04 ◼   ► And I haven't yet been really catastrophically burned

00:58:09 ◼   ► by the keyboard.

00:58:10 ◼   ► I've only been annoyed by it,

00:58:12 ◼   ► but I don't debate that--

00:58:14 ◼   ► - You've had failures all the time.

00:58:16 ◼   ► - But it's always fixed--

00:58:17 ◼   ► - Things are fixed by compressed air though.

00:58:18 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:58:19 ◼   ► I don't get access to his dad's air compressor

00:58:21 ◼   ► or something 'cause my little canned air

00:58:23 ◼   ► is not doing the job on this space bar.

00:58:24 ◼   ► And by the way, the MacBook Air, the one I actually own,

00:58:27 ◼   ► that one does two spaces.

00:58:29 ◼   ► For the longest time when I was like helping my kids

00:58:31 ◼   ► like proofread their little essays for school,

00:58:32 ◼   ► I'm like, why are you putting two spaces

00:58:33 ◼   ► in the middle of sentences?

00:58:34 ◼   ► They're like, the keyboard just does that.

00:58:36 ◼   ► I tried it and they're right.

00:58:38 ◼   ► They're right, the keyboard does just do that.

00:58:39 ◼   ► So I guess it's better than not being able to make a space.

00:58:41 ◼   ► But yeah, when they write all their papers up

00:58:43 ◼   ► in Google Docs on the quote unquote homework laptop,

00:58:47 ◼   ► sometimes they get double spaces between words

00:58:49 ◼   ► just because they hit the space bar once and two come out.

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01:00:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:00:02 ◼   ► - There's some new Google stuff, I guess.

01:00:06 ◼   ► Cool? - Great.

01:00:07 ◼   ► - Do I care?

01:00:08 ◼   ► - Do any of us use any of these products?

01:00:10 ◼   ► - So I thought there was,

01:00:11 ◼   ► I watch most of the Google thing as I usually do.

01:00:14 ◼   ► And I put a picture in our notes document here.

01:00:18 ◼   ► We'll link to the TechCrunch story this picture comes from.

01:00:20 ◼   ► It's a Google PR picture they gave out to everybody.

01:00:23 ◼   ► And it got me thinking, we've talked about Microsoft

01:00:26 ◼   ► and their various hardware products

01:00:28 ◼   ► in a couple of recent shows and here's Google.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Their announcement was like they have a new,

01:00:32 ◼   ► it's about their new phones.

01:00:33 ◼   ► They have a bunch of AirPod ripoff things.

01:00:36 ◼   ► They're little wireless earbuds that come in a little case.

01:00:40 ◼   ► They've got a bunch of HomePod looking things

01:00:43 ◼   ► or sort of fabric colored cylinders that are, you know,

01:00:46 ◼   ► augmenting their existing Google Home line.

01:00:48 ◼   ► They've combined their Wi-Fi routers

01:00:50 ◼   ► into the Google Home thing.

01:00:52 ◼   ► So the thing that you talk to is also your router,

01:00:54 ◼   ► which is a smart idea that Apple should have done

01:00:57 ◼   ► if they didn't get out of the Wi-Fi router business.

01:00:59 ◼   ► We talked about it a lot when we were discussing them

01:01:01 ◼   ► getting out of the business.

01:01:01 ◼   ► Like, hey, you want to have things in the house

01:01:04 ◼   ► to listen to you.

01:01:05 ◼   ► That's a great place to put your router.

01:01:07 ◼   ► And of course they have the Google Stadia controller,

01:01:10 ◼   ► you know, streaming gaming thing.

01:01:12 ◼   ► And they have this little product shop

01:01:13 ◼   ► that shows everything together.

01:01:15 ◼   ► And if you look at Amazon, Google, and Apple,

01:01:19 ◼   ► three big tech companies,

01:01:21 ◼   ► all of them can make a picture like this.

01:01:25 ◼   ► Pretty much.

01:01:27 ◼   ► I mean, Amazon doesn't have a laptop,

01:01:28 ◼   ► but they do have, still have those Fire tablets, right?

01:01:32 ◼   ► Do they still make those tablets?

01:01:32 ◼   ► I forget.

01:01:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, they cost like nothing.

01:01:34 ◼   ► They're like 30 bucks now.

01:01:36 ◼   ► - Anyway, and I guess Amazon did have the phone

01:01:39 ◼   ► but didn't have it, but like cylinders that you can talk to

01:01:42 ◼   ► and fun colors covered with fabric, wifi routers,

01:01:46 ◼   ► Amazon's got Eero now, right?

01:01:47 ◼   ► Earbuds, Amazon even has like a ring that you can talk to,

01:01:51 ◼   ► like a literal ring for your fingers.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Phone, tablets, gaming controller things,

01:01:57 ◼   ► TV connected boxes.

01:01:59 ◼   ► Like it seems like those, not that that's table stakes,

01:02:03 ◼   ► but like every large tech company,

01:02:05 ◼   ► there aren't many of them,

01:02:06 ◼   ► but the big three or four big temp companies

01:02:08 ◼   ► are all looking at what the other tech companies are doing

01:02:10 ◼   ► and like, we should make earbuds.

01:02:12 ◼   ► We should have a voice assistant.

01:02:13 ◼   ► We should have cylinders that are in your house.

01:02:15 ◼   ► We should have a home automation.

01:02:17 ◼   ► We should have a thing that plays music.

01:02:18 ◼   ► We should have a streaming service.

01:02:20 ◼   ► And then you have the competition,

01:02:22 ◼   ► similarity in services that they all make.

01:02:24 ◼   ► And in particular, this image from Google,

01:02:27 ◼   ► all of them seem to be taking the aesthetic from Apple,

01:02:30 ◼   ► which is not new.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Apple has sort of led in design.

01:02:33 ◼   ► Whatever Apple decides they're going to do,

01:02:35 ◼   ► you'll see lots of competitors copying,

01:02:38 ◼   ► which at many times like, well, what do you expect?

01:02:41 ◼   ► That's obviously the way things should be,

01:02:43 ◼   ► but it's only like that in hindsight.

01:02:45 ◼   ► It was not obvious that cell phones

01:02:47 ◼   ► should look like the iPhone until the iPhone came.

01:02:49 ◼   ► Cell phones looked nothing like the iPhone before.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Even complete screen iPhones,

01:02:52 ◼   ► like Nokia had like phones that were all screen.

01:02:55 ◼   ► They did not look and work like the iPhone,

01:02:57 ◼   ► but after the iPhone,

01:02:58 ◼   ► every freaking phone looks like an iPhone, right?

01:03:01 ◼   ► And down to the aesthetic.

01:03:02 ◼   ► Laptops being aluminum and glass

01:03:06 ◼   ► and sort of an unfinished aluminum appearance,

01:03:07 ◼   ► swept across the industry.

01:03:09 ◼   ► And now I'm not sure if Apple was in the lead here

01:03:11 ◼   ► or following, but there's a similar trend for cylinders.

01:03:14 ◼   ► Obviously Amazon being the leader in the having cylinders

01:03:17 ◼   ► that you talk to in your house,

01:03:18 ◼   ► but the design aesthetic of sort of rounded

01:03:20 ◼   ► marshmallow fabric covered things,

01:03:22 ◼   ► whoever did that first, that is now everywhere.

01:03:26 ◼   ► Amazon cylinders are fabric covered.

01:03:28 ◼   ► Google's are practically a little miniature

01:03:30 ◼   ► HomePod marshmallows.

01:03:32 ◼   ► And they have the Google Home Mini

01:03:33 ◼   ► because they want them to look nice.

01:03:35 ◼   ► They don't want them to look too techie,

01:03:36 ◼   ► but they also don't want them to look like furniture,

01:03:37 ◼   ► like they're not made of shag carpet.

01:03:40 ◼   ► There is a sameness, a similar,

01:03:42 ◼   ► and then the AirPods, a great example.

01:03:44 ◼   ► There were wireless earbuds before the AirPods

01:03:46 ◼   ► and there were gonna be wireless earbuds after them,

01:03:48 ◼   ► but there's no way you can look at this Google thing

01:03:50 ◼   ► and say, oh, that's their AirPod competitor.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Isn't it obvious that you'd have a little case

01:03:55 ◼   ► with the lid that popped?

01:03:55 ◼   ► No, that's not obvious.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Look at all the ones that came out before AirPods.

01:03:58 ◼   ► They didn't work or look like that.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Even if they had a little charging case,

01:04:01 ◼   ► it wasn't exactly like that.

01:04:03 ◼   ► But in a post AirPod world,

01:04:05 ◼   ► they all have to be exactly like that.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Now, I'm not saying all this to say,

01:04:09 ◼   ► oh, look, everyone copies Apple,

01:04:10 ◼   ► although, again, I feel like they do really set

01:04:12 ◼   ► the direction for the industry.

01:04:14 ◼   ► But what it made me think was these three other companies

01:04:18 ◼   ► that I'm talking about,

01:04:19 ◼   ► and by the way, I'm gonna give Microsoft a break here

01:04:20 ◼   ► because Microsoft actually has its own aesthetic.

01:04:23 ◼   ► I think it's not as nice an aesthetic,

01:04:26 ◼   ► but they have their own thing.

01:04:28 ◼   ► Their surface--

01:04:29 ◼   ► - I think it's like cubicle wall.

01:04:31 ◼   ► - I mean, there's a little bit of sameness.

01:04:34 ◼   ► Like if you look at Microsoft's keyboards,

01:04:36 ◼   ► that is inspired by Apple's keyboards very much,

01:04:39 ◼   ► but they do have their own sort of design aesthetic

01:04:41 ◼   ► for their big Surface Pro thing

01:04:43 ◼   ► and for their Surface things with the kickstands.

01:04:45 ◼   ► They have a little bit of their own thing.

01:04:47 ◼   ► They're influenced by the fashion

01:04:48 ◼   ► of the rest of the industry,

01:04:49 ◼   ► but they are the most innovative

01:04:51 ◼   ► and the most original, I feel like.

01:04:53 ◼   ► So they definitely deserve credit for that.

01:04:54 ◼   ► But here's where, you know,

01:04:58 ◼   ► the episode where we're bashing an Apple,

01:04:59 ◼   ► but it's like, this is not a thing to bash an Apple about,

01:05:01 ◼   ► but it's a thing that I think about.

01:05:03 ◼   ► All those other companies have some other big thing

01:05:08 ◼   ► that they do that they're known for.

01:05:10 ◼   ► Google is Google search.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Like when you say Google, people think of search.

01:05:16 ◼   ► It's a verb meaning to search.

01:05:19 ◼   ► Amazon is a store where you buy stuff online.

01:05:22 ◼   ► If you say Amazon or amazon.com,

01:05:24 ◼   ► you're like, oh, that's where I order stuff.

01:05:25 ◼   ► Physical goods come to my house.

01:05:28 ◼   ► Microsoft is Windows and Office.

01:05:30 ◼   ► If you say Microsoft, people think of the Microsoft PC,

01:05:32 ◼   ► Microsoft Windows, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Word.

01:05:36 ◼   ► That's what those companies were built around.

01:05:38 ◼   ► All of those companies can arrange a little hardware picture

01:05:42 ◼   ► of fabric covered marshmallows and AirPods

01:05:45 ◼   ► and all this other stuff like this,

01:05:47 ◼   ► but that's not their main business.

01:05:50 ◼   ► Google is a search company that also makes practically

01:05:53 ◼   ► everything that Apple makes.

01:05:55 ◼   ► Amazon is an online store that also makes practically

01:05:58 ◼   ► everything that Apple makes.

01:05:59 ◼   ► And Microsoft is this huge software behemoth

01:06:02 ◼   ► that also happens to make everything Apple makes.

01:06:05 ◼   ► Apple makes all this stuff and that's their one big thing.

01:06:10 ◼   ► They don't have a Google search.

01:06:12 ◼   ► They don't have an Amazon store.

01:06:13 ◼   ► They don't have a Microsoft.

01:06:15 ◼   ► They have the iPhone, the Mac, and to a lesser extent,

01:06:18 ◼   ► the HomePod, the Apple TV, the AirPods.

01:06:22 ◼   ► That is Apple's thing.

01:06:25 ◼   ► And in many ways, that's part of why the expectations

01:06:29 ◼   ► for all the stuff that Apple does are higher,

01:06:31 ◼   ► I mean, partially because we're big Apple fans

01:06:34 ◼   ► and we're in that ecosystem and that's the stuff we buy

01:06:36 ◼   ► and prefer because of their software and everything,

01:06:38 ◼   ► but also because if Apple doesn't do all that stuff better

01:06:43 ◼   ► than everyone else, that's the whole ballgame.

01:06:46 ◼   ► As much as they try to expand down to services

01:06:48 ◼   ► and Apple has a thing that you can pay for news

01:06:50 ◼   ► and they have a thing where you can pay for TV services

01:06:52 ◼   ► and they're trying to change that,

01:06:54 ◼   ► it's going to be very difficult for Apple ever

01:06:56 ◼   ► to not be the company that makes hardware,

01:06:59 ◼   ► software, synergize, gadgets, and is expected

01:07:03 ◼   ► to lead the industry in those things.

01:07:05 ◼   ► And for the most part, I feel like they do.

01:07:07 ◼   ► They made the iPhone first.

01:07:08 ◼   ► They made the AirPods.

01:07:10 ◼   ► They are the leaders in this realm,

01:07:14 ◼   ► which is why I think it's so important for Apple

01:07:16 ◼   ► to keep the pedal to the metal

01:07:19 ◼   ► when it comes to those innovations.

01:07:20 ◼   ► And yes, to be working on the next big thing,

01:07:22 ◼   ► whether it be AR or a car they're going to make

01:07:24 ◼   ► or whatever the hell it is,

01:07:25 ◼   ► because they don't have sort of their bread and butter

01:07:28 ◼   ► to fall back on.

01:07:29 ◼   ► Apple did get into Maps and they're doing an impressive job,

01:07:32 ◼   ► but there's like, Apple is not challenging Google

01:07:34 ◼   ► for search.

01:07:35 ◼   ► They're not challenging Amazon for retail stores.

01:07:37 ◼   ► And iWork is not challenging office and exchange

01:07:41 ◼   ► for that software world.

01:07:43 ◼   ► Arguably, they're kind of challenging Windows still

01:07:45 ◼   ► in the sort of desktop PC space,

01:07:47 ◼   ► but that space matters less and less.

01:07:49 ◼   ► So anyway, that's just what I was thinking about.

01:07:52 ◼   ► That, you know, when other companies have events like this,

01:07:55 ◼   ► it's almost like they're saying,

01:07:57 ◼   ► we are Google and also Apple,

01:07:59 ◼   ► we can do everything you can do.

01:08:01 ◼   ► Almost as good, sometimes better, sometimes worse.

01:08:03 ◼   ► But like, this isn't even our main business.

01:08:05 ◼   ► We're Google, man.

01:08:06 ◼   ► We're Amazon, we're Microsoft.

01:08:07 ◼   ► And also we do everything you do,

01:08:09 ◼   ► but backwards and in heels.

01:08:11 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:08:13 ◼   ► - What's Fred Astaire and who?

01:08:15 ◼   ► - Ginger Rogers. - Ginger Rogers, okay.

01:08:18 ◼   ► Everything you can do, I can do better.

01:08:20 ◼   ► I hear you.

01:08:20 ◼   ► I never thought of it that way, actually, Jon,

01:08:22 ◼   ► but you make an excellent point.

01:08:23 ◼   ► And I don't know.

01:08:26 ◼   ► - Any time that the three of us are negative about Apple,

01:08:30 ◼   ► we always get at least a handful of people

01:08:32 ◼   ► complaining about our complaining.

01:08:34 ◼   ► And I think sometimes that's fair.

01:08:35 ◼   ► Sometimes I think the three of us

01:08:36 ◼   ► can get wrapped around the axle about certain issues

01:08:39 ◼   ► at keyboards and it can be--

01:08:41 ◼   ► - They're not fixed yet.

01:08:42 ◼   ► Once they fix them, we'll stop complaining.

01:08:44 ◼   ► - Fair.

01:08:45 ◼   ► - The beatings will continue until keyboards improve.

01:08:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:08:49 ◼   ► - Yep, oh gosh.

01:08:51 ◼   ► But anyways, I don't know.

01:08:54 ◼   ► There's nothing so perfect that it cannot be complained about

01:08:56 ◼   ► and it's true.

01:08:58 ◼   ► And beyond that, I do think that all in all,

01:09:01 ◼   ► I am really pleased with the Apple stuff that's in my life.

01:09:08 ◼   ► There are things about the Apple stuff in my life

01:09:10 ◼   ► that really annoys me, especially when I consider

01:09:13 ◼   ► my work life rather than my personal life.

01:09:16 ◼   ► The lack of documentation is frustrating

01:09:18 ◼   ► to the point of being obnoxious.

01:09:21 ◼   ► The beta season was difficult.

01:09:24 ◼   ► If I was a developer for the Mac,

01:09:26 ◼   ► the Catalina release just dropping out of the blue

01:09:29 ◼   ► would be infuriating.

01:09:30 ◼   ► But especially now that I've taken the arguably

01:09:35 ◼   ► shouldn't be necessary nuclear step of having blown away

01:09:38 ◼   ► to my two computers and set them up from scratch,

01:09:43 ◼   ► I've actually been really pleased.

01:09:44 ◼   ► Like I used Sidecar for the first time

01:09:47 ◼   ► for an extended period of time last week

01:09:50 ◼   ► and it worked really, really well.

01:09:53 ◼   ► And Catalina on my MacBook, which granted,

01:09:55 ◼   ► I haven't been pushing that hard,

01:09:57 ◼   ► but Catalina has been fine for the most part.

01:10:00 ◼   ► There's things that annoy me.

01:10:01 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's been fine.

01:10:03 ◼   ► And my iMac, now that it seems to be working,

01:10:06 ◼   ► at least for the next 10 minutes,

01:10:08 ◼   ► it is reminding me how great a computer this is.

01:10:11 ◼   ► I mean, I cannot remember the last time I bought a computer.

01:10:14 ◼   ► And again, I bought this in January of 2016.

01:10:16 ◼   ► That is almost four years ago now.

01:10:19 ◼   ► And for any normal human whose name is not John Syracuse,

01:10:22 ◼   ► four years for a single computer is a long time,

01:10:25 ◼   ► especially for an all-in-one computer

01:10:27 ◼   ► where the only thing I can change is the RAM.

01:10:30 ◼   ► And this thing has been working really, really well.

01:10:33 ◼   ► It's had its bumps for sure,

01:10:34 ◼   ► but it's been working really, really well.

01:10:35 ◼   ► And I can't say that I really long for more speed.

01:10:40 ◼   ► I'm sure I would like more speed,

01:10:41 ◼   ► but I don't feel like I'm constrained by this iMac

01:10:45 ◼   ► that's nearly four years old.

01:10:47 ◼   ► And my iPad Pro, as much as iOS does annoy me

01:10:50 ◼   ► from time to time when I'm trying to use it

01:10:53 ◼   ► for quote-unquote real work,

01:10:55 ◼   ► by and large, this is a phenomenal computer.

01:10:58 ◼   ► And oh my goodness, I do not have enough good things to say

01:11:01 ◼   ► about my poor shadow, the Dye 11 Pro.

01:11:04 ◼   ► My iPhone is so phenomenally good.

01:11:06 ◼   ► And yes, the software does let it down,

01:11:08 ◼   ► especially lately, kind of often.

01:11:10 ◼   ► But by and large, the things that these devices

01:11:13 ◼   ► allow me to do, what was the phrase,

01:11:16 ◼   ► like bicycles for the mind or whatever?

01:11:18 ◼   ► The thing that these devices allow me to do

01:11:20 ◼   ► really is incredible.

01:11:21 ◼   ► And yes, the three of us, myself included,

01:11:24 ◼   ► can get a little wrapped around the axle

01:11:25 ◼   ► about things that upset us,

01:11:27 ◼   ► but it's because we love them so darn much.

01:11:30 ◼   ► And it's so frustrating to see what we perceive

01:11:33 ◼   ► to be fixable problems not fixed.

01:11:35 ◼   ► But it is worth remembering for all of us,

01:11:37 ◼   ► myself very much included,

01:11:39 ◼   ► how unbelievably cool and amazing these devices are.

01:11:42 ◼   ► And it's a miracle that any of them work

01:11:44 ◼   ► the way that they do, even half as well as they do.

01:11:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and as I pointed out,

01:11:49 ◼   ► I was emphasizing how important it is

01:11:51 ◼   ► for Apple to be the best.

01:11:52 ◼   ► But I started that whole segment off

01:11:53 ◼   ► by saying how everyone else does what Apple does,

01:11:57 ◼   ► down to the design details and the overall aesthetic.

01:12:00 ◼   ► Like, I feel like Apple is still leading

01:12:01 ◼   ► in many of these areas.

01:12:03 ◼   ► It's just that it occurred to me,

01:12:05 ◼   ► they have to lead in those areas,

01:12:06 ◼   ► 'cause that is their bread and butter.

01:12:08 ◼   ► If they're not the best at that,

01:12:10 ◼   ► then why do they even exist?

01:12:11 ◼   ► So I think they are the best at many of those things.

01:12:14 ◼   ► And some other company didn't come up with the Mac

01:12:18 ◼   ► and the iPhone and the iPad, right?

01:12:20 ◼   ► It was an iOS in general.

01:12:22 ◼   ► And Cocoa and Objective-C and all the stuff

01:12:24 ◼   ► that came from Next that is now attributed to Apple

01:12:26 ◼   ► and yada, yada, yada.

01:12:28 ◼   ► So it's like, they are leading those areas

01:12:31 ◼   ► in the same way that Microsoft may have Bing,

01:12:33 ◼   ► but Google is Google, you know what I mean?

01:12:36 ◼   ► It's just that it's so much more important for them.

01:12:39 ◼   ► And again, coming up with a hard discussion

01:12:40 ◼   ► about the laptops, as they may think laptops are de-emphasized

01:12:45 ◼   ► and not as important in the larger scheme of things,

01:12:48 ◼   ► but it's one of the things that they're known for.

01:12:51 ◼   ► It's part of their equivalent of Google search

01:12:53 ◼   ► or Amazon store.

01:12:54 ◼   ► They need to execute well.

01:12:55 ◼   ► I feel like they've realized that in the desktop Mac space

01:12:59 ◼   ► and have sort of regrouped there

01:13:00 ◼   ► and are coming out with computers that are better

01:13:03 ◼   ► than the ones that are before.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And as Marco pointed out,

01:13:05 ◼   ► they're doing really well in the iPad space.

01:13:08 ◼   ► And as I think we all talked about in the show,

01:13:11 ◼   ► every year the iPhones are really good.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Like they're really good iPhones, right?

01:13:15 ◼   ► It's just those darn laptops,

01:13:16 ◼   ► which are a small part of their business,

01:13:18 ◼   ► but it's a part of their business that we all use

01:13:20 ◼   ► and so we complain about it a lot.

01:13:22 ◼   ► - It's funny, like when you brought up this topic

01:13:24 ◼   ► about how all these tech giants basically all kind of

01:13:27 ◼   ► do everything now, or at least all the same,

01:13:30 ◼   ► they all kind of do the same things.

01:13:32 ◼   ► I actually didn't think of any Apple complaints

01:13:34 ◼   ► for this one moment.

01:13:35 ◼   ► Instead, like this has been kind of a thing

01:13:38 ◼   ► I've been meaning to talk about for a while of like,

01:13:41 ◼   ► yeah, it seems like Google and Amazon and Microsoft

01:13:44 ◼   ► and Apple and occasionally Facebook

01:13:47 ◼   ► are all doing a lot of the same things.

01:13:50 ◼   ► But I see that not necessarily as like a,

01:13:54 ◼   ► hey, Apple should be better.

01:13:55 ◼   ► I see it as a tremendous waste of collective industry effort

01:14:00 ◼   ► and resources and talent.

01:14:02 ◼   ► - It's called competition, Marco.

01:14:04 ◼   ► You want to designate a winner?

01:14:06 ◼   ► - What it is, I think is like,

01:14:09 ◼   ► it seems like in the last, I don't know,

01:14:11 ◼   ► five to 10 years maybe,

01:14:14 ◼   ► I don't know if this is maybe like a new thing

01:14:17 ◼   ► or if I just didn't see it before

01:14:19 ◼   ► or if the names were different before,

01:14:21 ◼   ► but like it seems like every tech company

01:14:24 ◼   ► has to have everything now.

01:14:26 ◼   ► They all have to have a complete ecosystem.

01:14:28 ◼   ► And part of it, I guess, is like the threat

01:14:31 ◼   ► that like if they don't do their own complete ecosystem,

01:14:33 ◼   ► then dominant player X is gonna be able to lock them out

01:14:38 ◼   ► of the market or something.

01:14:39 ◼   ► And I get that. - So you get Google Maps

01:14:41 ◼   ► and Apple Maps, like yeah,

01:14:43 ◼   ► 'cause if you don't have your own thing,

01:14:45 ◼   ► then you are at the mercy of the company

01:14:47 ◼   ► that does do that thing.

01:14:48 ◼   ► - Right, and see also the entire reason Android exists.

01:14:51 ◼   ► Like it's literally 'cause like Google didn't want

01:14:54 ◼   ► their services locked out of a world that had Apple

01:14:58 ◼   ► and at the time theoretically Microsoft

01:15:00 ◼   ► controlling all of mobile, right?

01:15:02 ◼   ► And like, or Blackberry, whatever, you know.

01:15:04 ◼   ► So like it seems like the tech companies now

01:15:07 ◼   ► all have to have everything

01:15:08 ◼   ► because everything is so damn locked down and proprietary

01:15:13 ◼   ► and everything is a locked down ecosystem.

01:15:18 ◼   ► From the voice assistants to the platforms

01:15:21 ◼   ► to the services behind them all,

01:15:23 ◼   ► you know, all these things,

01:15:24 ◼   ► everything is so proprietary and locked down.

01:15:27 ◼   ► And so it does create this need and this incentive

01:15:31 ◼   ► for like every tech giant to almost defensively

01:15:35 ◼   ► create their own versions of everything, right?

01:15:38 ◼   ► And I feel like it's so much of a mediocre waste of,

01:15:43 ◼   ► so much of tech's immense resources and the talents

01:15:52 ◼   ► and the engineering time and the design time

01:15:54 ◼   ► of all these big companies.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Like we're all just churning and we're all just like,

01:15:59 ◼   ► you know, grinding our gears against these wasteful efforts

01:16:03 ◼   ► to fight one walled garden against another

01:16:06 ◼   ► in massive ways with massive resources behind it.

01:16:09 ◼   ► What if we were solving better problems?

01:16:13 ◼   ► Like what if we weren't all trying to make

01:16:16 ◼   ► the same three product categories or whatever?

01:16:21 ◼   ► - It's more than three.

01:16:22 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're right I guess.

01:16:23 ◼   ► But like I don't know, part of this just feels

01:16:25 ◼   ► incredibly wasteful and just of like

01:16:29 ◼   ► the world's resources in a way, you know?

01:16:32 ◼   ► - Well it was worse back when it was just one company.

01:16:36 ◼   ► When Microsoft was dominant to the degree

01:16:38 ◼   ► that like younger people probably don't have a visceral sense

01:16:43 ◼   ► of exactly how dominant Microsoft was in the day.

01:16:45 ◼   ► Imagine if everything you said was true

01:16:47 ◼   ► but there was literally only one company.

01:16:49 ◼   ► There was like one company and then like a tiny little NAT

01:16:53 ◼   ► that some weird nerds liked.

01:16:55 ◼   ► And even smaller NAT on that NAT.

01:16:57 ◼   ► That was like the Mac and like Amiga or whatever they were.

01:17:00 ◼   ► And Linux, like just Microsoft was so dominant.

01:17:03 ◼   ► Now today we have, I named three companies,

01:17:05 ◼   ► like we have these big tech companies

01:17:06 ◼   ► and yeah they are all doing the same things

01:17:08 ◼   ► and are all sort of competing with each other

01:17:10 ◼   ► but I often think, you know, thank God for Google.

01:17:14 ◼   ► 'Cause if it was just Apple or just Microsoft

01:17:16 ◼   ► or just Google, they would still all be doing

01:17:19 ◼   ► the same things 'cause they're sort of financial synergies

01:17:21 ◼   ► to make that happen.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Like they would find their way to all the same stuff.

01:17:24 ◼   ► They'd all be selling media, they'd all have services,

01:17:26 ◼   ► they'd all have search and maps and assistants

01:17:29 ◼   ► and phones and laptops, right?

01:17:31 ◼   ► But if it was just one company,

01:17:32 ◼   ► that's what it felt like in the Microsoft time

01:17:33 ◼   ► that you had like no choice.

01:17:35 ◼   ► Like you could use the Mac which was weird

01:17:36 ◼   ► and you weren't allowed to use at work

01:17:38 ◼   ► and didn't have any software.

01:17:40 ◼   ► Or you could join the real world and use Microsoft

01:17:42 ◼   ► which is what everybody used.

01:17:43 ◼   ► And like in most sort of sci-fi dystopias

01:17:47 ◼   ► or like bad Black Mirror episodes or whatever,

01:17:49 ◼   ► that's always the way it is.

01:17:50 ◼   ► There's always like one company,

01:17:51 ◼   ► whether it's like MomCo or whatever from Futurama

01:17:54 ◼   ► or just like the big company that controls everything.

01:17:56 ◼   ► And there's just one of them.