ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► - We can't start for eight more minutes.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Why, is there some kind of sporting game on?

00:00:06 ◼   ► - No, I don't know if you can hear this, hold on.

00:00:09 ◼   ► - The rain, or the wind?

00:00:10 ◼   ► - No, that's my iMac screaming.

00:00:12 ◼   ► - No, it was raining here, and I was wondering

00:00:14 ◼   ► if it was gonna keep up.

00:00:15 ◼   ► - It was raining earlier.

00:00:16 ◼   ► It's actually gorgeous now, but it was raining earlier.

00:00:18 ◼   ► - Actually, all this time, Casey's iMac

00:00:20 ◼   ► just doesn't work in the rain,

00:00:21 ◼   ► and he just never thought to mention it.

00:00:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:00:24 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:25 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:00:27 ◼   ► This here, this is the little plastic sheathing,

00:00:32 ◼   ► if you will, for an ATP pin.

00:00:34 ◼   ► I have to say, it looks magnificent.

00:00:38 ◼   ► I am quite excited about these pins.

00:00:40 ◼   ► Actually, I have not yet opened one.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Oh, you should open it.

00:00:43 ◼   ► Mine arrived today and I opened one,

00:00:44 ◼   ► and they are really nice.

00:00:47 ◼   ► - This is excellent work.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It has a nice, soft, little stabby thing cap.

00:00:54 ◼   ► - Stabby thing, is that a technical term for what it's on?

00:00:56 ◼   ► - Huh?

00:00:57 ◼   ► - That is exactly-- - Is there another word

00:00:58 ◼   ► for the thing that's on the back of what are they called

00:01:00 ◼   ► again? - Probably a post,

00:01:02 ◼   ► would be a guess. - A backing?

00:01:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, but anyway, so the little thing that protects

00:01:07 ◼   ► the post is very nice, very soft, it is quite nice,

00:01:10 ◼   ► this pin, and I highly suggest, listeners,

00:01:13 ◼   ► if you'd like to throw a few bucks our way,

00:01:15 ◼   ► you should pick one up.

00:01:17 ◼   ► And Marco, why don't you tell us about where you can get

00:01:18 ◼   ► these pins, among many other things

00:01:20 ◼   ► which I will also talk about.

00:01:22 ◼   ► - So you can go to ATP.fm/shirt for our usual URL,

00:01:26 ◼   ► Or you can go to our new URL, ATP.FM/store.

00:01:31 ◼   ► And the reason why it's store is that this year

00:01:35 ◼   ► we have zero new designs, but like five new products.

00:01:39 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:40 ◼   ► - So with that in mind, I now have,

00:01:44 ◼   ► that's me hitting the brim of my baseball cap

00:01:46 ◼   ► onto the microphone.

00:01:47 ◼   ► This is an embroidered ATP,

00:01:50 ◼   ► what is the official name for the grayish color?

00:01:53 ◼   ► It's like charcoal coal something?

00:01:55 ◼   ► Space Gray.

00:01:56 ◼   ► There you go.

00:01:57 ◼   ► Space Gray, yeah.

00:01:58 ◼   ► It's definitely Space Gray.

00:01:59 ◼   ► How could I be so wrong?

00:02:00 ◼   ► It is a Space Gray embroidered ATP hat.

00:02:03 ◼   ► I am quite into it.

00:02:04 ◼   ► It looks quite good.

00:02:05 ◼   ► I also have with me, and I am playing with it now, but it's not making very much noise,

00:02:10 ◼   ► an ATP embroidered zipped hoodie.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Now, I am quite excited about this.

00:02:16 ◼   ► I don't really wear hoodies.

00:02:19 ◼   ► The hood to me is kind of redundant, but I know a lot of people are useless, maybe.

00:02:22 ◼   ► I know a lot of people that love the hood part of the hoodie.

00:02:24 ◼   ► My word, the inside of this thing is made of magic.

00:02:28 ◼   ► It is extremely soft, it is thin, but thick enough that it will provide warmth.

00:02:34 ◼   ► You know, it's not one of those scenarios where it's like a piece of, like, you know, tissue paper that you're wrapping yourself with.

00:02:40 ◼   ► It's thick enough that it's got some heft to it, but it's still very light and casual.

00:02:45 ◼   ► And I have to say this thing is quite nice, but perhaps more importantly than anything else, I have...

00:02:52 ◼   ► You can't hear this either. I have an ATP embroidered polo

00:02:56 ◼   ► Finally it is it is a real thing. I had gotten a pre-release version of this like a year ago

00:03:01 ◼   ► I might have accidentally lost it like a week ago. I really honestly don't know where it is somewhere in the house

00:03:06 ◼   ► I can't find it. But anyway, I

00:03:08 ◼   ► Have a brand new ATP polo and it's made out of what is this like Nike dry fit or something like that?

00:03:14 ◼   ► It's it's yeah Nike dry fit

00:03:16 ◼   ► It reminds me a little bit of Under Armour which sounds like a bad thing because Under Armour's marketing is like really bro-ey

00:03:22 ◼   ► But it's actually quite nice, and I am very excited because I still, at this moment anyway,

00:03:28 ◼   ► have a jobby job, and I wear collared shirts to my jobby job, and I am excited to have

00:03:32 ◼   ► a polo.

00:03:33 ◼   ► So, listeners, if you have a jobby job where you can wear a polo, if you just like collars,

00:03:38 ◼   ► if you want to pop a collar, then please don't.

00:03:40 ◼   ► But if you have to, if you're going to pop a collar at all, at least do it in an ATP

00:03:43 ◼   ► shirt.

00:03:44 ◼   ► You should buy two of these shirts so you can have two collars inside the shirt.

00:03:46 ◼   ► You know what, Jon?

00:03:47 ◼   ► I like where your head's at.

00:03:48 ◼   ► That is a great idea.

00:03:49 ◼   ► You can appear in a WWDC keynote.

00:03:51 ◼   ► That is a fantastic idea.

00:03:53 ◼   ► And if no other reason, you should buy this polo shirt because I fought tooth and nail

00:03:58 ◼   ► with Marco particularly to get the polos offered.

00:04:02 ◼   ► And I need some amount of vindication on this issue.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So please buy a polo if you don't mind.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Or buy anything really.

00:04:09 ◼   ► The pins, buy all the things really is what we're trying to say.

00:04:13 ◼   ► Buy all the things because it'd be great.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And they're all really great and really high quality.

00:04:17 ◼   ► Go to ATP.fm/store and buy some stuff.

00:04:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and you have to do it soon if you want it.

00:04:24 ◼   ► Everything except the pin, all the clothing items,

00:04:27 ◼   ► are all being pre-sold and then at the end,

00:04:29 ◼   ► they print it and ship it,

00:04:30 ◼   ► just like a lot of these t-shirt campaigns

00:04:31 ◼   ► that people like us do.

00:04:33 ◼   ► The date that you have to order by

00:04:35 ◼   ► for all the clothing items is May 7th at 8 p.m. Eastern.

00:04:39 ◼   ► Hurry up, that's coming up fast.

00:04:41 ◼   ► If you want the clothing items, hurry up.

00:04:43 ◼   ► If you want the pins, they don't work that way.

00:04:45 ◼   ► The pins ship pretty much immediately,

00:04:47 ◼   ► but there's a fixed number of them that exist

00:04:50 ◼   ► And I will tell you that this is the first time

00:04:52 ◼   ► we're promoting on the show.

00:04:53 ◼   ► We only announced it on Twitter a few days ago.

00:04:55 ◼   ► We've already sold about a third of the pins.

00:04:57 ◼   ► So if you want pins, really hurry up.

00:05:00 ◼   ► 'Cause I have a feeling they're gonna sell out

00:05:01 ◼   ► within not that much time after this episode airs.

00:05:04 ◼   ► Maybe by next week, but you know,

00:05:06 ◼   ► it's not gonna be,

00:05:07 ◼   ► you're not gonna have a lot of time on the pins.

00:05:09 ◼   ► And again, if you want those clothing items,

00:05:10 ◼   ► order those by May 7th.

00:05:12 ◼   ► So otherwise, you know, we are really excited about this.

00:05:15 ◼   ► I was very disappointed, honestly, last year

00:05:18 ◼   ► in the quality of products that we got out of Teespring.

00:05:22 ◼   ► And because of that, we agreed not to use Teespring anymore.

00:05:27 ◼   ► And we were gonna go back to Cotton Bureau anyway,

00:05:29 ◼   ► but then they approached us with this amazing proposal

00:05:32 ◼   ► for making the whole storefront with multiple items,

00:05:35 ◼   ► many of which are things that they don't,

00:05:37 ◼   ► that not just anybody can go to them and print things

00:05:39 ◼   ► like pins and embroidered items and stuff like that.

00:05:42 ◼   ► And they are so good, they're so nice,

00:05:45 ◼   ► that we're just really happy working with them again

00:05:47 ◼   ► and their stuff is top-notch quality

00:05:50 ◼   ► and we're very happy that they now have

00:05:53 ◼   ► much more affordable shipping outside of the US.

00:05:56 ◼   ► We should also clarify that the designs of all of this

00:06:01 ◼   ► are based on the rainbow ATP logo from two years ago.

00:06:06 ◼   ► We tried some new designs for this year.

00:06:09 ◼   ► We couldn't come up with anything

00:06:10 ◼   ► that was that very good in time

00:06:12 ◼   ► and everybody has been begging us.

00:06:14 ◼   ► Since this campaign ended in mid-2016,

00:06:18 ◼   ► everyone loved the design, everybody wanted more.

00:06:21 ◼   ► And last year we had a great design too,

00:06:23 ◼   ► but I think I have no regrets going back

00:06:26 ◼   ► to this design for this year.

00:06:28 ◼   ► And the storefront is actually going

00:06:30 ◼   ► to remain open indefinitely.

00:06:33 ◼   ► We might add more stuff over time,

00:06:36 ◼   ► maybe not waiting until WVDC next year,

00:06:38 ◼   ► maybe we'll do it a little bit more ahead of time,

00:06:41 ◼   ► or maybe we'll do something in the fall, who knows.

00:06:42 ◼   ► but the storefront will kind of be an indefinite thing

00:06:47 ◼   ► with products coming in and out at different times.

00:06:48 ◼   ► But right now, if you want the rainbow logo,

00:06:51 ◼   ► clothing items, or pins, go now

00:06:54 ◼   ► because your time is limited on those.

00:06:57 ◼   ► And yeah, we'll see what happens.

00:06:59 ◼   ► - And as a final addendum, I cannot tell you

00:07:02 ◼   ► the amount of times I've heard somebody say to me

00:07:05 ◼   ► via Twitter or whatever, "Oh, I just missed it.

00:07:08 ◼   ► "I kept meaning to do it and I never did it

00:07:11 ◼   ► and now I can't have that anymore.

00:07:13 ◼   ► Don't wait, don't wait.

00:07:14 ◼   ► Just give us your friggin' money.

00:07:17 ◼   ► I mean, buy yourself a beautiful piece of ATP artwork

00:07:19 ◼   ► and a shirt, do what you can right now before you forget,

00:07:24 ◼   ► because you will be kicking yourself if you forget,

00:07:26 ◼   ► and especially if you're interested in the pins.

00:07:29 ◼   ► We will probably eventually one day

00:07:31 ◼   ► do another run of these pins, eventually.

00:07:33 ◼   ► - Oh, we're definitely gonna do more pins.

00:07:35 ◼   ► The only question is when and which ones.

00:07:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're not sure when.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And just like Marco said, we'll call attention to it.

00:07:41 ◼   ► probably when other things appear in the store, but hey, maybe set a, you know, every couple

00:07:46 ◼   ► of months reminder in DUE to check out ATP.fm/store because we might put something else up. In

00:07:52 ◼   ► fact, we've already got a couple of other things in the works as we speak that we will

00:07:56 ◼   ► probably be doing later in the year.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Just Osborne to all our merch. Stop. Cut that out.

00:08:00 ◼   ► What do you mean Osborne? What the hell does that even mean?

00:08:04 ◼   ► You don't—oh, come on.

00:08:05 ◼   ► You'll look it up on Wikipedia later.

00:08:06 ◼   ► In case you didn't see that movie.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Even Marco's seeing that one.

00:08:10 ◼   ► One final, final bit, the Rainbow ATP logo merch is very popular.

00:08:15 ◼   ► When we offered it in 2016, people kept asking us to bring it out.

00:08:18 ◼   ► But I believe that we actually sold more of my t-shirt design last year.

00:08:23 ◼   ► Just saying.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Mm-hmm.

00:08:25 ◼   ► I got two more quick angles on merchandise.

00:08:29 ◼   ► One, when I was browsing the Cotton Bureau site, they saw a whole bunch of stuff.

00:08:33 ◼   ► And at the bottom, they show the popular items, and our stuff was down there.

00:08:35 ◼   ► But also MKBHD's shirt was down there.

00:08:38 ◼   ► And I'm like, "Huh, he's got one day left on his campaign.

00:08:41 ◼   ► He's only sold like 500 shirts.

00:08:43 ◼   ► We can beat that."

00:08:44 ◼   ► So I really want to sell more shirts than his bazillion subscriber YouTube channel.

00:08:49 ◼   ► So let's all go do that and win one for podcasting.

00:08:51 ◼   ► And the second thing is people have also been asking about stickers.

00:08:55 ◼   ► We do not have stickers for sale.

00:08:58 ◼   ► But if you are at WWDC and you find one of us, chances are good that if you want a sticker,

00:09:03 ◼   ► we will give you one for free.

00:09:04 ◼   ► That is accurate.

00:09:05 ◼   ► - I know it's bad if you're not at WWDC,

00:09:07 ◼   ► and we may look into selling stickers someday,

00:09:09 ◼   ► somehow, someway, they're not available now,

00:09:11 ◼   ► but if you are lucky enough to be in San Jose with us,

00:09:14 ◼   ► not even at WWDC, but in San Jose,

00:09:17 ◼   ► and you find one of us, and you want one of the stickers

00:09:19 ◼   ► that we might have, we will just give you one.

00:09:21 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:09:22 ◼   ► - We are sponsored this week by Linode.

00:09:24 ◼   ► Go to linode.com/atp to learn more.

00:09:27 ◼   ► Linode is my favorite web host.

00:09:30 ◼   ► I have been there I think about eight years now.

00:09:33 ◼   ► I have all of my stuff hosted there,

00:09:35 ◼   ► And the reason why is that it's just better

00:09:37 ◼   ► than everything else I've tried.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Not only is it a better value,

00:09:40 ◼   ► their plans start at just one gig of RAM

00:09:42 ◼   ► for just $5 a month, that's a really good price.

00:09:46 ◼   ► And if you look at their pricing for all their plans,

00:09:48 ◼   ► and they have high memory plans,

00:09:49 ◼   ► every time I've checked,

00:09:50 ◼   ► they are either the best game in town,

00:09:51 ◼   ► or they're tied with the best game in town.

00:09:53 ◼   ► They're an incredible value for what you get.

00:09:55 ◼   ► All of this is running on enterprise-grade SSDs,

00:09:58 ◼   ► Xeon E5 CPUs, 40-gigabit network backing it.

00:10:02 ◼   ► They have all sorts of great features like load balancing.

00:10:05 ◼   ► They have an API to automate the creation

00:10:08 ◼   ► and resizing and things like that of new instances.

00:10:11 ◼   ► It's incredibly nice to be a Linode customer

00:10:13 ◼   ► because you just have so much available to you

00:10:17 ◼   ► at such good pricing.

00:10:18 ◼   ► You can even try stuff out with hourly billing.

00:10:20 ◼   ► They have 24/7 friendly support if you ever need it.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Phone support is also available.

00:10:25 ◼   ► You can run Docker containers, you can run encrypted disks,

00:10:27 ◼   ► you can run VPNs, or you can be boring

00:10:29 ◼   ► and just run PHP, MySQL web app

00:10:32 ◼   ► like I do. Check out Linode today and if you go to Linode.com/ATP or if you use promo code

00:10:39 ◼   ► ATP2018, you will get a $20 credit. If you choose the base plan, the one gig plan, that's

00:10:45 ◼   ► four months, that's five bucks a month. So it's great. Check it out today, Linode.com/ATP.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And if they're actually hiring, if you're looking for a job, Linode.com/careers. Thank

00:10:57 ◼   ► you so much to Linode for sponsoring our show.

00:11:00 ◼   ► [Music]

00:11:03 ◼   ► Listener Casey asks, who definitely, definitely, definitely is not me, definitely not me, "Hey,

00:11:09 ◼   ► would Bitcode make an Intel-to-ARM transition easier?"

00:11:13 ◼   ► The reason I ask is, I mean, the reason that other Casey asks is, his or my or somebody's

00:11:19 ◼   ► understanding of Bitcode is that basically what Apple eventually gets in the iTunes store

00:11:26 ◼   ► or Mac App Store is kind of like an intermediate language, kind of an IL version of your code.

00:11:33 ◼   ► So it's been quasi-compiled, but it's recompilable—that's probably not a word, but you get what I'm

00:11:39 ◼   ► trying to say—Apple can recompile it to take advantage of new instructions on processors

00:11:46 ◼   ► and things of that nature.

00:11:47 ◼   ► So would that be enough to make an Intel-to-ARM transition easier?

00:11:51 ◼   ► So I'm like, "Didn't we already talk about this in ATB?"

00:11:54 ◼   ► And then I remembered we talked about it with Chris Latner, the creator of LLVM and someone

00:11:59 ◼   ► who knows a little something about bitcode and bytecode.

00:12:01 ◼   ► And also, luckily, this is one of the rare, the only episode, I think, that we actually

00:12:06 ◼   ► transcribed.

00:12:08 ◼   ► So we'll put a link in the show notes to the section of our interview with Chris Latner

00:12:12 ◼   ► where we talk about bitcode.

00:12:14 ◼   ► And we talk about some of these same issues like what is bitcode for, how is it different

00:12:18 ◼   ► than bytecode, does it help with portability.

00:12:21 ◼   ► So I would encourage everyone to review that because we don't want to rehash it all here.

00:12:23 ◼   ► But my short answer is that it doesn't help as much as you might think because bitcode

00:12:28 ◼   ► is not a completely architecture agnostic representation.

00:12:34 ◼   ► It is not the same as machine code.

00:12:36 ◼   ► It is more independent than that.

00:12:37 ◼   ► That's the whole point of it to be able to—I think Chris gives an example about if you're

00:12:42 ◼   ► running bitcode and compiling it down to machine code for a processor that doesn't have a

00:12:46 ◼   ► particular kind of divide instruction, but then later you get a new processor and a new

00:12:49 ◼   ► new iPhone that has that divide instruction, they can then convert the bitcode to different

00:12:54 ◼   ► machine code.

00:12:55 ◼   ► So there is some portability there, but in terms of, "Oh, bitcode is completely architecture

00:12:59 ◼   ► agnostic and you can compile it down to anything," it's not like, you know, there's no virtual

00:13:04 ◼   ► machine specification like there is with the JVM and Java bytecode and stuff like that.

00:13:09 ◼   ► It's more independent than hardware, but not as independent as we've defined a virtual

00:13:13 ◼   ► machine like the JVM, and this is the bytecode for the virtual machine.

00:13:18 ◼   ► then that's the model that you program against and then a virtual machine runs on actual

00:13:23 ◼   ► hardware.

00:13:24 ◼   ► That's not the way bitcode works.

00:13:25 ◼   ► So I mean, is it a factor?

00:13:27 ◼   ► You know, bitcode isn't set in stone, just like the thing that preceded the bytecode

00:13:31 ◼   ► wasn't set in stone.

00:13:33 ◼   ► So there could be a successor to bitcode that really does help a lot with some kind of transition,

00:13:37 ◼   ► especially if there's some kind of translation layer, if they change architectures.

00:13:41 ◼   ► But bitcode as it exists now, I don't think is enough help that it would make a significant

00:13:48 ◼   ► and it's only perhaps that it gives Apple a leg up on,

00:13:50 ◼   ► oh, we really do wanna make a translation layer,

00:13:52 ◼   ► so we'll make the successor to Bitcode,

00:13:54 ◼   ► and since we have that experience with both bytecode

00:13:56 ◼   ► and Bitcode for LLVM, we'll make, I don't know,

00:13:58 ◼   ► Bitcode 2 or something, and that would help.

00:14:01 ◼   ► - I have some follow-up about backpacks.

00:14:03 ◼   ► Much to, I hate to announce this, I'm really sorry, Casey.

00:14:09 ◼   ► I had to return the TomBin.

00:14:11 ◼   ► - Well, that's why.

00:14:12 ◼   ► - As we discussed last week, I got the TomBin Synapse 25,

00:14:16 ◼   ► and going against my Peak Design Everyday 20 liter backpack,

00:14:21 ◼   ► I was hoping that the Tom Bihn would store more stuff

00:14:25 ◼   ► and have things more externally accessible

00:14:27 ◼   ► than the Peak Design.

00:14:29 ◼   ► My main problems with the Peak are that it didn't hold enough

00:14:33 ◼   ► and that I didn't like the design of the side pockets

00:14:36 ◼   ► making everything a little hard to get to

00:14:37 ◼   ► and the laptop compartment was a little bit tight

00:14:39 ◼   ► and all the organization was kind of internal to the bag

00:14:42 ◼   ► instead of external.

00:14:44 ◼   ► So I got the Tom Bihn 25 and last week I raved

00:14:46 ◼   ► how awesome it seemed, but I hadn't actually traveled

00:14:49 ◼   ► with it yet or really used it outside of the house even.

00:14:51 ◼   ► I had just played with it in my office for a couple hours.

00:14:55 ◼   ► And one thing I didn't do at the time

00:14:58 ◼   ► of last week's recording was load it up

00:15:02 ◼   ► with a lot of stuff and put it on.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And when I tried that, I could not make it comfortable.

00:15:09 ◼   ► It just felt really wrong on me.

00:15:12 ◼   ► And so I'm guessing the Synapse 25 is just not a good fit

00:15:16 ◼   ► for my particular, I don't know, size and shape,

00:15:20 ◼   ► my back, whatever else.

00:15:21 ◼   ► The curvature of it in the lumbar area of your back

00:15:25 ◼   ► just didn't, I couldn't find a way to make that sit

00:15:27 ◼   ► no matter how I packed it.

00:15:28 ◼   ► And I know people are probably gonna write it

00:15:30 ◼   ► and say, oh, I packed it wrong,

00:15:31 ◼   ► or I should try this or that.

00:15:33 ◼   ► And I tried a lot of different ways of packing it

00:15:35 ◼   ► and different things in the back

00:15:36 ◼   ► and different weight distributions and everything.

00:15:39 ◼   ► And I just could not find anything

00:15:41 ◼   ► that made it feel right and feel comfortable on me.

00:15:45 ◼   ► And then I took the exact same test load of stuff

00:15:48 ◼   ► that I was packing it with and put it in the peak.

00:15:51 ◼   ► And the very first try, it felt perfect.

00:15:54 ◼   ► So unfortunately, it just doesn't fit me.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Like, you know, in its physical design,

00:15:59 ◼   ► like I had problems with the feel of the lumbar area

00:16:02 ◼   ► as well as just the way the straps

00:16:05 ◼   ► distributed the weight on my shoulders.

00:16:07 ◼   ► I felt like the weight was too high

00:16:09 ◼   ► and kind of just, and it didn't feel right.

00:16:12 ◼   ► and I tried as many adjustments and rearrangements as I could,

00:16:15 ◼   ► and I just couldn't get it to work for me. So I sent that back.

00:16:19 ◼   ► Unfortunately, they do have a very generous return policy that, you know,

00:16:22 ◼   ► some doesn't work out. You can send it back if as long as you haven't like,

00:16:24 ◼   ► you know, taking it on a hike and worn it outside and stuff like that. So I

00:16:27 ◼   ► appreciate that, and I hope to check them out again in the future, but it just

00:16:34 ◼   ► didn't fit me like physically and and meanwhile the peak like I didn't have

00:16:37 ◼   ► to jump through any hoops. I just put it on and it fit perfectly. So my my my

00:16:41 ◼   ► My current backpack plan, you know, backpacks to me

00:16:45 ◼   ► are like to-do apps and email apps for Mike.

00:16:48 ◼   ► Like, I'm always like, at most,

00:16:51 ◼   ► like 60 or 70% satisfied with one

00:16:53 ◼   ► and always kind of keeping an eye out for others.

00:16:56 ◼   ► But I don't buy them very often because it's just,

00:16:58 ◼   ► you know, they're expensive and it's kind of a pain.

00:17:02 ◼   ► So my current stance is I'm back on the peak.

00:17:05 ◼   ► There's a lot about the peak I do really like,

00:17:07 ◼   ► so I'm just gonna stick with it for a while

00:17:09 ◼   ► and just deal with the fact that it doesn't hold that much,

00:17:12 ◼   ► and on trips just get reaccustomed to the idea

00:17:15 ◼   ► that I'm just gonna be bringing a small rolling suitcase

00:17:18 ◼   ► for the overhead bin in addition to a backpack.

00:17:21 ◼   ► That's where I am on backpacks.

00:17:23 ◼   ► - I'm sorry to hear that.

00:17:24 ◼   ► So in terms of quality and things of that nature,

00:17:27 ◼   ► it sounds like the Tom Bin was fine.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It's just the ergonomics against your,

00:17:32 ◼   ► that particular bag against your particular body,

00:17:34 ◼   ► just it wasn't compatible.

00:17:36 ◼   ► - As far as I can tell, yes.

00:17:38 ◼   ► I mean, I don't wanna go through a big parade of returns

00:17:41 ◼   ► with them trying out all their other bags.

00:17:43 ◼   ► - Totally, totally. - I'm just gonna kinda

00:17:44 ◼   ► hold off and maybe if I ever visit Seattle,

00:17:46 ◼   ► I'll visit their store, but for now,

00:17:49 ◼   ► I'm happier enough with the Peak.

00:17:52 ◼   ► It's funny, actually, the Peak does actually work

00:17:54 ◼   ► significantly better than the Tom Bin in one major way

00:17:57 ◼   ► for the way I happen to use a bag,

00:17:59 ◼   ► which is the vast majority of the time,

00:18:02 ◼   ► my backpack is sitting next to my desk on the floor

00:18:06 ◼   ► and the laptop is in it, and the power cable

00:18:08 ◼   ► that keeps the laptop charged is kind of like

00:18:11 ◼   ► floating out through the top of the bag,

00:18:12 ◼   ► like with the laptop compartment open.

00:18:14 ◼   ► So it's always plugged in, but ready to go.

00:18:17 ◼   ► And the Tom Bihn bags, they can't stand up by themselves.

00:18:21 ◼   ► The Peak does, 'cause it's so much bigger,

00:18:23 ◼   ► and it's so much bulkier fabric,

00:18:24 ◼   ► and it's more rigid fabric, whereas the Tom Bihn

00:18:27 ◼   ► is more like just like a floppy bag, basically.

00:18:30 ◼   ► And you can buy a frame for it,

00:18:31 ◼   ► but that makes it weird in ways that I didn't want.

00:18:34 ◼   ► So the Peak actually works significantly better the way my backpack is actually used most

00:18:39 ◼   ► of the time, which is standing up on the floor next to my desk where the Tom Binge would

00:18:44 ◼   ► constantly flop over.

00:18:46 ◼   ► So I guess it's good for that.

00:18:48 ◼   ► And ultimately the Peak is not bad.

00:18:50 ◼   ► I really do enjoy a lot about it.

00:18:53 ◼   ► It's a really nice bag.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I wish it held more.

00:18:57 ◼   ► And there is a 30 liter version of the Peak, but by all accounts the 30 liter is way too

00:19:03 ◼   ► too big by what most people say for what I'm going for,

00:19:07 ◼   ► which is fitting under an airline seat no matter what.

00:19:09 ◼   ► 'Cause like one thing that drives me nuts,

00:19:11 ◼   ► and this is kind of the reason why I'm sticking

00:19:13 ◼   ► with the 20, I think, when I travel,

00:19:16 ◼   ► I always want my backpack under the seat

00:19:19 ◼   ► in front of me on a plane, always.

00:19:20 ◼   ► There is never a situation where I wanna put the backpack

00:19:22 ◼   ► in the overhead bin.

00:19:24 ◼   ► And I hate, like, I always, when I'm booking seats,

00:19:26 ◼   ► I always go to Seat Guru and I check the plane,

00:19:29 ◼   ► not to see like, you know, that I'm getting a seat

00:19:32 ◼   ► that's not next to a bathroom or anything,

00:19:33 ◼   ► I mainly am checking the seat I'm booking

00:19:35 ◼   ► to make sure I have storage under the seat in front of me.

00:19:39 ◼   ► 'Cause on a lot of planes now,

00:19:41 ◼   ► and a lot of types of seats,

00:19:43 ◼   ► you either have a bulkhead in front of you,

00:19:45 ◼   ► or a galley, or the seat,

00:19:48 ◼   ► or you have those big computer boxes under the seats

00:19:50 ◼   ► that take up half the space

00:19:52 ◼   ► so you can't actually fit anything under there.

00:19:54 ◼   ► So it's really hard to know,

00:19:56 ◼   ► without checking something like Seat Guru,

00:19:57 ◼   ► whether you have anywhere to put something under the seat.

00:19:59 ◼   ► And I don't wanna keep going up and down

00:20:01 ◼   ► to the overhead compartment to get stuff out

00:20:04 ◼   ► during a long flight.

00:20:05 ◼   ► So I always want something that can fit under the seat.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And so almost every bag that can hold more

00:20:10 ◼   ► than the Peak 20 liter, if you actually put more in it,

00:20:13 ◼   ► you start increasing the risk that it's not gonna fit

00:20:16 ◼   ► under the seat in front of you.

00:20:18 ◼   ► So that's yet another reason why I think I'm coming

00:20:20 ◼   ► to the conclusion that one backpack travel

00:20:23 ◼   ► is probably not something I actually want.

00:20:26 ◼   ► Because if I actually achieve one backpack travel

00:20:30 ◼   ► for almost any trip, the backpack is gonna have to be

00:20:32 ◼   ► too big for me to reliably fit it under the seat

00:20:36 ◼   ► in front of me on those flights.

00:20:38 ◼   ► So I think I'm gonna, again, just go back

00:20:40 ◼   ► to having a small roller bag in the overhead bin

00:20:43 ◼   ► and a small to medium-sized backpack for under the seat.

00:20:48 ◼   ► - Fair enough, that's a bummer.

00:20:50 ◼   ► I'm sad that Tom Biddon didn't work out,

00:20:51 ◼   ► but I still wholeheartedly and enthusiastically endorse it.

00:20:56 ◼   ► So that's okay.

00:20:57 ◼   ► - The other thing that's imposing size constraints

00:20:58 ◼   ► besides the underneath of the airline seat, perhaps,

00:21:02 ◼   ► to Marco's comfort with backpacks, is his back.

00:21:04 ◼   ► So you got the smaller backpack,

00:21:06 ◼   ► and it doesn't quite hold your stuff,

00:21:07 ◼   ► but maybe it fits your back better than a big one would,

00:21:10 ◼   ► and so that if you got any big backpack,

00:21:12 ◼   ► then no matter how well it fit under a seat or not,

00:21:14 ◼   ► it might just not feel comfortable on you.

00:21:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, that's true.

00:21:18 ◼   ► - All right, tell us about your Facebook problems.

00:21:20 ◼   ► - So as we discussed, I believe it was last episode,

00:21:22 ◼   ► I still had a Facebook account,

00:21:25 ◼   ► which I never really used for much of anything.

00:21:27 ◼   ► I hardly ever really posted anything ever,

00:21:29 ◼   ► but the main reason I was using it was for membership

00:21:33 ◼   ► in a couple of private groups.

00:21:35 ◼   ► And I didn't wanna lose that because it provided access

00:21:38 ◼   ► to things like my beach town that I love so much

00:21:41 ◼   ► and local school stuff and everything else.

00:21:44 ◼   ► And in the meantime, I discovered something wonderful.

00:21:47 ◼   ► I discovered that the school group is useless

00:21:50 ◼   ► because I actually looked at it and I'm like,

00:21:53 ◼   ► have I ever gotten any value out of this?

00:21:54 ◼   ► And the answer was no.

00:21:56 ◼   ► And the beach group, I discovered,

00:21:58 ◼   ► there's also a bunch of beach people on Instagram

00:22:01 ◼   ► from the same town that post a lot of pictures and stuff.

00:22:04 ◼   ► And I realized that what I mostly wanted out of that group

00:22:07 ◼   ► was pictures of what's going on in town while I'm not there.

00:22:10 ◼   ► And Instagram provides that

00:22:13 ◼   ► without any of the angry old people

00:22:14 ◼   ► that are complaining about whatever happened

00:22:16 ◼   ► at the latest meeting with the village trustees

00:22:19 ◼   ► and the mayor and all that crap.

00:22:20 ◼   ► I mean, God, anybody out there who works in local government

00:22:25 ◼   ► I thank you.

00:22:27 ◼   ► I thank you for your service.

00:22:29 ◼   ► The (beep)storm that local government tends to be,

00:22:34 ◼   ► I can't imagine dealing with that every day.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Because if you've ever been part of a Facebook group

00:22:39 ◼   ► that has your local town stuff in it,

00:22:41 ◼   ► or if you've ever gone to a meeting,

00:22:44 ◼   ► like a variance meeting or any kind of town

00:22:46 ◼   ► or village government meeting,

00:22:48 ◼   ► it's like Parks and Rec.

00:22:49 ◼   ► The people are that bad.

00:22:52 ◼   ► Anybody who works local government,

00:22:54 ◼   ► These jobs are oftentimes either unpaid

00:22:57 ◼   ► or part-time, very low-paid jobs.

00:23:01 ◼   ► They are completely thankless jobs (laughs)

00:23:05 ◼   ► and they are incredibly important

00:23:07 ◼   ► for making things work functionally in our society

00:23:10 ◼   ► and making things nice in our neighborhoods.

00:23:13 ◼   ► And all I ever see on Facebook groups and in these meetings

00:23:17 ◼   ► is bitter, angry people just throwing complaints

00:23:22 ◼   ► at the local government people and asking for the impossible

00:23:26 ◼   ► and not understanding actual constraints

00:23:29 ◼   ► and actual factors that went into things.

00:23:32 ◼   ► So anybody who works out there in local government,

00:23:34 ◼   ► I applaud you and I thank you

00:23:36 ◼   ► and I could never ever do that.

00:23:37 ◼   ► And I very much respect your ability to do that.

00:23:40 ◼   ► Anyway, so I realized that the Facebook group

00:23:44 ◼   ► for The Beach Town was pretty much 90% those complaints

00:23:49 ◼   ► and 10% pretty pictures that I wanted to see.

00:23:52 ◼   ► And Instagram is 100% pretty pictures I wanna see

00:23:55 ◼   ► and none of the complaints from the old people.

00:23:58 ◼   ► So I just left the group and deleted my account

00:24:01 ◼   ► and it's just done.

00:24:03 ◼   ► I'm just following things on Instagram now,

00:24:04 ◼   ► which yes I know is owned by Facebook

00:24:06 ◼   ► so that kind of takes a lot of the wind out of the sails

00:24:09 ◼   ► of why I'm leaving Facebook. (laughs)

00:24:12 ◼   ► But otherwise I'm out and I'm happy that I'm out.

00:24:16 ◼   ► - Since everyone's been talking about Facebook,

00:24:18 ◼   ► I guess because of the Cambridge Analytica thing

00:24:19 ◼   ► and stuff on various podcasts I've been listening to,

00:24:21 ◼   ► Everyone has had that section of the podcast

00:24:23 ◼   ► that we've had now on two or three podcasts in a row,

00:24:25 ◼   ► which is like, I don't like Facebook, but I like Instagram,

00:24:28 ◼   ► and yes, I know Instagram is on by Facebook,

00:24:30 ◼   ► so blah, blah, blah, right?

00:24:31 ◼   ► But the more I keep hearing that, the more I think,

00:24:34 ◼   ► yeah, so it's not great that it's owned by Facebook,

00:24:37 ◼   ► but by voting with your feed or whatever,

00:24:40 ◼   ► voting with your virtual feed,

00:24:41 ◼   ► you are sending the signal that I don't like

00:24:44 ◼   ► how Facebook works, I like how Instagram works.

00:24:47 ◼   ► Now, Instagram can change, 'cause owned by Facebook,

00:24:49 ◼   ► it could start working in different ways,

00:24:50 ◼   ► already has with the stupid algorithmic timeline or whatever, right?

00:24:53 ◼   ► But that I think is just as strong a signal as like, well, you're not really sending any

00:24:57 ◼   ► signal if you just delete your Facebook account but just use Instagram and it's also owned

00:25:00 ◼   ► by Facebook.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Yes, you're sending, in this case, you're sending Facebook the signal, Facebook bad,

00:25:04 ◼   ► Instagram good.

00:25:06 ◼   ► More like Instagram, less like Facebook.

00:25:08 ◼   ► And of course, if Facebook changes Instagram into Facebook, then you probably leave that

00:25:11 ◼   ► too, right?

00:25:12 ◼   ► But this, it's still a signal, even though it's going to the same company.

00:25:15 ◼   ► If your goal is to the downfall of Facebook, I think you're going to have to wait for the

00:25:19 ◼   ► generational turnover to bite them in the butt when the kids that are growing up now

00:25:24 ◼   ► who don't want a Facebook account don't get one.

00:25:26 ◼   ► But I don't think the goal is tear down as a revenge fantasy.

00:25:32 ◼   ► The goal is stop making, you know, make things like Facebook, fewer things like Facebook,

00:25:38 ◼   ► more things like Instagram.

00:25:40 ◼   ► And so that's the signal you're sending.

00:25:41 ◼   ► So I don't, you know, if anyone gives you crap about that or says, "Well, it's pointless

00:25:45 ◼   ► because you're going to Instagram because they're owned by Facebook," I don't totally

00:25:47 ◼   ► agree with that.

00:25:48 ◼   ► coming from, but I think it's still a, it's a good move.

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00:28:12 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:28:13 ◼   ► - Jon, you need to tell me about something.

00:28:16 ◼   ► You need to tell me what is not a touchscreen.

00:28:19 ◼   ► - I was on, it was like a school vacation week last week

00:28:24 ◼   ► and I was away visiting family,

00:28:27 ◼   ► seeing all the sights to be seen in a different state.

00:28:30 ◼   ► And one of the week I had time to go to the movies,

00:28:33 ◼   ► which is a rarity.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And one of the things I noticed

00:28:35 ◼   ► that the movie theater was going to was an AMC

00:28:37 ◼   ► and we go to a local AMC too,

00:28:38 ◼   ► but it was like a, we had to buy tickets there

00:28:41 ◼   ► because the AMC app and website and the Fandango app

00:28:45 ◼   ► and website were all just not doing well.

00:28:48 ◼   ► They didn't seem to be working at all.

00:28:50 ◼   ► I tried to buy the ticket and it would give me

00:28:51 ◼   ► some obscure error, some sort of like 503 proxy error

00:28:56 ◼   ► from the back end and get propagated all the way up

00:28:58 ◼   ► into an iOS dialogue on my phone.

00:28:59 ◼   ► I'm like, well, whatever.

00:29:01 ◼   ► So there's nobody there, it's the middle of the week,

00:29:03 ◼   ► we're just gonna go and show up and buy tickets.

00:29:04 ◼   ► And we had no problem getting a ticket.

00:29:05 ◼   ► It was an empty theater, it was the middle of the day.

00:29:08 ◼   ► It was like a 10 a.m. movie show, which I love.

00:29:10 ◼   ► I love going to movies when no one else is there.

00:29:13 ◼   ► But so we had to go to the physical kiosk

00:29:16 ◼   ► to buy movie tickets.

00:29:18 ◼   ► And the kiosk was like, there was like a screen

00:29:20 ◼   ► that the point of sale person used

00:29:21 ◼   ► to do whatever they were doing is not facing us.

00:29:24 ◼   ► And there was also a screen facing us.

00:29:25 ◼   ► And at one point, they said-- because these are all

00:29:27 ◼   ► like reserved seating in the AMC theaters these days.

00:29:29 ◼   ► It's like, which seats do you want?

00:29:30 ◼   ► When you buy tickets through the app,

00:29:32 ◼   ► it also lets you pick seats.

00:29:33 ◼   ► By the way, this is why we go to AMC,

00:29:35 ◼   ► because reserved seating in movie theaters is the best.

00:29:38 ◼   ► And they said, pick your seats.

00:29:40 ◼   ► And the screen in front of you, facing you,

00:29:42 ◼   ► shows the seat layout in the theater

00:29:44 ◼   ► with the ones that are taken, dimmed out,

00:29:46 ◼   ► and the ones that are still available,

00:29:47 ◼   ► highlighted or whatever.

00:29:49 ◼   ► And they have big labels on them,

00:29:51 ◼   ► like F1, F2, F3 or whatever.

00:29:53 ◼   ► But the screen that's facing you,

00:29:54 ◼   ► it's just a plain old LCD.

00:29:56 ◼   ► And they have a giant,

00:29:58 ◼   ► printed on a Brother label printer label

00:30:01 ◼   ► on the bottom of the monitor facing you

00:30:04 ◼   ► that says in all caps, "Not a touchscreen."

00:30:07 ◼   ► Because what you see on the screen is a bunch of seats,

00:30:10 ◼   ► and you're like, oh, I want the seat, the seat, and this seat.

00:30:12 ◼   ► Like everybody just immediately reaches for the screen

00:30:14 ◼   ► and touches seats A, B, C,

00:30:15 ◼   ► like you just touch the seats you want, right?

00:30:17 ◼   ► 'Cause if the screen is facing you, it's right there.

00:30:20 ◼   ► But to stop people from doing that,

00:30:22 ◼   ► they have to have the sticker.

00:30:23 ◼   ► And not just have the sticker,

00:30:24 ◼   ► which by the way is not part of the monitor,

00:30:25 ◼   ► like this has been added afterwards,

00:30:27 ◼   ► like added by the dealer in car parlance, right?

00:30:29 ◼   ► The sticker.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Also, as part of like the spiel that they do,

00:30:33 ◼   ► like the sales pitch that the poor worker there

00:30:37 ◼   ► is mindlessly going through every time they say,

00:30:39 ◼   ► What show do you want to see, blah, blah, blah.

00:30:41 ◼   ► You know, it goes through the whole thing.

00:30:43 ◼   ► And there is a part in the little speech where they say,

00:30:46 ◼   ► please select the seats you want

00:30:48 ◼   ► and remember that is not a touchscreen.

00:30:49 ◼   ► Or like it was part of the thing.

00:30:51 ◼   ► And they were saying it kind of like bored offhand

00:30:53 ◼   ► and mindlessly that it is literally part of the script

00:30:56 ◼   ► that they go through every single time.

00:30:58 ◼   ► They have to warn every single person

00:30:59 ◼   ► that it's not a touchscreen and have the sticker.

00:31:01 ◼   ► And I bet people still touch the screen.

00:31:03 ◼   ► So I tweeted about this and people replied to me

00:31:05 ◼   ► and they say, despite being told that it's not a touchscreen,

00:31:07 ◼   ► despite the label, I also touched it.

00:31:09 ◼   ► or I've seen other people touch it,

00:31:10 ◼   ► or I work in a movie theater and people touch it all the time,

00:31:12 ◼   ► there's no way you can stop them from touching the screen.

00:31:14 ◼   ► So I was really thinking about how fundamentally now,

00:31:18 ◼   ► not just for like little kids, this is the whole thing,

00:31:20 ◼   ► of like, oh, little kids, aren't they funny,

00:31:22 ◼   ► they're always swiping on every screen they see

00:31:23 ◼   ► 'cause they grew up with phones and iPads, right?

00:31:25 ◼   ► Everybody, senior citizens, adults, little kids, teenagers,

00:31:28 ◼   ► everybody, if presented with the screen

00:31:31 ◼   ► and anything appears on the screen

00:31:32 ◼   ► that looks like there's any possibility

00:31:34 ◼   ► that you could touch it before any part

00:31:35 ◼   ► of their brain kicks in, their tiny lizard brain goes,

00:31:38 ◼   ► much touch screen. So this is like the default way to interact with screen to the point where

00:31:43 ◼   ► if you ever have a screen that it doesn't allow that, you need a giant all caps label

00:31:47 ◼   ► and a verbal warning and you still won't stop people from touching it.

00:31:51 ◼   ► And all this makes me think, I posted about this because I just thought it was a funny

00:31:56 ◼   ► extreme thing, but it's a big change. And I finished the tweet by saying, "How long

00:32:00 ◼   ► before MacBooks need a similar sticker?" Remember when MacBooks used to say MacBook Pro right

00:32:03 ◼   ► underneath the screen, right? Instead of saying MacBook Pro, it should just say "Not a touchscreen"

00:32:09 ◼   ► in all caps. And this gets back to the touchscreen laptop thing, which I don't think is a particularly

00:32:16 ◼   ► great thing to have. I think it puts fingerprints on your screen. I think it's gross. I don't

00:32:20 ◼   ► really think I would want one. But as every single person who has ever encountered a touch,

00:32:25 ◼   ► you know, a laptop with a touchscreen says, "Once you have one, you will find yourself

00:32:29 ◼   ► touching every laptop screen." Not all the time. Not that you're constantly using it

00:32:32 ◼   ► touch because that would be bad. There's a reason you have a trackpad, there's a reason

00:32:34 ◼   ► you might have a mouse attached. But once you are able to touch it for anything, you

00:32:41 ◼   ► expect to be able to touch every laptop screen. It's like one of those one-way valves. Before

00:32:45 ◼   ► you have a touchscreen, fine, you're fine, no big deal. Once you have one, then you just

00:32:49 ◼   ► expect it all the time. And this has been happening in the PC world. And so we talked

00:32:53 ◼   ► about this before, about the touch bar and if and when Apple will ever succumb to this

00:32:56 ◼   ► trend and finally put a touch screen on Macs.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And for me it's starting to feel like the time when Apple wouldn't make a bigger phone

00:33:04 ◼   ► and the entire market was saying, "No, we love bigger phones."

00:33:06 ◼   ► And it's like, "Well, is it that big a deal?

00:33:09 ◼   ► This is some big phones.

00:33:10 ◼   ► You know, do people really want them?

00:33:12 ◼   ► They're kind of dumb.

00:33:13 ◼   ► This phone shouldn't be too big.

00:33:14 ◼   ► It doesn't fit in your pocket, blah, blah, blah."

00:33:16 ◼   ► You can have all the intellectual reasons you want, but the bottom line is if people

00:33:18 ◼   ► buy them and maybe they don't, you know, like a touchscreen and laptops, maybe they don't

00:33:22 ◼   ► love them or like them so much, but if they just expect them.

00:33:25 ◼   ► The expectation is that every screen in the world must be a touch screen, otherwise it's

00:33:29 ◼   ► basically considered broken by everybody of all ages of every generation, simply because

00:33:33 ◼   ► occasionally, the most natural thing to do is touch a screen.

00:33:38 ◼   ► Not all the time, not as your sole mean of interaction, but sometimes your body, having

00:33:43 ◼   ► been trained by smartphones and iPads and everything else, just expects to be able to

00:33:47 ◼   ► reach out and touch a screen.

00:33:48 ◼   ► And so rather than verbal and visual warnings on screens, it seems to me that we just need

00:33:53 ◼   ► to make every screen a touchscreen just for those cases where it does feel natural to

00:33:57 ◼   ► touch the screen, even though I still don't want anyone touching the screen on any of

00:34:00 ◼   ► my computers.

00:34:01 ◼   ► Of course.

00:34:02 ◼   ► Have you ever accidentally touched the screen on your own laptop?

00:34:05 ◼   ► Hell no.

00:34:06 ◼   ► I would never do that.

00:34:07 ◼   ► Now, here's the one-way valve.

00:34:09 ◼   ► If I got a laptop that had a touchscreen, I bet I would touch it.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And then I bet I would start touching my non-touchscreen laptops and be annoyed.

00:34:15 ◼   ► I mean, we've all done this, right?

00:34:16 ◼   ► Have you ever pinched a Zuma magazine?

00:34:18 ◼   ► I have.

00:34:21 ◼   ► I have also reached for the forward slash key on my lap while reading a magazine to do a search

00:34:28 ◼   ► for it's like you know if you're in a pager and unix or whatever and and gotten far enough where

00:34:32 ◼   ► my finger is basically touched the top of my thigh and realized there's no keyboard down there you

00:34:36 ◼   ► can't do do a search in a magazine I don't think I think it might have swiped once mostly it's

00:34:43 ◼   ► pinched to zoom that gets me I've pinched zoom on paper happens all the time humans are dumb little

00:34:48 ◼   ► - Little monkeys.

00:34:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, I never touched a screen,

00:34:52 ◼   ► like my own laptop screen at all until about two years ago

00:34:57 ◼   ► where it started happening about once a year.

00:34:59 ◼   ► I will be reading something

00:35:01 ◼   ► and will try to touch a screen to scroll it.

00:35:03 ◼   ► That's usually what happens.

00:35:05 ◼   ► - It would be worse with a simulator.

00:35:06 ◼   ► I'm surprised you haven't done that

00:35:07 ◼   ► with doing all your iOS dev

00:35:08 ◼   ► because what you're seeing is visually

00:35:09 ◼   ► like this is an iOS interface.

00:35:11 ◼   ► You should touch it, but you can't.

00:35:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think this plays into, I think,

00:35:16 ◼   ► a lot of PC strategy issues.

00:35:18 ◼   ► Like Apple has been standing the line firmly

00:35:21 ◼   ► that touchscreen laptops are not good.

00:35:23 ◼   ► That people don't want them, people shouldn't want them.

00:35:26 ◼   ► That's not the right solution.

00:35:28 ◼   ► But man, the market just keeps saying otherwise.

00:35:31 ◼   ► You know, and there's a lot of downsides to it.

00:35:33 ◼   ► There's a lot of consideration that has to be done

00:35:35 ◼   ► to do it well.

00:35:36 ◼   ► And yeah, your laptop will be covered in fingerprints.

00:35:39 ◼   ► - They all already are.

00:35:41 ◼   ► That's the thing though, they all already are.

00:35:42 ◼   ► - Well that's you.

00:35:43 ◼   ► But like my iPad's covered in fingerprints.

00:35:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, because the coding sucks, I'm a 10.5 Pro,

00:35:49 ◼   ► but also that's just the reality of having an iPad.

00:35:52 ◼   ► At some point I'm gonna have to wipe my 15 inch

00:35:54 ◼   ► MacBook Pro screen on my jeans to get all those figures off,

00:35:58 ◼   ► but that is what people are doing.

00:36:01 ◼   ► And at what point, if it hasn't already happened,

00:36:05 ◼   ► at what point will most people go into an Apple store

00:36:09 ◼   ► thinking, oh, maybe I'll switch to a Mac,

00:36:11 ◼   ► touch the screen, it doesn't work,

00:36:13 ◼   ► and they'll be like, well, that kinda sucks.

00:36:15 ◼   ► Those are more stories I got on Twitter of people who work in Apple stores with people

00:36:18 ◼   ► who see it saying, "People come into Apple stores, try to touch the screens on the Mac

00:36:23 ◼   ► and expect it to work."

00:36:24 ◼   ► They don't know anything about Macs.

00:36:26 ◼   ► They just come in and they expect it to work.

00:36:28 ◼   ► Sometimes they think it's broken or will tell the person they think the thing is broken

00:36:30 ◼   ► and the nice salespeople will lead them towards an iPad in that case, but it's just the expectation.

00:36:34 ◼   ► I think Apple's reasoning behind, "You don't want to have your arm sticking out.

00:36:39 ◼   ► It's not a good way to interact with a laptop," that's all true, but I think the thing they're

00:36:42 ◼   ► missing is like, you're not touching it all the time. Of

00:36:45 ◼   ► course, most of the time, you'd be using the trackpad, right. But

00:36:48 ◼   ► just every once in a while, like when you find yourself swiping

00:36:51 ◼   ► to scroll on the screen, it's not as if you're saying now I

00:36:54 ◼   ► have to exclusively touch my laptop screen is the way to

00:36:56 ◼   ► control it. That would be dumb. And Apple emphasizes that you

00:36:59 ◼   ► would never if we took away the trackpad and said you have to

00:37:02 ◼   ► the only way you can use your laptop as a passion screen.

00:37:04 ◼   ► Nobody would like that unless you can convert it into a tablet

00:37:06 ◼   ► or whatever. But as an occasional input method, it's

00:37:10 ◼   ► surprisingly sticky, and mostly because Apple has themselves to blame. They are

00:37:14 ◼   ► the one that showed that touch screens can work and be insanely popular. There

00:37:19 ◼   ► were touch screens for years and years and everyone hated them and no one used

00:37:21 ◼   ► them for anything. Apple, it's Apple's own fault that touch screens have raced

00:37:25 ◼   ► through the industry to become the dominant form interaction with

00:37:29 ◼   ► computing devices, because the phone is now the dominant computing device and

00:37:31 ◼   ► the number one and basically only way that people interact with phones is by

00:37:35 ◼   ► touching them. I'm not gonna be touching the 8k screen on my Mac Pro, I can

00:37:40 ◼   ► you that. Unless it lays down like a cool, like, what is that? Microsoft has the worst

00:37:45 ◼   ► damn names. I cannot remember. Studio Books? Surface Studio, I believe. I would consider

00:37:51 ◼   ► that. If you want to get me an 8K drafting table, I would consider it Apple.

00:37:55 ◼   ► All right, so speaking of touch screens, let's talk about the iPhone X user survey. So techpinions.com,

00:38:01 ◼   ► written by Ben Bajarin. Bajarin, I think. Thank you. Ben writes that he and his team

00:38:09 ◼   ► conducted a survey of iPhone X users, and there's a lot of customer set to be talked

00:38:15 ◼   ► about, and the customer satisfaction for darn near everything is great. It starts, even

00:38:21 ◼   ► Face ID, the customer satisfaction is between 90 and 100% based on this one survey. Battery

00:38:25 ◼   ► life between 90 and 100%. Things fall off a little bit how it feels in your hand without

00:38:30 ◼   ► a case, fall off a smidge more, still at about 85% for portrait mode. Portrait selfies, now

00:38:36 ◼   ► Now we're down in like the 65% range.

00:38:39 ◼   ► But then we start talking about Siri.

00:38:44 ◼   ► And it's an inverted hockey stick because we go from like 90s to 100s to 80s to 60s

00:38:51 ◼   ► to 20%.

00:38:53 ◼   ► One out of five people is satisfied with Siri and that's it.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And I would like to meet that one out of five persons because who is actually satisfied

00:39:01 ◼   ► with Siri?

00:39:02 ◼   ► People who don't use it?

00:39:04 ◼   ► What is this?

00:39:05 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't know that there's all that much to discuss here other than to say, "I

00:39:10 ◼   ► don't understand."

00:39:11 ◼   ► Well, I was going to say, "I don't understand why Apple doesn't see this as a problem,"

00:39:15 ◼   ► but that's unfair.

00:39:16 ◼   ► I think Apple sees this as a problem, and I've heard through the grapevine that there's

00:39:19 ◼   ► been a lot of hiring for the Siri team lately.

00:39:23 ◼   ► But golly, it's more apparent with every passing day how broken Siri is, and God help me for

00:39:31 ◼   ► for sending Marco down on this tangent,

00:39:33 ◼   ► but how broken modern MacBook keyboards are.

00:39:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:39:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, so, the keyboards aside,

00:39:38 ◼   ► because we talk about that every other episode,

00:39:40 ◼   ► what concerns me so much about the Siri thing

00:39:42 ◼   ► is that it seems like Apple has just woken up

00:39:45 ◼   ► to how bad Siri is, like, since the HomePod came out

00:39:49 ◼   ► and was panned for having bad Siri.

00:39:51 ◼   ► But that was not new.

00:39:53 ◼   ► Like, all of us knew that Siri is mediocre to terrible

00:39:57 ◼   ► much of the time for years now.

00:40:01 ◼   ► And it really does seem like that caught Apple by surprise.

00:40:05 ◼   ► So it's like yet another thing, similar to the laptops, yes,

00:40:09 ◼   ► I get worried when Apple gets so blindsided

00:40:12 ◼   ► by reactions or problems that seem so obvious

00:40:18 ◼   ► to its customers.

00:40:19 ◼   ► I don't know how they could have not known that.

00:40:21 ◼   ► You know, just like, I don't know how they could have

00:40:22 ◼   ► not known that the reaction to the MacBook Pros

00:40:24 ◼   ► would have been so negative.

00:40:26 ◼   ► I don't know how they could have not known

00:40:27 ◼   ► that Siri was as bad as it is until recently.

00:40:30 ◼   ► but it certainly does seem like they haven't been

00:40:33 ◼   ► doing much about it until recently, so that is concerning.

00:40:37 ◼   ► On the bigger picture though, I was kind of curious,

00:40:40 ◼   ► and I have to make this all about how much Siri sucks

00:40:42 ◼   ► 'cause that's not news, and also,

00:40:43 ◼   ► will not change anytime soon, I'm a little curious

00:40:46 ◼   ► to kind of morph this topic and steal it.

00:40:48 ◼   ► One of my favorite bits on the show

00:40:49 ◼   ► was the iPhone 7 exit interview,

00:40:52 ◼   ► and I kind of want to do like the iPhone 10

00:40:55 ◼   ► mid-cycle performance review.

00:40:57 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:58 ◼   ► - Oh, it's very well done, Marco.

00:41:00 ◼   ► I'm very proud of you.

00:41:01 ◼   ► - Thank you, yeah.

00:41:01 ◼   ► I assume it's a real thing.

00:41:02 ◼   ► - He watches The Office a lot.

00:41:04 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

00:41:05 ◼   ► - He knows the words, but only from TV.

00:41:07 ◼   ► - And I know, John, you don't have one,

00:41:09 ◼   ► but I was at least curious to talk about,

00:41:11 ◼   ► you know, just like, what we think of the iPhone X,

00:41:14 ◼   ► now that it's roughly halfway through

00:41:16 ◼   ► its year of being, you know, the top phone,

00:41:19 ◼   ► what do we think of it?

00:41:20 ◼   ► - Well, let me go first, because even though

00:41:22 ◼   ► I don't have a phone, because I do play with my iPhone,

00:41:24 ◼   ► and just to cap off this article,

00:41:26 ◼   ► 'cause when I saw this article teased,

00:41:27 ◼   ► I forget where I saw it teased.

00:41:28 ◼   ► On some site there was, might have been Loop Insight

00:41:31 ◼   ► or whatever, it was like iPhone survey broken down

00:41:36 ◼   ► by category and you're never gonna guess

00:41:38 ◼   ► which category had the lowest score.

00:41:39 ◼   ► It was some kind of tease like that that was like,

00:41:41 ◼   ► guess which bar in the bar chart is gonna be really small.

00:41:46 ◼   ► And before I clicked through the link,

00:41:47 ◼   ► I thought, hmm, I wonder which one it's gonna be.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And immediately I thought, it's gotta be Face ID, right?

00:41:51 ◼   ► Like everyone loves everything else,

00:41:52 ◼   ► but Face ID is the only thing that's possibly shaky

00:41:54 ◼   ► on this phone, right?

00:41:56 ◼   ► And the reason I thought that is because

00:41:57 ◼   ► I hadn't even considered that Siri would be one of the bars.

00:42:01 ◼   ► Had someone said, oh, by the way, Siri's a bar,

00:42:03 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, that's the one.

00:42:04 ◼   ► But I didn't even consider Siri would be one of the bars,

00:42:06 ◼   ► because it's just such a non-factor in my experience

00:42:10 ◼   ► of using my phone, and I never see anyone in my family

00:42:13 ◼   ► really use it for much of anything either,

00:42:15 ◼   ► that I didn't even think it would be on the chart.

00:42:17 ◼   ► And so, on the iPhone X, on this survey,

00:42:21 ◼   ► Face ID is right up there.

00:42:24 ◼   ► It's not even one of the lower bars,

00:42:26 ◼   ► kind of middle tier bar, above 90%.

00:42:29 ◼   ► And my experience is seeing my wife use her iPhone X.

00:42:32 ◼   ► She doesn't care anything about tech.

00:42:33 ◼   ► She's not super impressed by the amazing technology that implements Face ID.

00:42:37 ◼   ► She has a few complaints about situations where it doesn't work, but overall, I don't

00:42:40 ◼   ► hear about Face ID from her.

00:42:43 ◼   ► It's not an issue.

00:42:44 ◼   ► It's not a thing that she tells me she's annoyed about or I never see her struggle with it.

00:42:48 ◼   ► It has different trade-offs in Touch ID, but she has accommodated them.

00:42:52 ◼   ► And like I said, she's not inclined to accommodate them because she's dazzled by the G-WIS technology.

00:42:57 ◼   ► I'm dazzled by the G-WIS technology.

00:42:58 ◼   ► I think it's amazing that it works.

00:43:00 ◼   ► But as far as she's concerned, it's just her phone and she unlocks it and it's fine.

00:43:05 ◼   ► And so I feel like as I proxy for her, for her satisfaction with the phone, I haven't

00:43:11 ◼   ► heard any complaints.

00:43:12 ◼   ► And yes, she complains to me if there's something wrong with her phone as if I made it.

00:43:14 ◼   ► I didn't make it.

00:43:15 ◼   ► But she likes it.

00:43:17 ◼   ► She likes her phone.

00:43:18 ◼   ► She doesn't complain about it.

00:43:19 ◼   ► and does all the things it's supposed to do.

00:43:22 ◼   ► And even though, she was coming from a 6S+, right,

00:43:25 ◼   ► even though the X is a little bit smaller,

00:43:27 ◼   ► I haven't even heard complaints about that

00:43:28 ◼   ► in terms of screen area.

00:43:29 ◼   ► I haven't heard complaints about battery life.

00:43:31 ◼   ► So I think the iPhone X is a very successful product.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Again, not using one myself, I can't really judge it

00:43:37 ◼   ► against the 7 or the 6S+ or whatever,

00:43:40 ◼   ► but it seems really good to me.

00:43:43 ◼   ► - I think it's a mixed bag, but overall, very good.

00:43:47 ◼   ► Face ID still, I like it 80 to 90% of the time,

00:43:52 ◼   ► which makes sense given the survey we saw.

00:43:54 ◼   ► Other people apparently liked it 95% of the time.

00:43:57 ◼   ► But as I've lamented a couple times on this show,

00:44:00 ◼   ► when I don't have my contact lenses in,

00:44:02 ◼   ► I can only see very close to my face.

00:44:06 ◼   ► And before anyone writes in, I have tried all of the tricks.

00:44:11 ◼   ► All of them, I have tried them.

00:44:12 ◼   ► I have turned off attention detection.

00:44:15 ◼   ► I have turned up and down the speed

00:44:18 ◼   ► to which the phone locks.

00:44:19 ◼   ► I've tried it, I appreciate the help, I do,

00:44:21 ◼   ► but I've tried it.

00:44:22 ◼   ► But yeah, especially at night

00:44:24 ◼   ► when I don't have my contacts in,

00:44:25 ◼   ► and the phone is, I mean, to be fair,

00:44:27 ◼   ► the phone is like three or four inches from my face,

00:44:30 ◼   ► if I don't actively touch and fiddle

00:44:32 ◼   ► with the screen constantly,

00:44:35 ◼   ► I feel like it just almost instantly locks itself

00:44:38 ◼   ► all the time, and it's the weirdest thing.

00:44:40 ◼   ► - Isn't there supposed to be an iOS update,

00:44:42 ◼   ► speaking of close to your face,

00:44:43 ◼   ► that makes it work better close up?

00:44:45 ◼   ► Is that like a rumored thing for iOS 12,

00:44:47 ◼   ► or is that a thing that came in a point updater?

00:44:48 ◼   ► - I think it might've already come

00:44:49 ◼   ► because it has gotten better,

00:44:51 ◼   ► but it is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.

00:44:55 ◼   ► But in regular working,

00:44:57 ◼   ► so you could reasonably treat that

00:45:00 ◼   ► as an accessibility issue,

00:45:01 ◼   ► and I'm asking for an accessibility affordance,

00:45:04 ◼   ► and I can understand that argument.

00:45:07 ◼   ► But in normal use,

00:45:10 ◼   ► I don't have the Ray-Ban sunglasses

00:45:12 ◼   ► that apparently everyone else has,

00:45:13 ◼   ► so I don't have any problem with my sunglasses on, my Warby Parkers work great.

00:45:18 ◼   ► Even when I have eyeglasses on, which I occasionally wear to get me to slightly less blurry vision,

00:45:24 ◼   ► it still works fine.

00:45:25 ◼   ► If I have a beard, don't have a beard, it works fine.

00:45:27 ◼   ► So in normal use, it actually works quite well.

00:45:30 ◼   ► It's only this nighttime, really, really close to my face that it all falls down.

00:45:35 ◼   ► The lack of home button, I actually really like it.

00:45:40 ◼   ► Swiping to get out of an app, swiping the bottom to go between apps, the up and to the right,

00:45:46 ◼   ► like L action in order to do the multitasking switcher.

00:45:49 ◼   ► I really, really like the gesture-based navigation, and I am all in on it.

00:45:55 ◼   ► And if I had to go back to a phone that didn't have this, I think it would be really, really frustrating.

00:46:01 ◼   ► I don't know if it actually is any faster, but gosh, does it ever feel faster, even if it isn't.

00:46:08 ◼   ► What are the little animojis? Animojis, I've used them like five times. It was exactly what everyone thought. It was a flash in the pan.

00:46:14 ◼   ► We've never looked back.

00:46:15 ◼   ► I still think the idea is fair and I still think having like seasonal animojis would be cool. Like say you only had Santa,

00:46:22 ◼   ► you know, from

00:46:24 ◼   ► November until January and maybe you only had a Jack-o'-lantern from like, I don't know,

00:46:29 ◼   ► September through the end of October or something like that. I think that would be a lot of fun. They haven't done that yet.

00:46:33 ◼   ► So animoji, kind of, eh. I love the

00:46:37 ◼   ► I do like the size of it. Of course. I'll always miss the size of the four series phones. I wish I had the

00:46:44 ◼   ► Gumption to use it without a case. I'm using it with the Apple provided leather case, which is nice

00:46:51 ◼   ► But I've just taken it out of the case and it is considerably thinner and and feels much better without the case

00:46:57 ◼   ► But given that the back is glass I am petrified to drop this thing and and shatter it

00:47:03 ◼   ► So it lives in the case always. Oh, and we also talked about recently

00:47:06 ◼   ► how much I, and I think Marco was the other one who said the same, love, love, love inductive

00:47:13 ◼   ► charging. It's such a stupid thing on paper. Like, who cares? Is your life really that

00:47:18 ◼   ► hard Casey, that you can't plug in your frickin' phone at night? No, it's not that hard, but

00:47:23 ◼   ► it's delightful to not have to, and I quite like that. So, love the inductive charging,

00:47:29 ◼   ► love the gesture-based navigation, Face ID, four stars out of five, and oh, and the cameras

00:47:35 ◼   ► cameras are really great too. In portrait mode, it's decent. In the right situation

00:47:42 ◼   ► it can be incredible, and in every other situation it's passable unless your name is Joe Steele.

00:47:49 ◼   ► I think that's it.

00:47:50 ◼   ► - Alright, so I don't care about the portrait mode. I do think that it is possible to shoot

00:47:56 ◼   ► decent looking photos with it. That just isn't the common case. Otherwise I do love the cameras.

00:48:01 ◼   ► The cameras are great.

00:48:03 ◼   ► Face ID is not good enough.

00:48:04 ◼   ► It's fine, but it's not great.

00:48:07 ◼   ► Very, very similar to first generation Touch ID,

00:48:10 ◼   ► but even a little bit more frustrating, I think, sometimes,

00:48:12 ◼   ► and why it fails or when it fails.

00:48:14 ◼   ► I really think Face ID needs to get a lot better.

00:48:17 ◼   ► And hopefully it will.

00:48:18 ◼   ► That's the kind of thing Apple tends to be pretty good at.

00:48:21 ◼   ► I think it's a little bit harder of a problem

00:48:23 ◼   ► than Touch ID to make it that reliable,

00:48:25 ◼   ► but I think they can do it.

00:48:26 ◼   ► One thing that bugs me about the size is that,

00:48:31 ◼   ► So I'm a left-handed phone user,

00:48:32 ◼   ► even though I'm right-handed,

00:48:33 ◼   ► because that's just how my pockets worked out,

00:48:35 ◼   ► 'cause I grew up without phones first, then added phones.

00:48:37 ◼   ► So I hold my phone in my left hand.

00:48:39 ◼   ► Almost every time I'm putting my phone back into my pocket

00:48:43 ◼   ► when I'm done using it,

00:48:45 ◼   ► I will very frequently accidentally tap something

00:48:48 ◼   ► on the screen with my left hand's middle finger

00:48:53 ◼   ► on the far right center edge of the screen

00:48:56 ◼   ► on the way into my pocket.

00:48:57 ◼   ► And so this, what usually ends up happening

00:49:00 ◼   ► is I'll be typing a message in messages

00:49:04 ◼   ► where it has the little microphone button

00:49:06 ◼   ► on the right side of the text field

00:49:08 ◼   ► to send an audio message, and I'll turn the phone off.

00:49:12 ◼   ► As I lower the phone into my pocket,

00:49:14 ◼   ► the screen wakes back up, or maybe I doesn't turn it off.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Right, anyway, on the way into my pocket,

00:49:21 ◼   ► my middle finger will accidentally brush

00:49:24 ◼   ► that edge of the screen, touch the audio message button,

00:49:27 ◼   ► and I'll hear boop boop as it goes in my pocket,

00:49:29 ◼   ► and the next time I take it out of my pocket,

00:49:30 ◼   ► there's like a big audio block there waiting to be sent.

00:49:32 ◼   ► - This can't be the case because I have this problem

00:49:36 ◼   ► and I hold my phone in my right hand.

00:49:40 ◼   ► I think, and I actually meant to mention this,

00:49:42 ◼   ► I always blamed it on my case.

00:49:44 ◼   ► I felt like my case occasionally,

00:49:46 ◼   ► like the, and this is again the Apple leather case.

00:49:49 ◼   ► - Oh my God, I just figured it out.

00:49:50 ◼   ► - Go ahead.

00:49:51 ◼   ► - There's a feature that no one knows about

00:49:53 ◼   ► where if you hold the phone up to your ear.

00:49:56 ◼   ► - Damn it, Marco, you gotta give me a chance.

00:49:58 ◼   ► - Oh man, that's it, I gotta turn that off.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - So I think that's exactly what it is.

00:50:02 ◼   ► - Okay, now my iPhone X's perfect.

00:50:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:05 ◼   ► - Wait, what is it?

00:50:06 ◼   ► - Is that the feature you're thinking of?

00:50:07 ◼   ► - The feature is, if you're in messages,

00:50:09 ◼   ► if you hold the phone up to your ear

00:50:10 ◼   ► as if you're gonna talk on the phone,

00:50:12 ◼   ► it will do an audio message

00:50:14 ◼   ► just by detecting the ear detection there.

00:50:16 ◼   ► So what's happening is, as I'm putting it in my pocket,

00:50:20 ◼   ► the screen isn't fully asleep yet,

00:50:22 ◼   ► and so it thinks I'm putting it up to my ear

00:50:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's getting blocked by my leg

00:50:26 ◼   ► on the way into my pocket.

00:50:27 ◼   ► - Yep, I think you're right.

00:50:28 ◼   ► - And so it starts an audio message,

00:50:30 ◼   ► then goes to sleep and realizes it doesn't need that

00:50:33 ◼   ► and cancels it.

00:50:34 ◼   ► - So the root problem is you're not actually

00:50:36 ◼   ► putting your phone, you're not actually hitting

00:50:37 ◼   ► like the power button or something to put it to sleep

00:50:39 ◼   ► before you shove it in your pocket.

00:50:40 ◼   ► 'Cause once it locks, it's not gonna unlock again

00:50:42 ◼   ► until you have face ID on it.

00:50:44 ◼   ► Like it's not going to wake itself up and unlock itself

00:50:46 ◼   ► and then do the proximity detection, right?

00:50:49 ◼   ► - I don't care, this is the best thing ever

00:50:50 ◼   ► that I could solve this.

00:50:51 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:52 ◼   ► - See this is what I thought, John.

00:50:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, so okay, settings, messages, raise to listen,

00:50:56 ◼   ► turn it off. Now, if I hold it up to my headphones, oh, okay, it does nothing. So that, oh man,

00:51:05 ◼   ► that should solve it. Casey, I owe you one.

00:51:07 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm trying this right now. Yep, I'm going to turn that off. Anyway, but one way,

00:51:12 ◼   ► I always blamed it on the case because I agree with you, Jon, that it seems like the phone

00:51:16 ◼   ► isn't entirely off. And I always thought that the case was just misfiring or something because,

00:51:21 ◼   ► again, I've never really had the phone naked. But I was going to say, Marco, and you beat

00:51:25 ◼   ► me to it that I think maybe it's a combination of both. Maybe like Marco, your fingers grazing

00:51:31 ◼   ► the screen, maybe my case is just preventing the sleep/wake button from being hit. But

00:51:37 ◼   ► it's a combination of that and I think the proximity to our leg or something that is

00:51:41 ◼   ► causing it, or maybe it's just the accelerometer, who knows, but one way or another it's causing

00:51:45 ◼   ► it to think, "Oh, I need to start recording now." And so I cannot count the amount of

00:51:50 ◼   ► times that I'll feel a phantom buzz in my pocket, which as a religious Apple Watch wearer

00:51:55 ◼   ► That's a very unusual circumstance for my phone to buzz.

00:51:59 ◼   ► And so I'll feel a buzz in my pocket, which usually is indicative that the phone is still

00:52:02 ◼   ► on and that's in its silent and it took the alert away from the watch.

00:52:07 ◼   ► I should say that the watch never got the alert in the first place.

00:52:10 ◼   ► And so I'm, I pick up the phone and I'm still sitting in messages and there's like a 40

00:52:14 ◼   ► minute audio recording, just like you were saying, Marco, just sitting there.

00:52:18 ◼   ► And so I'm not sure what the, what the real issue is.

00:52:21 ◼   ► I agree that raise to wake might be part of the problem,

00:52:24 ◼   ► but I flipped off that switch and both of us

00:52:27 ◼   ► will have to see if that makes a difference.

00:52:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I wonder, there might also be some kind of issue

00:52:31 ◼   ► where, 'cause you know how the iPhone X will,

00:52:33 ◼   ► and actually, I think the 7 and 8 also,

00:52:36 ◼   ► will detect when they're picked up

00:52:39 ◼   ► and will like unsleep the screen

00:52:42 ◼   ► because it's been picked up.

00:52:45 ◼   ► And maybe the detection of that is kinda misfiring

00:52:48 ◼   ► where maybe we are putting it to sleep,

00:52:51 ◼   ► Oh, it's called raise to wake, thank you, all in the chat.

00:52:53 ◼   ► So maybe the action of lowering the phone

00:52:55 ◼   ► from hand level back down to our pants,

00:52:59 ◼   ► maybe that's triggering raise to wake

00:53:01 ◼   ► right after we put it to sleep?

00:53:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, very well could be.

00:53:03 ◼   ► - I mean, if it hasn't moved from our face by that much,

00:53:07 ◼   ► theoretically, Face ID could fire during that time,

00:53:10 ◼   ► read our face on the way down.

00:53:12 ◼   ► Like, it is possible, but yeah,

00:53:14 ◼   ► so that's an annoying thing, I hope I just fixed it.

00:53:17 ◼   ► So, getting back to my iPhone X performance review,

00:53:21 ◼   ► other than that, and Face ID kind of just not being

00:53:25 ◼   ► fast enough or good enough, I really like this phone.

00:53:29 ◼   ► The battery life has been surprisingly good for me.

00:53:32 ◼   ► I don't think I've ever seen it go past, I think, 20%.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And even then, that's rare.

00:53:39 ◼   ► Most days, I'm ending it above 50.

00:53:42 ◼   ► And that's partially because there are

00:53:45 ◼   ► GE chargers all over my place,

00:53:46 ◼   ► and I love Qi charging.

00:53:49 ◼   ► As you said, it's so good.

00:53:51 ◼   ► So I'm just really, really happy

00:53:53 ◼   ► with the power situation on this phone.

00:53:58 ◼   ► - Speaking of Qi charging, a couple people

00:54:00 ◼   ► were complaining on Twitter today

00:54:01 ◼   ► about the AirPower mat that still hasn't materialized.

00:54:04 ◼   ► I know we've mostly forgotten about that,

00:54:06 ◼   ► but it's worth mentioning.

00:54:07 ◼   ► Apple did announce, did pre-announce a product

00:54:10 ◼   ► that we're still kind of waiting for.

00:54:11 ◼   ► - I'm shocked.

00:54:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, like this is a really long one though.

00:54:15 ◼   ► This is not like, oh, they pre-announced it.

00:54:17 ◼   ► It's so long that I frequently forget that it exists.

00:54:20 ◼   ► And I know technically probably we're within,

00:54:21 ◼   ► like they said, oh, next year,

00:54:22 ◼   ► so basically any time until December 31st

00:54:24 ◼   ► and they've technically met their deadline.

00:54:26 ◼   ► But this is another case where it's clear

00:54:28 ◼   ► that something has gone wrong somewhere.

00:54:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's definitely concerning

00:54:32 ◼   ► that this seems to be happening a lot recently.

00:54:35 ◼   ► - Maybe it's because they made it white

00:54:36 ◼   ► and they can't make it the white.

00:54:37 ◼   ► Well, the good thing about it is, as you said,

00:54:38 ◼   ► it's not stopping you from wirelessly charging your phone.

00:54:41 ◼   ► They did use a third-party standard

00:54:43 ◼   ► and that's basically saved their bacon

00:54:44 ◼   ► because no one is stuck without a wireless charger

00:54:48 ◼   ► for your phone.

00:54:48 ◼   ► You can get one, and they're cheap, and they're plentiful,

00:54:50 ◼   ► and there's good ones and bad ones,

00:54:52 ◼   ► but we don't have to wait for Apple's thing.

00:54:54 ◼   ► And by the time Apple's thing comes out,

00:54:56 ◼   ► everyone will have already bought them,

00:54:57 ◼   ► except for people who haven't yet bought an iPhone X.

00:55:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, and the great thing about this,

00:55:02 ◼   ► they are so cheap, and they're diverse.

00:55:06 ◼   ► There's a much larger diversity of Qi chargers out there

00:55:10 ◼   ► than Apple would ever make themselves.

00:55:12 ◼   ► There's different form factors, different shapes,

00:55:14 ◼   ► different sizes, lots of different price points,

00:55:16 ◼   ► different intended environments for them to be in,

00:55:19 ◼   ► lots of different styles and looks,

00:55:21 ◼   ► different materials they're made out of.

00:55:22 ◼   ► So it's actually really a wonderful little ecosystem.

00:55:26 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm just very happy with Qi charging.

00:55:30 ◼   ► It's one of those things,

00:55:31 ◼   ► I'm sure the Android people are yelling at all of us.

00:55:35 ◼   ► You know we knew this like three years ago,

00:55:36 ◼   ► just like the Opera people.

00:55:37 ◼   ► I'm sure Opera had Qi charging first before everybody.

00:55:40 ◼   ► Then the Simpsons had it, and then Android had it,

00:55:42 ◼   ► and now we have it.

00:55:42 ◼   ► Okay, so if we can set that aside,

00:55:45 ◼   ► yes, we all know that we were not the first to this,

00:55:48 ◼   ► but it's still really nice and we now know this,

00:55:50 ◼   ► so we're very, very happy.

00:55:51 ◼   ► Otherwise, the size of the iPhone X,

00:55:54 ◼   ► I think is perfect for me.

00:55:57 ◼   ► It is a little tall and a little hard to get my hand around

00:56:00 ◼   ► sometimes for certain things, but for the most part,

00:56:03 ◼   ► it is significantly more holdable for me

00:56:06 ◼   ► than the Plus phones ever were,

00:56:08 ◼   ► and I do love the screen space.

00:56:12 ◼   ► I actually hope they don't shrink the margins anymore,

00:56:16 ◼   ► like the bezel around, because I'm worried

00:56:18 ◼   ► that I'll have more accidental tap issues

00:56:20 ◼   ► when I hold my phone without a case,

00:56:22 ◼   ► just like what I thought I was doing

00:56:24 ◼   ► with my finger on the side.

00:56:26 ◼   ► Otherwise, I'm just very happy with it.

00:56:28 ◼   ► It's fast.

00:56:29 ◼   ► I love the home button list thing.

00:56:32 ◼   ► One thing that I, like whenever I have to use Tiff's phone

00:56:36 ◼   ► or my iPad or things that are not the iPhone X,

00:56:39 ◼   ► What surprises me most is that I can't tap the screen

00:56:43 ◼   ► to turn it on.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Like that one little touch, like where,

00:56:46 ◼   ► 'cause even on the iPhone 8, tapping the screen

00:56:49 ◼   ► does not wake the screen up.

00:56:50 ◼   ► Tapping the screen to turn it on is awesome.

00:56:52 ◼   ► I love that.

00:56:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I've forgotten about that.

00:56:54 ◼   ► That's a very good point.

00:56:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then I also, and having swipe up to go home

00:56:58 ◼   ► is great.

00:57:00 ◼   ► I still don't like the increased motion and gestures

00:57:05 ◼   ► and time that it takes to force quit an app,

00:57:09 ◼   ► But I very much like how fast it is to switch apps now,

00:57:13 ◼   ► 'cause you just swipe across the home indicator.

00:57:15 ◼   ► That's so good.

00:57:16 ◼   ► When you're flipping between apps, that is fantastic.

00:57:19 ◼   ► Given that switching apps for me is a more common action

00:57:22 ◼   ► than terminating one, I'll take that trade-off.

00:57:25 ◼   ► I do wish that they could do something great

00:57:28 ◼   ► for terminating ones, and I think they still can.

00:57:30 ◼   ► I think if they do pull up,

00:57:32 ◼   ► and then if just swiping up in the app switcher

00:57:36 ◼   ► on an app would terminate it,

00:57:37 ◼   ► instead of having to hold down first, then do that,

00:57:40 ◼   ► they could significantly improve that.

00:57:43 ◼   ► Control Center sucks.

00:57:45 ◼   ► - See, I disagree.

00:57:46 ◼   ► I don't understand why everyone has a burr

00:57:47 ◼   ► up their butts about this.

00:57:48 ◼   ► - So I'm finally accustomed to it a little bit more,

00:57:51 ◼   ► but now every time I try to pull out notifications,

00:57:53 ◼   ► I miss and I put on Control Center.

00:57:55 ◼   ► Like going for something that I have to pull down

00:57:57 ◼   ► from the top of the screen on my iPhone 10

00:57:59 ◼   ► is a lot like plugging in a micro USB cable.

00:58:02 ◼   ► It seems like it takes me three tries

00:58:05 ◼   ► to get the right thing every time.

00:58:07 ◼   ► - So true.

00:58:08 ◼   ► - Like I'm constantly pulling down the wrong thing

00:58:11 ◼   ► for what I want.

00:58:12 ◼   ► So that is one area that I think needs

00:58:15 ◼   ► significant improvement.

00:58:17 ◼   ► - So where are they gonna hide that though?

00:58:18 ◼   ► Speaking of improvement, everyone's like,

00:58:19 ◼   ► oh I hate control center and we all think

00:58:21 ◼   ► it's gonna be nice to reach, right?

00:58:23 ◼   ► Okay, but then how do you fix it?

00:58:24 ◼   ► - I think maybe it might be worth investigating

00:58:27 ◼   ► combining the two screens.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Like, phones are optimized pretty well for scrolling.

00:58:34 ◼   ► So maybe Control Center becomes just a vertically scrolling

00:58:38 ◼   ► thing where the notifications just go below

00:58:40 ◼   ► the controls you have picked.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Like there's enough space that they could actually do that.

00:58:46 ◼   ► 'Cause right now they had this giant padding on top

00:58:48 ◼   ► of Control Center where they basically have

00:58:50 ◼   ► what looks like a 150 pixel tall status bar area.

00:58:55 ◼   ► They can just shrink that down to like 40.

00:58:58 ◼   ► And if they shrink that down,

00:58:59 ◼   ► but with the default number of controls in Control Center,

00:59:02 ◼   ► you'd have room for like three notifications

00:59:05 ◼   ► above the fold.

00:59:06 ◼   ► - But you would put them at the bottom?

00:59:08 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:59:08 ◼   ► - Put the notifications at the bottom.

00:59:09 ◼   ► I think people like to peek at their notifications

00:59:11 ◼   ► and are expecting to look at the top of the screen.

00:59:13 ◼   ► - Well, they don't show in the top now,

00:59:14 ◼   ► they show kind of in the middle.

00:59:15 ◼   ► 'Cause they show a giant clock above it.

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know.

00:59:20 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of solutions too.

00:59:22 ◼   ► And like, you know, there's always the pun to which is like,

00:59:24 ◼   ► we'll just make it a setting and people can decide

00:59:25 ◼   ► which is their most frequently used control

00:59:27 ◼   ► and assign it to, do you want notifications

00:59:29 ◼   ► to be the little ear or notifications

00:59:31 ◼   ► be the whole rest of the thing. But I don't have any great ideas either. I'm just wondering.

00:59:36 ◼   ► I think it's a hard problem. Part of the reason it's crappy is because there's no obvious

00:59:39 ◼   ► good solution. So I'm not sure what they're going to do there.

00:59:43 ◼   ► See, and the funny thing to me is, and I will fully admit that I am the minority here. I

00:59:50 ◼   ► am not trying to say I'm right. I understand everyone else disagrees with me. But I actually,

00:59:54 ◼   ► I feel like I've been trained on where Control Center is for a long time. It's not like I

00:59:58 ◼   ► just figured this out yesterday.

01:00:00 ◼   ► My body--

01:00:01 ◼   ► - People know where it is, it's just hard to reach,

01:00:02 ◼   ► depending on how long your thumb is

01:00:04 ◼   ► and how you hold your phone, and so on and so forth.

01:00:05 ◼   ► - It's a little hard to reach, sure,

01:00:07 ◼   ► but I don't know, I don't feel like it's as egregious

01:00:09 ◼   ► as everyone else seems to think.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And I'm just saying, it's just me,

01:00:13 ◼   ► I'm not trying to say that I'm right,

01:00:14 ◼   ► 'cause I can hear all the angry tweets and emails coming.

01:00:16 ◼   ► But it's just for me, I don't think it's that big a deal.

01:00:19 ◼   ► And I'm sure it could be better,

01:00:21 ◼   ► but I don't think it's that bad.

01:00:22 ◼   ► I don't understand why everyone has such a big issue with it.

01:00:26 ◼   ► - Well, you do understand this, 'cause it's hard to reach,

01:00:28 ◼   ► and it's now, there's a potential to get the wrong thing.

01:00:31 ◼   ► Like Marco occasionally gets some notifications

01:00:33 ◼   ► when he doesn't want to.

01:00:34 ◼   ► - Oh, not occasionally. - And that was--

01:00:35 ◼   ► - Every time.

01:00:36 ◼   ► - And it was not a thing that happened with it

01:00:38 ◼   ► in its old location, which is obviously a non-starter

01:00:39 ◼   ► 'cause of the lack of home phone.

01:00:41 ◼   ► One thing that no one has mentioned so far is the notch,

01:00:43 ◼   ► so I guess we all don't care about that.

01:00:45 ◼   ► - True, yeah, don't really care.

01:00:46 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't really care either.

01:00:48 ◼   ► - I mean, it's not ideal, and as I said emphatically

01:00:52 ◼   ► many, many shows ago, Apple does not like the notch,

01:00:55 ◼   ► and it will go away once Apple can get rid of it

01:00:58 ◼   ► as soon as they can get themselves over the branding that they've developed with it.

01:01:01 ◼   ► And by the way, there's been this rash of notch imitator phones where even phones that

01:01:04 ◼   ► don't need to have a notch will add one, sometimes even just like displaying the screen

01:01:08 ◼   ► underneath where the notch is because the Phone OS has no idea that the notch is there,

01:01:12 ◼   ► purely for sort of trade dress, you know, imitation reasons to capitalize on Apple's

01:01:17 ◼   ► marketing.

01:01:18 ◼   ► So I think the notch marketing is a real thing, and that may make Apple keep it for a little

01:01:22 ◼   ► bit longer, but Apple doesn't like the notch either.

01:01:24 ◼   ► But it's great to see that basically everybody, like despite the fact that Apple doesn't

01:01:28 ◼   ► really want the Notch and it is a necessary evil.

01:01:30 ◼   ► It doesn't bother people in daily use.

01:01:32 ◼   ► You forget it's there, you get used to it.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Perhaps the only time you have any interaction

01:01:36 ◼   ► with it at all is when you go for Control Center

01:01:38 ◼   ► and realize there's this divided region at the top

01:01:40 ◼   ► because of the little ears and all that.

01:01:42 ◼   ► But seems to be, for all the talking we all did

01:01:45 ◼   ► about it ahead of time and not knowing what it would be like,

01:01:48 ◼   ► pretty much universally, nobody cares about the Notch.

01:01:50 ◼   ► - Oh, I will say one more complaint I have about it.

01:01:53 ◼   ► As I turned off the screen and realized,

01:01:56 ◼   ► the screen scratches incredibly easily.

01:01:58 ◼   ► And my screen is a mess.

01:02:00 ◼   ► I have so many scratches on the screen.

01:02:01 ◼   ► I've never had a visible scratch on a phone screen before.

01:02:05 ◼   ► And this one scratches like crazy.

01:02:07 ◼   ► - You're putting it in your pocket without a pouch,

01:02:08 ◼   ► that's why.

01:02:09 ◼   ► - No, but every other phone can tolerate it.

01:02:11 ◼   ► So like, from what I've gathered from asking people

01:02:14 ◼   ► and things like that, it seems like they did change

01:02:17 ◼   ► the screen glass material to be more resistant

01:02:20 ◼   ► to shattering by making it a little bit softer.

01:02:24 ◼   ► and therefore it now scratches more easily

01:02:27 ◼   ► but won't shatter as much.

01:02:28 ◼   ► That's wonderful for people who drop their phones

01:02:31 ◼   ► and hope it doesn't shatter.

01:02:32 ◼   ► I'm not one of those people,

01:02:33 ◼   ► and so they definitely made the wrong trade-off for me,

01:02:37 ◼   ► but I can't deny that--

01:02:39 ◼   ► - It's probably the right trade-off for most people,

01:02:41 ◼   ► considering how many shattered phones I see

01:02:44 ◼   ► and how many people do drop their phones

01:02:46 ◼   ► and how little scratches probably bother normal people,

01:02:48 ◼   ► in fact, how little large portions of the population

01:02:51 ◼   ► can even see the scratches.

01:02:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, so I think this is,

01:02:56 ◼   ► my one major complaint about it,

01:02:58 ◼   ► besides the other one major complaints I had,

01:03:01 ◼   ► is that the screen scratches way too easily.

01:03:03 ◼   ► And the problem is, like, you know, some people say,

01:03:06 ◼   ► well, why don't you just put on a screen protector

01:03:07 ◼   ► or something like that?

01:03:08 ◼   ► The problem is the shape of this--

01:03:09 ◼   ► - Oh, gross.

01:03:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, first of all, gross.

01:03:11 ◼   ► Second of all, the shape of this phone

01:03:13 ◼   ► is, like, because the screen just kind of curves

01:03:17 ◼   ► right down into the edge there,

01:03:18 ◼   ► and the back kind of curves right out of the back,

01:03:21 ◼   ► Like the side profile, everything is a gradual curve.

01:03:26 ◼   ► If you stick something on it, like a screen protector,

01:03:29 ◼   ► or any kind of like decal or anything,

01:03:31 ◼   ► it's not gonna follow that curve.

01:03:34 ◼   ► So you're basically gonna have like an edge

01:03:37 ◼   ► that your fingers will have to rub against

01:03:39 ◼   ► along the edge of the screen,

01:03:41 ◼   ► where like the screen protector just is like sitting

01:03:43 ◼   ► on top of the screen, and then you have this like

01:03:46 ◼   ► rough edge that you have to like move your finger over

01:03:48 ◼   ► all the time that's definitely gonna start peeling up

01:03:50 ◼   ► and getting dust under it at some point.

01:03:52 ◼   ► That is not very good to me.

01:03:56 ◼   ► - That's spoken like someone who was annoyed

01:03:57 ◼   ► by scratches on their phone.

01:03:58 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:03:59 ◼   ► - You're also annoyed by the tiny little,

01:04:00 ◼   ► again, regular people have those screen protectors

01:04:02 ◼   ► all the time, they love them.

01:04:03 ◼   ► Speaking of screen protectors,

01:04:05 ◼   ► I saw my sister over break and she has a screen protector

01:04:08 ◼   ► on her phone as well.

01:04:10 ◼   ► It's like, I don't know what it's made out of.

01:04:11 ◼   ► Like plastic, it's like one of those rigid screen protectors

01:04:14 ◼   ► plus a giant case plus all sorts of other stuff.

01:04:16 ◼   ► Anyway, she was holding her phone in her mouth

01:04:19 ◼   ► while she was doing something else,

01:04:20 ◼   ► and it started to slip and she bit down

01:04:22 ◼   ► to keep it from slipping,

01:04:23 ◼   ► and she cracked the screen protector with her teeth.

01:04:25 ◼   ► This is the level. - Oh, come on.

01:04:26 ◼   ► - So we're talking about like,

01:04:27 ◼   ► oh, I'm annoyed that it scratches on my phone screen,

01:04:29 ◼   ► and I don't wanna put a protector on

01:04:30 ◼   ► 'cause there'd be this thin edge.

01:04:31 ◼   ► Meanwhile, other people are biting their phones

01:04:33 ◼   ► to break them.

01:04:33 ◼   ► And I saw her like a couple days later,

01:04:38 ◼   ► same cracked screen protector.

01:04:40 ◼   ► It's not like she's gonna get a new one.

01:04:41 ◼   ► She can still see the screen, it still works.

01:04:43 ◼   ► That's how people use their phones.

01:04:45 ◼   ► They're not as precious as we are.

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01:05:59 ◼   ► So usually, typically for most US houses,

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01:06:40 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:06:43 ◼   ► All right, let's do some Ask ATP.

01:06:45 ◼   ► - Don't try to skip my thing.

01:06:47 ◼   ► - We're skipping your thing.

01:06:48 ◼   ► - No, it'll take two seconds.

01:06:49 ◼   ► It's because it'll never hit it otherwise.

01:06:50 ◼   ► It's two seconds.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Everyone look at your timestamps.

01:06:53 ◼   ► Look at the clock right now.

01:06:54 ◼   ► Two seconds, John says.

01:06:56 ◼   ► - You've taken longer in your warning than I will in this.

01:06:58 ◼   ► - Okay, go ahead.

01:07:00 ◼   ► - I used to have to introduce it.

01:07:01 ◼   ► I gotta get my tab open.

01:07:02 ◼   ► Look at this.

01:07:03 ◼   ► - Oh, I see how it is.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Sorry, sorry, Your Majesty.

01:07:08 ◼   ► All right, so, Guy Rambeau,

01:07:10 ◼   ► who is one of the people who has done a really incredible job of figuring out what's going

01:07:16 ◼   ► on with an Apple based on firmware releases and things of that nature.

01:07:20 ◼   ► He's also the host of a new podcast which I've been enjoying called StackTrace.

01:07:23 ◼   ► He had found a few days ago now that there's a way to build WebKit in such a way that you

01:07:31 ◼   ► can get a dark appearance for WebKit, which is effectively for the purposes of this conversation

01:07:36 ◼   ► Safari.

01:07:37 ◼   ► So there is apparently a dark mode and a not so dark mode,

01:07:42 ◼   ► which is the normal mode that you can find and engage

01:07:44 ◼   ► if you know what you're doing.

01:07:45 ◼   ► So with that in mind, does that mean that there's going

01:07:49 ◼   ► to be like a full macOS dark mode rather than just

01:07:52 ◼   ► the ridiculous looking menu bar that nobody should ever use?

01:07:55 ◼   ► - Or an iOS dark mode.

01:07:56 ◼   ► I mean, the reason I found this interesting and worth

01:07:59 ◼   ► notice that Apple did last release or released two ago,

01:08:02 ◼   ► the dark menu bar option on macOS.

01:08:05 ◼   ► - It's been there a long time, hasn't it?

01:08:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's been a while.

01:08:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I'm always surprised

01:08:09 ◼   ► when I see people use that, just like I'm surprised

01:08:10 ◼   ► when I see people still rocking the graphite appearance

01:08:13 ◼   ► in macOS, but anyway, but they didn't do

01:08:16 ◼   ► like a whole OS dark mode.

01:08:17 ◼   ► They did, oh, you can have a dark menu bar,

01:08:19 ◼   ► you can hide the menu bar, you can have a dark dock,

01:08:21 ◼   ► but it's not like everything goes dark.

01:08:22 ◼   ► And so this is just WebKit, so it could be,

01:08:25 ◼   ► this is just the next stage in the darkening of Apple's OS

01:08:28 ◼   ► is that you can have a dark menu bar and a dark dock,

01:08:30 ◼   ► and also, if you enable this mode,

01:08:32 ◼   ► the quote-unquote native controls inside your WebKit views

01:08:36 ◼   ► also have a dark appearance.

01:08:37 ◼   ► And we'll put a link in the show notes

01:08:38 ◼   ► to two tweets showing the comparison of, like,

01:08:41 ◼   ► here's what it would look like with dark mode off,

01:08:42 ◼   ► and here's what it would look like with dark mode on.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And WebKit, of course, is not just on the Mac.

01:08:46 ◼   ► It's also on iOS.

01:08:48 ◼   ► So I just think it's interesting that--

01:08:50 ◼   ► I was thinking of this in the context of the pro work group

01:08:53 ◼   ► people.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Like, one of the comments that those people might have added

01:08:57 ◼   ► is, hey, I'm working in a dark editing bay all day.

01:09:00 ◼   ► And when I switch out of Final Cut to the Finder or something,

01:09:03 ◼   ► I'm blinded by the giant completely 100% white windows

01:09:07 ◼   ► on my desktop glaring out at me.

01:09:09 ◼   ► And so it'd be great if I had an overall dark mode

01:09:11 ◼   ► just for everything by default.

01:09:13 ◼   ► So I didn't have this unintentional HDR experience

01:09:17 ◼   ► of being blinded by my screen.

01:09:20 ◼   ► Or maybe the same thing for iPads.

01:09:21 ◼   ► If you're reading the web at night on an iPad or something,

01:09:25 ◼   ► I don't know, it falls apart with web pages

01:09:27 ◼   ► 'cause they get to control the colors of the background.

01:09:28 ◼   ► But anyway, I thought it was an interesting

01:09:30 ◼   ► potentially a pro angle on everything being dark, and it would be a good match to the

01:09:36 ◼   ► outside of Apple's computers, which as Marco noted on Twitter the other day, also tend

01:09:41 ◼   ► to be going in the dark direction. He's got a dark iMac Pro, and you were commenting that

01:09:46 ◼   ► every single MacBook Pro you've seen has been space gray, despite the fact that it's also

01:09:50 ◼   ► offered in silver. So dark things are cool, and maybe there are more of them coming to

01:09:55 ◼   ► Apple screens near you someday.

01:09:57 ◼   ► That was relatively quick, I will concede.

01:10:00 ◼   ► It was, however, longer than your introduction of the topic.

01:10:02 ◼   ► Thank you, Marco.

01:10:03 ◼   ► All right, Ask ATP.

01:10:04 ◼   ► Jacob Ford writes, "What's the advantage for Apple of ending support for 32-bit apps

01:10:08 ◼   ► on iOS and now macOS?

01:10:11 ◼   ► And what does this allow iOS to do?"

01:10:13 ◼   ► And then a kind of hanger-on from Nelson Conley, "Why can't 32-bit apps run on a 64-bit OS?

01:10:19 ◼   ► I can understand the reverse, 64 not working on 32, but why not for exa—"

01:10:22 ◼   ► Why is it that Apple must phase out support for 32-bit apps on macOS?

01:10:28 ◼   ► John?

01:10:29 ◼   ► - I think, yeah, combine these questions,

01:10:30 ◼   ► 'cause they're both kind of asking the same thing.

01:10:32 ◼   ► Like, what's the point?

01:10:34 ◼   ► We've been talking about this as if it's an inevitability

01:10:37 ◼   ► that of course, that 64-bit comes

01:10:39 ◼   ► and 32-bit has to be dropped.

01:10:40 ◼   ► Why, what the hell's the point?

01:10:42 ◼   ► There is actually a point.

01:10:44 ◼   ► Aside from the just like it makes things simpler,

01:10:47 ◼   ► if you don't have to support both 32 and 64 bits,

01:10:49 ◼   ► then you can make a CPU that only supports 64

01:10:52 ◼   ► and you use fewer transistors,

01:10:53 ◼   ► you don't have to deal with 32, so on and so forth.

01:10:55 ◼   ► But even setting all of that aside,

01:10:56 ◼   ► The most important aspect of 64-bit transition is when you have the ability to run 32-bit

01:11:03 ◼   ► and 64-bit apps, all the libraries and frameworks and parts of the OS that the applications

01:11:07 ◼   ► use also have to come in 32-bit and 64-bit variants.

01:11:11 ◼   ► So even if the entire operating system and all Apple's applications and all of your applications

01:11:16 ◼   ► are 64-bit, you launch one 32-bit application and it's got to bring in 32-bit versions of

01:11:21 ◼   ► all the other libraries.

01:11:23 ◼   ► And that's important because in modern OSes and iOS and Mac and everything, they use dynamic

01:11:27 ◼   ► linking.

01:11:29 ◼   ► And if you have 20 apps open that are all linked to the same system framework, you don't

01:11:35 ◼   ► have 20 copies of that in memory.

01:11:36 ◼   ► You have one copy of it in memory.

01:11:39 ◼   ► That's important.

01:11:40 ◼   ► So memory sharing is important.

01:11:42 ◼   ► You'd run out of memory on your phone if that wasn't the case.

01:11:44 ◼   ► As soon as you launch one 32-bit app, now you have two copies of that library in memory,

01:11:48 ◼   ► the 64-bit version and the 32-bit version.

01:11:50 ◼   ► So the only way you can ever get the big win of not having to have both versions of a whole

01:11:56 ◼   ► bunch of libraries in memory because you've got some 64-bit and 32-bit applications, like

01:12:00 ◼   ► because one 32-bit application will ruin it and pull in all of its libraries, is to expunge

01:12:04 ◼   ► 32-bit from the system to say, "We can't even run 32-bit.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Our CPU can't run it, so our CPU can be smaller and take less power and have fewer transistors

01:12:13 ◼   ► and be simpler," and so on and so forth.

01:12:15 ◼   ► And since we can't run it, we will never have both 64 and 32-bit copies of libraries and

01:12:20 ◼   ► memory. So you save RAM, you save battery power, you make it simple. That's why it's

01:12:24 ◼   ► kind of accepted as an inevitability that, yes, once you switch to 64-bit, eventually

01:12:29 ◼   ► you should get rid of 32-bit. The timing we can all debate about, but the wins are real

01:12:33 ◼   ► and technical, and that's why Apple's doing this.

01:12:36 ◼   ► All right, Juho Lanonen—must be finished. Anyway, he writes—oh, God, that's right.

01:12:43 ◼   ► Can we skip this, please?

01:12:44 ◼   ► You were so—it's such a rush to get to Ask ATP, and look what's sitting there waiting

01:12:48 ◼   ► for you.

01:12:49 ◼   ► Oh, God, this sucks.

01:12:50 ◼   ► You can move to the last question if you want.

01:12:52 ◼   ► No, it's OK.

01:12:52 ◼   ► The next question is a Wrangler question, so forget it.

01:12:55 ◼   ► We're in that section of Ask ATP now.

01:12:57 ◼   ► All right.

01:12:58 ◼   ► So what is Jon's opinion on Destiny 2,

01:13:01 ◼   ► and are you still playing it?

01:13:02 ◼   ► There's been a lot of criticism of the downloadable content

01:13:05 ◼   ► and microtransactions policies of the game.

01:13:07 ◼   ► Do you think those are hurting the underlying

01:13:08 ◼   ► game significantly?

01:13:09 ◼   ► And Casey asked a follow-on question.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Can you please answer this question in English?

01:13:14 ◼   ► Seems unlikely.

01:13:16 ◼   ► Oh, my god.

01:13:17 ◼   ► All right.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Let's go start with easy stuff.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Yes, I am still playing Destiny 2.

01:13:22 ◼   ► This question says there's been a lot of criticism of the DLC and microtransactions, but honestly,

01:13:27 ◼   ► the things that are the most wrong with Destiny 2 have nothing to do with microtransactions.

01:13:32 ◼   ► DLC is vague, you're just saying you don't like the expansions.

01:13:35 ◼   ► The expansions haven't been great, but whatever.

01:13:38 ◼   ► The core mechanics of the game are the things that have problems.

01:13:42 ◼   ► And I think I said this in one of the slacks recently.

01:13:45 ◼   ► It's like, there's the game Destiny 2, and there's the second game that you get with

01:13:49 ◼   ► Destiny 2, or not second game, the second entertainment product that you get with Destiny

01:13:54 ◼   ► 2, which is participation in and observation of the development process of Destiny.

01:13:59 ◼   ► This happened with Destiny 1, too, one as well, where it was almost like for three years,

01:14:06 ◼   ► you got to play a game, but you also got to see the development of the game in real time

01:14:11 ◼   ► with constant feedback and animosity between the people who play the game and the people

01:14:14 ◼   ► who make the game and various ups and downs.

01:14:18 ◼   ► And that's my memories of Destiny 1, my good memories of Destiny 1 are very much tied up

01:14:21 ◼   ► in that interaction between the player base and the ongoing development of the game.

01:14:27 ◼   ► It's not like they release the game and you just play it for three years.

01:14:29 ◼   ► Like the game changed a lot in those three years and it changed in response to and sometimes

01:14:34 ◼   ► in opposition to the wishes of the player base.

01:14:37 ◼   ► That continues to happen with Destiny 2.

01:14:39 ◼   ► It's more frustrating because we feel like, "Didn't you learn anything for three years

01:14:41 ◼   ► of Destiny 1?

01:14:42 ◼   ► Don't you kind of know what people want?"

01:14:43 ◼   ► They made some bad guesses in the beginning of Destiny 2 and they're backpedaling on a

01:14:46 ◼   ► lot of them and that can be frustrating, but I am, I have to admit, I am kind of enjoying

01:14:50 ◼   ► seeing the game evolve just like Destiny 1 did, even though it's kind of dumb that they

01:14:55 ◼   ► seem to have forgotten everything and made some bad bets in Destiny 2.

01:14:58 ◼   ► It's also bad that the player base seems to have dropped off a lot because people aren't

01:15:02 ◼   ► willing to put up with this crap because they're kind of frustrated, like, again, didn't you

01:15:05 ◼   ► learn anything from Destiny 1?

01:15:06 ◼   ► So I am still playing it.

01:15:07 ◼   ► I do have hope that it will get better.

01:15:09 ◼   ► It has gotten better from launch till now, and I still like it, and I still go back to

01:15:14 ◼   ► it when I'm not playing some other game.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Mike asks, in order for me to get back at Jon, "I know you guys keep making fun of

01:15:21 ◼   ► the potential Wrangler acquisition, but in all seriousness, I'm interested in hearing

01:15:24 ◼   ► further discussion on this.

01:15:25 ◼   ► I own two motorcycles, and after a few friends have had serious life-threatening accidents,

01:15:28 ◼   ► I'm about to sell them both and throw in the towel on bikes, period.

01:15:32 ◼   ► One of the joys of motorcycling is the feeling you get when you're outside, which has me

01:15:37 ◼   ► me thinking if I could sell the bikes and buy a Wrangler. So the question is if you

01:15:41 ◼   ► got a Wrangler, what would you be looking for? Conversely, if not a Wrangler and you

01:15:44 ◼   ► had 10 to 15 to spend on a used vehicle as a weekend toy, maybe some kind of convertible,

01:15:48 ◼   ► what would you look for? Hard top, soft top, dependability and ease of maintenance would

01:15:51 ◼   ► be key for me. So I will start. If I was going to get a Wrangler, I would have to do the

01:15:56 ◼   ► terrible thing of getting a Wrangler Unlimited, which is to say a four-door Wrangler, which

01:15:59 ◼   ► is blasphemous. It is a terrible decision, but it's what I would have to do. I would

01:16:04 ◼   ► get a soft top because hard tops are dumb and I don't want to hear any arguments to

01:16:09 ◼   ► the contrary.

01:16:11 ◼   ► And I would probably get a Sahara.

01:16:14 ◼   ► I would try to get a Rubicon, but they are really frickin' expensive.

01:16:17 ◼   ► That's basically how off-road capable and/nice they are.

01:16:22 ◼   ► There are some off-road facilities, roads, again, it's not really road, I suppose trails,

01:16:28 ◼   ► that's what I'm looking for, trails near-ish to me.

01:16:30 ◼   ► And I like to think that if I got a Wrangler, I would go off-roading from time to time,

01:16:35 ◼   ► and thus having something more than like the base model would be good.

01:16:39 ◼   ► But I would basically get as much soft top, six-speed Wranglers I could afford.

01:16:44 ◼   ► If I wasn't going to get a Wrangler and I was going to get some other kind of used cars,

01:16:48 ◼   ► a weekend toy, I think in the $10,000 to $15,000 range, I would either get a Mustang convertible

01:16:56 ◼   ► and I would never bring it to Cars and Coffee lest I murder somebody.

01:16:59 ◼   ► I would either get a Mustang convertible, a V8 with a stick, or I've always really

01:17:05 ◼   ► loved S2000s, which would make Jon very happy, what with them being Hondas.

01:17:09 ◼   ► However, they are quite old now and still worth a fair bit of money.

01:17:13 ◼   ► So I don't know if I would want something quite that old, but they've always appealed

01:17:18 ◼   ► to me.

01:17:19 ◼   ► You won't fit in one.

01:17:20 ◼   ► You're too big.

01:17:21 ◼   ► No, I've driven one.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I don't know if I drove it.

01:17:23 ◼   ► Did I drive it?

01:17:24 ◼   ► I thought I drove it.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Your hair is too big.

01:17:26 ◼   ► My hair is too big.

01:17:27 ◼   ► Have you sat in one lately?

01:17:28 ◼   ► They're really small.

01:17:29 ◼   ► ago but a little more than that but at the time I fit so anyway Marco you

01:17:34 ◼   ► haven't talked for a while so tell me what would you do if you were if you

01:17:37 ◼   ► were forced to buy a Wrangler and yes I know you're gonna say not buy Wrangler

01:17:40 ◼   ► but let's try to play by the rules what would you do if you were gonna buy

01:17:43 ◼   ► Wrangler and or what would you do if you had to get a $15,000 used car for fun I

01:17:48 ◼   ► have never looked at or priced Wranglers so I don't even know what my options are

01:17:54 ◼   ► except to say that I know I would I too would opt for the four-door version and

01:17:59 ◼   ► and I would want the, I know there's an option

01:18:02 ◼   ► to get a hard top and also have the ability

01:18:04 ◼   ► to swap it out for a soft top.

01:18:07 ◼   ► I would get that option,

01:18:08 ◼   ► because I live somewhere with winter.

01:18:09 ◼   ► - That's true, except the hard top is exceedingly heavy,

01:18:13 ◼   ► even on a two-door Wrangler, and very unwieldy,

01:18:15 ◼   ► because if you think about it,

01:18:16 ◼   ► all the weight is in the back,

01:18:17 ◼   ► because that's where the glass is.

01:18:19 ◼   ► So it is a royal pain in the hindquarters to do that swap,

01:18:23 ◼   ► and that's why I would advise,

01:18:26 ◼   ► even if you live somewhere with winter,

01:18:28 ◼   ► I would still advise going soft top.

01:18:29 ◼   ► - Alright, well, so what I would actually do though,

01:18:32 ◼   ► is take the option presented in the question

01:18:34 ◼   ► to not get a Wrangler, and so the question was,

01:18:37 ◼   ► if you can get something for like,

01:18:39 ◼   ► basically $15,000 or under, used,

01:18:42 ◼   ► that would be fun on the weekends,

01:18:43 ◼   ► that might also give you that same kind of fun,

01:18:46 ◼   ► or a similar kind of fun as like,

01:18:48 ◼   ► having a convertible or something like that.

01:18:51 ◼   ► And so for that criteria, I haven't actually looked

01:18:54 ◼   ► that deeply into what's available,

01:18:55 ◼   ► but I did a quick search before the show.

01:18:57 ◼   ► So what I would go for, I would look at basically

01:19:00 ◼   ► like the small, relatively light, relatively sporty

01:19:04 ◼   ► convertibles that are popular enough to find used

01:19:08 ◼   ► in that price range.

01:19:09 ◼   ► So that would be things like the, obviously,

01:19:13 ◼   ► the Mazda Miata I think would be very high on the list.

01:19:16 ◼   ► The Miata is not incredibly fast, but is pretty damn fun.

01:19:20 ◼   ► And they're popular and they're plentiful,

01:19:22 ◼   ► so they're easy to find.

01:19:23 ◼   ► And I did a quick search and there are plenty of them

01:19:26 ◼   ► in this price range that look fairly reasonable.

01:19:29 ◼   ► I would also consider the Mini Cooper,

01:19:32 ◼   ► not any of the crazy big like four-door ones or anything.

01:19:35 ◼   ► The only downside with Minis is that

01:19:36 ◼   ► because they are BMWs, they are very expensive to maintain

01:19:39 ◼   ► once they're out of warranty.

01:19:41 ◼   ► So that's not really. - Really?

01:19:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:44 ◼   ► - But otherwise, getting even worse

01:19:46 ◼   ► than BMW for maintenance, we can go to a used Cayman.

01:19:51 ◼   ► The only problem is the Cayman's an expensive car,

01:19:53 ◼   ► so getting one used has to be pretty old.

01:19:56 ◼   ► Like I found one that's a 2008,

01:20:00 ◼   ► it was like 14, 14.5 or something.

01:20:03 ◼   ► So it was like just under the price ceiling

01:20:05 ◼   ► and it's 10 years old and it's a Porsche.

01:20:07 ◼   ► So that's not gonna be fun to maintain.

01:20:10 ◼   ► - Nope, I actually just drove a Friends Cayman

01:20:12 ◼   ► a week or two ago.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Very nice car, very, very nice car.

01:20:16 ◼   ► Really, his was a 2015, I believe it's Cayman S.

01:20:19 ◼   ► And it is a extremely nice car,

01:20:21 ◼   ► handles exceptionally well, go figure.

01:20:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, you could also do the Boxster,

01:20:25 ◼   ► which is similar in many ways.

01:20:27 ◼   ► It's also gonna be very expensive

01:20:30 ◼   ► for a very old one, basically.

01:20:32 ◼   ► But it is possible to do.

01:20:35 ◼   ► And then finally, I think one option

01:20:38 ◼   ► I would very seriously consider is a BMW 1 Series.

01:20:42 ◼   ► And for this price, first of all, they're hard to find

01:20:44 ◼   ► 'cause they don't sell that many 1 Serieses

01:20:46 ◼   ► or didn't sell that many of them.

01:20:48 ◼   ► The 2 Series is too new, you won't find any of them

01:20:50 ◼   ► for 15,000, but the 1 Series was pretty nice, actually.

01:20:54 ◼   ► and even like the 128 or the 135 also is another option,

01:20:58 ◼   ► but even the base model, the 128,

01:21:00 ◼   ► is available and convertible, not that heavy,

01:21:03 ◼   ► and it's nice and small, and they're pretty fun to drive.

01:21:07 ◼   ► They're not, like, you know, the 128's not gonna be

01:21:08 ◼   ► as fast as the higher ones, but it's still pretty fun,

01:21:11 ◼   ► and so, and that can be had in this price range, so,

01:21:15 ◼   ► and what I like about the 128 and the 1 Series

01:21:17 ◼   ► and 2 Series in general, you know, I'm a sedan person.

01:21:20 ◼   ► I like sitting at sedan height,

01:21:22 ◼   ► And with these, you are pretty much sitting at stand height.

01:21:24 ◼   ► With all the other cars that I've mentioned so far,

01:21:26 ◼   ► you're basically sitting on the road.

01:21:28 ◼   ► Like you're sitting very low,

01:21:29 ◼   ► your perspective is very low on the road,

01:21:31 ◼   ► you're not quite as easy for other vehicles to see you

01:21:35 ◼   ► if they're higher up than you and they might merge into you.

01:21:37 ◼   ► So I would actually very seriously consider,

01:21:39 ◼   ► for this role, a 1 Series.

01:21:41 ◼   ► - John.

01:21:43 ◼   ► - I don't have to answer the Wrangler thing, do I?

01:21:45 ◼   ► I would never buy one of those.

01:21:46 ◼   ► - You definitely have to answer the Wrangler thing.

01:21:48 ◼   ► - Yep, you absolutely do.

01:21:49 ◼   ► - I would get a two-door soft top

01:21:50 ◼   ► and I would treat it like a dune buggy

01:21:52 ◼   ► I would only use it on the beach.

01:21:54 ◼   ► - I'm okay with that answer actually.

01:21:56 ◼   ► - Never want to have it on a road.

01:21:57 ◼   ► - And you would crack a smile.

01:21:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, it'd be fun.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Like who doesn't like a dune buggy?

01:22:01 ◼   ► I just don't want to drive it around all the time

01:22:03 ◼   ► like on roads, stupid car.

01:22:06 ◼   ► Fun dune buggy maybe though.

01:22:08 ◼   ► For a 1015K, Miata, the only other thing

01:22:11 ◼   ► I might consider that has been mentioned

01:22:14 ◼   ► is the, what the hell, the FRS,

01:22:21 ◼   ► BRZ Toyota Baru, it's ft86 now, I believe but yes, we're all saying the same thing

01:22:26 ◼   ► I know that's not a convertible right, but it's like it's a cheap fun sporty car

01:22:30 ◼   ► It's cheap because doesn't have a lot of power, but it's like it's kind of a throwback type of thing

01:22:34 ◼   ► And that's like I don't want a mini Cooper. I don't even want the stupid Fiat Miata clone

01:22:40 ◼   ► There's not many convertibles that I would like besides the Miata

01:22:43 ◼   ► Obviously, I would take a Cayman if I could find one in the right price range, but you may pay 14k for that Cayman

01:22:49 ◼   ► but it's not going to be in great shape.

01:22:51 ◼   ► And as soon as something breaks, you're going to put another 5K into it before you

01:22:53 ◼   ► can sneeze, because doing anything to it requires a ridiculous amount of work.

01:22:58 ◼   ► So that would be kind of, you know, squeezing in.

01:23:01 ◼   ► So yeah, that's probably what I would do.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Although, I have never actually owned a convertible, so I don't know how much I would really

01:23:05 ◼   ► like them.

01:23:06 ◼   ► I think I would treat it a lot like the Dune Buggy, where it's just a fun thing to drive

01:23:11 ◼   ► around in, but if I had to go to a store or didn't live somewhere where it was sunny

01:23:15 ◼   ► all the time, I would just say, "Can I get a car with a roof?"

01:23:18 ◼   ► - You know, convertibles, by definition, have roofs.

01:23:20 ◼   ► That's the convertible part.

01:23:22 ◼   ► - You know what I mean.

01:23:23 ◼   ► That's what gets into like the,

01:23:25 ◼   ► they're like an SLK with the automated hard top.

01:23:28 ◼   ► Like I want, we talked about this in the window thing,

01:23:31 ◼   ► if you keep your windows open and closed.

01:23:32 ◼   ► In general, I mostly keep them closed.

01:23:34 ◼   ► I don't want the wind blowing on me

01:23:35 ◼   ► unless I'm doing that thing where it's like

01:23:37 ◼   ► I just wanna drive around in an open air thing.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Like convertibles and things without roofs

01:23:41 ◼   ► should go in summer places and beach places,

01:23:44 ◼   ► and that's where they belong,

01:23:45 ◼   ► and every place else I just want an actual car.

01:23:48 ◼   ► Thanks to our sponsors this week, Linode, Eero, and RXBAR, and we'll see you next week.

01:23:55 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

01:24:00 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:24:05 ◼   ► John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:24:11 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:24:16 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:24:21 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:24:30 ◼   ► So that's K-C-L-I-S-S-M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A-R-M-N-T-M-A

01:24:30 ◼   ► So that's Casey List, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A.

01:24:42 ◼   ► It's accidental.

01:24:45 ◼   ► They didn't mean to.

01:24:48 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:24:50 ◼   ► Tech podcast.

01:24:52 ◼   ► So long.

01:24:55 ◼   ► So, I have a—continuing the neutral theme—

01:24:59 ◼   ► I have a question for you gentlemen.

01:25:02 ◼   ► I was leaving Declan's preschool yesterday,

01:25:06 ◼   ► and the person in front of me came to a rolling stop

01:25:11 ◼   ► and made a turn without his or her signal.

01:25:15 ◼   ► So there's a stop sign where you're supposed to come

01:25:17 ◼   ► to a complete stop and wait like three seconds

01:25:19 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And this individual neither stopped nor used a turn signal.

01:25:25 ◼   ► And I got wondering, which one of those things is worse?

01:25:29 ◼   ► Because on paper, I would say a rolling stop is worse because it's less safe.

01:25:34 ◼   ► But most people only do a rolling stop when you can see everyone around you and you know that it's safe.

01:25:42 ◼   ► But not using your signal, I feel like everyone around me does that, and it's really friggin' annoying.

01:25:47 ◼   ► So I will probably say not using your signal is worse.

01:25:51 ◼   ► But Marco, what do you think? Rolling stop or not using your signal? What's more offensive?

01:25:56 ◼   ► - Well, hmm, it really depends a lot on the context.

01:26:01 ◼   ► - Fair.

01:26:02 ◼   ► - Oh, and also, a rolling stop is one of two

01:26:05 ◼   ► moving violations I've ever gotten.

01:26:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:09 ◼   ► It was in college, we all make mistakes.

01:26:11 ◼   ► I don't, I mean, both of them are unsafe.

01:26:15 ◼   ► Both of them can be very dangerous and can cause accidents

01:26:19 ◼   ► or hitting pedestrians or something.

01:26:22 ◼   ► So if you're forcing me to rank them,

01:26:25 ◼   ► I mean, failing to signal for like a right turn

01:26:29 ◼   ► versus a lane change, like are we distinguishing here?

01:26:33 ◼   ► Like signaling for any reason

01:26:35 ◼   ► or just signaling for a turn?

01:26:37 ◼   ► - The context in this particular case

01:26:40 ◼   ► was a person coming to a T in the road

01:26:43 ◼   ► and they made a 90 degree right turn

01:26:45 ◼   ► without a signal from a rolling stop.

01:26:47 ◼   ► But I mean, I think to me,

01:26:50 ◼   ► not using your signal is generally speaking,

01:26:52 ◼   ► I find that to be deeply unsafe, and I think that that's considerably worse.

01:26:58 ◼   ► Was it a capital T or a lowercase t?

01:27:01 ◼   ► It was a capital T.

01:27:03 ◼   ► Okay, and they were turning right?

01:27:05 ◼   ► That's correct.

01:27:06 ◼   ► Okay, so it affected nobody.

01:27:08 ◼   ► Yeah, that's fair.

01:27:10 ◼   ► It bothered me behind them, but yes, you're right.

01:27:12 ◼   ► And so in this case, a right turn at a T without a signal is not very harmful to anybody except

01:27:20 ◼   ► your mood. And therefore, the rolling stop would be the more offensive move.

01:27:28 ◼   ► All right, Jon.

01:27:30 ◼   ► So without specific context, I know you have a specific context to this thing, but the

01:27:33 ◼   ► question is, in general, what's worse? And I have to say, in general, I think the lack

01:27:38 ◼   ► of signal is worse, mostly because if you—rolling stops can be situational. We all know about

01:27:45 ◼   ► political stop signs, where there's a stop sign somewhere in your neighborhood where

01:27:48 ◼   ► It makes no sense that there's a stop sign there, because it's barely even an intersection,

01:27:53 ◼   ► and the visibility is 360 degrees from miles in every direction, and there's nobody ever

01:27:58 ◼   ► there, and it's just ridiculous that there's a stop sign there, but somehow someone got

01:28:01 ◼   ► a stop sign put up there.

01:28:03 ◼   ► And everybody rolls through it, right?

01:28:05 ◼   ► Because there's just no reason to ever stop.

01:28:09 ◼   ► But I think people do rolling stops situationally.

01:28:12 ◼   ► If it's a busy intersection, and it's a four-way stop, everyone's stopping 100%, because you're

01:28:16 ◼   ► get into an accident if you don't. Without trying very hard, people situationally stop.

01:28:23 ◼   ► Now maybe it's a better habit to just stop fully every single time, but I don't know

01:28:27 ◼   ► if there are any real experienced adult drivers who literally stop 100% every single time

01:28:33 ◼   ► at every stop light. There are degrees of rolling stops. Obviously you have to slow

01:28:36 ◼   ► down to almost zero miles an hour, but if your wheel never comes to a complete and total

01:28:40 ◼   ► stop, it's easy in stick shift cars. Look, you have to shift back in first. If I have

01:28:46 ◼   ► to shift back into first, I've stopped enough.

01:28:48 ◼   ► And remember, my cars have no power.

01:28:50 ◼   ► My cars have no power, so I don't even

01:28:51 ◼   ► have the option of starting in second gear

01:28:53 ◼   ► like cars with actual power, right?

01:28:54 ◼   ► So in general, it is better.

01:28:58 ◼   ► The turn signal one, I think, is worse

01:28:59 ◼   ► because if you, my experience is people

01:29:02 ◼   ► who don't signal, it spreads.

01:29:05 ◼   ► Like, first it's like, oh, I don't signal here

01:29:06 ◼   ► 'cause there's no cars around.

01:29:07 ◼   ► No one needs to know that I'm signaling.

01:29:08 ◼   ► But that habit sticks, and they just stop

01:29:11 ◼   ► signaling everywhere.

01:29:12 ◼   ► It's not like rolling stops where it's situational,

01:29:13 ◼   ► and they just start doing it again when they need to,

01:29:16 ◼   ► they just become non-signallers.

01:29:17 ◼   ► We've all seen non-signallers.

01:29:19 ◼   ► It doesn't matter what they're doing,

01:29:19 ◼   ► turning left, turning right, changing lanes,