ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► Do you want to do a Q&A episode for Friday?

00:00:03 ◼   ► Do we have enough AskATPs?

00:00:05 ◼   ► Do we just expand on some of those?

00:00:06 ◼   ► We have a million.

00:00:07 ◼   ► Well, we have a billion of them.

00:00:09 ◼   ► With respect, not all of them are very good.

00:00:12 ◼   ► We're going to take real-time questions from the chat room.

00:00:14 ◼   ► And just the entire show will be like, no, no, that's

00:00:17 ◼   ► not good a question.

00:00:18 ◼   ► No.

00:00:18 ◼   ► No, I don't like that one.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Anyone like that one?

00:00:20 ◼   ► It would be the worst live show ever.

00:00:22 ◼   ► So he's yelling at the chat room.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Ask good questions.

00:00:25 ◼   ► [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:00:27 ◼   ► Let's start with-- I wanted to call attention

00:00:29 ◼   ► to something that is near and dear to our hearts.

00:00:33 ◼   ► This show, all three of us are also hosts on Relay FM.

00:00:38 ◼   ► And Relay is doing a fifth anniversary extravaganza live

00:00:43 ◼   ► show--

00:00:44 ◼   ► I don't know, just event in San Francisco in August.

00:00:49 ◼   ► So coming up, I believe it's Thursday, August 22,

00:00:52 ◼   ► so in a few weeks now.

00:00:54 ◼   ► But tickets have been on sale for a while.

00:00:56 ◼   ► I don't think there's too many left.

00:00:58 ◼   ► So if you wanted to see some of your ATP co-hosts next month,

00:01:05 ◼   ► then you can certainly feel free to grab a ticket to the Relay

00:01:09 ◼   ► Live event.

00:01:10 ◼   ► I think they're $30.

00:01:12 ◼   ► I'm going to stall for time and confirm that, yes, they are $29.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And so if you would like to check that out,

00:01:17 ◼   ► if you happen to be in the San Francisco area

00:01:18 ◼   ► or fancy a pilgrimage to the San Francisco area, like I said,

00:01:21 ◼   ► 2/3 of your hosts will be there.

00:01:23 ◼   ► Probably your favorite 2/3.

00:01:25 ◼   ► Am I right?

00:01:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm totally right.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Probably not.

00:01:27 ◼   ► Everyone loves John.

00:01:30 ◼   ► All right, moving on.

00:01:31 ◼   ► Somebody tell me about iOS 13 charging optimization.

00:01:34 ◼   ► This is a tidbit that people keep sending us.

00:01:37 ◼   ► And I, at least, have known about it since WWDC,

00:01:40 ◼   ► but we never had occasion to mention it.

00:01:42 ◼   ► And I think it's worth mentioning,

00:01:43 ◼   ► because this is an eternal topic on our show.

00:01:45 ◼   ► We've done, I think, multiple Ask ATP questions

00:01:47 ◼   ► about this thing, which is, am I doing damage to my phone's

00:01:51 ◼   ► battery by plugging it in when I go to sleep

00:01:54 ◼   ► and leaving it charged 100% all night long?

00:01:57 ◼   ► Is it better if I just charge it up at the last minute

00:02:01 ◼   ► before I wake up?

00:02:02 ◼   ► Should I be letting it sit around the 100% charge?

00:02:05 ◼   ► All sorts of things like, am I doing bad things to my battery?

00:02:08 ◼   ► And what we've said in the past is, yeah, it's not great,

00:02:12 ◼   ► but the alternatives are all worse.

00:02:15 ◼   ► You should just use your phone in the natural, reasonable way

00:02:18 ◼   ► that Apple expects you to use it and just deal with the fact

00:02:20 ◼   ► that you're not babying your battery every second of the day,

00:02:23 ◼   ► because the phone exists to serve you,

00:02:24 ◼   ► you don't exist to serve the phone.

00:02:26 ◼   ► So in iOS 13, Apple has added some features that will

00:02:29 ◼   ► help you follow that advice of just use the phone like Apple

00:02:34 ◼   ► expects you to use.

00:02:35 ◼   ► And in iOS 13, assuming all goes well,

00:02:39 ◼   ► it'll actually work better.

00:02:40 ◼   ► And the way they do it is the phone

00:02:42 ◼   ► tries to figure out, based on your schedule,

00:02:47 ◼   ► more or less when you wake up, when your day begins.

00:02:50 ◼   ► And so when you plug it in before you go to bed at night,

00:02:52 ◼   ► it doesn't immediately start charging it to 100%.

00:02:55 ◼   ► It sits there and it doesn't pull in any charge

00:02:59 ◼   ► until it calculates it's going to take me 20 minutes to charge.

00:03:03 ◼   ► It waits until, let's say, 30 or 40 minutes before you wake up.

00:03:07 ◼   ► Then it charges to 100%.

00:03:08 ◼   ► So ideally, when you wake up at your normal wake up time,

00:03:12 ◼   ► the phone has just charged to 100%.

00:03:14 ◼   ► So it's not spending all night every night plugged in at 100%.

00:03:19 ◼   ► Now, the downside of that is if it miscalculates

00:03:21 ◼   ► or you have to wake up early or whatever,

00:03:23 ◼   ► you could wake up to a phone that's not fully charged

00:03:24 ◼   ► or hasn't even started charging in the worst case scenario.

00:03:27 ◼   ► So I think this is an optional feature.

00:03:29 ◼   ► But most of us who have boring lives on regular schedules,

00:03:33 ◼   ► it sounds like a great way to transparently extend

00:03:36 ◼   ► people's battery lives.

00:03:37 ◼   ► And if you don't want it, again, you can just turn it off,

00:03:40 ◼   ► I think, and just let it charge the old fashioned way.

00:03:42 ◼   ► But I think it's a reasonable thing to default to on,

00:03:45 ◼   ► especially if they're very conservative and they say,

00:03:47 ◼   ► we'll try to be at 100% charge two hours before you wake up

00:03:50 ◼   ► or one hour before you wake up.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Chances are good that'll be fine.

00:03:54 ◼   ► It would be great if there was something when you plugged it

00:03:57 ◼   ► in that threw something up in your face and said,

00:03:59 ◼   ► just so you know, I know you just plugged me in,

00:04:01 ◼   ► but I'm not actually going to charge because I think you're

00:04:03 ◼   ► about to go to sleep and I'm going to start charging right

00:04:07 ◼   ► before you wake up.

00:04:07 ◼   ► If that's not what you want me to do, hit this button,

00:04:10 ◼   ► I'll start charging now.

00:04:11 ◼   ► But that's a hell of a dialog box

00:04:12 ◼   ► that no one's ever going to read.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So I'm not sure how they would pull that off.

00:04:15 ◼   ► But I thought this is a very clever feature

00:04:17 ◼   ► to help people get more life out of their batteries.

00:04:20 ◼   ► All righty.

00:04:21 ◼   ► We had a discussion last episode that Marco

00:04:24 ◼   ► had brought up about using sparse disk images to enforce

00:04:28 ◼   ► a quota for iPhoto.

00:04:30 ◼   ► And a friend of the show, Dave Nanian,

00:04:32 ◼   ► had some tips about maybe a different or better approach

00:04:35 ◼   ► for that.

00:04:36 ◼   ► Marco, do you want to take us through this?

00:04:37 ◼   ► Or perhaps John, since this is file system related?

00:04:39 ◼   ► I can't possibly let you get away with iPhoto there.

00:04:41 ◼   ► It's a Photos app with iCloud.

00:04:43 ◼   ► Oh, god, sorry.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Yes, thank you.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And yeah, and so I had recommended--

00:04:47 ◼   ► my trick was when you're not doing keep all photos in all

00:04:52 ◼   ► their original mode, like when you're doing the optimize

00:04:54 ◼   ► my space mode, like you might do on a secondary computer,

00:04:57 ◼   ► like a laptop.

00:04:59 ◼   ► My trick for that is to put the Photos library

00:05:03 ◼   ► in a sparse bundle disk image that you create with Disk

00:05:06 ◼   ► Utility with a maximum size quota.

00:05:09 ◼   ► And I said mine was like 30 gigs or 50 gigs, something like that.

00:05:11 ◼   ► And so it's a great way to make Photos app respect

00:05:15 ◼   ► a certain disk size maximum.

00:05:17 ◼   ► Dave Nanian, who is of super duper fame,

00:05:20 ◼   ► knows quite a bit about storage and file systems

00:05:23 ◼   ► and things like that.

00:05:24 ◼   ► And he suggested basically for safety and durability reasons

00:05:29 ◼   ► that a sparse bundle disk image is not as reliable and safe

00:05:33 ◼   ► and everything as just using a second APFS space sharing

00:05:38 ◼   ► volume, which is the same trick I used to install Catalina

00:05:42 ◼   ► next to Mojave and have dual boot here.

00:05:45 ◼   ► So I literally just told everyone about that a few weeks ago.

00:05:48 ◼   ► And here we are.

00:05:49 ◼   ► I didn't even think about it for this use.

00:05:51 ◼   ► But if you do the APFS space sharing volume,

00:05:54 ◼   ► it gives you all the protections and integrity and everything

00:05:58 ◼   ► of the native APFS file system running directly itself,

00:06:02 ◼   ► not in a simulated container.

00:06:04 ◼   ► And so it's just safer and it's more flexible.

00:06:06 ◼   ► And you don't have to auto-mount it

00:06:09 ◼   ► using login items and everything.

00:06:11 ◼   ► So that's actually a way better way to do it.

00:06:12 ◼   ► So thanks, Dave Nanian, and check out super duper.

00:06:15 ◼   ► And I'm assuming the reason Marco hasn't done it that way

00:06:17 ◼   ► is he came up with this scheme before APFS has existed

00:06:21 ◼   ► and has just continued to use it.

00:06:23 ◼   ► That is correct.

00:06:24 ◼   ► So anyway, yeah, that's a good idea to convert that.

00:06:26 ◼   ► And to get into a little bit of technical detail

00:06:28 ◼   ► of why using a sparse bundle disk image is not a great idea.

00:06:33 ◼   ► So when you're doing that, a sparse bundle

00:06:36 ◼   ► is this directory full of a bunch of little files.

00:06:38 ◼   ► And it's this driver in front of it

00:06:40 ◼   ► that makes it look like a disk to the operating system.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And so when Photos is running, Photos

00:06:46 ◼   ► thinks it's running to a disk.

00:06:48 ◼   ► And it says, I'm going to write out this JPEG or whatever.

00:06:51 ◼   ► And it says, write this JPEG to disk.

00:06:53 ◼   ► And the driver that sits in front of the disk image

00:06:55 ◼   ► says, yep, sure, totally, I wrote that JPEG to disk.

00:06:58 ◼   ► But that driver has its own set of caches

00:07:01 ◼   ► and other coalescing I/O mechanisms and everything.

00:07:06 ◼   ► And it hasn't actually written a disk.

00:07:07 ◼   ► It was waiting to bundle it up with another big write

00:07:10 ◼   ► because it's going to write out one of those stripe files

00:07:11 ◼   ► somewhere or whatever.

00:07:12 ◼   ► So at that point, Photos thinks everything is safe.

00:07:15 ◼   ► But it's not safe because the bits haven't actually

00:07:17 ◼   ► hit your disk yet.

00:07:18 ◼   ► There's like a second layer of buffering there.

00:07:20 ◼   ► So it's a situation where the application

00:07:22 ◼   ► can think it's doing the right thing to always make sure

00:07:25 ◼   ► that everything on disk is always either a complete image

00:07:27 ◼   ► or a nonexistent image, when in reality, it

00:07:30 ◼   ► could be a partial image written to one

00:07:32 ◼   ► of the stripes in the disk bundle because of that driver.

00:07:34 ◼   ► So that's why APFS is safer because that really

00:07:37 ◼   ► is just the same old volume as your boot volume

00:07:39 ◼   ► or any other volume.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And when Photos says, please write this JPEG to disk,

00:07:44 ◼   ► and APFS says it's done so, it has all the guarantees of APFS

00:07:46 ◼   ► with no extra secondary layer underneath it.

00:07:49 ◼   ► So yeah, the wonders of APFS.

00:07:53 ◼   ► We all need to get used to the fact

00:07:54 ◼   ► that it's really easy and cheap to make volumes.

00:07:57 ◼   ► And in case it wasn't clear from Marco's earlier discussions,

00:08:00 ◼   ► when you make a new APS volume, you

00:08:02 ◼   ► can choose to limit it, as they call it, like a quota

00:08:05 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Like you don't pick the size of your volume

00:08:08 ◼   ► because you're not carving up your disk space.

00:08:10 ◼   ► They're all sharing the same space in the container.

00:08:12 ◼   ► And if you don't say anything, it'll just share all the space.

00:08:15 ◼   ► But you can limit it.

00:08:16 ◼   ► So when you create the APFS volume,

00:08:17 ◼   ► just limit it to 30 gigs or whatever you want.

00:08:20 ◼   ► And you have an extremely native,

00:08:23 ◼   ► as native as your boot disk, way to manage your photo storage.

00:08:26 ◼   ► So Friends of the Show, Fun Fact,

00:08:29 ◼   ► which is a show with Eric Devens and Alan Pike,

00:08:33 ◼   ► they have covered, to the best of their ability,

00:08:35 ◼   ► the genesis of Wheel, which is the-- was it a group?

00:08:39 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:08:40 ◼   ► That appears on the Mac, that has some special meaning.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And they did a whole segment on that this past week.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And so we will link that episode in the show notes

00:08:49 ◼   ► if you'd like to hear the results of our extreme digging

00:08:53 ◼   ► trying to figure out what the genesis of this was.

00:08:56 ◼   ► It was pretty awesome.

00:08:57 ◼   ► It was quite funny, as that show tends to be.

00:09:00 ◼   ► So if you haven't checked it out, it is very good.

00:09:02 ◼   ► And I quite enjoy it.

00:09:03 ◼   ► Now, granted, I quite like both of the people who host it.

00:09:06 ◼   ► So I'm predisposed to enjoy it.

00:09:08 ◼   ► But nevertheless, it is quite good.

00:09:10 ◼   ► And then BJ Roland writes us, with regard

00:09:13 ◼   ► to the engineering standards-- that was the pre-show

00:09:15 ◼   ► of the last episode with shall versus must

00:09:19 ◼   ► and things of that nature.

00:09:20 ◼   ► BJ writes, engineering standards,

00:09:22 ◼   ► like civil, mechanical, electrical, et cetera, never

00:09:24 ◼   ► use the word must so as to avoid confusion

00:09:27 ◼   ► between legal obligations and requirements for compliance

00:09:29 ◼   ► with the standard.

00:09:31 ◼   ► The word must implies a legal obligation,

00:09:33 ◼   ► whereas shall is a requirement to comply with the standard.

00:09:35 ◼   ► And then BJ linked to me-- and I will put in the show notes--

00:09:39 ◼   ► a PDF from the American Petroleum Institute,

00:09:42 ◼   ► which defines these shall, denotes a minimum requirement

00:09:44 ◼   ► in order to conform to the standard,

00:09:46 ◼   ► should denotes a recommendation, or that

00:09:48 ◼   ► which is advised but not required in order

00:09:50 ◼   ► to conform to the standard, may denotes a course of action

00:09:53 ◼   ► permissible within the limits of a standard,

00:09:55 ◼   ► and can denotes a statement of possibility or capability.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Who knew?

00:09:58 ◼   ► That much thought went into such short words.

00:10:01 ◼   ► But that's the way it is.

00:10:03 ◼   ► And we can always trust what the American Petroleum Institute

00:10:05 ◼   ► tells us.

00:10:06 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly right.

00:10:08 ◼   ► Those big ICE things up at the polls, yeah, we don't need those.

00:10:12 ◼   ► What are they even called?

00:10:13 ◼   ► Nobody knows.

00:10:14 ◼   ► We don't need them.

00:10:15 ◼   ► Marco, tell me about the iPhone SE and your headphones.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Yeah, so quick updates on things I've talked about recently.

00:10:21 ◼   ► Last episode, I believe, I discussed my iPhone SE test

00:10:25 ◼   ► phone that I had bought.

00:10:26 ◼   ► And I've been switching my SIM into it sometimes,

00:10:30 ◼   ► like to go out at night or something.

00:10:32 ◼   ► I really like the size a lot.

00:10:35 ◼   ► And one thing I've especially noticed

00:10:37 ◼   ► is just compared to my XS, the SE is not only a lot smaller,

00:10:42 ◼   ► and not only fits a lot better in my hand

00:10:44 ◼   ► and is easier to navigate by hand, it's also a lot lighter.

00:10:50 ◼   ► I kind of didn't realize over time

00:10:52 ◼   ► how heavy the iPhone has gotten since then.

00:10:55 ◼   ► But when you compare a XS to an SE,

00:10:58 ◼   ► it's a huge weight difference.

00:11:00 ◼   ► And I've noticed this especially now in the summertime,

00:11:02 ◼   ► I'm wearing shorts a lot.

00:11:04 ◼   ► And it's really hot.

00:11:06 ◼   ► And so I'm wearing these thin, light shorts.

00:11:08 ◼   ► And having the XS in my pocket is not only

00:11:10 ◼   ► is it this giant rectangle, which looks ridiculous

00:11:14 ◼   ► and everything, and it's hard to get out of the pocket

00:11:16 ◼   ► and everything, the XS weighs down my pocket.

00:11:19 ◼   ► It's almost like trying to pull my shorts off.

00:11:21 ◼   ► You might need to get tighter shorts now

00:11:23 ◼   ► that you've lost all this weight.

00:11:25 ◼   ► I actually ran into that recently.

00:11:26 ◼   ► I had some shorts that they were probably

00:11:28 ◼   ► a little bit too big of me.

00:11:29 ◼   ► And I think the waistband had sort of gotten stretched out.

00:11:32 ◼   ► And yeah, I noticed the same thing.

00:11:33 ◼   ► My big phone would be like-- or the worst

00:11:35 ◼   ► would be like I'd have my wallet and my keys and my phone,

00:11:37 ◼   ► and they would just be pulling down my shorts.

00:11:39 ◼   ► So try a smaller size.

00:11:40 ◼   ► No, this is the smaller size.

00:11:43 ◼   ► Like it's amazing just how heavy the phone

00:11:46 ◼   ► is when it's in a very lightweight garment, like very

00:11:49 ◼   ► light shorts.

00:11:50 ◼   ► Really, I hope with future phones--

00:11:53 ◼   ► I mean, I know this is the same problem of all

00:11:56 ◼   ► the competing desires.

00:11:57 ◼   ► If you ask me in the winter what phone I should get next,

00:11:59 ◼   ► I would say, oh, maybe I should try the bigger one to have

00:12:01 ◼   ► all that screen space.

00:12:02 ◼   ► But in the summertime, I'm like, I just

00:12:04 ◼   ► want the smallest phone possible.

00:12:05 ◼   ► I need like summer phone, winter phone here.

00:12:08 ◼   ► But just one more point in the SE's favor

00:12:10 ◼   ► there and kind of one more vote for like, hey, you know what?

00:12:12 ◼   ► Actually, smaller phones might not

00:12:13 ◼   ► be so bad to keep making them and keep updating them.

00:12:17 ◼   ► So anyway, this fall when I'm back in jeans

00:12:20 ◼   ► and they release some awesome new giant screen phone,

00:12:22 ◼   ► remind me of this conversation, please.

00:12:24 ◼   ► And when I'm saying, oh, maybe I should go for the big one,

00:12:26 ◼   ► remind me that I said this, that no.

00:12:27 ◼   ► Well, you said the last time the rumor is

00:12:29 ◼   ► that the non-max version is actually

00:12:31 ◼   ► going to be a little bit smaller.

00:12:32 ◼   ► So you're going to be getting what you want.

00:12:34 ◼   ► A little bit smaller, but not, you know.

00:12:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:12:36 ◼   ► I believe that's for next year, but we'll see.

00:12:38 ◼   ► And then a second minor update here.

00:12:40 ◼   ► I went through this whole segment

00:12:42 ◼   ► a few weeks ago about how I was doing my Powerbeats Pro.

00:12:46 ◼   ► And I really enjoyed them for summertime,

00:12:49 ◼   ► except there was a nagging issue that you can't really

00:12:51 ◼   ► like take them off and put them anywhere.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Because like you can't put them in your pocket

00:12:56 ◼   ► because then their buttons get pushed and everything.

00:12:59 ◼   ► And well, I'm back to my Trex Air, my Aftershokz, Trex--

00:13:04 ◼   ► is it Air?

00:13:05 ◼   ► Yeah, the Air, the smaller ones.

00:13:06 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm back to those.

00:13:07 ◼   ► And yes, they are a sponsor of the show.

00:13:09 ◼   ► They did not ask me to say this.

00:13:10 ◼   ► They aren't sponsoring this week,

00:13:11 ◼   ► or that week for that matter.

00:13:14 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm back to the Trex Air.

00:13:15 ◼   ► Because I realize that they basically

00:13:18 ◼   ► solved all the problems I had with the Beats.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Because I can, when I don't need to be listening to them,

00:13:24 ◼   ► or when I want to take it off so I could talk to somebody,

00:13:27 ◼   ► I can just drop them down and have

00:13:29 ◼   ► them like stick around my neck.

00:13:30 ◼   ► And even if I have to put them in a pocket,

00:13:32 ◼   ► they kind of stick out the top of the pocket.

00:13:34 ◼   ► They can't go all the way in because of their shape.

00:13:36 ◼   ► But no buttons get pushed.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And they don't accidentally disconnect or reconnect

00:13:39 ◼   ► or anything because they have their own power control.

00:13:41 ◼   ► So I'm back to the Trex Air, my wonderful Aftershokz.

00:13:44 ◼   ► And they are indeed the superior summer headphone.

00:13:48 ◼   ► But I'll go back to the Beats Pro when it comes time to like

00:13:51 ◼   ► go to the gym and stuff like that.

00:13:53 ◼   ► What about all those headphones?

00:13:55 ◼   ► I think actually Beats makes some of them,

00:13:56 ◼   ► that it's two little bud thingies,

00:13:57 ◼   ► but they're connected by a wire.

00:13:59 ◼   ► - That was the previous Powerbeats.

00:14:01 ◼   ► I heard, I think from you, didn't Tina

00:14:04 ◼   ► go through a lot of those?

00:14:06 ◼   ► One of our friends, their spouse went through a lot of them

00:14:09 ◼   ► because they kept breaking, I forget who it is.

00:14:10 ◼   ► - Well, Kyle's the Grey I think had gone through that,

00:14:12 ◼   ► if I'm not mistaken.

00:14:13 ◼   ► He had plowed through like four or five sets

00:14:15 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:14:16 ◼   ► I think that's right, I might be making--

00:14:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, they have some massive flaw,

00:14:19 ◼   ► like the previous Powerbeats.

00:14:21 ◼   ► And then we also had people write in to tell me,

00:14:23 ◼   ► 'cause I had said on that show,

00:14:25 ◼   ► I really loved the pairing style,

00:14:29 ◼   ► like the AirPods pairing style that these new headphones had

00:14:33 ◼   ► and that I really wished Apple would make full-size

00:14:36 ◼   ► over-ear headphones with that, like as is rumored.

00:14:39 ◼   ► And a number of people wrote in just to point out

00:14:41 ◼   ► that they do make full-size headphones with the,

00:14:44 ◼   ► not the new H1 chip from the AirPod 2s,

00:14:48 ◼   ► but they do make Beats Studio headphones,

00:14:52 ◼   ► which are indeed over-ear full-size headphones

00:14:55 ◼   ► that have the AirPods 1 chip, the W1 in them.

00:15:00 ◼   ► So that was good to hear.

00:15:02 ◼   ► I have not had a chance to try them because,

00:15:04 ◼   ► you know, Beats life.

00:15:06 ◼   ► But ultimately, I think at this point,

00:15:07 ◼   ► I would wait until the version two

00:15:09 ◼   ► because the version two chip is so much better,

00:15:11 ◼   ► like all the faster pairing

00:15:13 ◼   ► and the hey dingus stuff and everything.

00:15:14 ◼   ► So at this point, I will wait for version two

00:15:16 ◼   ► before I try that.

00:15:17 ◼   ► But it's good to know that they actually already do make

00:15:19 ◼   ► basically the product I was asking for.

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00:16:49 ◼   ► Apple may be bankrolling original podcasts,

00:16:56 ◼   ► Spotify style, and trying to kind of dip

00:16:59 ◼   ► their toe in the podcasting water by funding podcasts.

00:17:02 ◼   ► So this broke midday yesterday as we record.

00:17:06 ◼   ► And it was Mark Gurman and Lucas Shaw.

00:17:08 ◼   ► And apparently, Apple is, like I said,

00:17:11 ◼   ► going to fund podcasts according to them.

00:17:14 ◼   ► What do we think about this, Marco?

00:17:17 ◼   ► - Oh boy.

00:17:18 ◼   ► This is messy.

00:17:20 ◼   ► We've talked a lot about the whole idea

00:17:23 ◼   ► of podcast platforms having proprietary lockdown content

00:17:27 ◼   ► that's only available on their platform,

00:17:29 ◼   ► usually through some kind of paid plan.

00:17:31 ◼   ► And I think most of what we have said

00:17:35 ◼   ► would still apply to this.

00:17:37 ◼   ► The huge difference here is that Apple has,

00:17:42 ◼   ► by most estimates, about 60% of the market share

00:17:46 ◼   ► of podcast players.

00:17:47 ◼   ► The next biggest player after that is Spotify at around 10%.

00:17:52 ◼   ► So, and then everything below Spotify is like 3%, 2%.

00:17:56 ◼   ► So it drops off very quickly after Apple.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And Apple is the big player that matters the most.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Spotify matters a little, and everyone else like me

00:18:05 ◼   ► and everyone else doesn't matter that much

00:18:06 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things.

00:18:07 ◼   ► It really is a different animal when talking

00:18:10 ◼   ► about this kind of concept when it's Apple doing it

00:18:12 ◼   ► compared to anyone else doing it.

00:18:15 ◼   ► So that being said, having some kind of exclusive podcast

00:18:19 ◼   ► to the Apple podcast app, it has the potential

00:18:22 ◼   ► for some really negative effects on the podcast ecosystem,

00:18:26 ◼   ► but ultimately I don't think it will play out that way.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I don't see a lot of podcasts saying

00:18:33 ◼   ► we'll be exclusive to Apple,

00:18:35 ◼   ► because for all the reasons we've said it for other things,

00:18:37 ◼   ► like if you go to Apple, if an existing high demand show

00:18:41 ◼   ► goes to Apple, you could say, yeah,

00:18:43 ◼   ► they have 60% of market share,

00:18:44 ◼   ► but you could also say they only have 60% market share.

00:18:48 ◼   ► So if you are an average show, which we aren't,

00:18:51 ◼   ► so our discussion would be very different

00:18:53 ◼   ► if they came to us with a truckload of money.

00:18:55 ◼   ► We would actually, we'd have a bigger problem

00:18:58 ◼   ► on our hands here.

00:18:59 ◼   ► But for most shows, this proposition would basically be,

00:19:02 ◼   ► hey, do you wanna lose 40% of your audience

00:19:04 ◼   ► and come work for us, basically?

00:19:07 ◼   ► 60% is enough that this kind of thing

00:19:09 ◼   ► is a scary potential for bad effects,

00:19:12 ◼   ► but it's also not so much that we can assume

00:19:15 ◼   ► it would be successful for them.

00:19:16 ◼   ► And their market share over the last few years

00:19:18 ◼   ► is going down, not up, as more clients

00:19:22 ◼   ► take more share from them and as the audience grows

00:19:25 ◼   ► in places that aren't Apple, like Spotify.

00:19:28 ◼   ► So on one hand, I don't see a lot of big shows

00:19:32 ◼   ► jumping on this because I don't think they'd be willing

00:19:36 ◼   ► to lock out or lose such a big chunk of their audience

00:19:39 ◼   ► that isn't on Apple Podcasts.

00:19:41 ◼   ► And once you put up a paywall, yeah, right now,

00:19:45 ◼   ► 60% of the people use Apple Podcasts,

00:19:47 ◼   ► but how many of them will pay, assuming this is,

00:19:50 ◼   ► let's assume, for the sake of argument,

00:19:53 ◼   ► that this is Podcasts Plus, and it's another $10 a month

00:19:57 ◼   ► Apple service, or whatever it is,

00:19:59 ◼   ► they keep adding all these Plus services

00:20:00 ◼   ► that are probably gonna be around 10 bucks a month.

00:20:02 ◼   ► Let's assume it's what it is.

00:20:03 ◼   ► Pick your price, it doesn't really matter.

00:20:05 ◼   ► The fact is it's probably a paid service

00:20:07 ◼   ► that Apple wants people to subscribe to, right?

00:20:09 ◼   ► So if they do this, you're not gonna get

00:20:12 ◼   ► 60% of your audience.

00:20:14 ◼   ► You're gonna get like 1% of your audience

00:20:17 ◼   ► because the other 59% who are using Apple Podcasts

00:20:20 ◼   ► won't pay, and then the 40% who aren't there

00:20:23 ◼   ► can't even have it as an option.

00:20:26 ◼   ► So I don't think it would be wise for most shows

00:20:30 ◼   ► to sign up for this.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Now they could be developing original shows,

00:20:34 ◼   ► that's a different story, that has different math

00:20:36 ◼   ► and different effects.

00:20:38 ◼   ► That's probably more of what they're going to be doing

00:20:41 ◼   ► because, as I said, it doesn't make a lot of sense

00:20:43 ◼   ► for any existing successful show to take themselves

00:20:47 ◼   ► and go behind a paywall.

00:20:49 ◼   ► That doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:20:51 ◼   ► Strategically, money-wise, everything,

00:20:53 ◼   ► it's not a good idea, so that's probably not gonna happen

00:20:55 ◼   ► very often.

00:20:57 ◼   ► So if you go to the idea of they're gonna be developing

00:20:59 ◼   ► original content and funding that,

00:21:03 ◼   ► then that's fine, I think that would play out

00:21:06 ◼   ► similarly to such efforts on Spotify

00:21:08 ◼   ► and on Stitcher Premium and on places like Audible,

00:21:12 ◼   ► like places that have originals, like exclusive originals

00:21:15 ◼   ► that were developed for them by them

00:21:18 ◼   ► behind some kind of paywall.

00:21:20 ◼   ► Those do okay for some of those platforms,

00:21:23 ◼   ► but they don't really affect the outside world

00:21:25 ◼   ► of podcasting.

00:21:26 ◼   ► They don't have enough traction, seemingly,

00:21:29 ◼   ► to really affect everyone else.

00:21:31 ◼   ► So this is probably how this is gonna play out.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Like, Apple News Plus has not killed anything,

00:21:38 ◼   ► except maybe the usefulness of the Apple News app.

00:21:40 ◼   ► But besides that, Apple News Plus,

00:21:42 ◼   ► which I think would be a very similar approach,

00:21:45 ◼   ► hasn't really done anything.

00:21:47 ◼   ► It hasn't set the road on fire,

00:21:48 ◼   ► it hasn't taken off that well.

00:21:50 ◼   ► It hasn't really been a great or a terrible thing

00:21:54 ◼   ► for anybody, it's just kind of too small

00:21:56 ◼   ► of a splash to matter.

00:21:57 ◼   ► That same scale of effect is probably

00:22:01 ◼   ► what's going to happen here.

00:22:02 ◼   ► They're probably gonna have some big names,

00:22:04 ◼   ► they're probably gonna come out the door

00:22:05 ◼   ► with some kind of premium thing,

00:22:07 ◼   ► and they'll get some usage,

00:22:09 ◼   ► but I'm guessing it will go just like everyone else's

00:22:12 ◼   ► paid exclusive originals,

00:22:15 ◼   ► and not really move the needle for those of us

00:22:20 ◼   ► who aren't in that world.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And for this area of podcasting,

00:22:25 ◼   ► like the kind of tech and Apple News,

00:22:27 ◼   ► anybody listening to this show probably,

00:22:29 ◼   ► you probably won't even notice this kind of stuff.

00:22:31 ◼   ► 'Cause first of all, most of you aren't using Apple podcasts.

00:22:35 ◼   ► Unlike the general purpose podcast market,

00:22:38 ◼   ► most people who listen to shows like this

00:22:40 ◼   ► don't use Apple podcasts, it's a much smaller market share.

00:22:43 ◼   ► And so you won't even see these shows,

00:22:45 ◼   ► you won't even hear about them,

00:22:46 ◼   ► and if Apple does something to make their own client

00:22:50 ◼   ► more attractive to people,

00:22:51 ◼   ► they probably aren't, it probably isn't gonna work very well

00:22:53 ◼   ► on our listeners that listen to this kind of show.

00:22:56 ◼   ► So I don't think it's gonna really affect us much,

00:22:59 ◼   ► if and if at all, except it'll give us a few show topics

00:23:02 ◼   ► to talk about.

00:23:03 ◼   ► But setting that aside,

00:23:04 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna really do much.

00:23:06 ◼   ► It's probably not gonna go very far,

00:23:08 ◼   ► and it probably isn't gonna affect us

00:23:09 ◼   ► even if it does go a little bit far.

00:23:11 ◼   ► But setting all that aside,

00:23:12 ◼   ► this certainly does bring up an interesting discomfort

00:23:17 ◼   ► that as Apple transitions into a company

00:23:21 ◼   ► that cares a lot more about services

00:23:22 ◼   ► and is seeking much stronger revenue

00:23:25 ◼   ► and strong revenue growth from services,

00:23:28 ◼   ► they're looking around, they're poking around the company

00:23:30 ◼   ► saying, "Hey, where can we rustle up

00:23:32 ◼   ► "some more services revenue?

00:23:34 ◼   ► "Hey, Podcast Division over there,

00:23:36 ◼   ► "we haven't talked to you in a while,

00:23:39 ◼   ► "can we extract a monthly fee out of you?

00:23:40 ◼   ► "Can we get that somehow?

00:23:41 ◼   ► "Can we get people to pay you a few dollars a month

00:23:44 ◼   ► "here and there?"

00:23:45 ◼   ► There's a lot of incentives now that Apple has

00:23:48 ◼   ► that are at odds with a lot of its previous ideals

00:23:52 ◼   ► or previous behavior,

00:23:54 ◼   ► things like doing things that are best for the customer

00:23:57 ◼   ► that changes when you sell iCloud backup space by the month,

00:24:01 ◼   ► stuff like that.

00:24:02 ◼   ► There's all these weird incentives they now have

00:24:04 ◼   ► that are counter to,

00:24:06 ◼   ► we just wanna make the best products for everybody.

00:24:09 ◼   ► So as they push more into the services narrative

00:24:12 ◼   ► and services as a major growth engine for money,

00:24:16 ◼   ► this kind of stuff is gonna keep happening.

00:24:18 ◼   ► I worry what that means for podcasting

00:24:20 ◼   ► because so far they have been such a good

00:24:23 ◼   ► kind of neutral steward of their massive power

00:24:26 ◼   ► in the world of podcasting.

00:24:27 ◼   ► If it weren't for Apple's basically benevolent neglect

00:24:31 ◼   ► of the world of podcasting,

00:24:32 ◼   ► it wouldn't be what it is today.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Podcasting would not exist the way it does today.

00:24:36 ◼   ► It would not be this good, it would not be this big,

00:24:38 ◼   ► it would not be this healthy,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and it would certainly not be this open

00:24:42 ◼   ► if Apple was actively involved in maximizing everything

00:24:47 ◼   ► about podcasting for themselves.

00:24:49 ◼   ► It would not be what it is today.

00:24:51 ◼   ► And we really have them to thank for where it is.

00:24:55 ◼   ► We have their incredible benevolent neglect

00:24:58 ◼   ► and mostly hands-off leadership

00:25:00 ◼   ► of their massive market share,

00:25:02 ◼   ► and their open directory,

00:25:03 ◼   ► well, their semi-open directory that we all kinda use.

00:25:05 ◼   ► We have them to thank for where we are now

00:25:07 ◼   ► because of all that stuff.

00:25:09 ◼   ► And we've just been assuming all this time,

00:25:11 ◼   ► well, Apple really hasn't made significant moves

00:25:13 ◼   ► in podcasting, they probably never will.

00:25:16 ◼   ► So when people like me would talk about things like

00:25:19 ◼   ► market share diversity and client diversity

00:25:21 ◼   ► and how important it is to have more podcast apps out there,

00:25:24 ◼   ► there was this giant sitting on the side

00:25:28 ◼   ► with 60, 70, 80% market share,

00:25:31 ◼   ► and I wasn't worried about them

00:25:33 ◼   ► because they were doing all the right things

00:25:34 ◼   ► and they didn't seem to really care.

00:25:36 ◼   ► And they were doing all the right things

00:25:37 ◼   ► for like a decade or more,

00:25:39 ◼   ► and so it didn't seem like they were ever gonna be a threat

00:25:43 ◼   ► to this open ecosystem and this wonderful medium

00:25:46 ◼   ► that we all love.

00:25:48 ◼   ► So the fact that they're now seemingly making a move

00:25:51 ◼   ► that is kinda dipping a toe in the water in that direction,

00:25:55 ◼   ► that is concerning merely because of their scale.

00:25:58 ◼   ► That's kinda the pessimist take there,

00:26:00 ◼   ► and I do worry about that,

00:26:01 ◼   ► and I am gonna be watching this closely.

00:26:03 ◼   ► This could turn bad real fast,

00:26:04 ◼   ► depending on what they do and how they do it.

00:26:06 ◼   ► - I have the optimist take for you.

00:26:09 ◼   ► That's what I was thinking of,

00:26:10 ◼   ► like what's the best case scenario?

00:26:11 ◼   ► - I mean the best case scenario is

00:26:13 ◼   ► this kinda doesn't go anywhere and it fizzles out

00:26:15 ◼   ► and we keep doing things the way we've been doing them.

00:26:16 ◼   ► - Well, no, not the best case scenario for how it turns out,

00:26:19 ◼   ► best case scenario for their motivations.

00:26:21 ◼   ► 'Cause it looked at through the lens of a company

00:26:23 ◼   ► that has the track record that Apple has with podcasts.

00:26:27 ◼   ► The most charitable attribution and motivation could be

00:26:32 ◼   ► Apple has done what it's done with podcasts,

00:26:35 ◼   ► Apple sees what we all see,

00:26:36 ◼   ► which is the luminaries and the Spotify's of the world

00:26:39 ◼   ► coming for podcasting,

00:26:41 ◼   ► and they're throwing money at it and getting exclusives

00:26:43 ◼   ► and putting up paywalls and vending their own clients.

00:26:46 ◼   ► And from Apple's perspective,

00:26:48 ◼   ► presumably there is some,

00:26:53 ◼   ► they didn't accidentally treat podcasting

00:26:55 ◼   ► the way they treated it for like 10, 15 years.

00:26:57 ◼   ► Like it wasn't an accident, it wasn't like nobody noticed,

00:26:59 ◼   ► it was part of a conscious strategy,

00:27:02 ◼   ► which is having podcasts more or less the way Apple made them

00:27:06 ◼   ► by keeping them open and diverse

00:27:08 ◼   ► and having their player be the most popular player

00:27:10 ◼   ► makes Apple's devices more valuable

00:27:13 ◼   ► because if you get one of these things,

00:27:14 ◼   ► whether it be an iPod or an iPhone

00:27:15 ◼   ► or whatever it has been over the years,

00:27:18 ◼   ► one of the things you can do with it besides text people

00:27:21 ◼   ► and watch movies and YouTube and listen to music

00:27:24 ◼   ► is also you can listen to podcasts, right?

00:27:26 ◼   ► And these other companies employing their strategies

00:27:30 ◼   ► and throwing money at it is a threat to basically

00:27:34 ◼   ► a benefit of Apple's products

00:27:37 ◼   ► because Apple has lots of situations where,

00:27:40 ◼   ► yeah, they make the product,

00:27:41 ◼   ► but there's some dominant non-Apple third party force

00:27:46 ◼   ► that controls a major part of the ecosystem.

00:27:47 ◼   ► Examples are YouTube, Facebook, Netflix,

00:27:50 ◼   ► companies that aren't Apple

00:27:52 ◼   ► that at various times Apple butts heads with

00:27:53 ◼   ► but that are an essential part of the value proposition

00:27:55 ◼   ► of Apple's products because if you buy an Apple device

00:27:59 ◼   ► and you can't use Netflix on it, that's bad for Apple

00:28:01 ◼   ► and same thing with Facebook, same thing with YouTube

00:28:04 ◼   ► and those companies have at various times exerted that power

00:28:08 ◼   ► in ways that Apple has been uncomfortable with.

00:28:09 ◼   ► So I don't think Apple would be super happy

00:28:12 ◼   ► if Spotify became the YouTube of a podcast

00:28:16 ◼   ► or if Luminary was greatly successful.

00:28:17 ◼   ► So most charitable you could say Apple sees this happening

00:28:21 ◼   ► and says we need to defend podcasting

00:28:25 ◼   ► and the way we can defend it is by doing more or less

00:28:27 ◼   ► what they're doing, throw money at it, get original things

00:28:29 ◼   ► like basically the old Microsoft strategy

00:28:32 ◼   ► of we have more money, time and resources than you do

00:28:35 ◼   ► so we're just gonna do the same thing you do

00:28:37 ◼   ► more or less the same way, maybe not as well

00:28:38 ◼   ► but who really cares and we'll just wait

00:28:40 ◼   ► for you to run out of money

00:28:41 ◼   ► and wait for your VCs to run out of patience

00:28:42 ◼   ► 'cause we can do this all day just like Captain America

00:28:45 ◼   ► and then once that happens, they just go back to okay

00:28:49 ◼   ► and now podcasting continues to be a safe neutral thing

00:28:52 ◼   ► that is a benefit to our products

00:28:54 ◼   ► and we don't have to worry about getting YouTube

00:28:55 ◼   ► or Netflix.

00:28:56 ◼   ► I'm not saying this is the most likely scenario

00:28:59 ◼   ► but it is at least plausible

00:29:01 ◼   ► and the reason I think it's plausible is that honestly,

00:29:04 ◼   ► I think if the servers or even though people came around

00:29:07 ◼   ► and say can we get money out of that,

00:29:08 ◼   ► someone would do the math and say not really.

00:29:11 ◼   ► Like it's just podcasting and I know it seems big

00:29:15 ◼   ► but in the grand scheme of things,

00:29:16 ◼   ► it's like an ant's fart in the app store

00:29:21 ◼   ► of like three days worth of revenue.

00:29:22 ◼   ► Like it's nothing.

00:29:23 ◼   ► It's nothing compared to other big businesses

00:29:25 ◼   ► like music, movies, games

00:29:28 ◼   ► and the whole rest of the app store.

00:29:30 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true.

00:29:31 ◼   ► That's kind of like my sort of gut reaction

00:29:33 ◼   ► is that podcasting is as big as it may be on Apple scale.

00:29:38 ◼   ► It's just like, eh.

00:29:40 ◼   ► So I give it a less than 50% chance

00:29:45 ◼   ► that their motivation is purely charitable

00:29:47 ◼   ► and they're just defending podcasting

00:29:48 ◼   ► but I'm not willing to entirely rule it out

00:29:51 ◼   ► just because of the people who are in charge

00:29:53 ◼   ► and the fact that it makes sense

00:29:55 ◼   ► that Apple doesn't want that to happen to podcasting.

00:29:56 ◼   ► It's bad for Apple if that happens

00:29:58 ◼   ► and like you said, Margot, like honestly,

00:30:01 ◼   ► their chances, I don't think they have any illusions

00:30:03 ◼   ► unlike Luminary and perhaps Spotify.

00:30:06 ◼   ► I don't think they have any particular illusions

00:30:08 ◼   ► about this amazing upside of them dominating podcasting

00:30:12 ◼   ► mostly because Apple has dominated podcasting

00:30:14 ◼   ► and they have not reached for that massive upside

00:30:16 ◼   ► probably because it doesn't exist

00:30:17 ◼   ► and so I'm really hoping that this is a mostly defensive move

00:30:22 ◼   ► that will stave off the competitors

00:30:27 ◼   ► that we think have worse motivations

00:30:29 ◼   ► but they will not turn into Apple

00:30:33 ◼   ► going all podcast evil on us.

00:30:35 ◼   ► And the second aspect of this is about

00:30:37 ◼   ► if they tried to go help podcast evil,

00:30:39 ◼   ► how this strategy, I mean, you just had a million reasons,

00:30:44 ◼   ► Margot, about why it's probably not gonna be successful.

00:30:47 ◼   ► I have another reason why Apple might think

00:30:49 ◼   ► it's going to be successful

00:30:50 ◼   ► but why it's a little bit different.

00:30:53 ◼   ► So the thing I kept thinking of

00:30:54 ◼   ► with all of their plus stuff or whatever

00:30:56 ◼   ► is they're one product that doesn't have a plus

00:30:57 ◼   ► after the name, their one service product

00:30:59 ◼   ► that doesn't have a plus, which is Apple Arcade

00:31:01 ◼   ► where they pay people to make games for iOS

00:31:06 ◼   ► and all their other devices.

00:31:07 ◼   ► And it's like, why would Apple,

00:31:09 ◼   ► we talk about this when we talk about Apple Arcade,

00:31:10 ◼   ► why would Apple do this?

00:31:11 ◼   ► People already make games for all their devices.

00:31:14 ◼   ► Why would they pay people to do it

00:31:15 ◼   ► and then just charge a subscription

00:31:16 ◼   ► and distribute that subscription

00:31:17 ◼   ► based on how much you play and blah, blah, blah,

00:31:19 ◼   ► like the whole model.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Like why would they bother doing that?

00:31:21 ◼   ► What's the point?

00:31:22 ◼   ► And I feel like the point of Apple Arcade is

00:31:24 ◼   ► there is an ecosystem for games on Apple devices

00:31:27 ◼   ► but that ecosystem is lacking in ways

00:31:29 ◼   ► that Apple cares about.

00:31:31 ◼   ► The first way it's lacking is that a lot of those developers

00:31:34 ◼   ► don't support like all the lesser devices.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Oh, you don't support Apple TV, you don't support the Mac.

00:31:39 ◼   ► Yeah, of course nobody does, it's ridiculous.

00:31:40 ◼   ► But Apple would like you to do that.

00:31:42 ◼   ► So one way they can make that happen is by giving you money

00:31:45 ◼   ► to say, okay, now will you support Apple TV?

00:31:47 ◼   ► Sure, I guess, yeah, sure, pay me.

00:31:49 ◼   ► But the second thing is the games

00:31:51 ◼   ► that are dominating the App Store

00:31:53 ◼   ► tend to have these exploitive mechanics

00:31:55 ◼   ► and these free to play things that extract money from you

00:32:00 ◼   ► in exchange for the mechanics

00:32:02 ◼   ► that withhold the fun until you pay them more money

00:32:06 ◼   ► and have these subscriptions and all this other stuff.

00:32:09 ◼   ► And how can Apple stop that from happening?

00:32:13 ◼   ► They've built the App Store such that

00:32:15 ◼   ► that is the apex predator.

00:32:16 ◼   ► They can change the ecosystem by saying,

00:32:19 ◼   ► what if we pay you to make a game

00:32:21 ◼   ► and we'll give you a bunch of money

00:32:24 ◼   ► but you can't put in in-app purchases.

00:32:25 ◼   ► It has to be you just buy a game and you play it

00:32:27 ◼   ► and it's fun and that's it.

00:32:28 ◼   ► So they can shape the market with their money

00:32:31 ◼   ► to make a new thing that hasn't previously existed,

00:32:34 ◼   ► make that become successful.

00:32:36 ◼   ► Podcasting on the other hand is not suffering

00:32:39 ◼   ► from a blight of free to play podcasts

00:32:42 ◼   ► that exploit these mechanics or whatever.

00:32:43 ◼   ► Like you could argue that wouldn't it be great

00:32:45 ◼   ► if your podcast didn't have ads

00:32:47 ◼   ► and lots of these companies have argued that like,

00:32:48 ◼   ► oh, our podcasts are great, they don't have ads.

00:32:50 ◼   ► It's like podcasts with ads are not the same thing

00:32:54 ◼   ► as like casinos for kids that extract money from you

00:32:56 ◼   ► and delay these mechanics and make you buy coins

00:32:59 ◼   ► to get energy to be able to continue.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Like it's not even close.

00:33:03 ◼   ► I don't think people who are listening to podcasts today

00:33:06 ◼   ► are particularly upset about how they're being exploited

00:33:10 ◼   ► by free podcasts.

00:33:11 ◼   ► I think it's a trade-off that most people

00:33:15 ◼   ► are more or less happy with and have been happy with

00:33:17 ◼   ► when it was called public radio despite the fact

00:33:20 ◼   ► that during pledge drive month it would drive people crazy

00:33:22 ◼   ► but other than that,

00:33:23 ◼   ► and we have that in podcast world too,

00:33:26 ◼   ► it's a relationship that makes some kind of sense

00:33:29 ◼   ► and you don't hear stories about a kid losing three grand

00:33:32 ◼   ► and then having to complain to Apple to get their money back

00:33:34 ◼   ► you don't hear all these problems of like buying a game

00:33:37 ◼   ► and feeling like you have, or downloading a game

00:33:39 ◼   ► and feeling like you haven't actually gotten anything

00:33:41 ◼   ► and not realizing how much you have to keep paying.

00:33:42 ◼   ► Like that's not how podcasts work today.

00:33:44 ◼   ► So the podcast ecosystem is not in a desperate need

00:33:48 ◼   ► of a new thing that can only exist

00:33:51 ◼   ► when Apple throws money at it.

00:33:52 ◼   ► So by Apple throwing money at this,

00:33:54 ◼   ► I think what they're going to get best case scenario

00:33:58 ◼   ► is a bunch of good podcasts.

00:34:00 ◼   ► And probably that's what Spotify can get.

00:34:03 ◼   ► Give people a bunch of money

00:34:04 ◼   ► and they make a bunch of good podcasts.

00:34:05 ◼   ► And so Spotify will have some good podcasts

00:34:07 ◼   ► that are only on Spotify,

00:34:08 ◼   ► Apple will have some good podcasts

00:34:09 ◼   ► that are only on Apple's player.

00:34:11 ◼   ► And there's this subscription model and blah, blah, blah.

00:34:14 ◼   ► But I don't think that fundamentally changes

00:34:15 ◼   ► the nature of the ecosystem.

00:34:16 ◼   ► Unlike Apple Arcade where if that came to exist

00:34:19 ◼   ► and be a subscription, it would feel so much different

00:34:22 ◼   ► than the wild west of the app store

00:34:24 ◼   ► where everything's free to play.

00:34:25 ◼   ► If you subscribe to Apple Arcade,

00:34:26 ◼   ► you would be having a qualitatively different experience

00:34:31 ◼   ► than if you didn't subscribe.

00:34:32 ◼   ► Whereas if you subscribe to one of these podcast service,

00:34:34 ◼   ► it's like, well, do you care about any of those podcasts

00:34:36 ◼   ► or do you not?

00:34:37 ◼   ► But either way, oh, these shows don't have ads,

00:34:39 ◼   ► but who cares?

00:34:40 ◼   ► I barely noticed that the ads

00:34:41 ◼   ► such a small percentage of the time

00:34:43 ◼   ► and it's not a thing that bothers me or whatever.

00:34:44 ◼   ► So I hope this is a defensive maneuver on Apple's part.

00:34:49 ◼   ► I also hope they don't expect it to change the landscape

00:34:53 ◼   ► or go gangbusters.

00:34:54 ◼   ► 'Cause honestly, the value that they're adding to podcasting

00:34:57 ◼   ► is small.

00:34:59 ◼   ► The defensive value is perhaps large

00:35:01 ◼   ► because you're basically staying on equal footing

00:35:03 ◼   ► and not allowing Spotify or Luminary

00:35:05 ◼   ► on the off chance that they start to snowball.

00:35:08 ◼   ► You're not allowing them to have the leg up on you,

00:35:09 ◼   ► but it's like, look, we're all like this

00:35:11 ◼   ► and this is the player you're already using already.

00:35:13 ◼   ► So the playing field is level again

00:35:15 ◼   ► and you probably don't care about these podcasts anyways,

00:35:16 ◼   ► so just ignore all of this.

00:35:18 ◼   ► That is my uncharacteristically optimistic dream scenario

00:35:23 ◼   ► is that we'll get a couple of good podcasts

00:35:25 ◼   ► that Apple pays for, it will stave off the competitors,

00:35:28 ◼   ► but the landscape will stay more or less the same.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Remind me of my brief deluded optimism three years from now.

00:35:35 ◼   ► I did say it was less than 50% chance,

00:35:37 ◼   ► but I'm not willing to dismiss it as ridiculous.

00:35:41 ◼   ► - So just before we get all of the commentary and questions,

00:35:46 ◼   ► if Apple came to the three of us and said,

00:35:49 ◼   ► here's a billion a piece, would you take it

00:35:51 ◼   ► and take your just peerless podcast

00:35:55 ◼   ► over to our Podcast Plus?

00:35:57 ◼   ► I think we can all agree that for a billion a piece,

00:35:59 ◼   ► we would say yes.

00:36:00 ◼   ► - Of course.

00:36:01 ◼   ► I mean, everyone has a price.

00:36:03 ◼   ► Everyone has a price, we all have prices,

00:36:04 ◼   ► but the thing is, no one's gonna pay our price

00:36:06 ◼   ► because we are not, it's like Marco said,

00:36:09 ◼   ► why would you take an existing show

00:36:11 ◼   ► and convince them to reduce their audience?

00:36:13 ◼   ► You would just pay famous people, actual famous people,

00:36:16 ◼   ► to make a new thing that isn't available anywhere.

00:36:20 ◼   ► It's such a straightforward strategy.

00:36:21 ◼   ► When Apple did its TV service,

00:36:23 ◼   ► they didn't buy friends or the office,

00:36:25 ◼   ► although arguably maybe they should have,

00:36:27 ◼   ► they paid a bunch of money for people to make new shows.

00:36:30 ◼   ► That's your value proposition, unique things.

00:36:33 ◼   ► And no one is happy about having something that's unique

00:36:36 ◼   ► by taking something that wasn't unique

00:36:38 ◼   ► and hoarding it just to yourself.

00:36:40 ◼   ► That just makes everybody sad.

00:36:41 ◼   ► So that's not gonna happen.

00:36:43 ◼   ► And anyway, Apple wouldn't be going after tech podcasts.

00:36:47 ◼   ► They'd be going after comedians or--

00:36:50 ◼   ► - Oprah.

00:36:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, Oprah.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Look at who, Steven Spielberg and Oprah are on stage.

00:36:55 ◼   ► We were not, so let's know.

00:36:57 ◼   ► That's the level that Apple's playing at.

00:36:59 ◼   ► - Don't sell yourself short, Jon.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Everyone would love it if we showed up on stage.

00:37:03 ◼   ► Everyone, even the people who'd have never heard of us.

00:37:05 ◼   ► - Everyone listening to this podcast would,

00:37:07 ◼   ► and everyone else would say, where's Oprah?

00:37:09 ◼   ► - No way, man.

00:37:11 ◼   ► - Do I get a car?

00:37:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:37:14 ◼   ► - You know, for a billion apiece,

00:37:17 ◼   ► maybe we will buy a few listeners some cars.

00:37:19 ◼   ► We'll buy you a car podcast.

00:37:21 ◼   ► Can I interest anyone in a car podcast?

00:37:23 ◼   ► - Oh, there it is.

00:37:24 ◼   ► - There we go.

00:37:25 ◼   ► - Maybe that's the way I'll finally get my dream

00:37:26 ◼   ► of bringing neutral back,

00:37:27 ◼   ► is they back truckloads of money.

00:37:30 ◼   ► - Apple will pay for it, there you go.

00:37:32 ◼   ► - For a billion dollars, I would do neutral again.

00:37:34 ◼   ► - As would I.

00:37:36 ◼   ► - You hear that, Apple?

00:37:36 ◼   ► - It would be a shorter show if we would just list

00:37:38 ◼   ► the things that we would not do for a billion dollars.

00:37:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, right?

00:37:41 ◼   ► - That's also true.

00:37:42 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:37:44 ◼   ► I can't even imagine what this show

00:37:48 ◼   ► would have to do differently if Apple brought

00:37:51 ◼   ► a whole pile of money to us and we legitimately did take it.

00:37:54 ◼   ► Again, this would never happen.

00:37:55 ◼   ► It would never happen.

00:37:56 ◼   ► But just for the sake of thinking about it,

00:38:00 ◼   ► I don't know if we could continue to do the show

00:38:04 ◼   ► as it exists if Apple was paying for it.

00:38:07 ◼   ► Because even if we complained about Apple,

00:38:09 ◼   ► as we do from time to time--

00:38:11 ◼   ► - Us, we complain?

00:38:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, yeah.

00:38:14 ◼   ► So I feel like even if we were complaining

00:38:18 ◼   ► in this hypothetical world where Apple owns us,

00:38:21 ◼   ► a question mark, then people would be,

00:38:23 ◼   ► "Oh, you're just saying that so you don't sound biased

00:38:25 ◼   ► "and really you just do whatever Apple tells you to do."

00:38:28 ◼   ► - But we wouldn't care because we'd be billionaires, so.

00:38:31 ◼   ► - That's a fair point.

00:38:33 ◼   ► I really do think, and people have asked me,

00:38:36 ◼   ► and I think you guys as well in the past,

00:38:38 ◼   ► why don't you just go work for Apple?

00:38:40 ◼   ► And aside from the fact that I'm not necessarily keen

00:38:44 ◼   ► on picking up my family and moving across the country,

00:38:46 ◼   ► especially to a state that's about to fall off the country,

00:38:49 ◼   ► everything about my life would have to change.

00:38:53 ◼   ► Literally everything about my life,

00:38:55 ◼   ► except my family, would have to change.

00:38:58 ◼   ► - Including you wouldn't be able to do the show.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Like there's one thing of Apple paying for your pocket,

00:39:02 ◼   ► but the rule that Apple has is if you're an employee,

00:39:05 ◼   ► you don't get to do shows like this.

00:39:08 ◼   ► You just don't.

00:39:08 ◼   ► So that's even worse.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Going to work for Apple would be worse

00:39:13 ◼   ► than if they just paid for the show.

00:39:15 ◼   ► 'Cause if they paid for the show,

00:39:16 ◼   ► yes, it's a clear conflict of interest,

00:39:17 ◼   ► but if you just stated up the front,

00:39:19 ◼   ► people could decide whether they wanna bother

00:39:21 ◼   ► listening to a show that's paid for by Apple or not, right?

00:39:23 ◼   ► But if you go to work for Apple, there's no show.

00:39:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

00:39:26 ◼   ► So please don't go running to Apple, you two,

00:39:30 ◼   ► 'cause I know I'm not.

00:39:31 ◼   ► - I don't think Marco is a flight risk.

00:39:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's not gonna happen.

00:39:35 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Squarespace.

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00:40:28 ◼   ► It's still in free trial mode.

00:40:29 ◼   ► I didn't give them a credit card or anything.

00:40:31 ◼   ► Still free trial mode, and I said here,

00:40:32 ◼   ► take this if you want it.

00:40:34 ◼   ► If you don't, no problem.

00:40:35 ◼   ► And the great thing is then I'm out of the picture.

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00:40:49 ◼   ► I was able to make this website in one evening.

00:40:52 ◼   ► They were quoted a price to modernize the website

00:40:55 ◼   ► with a private contractor of $40,000,

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00:41:03 ◼   ► rescue somebody's old website from the stone ages for them,

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00:41:25 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:41:27 ◼   ► - Oh man, but you know who Marco does wanna work for?

00:41:31 ◼   ► Marco wants to work for Dropbox.

00:41:33 ◼   ► - Oh God.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Can I just say, what (beep) bull (beep)

00:41:38 ◼   ► just happened to my computer today?

00:41:40 ◼   ► Because I was reading Twitter,

00:41:42 ◼   ► and I saw you're complaining about how Dropbox

00:41:45 ◼   ► suddenly appeared in your doc, and I thought to myself,

00:41:47 ◼   ► "Surely that can't be a widespread thing.

00:41:50 ◼   ► "Surely that wouldn't happen to my computer."

00:41:53 ◼   ► And sure enough, when I arrive at my iMac,

00:41:56 ◼   ► guess what's in my doc?

00:41:58 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

00:41:59 ◼   ► And the window's up too, that's the best part,

00:42:01 ◼   ► like the window shows itself.

00:42:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:42:04 ◼   ► - So angry.

00:42:05 ◼   ► - Oh man, Dropbox, you know, every so often,

00:42:09 ◼   ► Dropbox does something that annoys me,

00:42:11 ◼   ► and I look around at solutions to dump it,

00:42:13 ◼   ► and I think this time I'm really in,

00:42:15 ◼   ► like this time I've really had enough.

00:42:18 ◼   ► 'Cause what they've shown me, and forgive me,

00:42:20 ◼   ► I tweeted about this earlier, so if you've seen it already,

00:42:21 ◼   ► forgive the repetition, what Dropbox has shown

00:42:25 ◼   ► a number of times over the last couple of years,

00:42:28 ◼   ► from various things like the accessibility permission,

00:42:31 ◼   ► the fake permission dialogues they present,

00:42:32 ◼   ► like system dialogues to capture your root password

00:42:34 ◼   ► and stuff like that, Dropbox has shown

00:42:37 ◼   ► they can't really be trusted to have good judgment

00:42:41 ◼   ► with the amount of power they have over my computer.

00:42:44 ◼   ► Dropbox runs as a user process on my computer,

00:42:48 ◼   ► I think it's just a user process, I hope it isn't root,

00:42:50 ◼   ► but it probably is, who knows, I bet some part of it

00:42:52 ◼   ► is probably root, but it runs as a user process,

00:42:55 ◼   ► it has access to all of the user files that I have,

00:42:58 ◼   ► you know, all of, because it runs as used,

00:43:00 ◼   ► and it's not a sandbox, so it has access

00:43:01 ◼   ► to all of your files, and it runs automatically

00:43:04 ◼   ► updating software, it automatically self-updates

00:43:08 ◼   ► whenever it feels like it.

00:43:10 ◼   ► That's an incredible amount of access,

00:43:12 ◼   ► that's an incredible amount of power it has,

00:43:14 ◼   ► and access it has to my stuff, and so for a company

00:43:17 ◼   ► that has that kind of access and that kind of power,

00:43:20 ◼   ► to repeatedly show poor judgment of how it wields that power

00:43:25 ◼   ► and what it should do to my computer,

00:43:27 ◼   ► and what kind of power it should have and take,

00:43:29 ◼   ► and how much it wants to get in my way,

00:43:31 ◼   ► and pop up dialogues when I plug cameras in

00:43:33 ◼   ► and stuff like that, it has shown me

00:43:35 ◼   ► that I shouldn't trust it anymore,

00:43:36 ◼   ► it has shown me that it is not worthy of trusting it

00:43:39 ◼   ► with the power it has, the immense power it has

00:43:42 ◼   ► on my computer, so now, more than ever,

00:43:47 ◼   ► I am looking to remove Dropbox from my life,

00:43:50 ◼   ► and we'll see how that goes.

00:43:52 ◼   ► - You were comparing it when you were tweeting about it,

00:43:55 ◼   ► or someone compared it about it,

00:43:56 ◼   ► and then they're comparing it to Twitter,

00:43:57 ◼   ► and I think the motivation behind both Twitter's changes

00:44:02 ◼   ► that we all hated and Dropbox's changes

00:44:04 ◼   ► that we're all hating is the same.

00:44:06 ◼   ► It's two businesses that started with a particular model

00:44:10 ◼   ► that users like trying to figure out

00:44:12 ◼   ► how they're going to be a business that makes the money back

00:44:16 ◼   ► for all their VCs or whatever, with Twitter was like,

00:44:19 ◼   ► we don't think we can charge people,

00:44:22 ◼   ► so we have to figure out how to make money

00:44:24 ◼   ► as an advertising platform, we need to take control

00:44:26 ◼   ► of the clients and drive engagement

00:44:28 ◼   ► with an algorithmic timeline and all these things

00:44:30 ◼   ► that we hate, blah, blah, blah, and Dropbox,

00:44:31 ◼   ► the old complaint is like, if you just make a folder

00:44:33 ◼   ► that syncs, that's not enough, you have to be enterprisey,

00:44:35 ◼   ► you have to take over search, you have to become

00:44:36 ◼   ► the gateway for all files across an entire organization

00:44:39 ◼   ► and do all these things, features that we don't care about

00:44:42 ◼   ► because the business thinks to be as successful

00:44:46 ◼   ► as the business wants to be, you can't just be a folder

00:44:49 ◼   ► that syncs, that's a great way to get off the ground,

00:44:50 ◼   ► but eventually you need to become, essentially,

00:44:53 ◼   ► Microsoft Office and Exchange all rolled into one,

00:44:55 ◼   ► or you have to have the complete suite of things,

00:44:58 ◼   ► like that seems to be sort of the end game

00:45:00 ◼   ► of all these things that sell to businesses,

00:45:01 ◼   ► like you have to be able to have an email system,

00:45:04 ◼   ► a calendaring system, a document sharing system,

00:45:07 ◼   ► collaborative editing of word processing documents,

00:45:10 ◼   ► spreadsheets, cloud drive service,

00:45:13 ◼   ► a real time Slack style chat thing,

00:45:16 ◼   ► a thing that you use for teleconferencing and calls,

00:45:19 ◼   ► you need all of those things, and Microsoft has

00:45:22 ◼   ► all those things, and the things they didn't have,

00:45:24 ◼   ► they cloned, right, Slack has some of those things,

00:45:27 ◼   ► like I remember when Slack added video callings,

00:45:29 ◼   ► like video calling to Slack, it was like, of course,

00:45:31 ◼   ► of course, they need that checklist that I just went down,

00:45:33 ◼   ► everybody needs all of those things,

00:45:35 ◼   ► so if you're Dropbox, you're like, well, all I've got

00:45:37 ◼   ► is the cloud drive, I need to get a bunch of those things

00:45:39 ◼   ► right away, how many things can we start adding?

00:45:41 ◼   ► And so you take your folder that syncs,

00:45:43 ◼   ► and you start adding document search and collaboration,

00:45:47 ◼   ► and how long before Dropbox has something

00:45:50 ◼   ► where you can do video calls to each other,

00:45:52 ◼   ► it's only a matter of time, right,

00:45:53 ◼   ► either these companies get bought by one of those

00:45:55 ◼   ► other big things, like Google has a complete suite of that,

00:45:58 ◼   ► Apple sort of has most of that suite, albeit spread out

00:46:01 ◼   ► in a strange way, but really, it's between Google

00:46:03 ◼   ► and Microsoft selling to corporations,

00:46:05 ◼   ► and then Slack and Dropbox are like these smaller fish

00:46:08 ◼   ► that are around the side where, in general,

00:46:11 ◼   ► they have better products, like Slack is better

00:46:12 ◼   ► than Microsoft Teams, right, Dropbox is arguably better

00:46:16 ◼   ► than OneDrive or whatever, or what the hell

00:46:19 ◼   ► is Microsoft Things called, or Google Drive,

00:46:20 ◼   ► for that matter, or at least was, right,

00:46:23 ◼   ► but the people who are running these businesses,

00:46:26 ◼   ► is this a tenable long-term strategy,

00:46:27 ◼   ► can we just be like just the chat thing,

00:46:31 ◼   ► or just the drive thing, and the answer,

00:46:33 ◼   ► when it comes to businesses, probably not,

00:46:35 ◼   ► because the big companies are like, don't pay money

00:46:38 ◼   ► to Dropbox for them to do your cloud drive,

00:46:40 ◼   ► we have a cloud drive, and we'll bundle it

00:46:42 ◼   ► with Office and Exchange and all this other stuff,

00:46:44 ◼   ► and Office Online and blah, blah, blah,

00:46:46 ◼   ► like don't pay other vendors to, yes,

00:46:49 ◼   ► their product may be better, they wouldn't say that,

00:46:50 ◼   ► but their product may be better,

00:46:51 ◼   ► but look how much cheaper it is if you just buy

00:46:53 ◼   ► this one bundle that has everything from us,

00:46:55 ◼   ► and Dropbox can't offer that, they can say,

00:46:57 ◼   ► well, we can lower our price, but we can't give you

00:46:59 ◼   ► a bundle that does everything, we're trying

00:47:01 ◼   ► to win on quality, and if you try to win on quality

00:47:03 ◼   ► in the enterprise, that is not a winning strategy,

00:47:05 ◼   ► because we established before the definition

00:47:07 ◼   ► of enterprise software, the people who pay

00:47:08 ◼   ► for the software and select it are not the people

00:47:10 ◼   ► who use it, so your software being more desirable

00:47:14 ◼   ► for users means almost nothing in the enterprise,

00:47:16 ◼   ► all that matters is, does it do the things

00:47:18 ◼   ► that I need it to do, does it check all the checkboxes

00:47:21 ◼   ► for compliance and blah, blah, and how much does it cost?

00:47:24 ◼   ► And so the slow destruction of Dropbox mirrors

00:47:27 ◼   ► the slow destruction of Twitter, it's two companies

00:47:30 ◼   ► trying to be more than they started out as,

00:47:34 ◼   ► trying to find a way to make a viable business

00:47:37 ◼   ► that can be the unicorn that everyone thought they were,

00:47:39 ◼   ► and the only way to do that is to start adding features

00:47:42 ◼   ► that users don't want, but that in theory help you

00:47:45 ◼   ► to make more money, and whether that actually helps them,

00:47:49 ◼   ► whether Dropbox thinks they're gonna become a replacement

00:47:51 ◼   ► for the Google Suite or the Microsoft Suite, I don't know,

00:47:54 ◼   ► but it's clearly the path they're traveling,

00:47:56 ◼   ► and so it's, you know, like, Twitter is like,

00:47:58 ◼   ► are they gonna hit a breaking point where they make

00:48:01 ◼   ► their clients so bad that everybody leaves?

00:48:03 ◼   ► It seems like they hit the critical mass breaking point

00:48:05 ◼   ► that at least they have sort of a break even

00:48:08 ◼   ► to use Fusion Parlance reaction going on

00:48:10 ◼   ► where Twitter is not going to collapse under the weight

00:48:13 ◼   ► of their terrible clients, because if it was gonna do that,

00:48:15 ◼   ► it would have already, it still might collapse

00:48:16 ◼   ► under the weight of other things, but for now,

00:48:19 ◼   ► it seems somewhat self-sustaining and has gotten

00:48:23 ◼   ► probably as gross as it's going to get until the next,

00:48:26 ◼   ► you know, until they reach for the next big leap.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Dropbox, on the other hand, it's unclear whether them

00:48:32 ◼   ► slowly making their product worse for users

00:48:35 ◼   ► is something they can afford to do,

00:48:37 ◼   ► because there are a lot of competitors.

00:48:39 ◼   ► Some of them are platform owners, like Microsoft

00:48:41 ◼   ► has their built-in thing and Apple has its built-in thing.

00:48:43 ◼   ► If the competitors can reach competence,

00:48:45 ◼   ► it could be that Dropbox starts to fade before it can

00:48:49 ◼   ► get that critical mass of enterprise contracts

00:48:52 ◼   ► or whatever they're shooting for.

00:48:54 ◼   ► - It's bad, man.

00:48:55 ◼   ► I don't know, I just, the more I, the more time goes on,

00:48:58 ◼   ► and it's only been in the last, I wanna say year,

00:49:00 ◼   ► not even two years, but in the last year particularly,

00:49:02 ◼   ► they have just taken everything that I like

00:49:05 ◼   ► about the Dropbox client and ruined it,

00:49:07 ◼   ► and I think it's clear that, as you were saying, John,

00:49:09 ◼   ► I mean, I am no longer Dropbox's customer,

00:49:12 ◼   ► and so that's okay, but it's a real bummer,

00:49:16 ◼   ► and so I think my plan is to really push for myself

00:49:21 ◼   ► and my co-hosts, who are the people I most frequently

00:49:25 ◼   ► use Dropbox with, to all move to iCloud Drive

00:49:29 ◼   ► once we're all on Catalina, and that's reasonably

00:49:31 ◼   ► straightforward and easy to do, because in Catalina,

00:49:34 ◼   ► many people have noted, including Marco via Twitter,

00:49:37 ◼   ► that in Catalina, they are supposedly adding shared folders,

00:49:41 ◼   ► which is the one big thing that I think many of us

00:49:44 ◼   ► are actually missing from iCloud Drive.

00:49:48 ◼   ► Again, we're not missing a work chat or anything like that.

00:49:50 ◼   ► We're just missing the fact that we can't share folders,

00:49:53 ◼   ► and once we can share folders, then I think I'm gonna try

00:49:56 ◼   ► to phase Dropbox out of my life very, very aggressively.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - So the other options people have mentioned

00:50:02 ◼   ► is that you can use Dropbox through,

00:50:05 ◼   ► without having a Dropbox software installed.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Obviously, there's the web interface,

00:50:08 ◼   ► if that's what you wanna do, but also,

00:50:11 ◼   ► file transfer applications like Transmit

00:50:13 ◼   ► can interact with Dropbox, so you can just totally

00:50:15 ◼   ► uninstall the Dropbox software, not have to deal

00:50:17 ◼   ► with their software at all, and still be able

00:50:19 ◼   ► to essentially take advantage of the network effect

00:50:22 ◼   ► of like, oh, everybody's on Dropbox,

00:50:24 ◼   ► and we've always used Dropbox, so we can continue to use it.

00:50:27 ◼   ► So that's a possibility.

00:50:30 ◼   ► Having used, I think, every cloud drive thing,

00:50:33 ◼   ► I have to say that Dropbox still is the least problematic

00:50:36 ◼   ► in terms of actually making the files go to the place

00:50:41 ◼   ► where they're supposed to go successfully

00:50:42 ◼   ► with the fewest number of conflicts.

00:50:45 ◼   ► That's the kernel of reliability that is in the middle

00:50:49 ◼   ► of this giant cloud of nagging software,

00:50:52 ◼   ► and by the way, even when you are the customer,

00:50:54 ◼   ► like I'm not a business, and I use the personal version

00:50:56 ◼   ► of Dropbox, it is constantly telling me,

00:50:59 ◼   ► your Dropbox is almost full.

00:51:01 ◼   ► You wanna upgrade to more storage?

00:51:03 ◼   ► And there's no way to stop it from saying that.

00:51:06 ◼   ► Like, I know, I am close to my limit.

00:51:08 ◼   ► I understand I could pay more money for more storage,

00:51:12 ◼   ► but instead, I just want to sort of maintain

00:51:14 ◼   ► with this whatever 5% free space,

00:51:16 ◼   ► and yet the cost of having 5 to 10% free space

00:51:20 ◼   ► is just constant nags.

00:51:21 ◼   ► Like, you know, once every other day,

00:51:24 ◼   ► at least sometimes multiple times in a day,

00:51:26 ◼   ► it tells me, you're running out of space?

00:51:29 ◼   ► It's like, great, thanks, Dropbox.

00:51:30 ◼   ► I just love dismissing these dialog boxes.

00:51:32 ◼   ► And I'm, like, that's not an enterprise feature.

00:51:34 ◼   ► It's, it knows that I'm a person,

00:51:37 ◼   ► 'cause the enterprise would just buy a huge amount of space,

00:51:39 ◼   ► and the enterprise version wouldn't bug the individuals.

00:51:41 ◼   ► It would bug, like, the administrator or whatever

00:51:43 ◼   ► would tell them that they're running out of space, right?

00:51:45 ◼   ► So even for it's just plain old individual users

00:51:48 ◼   ► using Dropbox, it's getting super aggressive

00:51:51 ◼   ► about, you know, trying to get me to spend more money.

00:51:55 ◼   ► And I say, no, I will just delete some files.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And that's what I'm saying.

00:52:00 ◼   ► I don't wanna delete any files.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Like, I think this percentage of free space,

00:52:02 ◼   ► I made that joke about it when Synology sent me an email,

00:52:05 ◼   ► and it said, you know, space on volume whatever

00:52:07 ◼   ► is getting dangerously low,

00:52:08 ◼   ► and there was only 500 gigs free.

00:52:10 ◼   ► Using percentages for free space,

00:52:12 ◼   ► it's not always the wisest thing.

00:52:13 ◼   ► And I understand things start to go badly

00:52:15 ◼   ► if you, you know, fill it up.

00:52:17 ◼   ► But, like, in terms of Dropbox,

00:52:19 ◼   ► it's a totally artificial limit.

00:52:20 ◼   ► I'm not actually filling a disk somewhere.

00:52:22 ◼   ► Even if I was 99%, I don't wanna hear about it

00:52:24 ◼   ► until I'm 100%.

00:52:25 ◼   ► That's when Dropbox can tell me my thing is full.

00:52:27 ◼   ► Until then, I don't wanna hear about it.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Hullo, Buckwheat Pillows.

00:52:33 ◼   ► I gotta say, Buckwheat Pillows are really cool.

00:52:35 ◼   ► They are totally different than the regular,

00:52:38 ◼   ► like, soft pillows that we are used to.

00:52:40 ◼   ► It's kinda like a bean bag full of these buckwheat hulls,

00:52:44 ◼   ► which I guess the size of them is like,

00:52:46 ◼   ► it's like almost like a marble size,

00:52:48 ◼   ► or a little bit smaller than that.

00:52:49 ◼   ► And so it allows you to adjust its shape and thickness,

00:52:52 ◼   ► and because it's bean bag-like, then it stays there.

00:52:55 ◼   ► So you can move and support it

00:52:57 ◼   ► however you want it to be supported,

00:52:59 ◼   ► you know, for your head and neck and whatever else,

00:53:01 ◼   ► and then it stays there.

00:53:02 ◼   ► It supports you exactly the way you want to be supported.

00:53:05 ◼   ► It doesn't squish throughout the night,

00:53:07 ◼   ► and it also doesn't really get hot,

00:53:08 ◼   ► which is great in the summertime,

00:53:10 ◼   ► 'cause buckwheat tends to breathe better.

00:53:12 ◼   ► There's airflow that can get in there between the hulls,

00:53:14 ◼   ► so it really doesn't get hot or sticky or anything.

00:53:17 ◼   ► I gotta say, this thing is really cool.

00:53:19 ◼   ► It's totally different.

00:53:20 ◼   ► I had one for a little while, and then my wife stole it,

00:53:22 ◼   ► so now I have to get another one,

00:53:24 ◼   ► 'cause she likes it a lot.

00:53:25 ◼   ► It's really incredibly supportive,

00:53:28 ◼   ► and you can also customize how it feels.

00:53:30 ◼   ► You can add or remove fill.

00:53:32 ◼   ► Like, you can just open up the side,

00:53:34 ◼   ► and you can adjust the thickness by adding or removing it.

00:53:36 ◼   ► You can also remove all the fill

00:53:38 ◼   ► so you can wash the case fully,

00:53:40 ◼   ► and they sell refills of the fill from their website, too.

00:53:43 ◼   ► This actually isn't that new of an idea.

00:53:45 ◼   ► People have been doing this for centuries,

00:53:46 ◼   ► the buckwheat pillows.

00:53:47 ◼   ► It was more popular outside the US, especially in Japan,

00:53:51 ◼   ► but now we're getting it here in the US.

00:53:52 ◼   ► It's really a more natural way to sleep,

00:53:55 ◼   ► and it's made in the USA with quality construction materials,

00:53:58 ◼   ► certified organic cotton case,

00:54:00 ◼   ► the buckwheat is grown and milled in the United States,

00:54:03 ◼   ► and there's fast, free shipping on every order.

00:54:06 ◼   ► You can sleep on it for 60 nights,

00:54:08 ◼   ► and if it's not right for you,

00:54:09 ◼   ► send it back for a full refund.

00:54:11 ◼   ► So go to hullopillow.com/atp.

00:54:15 ◼   ► If you try more than one,

00:54:16 ◼   ► you get a discount of the $20 per pillow,

00:54:18 ◼   ► depending on the size.

00:54:19 ◼   ► And once again, fast, free shipping on every order,

00:54:21 ◼   ► and 1% of all their profits

00:54:23 ◼   ► are donated to The Nature Conservancy.

00:54:25 ◼   ► This is a pretty cool company, hullopillow.com/atp.

00:54:29 ◼   ► That's H-U-L-L-O, pillow.com/atp.

00:54:33 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Hullopillow

00:54:34 ◼   ► for supporting my neck during sleep

00:54:36 ◼   ► and for sponsoring our show.

00:54:37 ◼   ► - All right, would you like to do some Ask ATP?

00:54:43 ◼   ► - Let's do it.

00:54:43 ◼   ► - We begin tonight with Josh Lewis, who writes,

00:54:46 ◼   ► "On what have you placed more stickers,

00:54:47 ◼   ► "your car or your iPad?"

00:54:49 ◼   ► And I thought that this kind of leads

00:54:51 ◼   ► to a perhaps more interesting corollary question,

00:54:53 ◼   ► which is, do you guys have any stickers on your cars?

00:54:57 ◼   ► So let me start with Marco, and I will go last.

00:55:00 ◼   ► Marco, do you have stickers on your iPad,

00:55:02 ◼   ► and do you have any in your car, and which one has more?

00:55:04 ◼   ► - So one question is, are we counting things

00:55:06 ◼   ► like registration stickers that have to go on the windshield?

00:55:09 ◼   ► - No, no, no, no, no.

00:55:09 ◼   ► - Okay, so if we rule out required stickers

00:55:13 ◼   ► for regulatory reasons, and parking permits,

00:55:16 ◼   ► and things like that, then I have one sticker on my car.

00:55:21 ◼   ► So I have a fish sticker on the back windshield,

00:55:26 ◼   ► right in the lower center part of it.

00:55:28 ◼   ► It is blocked from my view by the center rear seat headrest,

00:55:33 ◼   ► so it does not reduce visibility at all,

00:55:35 ◼   ► but it still advertises to the world that I enjoy fish,

00:55:38 ◼   ► and I kind of enjoy that.

00:55:40 ◼   ► That's the only sticker I have that's not a parking sticker

00:55:42 ◼   ► or registration sticker, and then on my iPad--

00:55:46 ◼   ► - Before you get to your iPad, you figure out

00:55:47 ◼   ► the other most important feature of that fish sticker.

00:55:51 ◼   ► It lets you pick out your Tesla among the 5,000

00:55:54 ◼   ► other red Teslas in the town where you live.

00:55:56 ◼   ► So when you go into the parking lot,

00:55:57 ◼   ► you're not lost in this maze of Teslas.

00:55:59 ◼   ► You're like, "Oh, there's mine.

00:56:00 ◼   ► "It's the one with the fish sticker."

00:56:01 ◼   ► - Exactly, it's all for practicality.

00:56:04 ◼   ► On my iPad, technically I have zero stickers,

00:56:07 ◼   ► because the one sticker that I have is not on the iPad.

00:56:10 ◼   ► It's on the keyboard cover.

00:56:13 ◼   ► - Oh, come on.

00:56:14 ◼   ► - On the keyboard cover is one sticker.

00:56:16 ◼   ► It is the Apple logo sticker, so it kind of looks

00:56:20 ◼   ► like an Apple laptop when we aren't using it,

00:56:23 ◼   ► like just right in the middle,

00:56:24 ◼   ► centered on the back of the keyboard cover,

00:56:26 ◼   ► but it's the sticker from the October event last fall,

00:56:28 ◼   ► which was my first invited press event,

00:56:32 ◼   ► and that meant a lot to me, and they gave special stickers

00:56:34 ◼   ► that were at that event, and it's one of those stickers.

00:56:37 ◼   ► - Is it upside down or right side up

00:56:39 ◼   ► when it's in the folded mode?

00:56:41 ◼   ► Which orientation did you go with?

00:56:43 ◼   ► - It is the modern version, so it's right side up

00:56:48 ◼   ► when it's up in use, when you see it from the back,

00:56:52 ◼   ► just as a modern Apple laptop would be.

00:56:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, they gave us a package

00:56:54 ◼   ► of something like five stickers.

00:56:56 ◼   ► I have one of those on the front of the keyboard cover.

00:57:00 ◼   ► If you're holding it in landscape, it's at the bottom left,

00:57:02 ◼   ► and mine is like a bluish and purple,

00:57:05 ◼   ► and like I said, they had given us a package of like five,

00:57:08 ◼   ► and I figure I'll just use them over time on iPads

00:57:11 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:57:13 ◼   ► John, what about your cars and iPads and things?

00:57:16 ◼   ► - Can I go out on a limb here and say zero on both?

00:57:18 ◼   ► - I would agree with you, but let's hear it for real.

00:57:22 ◼   ► - So I do have zero stickers on my cars,

00:57:24 ◼   ► also zero magnets, my wife tried to put a magnet on her car,

00:57:27 ◼   ► and I said, "We're not that kind of family."

00:57:29 ◼   ► You know the magnets, right?

00:57:31 ◼   ► - Like the ribbons and stuff?

00:57:32 ◼   ► - You see them, there's all sorts of ones.

00:57:35 ◼   ► I think the one she was trying to put on

00:57:36 ◼   ► was like a pet adoption one,

00:57:38 ◼   ► like after we'd adopted our dog or whatever,

00:57:39 ◼   ► but no, no magnets, no stickers, no, nothing on the car.

00:57:42 ◼   ► But I have to say, the first car I ever owned,

00:57:45 ◼   ► which I got from my parents, I did put a sticker on it.

00:57:49 ◼   ► When I sort of took ownership of it,

00:57:51 ◼   ► I put a very small white Apple logo sticker

00:57:53 ◼   ► on the back, you know, driver's side,

00:57:58 ◼   ► rear quarter window thingy, right?

00:58:00 ◼   ► And part of it was just like,

00:58:03 ◼   ► "Hey, I like Apple, blah, blah, blah."

00:58:04 ◼   ► But part of it was also to be able to identify

00:58:07 ◼   ► my white Honda Civic among the sea of other white Honda Civics

00:58:09 ◼   ► if I couldn't see both sides of it,

00:58:11 ◼   ► because you could easily pick it up

00:58:12 ◼   ► because it was the one without a passenger side mirror.

00:58:14 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:16 ◼   ► - Wait, I'm sorry, what color did you say it was?

00:58:18 ◼   ► - It's white.

00:58:19 ◼   ► - Really?

00:58:20 ◼   ► I don't know if we knew this before.

00:58:21 ◼   ► - Would you say that just happened to you?

00:58:23 ◼   ► - I mean, my mother actually likes white cars.

00:58:27 ◼   ► When she bought it at Acura Integra later,

00:58:29 ◼   ► she chose white again.

00:58:31 ◼   ► - Type R?

00:58:32 ◼   ► - Second, no, it wasn't, it was,

00:58:34 ◼   ► no, it was just the regular Integra.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Yeah, my brother got that car.

00:58:38 ◼   ► It was better than the Civic, but he totally destroyed it.

00:58:41 ◼   ► He left the sunroof open and let snow into the car.

00:58:44 ◼   ► This is the level of destruction we're talking about.

00:58:45 ◼   ► - Oh, God.

00:58:46 ◼   ► - That's pretty bad.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And that was later in life after,

00:58:49 ◼   ► and so, yeah, my iPad,

00:58:52 ◼   ► no, no stickers, I'm not a sticker person.

00:58:54 ◼   ► No stickers on my device.

00:58:55 ◼   ► I'm gonna ask Marco, is the sticker

00:58:57 ◼   ► that you put on your keyboard cover,

00:58:59 ◼   ► is it actually straight and centered?

00:59:01 ◼   ► I'm gonna guess no.

00:59:02 ◼   ► - It is straight.

00:59:04 ◼   ► If you eyeball it, it is straight.

00:59:06 ◼   ► It is not quite centered correctly.

00:59:09 ◼   ► - It can't possibly be straight.

00:59:11 ◼   ► This is the thing about the Apple logo.

00:59:12 ◼   ► You think it's easy to line up and make it straight,

00:59:14 ◼   ► but it's not a square.

00:59:16 ◼   ► It's like it's all wavy and curvy.

00:59:18 ◼   ► It's very easy to get it slightly crooked.

00:59:20 ◼   ► I'm going to guess that it is,

00:59:21 ◼   ► I mean, it's not as bad as Casey stickers,

00:59:22 ◼   ► which are just horrendously placed,

00:59:24 ◼   ► but it is really hard to actually get an Apple logo sticker,

00:59:28 ◼   ► unless you're laying it on top of,

00:59:29 ◼   ► this is what a lot of people do at work,

00:59:30 ◼   ► laying it on top of the one that Apple puts there,

00:59:32 ◼   ► which is straight and centered,

00:59:34 ◼   ► if you just have an empty field

00:59:37 ◼   ► on the back of a case or something,

00:59:39 ◼   ► trying to put the Apple logo visually centered

00:59:43 ◼   ► and also straight is basically impossible.

00:59:45 ◼   ► So, I mean, maybe it's off by an amount

00:59:47 ◼   ► that you don't notice, but don't look at it too closely.

00:59:50 ◼   ► - Got it.

00:59:51 ◼   ► So for me on my iPad, this is the first thing,

00:59:55 ◼   ► well, no, I stickered my work computer actually,

00:59:57 ◼   ► because it wasn't mine,

00:59:58 ◼   ► but this is the first device of my own

01:00:00 ◼   ► that I've stickered into Marco's point.

01:00:01 ◼   ► I haven't stickered the iPad itself, but rather the case.

01:00:04 ◼   ► I have 10 different stickers on the front of it

01:00:06 ◼   ► and three different stickers on the back of it,

01:00:08 ◼   ► including a white Apple logo, horrifically twisted,

01:00:11 ◼   ► not on purpose and horrifically off center,

01:00:14 ◼   ► also not on purpose,

01:00:15 ◼   ► to serve the same purpose as Marco had said.

01:00:17 ◼   ► So it looks kind of like a laptop when it's open.

01:00:20 ◼   ► On my car, I have the,

01:00:22 ◼   ► I don't know if you would want to call it like the outline,

01:00:24 ◼   ► but the shape of the Nurburgring in the back window

01:00:28 ◼   ► all the way down on the left.

01:00:30 ◼   ► I had the same basic thing on the BMW,

01:00:33 ◼   ► which I'd actually bought with Marco

01:00:35 ◼   ► at a little gift shop at the Nurburgring.

01:00:37 ◼   ► However, that went with the,

01:00:39 ◼   ► well, it was kind of falling off at that point anyway,

01:00:40 ◼   ► but it went with the car.

01:00:42 ◼   ► And so I just ordered a new one off Amazon

01:00:44 ◼   ► and I consider it okay to have that on the car

01:00:46 ◼   ► since I have, thanks to Marco,

01:00:48 ◼   ► driven the Nurburgring one time hilariously slowly.

01:00:51 ◼   ► So that is my situation.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Eric New writes, "You guys all seem to go

01:00:56 ◼   ► for 256 gigs of storage on your phones.

01:00:58 ◼   ► Do you come close to filling it?

01:01:00 ◼   ► I have tons of apps and podcasts

01:01:02 ◼   ► and I'm not even using 50% of 128 gigs.

01:01:05 ◼   ► I don't try to keep my whole camera roll on my phone

01:01:07 ◼   ► and I don't have any local music or videos.

01:01:09 ◼   ► So maybe that's it?"

01:01:12 ◼   ► For me, I believe I have something like, where is this?

01:01:15 ◼   ► This is in general, 80.5 gigs of 256 gigs.

01:01:20 ◼   ► And I always buy a little bit bigger phone

01:01:23 ◼   ► than I think I need just in case,

01:01:25 ◼   ► especially now that 4K video is a thing.

01:01:27 ◼   ► And isn't 4K at 60 frames a thing now?

01:01:30 ◼   ► - Yep. - So that gets real quick,

01:01:33 ◼   ► or real big real quick.

01:01:34 ◼   ► For me, I have 20 gigs of music

01:01:37 ◼   ► that I have pulled onto my phone, 10 gigs of photos,

01:01:40 ◼   ► and then a bunch of other miscellaneous

01:01:42 ◼   ► and boring stuff after that.

01:01:44 ◼   ► So I'm using, I don't know, what is this,

01:01:47 ◼   ► like a third of my 256 gigs.

01:01:49 ◼   ► Marco, you went first last time.

01:01:50 ◼   ► John, what's your situation on your phone?

01:01:52 ◼   ► - I saw this question earlier today.

01:01:54 ◼   ► I was like, "What are they talking about 256?

01:01:56 ◼   ► I don't get 256 gig phones."

01:01:57 ◼   ► But I wasn't entirely sure.

01:01:58 ◼   ► I'm like, "Do I get 256 gig phones?"

01:02:00 ◼   ► So I looked it up on my phone.

01:02:02 ◼   ► Sure enough, I have a 256 gig phone.

01:02:05 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure this is my first one that's ever been 256

01:02:08 ◼   ► 'cause I never really went for the big storage.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I just couldn't stomach the cost upgrade.

01:02:13 ◼   ► But I've got one now apparently.

01:02:14 ◼   ► And I'm using 96.6 gigabytes, so 256.

01:02:19 ◼   ► And I'd been managing space on this,

01:02:22 ◼   ► thinking that I had a 128,

01:02:23 ◼   ► like I didn't wanna be creeping up on it.

01:02:26 ◼   ► I think the reason I have that in mind

01:02:27 ◼   ► is because I constantly fill my iPad.

01:02:29 ◼   ► My iPad is always full.

01:02:30 ◼   ► But my iPad is super old.

01:02:31 ◼   ► Like it's the original iPad Pro,

01:02:34 ◼   ► which is now several pros old.

01:02:36 ◼   ► And I think the iPad is 128 gigs.

01:02:40 ◼   ► And also I download video to watch offline frequently

01:02:44 ◼   ► if I'm gonna be going somewhere

01:02:45 ◼   ► and don't wanna have to deal with trying to stream it

01:02:47 ◼   ► over a bad internet connection.

01:02:48 ◼   ► And that fills up the space real fast.

01:02:50 ◼   ► Or like downloading movies from my Plex or whatever.

01:02:52 ◼   ► So it's very easy to fill my iPad

01:02:54 ◼   ► and constantly deleting big games that I haven't used

01:02:57 ◼   ► and managing my space.

01:02:59 ◼   ► But on my phone, apparently I've got tons of headroom.

01:03:01 ◼   ► So I should stop aggressively deleting stuff from Overcast

01:03:05 ◼   ► and just let those things fill up.

01:03:06 ◼   ► Overcast is my third largest app, by the way.

01:03:09 ◼   ► But it's only 12 gigs.

01:03:11 ◼   ► 12 gigs of podcasts are on my phone.

01:03:13 ◼   ► - Marco.

01:03:14 ◼   ► - I have a very similar situation with both of you.

01:03:17 ◼   ► I do have the 256 gig phone.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I'm using about 76 gigs at the moment.

01:03:22 ◼   ► And so it feels weird.

01:03:24 ◼   ► But then like, so at first I thought,

01:03:25 ◼   ► well that was wasteful to get it.

01:03:26 ◼   ► But then I looked, I'm like, wait, was there a 128 option?

01:03:29 ◼   ► And it turns out, no there isn't.

01:03:30 ◼   ► Like the options are 64 or 256 or even more.

01:03:35 ◼   ► - No, that explains why I got 256.

01:03:37 ◼   ► 'Cause 64 I would be way over the limit of.

01:03:39 ◼   ► - Right, so like a couple of phones ago,

01:03:42 ◼   ► whenever they offered 128, I did get 128.

01:03:45 ◼   ► But they don't offer that anymore.

01:03:47 ◼   ► So I think, you know, I knew that 64 would be

01:03:50 ◼   ► a little bit tight for what I wanted.

01:03:52 ◼   ► Sure enough, that was true.

01:03:54 ◼   ► So it does feel wasteful to have all this space

01:03:57 ◼   ► for a phone that I know I'm only gonna probably own

01:03:59 ◼   ► for a year and that I know for most of that year

01:04:02 ◼   ► I'm gonna be using less than half of it.

01:04:05 ◼   ► But the next interval down would have been too small.

01:04:09 ◼   ► So I see it as like, not that I spent $150 extra

01:04:14 ◼   ► to get to buy space I wasn't going to use,

01:04:17 ◼   ► but rather I spent $150 to not have to manually manage

01:04:20 ◼   ► any space ever during that year that I have this phone.

01:04:23 ◼   ► So it doesn't feel great that, you know,

01:04:26 ◼   ► I wish they would have offered a middle option on 128

01:04:28 ◼   ► and I would have gotten that

01:04:29 ◼   ► and it would have been less money possibly.

01:04:31 ◼   ► But the fact is, we didn't have that option.

01:04:33 ◼   ► So I took the next best one.

01:04:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, I still think this is better

01:04:37 ◼   ► than having 16 or even 32 gigs be the base.

01:04:40 ◼   ► And then, you know, I'd much rather be a little grumpy

01:04:43 ◼   ► about going too high in the middle than being grumpy

01:04:47 ◼   ► about the lowest tier being effectively nothing.

01:04:51 ◼   ► So I don't think any of us are really complaining.

01:04:55 ◼   ► Finally, Sarah Ann writes, I'm a teacher considering

01:04:57 ◼   ► putting together a proposal for teaching computer science

01:04:59 ◼   ► as part of the International Baccalaureate at my school.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Program languages would be at my discretion.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Which ones do you think are the most valuable

01:05:06 ◼   ► slash important for modern students?

01:05:08 ◼   ► I have a really terrible answer for this,

01:05:10 ◼   ► so I guess I'll go last.

01:05:12 ◼   ► Marco, what do you think about that?

01:05:14 ◼   ► - There's always this dilemma between languages

01:05:18 ◼   ► that are easy to teach and/or languages

01:05:22 ◼   ► that demonstrate important computer science concepts

01:05:26 ◼   ► versus what languages are currently in use

01:05:30 ◼   ► in the practical world.

01:05:31 ◼   ► Because what the students probably want to learn

01:05:34 ◼   ► is whatever language they need to make cool stuff

01:05:38 ◼   ► that they can see in their current context.

01:05:40 ◼   ► Like, you know, on whatever devices people are using,

01:05:42 ◼   ► whatever platform people are using,

01:05:44 ◼   ► the current language is always in demand by the students.

01:05:47 ◼   ► What the professors usually want to teach

01:05:50 ◼   ► is something, you know, the more timeless concepts,

01:05:53 ◼   ► the more fundamental things.

01:05:55 ◼   ► So, you know, you might want to teach things like C

01:05:58 ◼   ► that are kind of like underlying all this stuff.

01:06:00 ◼   ► Or you might want to teach things

01:06:02 ◼   ► that have certain theoretical benefits,

01:06:05 ◼   ► like LISP, to teach functional programming,

01:06:07 ◼   ► or things like that.

01:06:08 ◼   ► So there's all these, like, competing factors.

01:06:11 ◼   ► But I think ultimately, for getting people started,

01:06:14 ◼   ► you need them to be motivated and to stick with it.

01:06:17 ◼   ► And so I would put to the side the value of things like LISP

01:06:21 ◼   ► and, you know, theoretical benefit languages.

01:06:24 ◼   ► Put that to the side, save that for, like,

01:06:26 ◼   ► year two or three of their education.

01:06:27 ◼   ► For year one, stick to things that will get them engaged

01:06:31 ◼   ► and will keep them motivated to keep going.

01:06:33 ◼   ► And that is whatever is required

01:06:35 ◼   ► to make the kind of things they want to make.

01:06:37 ◼   ► So right now, that's probably going to be,

01:06:39 ◼   ► in this order, Swift and then JavaScript.

01:06:42 ◼   ► - John, I assume Perl is the answer.

01:06:45 ◼   ► - My reading of this question is a little bit different

01:06:47 ◼   ► because it's a proposal for teaching computer science,

01:06:51 ◼   ► which is very different than a proposal

01:06:53 ◼   ► for teaching people how to program

01:06:55 ◼   ► or how to become programmers or anything.

01:06:57 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah.

01:06:57 ◼   ► - And so computer science is basically, you know,

01:07:00 ◼   ► basically a math course, practically.

01:07:02 ◼   ► And so then I would say, pick one of the languages

01:07:05 ◼   ► that has the least things

01:07:09 ◼   ► that are not important to the concept.

01:07:11 ◼   ► So when you're teaching computer science

01:07:13 ◼   ► and complexity theory and algorithms and data structures,

01:07:17 ◼   ► those things you could teach just with a whiteboard, right?

01:07:19 ◼   ► But you want them to have a program

01:07:21 ◼   ► that they can write it out.

01:07:23 ◼   ► Like, a lot of algorithm books will have, like,

01:07:24 ◼   ► pseudocode or whatever.

01:07:25 ◼   ► So basically what you want is the programming language

01:07:27 ◼   ► that is the most like pseudocode

01:07:29 ◼   ► so they don't have to worry about, oh, this is, you know,

01:07:32 ◼   ► like ideally you wouldn't have to worry about a type system.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Certainly you wouldn't have to worry about pointers.

01:07:36 ◼   ► You wouldn't have to worry about, you know,

01:07:38 ◼   ► native versus object, you know, primitives versus objects.

01:07:42 ◼   ► All sorts of concerns that are parts

01:07:43 ◼   ► of real programming language

01:07:44 ◼   ► but are not part of computer science, right?

01:07:47 ◼   ► Having to understand that, you know,

01:07:49 ◼   ► this is an int and that's a primitive

01:07:52 ◼   ► and this is an object and it's different

01:07:53 ◼   ► and they behave in this way.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Have to understand between pointers and references in C++.

01:07:57 ◼   ► None of that has anything to do with computer science.

01:07:59 ◼   ► So those make poor languages to teach computer science.

01:08:03 ◼   ► Arguably, like I said,

01:08:05 ◼   ► you could teach computer science without a language

01:08:09 ◼   ► and I've taken courses that are like that

01:08:11 ◼   ► where you don't touch a computer

01:08:12 ◼   ► but it is a computer science course.

01:08:14 ◼   ► But if you do want to touch a computer,

01:08:16 ◼   ► I would pick whatever you think

01:08:18 ◼   ► the best modern language is that has the least warts

01:08:24 ◼   ► that will surface when teaching algorithms

01:08:27 ◼   ► and data structures, right?

01:08:28 ◼   ► So Swift is actually good in that regard.

01:08:30 ◼   ► I've seen this, my son has been taking computer courses

01:08:33 ◼   ► and he's basically had to learn and use

01:08:36 ◼   ► at various times Python, Swift, Java and C++.

01:08:40 ◼   ► And despite the fact that Swift is itself

01:08:43 ◼   ► a very complicated and feature rich language,

01:08:45 ◼   ► if you're using it to learn data structures and algorithms,

01:08:48 ◼   ► you don't have to touch any of the weird stuff.

01:08:50 ◼   ► Like protocols are not going to come up

01:08:52 ◼   ► in a class teaching complexity theory, right?

01:08:55 ◼   ► It's just, you don't have to use it.

01:08:56 ◼   ► You just need like assignment, conditional,

01:08:58 ◼   ► loops, functions and if you're using Swift

01:09:02 ◼   ► to do those things, you do have to deal with type system

01:09:05 ◼   ► but type reference helps a little bit there.

01:09:06 ◼   ► You don't have to deal with pointers.

01:09:08 ◼   ► You don't have to deal with the strange warts

01:09:12 ◼   ► of types that can't contain a value

01:09:15 ◼   ► and all sorts of weird things that you have to deal with

01:09:19 ◼   ► in a low level language, right?

01:09:20 ◼   ► So I think Swift actually is a reasonably good language

01:09:24 ◼   ► to teach computer science.

01:09:25 ◼   ► You'll be using one tiny little corner of Swift.

01:09:29 ◼   ► Like Python might be similar, but honestly,

01:09:32 ◼   ► I think Python might actually have more weird warts

01:09:34 ◼   ► and strange things related to it than Swift.

01:09:37 ◼   ► So yeah, I think I'm basically gonna end up

01:09:39 ◼   ► agreeing with Marco but for different reasons.

01:09:41 ◼   ► That Swift is your number one

01:09:42 ◼   ► and the number two probably is JavaScript

01:09:44 ◼   ► 'cause it's so pervasive.

01:09:45 ◼   ► It lets you ignore types.

01:09:47 ◼   ► JavaScript has way more warts in the basics than Swift.

01:09:52 ◼   ► Like the fact that all your integers are floats

01:09:54 ◼   ► and that are 53 bits long or whatever

01:09:55 ◼   ► and that will come back to bite you

01:09:57 ◼   ► and the weird semantics around truth and you know,

01:09:59 ◼   ► this JavaScript is a mess, right?

01:10:01 ◼   ► But it's ubiquitous and you can do

01:10:03 ◼   ► all sorts of fun things with it

01:10:04 ◼   ► and if you're just gonna do a bunch of algorithms,

01:10:07 ◼   ► you can do that in JavaScript as well.

01:10:09 ◼   ► I don't think, like the real answer is talk to other people

01:10:13 ◼   ► who are teaching a similar course,

01:10:14 ◼   ► what they're using and how successful it is

01:10:16 ◼   ► but coming from people who have never taught a course

01:10:18 ◼   ► in computer science but have taken them,

01:10:20 ◼   ► Swift and JavaScript seem like a good place to start

01:10:23 ◼   ► and maybe I would throw in Python as a wild card.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - You know, it's funny, my first answer to this

01:10:29 ◼   ► was JavaScript because it's the most pervasive.

01:10:33 ◼   ► You can use it on almost any platform.

01:10:35 ◼   ► It may or may not be elegant but you can do it

01:10:38 ◼   ► but hearing you talk, Jon, particularly about,

01:10:41 ◼   ► and I'm thinking about classes in JavaScript

01:10:44 ◼   ► which at last I've played with this

01:10:46 ◼   ► which has been a while to be fair is not really a thing

01:10:49 ◼   ► or it's so weird and esoteric.

01:10:51 ◼   ► - And you don't have to deal with classes at all

01:10:53 ◼   ► to do algorithm and data structures, you don't.

01:10:56 ◼   ► - That's true, that's true.

01:10:57 ◼   ► - Also, like comp sci, like intro to comp sci kind of stuff,

01:11:00 ◼   ► you wouldn't really even need to get OO stuff in there.

01:11:03 ◼   ► - That's a fair point.

01:11:04 ◼   ► So I guess, you know, and it's not Sarah's fault

01:11:06 ◼   ► because she was writing a single tweet

01:11:08 ◼   ► so goodness knows what the parameters are for this

01:11:12 ◼   ► but the way I read it was let me teach you the basic,

01:11:15 ◼   ► and I think this is because I'm reflecting on my schooling

01:11:17 ◼   ► in the early aughts, what's the basics of

01:11:21 ◼   ► object oriented programming because that was

01:11:23 ◼   ► all the rage in the early aughts.

01:11:24 ◼   ► Not to say that it's not a thing now

01:11:26 ◼   ► but it was like slightly newish kind of,

01:11:29 ◼   ► sort of and fancy at the time.

01:11:31 ◼   ► In the way that I think functional programming is now.

01:11:34 ◼   ► Functional programming isn't actually new

01:11:36 ◼   ► but it's just becoming trendy now.

01:11:38 ◼   ► Well anyways, so if you're trying to teach basics of OOP

01:11:42 ◼   ► then I would say either Python or possibly Swift

01:11:46 ◼   ► and if you're just trying to teach a person,

01:11:49 ◼   ► you know, more like what I suspect your son is dealing with

01:11:52 ◼   ► which is, you know, how can you write code

01:11:54 ◼   ► and this is kind of what I think Marco was thinking of.

01:11:56 ◼   ► I think JavaScript was my first answer

01:11:59 ◼   ► with Swift probably being second or third

01:12:02 ◼   ► and Python being the other one in the two, three category.

01:12:05 ◼   ► But now, I don't know, hearing you guys talk

01:12:08 ◼   ► I really wasn't gonna bring Swift to the top

01:12:10 ◼   ► and now I'm actually starting to think you're right

01:12:11 ◼   ► that Swift might be the best complete answer

01:12:15 ◼   ► as long as you don't mind hitching yourself to Apple's wagon.

01:12:18 ◼   ► - Well but the fact is like a lot of these students

01:12:20 ◼   ► will have Apple devices and it is very motivating

01:12:24 ◼   ► to be able to make something that you might actually enjoy

01:12:28 ◼   ► and be able to run and use on your own device.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Like that is incredibly motivating

01:12:32 ◼   ► and when you're at the introductory level,

01:12:35 ◼   ► keeping these students motivated and engaged

01:12:38 ◼   ► and getting them to like push forward

01:12:41 ◼   ► is so much more important than whatever specific things

01:12:43 ◼   ► you're teaching them because you have to like,

01:12:46 ◼   ► a lot of people dip into CS like as an experiment

01:12:49 ◼   ► or I might like this, I don't know.

01:12:50 ◼   ► And so you have to keep them motivated

01:12:53 ◼   ► to get a lot of them to stay

01:12:55 ◼   ► and to remain engaged in the course.

01:12:57 ◼   ► And so if it's something that they can like,

01:13:00 ◼   ► they can make code that runs on their phone,

01:13:03 ◼   ► they could make their own iPhone app,

01:13:06 ◼   ► which you know their phone is certainly likely

01:13:09 ◼   ► to be an iPhone, it isn't guaranteed for everybody

01:13:11 ◼   ► but it's certainly pretty high on the list,

01:13:13 ◼   ► then like that is, that has so much more value

01:13:17 ◼   ► than any individual concept that you might teach

01:13:21 ◼   ► in an introductory course.

01:13:23 ◼   ► - People dump on Swift a lot as a learning language

01:13:26 ◼   ► because it's like learning language, it's so complicated

01:13:29 ◼   ► and there's so many weird features and it's true,

01:13:31 ◼   ► it's a big language and getting bigger all the time

01:13:33 ◼   ► but I maintain that it actually is

01:13:35 ◼   ► a reasonable learning language

01:13:36 ◼   ► because the corner of the language that you need to use

01:13:39 ◼   ► to learn the basics doesn't have a lot of sharp edges.

01:13:43 ◼   ► Like strings work in a normal way,

01:13:46 ◼   ► numbers work in a normal way, functions look like normal,

01:13:51 ◼   ► there's not too much weird syntax

01:13:53 ◼   ► in terms of parameter parsing,

01:13:54 ◼   ► especially if you don't reveal the entire power

01:13:56 ◼   ► of the parameter system.

01:13:57 ◼   ► Like if you just stay in that little corner,

01:14:00 ◼   ► simple things really are simple, even the type system,

01:14:03 ◼   ► which is a complexity that you don't really need to deal with

01:14:05 ◼   ► to teach computer science, can be mostly hidden from you,

01:14:09 ◼   ► you just do basic things.

01:14:11 ◼   ► Even when you get into objects and stuff and structs

01:14:15 ◼   ► and like it's, in terms of all of the quote unquote

01:14:18 ◼   ► popular languages, it has the fewest weird things

01:14:22 ◼   ► if what you wanna do is simple and straightforward

01:14:24 ◼   ► 'cause you're just learning.

01:14:25 ◼   ► Like you're not interested in learning Swift,

01:14:26 ◼   ► you're interested in learning computer science

01:14:28 ◼   ► and you're learning it through Swift.

01:14:29 ◼   ► It's the thing that used to be an argument for Python

01:14:31 ◼   ► but Python is old enough now that it has,

01:14:34 ◼   ► like I think Python didn't do a good job

01:14:37 ◼   ► of cleaning up its mistakes during its evolution,

01:14:41 ◼   ► like many of its sibling languages,

01:14:42 ◼   ► including Perl and Ruby and all that stuff.

01:14:44 ◼   ► They just kind of built stuff on

01:14:46 ◼   ► and then they did the Python two to three transition.

01:14:47 ◼   ► There's lots of weird warts in Python that to explain,

01:14:50 ◼   ► you have to be like, okay, well let me tell you

01:14:51 ◼   ► the history of Python and why this is like this

01:14:53 ◼   ► and we have a new way to do it

01:14:54 ◼   ► but the old way's still there and it works

01:14:56 ◼   ► and the new way's a little bit weird

01:14:57 ◼   ► because we couldn't interfere with the old way.

01:14:58 ◼   ► You don't have to make those explanations

01:15:00 ◼   ► for the most part with Swift.

01:15:00 ◼   ► It's part of the benefit of all the breaking they've done

01:15:04 ◼   ► of source compatibility over the years.

01:15:05 ◼   ► It's like, make a mistake, they're like erase, erase, erase,

01:15:08 ◼   ► try again, okay, erase, erase, erase, try again

01:15:11 ◼   ► and they're still towards the edges of the language

01:15:13 ◼   ► and the complexities.

01:15:14 ◼   ► It's you know, you know,

01:15:16 ◼   ► fiendishly difficult to understand all the nuances

01:15:18 ◼   ► but for the basics, you know,

01:15:21 ◼   ► it is, I think it is a pretty good learning language.

01:15:24 ◼   ► To give an example, my son was using it.

01:15:27 ◼   ► He wasn't using it to write anything having to do

01:15:30 ◼   ► with Apple platforms.

01:15:31 ◼   ► In fact, he was initially writing Swift into a webpage

01:15:33 ◼   ► and that webpage would compile it for you on the back end

01:15:36 ◼   ► and show you the result and it was like,

01:15:38 ◼   ► it was like doing a basic program.

01:15:39 ◼   ► You could take, you know,

01:15:41 ◼   ► text input from the terminal essentially

01:15:43 ◼   ► and you could print things

01:15:44 ◼   ► and that was in the introductory course.

01:15:46 ◼   ► All you would do is add numbers together,

01:15:48 ◼   ► make data structures, take input from the keyboard,

01:15:52 ◼   ► print values.

01:15:53 ◼   ► There is nothing Apple about it.

01:15:56 ◼   ► Like I said, it was in a webpage.

01:15:57 ◼   ► Eventually I got him to use Xcode

01:15:58 ◼   ► because doing your coding in a webpage is not ideal

01:16:02 ◼   ► but even though they're not using Apple devices,

01:16:05 ◼   ► there is still the benefit of saying,

01:16:07 ◼   ► oh and by the way, this is the actual language people use,

01:16:10 ◼   ► asterisk, asterisk, to write applications

01:16:13 ◼   ► for your phone and your iPad and like wow.

01:16:16 ◼   ► Like they feel like they're not wasting their time.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Like I know Swift and they don't know Swift.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Like they know a tiny corner of Swift

01:16:22 ◼   ► that have really no idea how to use it at all

01:16:24 ◼   ► and they don't realize that what you really need to know

01:16:26 ◼   ► to write phone apps is not the language but the API

01:16:30 ◼   ► which is so much harder to get your mind around

01:16:32 ◼   ► than the language but I think it has done its job

01:16:36 ◼   ► as a teaching language and apparently my son was telling me

01:16:39 ◼   ► that the AP computer science test is all in Java still.

01:16:43 ◼   ► So like you're faced with, I'm not sure what the,

01:16:47 ◼   ► again, the goal of this particular course is

01:16:49 ◼   ► but in the US anyway, apparently if you're gonna take

01:16:52 ◼   ► the AP computer science test, you better know Java

01:16:54 ◼   ► because that's what they're gonna test you on

01:16:55 ◼   ► which is kind of a shame because Java does have all sorts

01:16:58 ◼   ► of warts that are not relevant to the,

01:17:02 ◼   ► to computer science as a concept but are very relevant

01:17:05 ◼   ► to Java as a particular language and who cares about that?

01:17:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, Java is actually what I learned.

01:17:10 ◼   ► Like it was what my CS 101 and 102 were taught

01:17:13 ◼   ► in the year 2000.

01:17:16 ◼   ► That was the only time I ever used it for anything.

01:17:18 ◼   ► - I was learning on C++ and a couple of courses you see

01:17:23 ◼   ► but only a couple but I've never,

01:17:26 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever really written a line of Java ever

01:17:29 ◼   ► which is not necessarily by design

01:17:31 ◼   ► although I'm not complaining but it just kind of happened

01:17:34 ◼   ► that way 'cause again, I learned C++, a little bit of C,

01:17:37 ◼   ► actually took one course in C# which was extremely convenient

01:17:41 ◼   ► in a couple years into my career but no, I was all C++.

01:17:46 ◼   ► - You are not missing much.

01:17:48 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I know I'm not and I mean C++ is a,

01:17:51 ◼   ► it's got so many problems.

01:17:52 ◼   ► I hear it's better these days just like Linux on the desktop

01:17:54 ◼   ► but oh, it's got so many problems.

01:17:56 ◼   ► - I heard recently that it's gonna get worse.

01:17:58 ◼   ► Like I mean, someone was telling me that the C++ 20 standard

01:18:03 ◼   ► is like this is the breaking point.

01:18:04 ◼   ► This is where C++ gets, it's just gonna go over the deep end

01:18:07 ◼   ► and jump the shark and I was like,

01:18:08 ◼   ► C++ has jumped so many sharks.

01:18:11 ◼   ► It jumps an entire ocean full of sharks.

01:18:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:15 ◼   ► The ship so long ago sailed on C++ becoming so complicated

01:18:19 ◼   ► that no one person can hold it in their mind.

01:18:20 ◼   ► Like that's so long and still in the context of C++,

01:18:24 ◼   ► C++ 20 has this reputation of being like,

01:18:27 ◼   ► oh, now they've gone too far.

01:18:29 ◼   ► So I can only imagine what is in that standard.

01:18:32 ◼   ► C++ is a great example of a language that is a victim

01:18:35 ◼   ► of its own success that they just keep adding things to

01:18:38 ◼   ► and it's just, you know, I really do hope for Swift

01:18:42 ◼   ► to be able to someday replace C++ because like,

01:18:46 ◼   ► let's reset the wart clock, you know what I mean?

01:18:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:18:49 ◼   ► Every language gets warts over time, right?

01:18:52 ◼   ► But there's no way to like fix a language like C++

01:18:55 ◼   ► to get rid of all those things 'cause that's just what it is

01:18:58 ◼   ► and I was telling my son like,

01:19:00 ◼   ► all those video games that you love to play,

01:19:02 ◼   ► they're all written unfortunately in C++

01:19:04 ◼   ► with some scripting thing in the middle there

01:19:07 ◼   ► for the parts that aren't performance critical.

01:19:08 ◼   ► But yeah, it's a giant wad of C++.

01:19:10 ◼   ► Destiny, the game I play all the time,

01:19:12 ◼   ► is the most famously complicated mess of C++

01:19:15 ◼   ► you could ever imagine.

01:19:16 ◼   ► There's a great GDC session where the Destiny developers

01:19:18 ◼   ► are explaining how Destiny works under the covers

01:19:22 ◼   ► and it is way more complicated than you think it is.

01:19:25 ◼   ► 'Cause it has to be, 'cause if you look at the hardware

01:19:26 ◼   ► that it's running on, like everything has to be

01:19:27 ◼   ► multi-threaded, you have to use all those cores,