ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► - I was thinking the Mac Pro design speculation,

00:00:01 ◼   ► that could be pretty much any time before WDC probably.

00:00:04 ◼   ► - Every time, every day is Mac Pro speculation day.

00:00:07 ◼   ► - Oh, (bleep) me.

00:00:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:10 ◼   ► - I was thinking too, like I probably,

00:00:12 ◼   ► like we probably have done too much Mac Pro stuff recently,

00:00:15 ◼   ► so we could use it like a few weeks break from that.

00:00:18 ◼   ► - Oh, thank God.

00:00:19 ◼   ► - Disagree.

00:00:20 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:00:21 ◼   ► - We should start with follow up.

00:00:23 ◼   ► Peter Van Broekhoven has some thoughts

00:00:26 ◼   ► about Apple's hesitation to do battery replacements.

00:00:29 ◼   ► And he writes in that one of the reasons that they really don't like to do battery replacements

00:00:35 ◼   ► is that if they can't get the battery out cleanly, then they'll replace the whole phone,

00:00:40 ◼   ► but they'll do it for the cost of just that battery replacement.

00:00:44 ◼   ► So he said he had an older phone, I think he said like a 5S or something like that,

00:00:49 ◼   ► that he still was running on the original battery, went to the Apple store.

00:00:53 ◼   ► He asked them to replace the battery, they botched it, and so he got himself a brand

00:00:57 ◼   ► new 5s for 90 whatever dollars or $30 whatever the cost is now and that that

00:01:01 ◼   ► explains to me anyway why they're super reticent to be doing battery

00:01:05 ◼   ► replacements unless they're really sure it's necessary yeah you know even if

00:01:11 ◼   ► you're willing to pay like oh you know just take my money I'm willing to pay

00:01:13 ◼   ► for the battery placements like yeah but this battery placement could change from

00:01:18 ◼   ► even from an $80 bill with the old price into something that costs Apple you know

00:01:23 ◼   ► several hundred dollars to give you basically a brand new phone because they

00:01:26 ◼   ► get the battery out. But it could be argued, well, Apple's your stupid fault for making phones that

00:01:30 ◼   ► you can't get the batteries out of without destroying them, so maybe the next time you

00:01:33 ◼   ► design a phone, make it easier to get the battery in and out. And they probably have, because he's

00:01:37 ◼   ► talking about a 5s, and there's been many phones since then. And so designing phones for serviceability

00:01:44 ◼   ► is, I think, something that Apple has been... I think it's probably like an arc. Like, the first

00:01:49 ◼   ► ones were probably reasonably serviceable just because they were simpler, and then they probably

00:01:53 ◼   ► probably got a lot less serviceable as they got thinner and more complicated and I feel

00:01:56 ◼   ► like now they're going the opposite direction of yeah we want to make them thin and compact

00:02:00 ◼   ► but also try to do the best we can for serviceability.

00:02:04 ◼   ► So really Apple is you know they're just making problems for themselves.

00:02:07 ◼   ► They continue to make things that are always glued together and have little ribbon connectors

00:02:12 ◼   ► that are all taped and glued on with adhesives that age and everything like that's that's

00:02:17 ◼   ► their own fault so I feel like they have to either just eat this cost or do better about

00:02:21 ◼   ► making serviceable phones, because they're the ones servicing them.

00:02:24 ◼   ► >> moving on, we have some news about iOS 11.3, which we'll talk about later, but one

00:02:29 ◼   ► of the things that's come out over the last week is that 11.3 will let users turn off

00:02:34 ◼   ► the battery performance throttling.

00:02:37 ◼   ► And I don't really understand this.

00:02:40 ◼   ► If the choice is your phone spontaneously dying or just being very slow, I'll go with

00:02:46 ◼   ► very slow, but I say this from the position of not really had a phone that's gotten this

00:02:51 ◼   ► performance throttling, so maybe I don't really understand how unbelievably unbearable the

00:02:56 ◼   ► throttling is.

00:02:57 ◼   ► But regardless, 11.3 will add new features to show the battery health and recommend if

00:03:01 ◼   ► a battery needs to be serviced.

00:03:03 ◼   ► That'll be found in Settings, Battery, and are available for the iPhone 6 and later.

00:03:08 ◼   ► Furthermore, users can now see if the power management feature that dynamically manages

00:03:11 ◼   ► maximum performance to prevent unexpected shutdowns,

00:03:14 ◼   ► which was introduced in 10.2.1 is on,

00:03:17 ◼   ► and they can choose whether or not to turn it off.

00:03:19 ◼   ► This feature can be found in Settings Battery as well,

00:03:22 ◼   ► and is also available from the 6 and up.

00:03:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, so this is not a great fix to this problem

00:03:29 ◼   ► or solution to this need to users.

00:03:32 ◼   ► It is possible that they needed to do it this way

00:03:35 ◼   ► to have that off switch for some kind of legal or lawsuit

00:03:38 ◼   ► or regulatory compliance reason.

00:03:40 ◼   ► They've gotten a lot of crap for this

00:03:41 ◼   ► from a lot of different places,

00:03:42 ◼   ► a lot of different countries,

00:03:44 ◼   ► but just as a user experience,

00:03:46 ◼   ► having a switch to let your phone randomly shut down

00:03:50 ◼   ► seems very, an Apple-like and not a great experience,

00:03:54 ◼   ► but ultimately, I think,

00:03:56 ◼   ► and it seems like this is very much a like,

00:04:01 ◼   ► Steve Jobs, you're holding your iPhone 4 wrong

00:04:03 ◼   ► kind of response from Apple.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - You want a free bumper?

00:04:05 ◼   ► Fine, take a free bumper.

00:04:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:04:08 ◼   ► - We've heard it from a lot of people.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Why don't you just give everybody a case?

00:04:12 ◼   ► Okay, great.

00:04:16 ◼   ► Let's give everybody a case.

00:04:18 ◼   ► - Yeah, like their general response and tone

00:04:21 ◼   ► with this is not good.

00:04:23 ◼   ► That interview Tim Cook gave.

00:04:25 ◼   ► - I think it's better than the Steve Jobs tone,

00:04:26 ◼   ► don't you think?

00:04:27 ◼   ► 'Cause he was actually pretty obnoxious and snarky

00:04:29 ◼   ► and everything, every communication I've seen about this

00:04:31 ◼   ► has been fairly magnanimous and understanding.

00:04:35 ◼   ► The feature itself may seem snarky,

00:04:36 ◼   ► but I don't think the communication has been

00:04:38 ◼   ► Steve Jobs level, you want a bumper, fine,

00:04:40 ◼   ► here's a free bumper.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - I thought the Tim Cook quote about it

00:04:44 ◼   ► in that interview a few days ago was pretty bad.

00:04:46 ◼   ► - Oh, people not understanding yet.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Tim Cook had a couple of statements to the media, but like--

00:04:51 ◼   ► - Honestly, Tim Cook should not talk to the media.

00:04:53 ◼   ► Like I really, he does, honestly, I'm serious.

00:04:57 ◼   ► He does not come off well in these kind of interviews

00:05:00 ◼   ► whenever he's asked anything of substance.

00:05:01 ◼   ► It does not come off well.

00:05:03 ◼   ► - Well, usually his problem is that he's just bland

00:05:05 ◼   ► and doesn't say anything, right?

00:05:07 ◼   ► but this is a rare case where he showed a little bit of teeth and was like,

00:05:10 ◼   ► I just think maybe people just didn't really understand or weren't paying

00:05:13 ◼   ► attention. It was just such BS. Like that's why he should not open his mouth.

00:05:16 ◼   ► But most of the time it's merely what he says has no new information and it's

00:05:20 ◼   ► just kind of platitudes, right? So the platitudes one isn't harmful.

00:05:23 ◼   ► And I think maybe that's actually a good way to communicate with the people in

00:05:27 ◼   ► those venues. But it's not like Apple fans, you know,

00:05:29 ◼   ► it's just like whoever's watching, you know, CNN or whatever,

00:05:33 ◼   ► whatever news network he's on at that moment.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I think that's a fine communication.

00:05:36 ◼   ► It's boring, we're not interested in it,

00:05:38 ◼   ► and he's not gonna say anything new.

00:05:40 ◼   ► The snark shows little personality,

00:05:41 ◼   ► but not when he's off base.

00:05:43 ◼   ► But I think that the strangest bit of communication,

00:05:45 ◼   ► this actually started in follow-up

00:05:47 ◼   ► as a story about Tim's communication.

00:05:49 ◼   ► It changed into now that we have the actual release notes

00:05:51 ◼   ► for the 11.3 Beta into a more concrete story.

00:05:55 ◼   ► But the original story was Tim Cook was on a news show,

00:05:58 ◼   ► and yeah, he did his normal platitudes

00:06:00 ◼   ► that he normally does,

00:06:00 ◼   ► just sort of speaking in generalities

00:06:03 ◼   ► about stuff that Close Apple followers

00:06:05 ◼   ► already knew. But then he mentioned something about being able to turn off the battery throttling.

00:06:09 ◼   ► And that's not what Apple's press release said, like way back when they talked about

00:06:12 ◼   ► this. The press release said, "Oh, we're going to have new battery information," and all

00:06:15 ◼   ► this stuff. But it didn't say anything about being able to turn it off. So it was like,

00:06:19 ◼   ► is he misremembering what they planned to do? Maybe they talked about having an off

00:06:23 ◼   ► switch and he's just misremembering it. So it's like, no, he's much more controlled than

00:06:26 ◼   ► that. But then he's essentially breaking Apple News on a random cable news channel. He pre-announced

00:06:34 ◼   ► features of the iOS 11.3 beta, like a couple days ahead of time, which is weird for Apple.

00:06:40 ◼   ► So the original story was going to be, "Is he misremembering, or is this the thing they're

00:06:43 ◼   ► going to do?" But now the story is, Tim Cook is breaking news about Apple on cable news

00:06:48 ◼   ► shows, which is weird.

00:06:49 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I think that's his prerogative.

00:06:51 ◼   ► Oh yeah, no, it's totally up, but it's definitely a change, and it makes me wonder, like, is

00:06:56 ◼   ► that like the new version of the controlled leak to the Wall Street Journal, where they

00:06:59 ◼   ► just send Tim out and tell him to say that?

00:07:01 ◼   ► - I mean, this is not the first time

00:07:02 ◼   ► that an Apple executive has broken some news

00:07:04 ◼   ► in an interview like this that seems pretty clearly

00:07:07 ◼   ► planned that way.

00:07:08 ◼   ► - I mean, minor news is not big news, but still.

00:07:11 ◼   ► - Honestly, that is minor news.

00:07:12 ◼   ► I mean, the big news was the problem at all,

00:07:15 ◼   ► how they're solving it in these various ways

00:07:17 ◼   ► is fairly small news.

00:07:18 ◼   ► But I do think, though, just going back

00:07:20 ◼   ► to the actual feature and solution here,

00:07:23 ◼   ► I don't think this is quite enough.

00:07:26 ◼   ► What this is basically saying is,

00:07:28 ◼   ► if this is happening to you,

00:07:30 ◼   ► we will now display that in this settings battery panel

00:07:32 ◼   ► that nobody ever knows about or goes to.

00:07:34 ◼   ► And we'll display it there and so you'll have to

00:07:37 ◼   ► check there to see if it's happening.

00:07:39 ◼   ► That's not good enough, 'cause most people

00:07:40 ◼   ► will never think to check there or won't know

00:07:42 ◼   ► how to check there or won't, you know,

00:07:44 ◼   ► they just think my phone is slow, I need to buy a new one.

00:07:48 ◼   ► So really, I think users need to be notified in some way

00:07:52 ◼   ► when their phone reaches a state in which

00:07:54 ◼   ► this setting is turned on for them.

00:07:56 ◼   ► And I tweeted this earlier, a lot of people misunderstood,

00:07:58 ◼   ► I wasn't clear enough.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I'm not saying that every time the CPU gets throttled,

00:08:03 ◼   ► they should get another notification.

00:08:05 ◼   ► - That would be a lot of dialogue boxes.

00:08:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, what I'm saying is that at some point,

00:08:11 ◼   ► when your phone has reached some kind of metric

00:08:13 ◼   ► as measured by the battery or whatever,

00:08:15 ◼   ► at some point, this setting gets turned on for you

00:08:18 ◼   ► without you knowing.

00:08:20 ◼   ► That needs to be a user notification when that happens.

00:08:23 ◼   ► - And it might be, to be clear,

00:08:24 ◼   ► we don't know that that's not happening.

00:08:26 ◼   ► The release notes just say that there's a setting.

00:08:28 ◼   ► For all we know, there is a notification

00:08:29 ◼   ► and there is a battery indicator in the status bar.

00:08:31 ◼   ► Those things could both be true.

00:08:32 ◼   ► They just might not merit mentioning here.

00:08:34 ◼   ► So the only way, unfortunately,

00:08:36 ◼   ► the only way we'll be able to find out,

00:08:37 ◼   ► unless there's a way you can do this in simulator,

00:08:39 ◼   ► is for someone to have a phone that's on the threshold

00:08:41 ◼   ► between like, they'll go to the battery setting screen

00:08:44 ◼   ► and they'll say, "Ooh, I'm right on the border

00:08:45 ◼   ► where it's gonna yell at me,"

00:08:46 ◼   ► if they show some kind of bar graph or something,

00:08:48 ◼   ► and then just abuse the phone

00:08:50 ◼   ► until it crosses that threshold

00:08:51 ◼   ► and see if you get an alert of any kind.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - And in a surprising stroke of good news

00:08:57 ◼   ► for John, your ancient cheese grater is running LCAP, is it not?

00:09:04 ◼   ► It is.

00:09:05 ◼   ► And you got a little present recently.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Tell me about this.

00:09:08 ◼   ► I didn't get it because I haven't installed it, but Meltdown inspector fixes have been

00:09:12 ◼   ► backported all the way back to LCAP10 and Sierra, and of course High Sierra, which is

00:09:18 ◼   ► I think standard.

00:09:19 ◼   ► What they usually do is they backport it to a few recent versions.

00:09:21 ◼   ► If you're much farther back from that, you don't get the fix.

00:09:24 ◼   ► I almost don't want to install the fix just so I can get that extra speed which I so desperately

00:09:28 ◼   ► need in my 10 year old computer.

00:09:30 ◼   ► Yeah, this will push you over the edge.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Yeah, but I haven't installed it yet.

00:09:34 ◼   ► But anyway, in case you were wondering, yes, the fix is back ported.

00:09:37 ◼   ► I already have the Safari update which I feel like is maybe just as important because the

00:09:41 ◼   ► main vector through which unknown software runs on my computer is probably the web browser.

00:09:47 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by SRC Incorporated.

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00:11:21 ◼   ► So we got some news over the last few days.

00:11:25 ◼   ► We've gotten some news about iOS 11.3, but we're going to talk about that a little later.

00:11:28 ◼   ► But perhaps more interestingly, he says with little confidence, the HomePod has been officially

00:11:35 ◼   ► officially announced.

00:11:36 ◼   ► It will start shipping on February 9th.

00:11:39 ◼   ► The pre-orders will open, or I guess it's not really pre-orders, it doesn't matter.

00:11:42 ◼   ► Anyway, the orders will open this coming Friday,

00:11:44 ◼   ► which at this point may have already happened

00:11:46 ◼   ► by the time you're listening to this.

00:11:48 ◼   ► And we don't really know a whole heck of a lot else.

00:11:52 ◼   ► - This is the kind of product that theoretically

00:11:54 ◼   ► I should be excited about.

00:11:56 ◼   ► Many of us, I think, should be excited about this.

00:11:58 ◼   ► But it just seems like it's had such a clumsy release cycle,

00:12:03 ◼   ► and we know so little about it,

00:12:06 ◼   ► that it's really hard to get excited about it

00:12:07 ◼   ► because it seems like it's coming out late

00:12:12 ◼   ► And some key features are not launching yet,

00:12:14 ◼   ► they're coming later this year or whatever.

00:12:17 ◼   ► And we still don't really know much about it.

00:12:20 ◼   ► There's still no reviews,

00:12:22 ◼   ► there's been no hands-on or anything.

00:12:26 ◼   ► There was a very brief press demo last summer at WWDC

00:12:29 ◼   ► when they announced it, but it was extremely limited

00:12:31 ◼   ► and there was no speech, it was just music playback.

00:12:34 ◼   ► So there's some really big question marks about this product

00:12:39 ◼   ► that we just don't know yet.

00:12:41 ◼   ► Now we could listen back to this in a few weeks

00:12:44 ◼   ► when people have this, and it's amazing.

00:12:47 ◼   ► And we could listen back to anything we say now

00:12:49 ◼   ► and be like, "Lol, they were so wrong, we were so wrong,

00:12:51 ◼   ► "I can't believe we all thought this product

00:12:53 ◼   ► "would be weird or suck."

00:12:55 ◼   ► You know, it could turn out amazing, we don't know yet.

00:12:57 ◼   ► But it's just weird that there's this product

00:13:01 ◼   ► that I think a lot of us thought would be

00:13:03 ◼   ► a major product launch that is kind of just like

00:13:05 ◼   ► stumbling out the door in this clumsy fashion

00:13:09 ◼   ► and it's gonna launch incomplete.

00:13:11 ◼   ► In its state on launch day,

00:13:13 ◼   ► there are so many missing features and limitations

00:13:16 ◼   ► that I think the potential market for it

00:13:19 ◼   ► is not gonna be that big.

00:13:21 ◼   ► Now over time, as they lift these limitations, we'll see.

00:13:24 ◼   ► It's probably gonna get popular eventually.

00:13:27 ◼   ► It might not, but I think the chances are more likely

00:13:30 ◼   ► than not that it will work long term.

00:13:32 ◼   ► It's just weird that it's launching

00:13:34 ◼   ► in such a clumsy fashion and in such an incomplete state

00:13:39 ◼   ► And I still question why it had to be announced last summer.

00:13:44 ◼   ► - I don't question it that much because

00:13:46 ◼   ► this is a market that Apple is late to.

00:13:51 ◼   ► It's other competitors.

00:13:52 ◼   ► Amazon Echo was obviously the first,

00:13:54 ◼   ► let's all talk to our cylinder.

00:13:55 ◼   ► And it was out there for a while

00:13:56 ◼   ► before Google launched its clone.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And now Google's been out for a while.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And finally, Apple handles it.

00:14:01 ◼   ► And those are the big three tech companies.

00:14:04 ◼   ► And Apple took the longest to decide,

00:14:06 ◼   ► yes, we're gonna make a cylinder that you talk to

00:14:09 ◼   ► that connects to our streaming music service.

00:14:12 ◼   ► And so everyone else has a big head start on them.

00:14:15 ◼   ► Everyone else was shipping.

00:14:16 ◼   ► A couple of companies have had multiple revisions

00:14:19 ◼   ► and multiple products and diversified their product lines.

00:14:21 ◼   ► Even Google has a big one and a little one now

00:14:24 ◼   ► and an even bigger one that sounds fancy.

00:14:26 ◼   ► So other companies have not just done the product

00:14:29 ◼   ► for longer, but have had more revisions.

00:14:31 ◼   ► And this is a case where it just seemed to me that Apple,

00:14:36 ◼   ► I mean, Apple is very often late to market, right?

00:14:38 ◼   ► But in this case, Apple, it seemed like it felt self-conscious, like,

00:14:41 ◼   ► we're late, but we want you to know that we are,

00:14:45 ◼   ► we do want to compete in an argument, but we're not ready yet.

00:14:48 ◼   ► So they had to like pre-announce it. Now I think they pre,

00:14:50 ◼   ► they didn't expect it to be this late. Right? So you make your bet. You're like,

00:14:54 ◼   ► oh, we can announce this now and we think it'll be ready. You know,

00:14:57 ◼   ► not that long from now, like within the window of like reasonableness.

00:15:00 ◼   ► But obviously they they've missed that window and it's pretty darn late at this

00:15:03 ◼   ► point. And you know,

00:15:04 ◼   ► how can it be late if they never told you exactly when it would be available,

00:15:07 ◼   ► just in terms of, practically speaking,

00:15:10 ◼   ► if you have such a limited pre-announcement of a product

00:15:13 ◼   ► and then say nothing about it for like six months,

00:15:17 ◼   ► that's not good timing, it's not good PR.

00:15:18 ◼   ► You wanna get people interested about a product

00:15:21 ◼   ► and slowly dole out news building up to a launch,

00:15:23 ◼   ► not show people barely anything

00:15:25 ◼   ► and then don't say anything about it for many, many months.

00:15:27 ◼   ► That's just bad PR.

00:15:28 ◼   ► So that's why we say, oh, it feels like it's late.

00:15:31 ◼   ► That if you had a choice,

00:15:32 ◼   ► that's not how you do a PR rollout.

00:15:35 ◼   ► So, you know, why did they announce it so early?

00:15:37 ◼   ► To me, my read on that is they felt pressure

00:15:42 ◼   ► to get their foot in the market ASAP,

00:15:46 ◼   ► put their quarter on the video game machine or whatever,

00:15:48 ◼   ► say, I've got next, right?

00:15:50 ◼   ► We're gonna be there and not just like in a vague way,

00:15:53 ◼   ► but here's the actual thing we're gonna ship.

00:15:55 ◼   ► It looks like this, it sounds like this,

00:15:57 ◼   ► it probably does other things, but don't ask us now, right?

00:16:00 ◼   ► And they had an opportunity to announce that,

00:16:04 ◼   ► And so they did.

00:16:06 ◼   ► And I think that is, you know, it's a sign,

00:16:08 ◼   ► it's an acknowledgement that Apple agrees with us

00:16:12 ◼   ► that they are behind and late in this market

00:16:15 ◼   ► versus a more confident Apple that could say,

00:16:17 ◼   ► yeah, other people have done stuff,

00:16:19 ◼   ► but we think all the solutions they've done are crappy

00:16:22 ◼   ► and we don't feel any pressure to tell you

00:16:24 ◼   ► that we're gonna enter this market.

00:16:26 ◼   ► We're gonna show you our awesome thing

00:16:27 ◼   ► when we're ready to see it.

00:16:28 ◼   ► It doesn't matter how late we are.

00:16:30 ◼   ► That's the other strategy that it could have taken

00:16:31 ◼   ► and they have as many other things,

00:16:33 ◼   ► but not with this, with this one they said,

00:16:34 ◼   ► "We really feel like we need to tell you

00:16:36 ◼   ► "that we're gonna be in this market with this thing."

00:16:37 ◼   ► So that is not a confident move.

00:16:40 ◼   ► That doesn't project confidence anyway.

00:16:43 ◼   ► And what they had to demo was not like,

00:16:47 ◼   ► they didn't have anything to say or demo

00:16:49 ◼   ► that knocked our socks off either.

00:16:51 ◼   ► So it was kind of weird.

00:16:52 ◼   ► And now that they're gonna roll this thing out,

00:16:55 ◼   ► it's like a major new product line

00:16:58 ◼   ► that will end up rolling out without Apple

00:17:00 ◼   ► ever having gone up on a stage and told us all the things

00:17:03 ◼   ► that this product can do.

00:17:05 ◼   ► 'Cause they went up on a stage and told us

00:17:06 ◼   ► very limited things about this product,

00:17:09 ◼   ► specifically about the audio, but not much else.

00:17:12 ◼   ► And then many, many months pass,

00:17:14 ◼   ► and then here's the product, right?

00:17:17 ◼   ► And people will get, you know, reviews.

00:17:19 ◼   ► I'm sure there'll be reviews coming out of the thing

00:17:21 ◼   ► around lunchtime or whatever, but never did Apple go up

00:17:23 ◼   ► in any side of special press presentation or anything

00:17:25 ◼   ► and say, "Let's just run down everything about this."

00:17:27 ◼   ► They do it with all the phones, with all the iPads,

00:17:29 ◼   ► Even with most of the Macs, here's all the features, here's all the specs, here's all

00:17:33 ◼   ► the things about this thing, here's what it can do.

00:17:35 ◼   ► They never did that for this product, which is weird.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Even something like a hobby product like the Apple TV, they went up on stage and said,

00:17:43 ◼   ► here's Apple TV, you know, this is what it does, this is what it looks like, this is

00:17:47 ◼   ► how much it costs, it runs, you know, Mac OS 10.4 inside, don't tell anybody.

00:17:52 ◼   ► It's Mac OS 10, 10.4, I know, too many 10s.

00:17:58 ◼   ► didn't do that this product at all. So yeah, I'm kind of the same mind of Marco. This could

00:18:03 ◼   ► be awesome and everybody could love it. And in particular, if I'm trying to think of ways

00:18:07 ◼   ► that this product could be awesome, that we are underestimating right now, is potentially

00:18:14 ◼   ► just the hardware, the stuff that Apple has shown. They've shown like, oh, it's got speakers

00:18:18 ◼   ► and microphones and blah, blah, blah.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Well, and like their engineering in regards to audio and sound quality in recent years

00:18:27 ◼   ► has been awesome.

00:18:28 ◼   ► Like they have dramatically improved the speakers

00:18:31 ◼   ► in most of their products that have speakers.

00:18:34 ◼   ► - Including the phones.

00:18:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, including the phones.

00:18:35 ◼   ► Like they've really done a lot in the areas

00:18:39 ◼   ► of audio and speaker engineering recently.

00:18:41 ◼   ► So I have full confidence in their proclamations

00:18:45 ◼   ► that it is going to sound amazing,

00:18:46 ◼   ► that it is gonna be super advanced

00:18:48 ◼   ► in the way it measures a room

00:18:49 ◼   ► and bounces sound off of walls.

00:18:51 ◼   ► I bet it will sound amazing.

00:18:53 ◼   ► But that is just one aspect of this product

00:18:56 ◼   ► and there are so many other ones that either

00:18:59 ◼   ► sound kind of bad or that are just giant question marks.

00:19:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like the thing about this product is,

00:19:05 ◼   ► I'm trying to think of, you know,

00:19:07 ◼   ► it does this track with like the Apple TV.

00:19:09 ◼   ► The thing about the Apple TV is,

00:19:11 ◼   ► they didn't get the hardware right for a long time.

00:19:14 ◼   ► They took the wrong approach, the wrong OS,

00:19:16 ◼   ► the wrong size, you know, the really early one

00:19:18 ◼   ► was like a little bit too early.

00:19:19 ◼   ► The puck, I think they hit on with everybody else.

00:19:23 ◼   ► the better size and price for this kind of a product, then they took too long to

00:19:28 ◼   ► come up with 4k, but now that they've settled down like hardware wise it's

00:19:33 ◼   ► reasonable, especially now that they have frame rate matching more on

00:19:37 ◼   ► that in a little bit. With this product I feel like it's possible that they have

00:19:44 ◼   ► more or less gotten the hardware right on the first try. That the sound output

00:19:49 ◼   ► It looks impressive and can justify the price because it's got a lot of little speakers

00:19:56 ◼   ► and a lot of hardware to be able to do all the magic to make it sound good.

00:19:59 ◼   ► I think it also has a lot of microphones and it hopefully does a good job with them, which

00:20:04 ◼   ► is the other important part of this hardware.

00:20:07 ◼   ► It's taking a clear stand about what it's supposed to be, not having a screen of any

00:20:11 ◼   ► kind.

00:20:12 ◼   ► It's basically speakers and a microphone.

00:20:14 ◼   ► The software side is where we know they have gaps because here's the features that they

00:20:19 ◼   ► sort of talked about but aren't even going to ship until later, but it is possible that

00:20:23 ◼   ► Apple can essentially slowly catch up without actually revising this hardware but merely

00:20:28 ◼   ► by shipping regular software updates to make this thing more and more capable and improving

00:20:33 ◼   ► Siri and all the other stuff behind the scenes.

00:20:35 ◼   ► Like in other words, do you think after this ships there will be some kind of pressing

00:20:40 ◼   ► need for a revised HomePod?

00:20:42 ◼   ► I think this hardware could potentially last a long time.

00:20:45 ◼   ► They just have to update the software.

00:20:47 ◼   ► So that's not, it's not ideal, right?

00:20:48 ◼   ► But it does mean that if they can sell these things

00:20:53 ◼   ► and then improve them over time,

00:20:55 ◼   ► they can build up some loyalty by people,

00:20:57 ◼   ► yeah, I bought this product and it was limited

00:20:59 ◼   ► and now it gets better and better as I use it.

00:21:01 ◼   ► And a year from now, they could be selling

00:21:03 ◼   ► the quote unquote exact same HomePod

00:21:06 ◼   ► and it could be a way better product than it is now.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Because I don't think that there's some essential

00:21:10 ◼   ► hardware feature that this doesn't have

00:21:12 ◼   ► and especially if the audio is really good,

00:21:14 ◼   ► It could, you know, certainly it will have better sound

00:21:17 ◼   ► than like the $100 things like an Echo or a cheap Google Home.

00:21:20 ◼   ► Maybe it'll even have better sound

00:21:21 ◼   ► than an even more expensive Sonos.

00:21:23 ◼   ► It's just a matter of them getting

00:21:25 ◼   ► their software story together.

00:21:27 ◼   ► And they can do that, not at their leisure,

00:21:29 ◼   ► but they can do that without revising this product,

00:21:32 ◼   ► you know, essentially.

00:21:33 ◼   ► So I was gonna get one.

00:21:35 ◼   ► - I don't know, I was just about to say like,

00:21:37 ◼   ► I'm sure knowing me, I will end up buying one

00:21:41 ◼   ► because this is the moment as always,

00:21:42 ◼   ► I say, oh, I don't really think it's interesting.

00:21:44 ◼   ► - You have to, because we all have cylinders but you.

00:21:46 ◼   ► So you're cylinderless, so you need to,

00:21:48 ◼   ► we'll cover the whole ecosystem.

00:21:49 ◼   ► Mark, I'll have Amazon, I'll have Google,

00:21:50 ◼   ► and you'll have Apple.

00:21:51 ◼   ► - Also, until I have a way to interact with it

00:21:55 ◼   ► as a developer, I don't think I'm gonna buy one.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Because there's not a place in my life

00:22:00 ◼   ► where this makes sense right now.

00:22:02 ◼   ► And of course that might change,

00:22:04 ◼   ► but right now, given its current limitations,

00:22:08 ◼   ► one of the big things is, yeah,

00:22:10 ◼   ► maybe you can replace your TV's speakers with it.

00:22:13 ◼   ► well you can't have a stereo pair yet, right?

00:22:16 ◼   ► So like, because AirPlay 2,

00:22:17 ◼   ► which we'll get to in a little while,

00:22:19 ◼   ► AirPlay 2 is not yet shipping.

00:22:20 ◼   ► So one of the things you can't do

00:22:22 ◼   ► is have a stereo pair of these things

00:22:24 ◼   ► acting as two stereo speakers.

00:22:26 ◼   ► So that rules out a lot of that already.

00:22:29 ◼   ► And it also, there's no line in.

00:22:32 ◼   ► Like the only way you can receive audio

00:22:34 ◼   ► is either via Siri playing things from Apple Music

00:22:38 ◼   ► or via AirPlay, and right now just AirPlay 1,

00:22:41 ◼   ► which has some limitations and everything.

00:22:43 ◼   ► But, and one limitation by the way,

00:22:44 ◼   ► is a fixed two second latency.

00:22:47 ◼   ► So, even if you do some kind of crazy thing

00:22:49 ◼   ► where you have something beaming other audio,

00:22:51 ◼   ► like from your other home theater components,

00:22:53 ◼   ► via some kind of airplay bridge to this thing,

00:22:55 ◼   ► the latency would be too high,

00:22:57 ◼   ► even for TVs to compensate for it.

00:22:58 ◼   ► So, there's basically no good way

00:23:01 ◼   ► to get the rest of your audio from your TV to this.

00:23:06 ◼   ► The Apple TV can allegedly airplay to it

00:23:09 ◼   ► and use it as speakers,

00:23:10 ◼   ► and that's probably gonna be nice for,

00:23:12 ◼   ► you know, AirPlay 2, when that comes out,

00:23:13 ◼   ► that's gonna be low latency and everything.

00:23:15 ◼   ► But that's, so you could do it if the only input

00:23:19 ◼   ► that, to your TV, like if the only source of sound

00:23:21 ◼   ► that you wanna hear from this is an Apple TV,

00:23:24 ◼   ► you could theoretically have that kind of setup.

00:23:27 ◼   ► But if you have anything else, a game console,

00:23:29 ◼   ► other streaming boxes, a DVD player, a Blu-ray player,

00:23:32 ◼   ► like if you have anything else that you wanna plug into this

00:23:35 ◼   ► you're out of luck.

00:23:36 ◼   ► A Sonos Connect bridge maybe.

00:23:38 ◼   ► But it's like--

00:23:39 ◼   ► - Do people use the competing devices as this?

00:23:40 ◼   ► 'cause I would never think about playing my TV through this.

00:23:43 ◼   ► I also wouldn't think about playing my TV

00:23:44 ◼   ► through an Amazon Echo or through a Google Home,

00:23:47 ◼   ► even the big speaker one.

00:23:49 ◼   ► I also wouldn't play my TV

00:23:50 ◼   ► through any of the little Sonos things.

00:23:52 ◼   ► Yeah, Sonos makes a soundbar that I play my TV through.

00:23:55 ◼   ► - Sonos makes a soundbar, and the soundbar

00:23:57 ◼   ► can also use the little Sonos speakers as satellite speakers.

00:24:01 ◼   ► So you can't, and people do that.

00:24:03 ◼   ► So Sonos has solutions to this.

00:24:06 ◼   ► Other, and like, I feel, and Amazon and Google Home,

00:24:08 ◼   ► I feel like the kind of speakers that they sell in volume

00:24:12 ◼   ► don't really lend themselves to this.

00:24:14 ◼   ► They're too small, but it doesn't really matter

00:24:16 ◼   ► 'cause they're more made for a kitchen or a counter

00:24:18 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:24:19 ◼   ► But if you're gonna have a larger and more expensive speaker

00:24:22 ◼   ► that focuses on sound quality,

00:24:24 ◼   ► one of the big places you'd put it is for your TV.

00:24:28 ◼   ► You'd replace the speakers for your TV.

00:24:30 ◼   ► - This isn't that much bigger though.

00:24:32 ◼   ► - Well. - It's not that.

00:24:33 ◼   ► Like I'd say it's in between,

00:24:34 ◼   ► I don't even think it's as big as the Google big speaker,

00:24:36 ◼   ► whatever they call that one,

00:24:37 ◼   ► big rectangular Google one. I think it's smaller than that. Like, I'm trying to recall seeing

00:24:42 ◼   ► a WWDC and I think I was struck by how much smaller it was than I thought. Certainly bigger

00:24:46 ◼   ► than an Echo and also bigger than the traditional little Google Home thing, not the Mini but

00:24:53 ◼   ► the regular size one. But I don't think it's as big as the Sonos Play 5. I don't know.

00:24:59 ◼   ► When Casey gets his, we'll ask him to measure it.

00:25:02 ◼   ► - Regardless, so like, for the market they're selling to,

00:25:05 ◼   ► which is sound quality and middle,

00:25:08 ◼   ► kind of the middle of the price range there,

00:25:10 ◼   ► I think a lot of people would want it

00:25:13 ◼   ► to be that home theater role and it can't do that.

00:25:16 ◼   ► So, again, that limits the market.

00:25:18 ◼   ► It also limits the market that it only supports Apple Music

00:25:20 ◼   ► and not other streaming services so far.

00:25:23 ◼   ► And other streaming services can airplay to it,

00:25:25 ◼   ► but so far they won't be able to do Siri.

00:25:27 ◼   ► And now I kind of wonder if I'm ever gonna get

00:25:30 ◼   ► overcast Siri intents because anything that would enable

00:25:34 ◼   ► overcast would also enable Spotify,

00:25:35 ◼   ► and maybe they don't want that for the HomePod.

00:25:37 ◼   ► Maybe they wanna sell the HomePod only for Apple Music

00:25:39 ◼   ► and lock that together to boost the sales of Apple Music.

00:25:43 ◼   ► - This is like the, we talked about this before

00:25:45 ◼   ► with the cylinders and stuff, but this is like

00:25:47 ◼   ► the omnivorous box TV problem all over again.

00:25:50 ◼   ► What consumers want is a speaker,

00:25:52 ◼   ► like some kind of speaker thing that they buy

00:25:55 ◼   ► that they can talk to that can also play

00:25:58 ◼   ► any audio from anywhere, right?

00:26:00 ◼   ► And nobody offers that.

00:26:03 ◼   ► It's all a bunch of islands, you know.

00:26:06 ◼   ► Some of them come close,

00:26:07 ◼   ► like I think the Sonos can play a lot of stuff,

00:26:08 ◼   ► but can it do Apple Music by voice command?

00:26:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:26:12 ◼   ► - Yes, oh wait, no, it can do Apple Music.

00:26:15 ◼   ► I don't think it can do it by voice command yet.

00:26:17 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:26:18 ◼   ► - It's a weird integration.

00:26:19 ◼   ► The Sonos product has weird limits.

00:26:21 ◼   ► - But Sonos is getting closer

00:26:22 ◼   ► because Sonos doesn't have a dog

00:26:23 ◼   ► in the streaming service fight.

00:26:25 ◼   ► So like whatever, we'll play Amazon service,

00:26:26 ◼   ► we'll play Google Play Music,

00:26:27 ◼   ► play Apple Music if all those companies will let us.

00:26:30 ◼   ► But everybody else has their own preferred streaming service and is at varying degrees

00:26:34 ◼   ► restrictive, you know, or they're not letting each other play in each other's stuff.

00:26:38 ◼   ► So it's not like you just pick the speaker you like best, right?

00:26:41 ◼   ► And say, "Oh, I'm just going to pick this speaker.

00:26:42 ◼   ► It looks the best and it sounds the best," which would be good for Apple.

00:26:45 ◼   ► Like if Apple's going to compete on audio, they could say, "Look, we have the best sounding

00:26:49 ◼   ► speaker, the best balance of speaker performance and price, $350 for something that sounds

00:26:54 ◼   ► better than a $500 Sonos.

00:26:55 ◼   ► Buy it."

00:26:56 ◼   ► But if it also comes with, "Oh, but the only things you can hear over it are this very,

00:27:01 ◼   ► very limited set of things we allow you to hear.

00:27:03 ◼   ► No line-in and stuff like that."

00:27:06 ◼   ► Although, honestly, I still think that it's not an intended purpose for this thing to

00:27:10 ◼   ► be a TV speaker, but a stereo speaker like, "Hey, this is the sound system for my small

00:27:13 ◼   ► apartment and I can play my music on it."

00:27:16 ◼   ► Well, that's the thing.

00:27:17 ◼   ► If they're going to promote it as audio quality, you can't connect a CD player or a…

00:27:23 ◼   ► You can't even click your record player.

00:27:25 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:27:26 ◼   ► - If this is truly going to appeal to people

00:27:29 ◼   ► who can drop $350 on a speaker who wants something cool

00:27:32 ◼   ► and nice and hip for a part of their home

00:27:34 ◼   ► that isn't their TV, a lot of people would want

00:27:36 ◼   ► to connect a vinyl player to it.

00:27:38 ◼   ► Or people want to connect other--

00:27:39 ◼   ► - You're still doing vinyl player,

00:27:41 ◼   ► I can't pay for the club if you're doing it as a joke.

00:27:42 ◼   ► I think you're not.

00:27:43 ◼   ► - Sorry, a turn player.

00:27:44 ◼   ► - A turn table, oh my god, Marco.

00:27:48 ◼   ► - This week at Marco's Vinyl Arc.

00:27:50 ◼   ► 'Cause they don't have corners, so anyway.

00:27:53 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:27:56 ◼   ► People wanna connect other components

00:28:00 ◼   ► to really good speakers.

00:28:03 ◼   ► Sure, not all people, but what I'm saying is basically

00:28:06 ◼   ► this market is being limited by the limitations of this

00:28:10 ◼   ► device, I think pretty severely.

00:28:12 ◼   ► I think this device is very boxed in right now

00:28:15 ◼   ► with its limitations.

00:28:17 ◼   ► It's appealing to people who like to listen to

00:28:19 ◼   ► streaming music via voice, but only Apple Music,

00:28:22 ◼   ► And the voice service is probably gonna be

00:28:23 ◼   ► a little bit iffy because that's how Siri has been.

00:28:27 ◼   ► So it's gonna be probably a mediocre voice service.

00:28:30 ◼   ► It's not gonna have a lot of integrations

00:28:32 ◼   ► with other things that we tend to use these for,

00:28:34 ◼   ► like various smart home devices and everything.

00:28:37 ◼   ► You'll have some, but it's not gonna have

00:28:39 ◼   ► as much as an Echo or things like that.

00:28:41 ◼   ► It's not gonna have almost any third party services

00:28:45 ◼   ► that can integrate with it.

00:28:46 ◼   ► Anything you ask it to do that is not playing music

00:28:49 ◼   ► is probably going to fail mysteriously in weird ways

00:28:51 ◼   ► 'cause that's how Siri tends to operate.

00:28:53 ◼   ► Even if you get it just for Apple Music

00:28:55 ◼   ► or for Air Playing stuff too,

00:28:56 ◼   ► which is going to be clumsy for the next six months or so,

00:28:59 ◼   ► this is for people who are okay spending

00:29:01 ◼   ► that amount of money on it,

00:29:02 ◼   ► who don't already have other kinds of speakers

00:29:05 ◼   ► that also sound good,

00:29:07 ◼   ► and who don't want a stereo pair,

00:29:08 ◼   ► 'cause it can't stereo pair yet.

00:29:10 ◼   ► So it's like, you care about sound quality,

00:29:11 ◼   ► but not enough to have a stereo pair.

00:29:14 ◼   ► And so again, it's just more and more boxing in,

00:29:17 ◼   ► boxing it in, boxing it in, boxing it in.

00:29:18 ◼   ► So I think it's gonna start out pretty slowly.

00:29:22 ◼   ► And maybe in a year it'll have all these features

00:29:24 ◼   ► and it'll be much better and maybe there'll be

00:29:26 ◼   ► another model that's a different price or a different size

00:29:28 ◼   ► or something that would expand the market a little bit more.

00:29:31 ◼   ► But I think it's gonna have a really slow start.

00:29:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, some of the other Apple-specific features

00:29:37 ◼   ► are like, all right, so granted we don't have

00:29:38 ◼   ► all that third-party stuff, but what can it do

00:29:40 ◼   ► that no other device can do aside from, you know,

00:29:41 ◼   ► obviously very tight integration with Apple Music

00:29:43 ◼   ► and of course Siri.

00:29:44 ◼   ► Handing off your phone call to the HomePod

00:29:47 ◼   ► apparently something else you can do, obviously from your iPhone only, but if you're on a

00:29:51 ◼   ► phone call that you start on your iPhone and you come into the house and you want to hand

00:29:54 ◼   ► it off to the iPod for a speakerphone conversation, which I think is a good application of a good

00:29:59 ◼   ► speaker and a good set of microphones so you can wander around, talk and pace like an important

00:30:04 ◼   ► executive as you discuss things.

00:30:06 ◼   ► That's something other devices don't have.

00:30:09 ◼   ► And of course they're playing up the privacy angle of like, we're not going to upload every

00:30:12 ◼   ► single thing you say to our servers and keep it there forever and all that business.

00:30:16 ◼   ► And they do try to tout that anyone can talk to it and that it can play things from Apple

00:30:22 ◼   ► Music even if you're not there, which is something so absurd that I wouldn't even think about

00:30:27 ◼   ► it until Apple reassured me that it's not the case.

00:30:29 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, I guess they could have done that.

00:30:30 ◼   ► Boy, that would have been dumb, but they're not."

00:30:32 ◼   ► Well, but there is a big question mark on that, though.

00:30:34 ◼   ► It can play Apple Music when you're not there, but apparently it does a lot of the Siri processing

00:30:38 ◼   ► on the phone, on the phone that's paired to it, and it's only one person's phone, of

00:30:42 ◼   ► course.

00:30:43 ◼   ► So the question is, how much can it do if that phone,

00:30:46 ◼   ► like suppose the phone that's paired to it

00:30:48 ◼   ► is your spouse's phone, and your spouse leaves the house.

00:30:51 ◼   ► How much does this function?

00:30:53 ◼   ► We don't know.

00:30:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's also the question that a lot of people had

00:30:56 ◼   ► of people like me who are not yet

00:30:58 ◼   ► in the streaming music world,

00:31:00 ◼   ► but who have their own music collections.

00:31:01 ◼   ► So I have my music collection on my phone,

00:31:04 ◼   ► which consists of things ripped from CDs,

00:31:06 ◼   ► plus things purchased from iTunes.

00:31:08 ◼   ► My wife has her collection, my kids have their collections.

00:31:10 ◼   ► - I have my giant fish collection.

00:31:11 ◼   ► What if you want to play something from one of those collections that doesn't exist on Apple music?

00:31:16 ◼   ► Is there any mechanism for that?

00:31:17 ◼   ► I think your only option is to airplay it from iTunes or your phone, but you can't the home pod can't call it up

00:31:23 ◼   ► by a voice right but Apple in my case since I'm an iTunes match subscriber

00:31:27 ◼   ► Apple has all of my music in the cloud and it knows it belongs to me

00:31:31 ◼   ► But I'm pretty sure the home pod has no idea that I'm talking to it like that that feature is only recently

00:31:35 ◼   ► You're in the services division. That's that's the world of walls and silos. That's like

00:31:41 ◼   ► Your app, your iTunes match silo is over there rotting in the corner with really big thick walls

00:31:46 ◼   ► nobody can get into so they built this new silo over here for rap music and other stuff and God knows what's gonna be

00:31:50 ◼   ► next and it's you know, don't expect any of this stuff to talk to each other.

00:31:54 ◼   ► Yeah, so but you know, we don't know what all the limitations are, but it seems like there's a lot of them

00:31:59 ◼   ► but I still keep coming back to if they got the hardware right and of all all the speakers and the microphones are all great

00:32:05 ◼   ► there's no reason they can't knock down these limitations one by one and eventually have a

00:32:09 ◼   ► competitive product. And I keep comparing it to Apple TV because they didn't have the choice with

00:32:12 ◼   ► Apple TV. They got the hardware so wrong in the beginning. It took them a long time to get it

00:32:16 ◼   ► right. And now I feel like they're finally at the, you know, the fat part of the curve with Apple TV,

00:32:22 ◼   ► where they can start knocking down the software features and, you know, becoming competitive. Yes,

00:32:26 ◼   ► they're premium price, but now they have some, you know, they have 4K support. They have, you know,

00:32:33 ◼   ► features that video files care about, like the frame rate matching. They have an application

00:32:37 ◼   ► ecosystem, you know, they're improving in that area. And this HomePod, like best case scenario,

00:32:44 ◼   ► it launches, it sounds really good, but it's super limited and not a lot of people buy it.

00:32:48 ◼   ► And then over the course of the next year, all they do is make the software better.

00:32:53 ◼   ► And, you know, it might take a while, like how long did it take, you know, Google Home just,

00:32:58 ◼   ► I think, last year or so, got the feature where it understands that there are different people

00:33:02 ◼   ► talking to it and can understand who that person is. Hopefully it won't take

00:33:08 ◼   ► Apple as long as it took Google to do that. But I see potential as

00:33:14 ◼   ► long as the hardware is right. But all that said, I'm not running out to buy

00:33:17 ◼   ► this hardware. Only Casey is. So, you know, a lot of people are gonna wait

00:33:21 ◼   ► until they have the complete story and not just buy it based on the promise.

00:33:25 ◼   ► As they should. So I've been thinking about this a little bit over the last

00:33:30 ◼   ► couple of days since this news is broken and I am not ordering a home pod

00:33:34 ◼   ► immediately. I will probably, knowing me, order one not too long after immediately

00:33:38 ◼   ► because the FOMO will get to me. But I think the thing that appeals to me in

00:33:44 ◼   ► principle is that I do trust Apple to make really clever and good choices with

00:33:51 ◼   ► regard to audio fidelity. And although I am perfectly happy listening to music or

00:33:56 ◼   ► podcasts on speakers that are truly and utterly terrible. That doesn't mean I

00:34:01 ◼   ► don't also appreciate some really really great speakers as well. And what I have

00:34:07 ◼   ► in our home theater is not great. It is sufficient. I don't even know what it is.

00:34:11 ◼   ► It was like a Denon, Denon, whatever it's called, like home theater in a box from

00:34:15 ◼   ► probably 10 plus years ago. It is sufficient. But I have no doubt that one

00:34:21 ◼   ► or particularly a pair of home pods would be considerably better sounding. And that would be

00:34:29 ◼   ► appealing to me, but knowing that I won't be able to play Spotify easily without air playing, to

00:34:35 ◼   ► Marco's point, knowing I won't be able to say, "Hey, Dingus, can you play me such and such song by

00:34:42 ◼   ► such and such artists without being an Apple Music subscriber, which I'm not," like, all of these

00:34:47 ◼   ► things make it not terribly appealing. And I don't also, I don't have anything connected

00:34:51 ◼   ► to HomeKit right now. I have several devices that I could connect to HomeKit via $50 bridges,

00:34:58 ◼   ► but I have nothing that's natively connecting to HomeKit at the moment.

00:35:01 ◼   ► So...

00:35:02 ◼   ► I have a few. You're missing nothing.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Well, okay, fair enough. I don't really... Sitting here now, and this is when we'll play

00:35:08 ◼   ► this back, you know, Marc will do the "diddle-doo, diddle-doo" in like three weeks when I say

00:35:12 ◼   ► I just bought one. But sitting here now, I don't really see any draw other than just

00:35:19 ◼   ► getting a really great set of speakers. And that definitely intrigues me, and it's definitely

00:35:24 ◼   ► interesting. But I have a sufficient set of speakers that's zero dollars because we bought

00:35:30 ◼   ► them ten years ago. Actually, I think they were a gift. But anyways, we already have

00:35:34 ◼   ► them, I don't know that one $350 speaker is going to sound better, enough better to justify

00:35:42 ◼   ► it than our "free" speakers that we have now.

00:35:45 ◼   ► So I'm curious to see what real world people say after these are in the wild, but I don't

00:35:51 ◼   ► know.

00:35:52 ◼   ► I think the reviews would have to be pretty stellar for me to start saying, "Oh wow, I

00:35:55 ◼   ► really screwed up on this one as with every other Apple product.

00:35:57 ◼   ► I need one."

00:35:58 ◼   ► Let me reiterate one last time.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Do not connect this to your television.

00:36:01 ◼   ► It is an inappropriate application.

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00:37:41 ◼   ► - We have some news, as I've been alluding to for a while,

00:37:47 ◼   ► for iOS 11.3.

00:37:49 ◼   ► So in a slightly surprising move,

00:37:52 ◼   ► Apple has made a kind of sort of PR site.

00:37:56 ◼   ► It's actually just a news article,

00:37:58 ◼   ► but it's almost like a mini site about iOS 11.3.

00:38:02 ◼   ► So the headline is, "Major Updates to ARKit,

00:38:05 ◼   ► Messages and More Coming this Spring."

00:38:08 ◼   ► And they start off by telling us,

00:38:09 ◼   ► "We're getting a lion animoji.

00:38:12 ◼   ► We're getting a dragon.

00:38:13 ◼   ► We're getting a skull."

00:38:15 ◼   ► And I thought there was one other.

00:38:16 ◼   ► What am I forgetting? - Is the dragon an emoji?

00:38:17 ◼   ► This is my problem of not knowing

00:38:18 ◼   ► what the plural of an emoji.

00:38:20 ◼   ► Including new animoji.

00:38:21 ◼   ► >> Right.

00:38:22 ◼   ► Does that mean more than one?

00:38:23 ◼   ► >> Four new.

00:38:24 ◼   ► iOS 11.3 includes four new Animoji.

00:38:26 ◼   ► Giving iOS -- excuse me, iPhone 10 users the ability to express themselves as lion, bear,

00:38:31 ◼   ► dragon or skull.

00:38:32 ◼   ► >> Oh, I see it later in the later section.

00:38:35 ◼   ► The lion is up top.

00:38:36 ◼   ► I see.

00:38:37 ◼   ► Okay.

00:38:38 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the most important new feature as far as I'm aware for most people.

00:38:42 ◼   ► >> I know you're probably snarking.

00:38:44 ◼   ► And the thing is I actually really do still like Animoji, but that being said, I haven't

00:38:49 ◼   ► sent or received an animoji in like a month or two.

00:38:52 ◼   ► - You just like knowing that they exist.

00:38:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, they're cute.

00:38:56 ◼   ► They're cute in their little animoji drawer.

00:38:57 ◼   ► They're waiting for me if I need them.

00:38:59 ◼   ► No, I don't know, I was thinking about it

00:39:00 ◼   ► even before this announcement that I really do think

00:39:03 ◼   ► it's cute and clever, but I don't often find myself

00:39:06 ◼   ► in a position that A, it's not socially awkward

00:39:09 ◼   ► to create and send one, and B, that I even think

00:39:12 ◼   ► to do it in the first place.

00:39:13 ◼   ► I really do think it's a good idea.

00:39:15 ◼   ► I don't fault them for the idea,

00:39:16 ◼   ► and I like that they're adding more animoji.

00:39:18 ◼   ► And in fact, I think I tweeted a while back that it would be cool if they had seasonal

00:39:22 ◼   ► ones.

00:39:23 ◼   ► Like, you could only do Santa when it's Christmas time or something along those lines.

00:39:26 ◼   ► And then it goes back in the Disney vault.

00:39:28 ◼   ► You're a terrible person.

00:39:29 ◼   ► Yeah, seriously!

00:39:30 ◼   ► I mean, I hate the Disney vault, but I do think it would be kind of cool.

00:39:35 ◼   ► But anyways, I'm not using Animoji in that kind of...

00:39:38 ◼   ► It's a little bit sad.

00:39:39 ◼   ► Do you show them the deck one?

00:39:40 ◼   ► That's a new audience for your Animoji.

00:39:42 ◼   ► He does get a kick out of them.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Actually, just the other day, he asked me if I could show him the video of the fox singing,

00:39:48 ◼   ► which is I think the Bohemian Rhapsody video

00:39:51 ◼   ► that had come out, like one of the first karaoke ones.

00:39:55 ◼   ► He really likes watching that,

00:39:57 ◼   ► and so he had had me pull that up on YouTube

00:40:01 ◼   ► just a day or two ago.

00:40:02 ◼   ► But anyway, also new in 11.3, ARKit,

00:40:05 ◼   ► which apparently is now understanding

00:40:06 ◼   ► what a vertical surface is, which, no snark,

00:40:09 ◼   ► I guess is a big deal.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I don't really use ARKit for anything.

00:40:13 ◼   ► - That's actually, being able to recognize

00:40:16 ◼   ► vertical surfaces in addition to horizontal

00:40:18 ◼   ► and having some other improvements

00:40:19 ◼   ► in the kind of surfaces they can recognize

00:40:21 ◼   ► and how it just, it broadens the applications of it,

00:40:24 ◼   ► basically, like before it's like, all right,

00:40:25 ◼   ► find a big flat table or the floor or something

00:40:29 ◼   ► and then you can do this cool thing.

00:40:31 ◼   ► And now you can do cool things with walls and other,

00:40:33 ◼   ► like so it just, it broadens the possible applications

00:40:37 ◼   ► you can make and it improves existing, excuse me,

00:40:41 ◼   ► applications or it gives them the chance to be improved.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And there's other improvements to ARKit too, but I'm not really qualified to recognize

00:40:48 ◼   ► what's good about them.

00:40:49 ◼   ► But it's significantly improved.

00:40:51 ◼   ► >> But the main, I think the main story around ARKit is that ARKit was their first try at

00:40:57 ◼   ► this and it was pretty impressive out of the gate.

00:40:59 ◼   ► Like we all tried it and it worked I think better than most of us had any right to expect,

00:41:03 ◼   ► especially if you have tried any of the previous sort of academic type things and seen what

00:41:07 ◼   ► they can do.

00:41:08 ◼   ► This was a commercial product that ran on everybody's phones that worked surprisingly

00:41:11 ◼   ► well and it hasn't been that long and they've significantly enhanced it so I feel like the

00:41:17 ◼   ► ARKit team is doing well.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Their initial release was good and they're not even waiting to WWDC for new features

00:41:25 ◼   ► like this because like Marcus said, I think walls is a significant new feature.

00:41:29 ◼   ► And there have been applications, unlike perhaps Animoji which maybe you'll get bored by, the

00:41:35 ◼   ► applications that you would think you could build with ARKit like a thing to try furniture

00:41:39 ◼   ► in your room, like IKEA has an app like that, and guess what?

00:41:43 ◼   ► It does what they say it does surprisingly well for a thing that just runs on your phone

00:41:49 ◼   ► and doesn't require this crazy rig with five cameras slapped together by some PhD student.

00:41:54 ◼   ► So I'm very impressed with ARKit, and I'm impressed that they keep getting better.

00:41:59 ◼   ► All right, what else is in this?

00:42:03 ◼   ► Messages things?

00:42:04 ◼   ► Messages and iCloud is back!

00:42:06 ◼   ► Yeah, this is unexpected.

00:42:07 ◼   ► - It's connected, yeah.

00:42:09 ◼   ► Unexpected, but very welcome, assuming that it works.

00:42:12 ◼   ► I haven't actually tried it yet, have you guys?

00:42:13 ◼   ► - No.

00:42:14 ◼   ► - Is it actually in this beta?

00:42:16 ◼   ► Some things aren't in this beta,

00:42:17 ◼   ► is the animoji not in this beta?

00:42:18 ◼   ► - I think it is in the beta, but it's kind of--

00:42:20 ◼   ► - Oh, no, the battery's not in this beta.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, the battery's not in this beta.

00:42:22 ◼   ► The messages on iCloud, I think,

00:42:24 ◼   ► I know it's prompting people to enable it,

00:42:26 ◼   ► so I think it is in the beta, but it's,

00:42:29 ◼   ► like for me, personally, I'm not gonna have much use

00:42:31 ◼   ► for this until it also works with my Mac,

00:42:35 ◼   ► so that's the big question mark for me,

00:42:37 ◼   ► And also, if there's any hint that it doesn't quite work,

00:42:41 ◼   ► that it isn't fully baked yet,

00:42:43 ◼   ► then I might be afraid to turn it on for a little while.

00:42:45 ◼   ► But they did take so long to do it that I'm confident

00:42:49 ◼   ► that they were probably really conservative about this,

00:42:52 ◼   ► 'cause it's so important to get that right.

00:42:54 ◼   ► So it's probably gonna work fine.

00:42:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, but word of warning to everybody.

00:42:58 ◼   ► When you're running beta software,

00:43:00 ◼   ► this is the reason I have a whole set of other Apple IDs

00:43:03 ◼   ► that are not my Apple IDs

00:43:04 ◼   ► when I was doing Mac OS X reviews.

00:43:07 ◼   ► When you're running betas and there's

00:43:09 ◼   ► some feature that has cloud integration, especially

00:43:11 ◼   ► if it wants to take some existing set of data

00:43:15 ◼   ► and bring it to the cloud or convert it from one cloud

00:43:18 ◼   ► backend to another, they're betas.

00:43:22 ◼   ► They're not done.

00:43:23 ◼   ► They might have bugs.

00:43:24 ◼   ► But that's your non-beta data.

00:43:27 ◼   ► That's your real messages and stuff.

00:43:29 ◼   ► So if you don't want your non-beta data

00:43:32 ◼   ► to be potentially hosed--

00:43:33 ◼   ► And you can't restore that.

00:43:35 ◼   ► Like if something goes wrong with the phone,

00:43:37 ◼   ► you can restore the phone back to an old version.

00:43:39 ◼   ► You can't restore your data in iCloud back to an old version.

00:43:43 ◼   ► Yeah, especially if it gets scrambled or deleted or hosed

00:43:47 ◼   ► in some way.

00:43:48 ◼   ► So be very careful.

00:43:49 ◼   ► I know you're probably excited, like, oh,

00:43:51 ◼   ► I want to try out this new feature or whatever.

00:43:53 ◼   ► But beta is not done.

00:43:56 ◼   ► And yeah, so I said whenever I would test beta OSes

00:43:58 ◼   ► and do reviews, whole separate world of data,

00:44:01 ◼   ► which it was free to completely hose.

00:44:04 ◼   ► And sometimes it did.

00:44:05 ◼   ► And sometimes I had to wipe all my data

00:44:06 ◼   ► and reenter a bunch of fake data for it or whatever.

00:44:10 ◼   ► So beware.

00:44:11 ◼   ► But anyway, it looks like that feature is back

00:44:13 ◼   ► after basically entirely disappearing from their website.

00:44:16 ◼   ► Now it's back.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And like Marco, it really doesn't fulfill its promise

00:44:20 ◼   ► for me until it has a Mac equivalent,

00:44:22 ◼   ► which I'm assuming it will eventually,

00:44:24 ◼   ► but I'm glad it's not waiting until iOS 12.

00:44:26 ◼   ► Put it that way.

00:44:27 ◼   ► - What is this really?

00:44:28 ◼   ► But what does it buy me, this message in the cloud?

00:44:30 ◼   ► 'cause I still sort of get everything coming in

00:44:34 ◼   ► kind of obnoxiously, you know what I mean?

00:44:36 ◼   ► Like when I start a Mac--

00:44:37 ◼   ► - You're a lucky person.

00:44:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, so basically what it buys you is

00:44:43 ◼   ► it should, in theory, first of all,

00:44:45 ◼   ► it should fix a lot of the inconsistencies people see.

00:44:48 ◼   ► So it's syncing the messages with iCloud

00:44:50 ◼   ► rather than depending on this crazy

00:44:53 ◼   ► key generation sharing thing between different computers.

00:44:57 ◼   ► The way it works security-wise is really complicated

00:45:00 ◼   ► and pretty impressive, but unfortunately,

00:45:02 ◼   ► creates a lot of bugs in practice that cause people

00:45:05 ◼   ► to have things like messages appearing on all but one device

00:45:09 ◼   ► or messages appearing in different orders

00:45:10 ◼   ► on different devices and things like that.

00:45:13 ◼   ► This should, if done correctly and if done well,

00:45:18 ◼   ► this should make your messages the same

00:45:20 ◼   ► on all your devices.

00:45:21 ◼   ► And it also brings additional benefits of things like

00:45:26 ◼   ► if you set up a brand new Mac from scratch, for instance,

00:45:30 ◼   ► and you log into iMessage,

00:45:31 ◼   ► you don't get all the old messages.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Also, if you delete a conversation somewhere,

00:45:37 ◼   ► like if you get spam and you delete it in one place,

00:45:39 ◼   ► it doesn't get deleted on all the other devices.

00:45:41 ◼   ► You have to delete conversations in every place separately.

00:45:45 ◼   ► So there's a lot of big and small benefits to this

00:45:49 ◼   ► if it works correctly and completely.

00:45:52 ◼   ► That is a big if, but if they can pull it off,

00:45:56 ◼   ► the benefits are pretty big.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, and what I think of this is aligning messages

00:46:01 ◼   ► with the mental model I've always had in my head

00:46:03 ◼   ► about messages, that there is one conversation

00:46:06 ◼   ► that I participate in from different devices,

00:46:09 ◼   ► but it's always one conversation, right?

00:46:12 ◼   ► In the same way that our show notes document,

00:46:15 ◼   ► it's one show notes document, I can edit it on my phone,

00:46:18 ◼   ► I can edit it on my iPad, I can edit it on my Mac at work,

00:46:20 ◼   ► I can edit it on my Mac at home,

00:46:21 ◼   ► and you guys can all do the same

00:46:22 ◼   ► from whatever devices you have, but wherever I go,

00:46:25 ◼   ► the document looks like a document.

00:46:27 ◼   ► That's how I, my mental model of iMessage conversations.

00:46:30 ◼   ► I'm conversing with the person,

00:46:32 ◼   ► and no matter where I converse with them,

00:46:33 ◼   ► the conversation is the conversation.

00:46:35 ◼   ► So it's jarring to me,

00:46:36 ◼   ► like it would be jarring to me,

00:46:37 ◼   ► like the new Mac setup, to set up a new Mac

00:46:39 ◼   ► and not see that conversation at all.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Or to go to my Mac at work

00:46:43 ◼   ► and not see a bunch of messages

00:46:45 ◼   ► that I had sent previously on my phone

00:46:46 ◼   ► 'cause my Mac was asleep during that time

00:46:48 ◼   ► and they didn't propagate or whatever.

00:46:49 ◼   ► Now, people who don't have these problems

00:46:51 ◼   ► and everything's in sync,

00:46:52 ◼   ► if you limit the number of places you converse

00:46:56 ◼   ► and or if your device is always online at the same time to accept the

00:47:01 ◼   ► propagations and all the propagations work then maybe you won't notice that

00:47:04 ◼   ► but I think that's the mental model most people have that it is

00:47:08 ◼   ► that it is a conversation and it's the same conversation everywhere so that's

00:47:11 ◼   ► the promise of this one more feature by the way that Apple touts is actually the

00:47:14 ◼   ► first bullet point on their little screen is

00:47:16 ◼   ► free up space on your iPhone by keeping photos and other attachments in iCloud

00:47:21 ◼   ► which right now like you'd be surprised at how much space your

00:47:24 ◼   ► messages thing takes up if you go to this, you know, because people send you videos and they send you photos and you don't want

00:47:30 ◼   ► to delete things because they're cute and maybe something sometimes you save them to your photo library or whatever and

00:47:34 ◼   ► one of the prompts for the the iOS storage screen like hey if you want to save some space you can delete small messages be

00:47:40 ◼   ► Like I don't want to delete all that stuff

00:47:41 ◼   ► Well now apparently it will take the big attachments and put them in iCloud and I guess only when you scroll back to them

00:47:47 ◼   ► Will it download them on demand or something? So anything that frees up space on our phone by using cloud storage

00:47:52 ◼   ► that we're already paying for is good,

00:47:53 ◼   ► so that's another potential advantage.

00:47:55 ◼   ► So that doesn't speak to the mental model, but it's good.

00:47:58 ◼   ► - That's a huge advantage in practice.

00:48:00 ◼   ► Lots of people have like massive, you know,

00:48:02 ◼   ► multi-gig message archives. - Yeah, multi-gig messages.

00:48:05 ◼   ► - That are just sitting there, taking up space

00:48:06 ◼   ► in their phone that they don't want to delete.

00:48:09 ◼   ► The upside of this is great, you'll have this option,

00:48:12 ◼   ► iCloud, to store these things in,

00:48:13 ◼   ► to free up space in your phone,

00:48:14 ◼   ► so you won't be always running out of space.

00:48:16 ◼   ► The downside is Apple's still pretty stingy

00:48:19 ◼   ► with iCloud storage, so.

00:48:21 ◼   ► - You're gonna need one of the paid plans

00:48:23 ◼   ► and possibly even one of the larger plans.

00:48:26 ◼   ► So that is going to make this hurt for a lot of people.

00:48:30 ◼   ► But I think at this point,

00:48:32 ◼   ► if you want a good experience using Apple devices,

00:48:38 ◼   ► you're gonna have to just factor in the price

00:48:40 ◼   ► of a small to mid-sized iCloud storage plan at least.

00:48:43 ◼   ► As when you're deciding whether to have an iPhone,

00:48:47 ◼   ► you just plan for this because in reality,

00:48:50 ◼   ► you're going to need something beyond the free

00:48:54 ◼   ► five megabytes of space they give you.

00:48:56 ◼   ► And that was a joke, not misremembering the unit.

00:48:59 ◼   ► - It feels like five megabytes though.

00:49:01 ◼   ► - Right, it does, right?

00:49:02 ◼   ► - It might as well be.

00:49:03 ◼   ► - It might as well be five kilobytes.

00:49:05 ◼   ► In this day and age, with the amount of stuff

00:49:07 ◼   ► that's stored in iCloud, that is kind of insulting.

00:49:10 ◼   ► But at this point, I'm also,

00:49:13 ◼   ► I've given up on trying to wish and hope

00:49:16 ◼   ► that Apple's gonna raise the free limit on iCloud

00:49:19 ◼   ► and make the plans all bigger and super price competitive.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Like, no, they're not going to.

00:49:23 ◼   ► They're making a ton of money the way it is now.

00:49:25 ◼   ► They're not gonna change that.

00:49:26 ◼   ► So, oh well, you factor it in as the cost

00:49:29 ◼   ► of having these devices that if you're going to have this

00:49:31 ◼   ► and you want the full experience of having the luxury

00:49:34 ◼   ► of iCloud doing all these things for you

00:49:35 ◼   ► and doing backups and everything else,

00:49:37 ◼   ► you're gonna have to pay for an iCloud plan

00:49:38 ◼   ► and that's just part of it.

00:49:39 ◼   ► - And by the way, one of my tips for general happiness

00:49:42 ◼   ► of using iOS things is, and this is a problem

00:49:45 ◼   ► a lot of people have, like, I'm not paying

00:49:46 ◼   ► for iCloud storage, which I understand.

00:49:48 ◼   ► It's expensive, as Marco said.

00:49:49 ◼   ► It's not as competitive as it should be,

00:49:52 ◼   ► and they should give you more, and it should be cheaper.

00:49:54 ◼   ► But in the grand scheme of things,

00:49:57 ◼   ► it doesn't cost that much money to get more storage.

00:50:00 ◼   ► And it will-- the amount of improvement to your computing

00:50:05 ◼   ► life that you'll get for $10 a month of actually just paying

00:50:08 ◼   ► for iCloud storage, it's well worth the $10 a month.

00:50:11 ◼   ► Well, as far as I'm concerned, well worth it,

00:50:13 ◼   ► because I hate having to deal with storage problems

00:50:16 ◼   ► and running out of room and trying to manage things.

00:50:18 ◼   ► And like, you know, especially with things like photos,

00:50:21 ◼   ► if you use the photos in the cloud feature,

00:50:22 ◼   ► you're not gonna delete your photos.

00:50:23 ◼   ► What are you gonna do when you run out of storage?

00:50:25 ◼   ► You're just gonna, you know, complain and grind your teeth.

00:50:28 ◼   ► It's like, just pay for the storage.

00:50:30 ◼   ► I know it's bad.

00:50:31 ◼   ► And with the family plan, by the way,

00:50:32 ◼   ► now that you can pay for storage for your whole family,

00:50:34 ◼   ► if you have a family and they all have devices,

00:50:36 ◼   ► the family plan is another good way

00:50:38 ◼   ► to not have to have stupid individual bills

00:50:40 ◼   ► for like your kid's iCloud backup

00:50:42 ◼   ► and your other kid's iCloud backup

00:50:44 ◼   ► and your spouse's iCloud backup.

00:50:45 ◼   ► Now you can do one bill and that will further encourage you to get the big plan for the

00:50:50 ◼   ► whole family.

00:50:52 ◼   ► And yes it costs money but $10 a month for someone who can afford Apple devices is not

00:50:57 ◼   ► that much.

00:50:58 ◼   ► It will really improve your life.

00:51:00 ◼   ► I think it's just mostly a mental barrier.

00:51:02 ◼   ► People just don't want to pay for it in the same way they don't want to pay for applications.

00:51:05 ◼   ► But overcome that hurdle.

00:51:07 ◼   ► I would put it this way.

00:51:08 ◼   ► For people who do tech support for their families, just buy your parents.

00:51:14 ◼   ► Don't tell them you're doing it, but just buy them.

00:51:17 ◼   ► Pay them the $10 a month.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Secretly pay for their storage plan.

00:51:21 ◼   ► That is another great investment of your money.

00:51:23 ◼   ► The amount of aggravation you have doing tech support in your parents if you just secretly

00:51:26 ◼   ► pay for the one terabyte storage plan and put them in a family together and pay for

00:51:31 ◼   ► their storage plan.

00:51:33 ◼   ► Enable iCloud backup on all their devices.

00:51:35 ◼   ► Just don't even tell them.

00:51:36 ◼   ► Just pay for it all.

00:51:37 ◼   ► Just do it yourself.

00:51:38 ◼   ► It will improve everybody's life.

00:51:39 ◼   ► Oh, yeah.

00:51:40 ◼   ► because we always advise people doing that

00:51:42 ◼   ► on their parents' computers to install like Backblaze

00:51:45 ◼   ► or your cloud backup of choice.

00:51:47 ◼   ► - And then just pay for it for them.

00:51:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, just do it for them, pay for it,

00:51:50 ◼   ► because you as like the young adult probably don't care,

00:51:54 ◼   ► the old people won't pay for it,

00:51:55 ◼   ► and yeah, and so it's like they need this,

00:51:58 ◼   ► you know that, they don't, so you just pay for it.

00:52:00 ◼   ► So on computers, that's Backblaze.

00:52:02 ◼   ► On their phones and iPads, it's iCloud storage.

00:52:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, your parents who have retired

00:52:08 ◼   ► on their astronomical pensions that no longer exist

00:52:11 ◼   ► for any generation after them, who are taking vacations

00:52:15 ◼   ► to Hawaii and living in luxury and buying fancy cars,

00:52:19 ◼   ► will never pay $10 a month.

00:52:22 ◼   ► What am I getting for that money?

00:52:24 ◼   ► I have to pay for storage?

00:52:26 ◼   ► No thanks.

00:52:26 ◼   ► I don't need backups.

00:52:28 ◼   ► It doesn't make sense.

00:52:29 ◼   ► But that's the mindset.

00:52:30 ◼   ► So since you're the one doing tech support,

00:52:33 ◼   ► just pay for the $10 a month.

00:52:36 ◼   ► They carried you for nine months in their body, right?

00:52:38 ◼   ► So, it's the least you can do.

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00:54:41 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:54:43 ◼   ► - All right, what else in 11.3?

00:54:46 ◼   ► iBooks is no more, it's just plain books.

00:54:48 ◼   ► - It's not no more yet, they just renamed it.

00:54:50 ◼   ► - I mean, this is the most substantial

00:54:52 ◼   ► iBooks update in years.

00:54:54 ◼   ► - I think they did something recently.

00:54:56 ◼   ► I don't know, they updated iBooks Author, I think, recently.

00:54:58 ◼   ► But yeah, iBooks was the second thing to get the iBook name after the old computer.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And now it's got its i's stripped away, joining...

00:55:11 ◼   ► What is it joining?

00:55:12 ◼   ► Music.

00:55:13 ◼   ► What are the other generic ones?

00:55:15 ◼   ► Well, numbers, I guess, maybe pages.

00:55:18 ◼   ► The generically named applications.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Now it's just called books.

00:55:23 ◼   ► And as Jason Snell said on Twitter, "I wonder if there's some other hardware product Apple

00:55:26 ◼   ► could use the iBook name for. What he's referring to of course is iOS laptops, which

00:55:31 ◼   ► we talked about last show. And yeah, that would be a good use. And it would be like

00:55:34 ◼   ► the iBook name coming back home to a laptop form factor but not a Mac. So we'll see.

00:55:40 ◼   ► I think that would be cool. I don't know how likely that is, but that would be a really

00:55:45 ◼   ► cool, fun reason for this. I think it might be confusing because it seems

00:55:49 ◼   ► like iBook is still kind of in living memory, so to speak, of the potential consumers. And

00:55:56 ◼   ► And to have someone who previously owned an iBook buy a new iBook and have it not be a

00:56:01 ◼   ► Mac, might be strange.

00:56:02 ◼   ► But anyway, this change is completely explicable by Apple's drive to name all of its products

00:56:08 ◼   ► like Marco's products, like the magazine.

00:56:11 ◼   ► One product I named that way.

00:56:12 ◼   ► One.

00:56:13 ◼   ► I know.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You're right, it is only one, but it lives larger, doesn't it?

00:56:18 ◼   ► It seems so significant.

00:56:19 ◼   ► What are the other Apple ones I can't think of?

00:56:23 ◼   ► You've got numbers pages, music, books.

00:56:27 ◼   ► Movie, tunes.

00:56:28 ◼   ► Oh, that hasn't happened yet.

00:56:31 ◼   ► iMovie is an interesting one because you can't just rip off the "i" because that's just called

00:56:34 ◼   ► "movie."

00:56:35 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:56:36 ◼   ► It doesn't really make any sense.

00:56:38 ◼   ► All right, so what's going on in Mac OS 10.13.4?

00:56:44 ◼   ► Probably a bunch of stuff, but the only thing that poked out at me is the long foreshadowed

00:56:52 ◼   ► of 32-bit, which is not happening in 10.13.4, but the foreshadowing continues.

00:56:57 ◼   ► Preparing for the end of 32-bit, as Apple says, I think this is in their release notes,

00:57:03 ◼   ► to prepare for future release of macOS in which 32-bit software will no longer run without

00:57:08 ◼   ► compromise.

00:57:09 ◼   ► Will no longer run without compromise.

00:57:10 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:57:11 ◼   ► It doesn't say will no longer run.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Not will no longer run without compromises.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Will no longer run without compromise.

00:57:19 ◼   ► a Mac OS High Sierra 10.13.4, a user is notified at the launch of an app that depends on 30-bit

00:57:23 ◼   ► software. The alert appears only once per app. So this is kind of like on, look at this

00:57:28 ◼   ► on iOS too, like for a while 32-bit applications would pop up a dialogue that says this may

00:57:33 ◼   ► slow down your phone or is not optimized or had some message like that that would translate

00:57:39 ◼   ► to if you knew what it was talking about that it's a 32-bit app. And then eventually on

00:57:42 ◼   ► iOS it's like yeah no those aren't going to launch anymore. This application needs to

00:57:46 ◼   ► to be updated for blah blah blah, right?

00:57:48 ◼   ► So the fun thing about 10.13.4 is that if you're a developer,

00:57:52 ◼   ► you can reboot your Mac with the boot-arg

00:57:54 ◼   ► minus no32exec and it will stop all 32-bit processes

00:57:58 ◼   ► from launching, right?

00:58:00 ◼   ► So then you can try to use your app.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Like you think your app is clean and it's 64-bit clean,

00:58:04 ◼   ► it doesn't require any 32-bit framework,

00:58:06 ◼   ► doesn't invoke any 32-bit commands,

00:58:07 ◼   ► doesn't do anything 32-bit, fine.

00:58:09 ◼   ► Reboot your Mac in this developer mode

00:58:11 ◼   ► that will forbid any 32-bit stuff from running

00:58:13 ◼   ► and you'll see if it's broken.

00:58:15 ◼   ► Of course, this is a developer mode for people who are developing applications.

00:58:19 ◼   ► Users should not do this because half the stuff that you use from day to day will probably

00:58:22 ◼   ► be broken including parts of the OS or other things that are command line programs that

00:58:28 ◼   ► have 32-bit parts.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Put it this way, I bet there is a surprising amount of 32-bit software lurking in everybody's

00:58:36 ◼   ► Mac at this point.

00:58:37 ◼   ► But this is the only way you get to a 64-bit clean world.

00:58:41 ◼   ► Apple doesn't say what future version of Mac OS

00:58:46 ◼   ► where 32-bit software will no longer run,

00:58:48 ◼   ► and it also doesn't explain what compromise

00:58:50 ◼   ► they're talking about, because if they had just said,

00:58:52 ◼   ► will no longer run, I'd be like,

00:58:53 ◼   ► oh, that's just what happened in iOS.

00:58:55 ◼   ► 32-bit stuff no longer runs.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Fair enough, right?

00:58:58 ◼   ► But compromise makes me think there's going to be

00:59:00 ◼   ► some kind of way to still run 32-bit stuff

00:59:03 ◼   ► just because it seems like Apple doesn't have as much faith

00:59:06 ◼   ► in the Apple developer or the Mac developer community

00:59:10 ◼   ► to bring everything to 64-bit.

00:59:13 ◼   ► Like there's just not enough of them

00:59:14 ◼   ► and they're just not motivated enough to bring everything.

00:59:16 ◼   ► So there will always be this really long tail of stragglers

00:59:18 ◼   ► where in iOS they're like, look, we're going 64-bit.

00:59:21 ◼   ► If you don't care enough about your app to port it, fine.

00:59:23 ◼   ► There's a thousand other apps that'll take your place.

00:59:25 ◼   ► We don't care.

00:59:26 ◼   ► But on the Mac, I don't know if that's the case.

00:59:28 ◼   ► So I'm very interested to see what the compromise is

00:59:32 ◼   ► and how they manage to run 32-bit stuff

00:59:35 ◼   ► in an OS that more or less doesn't support it.

00:59:37 ◼   ► They could use some kind of VM thing,

00:59:39 ◼   ► some kind of weird hypervisor thing, who knows?

00:59:42 ◼   ► But my guess is it's 1014,

00:59:45 ◼   ► we'll find out the answer to that question.

00:59:48 ◼   ► - To go back a step, I forgot to mention

00:59:50 ◼   ► that health records is also new in 11.3.

00:59:53 ◼   ► I think that completely slipped my mind.

00:59:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not clear how that works.

00:59:57 ◼   ► Like I see the screen and it seems cool,

00:59:59 ◼   ► but how does it work?

01:00:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I was curious about too.

01:00:03 ◼   ► And I didn't know if I just hadn't read

01:00:04 ◼   ► the right documentation yet or something.

01:00:06 ◼   ► But the thought of having all of my health records

01:00:09 ◼   ► from all of my different health professionals,

01:00:10 ◼   ► all in one spot, all for me to be able to see.

01:00:14 ◼   ► That genuinely sounds really awesome,

01:00:15 ◼   ► but color me a little skeptical

01:00:18 ◼   ► that that'll actually be what ends up happening.

01:00:20 ◼   ► Because I mean, look at Apple Pay,

01:00:23 ◼   ► which is a seemingly odd analogy to use,

01:00:25 ◼   ► but I feel like in America, it's pulling teeth

01:00:28 ◼   ► to get a retailer to use Apple Pay,

01:00:30 ◼   ► and that's to give them money.

01:00:33 ◼   ► And here, it's like, what is going to encourage anyone,

01:00:37 ◼   ► insurance companies or doctors or whomever to share medical records. I mean, yeah, there

01:00:41 ◼   ► are records in theory since it's our bodies, et cetera, et cetera, but I don't know. I

01:00:46 ◼   ► don't see any real incentive to get health providers or insurance companies or whatever

01:00:51 ◼   ► to provide this information to us.

01:00:53 ◼   ► Well, there have been government incentives to make them adopt some of the things that

01:00:56 ◼   ► would make them potentially closer to supporting this type of feature, but...

01:01:03 ◼   ► Not anytime soon there won't be.

01:01:05 ◼   ► If there's one thing that's true in the, no there has been in the past, like the whole

01:01:08 ◼   ► meaningful use thing in past years was to try to get, you know, medical businesses in

01:01:16 ◼   ► the US to adopt electronic health record stuff, like who knows how effective it was.

01:01:20 ◼   ► But anyway, there's one thing that's true about healthcare in the US is that getting

01:01:25 ◼   ► all of your medical anything anywhere is basically impossible.

01:01:29 ◼   ► So if it was like, I would love to have all of my medical, stop, stop right there.

01:01:33 ◼   ► Whatever the rest of that sentence is, unless you are very, very lucky, it's not going to

01:01:38 ◼   ► happen.

01:01:39 ◼   ► It's hard enough to get any of your medical.

01:01:42 ◼   ► So if you are astronomically lucky and all of your health records happen to be at the

01:01:48 ◼   ► tiny subset of medical institutions and providers that are participating in this program, yes,

01:01:54 ◼   ► you could have all of your medical records in this thing, but chances are very, very

01:01:58 ◼   ► good that some of your medical records will not be participating in this.

01:02:03 ◼   ► And so it's just an adoption problem.

01:02:05 ◼   ► So I like to see Apple tackling this and they're trying to do it in a sort of agnostic way

01:02:09 ◼   ► using standard protocols for interchange.

01:02:12 ◼   ► It's not like some Apple proprietary thing where Apple has to convince everybody to adopt

01:02:16 ◼   ► some standard.

01:02:17 ◼   ► It's just that getting all of any of medical things in the U.S. to do anything is very

01:02:21 ◼   ► difficult because it's a very diverse, shall we say, environment of providers and technology

01:02:28 ◼   ► expertise and motivation and financial incentive to support something like this.

01:02:33 ◼   ► All right, then, Jon, the gifts just keep coming for you.

01:02:37 ◼   ► You have El Capitan fixes that you're choosing not to install, and tvOS 11.3 has a new gift

01:02:43 ◼   ► for you, does it not?

01:02:44 ◼   ► It's not really a gift for me because even though I have an older Apple TV, it's not

01:02:50 ◼   ► hooked up to a television set that I think can even do 24 frames per second. Like it's

01:02:54 ◼   ► hooked up to a crappy TV, like a bedroom TV, right? So anyway, the one change that is most

01:03:00 ◼   ► interesting to me in tvOS 11.3, which is currently in beta, is frame rate matching, which was

01:03:05 ◼   ► previously only supported on the Apple TV 4K, is now supported on the one that looks

01:03:09 ◼   ► exactly like the Apple TV 4K but isn't, because it doesn't have slots in the bottom.

01:03:12 ◼   ► Hey, that's mine. Yeah. So now you get that feature too. I don't

01:03:16 ◼   ► I also don't know if you have a television that can do 24 frames per second.

01:03:19 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Almost sure I do not.

01:03:21 ◼   ► Yeah, but that was the question before, is like, why isn't this supported?

01:03:24 ◼   ► Is it some kind of hardware limitation?

01:03:25 ◼   ► No, they just didn't get around to it with software, and now they're getting around to

01:03:28 ◼   ► it.

01:03:29 ◼   ► So thumbs up for that.

01:03:30 ◼   ► All right, let's do some Ask ATP.

01:03:33 ◼   ► Some guy I've never heard of, Todd Vaziri, writes, "With your iPhone X experience, are

01:03:37 ◼   ► there any signs that Apple intends to unify 3D Touch and a long press to give the same

01:03:42 ◼   ► result, or do you feel that they have every intention of keeping these two gestures separate

01:03:46 ◼   ► and distinctive.

01:03:47 ◼   ► I haven't looked at gesture recognizers in a while,

01:03:49 ◼   ► and nor have I really fiddled with 3D touch APIs,

01:03:52 ◼   ► but as far as I can tell, just as a user,

01:03:56 ◼   ► it seems to me that it's pretty clearly

01:03:58 ◼   ► going to be kept separate.

01:03:59 ◼   ► But I don't know, Marco, have you been looking

01:04:01 ◼   ► through these APIs more recently?

01:04:02 ◼   ► Do you have any thoughts on this?

01:04:03 ◼   ► - I don't have any thoughts.

01:04:04 ◼   ► I don't think it's gonna be touched in any meaningful way.

01:04:07 ◼   ► I think it's gonna stay the way it is now,

01:04:09 ◼   ► which is basically like, most things are 3D touch or nothing.

01:04:14 ◼   ► and occasionally one of the app developers,

01:04:17 ◼   ► either Apple or third party, will have some good idea,

01:04:20 ◼   ► oh, you know, we should make this available

01:04:21 ◼   ► with long press eventually,

01:04:22 ◼   ► and then eventually somebody does it.

01:04:24 ◼   ► But it's probably gonna always be 3D touch first,

01:04:27 ◼   ► kind of like how the clear all notifications thing,

01:04:30 ◼   ► remember it wasn't that 3D touch first,

01:04:31 ◼   ► and then eventually they added long press.

01:04:33 ◼   ► It's probably gonna be like that kind of pattern,

01:04:35 ◼   ► just like 3D touch is first,

01:04:37 ◼   ► long press if somebody gets to it.

01:04:40 ◼   ► - But do you think, I think part of the question is,

01:04:42 ◼   ► - Do the APIs make it look like there will ever be a way

01:04:45 ◼   ► to coalesce them in terms, you'd write an application

01:04:48 ◼   ► to handle one kind of event and both of those things

01:04:50 ◼   ► that happen on the screen could funnel into one kind

01:04:52 ◼   ► of event or do you think it will,

01:04:53 ◼   ► - No. - the APIs still reflect

01:04:54 ◼   ► the fact that they are entirely separate?

01:04:56 ◼   ► - Entirely separate.

01:04:57 ◼   ► I mean, you could write something in your app

01:04:59 ◼   ► that would respond to either one.

01:05:02 ◼   ► - Right, right. - And you could write

01:05:03 ◼   ► some kind of reusable component to make that easier to do,

01:05:05 ◼   ► but as far as I could tell, Apple has not moved

01:05:08 ◼   ► in that direction at all.

01:05:09 ◼   ► I could be wrong, I could have missed something,

01:05:10 ◼   ► but I don't think so.

01:05:11 ◼   ► I don't think so either.

01:05:13 ◼   ► My impression from the outside, not looking at the APIs,

01:05:16 ◼   ► but just looking at how they're used,

01:05:17 ◼   ► is that I would go so far as to say

01:05:20 ◼   ► that Apple thinks there actually is an important distinction

01:05:22 ◼   ► between 3D Touch and Long Press

01:05:23 ◼   ► that should be meaningful in the UI.

01:05:25 ◼   ► And cases where they merely say Long Press is just

01:05:29 ◼   ► an affordance for people who have devices without 3D Touch

01:05:32 ◼   ► are kind of in the minority.

01:05:33 ◼   ► Like it seems like, especially as 3D Touch

01:05:36 ◼   ► spreads to more and more devices,

01:05:37 ◼   ► or at least phones anyway,

01:05:38 ◼   ► 'cause they don't have it on iPads,

01:05:40 ◼   ► the 3D Touch is a different thing than long press.

01:05:44 ◼   ► And it may still be an optional thing like,

01:05:46 ◼   ► oh, if you happen to have a device that can afford it,

01:05:47 ◼   ► you can get this feature,

01:05:48 ◼   ► but that is not the same thing as long press.

01:05:52 ◼   ► Despite the fact that a lot of people like wish it was,

01:05:54 ◼   ► that it was just a more convenient long rest.

01:05:56 ◼   ► And using a phone from my perspective,

01:05:58 ◼   ► it feels different to me.

01:05:59 ◼   ► I wouldn't want it to be just an alternate way

01:06:01 ◼   ► to do long press because it just feels so very different.

01:06:04 ◼   ► So I think I'm mostly on the same page with Apple here,

01:06:06 ◼   ► despite the fact that it is somewhat confusing

01:06:08 ◼   ► to have to explain to people.

01:06:09 ◼   ► I don't think they're interchangeable.

01:06:11 ◼   ► They don't feel interchangeable to me.

01:06:14 ◼   ► - I tend to agree.

01:06:15 ◼   ► Alex writes, "What is AirPlay 2,

01:06:17 ◼   ► "and why is it so hard for both developers

01:06:19 ◼   ► "and Apple to implement it?"

01:06:21 ◼   ► So I guess, Marco, jump in whenever you're ready,

01:06:23 ◼   ► but AirPlay 2, is it supposed to be,

01:06:26 ◼   ► other than multi-room stuff,

01:06:27 ◼   ► which you can't really do with AirPlay 1

01:06:28 ◼   ► unless you're using iTunes on a Mac,

01:06:30 ◼   ► is it supposed to be kind of self-sufficient

01:06:33 ◼   ► where it's more like a Google Chromecast sort of scenario

01:06:36 ◼   ► where you just tell it,

01:06:37 ◼   ► "Hey, go play this thing over there,"

01:06:39 ◼   ► and it does it all by itself, or is that completely wrong?

01:06:42 ◼   ► - That's about halfway wrong.

01:06:43 ◼   ► So basically, the way AirPlay One worked was kind of like,

01:06:48 ◼   ► it's not that different from how Bluetooth audio works,

01:06:52 ◼   ► just done over WiFi.

01:06:53 ◼   ► It is what they call basically a real-time protocol,

01:06:56 ◼   ► it's just a stream.

01:06:57 ◼   ► They use stream audio to the AirPlay One device.

01:07:00 ◼   ► There is a fixed latency that all AirPlay One devices have

01:07:02 ◼   ► of two seconds, and everything goes over that same stream

01:07:06 ◼   ► at that same latency.

01:07:07 ◼   ► Audio gets streamed at that rate, commands like play,

01:07:10 ◼   ► pause, or seek get streamed at that rate.

01:07:12 ◼   ► That's why with an AirPlay speaker,

01:07:13 ◼   ► if you hit pause on your phone,

01:07:14 ◼   ► it takes two seconds before it actually pauses.

01:07:16 ◼   ► And so it was a simpler protocol.

01:07:19 ◼   ► It was launched forever ago.

01:07:21 ◼   ► And back then, things had to be simpler

01:07:23 ◼   ► for just technical practicality reasons.

01:07:26 ◼   ► So AirPlay One, very simple protocol.

01:07:29 ◼   ► What you're alluding to, Casey,

01:07:30 ◼   ► how Sonos and the Google Cast protocols usually work,

01:07:35 ◼   ► is basically like the speaker in those cases,

01:07:39 ◼   ► or like the Casted 2 device,

01:07:42 ◼   ► is controlling and playing whatever the media is itself.

01:07:47 ◼   ► It isn't having a device send it a stream of media

01:07:50 ◼   ► in most cases.

01:07:51 ◼   ► The Sonos speaker or Google Chromecast or whatever

01:07:55 ◼   ► is given like a URL and say play the file here.

01:07:59 ◼   ► And the client applications are basically

01:08:02 ◼   ► giving it commands whenever they feel like it.

01:08:04 ◼   ► of okay, pause it now, play this thing instead

01:08:06 ◼   ► or whatever else.

01:08:07 ◼   ► But the advantage of a system like that is your phone

01:08:11 ◼   ► or whatever is streaming the audio from

01:08:14 ◼   ► or causing the audio to be streamed

01:08:16 ◼   ► is not actually really involved in the realtime playback.

01:08:19 ◼   ► So the example that is often given is like,

01:08:23 ◼   ► if you go out and take out the trash during a party

01:08:25 ◼   ► and your phone is what's telling Sonos

01:08:28 ◼   ► to play this playlist,

01:08:29 ◼   ► when you leave your house's wifi for 30 seconds,

01:08:32 ◼   ► the music isn't gonna stop.

01:08:34 ◼   ► It's gonna keep playing because your phone

01:08:36 ◼   ► is simply giving it commands sometimes when you tell it to.

01:08:38 ◼   ► It isn't streaming the audio itself.

01:08:40 ◼   ► The device for Sonos and Google Class or whatever

01:08:43 ◼   ► is getting the audio itself over the network

01:08:46 ◼   ► and only just doing what your phone tells it to

01:08:48 ◼   ► when it's time to make changes.

01:08:50 ◼   ► AirPlay never worked that way.

01:08:51 ◼   ► AirPlay was always being real-time streamed

01:08:54 ◼   ► from the source device to the speaker.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - And a question.

01:08:57 ◼   ► The HomePod literature or whatever, PR literature,

01:09:01 ◼   ► makes that claim about it, that it's just pulling the music

01:09:06 ◼   ► from Apple Music and not pulling it from your phone,

01:09:09 ◼   ► but it doesn't currently support AirPlay 2.

01:09:12 ◼   ► - Yes, so there's a few different things here.

01:09:14 ◼   ► So that, what the HomePod is doing with Apple Music,

01:09:18 ◼   ► first of all, I believe that applies only to Apple Music,

01:09:20 ◼   ► and that is because the HomePod does appear,

01:09:23 ◼   ► from what they're saying, to be a native Apple Music client,

01:09:26 ◼   ► in the sense that you can ask it to play something

01:09:28 ◼   ► from Apple Music.

01:09:29 ◼   ► I don't know if your phone is involved

01:09:31 ◼   ► in the Siri request itself, but once it is playing,

01:09:36 ◼   ► it does sound like it can just keep playing

01:09:37 ◼   ► without your phone's presence.

01:09:39 ◼   ► So that is a separate thing.

01:09:40 ◼   ► That's not involving AirPlay 2, though.

01:09:42 ◼   ► So what AirPlay 2 does is kind of just a halfway point

01:09:47 ◼   ► between these, or kind of like a better AirPlay 1.

01:09:49 ◼   ► So what it lets you do is buffer

01:09:52 ◼   ► for much larger chunks of data.

01:09:54 ◼   ► And what Apple said in the WWDC session about it,

01:09:58 ◼   ► They said basically think minutes instead of seconds,

01:10:01 ◼   ► and it lets you buffer faster than real time.

01:10:04 ◼   ► So AirPlay One was a fixed two-second latency everywhere.

01:10:08 ◼   ► The streaming device supplied the audio in real time,

01:10:11 ◼   ► the playing device played it in real time,

01:10:12 ◼   ► there's a two-second buffer on the playing device.

01:10:14 ◼   ► AirPlay Two, the streaming device is asked

01:10:18 ◼   ► to supply the audio as fast as it can,

01:10:20 ◼   ► faster than real time until the buffer fills up.

01:10:23 ◼   ► And so your AirPlay Two client program

01:10:26 ◼   ► that's playing media has to be able to feed the buffer

01:10:30 ◼   ► a lot, like five minutes or 10 minutes or whatever it is,

01:10:33 ◼   ► of future audio.

01:10:35 ◼   ► And then the playing device maintains that buffer

01:10:38 ◼   ► and plays it in real time and notifies you

01:10:41 ◼   ► of what point it has reached in playback.

01:10:44 ◼   ► So this changes a bunch of things.

01:10:47 ◼   ► This is a really big foundational change to how this works.

01:10:51 ◼   ► There are a number of big advantages.

01:10:53 ◼   ► So number one is that scenario of taking out the garbage

01:10:56 ◼   ► during a party, as long as you're not taking

01:10:58 ◼   ► like 20 minutes outside to take the garbage out,

01:11:00 ◼   ► in which case I would say you have to think

01:11:02 ◼   ► about your home layout.

01:11:04 ◼   ► That's too much of a trip.

01:11:06 ◼   ► It should be fine.

01:11:08 ◼   ► You should get back inside in time

01:11:10 ◼   ► for that minutes-long buffer

01:11:12 ◼   ► to not have to underrun itself.

01:11:15 ◼   ► Also, as we talk about during Euro ads,

01:11:20 ◼   ► a lot of times places in your house

01:11:22 ◼   ► are kind of Wi-Fi dead zones,

01:11:23 ◼   ► and so same problem with those.

01:11:26 ◼   ► There's lots of common scenarios where if you're airplane,

01:11:28 ◼   ► anybody who's ever done airplane, you know this,

01:11:31 ◼   ► 'cause this has probably happened to you at some point,

01:11:33 ◼   ► where the person with the phone is walking around somewhere

01:11:35 ◼   ► and drops at a range for a second,

01:11:36 ◼   ► and the music stops or skips or whatever.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Also, another big advantage of this,

01:11:40 ◼   ► of breaking it out of that fixed latency model,

01:11:43 ◼   ► is that commands to change, so play, pause, seek commands,

01:11:48 ◼   ► those can happen faster than that two-second buffer.

01:11:51 ◼   ► Those can happen basically as quickly

01:11:53 ◼   ► as the device receives and processes them.

01:11:55 ◼   ► So, like any other wifi command in your house.

01:11:57 ◼   ► So it can be really fast.

01:11:59 ◼   ► So way faster, way more responsive playback controls,

01:12:02 ◼   ► as well as that long, super long buffer.

01:12:05 ◼   ► There's also, AirPlay One did support multi-room audio

01:12:10 ◼   ► in some way.

01:12:12 ◼   ► I'm not familiar with the details of how it coordinated it,

01:12:14 ◼   ► but I think only iTunes on the Mac

01:12:18 ◼   ► could ever really officially be the source for that.

01:12:21 ◼   ► There was never a way for it to have an iOS device

01:12:23 ◼   ► as the source of multi-room audio with AirPlay One.

01:12:27 ◼   ► AirPlay Two, that is now possible.

01:12:28 ◼   ► You can now do multi-room audio with the iOS device

01:12:31 ◼   ► as the source of that, so that's another big change.

01:12:34 ◼   ► I don't really know what has changed about the protocol

01:12:36 ◼   ► to allow that, but I'm sure there's a good reason.

01:12:38 ◼   ► Also, because the playback buffering and the media supply

01:12:43 ◼   ► has been separated from the command interface

01:12:48 ◼   ► of like play/pause, you can now have multiple devices

01:12:52 ◼   ► in your house being able to control the play/pause type controls of a stream that's playing from

01:12:58 ◼   ► not them. So like, you and your spouse can both have play/pause control over the music

01:13:05 ◼   ► playing from only one of your phones to the AirPlay 2 speaker. So also, you know, fun

01:13:10 ◼   ► stuff. There's also separation now of phone call status from AirPlay, so you can, for

01:13:16 ◼   ► instance, take a phone call on your phone that is air playing music to a speaker, and

01:13:21 ◼   ► and the music continues to play back on that speaker

01:13:23 ◼   ► while you're on the phone call.

01:13:24 ◼   ► That didn't happen before.

01:13:25 ◼   ► So this is all a lot of major changes,

01:13:29 ◼   ► and this is, I think, one of the reasons

01:13:30 ◼   ► why this is taking so long,

01:13:32 ◼   ► and why AirPlay 2 seems to be the big delay

01:13:34 ◼   ► for the HomePod.

01:13:35 ◼   ► This is tons of new iOS APIs,

01:13:40 ◼   ► tons of new background processes and changes

01:13:43 ◼   ► to fundamental things in iOS to make all this happen.

01:13:48 ◼   ► Also on the device side, on the speaker side,

01:13:52 ◼   ► you now have this long buffering mechanism,

01:13:56 ◼   ► and that's much more complex than before.

01:13:59 ◼   ► I'm sure Apple has some kind of component or library

01:14:02 ◼   ► or something that they will sell manufacturers

01:14:05 ◼   ► to make this easier on them, to kind of automate this

01:14:08 ◼   ► for them or be like a drop-in component or something,

01:14:11 ◼   ► but it's more complex than AirPlay One was by a lot.

01:14:15 ◼   ► And even AirPlay One, the client implementations

01:14:18 ◼   ► tended to suck that weren't Apple's.

01:14:20 ◼   ► Like, there was like one AirPlay chip

01:14:22 ◼   ► that every AirPlay speaker used and it sucked.

01:14:23 ◼   ► It was unreliable and it was terrible.

01:14:26 ◼   ► So, I'm guessing the delay in the speaker availability

01:14:29 ◼   ► is because this is more complex and maybe the industry

01:14:33 ◼   ► was caught off guard a little bit, who knows.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Maybe Apple hasn't actually really finished it yet

01:14:38 ◼   ► and they're just not saying that.

01:14:39 ◼   ► But either way, it's a complex protocol.

01:14:42 ◼   ► And then on the software side, on the iOS side,

01:14:45 ◼   ► and probably the HomePod side,

01:14:47 ◼   ► This is complex, I ran into some of this complexity

01:14:50 ◼   ► when I started looking at these APIs for Overcast.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And the main complexity here is,

01:14:55 ◼   ► streaming the music to the buffer

01:15:02 ◼   ► is now disconnected from what timestamp

01:15:06 ◼   ► or even like what track is actually playing at that moment.

01:15:11 ◼   ► Because you can read ahead by so far.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Like before, with the old Airplay One model,

01:15:16 ◼   ► Whatever function in your app supplied the audio

01:15:19 ◼   ► to the output stream could notify the app as that happened,

01:15:23 ◼   ► you're now at timestamp one, you're now at timestamp two.

01:15:26 ◼   ► And as soon as it played through a track,

01:15:28 ◼   ► it can say this track has finished playing,

01:15:29 ◼   ► you're now playing this next track.

01:15:31 ◼   ► Now, it can buffer so far ahead of real time

01:15:35 ◼   ► that the production of the audio in your app,

01:15:37 ◼   ► the thing that is supplying the audio,

01:15:40 ◼   ► has to be a separate thing entirely

01:15:42 ◼   ► from what parts of your app manage

01:15:46 ◼   ► what timestamp it's playing at

01:15:47 ◼   ► and what track it's currently playing.

01:15:50 ◼   ► And they've moved all that out now

01:15:51 ◼   ► to this new synchronizer object that you need.

01:15:54 ◼   ► So none of this is difficult to deal with,

01:15:57 ◼   ► but it's different.

01:15:58 ◼   ► It's a major change from the way it used to work.

01:16:01 ◼   ► And there's also other things, like for instance,

01:16:03 ◼   ► if your app has a concept of a playlist

01:16:06 ◼   ► and an item that is coming up is changed,

01:16:10 ◼   ► say the user deletes an entry in a playlist

01:16:12 ◼   ► or reorders a playlist,

01:16:14 ◼   ► and that part has already been buffered,

01:16:16 ◼   ► you now have to tell the buffer thing,

01:16:18 ◼   ► oh, and everything after this timestamp

01:16:20 ◼   ► is now different, reload it.

01:16:21 ◼   ► So there's all sorts of big and small changes like that

01:16:25 ◼   ► needed to adopt this kind of model,

01:16:27 ◼   ► and none of them are difficult or impossible,

01:16:30 ◼   ► it's just a lot of things to deal with.

01:16:32 ◼   ► It's a lot of change, a lot of potential for new bugs

01:16:36 ◼   ► or not realizing that old bugs were really bugs,

01:16:38 ◼   ► and so it's like, even doing it for overcast

01:16:41 ◼   ► is a pretty major undertaking

01:16:44 ◼   ► that I'm nowhere near done with.

01:16:46 ◼   ► I've only done the early stages of it

01:16:48 ◼   ► and now I kind of put it on the back burner

01:16:49 ◼   ► because now I know that it's not gonna be imminent

01:16:52 ◼   ► and I have more pressing things I wanna do.

01:16:54 ◼   ► But it's a big change to audio applications

01:16:58 ◼   ► and to the systems in iOS that manage them.

01:17:02 ◼   ► So I think there's very, very good justification

01:17:06 ◼   ► for AirPlay 2 to be late and for Apple to be running behind.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I think they should have probably anticipated it better

01:17:12 ◼   ► and planned for it better, but oh well.

01:17:15 ◼   ► All this is just to say that technically speaking,

01:17:17 ◼   ► this is a nice improvement.

01:17:19 ◼   ► It is also a really big job.

01:17:21 ◼   ► So it's totally reasonable for it to be

01:17:23 ◼   ► harder than they might have predicted

01:17:25 ◼   ► or taking longer than they predicted.

01:17:28 ◼   ► - You can have a fun class of bugs.

01:17:29 ◼   ► You could have a bug based on what you described

01:17:31 ◼   ► where the speaker is playing a song,

01:17:34 ◼   ► but your player application on your phone

01:17:37 ◼   ► indicates that it's playing a different song.

01:17:39 ◼   ► So it goes to the next track,

01:17:40 ◼   ► and if you didn't do that synchronization thing

01:17:42 ◼   ► that you said, oh by the way, they've deleted something,

01:17:45 ◼   ► your phone will say, I'm happily playing song A,

01:17:47 ◼   ► and you'll be hearing a totally different song

01:17:48 ◼   ► come through the speaker.

01:17:49 ◼   ► You'll be like, this thing is totally broken,

01:17:51 ◼   ► how does that even happen?

01:17:52 ◼   ► Well, now we know how it happens.

01:17:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, or as it starts buffering,

01:17:56 ◼   ► if you didn't do the timestamp change

01:17:58 ◼   ► of how it reports what time you're playing until,

01:18:00 ◼   ► then you can have it,

01:18:01 ◼   ► if you watch your time thing in the app,

01:18:04 ◼   ► you start airplane to a speaker,

01:18:05 ◼   ► and your time starts racing ahead by 10 minutes

01:18:08 ◼   ► all of a sudden, but you're not hearing it that fast.

01:18:11 ◼   ► There's so many, or it races to the end

01:18:13 ◼   ► and deletes the file, 'cause it's how it's played already,

01:18:16 ◼   ► gone, there's a lot of potential

01:18:20 ◼   ► for big and small bugs here.

01:18:22 ◼   ► - In your application, if they change

01:18:23 ◼   ► the playback speed midstream, you have to invalidate

01:18:26 ◼   ► everything that you previously uploaded at the other speed.

01:18:28 ◼   ► - Oh, that's interesting. - Yep, yep.

01:18:30 ◼   ► Or if they toggle off smart speed, yep, anything.

01:18:32 ◼   ► Or if you just seek, I think if you,

01:18:35 ◼   ► I don't think it actually does, in the current protocol,

01:18:37 ◼   ► I'm not sure it actually does seeking.

01:18:39 ◼   ► Anyway, and one concern I have too is like,

01:18:42 ◼   ► this stuff is all so early and so complex

01:18:44 ◼   ► and such a big undertaking, I'm not sure I want to devote

01:18:48 ◼   ► a whole bunch of time to changing my entire audio engine

01:18:52 ◼   ► to support this before I know that the API is solid.

01:18:56 ◼   ► And given that Apple is delaying their own AirPlay 2 stuff,

01:19:00 ◼   ► and I'm kind of worried that maybe the API is not done yet

01:19:03 ◼   ► or not baked yet.

01:19:05 ◼   ► So there's another reason why I've kind of paused

01:19:08 ◼   ► my work on this for now.

01:19:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, it could end up like crashing your application

01:19:13 ◼   ► in scenarios where their person's not even using AirPlay 2

01:19:16 ◼   ► just because of how you had to rejigger the internals,

01:19:18 ◼   ► which is not a great thing to happen.

01:19:20 ◼   ► - All right, what are we in the middle of?

01:19:22 ◼   ► We're in the middle of Ask ATP, right?

01:19:23 ◼   ► - Yep.

01:19:24 ◼   ► - Okay, Andrew Lim Penning writes,

01:19:28 ◼   ► "Could Jon please detail his method

01:19:30 ◼   ► "for reading extremely long soft cover books

01:19:31 ◼   ► "without ruining his spine?

01:19:33 ◼   ► Where the hell did this even come from?

01:19:35 ◼   ► When did you talk about this?

01:19:37 ◼   ► Some other podcast that I'm on that Andrew apparently listens to, I discussed this.

01:19:40 ◼   ► I think you two should know about it too in the long history of weird things that I've

01:19:46 ◼   ► done.

01:19:47 ◼   ► Anyway, when I was younger, I had a lot of books like paper books before I got on the

01:19:51 ◼   ► e-book bandwagon, and I had a lot of paperback books when I was younger.

01:19:57 ◼   ► And some of them are really thick because I'm a big Stephen King fan and his books are

01:20:01 ◼   ► long.

01:20:02 ◼   ► And eventually I got into books as a thing that you can buy as a sort of physical object

01:20:07 ◼   ► in addition to the words that they contain.

01:20:09 ◼   ► In fact, I'm still like that.

01:20:10 ◼   ► I read ebooks mostly, but I still like physical books.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Often I will buy a physical book but still read the ebook.

01:20:15 ◼   ► Anyway, I got a lot of softcovers and I like them.

01:20:18 ◼   ► I got a lot of series.

01:20:19 ◼   ► They had cool spines.

01:20:20 ◼   ► I'd put them up on my shelf, arrange them, they looked nice.

01:20:25 ◼   ► Pretty soon after getting my first collection of paperbacks, I decided I didn't like how

01:20:28 ◼   ► the books looked when the spines were broken.

01:20:30 ◼   ► If you open a paper back really wide, the nice printed spine on it will get a big white

01:20:36 ◼   ► you know, crease or crack on it and if you read the book eventually you'll have cracks

01:20:39 ◼   ► going up and down the whole spine.

01:20:41 ◼   ► Anyone who has had a big thick paperback book knows about this.

01:20:44 ◼   ► So I didn't like that so eventually I decided I'm going to read all my softcover books no

01:20:49 ◼   ► matter how thick they are without breaking the spine.

01:20:53 ◼   ► And that's what this question is about.

01:20:54 ◼   ► How do you do that?

01:20:55 ◼   ► Unfortunately for Andrew the answer is exactly how you would think you'd do that.

01:21:00 ◼   ► you don't open the book really wide.

01:21:02 ◼   ► You support the spine with your fingers behind it

01:21:05 ◼   ► and you open it a crack and you'd be like,

01:21:07 ◼   ► how are you gonna read an entire, literally 800 page book

01:21:11 ◼   ► peeking into this tiny crevice to read the text out of the,

01:21:15 ◼   ► you know, like, you know, there is no secret.

01:21:19 ◼   ► The secret, you know, like the technique is

01:21:21 ◼   ► put your fingers on the back of the spine

01:21:22 ◼   ► so you can feel what's happening at the back of that spine

01:21:24 ◼   ► and open it as wide as you can before it creases

01:21:27 ◼   ► and just be really, really careful.

01:21:29 ◼   ► And I don't think that's a particularly fun way to read.

01:21:31 ◼   ► I think people should buy ebooks

01:21:32 ◼   ► 'cause they're way better than paper books,

01:21:33 ◼   ► but paper books are beautiful,

01:21:34 ◼   ► so you should still buy them

01:21:35 ◼   ► and collect them and display them.

01:21:37 ◼   ► - So how do you use an iPhone without scratching it?

01:21:39 ◼   ► Well, you keep it in a small felt pouch

01:21:41 ◼   ► and you take it in and out of that pouch

01:21:43 ◼   ► every single time you use it,

01:21:44 ◼   ► and you never actually touch it.

01:21:46 ◼   ► - Well done, sir.

01:21:47 ◼   ► - Not every single time, only when you're out of the house.

01:21:49 ◼   ► Only when you're out of the house.

01:21:50 ◼   ► In the house it is, not in the pouch ever.

01:21:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:21:53 ◼   ► Well, yeah, what could possibly be more convenient than that?

01:21:58 ◼   ► - Pouch is awesome.

01:21:59 ◼   ► I like, here's the thing about the pouch.

01:22:01 ◼   ► I originally started doing it for the reason you noted,

01:22:04 ◼   ► for like scratchability,

01:22:05 ◼   ► but I have come to appreciate the fingerprint.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Like I don't ever have to clean off my phone screen,

01:22:10 ◼   ► which is apparently things a lot of people have to do,

01:22:12 ◼   ► or their phone screens look disgusting,

01:22:13 ◼   ► because every time it goes in and out of my pouch,

01:22:15 ◼   ► it gets cleaned.

01:22:16 ◼   ► - Of course.

01:22:17 ◼   ► - And when it stays in there and it rubs around,

01:22:19 ◼   ► like it's a microfiber thing,

01:22:20 ◼   ► it is always cleaning my phone screen.

01:22:22 ◼   ► It's nice.

01:22:23 ◼   ► - So a year of using my JetBlack iPhone 7,

01:22:26 ◼   ► and you know how much it ever mattered

01:22:27 ◼   ► - Do you know how scratched it was?

01:22:28 ◼   ► Not at all.

01:22:30 ◼   ► Know how much I ever noticed?

01:22:31 ◼   ► Zero.

01:22:32 ◼   ► - That's the back, I'm talking about the front.

01:22:34 ◼   ► - Actually, you know what--

01:22:35 ◼   ► - I have a case on it, so I don't care about the back.

01:22:36 ◼   ► - I actually do have a small problem with the iPhone X.

01:22:39 ◼   ► I'm getting scratches on my screen.

01:22:42 ◼   ► - Really?

01:22:42 ◼   ► - On the front?

01:22:43 ◼   ► - Yeah. - From what?

01:22:45 ◼   ► - I don't know, they're not like deep scratches,

01:22:47 ◼   ► but when the light hits a certain angle, you can see them.

01:22:49 ◼   ► And I think I heard from a few other people

01:22:51 ◼   ► that they were having a similar issue.

01:22:53 ◼   ► Like, I've never had iPhone screen scratches

01:22:55 ◼   ► that were noticeable.

01:22:56 ◼   ► I'm getting scratches on my iPhone 10 already.

01:22:59 ◼   ► So I don't know what's up.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - Are they micro, very micro scratches?

01:23:03 ◼   ► Maybe they're just scratches in the

01:23:05 ◼   ► sort of the oleophobic whatever coating

01:23:08 ◼   ► and not actually in the glass?

01:23:10 ◼   ► - Maybe, I mean again, they don't look deep.

01:23:12 ◼   ► You can't see them at all angles.

01:23:14 ◼   ► If you turn the screen off, they're pretty noticeable.

01:23:17 ◼   ► - That's interesting.

01:23:18 ◼   ► Anyway, I don't have any on mine.

01:23:19 ◼   ► Pouch.

01:23:20 ◼   ► - Pouch is not the answer, John.

01:23:23 ◼   ► - It's an answer.

01:23:24 ◼   ► It may not be the answer, but it is an answer.

01:23:26 ◼   ► It is an answer.

01:23:27 ◼   ► I will concede it is an answer.

01:23:29 ◼   ► And the back of my jet black iPhone 7, I'm sure, is pristine underneath my leather case.

01:23:34 ◼   ► Good for it.

01:23:35 ◼   ► I'm sure that's going to really matter long term.

01:23:39 ◼   ► Yeah, I've already decided that I'm not – speaking of keeping phones pristine – I'm not going

01:23:43 ◼   ► to give any of my kids this iPhone 7.

01:23:47 ◼   ► Like I handed down my iPhone 6.

01:23:50 ◼   ► You know, God knows what my son is doing to it for the 7.

01:23:52 ◼   ► I'm like, "No, no.

01:23:54 ◼   ► will buy you like an iPhone SE used or something but we're not you're not

01:23:57 ◼   ► getting my 7. I spent all this time keeping it pristine.

01:24:00 ◼   ► Like this is this the iPhone my iPhone 7 I think is in the category of like my

01:24:04 ◼   ► SE 30 and my 2008 Mac Pro.

01:24:06 ◼   ► I really like this phone. I mean granted I've only had two iPhones but this is by

01:24:10 ◼   ► far my favorite. Like there's nothing about it that is bad even the lack of

01:24:15 ◼   ► headphone port like I've you know I think this iPhone 7 is great and I'm now

01:24:19 ◼   ► appreciating it as my last pre-iPhone 10 notch of Apple phone.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Yeah, honestly, as we talked about it in our iPhone 7 exit interview segment, looking back

01:24:32 ◼   ► on it, I don't want to go back to it because I like the X too much, but that really was

01:24:37 ◼   ► a great phone.

01:24:38 ◼   ► It was a great moment in time.

01:24:40 ◼   ► It was a great phone.

01:24:41 ◼   ► And the 8 is great too and everything, but overshadowed by the 10.

01:24:45 ◼   ► I didn't get the 8, so I've got the 7 and this is my phone that hit the sweet spot of

01:24:49 ◼   ► the culmination of a long evolution

01:24:51 ◼   ► of a particular phone factor before Apple

01:24:53 ◼   ► took a hard left turn into iPhone X land.

01:24:55 ◼   ► - Also, the 8 doesn't have the Jet Black finish,

01:24:57 ◼   ► and that to me was a critical part

01:24:58 ◼   ► of why the 7 was so awesome,

01:24:59 ◼   ► because it so dramatically improved

01:25:01 ◼   ► and changed the feel of the phone.

01:25:03 ◼   ► Like it gave that awesome caseless grip that I miss.

01:25:08 ◼   ► The iPhone X is better than the previous aluminum ones,

01:25:13 ◼   ► but it's still not as good as the iPhone 7 in grip.

01:25:17 ◼   ► but I like the rest of it, so I'm keeping it, I guess,

01:25:19 ◼   ► even though my screen's scratched.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Anyway, thanks to our sponsors this week,

01:25:23 ◼   ► Casper, Betterment, and SRC,

01:25:25 ◼   ► and we will talk to you next week.

01:25:27 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:25:30 ◼   ► ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:25:32 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:25:35 ◼   ► ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:25:37 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:25:38 ◼   ► ♪ Oh, it was accidental ♪

01:25:39 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:25:41 ◼   ► ♪ John didn't do any research ♪

01:25:43 ◼   ► ♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪

01:25:45 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental (it was accidental)

01:25:48 ◼   ► It was accidental (it was accidental)

01:25:51 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:25:56 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

01:26:01 ◼   ► @caseyliss

01:26:05 ◼   ► So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:26:09 ◼   ► Auntie Marco Arment

01:26:12 ◼   ► S-I-R-A-C

01:26:15 ◼   ► ♪ USA, Syracuse, it's accidental ♪

01:26:20 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't mean to, accidental ♪

01:26:25 ◼   ► ♪ Tech podcast, so long ♪

01:26:29 ◼   ► - I really, I do this every year.

01:26:33 ◼   ► I guess this is my lose weight kind of New Year's resolution

01:26:38 ◼   ► even though it's not a resolution.

01:26:39 ◼   ► It's just something I remind myself of every year.

01:26:42 ◼   ► And every year, January comes around.

01:26:44 ◼   ► I remind myself, you know what, you should really be less negative, Casey, on the internet

01:26:49 ◼   ► and stop complaining and moaning about things, which I don't think I do overwhelmingly, but

01:26:54 ◼   ► I do probably more than I should.

01:26:57 ◼   ► And then something like this happens.

01:26:59 ◼   ► I see a news report saying BMW is going to charge $80 a year for a subscription to CarPlay.

01:27:09 ◼   ► $80 for a subscription to CarPlay.

01:27:11 ◼   ► That involves no cloud services

01:27:14 ◼   ► or anything like that of any sort.

01:27:16 ◼   ► It's just $80 for them to not cut you off

01:27:18 ◼   ► for the thing in your car.

01:27:20 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:27:23 ◼   ► - Wha, huh?

01:27:25 ◼   ► Why?

01:27:26 ◼   ► - There's a number of angles to this.

01:27:28 ◼   ► So a few people asked when this first came out,

01:27:30 ◼   ► like, well, do we know,

01:27:32 ◼   ► is Apple charging them yearly?

01:27:34 ◼   ► And we don't have a firm answer on that.

01:27:37 ◼   ► Apparently, somebody heard from some car maker

01:27:40 ◼   ► that Apple does not charge fees for CarPlay,

01:27:43 ◼   ► and there certainly is not an annual fee.

01:27:45 ◼   ► - Apple did say so, according to Gruber.

01:27:47 ◼   ► This is what he said on his website.

01:27:50 ◼   ► Gruber says, "I've now received

01:27:51 ◼   ► "the following clarification from Apple.

01:27:53 ◼   ► "There is no fee for OEMs for either

01:27:56 ◼   ► "MFI or CarPlay integration.

01:27:57 ◼   ► "There never has been, and there never will,

01:28:00 ◼   ► "to my knowledge, there are no plans to this change.

01:28:02 ◼   ► "There is no royalty costs or ongoing costs.

01:28:04 ◼   ► "The only costs to automakers are those necessary

01:28:06 ◼   ► "to create the hardware.

01:28:07 ◼   ► "This includes an authentication chip."

01:28:09 ◼   ► - All right, that's good, okay.

01:28:10 ◼   ► So anyway, so that rules that out.

01:28:11 ◼   ► But anyway, so this does solve a problem.

01:28:16 ◼   ► I don't think it solves it in the right way.

01:28:19 ◼   ► But there is a problem that BMWs, as you know,

01:28:24 ◼   ► Casey, from having bought them,

01:28:25 ◼   ► especially having bought them used,

01:28:27 ◼   ► certain options like this,

01:28:29 ◼   ► they're options at purchase when the car is new,

01:28:32 ◼   ► and you can't have them later.

01:28:33 ◼   ► CarPlay, there's not much reason,

01:28:36 ◼   ► like it's like a $300 option normally before this thing.

01:28:39 ◼   ► There's not a lot of reason that they had to charge

01:28:43 ◼   ► 300 extra dollars, they're just doing it because they can.

01:28:46 ◼   ► Because cars like this, luxury cars especially,

01:28:50 ◼   ► they charge money for every little thing, anything.

01:28:53 ◼   ► If you want, they've offered for years now,

01:28:55 ◼   ► they've offered wireless phone charging,

01:28:57 ◼   ► where they just put basically a Qi charger in the armrest