ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm never buying a car ever again.

00:00:01 ◼   ► - I bet that's not true.

00:00:04 ◼   ► That's like me saying,

00:00:04 ◼   ► "I'm perfectly happy with my computer setup.

00:00:06 ◼   ► "I'm never changing anything."

00:00:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:10 ◼   ► I mean, come on, we know each other.

00:00:12 ◼   ► And we know ourselves.

00:00:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:14 ◼   ► - This is entirely accurate.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Well done, sir.

00:00:18 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:00:19 ◼   ► We're traveling and, well, two-thirds of us are traveling

00:00:24 ◼   ► over the next three or four weeks.

00:00:26 ◼   ► And as it turns out, as with all things,

00:00:30 ◼   ► we accidentally scheduled our vacations

00:00:32 ◼   ► in a not terribly convenient way.

00:00:35 ◼   ► - Basically in sequence.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, basically we are doing vacationing

00:00:39 ◼   ► in serial and not parallel.

00:00:41 ◼   ► This is a single core, single threaded vacation operation

00:00:44 ◼   ► here at the Accidental Tech Podcast.

00:00:46 ◼   ► And so we're going to have to squeeze in like 17 weeks

00:00:49 ◼   ► worth of shows in the span of like three weeks.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Not literally of course, but that's what it feels like.

00:00:54 ◼   ► And because of Gary the privacy clown,

00:00:56 ◼   ► I'm not gonna disclose any more than that,

00:00:58 ◼   ► but suffice to say, yeah, we did not plan well.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Whoops.

00:01:02 ◼   ► - It's almost like Adobe wrote our schedule.

00:01:04 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:01:05 ◼   ► - How do you figure that?

00:01:07 ◼   ► - Well, 'cause nothing Adobe writes is parallel.

00:01:09 ◼   ► - Hey-o!

00:01:10 ◼   ► We'll be here all week, except not really,

00:01:12 ◼   ► 'cause like I just said, we're going on vacation.

00:01:14 ◼   ► Anyway, how are you guys?

00:01:17 ◼   ► - Totally fine.

00:01:18 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, yeah, how's the dog, John?

00:01:21 ◼   ► - Hanging in there, doing dog things.

00:01:24 ◼   ► How much of your house remains both intact and not covered in pee?

00:01:28 ◼   ► Oh, it's entirely covered in pee.

00:01:30 ◼   ► It's mostly intact.

00:01:31 ◼   ► She mostly goes for the soft items.

00:01:34 ◼   ► She's got a little bit of chewing on the stairs and cabinets and furniture, but really

00:01:41 ◼   ► mostly goes for the toilet paper and stuff like that.

00:01:44 ◼   ► High value targets?

00:01:46 ◼   ► Soft targets.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Just shred that toilet paper and make a giant mess in a matter of seconds.

00:01:50 ◼   ► You almost want to take some pictures or video, but then you do have to actually clean up

00:01:54 ◼   ► and not encourage the dog to do this, but it's kind of cute.

00:01:59 ◼   ► So that's the thing that puppies have.

00:02:00 ◼   ► Puppies and babies, their cuteness is their defense.

00:02:03 ◼   ► That's absolutely accurate.

00:02:04 ◼   ► All right, let's start with some follow-up.

00:02:07 ◼   ► And it starts with Andrew Burwell, who writes in to say, "I found this website to be particularly

00:02:12 ◼   ► good for best TV settings."

00:02:15 ◼   ► And this is artings.com/tv.

00:02:18 ◼   ► We'll put a link in the show notes.

00:02:20 ◼   ► They use calibration tools on the TV and adjust each brand and model of TV to its best settings

00:02:25 ◼   ► possible.

00:02:26 ◼   ► Given that they're all manufactured the same way, you can expect reasonable calibration

00:02:28 ◼   ► using this method.

00:02:29 ◼   ► They give you screenshots of your particular TV menus with the settings you need to use.

00:02:32 ◼   ► I have an ancient TV that is 1080, but it is ancient, and I have never bothered, I'm

00:02:39 ◼   ► sorry Todd and John, I've never bothered setting it up properly and I need to dig into this

00:02:44 ◼   ► website and see if they have settings for my TV, because I have never cared enough to

00:02:49 ◼   ► to really make it work, as we discussed last episode.

00:02:52 ◼   ► And this sounds pretty great that I need to check this out.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, actually, so after last episode

00:02:57 ◼   ► and after Jon scolded me into thinking I needed

00:03:00 ◼   ► to calibrate my TV, the first thing I did

00:03:02 ◼   ► was not to download an app to try to do it.

00:03:04 ◼   ► The first thing I did was search the web

00:03:06 ◼   ► for other people's calibration settings for this TV,

00:03:09 ◼   ► because it's a current model TV,

00:03:11 ◼   ► and there's a lot of nerds out there

00:03:12 ◼   ► who would do this kind of stuff and publish their results.

00:03:15 ◼   ► This was the first thing that came up,

00:03:16 ◼   ► And so a few hours before the whole world started telling me

00:03:20 ◼   ► to go to this site, I had actually already done it

00:03:22 ◼   ► and had tried their settings

00:03:24 ◼   ► with very minor modifications.

00:03:26 ◼   ► All I did was make it a little bit brighter

00:03:28 ◼   ► and make it slightly closer to neutral white balance.

00:03:31 ◼   ► And it's great.

00:03:33 ◼   ► And so I haven't changed it since.

00:03:34 ◼   ► It's been wonderful.

00:03:36 ◼   ► - So that's better than nothing,

00:03:37 ◼   ► but I would still encourage people

00:03:39 ◼   ► to actually use the calibration app

00:03:40 ◼   ► because they say, "Oh yeah, all TVs, they're all the same."

00:03:43 ◼   ► Like, you know, there's no variance in manufacturing

00:03:46 ◼   ► or age or anything you have, or setting like,

00:03:48 ◼   ► it's just not true.

00:03:49 ◼   ► Like this will get you in the ballpark

00:03:51 ◼   ► to actually find out if your TV is calibrated correctly,

00:03:53 ◼   ► you have to go through a calibration of some kind.

00:03:55 ◼   ► And these probably get really, really close, right?

00:03:58 ◼   ► But even just based on like how bright your room is

00:04:01 ◼   ► and where the windows are,

00:04:02 ◼   ► and if you mostly watch TV during the day or the night,

00:04:04 ◼   ► whether you wanna have one sort of in the middle setting

00:04:07 ◼   ► or have a daytime and a nighttime setting.

00:04:09 ◼   ► And by the way, look at this website is way better

00:04:11 ◼   ► than things used to be when I calibrated.

00:04:13 ◼   ► When I last calibrated my TV,

00:04:14 ◼   ► it was still more of the wild west.

00:04:15 ◼   ► This is so nice with like the pictures of the menus and easy to find your TV.

00:04:20 ◼   ► You don't have to go through forums and download these text files with the listings of all

00:04:24 ◼   ► the settings and stuff like that.

00:04:25 ◼   ► But looking at the settings for Marcos TV on this website, it shows the TVs still suck

00:04:30 ◼   ► where it's like, well, if you put this setting on, these settings go from a menu to a slider

00:04:35 ◼   ► and you can't use this setting with that thing.

00:04:38 ◼   ► And again, the words don't make any sense in the menus.

00:04:41 ◼   ► And I don't understand why they have like these smart TVs have little computers in there,

00:04:46 ◼   ► right?

00:04:47 ◼   ► They're running entire operating systems.

00:04:48 ◼   ► And yet the settings are all like, well, only the setting called PC can have these settings.

00:04:52 ◼   ► And when you put on game mode, only these things are available.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And like, I mean, sometimes it makes sense where they're turning things off, but this

00:04:58 ◼   ► should all be downloadable, standardized, like even just not across all manufacturers,

00:05:05 ◼   ► obviously, but just like there shouldn't be no dumb limitations that don't like only the

00:05:09 ◼   ► the PC input can support a particular color space or stuff like that.

00:05:12 ◼   ► Nothing should have weird code words.

00:05:14 ◼   ► Everything should be in like normal tech terms, not branding terms.

00:05:19 ◼   ► It shouldn't be like warm two, warm three, size one.

00:05:23 ◼   ► Because it doesn't help anybody.

00:05:25 ◼   ► And the weird limitations of like, oh, only in the ISF expert mode can you change this

00:05:29 ◼   ► setting, but if you do the standard setting, these three things aren't available.

00:05:31 ◼   ► But in this one, like, you don't get to pick the gammas.

00:05:34 ◼   ► Like, just make them all the same.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And you only have like five different settings.

00:05:38 ◼   ► Like, "Oh, I've used up all my settings," and actually, sometimes you only get one setting

00:05:40 ◼   ► that lets you change everything, but that one setting doesn't let you enable game mode.

00:05:44 ◼   ► It's like, there should be an unlimited number of settings.

00:05:47 ◼   ► It's not like a game where you're trying to make it so they can only have two save slots

00:05:51 ◼   ► to make the game harder.

00:05:52 ◼   ► Like, how is it that we have these complete webOS operating system on there, and yet you

00:05:56 ◼   ► still only have, you know, five sets of settings, and they all, and they're all slightly different

00:06:00 ◼   ► from each other.

00:06:01 ◼   ► So...

00:06:02 ◼   ► Well, let me provide a counterpoint here.

00:06:03 ◼   ► Have you ever gone to a, one of these places, like, Chopped?

00:06:06 ◼   ► It's basically like a salad assembly thing.

00:06:09 ◼   ► It's like a subway for salads.

00:06:11 ◼   ► - I have not.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - I knew Casey would have.

00:06:13 ◼   ► I knew John would have.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Not surprisingly.

00:06:15 ◼   ► - I've never even heard of this thing.

00:06:17 ◼   ► - Okay, so basically, when I go to a place like this,

00:06:20 ◼   ► you can do the thing where you just create your own salad

00:06:25 ◼   ► from bare parts.

00:06:28 ◼   ► Or you can have one of the preset salads that's on the wall.

00:06:32 ◼   ► If the only option was here is an array

00:06:36 ◼   ► of 40 different ingredients and you tell me

00:06:39 ◼   ► what kind of salad you want and I make it for you,

00:06:41 ◼   ► if I went to that restaurant,

00:06:43 ◼   ► I would have no idea what to make.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I would make a crap salad.

00:06:46 ◼   ► It would just be terrible.

00:06:47 ◼   ► It would be bland or uncreative

00:06:49 ◼   ► or would have weird ratios or whatever else.

00:06:51 ◼   ► I always order off the presets.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And I might adjust things slightly within one of the presets.

00:06:57 ◼   ► I like some guidance because I am not a salad power user.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And so I don't really, like I need some starting points,

00:07:04 ◼   ► some presets.

00:07:05 ◼   ► - But that's not what I'm asking for at all though.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I'm not asking for there not to be presets.

00:07:09 ◼   ► I'm asking for there to be like,

00:07:10 ◼   ► say there's like a thousand things

00:07:11 ◼   ► you could change in the TV.

00:07:12 ◼   ► By all means, ship 17 presets.

00:07:14 ◼   ► In fact, I would like an app store for presets even,

00:07:16 ◼   ► like where these websites wouldn't have to exist

00:07:18 ◼   ► and you could just upload stuff.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But the whole point is, if you decide,

00:07:21 ◼   ► hey, I wanna make a new setting called, you know,

00:07:23 ◼   ► Marco's setting, there should be no limitations.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Like, oops, sorry, you only get five settings

00:07:28 ◼   ► and they're the presets.

00:07:29 ◼   ► And if you change one of them,

00:07:30 ◼   ► then you change one of the presets.

00:07:30 ◼   ► The only way to get it back is a factory default.

00:07:32 ◼   ► It should be like new thing.

00:07:33 ◼   ► And you could start like,

00:07:35 ◼   ► would you like this new setting

00:07:36 ◼   ► to start from one of the standard ones?

00:07:37 ◼   ► Sure, start from the whatever setting.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And then when you go in there,

00:07:40 ◼   ► all thousand switches should be available to you.

00:07:42 ◼   ► Preset to whatever they were

00:07:44 ◼   ► from the setting you inherited from.

00:07:45 ◼   ► There should be no limitations.

00:07:46 ◼   ► Like, oh, you have to name his input capital T and capital C.

00:07:49 ◼   ► And it's the only one that can show the entire,

00:07:51 ◼   ► you know, this is the old world.

00:07:53 ◼   ► Like the only one that doesn't do overscan.

00:07:55 ◼   ► You have to call the input PC

00:07:56 ◼   ► and you only get one of those, sorry.

00:07:58 ◼   ► and it has to be this particular input or whatever, right?

00:08:01 ◼   ► They should be uniform,

00:08:03 ◼   ► and you should be able to make as many new ones as you want,

00:08:06 ◼   ► and you shouldn't lose the presets.

00:08:08 ◼   ► And in fact, it's such an easy opportunity

00:08:10 ◼   ► to make presets something like downloadable,

00:08:13 ◼   ► syncable, shareable with friends.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Like they should cultivate these forums.

00:08:16 ◼   ► Say if someone wants to run some fancy calibration app

00:08:18 ◼   ► and make a branded setting and make it downloadable,

00:08:21 ◼   ► you should be able to go to that URL

00:08:22 ◼   ► and pull down the settings for whatever.

00:08:23 ◼   ► There should be no dumb arbitrary limitations

00:08:26 ◼   ► that don't make any sense.

00:08:27 ◼   ► That's what I'm saying.

00:08:28 ◼   ► Not that you shouldn't have presets.

00:08:30 ◼   ► - Well, but I respect the idea of what is exposed

00:08:34 ◼   ► most of the time to me, the user, is here's some presets,

00:08:38 ◼   ► and if you go into them, there are a few, not even a lot,

00:08:41 ◼   ► there are a few things you can tweak under each one.

00:08:44 ◼   ► And then only in the expert ones, buried like three levels

00:08:47 ◼   ► deep even within those, are all the different options

00:08:50 ◼   ► that you want.

00:08:51 ◼   ► But I actually don't want most of them,

00:08:53 ◼   ► because I know that most of those options,

00:08:55 ◼   ► I shouldn't touch those, 'cause A, I don't really care,

00:08:59 ◼   ► and B, anything I would adjust there,

00:09:01 ◼   ► I would probably be making things worse,

00:09:03 ◼   ► because I don't know what I'm doing.

00:09:04 ◼   ► - You can hide them under an advanced option,

00:09:05 ◼   ► just like they do in app preferences.

00:09:06 ◼   ► You don't expose all the preferences.

00:09:07 ◼   ► Like you have nitpicky settings.

00:09:09 ◼   ► Like they're not there, it's just that you don't see them

00:09:11 ◼   ► unless you really dig for them, right?

00:09:12 ◼   ► So you put the top, and really honestly,

00:09:14 ◼   ► the number of things you need to adjust on a television,

00:09:17 ◼   ► aside from turning off stuff,

00:09:19 ◼   ► which is kind of annoying

00:09:20 ◼   ► that you would have to dig through it, right?

00:09:21 ◼   ► I mean, just look at the settings we recommend.

00:09:24 ◼   ► It's like every single feature that television has off off off off off. No sharpness enhancement. No vibrancy. No edge, whatever

00:09:30 ◼   ► No motion anything just off off off everything, right? It's annoying that you have to do that. All right, but that aside

00:09:36 ◼   ► You really just need to change two or three settings brightness contrast

00:09:41 ◼   ► Different color balance things and that's it. It's not like there's a hundred things you can do for picture quality

00:09:45 ◼   ► Mostly you're just turning crap off

00:09:46 ◼   ► so yeah by all means have a have a hierarchy of settings have here are the three or four things you probably might want to

00:09:51 ◼   ► change and

00:09:53 ◼   ► Advanced picture advanced motion advanced whatever and you dig down and down if you want to make it a hierarchy of the menus

00:09:58 ◼   ► That's fine

00:09:58 ◼   ► But I don't like it when options aren't available to you or like well in this mode you get three settings

00:10:03 ◼   ► For this thing, but in this mode you get a slider that has you know 500 settings for it

00:10:08 ◼   ► Why we just decided that's what it is

00:10:10 ◼   ► You know we got a two other interesting pieces of feedback around this Malcolm Hall wrote in to tell us that

00:10:16 ◼   ► some people have been buying

00:10:18 ◼   ► Samsung has a product called smart signage, which is basically a TV sized monitor and that's it. So the idea is you take a

00:10:26 ◼   ► Monitor that's you know, 40 50 60 70 inches, but it doesn't have anything smart in it

00:10:32 ◼   ► Presumably it just has like HDMI or equivalent and nothing else. There's no speakers. There's no smartness

00:10:37 ◼   ► It's just a dumb display and if you're hooking this up like a sound bar or or a stereo system

00:10:44 ◼   ► I mean, I guess some of you could go crazy enough to do surround sound

00:10:47 ◼   ► But anyway, if you if you hook it up to some other external speaker system, then you don't have to fight all the silly

00:10:54 ◼   ► Smartness, which isn't exactly what you two were talking about because you two were just talking about calibrating the screen

00:10:58 ◼   ► but but that's kind of neat and

00:11:00 ◼   ► And additionally safe Khan wrote in to say that Samsung is also trying to do a frame TV

00:11:09 ◼   ► Which is designed to look like nothing at all or not a TV at all until you want it to be a TV

00:11:15 ◼   ► and then it will go from like a still picture to a regular traditional TV and

00:11:20 ◼   ► That probably isn't the best word picture that I've just painted, but we'll put links to both these in the show notes

00:11:26 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw that video but like it's so it's hard to tell from video

00:11:29 ◼   ► But like is it is it still like a light emitting display when it's in like the frame mode?

00:11:35 ◼   ► Yeah

00:11:35 ◼   ► That that's entirely like a marketing BS because there's no way you wouldn't know that's a TV like they always put it in lighting

00:11:42 ◼   ► It's like oh, it looks just like the painting

00:11:43 ◼   ► Because they put it in like a picture frame like oh, it's like a painting right, but you know

00:11:46 ◼   ► It's not especially if it's an LCD TV with terrible black levels like that. We know

00:11:50 ◼   ► Right sunlight shining on your wall on an actual painting of a sailboat next to like a sailboat picture on your television

00:11:58 ◼   ► It's I don't know who they think they're fooling with that

00:12:01 ◼   ► But I mean, I guess it looks nice if you have decor things

00:12:03 ◼   ► There's a lot of a lot of televisions that you buy look like, you know, whatever they look like technology products

00:12:09 ◼   ► They look like computer equipment or whatever

00:12:11 ◼   ► And if you don't want that look,

00:12:12 ◼   ► if you want it to look more like a piece of furniture

00:12:13 ◼   ► that some people do,

00:12:14 ◼   ► this is a good look for your television,

00:12:16 ◼   ► but don't fool yourself into thinking

00:12:17 ◼   ► that people are gonna believe it's a painting,

00:12:19 ◼   ► because they will not, because it does not look like a TV.

00:12:21 ◼   ► Maybe if it was color E ink, that would work,

00:12:22 ◼   ► but we don't have that tech.

00:12:24 ◼   ► - I feel like any technology that tries to hide a TV,

00:12:28 ◼   ► that's solving the wrong problem.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Like, remember when computers first came out,

00:12:33 ◼   ► when we were all children,

00:12:34 ◼   ► well, when Casey and I were children, and--

00:12:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:12:38 ◼   ► And a lot of times our parents would make the computer

00:12:42 ◼   ► live in some kind of giant cabinet

00:12:44 ◼   ► that would close with big wooden doors.

00:12:47 ◼   ► Sometimes they'd put TVs in there too,

00:12:48 ◼   ► but usually the computer was what was hidden

00:12:50 ◼   ► in this giant wooden cabinet by the wall.

00:12:54 ◼   ► And that was a certain generation,

00:12:56 ◼   ► like the default mode was to hide technology,

00:12:59 ◼   ► oftentimes like our parent generation.

00:13:02 ◼   ► And then now it's like, well no, you have to use that.

00:13:07 ◼   ► That's just normal to see in a house.

00:13:09 ◼   ► It would be weird if you saw a house

00:13:11 ◼   ► that didn't have a TV in it now.

00:13:13 ◼   ► And so I feel like trying to hide a TV,

00:13:16 ◼   ► you're just kind of fighting a losing battle.

00:13:18 ◼   ► You're gonna either have a really strange-looking picture

00:13:20 ◼   ► on the wall, or you're gonna have some kind of

00:13:22 ◼   ► crazy complex thing, like one of those

00:13:25 ◼   ► raising and lowering things where the TV slides up

00:13:27 ◼   ► out of a dresser, you know, see that?

00:13:29 ◼   ► That's just doomed to break and fail.

00:13:32 ◼   ► That's no good either.

00:13:35 ◼   ► have a TV that you don't mind the look of and if you don't want a TV in a room

00:13:39 ◼   ► don't put a TV in that room it like anything else besides just trying to own

00:13:43 ◼   ► it is is not gonna go well for you same deal with baldness by the way

00:13:50 ◼   ► People still hide TVs but lest you think that's an old thing people still totally do that and

00:13:53 ◼   ► the most recent this old house house I recall they had the television that they

00:13:56 ◼   ► were a putting over their fireplace which is way too high for TV and B

00:14:00 ◼   ► wanted to hide with the set of folding doors that like had a painting integrated

00:14:04 ◼   ► into them so when it was closed it just looked like a painting, like an actual painting or

00:14:07 ◼   ► whatever.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Eventually they just used wood panel doors because I guess someone talked them out of

00:14:10 ◼   ► the painting idea.

00:14:12 ◼   ► But yes, people still want to hide their televisions.

00:14:15 ◼   ► I guess people don't like it, like decor-wise it doesn't look nice to have a big black rectangle.

00:14:20 ◼   ► And I think even these picture frame ones, to have a big monitor turned on to a picture

00:14:24 ◼   ► of a sunset or something, we just don't have the tech.

00:14:27 ◼   ► It's just not going to look right.

00:14:28 ◼   ► People in the chat room are pointing me to color e-ink displays.

00:14:30 ◼   ► Yes, we have color e-ink, not televisions.

00:14:32 ◼   ► don't show motion. They did have that hybrid one. Remember that one that was like color

00:14:36 ◼   ► ink but also LCD for motion so it was like this weird, I don't know, obviously it didn't

00:14:41 ◼   ► catch on. Eventually we could have some kind of display technology that does reflective

00:14:46 ◼   ► sort of like in the off mode where you could put a picture on there that would look just

00:14:50 ◼   ► like a, you know, a picture on the wall or at least it would look like a poster at the

00:14:53 ◼   ► very least maybe or a very large photograph but that could also do the motion of television

00:14:58 ◼   ► but we don't have that yet. But people still want to have their TVs and I totally agree

00:15:01 ◼   ► you, Margaret, I think it's ridiculous to hide your television. Like, part of it is almost like,

00:15:06 ◼   ► you know, not just the decor of a big black rectangle, but also the idea that people don't

00:15:13 ◼   ► want to think of their lives as centering around television. Like, that's somehow a shameful thing,

00:15:19 ◼   ► because of all, like, the television shaming from, I think, both of our childhoods, of, like,

00:15:24 ◼   ► your TV rots your brain and don't watch TV, and people, you know, you don't want people to know

00:15:28 ◼   ► how much television you watch, but if you don't watch that much television, maybe you

00:15:32 ◼   ► don't have a 70-inch television.

00:15:33 ◼   ► I mean, it seems like the budget and wall space reflected by your television choices

00:15:39 ◼   ► are not in line with the image you want to project to the outside world.

00:15:41 ◼   ► They're like, "We don't even own a television.

00:15:43 ◼   ► We don't even watch television.

00:15:44 ◼   ► We just have the 70-inch rectangle here because we were forced to have it by the neighbors."

00:15:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:15:51 ◼   ► Anyway, I would never want my television to be in there.

00:15:53 ◼   ► And by the way, those little cabinets where you put your computers, one of the things

00:15:57 ◼   ► that I think helped kill those is the fact that our computers are so hot now that putting

00:16:01 ◼   ► them inside an enclosed cabinet would destroy everything.

00:16:04 ◼   ► No, they were hotter then, because back then they were CRTs.

00:16:06 ◼   ► Yeah, but the computers themselves were cooler. Some of them didn't even have fans over the

00:16:11 ◼   ► heat sinks for the CPUs back in the early days.

00:16:14 ◼   ► That's true.

00:16:15 ◼   ► Yeah, CRTs were hot too. But the entertainment center for television used to be like that

00:16:19 ◼   ► too. Remember the entertainment centers for your VCR and your game consoles? Those were

00:16:25 ◼   ► entirely enclosed too, maybe they had holes punched out in the back for the wires to go

00:16:28 ◼   ► through, and most things didn't get that hot, like you didn't have your Xbox 360 in there,

00:16:33 ◼   ► NES was not getting that hot compared to modern consoles, but those things were not a great

00:16:38 ◼   ► environment for electronics, and today it's mostly worse, because our DVRs, maybe not

00:16:44 ◼   ► our Blu-ray players, but certainly our game consoles are hotter, but the TVs, like Vargos,

00:16:48 ◼   ► are way cooler temperature-wise than a CRT or a Plasma or anything like that, so those

00:16:54 ◼   ► Those actually could go in cabinets.

00:16:56 ◼   ► It's just that now that they're the thickness of a piece of paper, cabinets don't make any

00:16:59 ◼   ► sense anymore.

00:17:00 ◼   ► - I always love too, like the entertainment centers that our parents would have, that

00:17:04 ◼   ► was mostly during the era of CRT TVs.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So they were giant.

00:17:10 ◼   ► They made the decision that this tremendous wooden monolith thing in the living room,

00:17:17 ◼   ► that was somehow better than just having a TV.

00:17:22 ◼   ► That was fooling nobody.

00:17:23 ◼   ► Yeah, and it was and they were huge like they were often way bigger than the television like they were big enough that you could

00:17:27 ◼   ► Like shelve rows and rows of VHS tapes and stuff and then the other great thing my parents have this too

00:17:32 ◼   ► They have one in their house right now

00:17:34 ◼   ► You you would buy one and they're expensive like especially the ones that filled an entire wall

00:17:38 ◼   ► That's a substantial piece of furniture

00:17:39 ◼   ► If you got a nice one

00:17:40 ◼   ► Not an inexpensive piece of furniture because it was literally massive right and if you got one you were deciding how big your television

00:17:48 ◼   ► Was going to be

00:17:50 ◼   ► Until you know unless you want to replace that huge expensive piece of furniture or you know unless it was built into your house

00:17:55 ◼   ► Right and so if you bought one before HDTV you had a 4x3 hole for television

00:18:00 ◼   ► And then you had to put a 16x9 TV in there

00:18:02 ◼   ► And so you got shrunk down and if you bought before television got really big and you could just barely fit like a 40 inch

00:18:08 ◼   ► HDTV in there now you can't get a good TV

00:18:11 ◼   ► Or you feel like you can get a big TV my parents have to buy based on which TV will fit inside their

00:18:16 ◼   ► slightly dated piece of furniture where they fit their television some so

00:18:20 ◼   ► Putting your electronics inside a box of any kind is just not a particularly future-proof idea and not good for cooling

00:18:28 ◼   ► It's so true. My brother-in-law has a house that was built probably in the late 90s. I think and he has

00:18:34 ◼   ► In his family room or living room or whatever he has like I guess he could call it a built-in

00:18:39 ◼   ► but basically in the wall is like sunk in and it's about the size of maybe a

00:18:44 ◼   ► 40 or 50 inch TV these days and I'm sure left to his own devices he would have like a

00:18:48 ◼   ► 9,000 inch monstrosity, but because it's in a built-in that's in his wall

00:18:53 ◼   ► There's not really a lot he can do like to make it bigger. He would have to cut into his wall

00:18:58 ◼   ► Also, John you are officially uninvited from ever coming to my house because I have a TV that is not calibrated is mounted above the fireplace

00:19:05 ◼   ► Probably I don't know two or three feet off the ceiling which is like a seven or eight foot ceiling

00:19:10 ◼   ► I guess eight foot ceiling I have

00:19:13 ◼   ► 0.1 sound I have a turntable like this is pretty much

00:19:17 ◼   ► Your hell is my family room and I like it quite a lot

00:19:21 ◼   ► But you're never coming over because I don't want it. I don't want to never hear the end of this

00:19:24 ◼   ► It's too high. I just don't understand people have a television. Is that high we have no option

00:19:28 ◼   ► So so our family room I wasn't trying to make this an actual conversation

00:19:31 ◼   ► But hey, here we are our family room and Marco can vouch for this

00:19:34 ◼   ► It's very very wide and very shallow if that makes sense

00:19:38 ◼   ► And so because of that there's no real convenient way

00:19:43 ◼   ► to have a TV in the room unless you put it in the corner and like twist the

00:19:47 ◼   ► furniture in the room to be in the corner, but it's a very shallow room.

00:19:51 ◼   ► So the best place for it in terms of room and furniture flow is above the fireplace

00:19:58 ◼   ► and that's where it is. But I understand and I recognize that for the optimum TV viewing

00:20:04 ◼   ► experience that is probably not the right place for it.

00:20:06 ◼   ► It's okay though.

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00:21:51 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:21:55 ◼   ► - Speaking of calibration,

00:21:56 ◼   ► which we were talking about about 45 minutes ago,

00:21:58 ◼   ► THX has a tune-up app, THX Tune-Up.

00:22:02 ◼   ► that is, I guess, pretty well regarded.

00:22:04 ◼   ► It's for Android and iOS.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Unfortunately, not for the Apple TV, however.

00:22:09 ◼   ► People were asking for calibration apps,

00:22:12 ◼   ► and I suggested this to Marco.

00:22:13 ◼   ► I assumed, like, oh, there must be a bunch

00:22:14 ◼   ► of good ones for Apple TV.

00:22:15 ◼   ► It turns out, no.

00:22:16 ◼   ► The Apple TV app store is not looking too good.

00:22:20 ◼   ► If there's a good one for Apple TV,

00:22:21 ◼   ► I couldn't find it, put it that way.

00:22:23 ◼   ► I think I downloaded or purchased every Apple TV app

00:22:28 ◼   ► that has anything to do with calibration,

00:22:29 ◼   ► and they are all pretty terrible.

00:22:32 ◼   ► THX TuneUp I used years ago and it's still out there.

00:22:37 ◼   ► It's not an Apple TV app, which bothers me in a couple of ways because it's like, well,

00:22:42 ◼   ► you know, what's the point?

00:22:44 ◼   ► Like, why do I have to also have a phone or an iPad and then somehow a way to project

00:22:50 ◼   ► that to the TV, either Chromecast or an Apple TV?

00:22:53 ◼   ► But if you have, the one combination I know works, you have an iOS device like an iPad

00:22:58 ◼   ► an iPhone and you also have an Apple TV, you run the THX tune up app on your iOS device

00:23:03 ◼   ► in your hand and then you AirPlay it to the TV and the reason I don't like that is because

00:23:07 ◼   ► as far as I know AirPlay is lossy compressed over the air.

00:23:11 ◼   ► Is that correct Marco you might know?

00:23:13 ◼   ► Video is lossy compressed, audio is lossless.

00:23:16 ◼   ► Alright so, but we care about video in this case and so like, well, you really want to

00:23:22 ◼   ► run a calibration app compressed across, I mean some parts of it work like the geometry

00:23:26 ◼   ► stuff and making sure you can see all the pixels and stuff like that.

00:23:31 ◼   ► But anyway, the app itself is actually decent.

00:23:33 ◼   ► It does the important things of saying, "Here's the screen.

00:23:36 ◼   ► Here's what it's supposed to look like in words, adjusted until you can see all six

00:23:41 ◼   ► boxes or until you can barely make out the number seven over here."

00:23:48 ◼   ► They tell you what you're looking for and then it's up to you to mess with your television

00:23:52 ◼   ► and do it.

00:23:53 ◼   ► It's a great way to test your calibration things because if you download those settings

00:23:56 ◼   ► from that website, who knows, maybe it's dead on for your TV, run through the calibration

00:24:00 ◼   ► screens and it'll be like, "You should see six boxes."

00:24:02 ◼   ► You'll be like, "Yep, I see six boxes.

00:24:03 ◼   ► Go to the next one.

00:24:04 ◼   ► You should see the number nine, family visible, and you shouldn't see ten.

00:24:06 ◼   ► Yep, I see it.

00:24:07 ◼   ► Go to that."

00:24:08 ◼   ► It'll take you 30 seconds, right?

00:24:09 ◼   ► But if you go through it and it's off, then you get into the hole.

00:24:13 ◼   ► It's time to actually calibrate your TV or make a daytime and a nighttime setting or

00:24:17 ◼   ► whatever.

00:24:18 ◼   ► So I was going to bring up in "Well, actually you" and say, "Well, actually, why don't you

00:24:22 ◼   ► use..."

00:24:23 ◼   ► Or I guess, let me do this right.

00:24:24 ◼   ► Now actually you should use the lightning digital AV adapter, but doesn't that use Airplay

00:24:28 ◼   ► behind the scenes anyway?

00:24:29 ◼   ► Yeah, doesn't that have like the little H.264 decoder/encoder thing there and a tiny iOS

00:24:34 ◼   ► device or something?

00:24:35 ◼   ► Yeah, Panic wrote the whole blog post about it.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:24:38 ◼   ► So obviously iOS is not the ideal thing.

00:24:40 ◼   ► And this is the next bit of follow-up here from John Duffin, and a lot of people are

00:24:45 ◼   ► giving us tips about this.

00:24:46 ◼   ► I forget who it was, maybe someone on Twitter was saying, I was saying Lucasfilm DVDs and

00:24:50 ◼   ► Blu-rays have calibration things on them.

00:24:52 ◼   ► if you go to their menus like deep in the extras section.

00:24:56 ◼   ► Someone was telling me that most Pixar Blu-rays and DVDs have calibration apps.

00:25:01 ◼   ► Again some were buried in their extras menu on them.

00:25:03 ◼   ► John Duffin wrote in to tell us that if you have a Sony Pictures Blu-ray and you type

00:25:08 ◼   ► Sony on the title screen like 7669 like telephone dialing Sony I suppose, it will open the calibration

00:25:17 ◼   ► screen which seems pretty sneaky because who the heck knows how to do that.

00:25:19 ◼   ► They should actually put it in the menu.

00:25:21 ◼   ► These are all ways to get a better source for calibration, especially from a blu-ray

00:25:27 ◼   ► player because that's directly connected to your television and is not lossy compressed

00:25:32 ◼   ► H.264 over the air through AirPlay.

00:25:35 ◼   ► The quality of these calibration apps varies, but at the very least you can do geometry

00:25:39 ◼   ► and grayscale levels and brightness and stuff like that and do a reasonable job with it.

00:25:45 ◼   ► So there's really no excuse for people not to have access to a calibration thing of some

00:25:51 ◼   ► kind. It's not you have to buy some expensive piece of hardware or software or do anything

00:25:58 ◼   ► fancier. Surely everyone who's listening to this who has a fancy television that's worth

00:26:03 ◼   ► calibrating has a DVD or a Blu-ray or access to the iOS app store to get a, I think THX

00:26:10 ◼   ► is free but if not, it's the price of a cup of coffee. Just download it and give it a

00:26:15 ◼   ► go.

00:26:16 ◼   ► argument. The RTINGS ratings are pretty good and nothing can make me want to boot up the

00:26:22 ◼   ► PS4 and play a Blu-ray disc somehow in that monstrosity and then get to the monstrosity

00:26:27 ◼   ► that is Blu-ray discs themselves and then navigate that and do all this when the RTINGS

00:26:33 ◼   ► things were good enough.

00:26:34 ◼   ► You've got an Apple TV. You see it check stuff. It's fun. Calibrating your TV can be fun.

00:26:38 ◼   ► Or you can just not care. That is an officially ATP blessed option.

00:26:42 ◼   ► Casey, we just want to make sure that you're...

00:26:44 ◼   ► Didn't we go through this for you with the size?

00:26:45 ◼   ► That's all I care about in your TV,

00:26:47 ◼   ► is that it's not an overscan mode.

00:26:48 ◼   ► - Oh, it is. It still is.

00:26:50 ◼   ► No, it still is.

00:26:51 ◼   ► - Wait, what? Really?

00:26:52 ◼   ► - I don't want it to be.

00:26:53 ◼   ► I've tried everything I knew how to do to fix it.

00:26:56 ◼   ► I'm not proud of this.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I mean, I sound proud. I'm not.

00:26:59 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:27:00 ◼   ► - Forget about the car buying.

00:27:01 ◼   ► Get rid of that TV.

00:27:03 ◼   ► - But the mount that we have in our wall,

00:27:06 ◼   ► I think only supports up to like 14 TVs.

00:27:08 ◼   ► - You're so obsessed with these, you know,

00:27:09 ◼   ► pristine 1080 versions of a show,

00:27:11 ◼   ► and then it's stretched to non-native res,

00:27:13 ◼   ► and you're flipping all the edges

00:27:14 ◼   ► when you watch it on your television.

00:27:16 ◼   ► - Absolutely accurate, absolutely accurate.

00:27:18 ◼   ► I'm not proud of this.

00:27:18 ◼   ► I know I sound all smug and proud.

00:27:19 ◼   ► I'm not.

00:27:20 ◼   ► It's just, I have spent what I consider to be

00:27:23 ◼   ► an inordinate amount of time trying to fix this,

00:27:25 ◼   ► which is to say like five or 10 minutes,

00:27:27 ◼   ► and I couldn't figure it out,

00:27:29 ◼   ► and I just don't care enough.

00:27:30 ◼   ► I just don't.

00:27:31 ◼   ► I want it to be fixed.

00:27:32 ◼   ► It's not that I don't want it to be fixed.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I just don't care enough.

00:27:34 ◼   ► So I would invite you down, Jon, to fix it,

00:27:38 ◼   ► but A, you would never travel that far unless under duress,

00:27:40 ◼   ► and B, you would hate everything you saw

00:27:44 ◼   ► and potentially firebomb my house.

00:27:45 ◼   ► - If only Marco had purchased his television

00:27:48 ◼   ► two years earlier, because right about now

00:27:50 ◼   ► he would be buying another television

00:27:51 ◼   ► and you can take his old one. - That's true.

00:27:52 ◼   ► That's very true. - But I don't think

00:27:53 ◼   ► he's gonna need to replace this one anytime soon.

00:27:55 ◼   ► Hey, maybe you can get his old plasma.

00:27:57 ◼   ► Did you offload that yet?

00:27:58 ◼   ► - No, it's sitting behind my chair

00:27:59 ◼   ► in my living room, you want it?

00:28:00 ◼   ► - I know, it probably weighs a ton, yeah.

00:28:02 ◼   ► - It's true. - Well, yeah, I mean,

00:28:03 ◼   ► yeah, Casey, if you wanna come pick it up, you can have it.

00:28:06 ◼   ► - Oh, well, we'll talk about that later.

00:28:08 ◼   ► All right, tell me about your small speaker amp, Marco.

00:28:12 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, a million people ask,

00:28:14 ◼   ► I mentioned very quickly in passing last episode

00:28:16 ◼   ► that my preferred setup was just this tiny little

00:28:18 ◼   ► Class D amp that was like the size of a few packs of cards

00:28:22 ◼   ► driving just two speakers without a subwoofer,

00:28:23 ◼   ► without surround, anything like that.

00:28:25 ◼   ► And a million people have asked me since then

00:28:27 ◼   ► which amp it is.

00:28:29 ◼   ► And the reason I didn't say is because

00:28:31 ◼   ► it is the NuForce Dia, or Dia, I don't know, D-I-A.

00:28:34 ◼   ► And it was discontinued like three years ago.

00:28:37 ◼   ► and the entire company of NuForce was bought

00:28:40 ◼   ► by this other company that apparently all the fans

00:28:43 ◼   ► of NuForce hate and they say they've ruined

00:28:45 ◼   ► all their products since then.

00:28:46 ◼   ► So I didn't feel comfortable recommending it

00:28:48 ◼   ► because not only can you not get it anymore,

00:28:51 ◼   ► but the things that you can get now

00:28:52 ◼   ► have pretty crappy reviews from people

00:28:54 ◼   ► who used to like the old stuff.

00:28:56 ◼   ► So there's this giant class of small class D amplifiers

00:29:01 ◼   ► and when I get into the details of what class A

00:29:05 ◼   ► and Class A, B, and all these different amplifier topologies

00:29:09 ◼   ► are, Class D basically allows you to make an amp very, very

00:29:13 ◼   ► small and low heat and low power.

00:29:15 ◼   ► And audio files don't like it as much as the other kinds,

00:29:18 ◼   ► but for the purposes of like, you know, speakers on a TV,

00:29:20 ◼   ► it's totally fine.

00:29:21 ◼   ► And so Class D amps are great.

00:29:24 ◼   ► There's lots of them.

00:29:25 ◼   ► If you search Amazon for a Class D amp,

00:29:27 ◼   ► there's a ton that are roughly between $1 and $400

00:29:33 ◼   ► that are approximately 25 to 50 watts per channel,

00:29:38 ◼   ► and many of them support remote controls.

00:29:40 ◼   ► And so for my little NuForce one,

00:29:41 ◼   ► it has this little generic remote,

00:29:43 ◼   ► and I was very easily able to have the Apple TV

00:29:46 ◼   ► learn that up and down volume control, and that's it.

00:29:49 ◼   ► So that's what I'm using now.

00:29:50 ◼   ► If I had to buy new today,

00:29:52 ◼   ► I would probably want a little bit more power

00:29:55 ◼   ► for driving floor standers,

00:29:57 ◼   ► but if you're just driving bookshelves,

00:29:59 ◼   ► then those little 20-watt ones are fine.

00:30:01 ◼   ► On Amazon, again, there's a lot,

00:30:03 ◼   ► So just look for class D amps with remotes,

00:30:05 ◼   ► and there's a lot out there.

00:30:07 ◼   ► - All right, now I didn't get a chance to read this,

00:30:09 ◼   ► but Jonathan Dietz Jr. writes in about Type-C personality.

00:30:13 ◼   ► So can one of you take me through this, if you don't mind?

00:30:15 ◼   ► - Is it like a regular personality

00:30:16 ◼   ► that you can insert in either direction?

00:30:18 ◼   ► - It's a pun, it's a post, it's a title pun.

00:30:21 ◼   ► So he's been emailing back and forth with me

00:30:24 ◼   ► about USB Type-C stuff since the show that we talked about,

00:30:27 ◼   ► and he had, remember we had the big long email that we read?

00:30:29 ◼   ► He wrote an even longer email after,

00:30:31 ◼   ► and I'm like, you should make this a blog post,

00:30:32 ◼   ► because there's no way we can even summarize a feedback email that's complicated.

00:30:38 ◼   ► And you should just really make it a blog post.

00:30:39 ◼   ► Like, don't just email your insights and ideas to a single or a couple of people.

00:30:47 ◼   ► Put it up on the web for everybody to see, because then we can just link to it in the

00:30:50 ◼   ► show notes, which we will do, and then anyone who's interested can read it.

00:30:53 ◼   ► So if you want to hear even more about the nitty-gritty details of USB Type-C and all

00:31:00 ◼   ► different alternate modes and what you would take to get hubs of different kinds of stuff.

00:31:04 ◼   ► Take a look at this very long detailed post. I think the most salient point and a couple

00:31:09 ◼   ► other people have brought this up as well is the idea that it's still early enough in the USB 3.1

00:31:15 ◼   ► spec and the type-c spec and all that other stuff that there aren't a lot of chipsets that support

00:31:22 ◼   ► all the different protocols and are certified by all the standards bodies and so on and so forth,

00:31:26 ◼   ► and that most companies that make hubs just buy like chips from somebody else or like a reference

00:31:32 ◼   ► design from somebody else that has already done all the work to make sure, you know, the thing

00:31:38 ◼   ► actually works and is certified according to all the standards bodies or whatever, and they just

00:31:42 ◼   ► package it in a box and slap on a crappy power supply that's going to break in six months or

00:31:46 ◼   ► whatever. But that's what they do. They don't make the chips. They want the chips to already be made.

00:31:51 ◼   ► And a bunch of companies are going to be making these types of chips for the new USB specs,

00:31:58 ◼   ► and they're just coming online now. So it could be that you wait another year,

00:32:00 ◼   ► there could be many more options for USB Type-C hubs to do fan-out on them and more complicated

00:32:08 ◼   ► Thunderbolt hubs and stuff like that. So we'll see. It could also end up being like FireWire,

00:32:13 ◼   ► where you end up even many, many years into it, then only a few companies make a set of chips and

00:32:17 ◼   ► and everything still costs a million dollars.

00:32:20 ◼   ► And so we'll see.

00:32:20 ◼   ► But anyway, I recommend the post.

00:32:23 ◼   ► He took the time to write a blog post.

00:32:26 ◼   ► And so now the entire world can share in his knowledge.

00:32:30 ◼   ► Excellent.

00:32:31 ◼   ► Brian Rossi writes in to say, are the rumored OLED iPhones

00:32:35 ◼   ► going to have issues with image retention?

00:32:36 ◼   ► If so, what measures should we take to prevent it?

00:32:40 ◼   ► The question is, are they going to have more issues with image

00:32:43 ◼   ► retention than LCDs?

00:32:46 ◼   ► Do you know that your current iOS device, if it has image retention?

00:32:49 ◼   ► Because I can tell you that many iOS devices over many, many years have had

00:32:52 ◼   ► image retention issues.

00:32:53 ◼   ► In fact, maybe yours does now.

00:32:55 ◼   ► And me telling you this is going to make you look at it and realize, Oh God, I

00:32:58 ◼   ► have image retention on my iPad.

00:32:59 ◼   ► You probably do.

00:33:00 ◼   ► Um, people don't like to think about it.

00:33:02 ◼   ► Uh, but it is there.

00:33:04 ◼   ► If you look for it, it can get really bad on some devices after some time and

00:33:09 ◼   ► other devices hardly show it at all.

00:33:11 ◼   ► I suppose if you wanted like ignorance is bliss, so you probably shouldn't do this

00:33:14 ◼   ► kind of like in the old days when you'd look for dead pixels. But Marco has a handy web

00:33:19 ◼   ► page that will put a checkerboard pattern on your screen, and you'll leave it there

00:33:24 ◼   ► for a while. And then you go anywhere else, and if you can still see the checkerboard,

00:33:30 ◼   ► guess what? You've got image retention to some degree.

00:33:32 ◼   ► No, you don't have to anywhere else. It'll switch over to gray for you.

00:33:35 ◼   ► That's right. You click and it switches to gray after you stare at it for a little bit.

00:33:38 ◼   ► But the whole point is to convince yourself that Marco's not just trolling you. You just

00:33:41 ◼   ► launch another app or go to springboard or whatever and you'll still see it there.

00:33:46 ◼   ► I've never owned an OLED, the only OLED I have is my Apple watch right like that's the

00:33:50 ◼   ► only thing I have that's an OLED.

00:33:52 ◼   ► I have heard that OLED have image retention issues and I've heard it talked about because

00:33:57 ◼   ► it's like the successor to plasma like you know because LCD was never really the successor

00:34:00 ◼   ► to plasma because the image quality was worse and now here's OLED with image quality that's

00:34:03 ◼   ► actually better and the old slam against plasma in addition to all the heat and expense and

00:34:09 ◼   ► power use and everything was that it had image retention.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And of course LCD has image retention as well, but the whole idea is, "Oh yeah, but plasma

00:34:16 ◼   ► has bad image retention."

00:34:17 ◼   ► So OLED I've heard talked about as if it's almost as bad as plasma, and so thinking that

00:34:23 ◼   ► it's worse than LCD in terms of image retention.

00:34:25 ◼   ► But having it never own one, I have no idea.

00:34:27 ◼   ► I guess Marco will tell us if the menus are burned into his OLED TV.

00:34:32 ◼   ► So I would suspect that yes, OLED iPhones are going to have image retention issues the

00:34:36 ◼   ► same exact way as the LCD iPhones at the very least. If OLED had less image retention issues

00:34:42 ◼   ► than LCD, it seems like something that you'd be hearing about instead, but I hear the opposite

00:34:48 ◼   ► that OLED watch out image retention. So no matter how well whoever manufactures these

00:34:53 ◼   ► screens does, surely it will have the same image retention on average as all the other

00:34:59 ◼   ► iPhones. Now I don't know from year to year, device to device, manufacturer to manufacturer,

00:35:05 ◼   ► the image retention has varied on iOS devices, I try not to look for it.

00:35:10 ◼   ► I see it occasionally still, mostly on my iPad.

00:35:12 ◼   ► I don't know if that's because I use my iPad more or because the screen is bigger and it's

00:35:17 ◼   ► easier to pick up on these things.

00:35:19 ◼   ► But I think most people don't know that LCDs have image retention on their iOS devices

00:35:24 ◼   ► and so therefore probably won't notice it on their OLEDs.

00:35:27 ◼   ► Oh, and what measure should we take to prevent it?

00:35:31 ◼   ► Don't use your device, you won't notice any image retention.

00:35:33 ◼   ► Wow.

00:35:34 ◼   ► I mean like what can you do like it's not you know

00:35:37 ◼   ► What can you do to prevent like if you put an image on your screen and you leave it there for a real long time?

00:35:41 ◼   ► But like that's often what we do with our phones is leave an image there for a long time whether you're

00:35:46 ◼   ► Reading a big page in an e-book and it takes you a certain amount of time to read a page or you're looking at a video

00:35:52 ◼   ► And like my children you refuse to put the video in full screen the surrounding frame of the YouTube

00:35:57 ◼   ► That's not video is static the whole time you're watching a 20-minute video

00:36:02 ◼   ► Know like with my television I could tell you as a longtime plasma TV owner

00:36:07 ◼   ► I don't play video games with a static HUD if I can help it on my big television

00:36:11 ◼   ► I don't leave the television pause like I don't hit the pause button on a TV or whatever and then leave the room for five

00:36:17 ◼   ► minutes

00:36:17 ◼   ► If I'm going to leave like Apple TV has a screensaver that will turn on which is actually a useful thing for me because it's actually

00:36:23 ◼   ► saving my screen

00:36:25 ◼   ► But if I'm gonna leave the room for more than you know

00:36:28 ◼   ► Two minutes I turn off the television. You know, I have to turn everything else off

00:36:32 ◼   ► Just turn the power off on the television then turn it back on when you come in

00:36:34 ◼   ► But that doesn't apply to iOS devices because it's not like you're leaving it paused

00:36:39 ◼   ► You're leaving the room and the screen will turn off in a minute anyway to save your battery

00:36:43 ◼   ► So I don't think there's anything anybody can do about it

00:36:45 ◼   ► We just have to cross our fingers and hope that the first batch of these things don't end up having a weird

00:36:50 ◼   ► discoloration or image retention issues and hope that you get the one from the good screen manufacturer if there is such a thing this

00:36:56 ◼   ► Time around and I'll just deal with it

00:36:58 ◼   ► Okay, and finally, tell me about Apple's silence on net neutrality.

00:37:05 ◼   ► The post on OSnews.com asking where is Apple on this whole net neutrality thing.

00:37:11 ◼   ► We talked about it, I think, last show.

00:37:14 ◼   ► And unlike lots of other issues, Apple is not a particularly loud cheerleader in favor

00:37:20 ◼   ► of net neutrality, to the point where the question was, "So where does Apple stand on

00:37:25 ◼   ► this?"

00:37:26 ◼   ► heard them say anything of substance about net neutrality at all. Again, unlike

00:37:32 ◼   ► many other issues. Then this post goes on to speculate why that might be. That

00:37:37 ◼   ► Apple, as it incumbent with the potential, you know, lots of money and lots of

00:37:43 ◼   ► digital goods that they want to send over the wires, that the lack of neutrality

00:37:45 ◼   ► would favor them because they do have the money to pay anybody and they can

00:37:48 ◼   ► get an edge on their competitors and blah blah blah, all sorts of sort of conspiracy

00:37:50 ◼   ► theories or whatever. But as the biggest tech company in the world, I feel like

00:37:55 ◼   ► they should be much more vocal than they are. I shouldn't be here thinking, "Where

00:38:00 ◼   ► does Apple stand in neutrality?" I should already know because they should already have

00:38:04 ◼   ► blacked out their web pages and done all the other things or whatever. Now, who knows?

00:38:08 ◼   ► Maybe they did that and I'm just missing it. I don't know. Do you guys recall anything

00:38:14 ◼   ► from Apple about neutrality ever?

00:38:15 ◼   ► No.

00:38:16 ◼   ► No.

00:38:17 ◼   ► Yeah. I don't know. That's disappointing.

00:38:19 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I don't fault them for not making their pages black and stuff on certain

00:38:24 ◼   ► days. Because Apple does not respond well to social pressure to make them change their

00:38:29 ◼   ► stuff for the sake of someone else's terms. Apple's not going to play a ball with that.

00:38:35 ◼   ► But it's not someone else doing it. They changed the whole page when George Harrison died.

00:38:40 ◼   ► It should be intrinsic, not extrinsic. It should be them deciding that net neutrality

00:38:44 ◼   ► is important, therefore they are going to do this. Not that they feel peer pressure

00:38:49 ◼   ► to put George Harrison on. No, it's just something they decided to do as a company. And I hope

00:38:52 ◼   ► that that still is within the company, that these important causes and important days

00:38:57 ◼   ► make the token effort, express the values of your company.

00:39:01 ◼   ► And Tim Cook's Apple has been doing that again.

00:39:03 ◼   ► We've talked about this more than Steve Jobs's Apple, like expressing the values of the company

00:39:08 ◼   ► externally in a more bold way that seems to be more about Tim Cook's values.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Maybe Tim Cook doesn't value net neutrality.

00:39:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:39:15 ◼   ► If you've never heard him talk about it, it's hard to say.

00:39:17 ◼   ► There's a quote from him in this article that just is a bunch of nothings.

00:39:20 ◼   ► It doesn't tell you anything.

00:39:21 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Aftershokz Bone Conduction Headphones.

00:39:26 ◼   ► Go to ATP.aftershokz.com to learn more.

00:39:30 ◼   ► Aftershokz headphones work by bone conduction.

00:39:33 ◼   ► So small transducers rest in front of your ears, not inside or around your ears like

00:39:37 ◼   ► most headphones.

00:39:38 ◼   ► And they send mini vibrations through your cheekbones directly to your inner ear bypassing

00:39:44 ◼   ► your ears and eardrums completely.

00:39:45 ◼   ► So unlike every other kind of headphone, bone conduction leaves your ears completely open

00:39:50 ◼   ► with nothing in them.

00:39:52 ◼   ► So this brings some major benefits in practice.

00:39:54 ◼   ► So first of all, a lot of people, like me,

00:39:56 ◼   ► can't wear earbuds or in-ear monitors

00:39:58 ◼   ► because they actually hurt.

00:39:59 ◼   ► They physically hurt our ears over time.

00:40:02 ◼   ► Aftershocks headphones don't have this problem

00:40:04 ◼   ► because nothing is in your ear.

00:40:06 ◼   ► They're also awesome for exercise and hot weather.

00:40:08 ◼   ► They stay in place very easily with movement,

00:40:11 ◼   ► unlike earbuds for me.

00:40:12 ◼   ► And because they don't cover your ear up,

00:40:14 ◼   ► I actually find them far less sweaty than regular headphones.

00:40:18 ◼   ► And if I do sweat or if it starts raining,

00:40:20 ◼   ► I don't need to care because they are IP55 certified

00:40:23 ◼   ► for water resistance.

00:40:24 ◼   ► And the biggest difference for me with Aftershocks

00:40:26 ◼   ► is that, and this is the big factor

00:40:27 ◼   ► that should determine whether they are right for you at all,

00:40:30 ◼   ► is that because nothing is blocking your ears,

00:40:32 ◼   ► you hear all of the sound of the world around you.

00:40:36 ◼   ► So they're not great in very loud surroundings,

00:40:38 ◼   ► but they are awesome if you wanna listen to a podcast

00:40:40 ◼   ► or take a phone call while you're doing something

00:40:42 ◼   ► like walking or running or cycling

00:40:45 ◼   ► where you really need to hear the world around you

00:40:47 ◼   ► for your own safety or convenience.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And they also work great if you need to listen

00:40:51 ◼   ► for something outside, at home, or at work,

00:40:53 ◼   ► while you wanna listen to a podcast,

00:40:55 ◼   ► maybe while you're taking a phone call.

00:40:57 ◼   ► Maybe your kids are asleep upstairs

00:40:58 ◼   ► and you wanna hear if they need anything.

00:41:00 ◼   ► Or maybe you're expecting a package

00:41:01 ◼   ► and you don't wanna miss a knock on the door.

00:41:03 ◼   ► Bone conduction headphones are incredibly useful tools

00:41:06 ◼   ► for, I would say, listening to podcasts

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00:41:52 ◼   ► Thanks to Aftershocks for sponsoring our show.

00:41:55 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:41:58 ◼   ► - So we are recording on Monday the 17th, which is unusual.

00:42:02 ◼   ► We usually record on Wednesdays,

00:42:04 ◼   ► and we'll be recording again, I think, on Thursday.

00:42:07 ◼   ► Yes, on Thursday the 20th.

00:42:08 ◼   ► And this is because of some vacation stuff.

00:42:11 ◼   ► And since we have all these vacations

00:42:13 ◼   ► that are kind of inconvenient for the purposes

00:42:16 ◼   ► recording this show, we thought we would do our possibly annual, don't really call it

00:42:23 ◼   ► a tradition but it's sort of becoming a tradition, Ask ATP and do a Q&A with listeners.

00:42:28 ◼   ► So rather than asking us, or asking you guys rather, to inundate us with email, we are

00:42:34 ◼   ► taking a page out of the Mike Hurley playbook and instead we would like you to use Twitter,

00:42:39 ◼   ► at all possible if you please and tweet with the #askATP, A-S-K-A-T-P, and if you tweet

00:42:49 ◼   ► into the ether with #askATP, then it will be added to a nice little document and we

00:42:55 ◼   ► will go through it and hopefully read and answer your question sometime.

00:42:59 ◼   ► Is it next episode that we're doing this?

00:43:01 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:43:02 ◼   ► So we had planned it for next episode.

00:43:04 ◼   ► However, I would like to say, with all, with the greatest apologies to the Upgrade Podcast

00:43:08 ◼   ► before totally ripping them off.

00:43:10 ◼   ► I would like to make this a regular segment.

00:43:12 ◼   ► I think we should have Ask ATP in every show.

00:43:15 ◼   ► People ask us questions all the time.

00:43:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, but isn't the joy not having to answer them?

00:43:19 ◼   ► I love when people ask us questions,

00:43:21 ◼   ► and I go, okay, archive that email.

00:43:23 ◼   ► Okay, I mean, not to be mean or anything,

00:43:25 ◼   ► but you're right, people do ask us questions all the time,

00:43:28 ◼   ► but you don't understand how often people ask us questions.

00:43:30 ◼   ► It would be a full-time job for multiple people

00:43:32 ◼   ► to try to answer all the questions that are asked of us.

00:43:34 ◼   ► It's just not possible.

00:43:35 ◼   ► - Well, we don't have to answer all of them, but--

00:43:37 ◼   ► - Right, right, right.

00:43:38 ◼   ► So don't think this is gonna suddenly make it

00:43:40 ◼   ► so that we're gonna answer all your questions.

00:43:41 ◼   ► But all that I mean will answer like,

00:43:43 ◼   ► will answer .001% instead of .000%.

00:43:47 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, like every week we could answer

00:43:50 ◼   ► one or two questions,

00:43:51 ◼   ► like depending on how long the answers are.

00:43:53 ◼   ► 'Cause I feel like that would help prevent us

00:43:55 ◼   ► from getting too much in our own selves

00:44:00 ◼   ► about our topic selection,

00:44:02 ◼   ► and would prevent us from getting too far

00:44:05 ◼   ► into just endless cycles of follow-up every episode.

00:44:08 ◼   ► Like, just have a segment that is just,

00:44:10 ◼   ► that is guaranteed to be something fresh,

00:44:12 ◼   ► even in a very slow news period like the summertime.

00:44:16 ◼   ► - By the way, we're not going to answer these shows

00:44:18 ◼   ► on the next episode.

00:44:19 ◼   ► We're actually gonna answer these questions on August 4th,

00:44:24 ◼   ► the recording on August 4th.

00:44:26 ◼   ► - Can we answer one next episode?

00:44:28 ◼   ► Maybe two? - Nope.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - I don't know.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - I'm just kidding, I don't care.

00:44:30 ◼   ► - If you want to, sure.

00:44:31 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:44:32 ◼   ► But anyway, the whole point is you've got,

00:44:34 ◼   ► It's like three weeks to send questions, so go nuts.

00:44:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, the truth of the matter is

00:44:41 ◼   ► whether Marco or John wins this civil war

00:44:45 ◼   ► as to whether or not this becomes a regular thing--

00:44:47 ◼   ► - No, I'm totally for it being a regular segment.

00:44:50 ◼   ► I'm just saying like, don't expect,

00:44:52 ◼   ► I'm saying to the listeners,

00:44:53 ◼   ► don't have unrealistic expectations

00:44:54 ◼   ► that your questions are gonna get answered

00:44:56 ◼   ► 'cause we get so many questions

00:44:57 ◼   ► that it's just not possible to answer them all,

00:44:58 ◼   ► or even any reasonable portion of it.

00:45:01 ◼   ► - That is true, but either way,

00:45:04 ◼   ► We will have a Google document, a Google sheet, I guess I should say, that will track all

00:45:08 ◼   ► of these for us.

00:45:10 ◼   ► So please go to Twitter, if at all possible, and use the hashtag #AskATP.

00:45:16 ◼   ► If you don't have access to Twitter, then now's a good time to sign up.

00:45:19 ◼   ► Follow Casey List, C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, and also tweet #AskATP.

00:45:24 ◼   ► But really, if you can't and won't suffer through Twitter, yes, you can email us, but

00:45:28 ◼   ► now you are dodging the official list, and it is extraordinarily unlikely, unless your

00:45:33 ◼   ► question is perfect in every way that we will answer your questions. The pressure's on.

00:45:38 ◼   ► That's cold, man.

00:45:39 ◼   ► I just, I don't want to get a bazillion emails. Please, no.

00:45:42 ◼   ► Well, and the great thing about, about your subject to Twitter is that it, it forces you

00:45:45 ◼   ► to be brief, you know, because we don't like, we already have a segment of the show where

00:45:49 ◼   ► we read multi-paragraph emails to you. We don't need to add more of that. So instead,

00:45:54 ◼   ► the, the, an ideal question should probably be about one sentence and Twitter is great

00:45:59 ◼   ► for that. So we look forward to your questions with all apologies to the upgrade podcast

00:46:04 ◼   ► for ripping off the segment from them.

00:46:06 ◼   ► You can use more than one tweet though because I feel like there are sometimes two or three

00:46:11 ◼   ► tweets.

00:46:12 ◼   ► No, we're going to get tweet storms now.

00:46:13 ◼   ► Stop, stop.

00:46:14 ◼   ► I mean, it doesn't need a tweet storm, but 140 is—that's the challenge. You're taking

00:46:17 ◼   ► away with the hashtag already. Sometimes you just need—last time we did Q&A, I thought

00:46:21 ◼   ► we had some really good questions that were like two sentences long that wouldn't fit

00:46:24 ◼   ► in a tweet, and I don't want to exclude those.

00:46:26 ◼   ► John, that's the challenge. That's the price you pay to getting your stuff mentioned on

00:46:31 ◼   ► air. So that's the challenge, listeners. 140 characters minus 7. So what is that, 133 characters?

00:46:38 ◼   ► You have to put a space before the hashtag or I won't read it.

00:46:41 ◼   ► That's true. 132 characters. Make it happen.

00:46:44 ◼   ► Formatting counts.

00:46:45 ◼   ► And make sure you get your casing right. Because let me tell you, you don't want John Siracusa

00:46:48 ◼   ► on your case about casing, especially if you're Casey. Anyway.

00:46:51 ◼   ► You use like the letter U instead of Y-O-U? Forget it. It's not right.

00:46:55 ◼   ► Okay, let's talk briefly about 1Password, because there seems to be a bit of a kerfuffle that's

00:47:02 ◼   ► happened over the last week or two, and I don't get it, and it kind of makes me angry.

00:47:06 ◼   ► So my understanding, having not read deeply into this, is that 1Password's Windows version,

00:47:16 ◼   ► the latest Windows version, no longer supports writing to local vaults.

00:47:22 ◼   ► And I should probably take a half step back, actually.

00:47:24 ◼   ► So 1Password is a password manager.

00:47:25 ◼   ► It's the one that I use.

00:47:26 ◼   ► It's probably the one that my two co-hosts use.

00:47:29 ◼   ► I don't want to say that for certainty.

00:47:31 ◼   ► Oh yeah, Jon, you're using Keychain like an animal,

00:47:33 ◼   ► aren't you?

00:47:34 ◼   ► - I declined to comment.

00:47:36 ◼   ► - Off-sect, or whatever. - Really?

00:47:38 ◼   ► - Whichever sec it is.

00:47:39 ◼   ► - Oh no. - Oh God.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Gary, the privacy clown is so proud of you right now.

00:47:42 ◼   ► - That's right, yeah.

00:47:43 ◼   ► - Anyway, all right, well, some of us on this show

00:47:46 ◼   ► who will remain nameless,

00:47:48 ◼   ► definitely not Schmarco or Schmasy,

00:47:51 ◼   ► definitely use 1Password.

00:47:52 ◼   ► And one of the things that 1Password has started offering,

00:47:56 ◼   ► which I think we've talked about in the past,

00:47:58 ◼   ► is family plans and business plans.

00:48:01 ◼   ► And so the idea here is that the way 1Password works

00:48:04 ◼   ► is that they call kind of a group of passwords

00:48:09 ◼   ► and other things as well, a vault.

00:48:11 ◼   ► That's, you could think of that kind of like a database.

00:48:13 ◼   ► And you can pay them money on a recurring basis

00:48:17 ◼   ► as a employer or as just a family member.

00:48:21 ◼   ► And you can have one or more of these vaults or databases

00:48:25 ◼   ► stored on one password servers.

00:48:27 ◼   ► And then you can have users that are added to your account.

00:48:30 ◼   ► And then you can share passwords.

00:48:31 ◼   ► So as an example, Shmacy and Shmaren might have a one

00:48:35 ◼   ► password for family account where, hypothetically, they/we

00:48:40 ◼   ► would have individual vaults for our own individual

00:48:43 ◼   ► passwords that we don't wish to share, and one family vault

00:48:45 ◼   ► for passwords that we do wish to share.

00:48:47 ◼   ► And in my opinion, it has worked extremely well.

00:48:51 ◼   ► I think the 1Password apps on all the platforms are very well designed.

00:48:54 ◼   ► I think they're super great.

00:48:56 ◼   ► The AgileBits folks seem to be really good.

00:48:58 ◼   ► I think they deserve recurring revenue from me, and that's why I am a paying subscriber

00:49:03 ◼   ► to 1Password for Families.

00:49:05 ◼   ► My employer pays for 1Password for Teams, basically on my recommendation.

00:49:09 ◼   ► I really like it.

00:49:11 ◼   ► I really think it's great.

00:49:12 ◼   ► And among other things, and I don't know the specifics about the mechanism here, but one

00:49:17 ◼   ► One of the things they've said is that in broad strokes they use a very similar encryption

00:49:21 ◼   ► scheme as iCloud does.

00:49:24 ◼   ► So even if 1Password as a company, or AgileBits as a company, wanted to get into your passwords

00:49:29 ◼   ► that are stored on their servers, there is nothing they can do to do that without your,

00:49:34 ◼   ► guess what, 1Password.

00:49:36 ◼   ► So they've come out with a new version for Windows.

00:49:38 ◼   ► They have stated publicly that this version will not let you write to vaults or databases

00:49:44 ◼   ► that are stored locally.

00:49:47 ◼   ► And you have to understand that 1Password kind of came up by being able to store its password

00:49:52 ◼   ► database, its vault, in Dropbox.

00:49:53 ◼   ► So you could have your password synced everywhere, even without their services.

00:49:57 ◼   ► So a bunch of angry nerds, some of whom are cheap and some of whom are not, are getting

00:50:02 ◼   ► very angry about the fact that you can't have local vaults on 1Password for Windows, and

00:50:07 ◼   ► thus it's clear, without a shadow of a doubt, that tomorrow or soon thereafter you won't

00:50:12 ◼   ► be able to save to local vaults on any of the other platforms.

00:50:16 ◼   ► Now my read on this is that yes, there will probably come a time that you will not be

00:50:22 ◼   ► able to use local Valtom on password, because if you're AgileBits, you probably want recurring

00:50:25 ◼   ► revenue to continue to make really world-class apps, and thus you're probably going to want

00:50:30 ◼   ► to compel your users to pay you on a regular basis.

00:50:33 ◼   ► And you know what?

00:50:34 ◼   ► I'm cool with that, because they do really great work, they take it very seriously, and

00:50:40 ◼   ► they deserve a little bit of my money every year as far as I'm concerned.

00:50:43 ◼   ► But oh man, the nerds are very upset.

00:50:46 ◼   ► So let me start with Marco as a hypothetical

00:50:51 ◼   ► one password user, Gary the privacy clown,

00:50:54 ◼   ► I would never disclose whether or not Marco is publicly.

00:50:57 ◼   ► Marco, what do you think?

00:50:58 ◼   ► - You know, a similar issue came up when TextExpander

00:51:01 ◼   ► went subscription, I believe about a year ago.

00:51:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:51:04 ◼   ► - And it was met with similar anger,

00:51:06 ◼   ► and we talked about it on the show too.

00:51:08 ◼   ► But I think it's increasingly clear that

00:51:11 ◼   ► are very few models for software to sustain itself economically because the reality is,

00:51:17 ◼   ► we've talked about this before so I'll be brief, software requires ongoing maintenance.

00:51:24 ◼   ► People have this idea that I'm just going to buy this app and I'll pay you upfront and

00:51:28 ◼   ► I don't want to pay a subscription, I want to just pay you once and then I own it. And

00:51:32 ◼   ► that's a wonderful idea and for a long time in computing that was somewhat reasonable.

00:51:37 ◼   ► But today, those same people who only want to pay once upfront and then quote "own it"

00:51:42 ◼   ► also expect the manufacturer of said software to constantly issue updates whenever the environment

00:51:49 ◼   ► changes.

00:51:50 ◼   ► So, a new OS version comes out, they expect a free upgrade.

00:51:54 ◼   ► A new, you know, new features come out, you know, they expect that on a regular basis.

00:51:58 ◼   ► Any kind of service-based component that has to change with the times, they expect all

00:52:02 ◼   ► that to be built in.

00:52:03 ◼   ► Ongoing bug fixes, of course.

00:52:05 ◼   ► people expect ongoing work for an upfront one-time price

00:52:10 ◼   ► indefinitely, and that's just not sustainable.

00:52:14 ◼   ► It's simple as that.

00:52:15 ◼   ► No matter what people say, they might say,

00:52:18 ◼   ► I just wanna buy it known at once.

00:52:19 ◼   ► A lot of people do say that, but what they want,

00:52:22 ◼   ► what they demand is ongoing maintenance of that product.

00:52:27 ◼   ► So the only way to make this work, really,

00:52:30 ◼   ► is either to just have so many paid installs and upgrades

00:52:35 ◼   ► that you can just last on that for a while

00:52:37 ◼   ► and just accept that you're gonna make 40 bucks

00:52:40 ◼   ► from some customers up front

00:52:42 ◼   ► and then they won't bother you again

00:52:43 ◼   ► and some customers will be using your product

00:52:45 ◼   ► for eight years and never give you another dime

00:52:47 ◼   ► and expect constant free updates

00:52:48 ◼   ► and you'll just have to kind of average it out

00:52:49 ◼   ► and hope the average works out.

00:52:51 ◼   ► And that works more often than not

00:52:54 ◼   ► in the growth phase of a product.

00:52:56 ◼   ► So in the beginning, for a new app

00:52:59 ◼   ► or just a very successful app,

00:53:02 ◼   ► that can work for a long time.

00:53:04 ◼   ► Like when I had Instapaper, that worked for a long time

00:53:06 ◼   ► because it was just growing like crazy

00:53:08 ◼   ► as the iOS platform was growing like crazy.

00:53:10 ◼   ► So the pay once and get free updates forever model

00:53:13 ◼   ► worked for a long time.

00:53:15 ◼   ► And 1Password probably has a similar curve here

00:53:17 ◼   ► where for a while 1Password has been growing, I think,

00:53:21 ◼   ► because I just keep seeing it everywhere.

00:53:23 ◼   ► So I assume it's been doing really well for a few years.

00:53:26 ◼   ► But these markets are saturating.

00:53:29 ◼   ► Mac sales are flat.

00:53:31 ◼   ► iOS sales are leveling off pretty significantly

00:53:34 ◼   ► over the last few years, these markets are saturating.

00:53:38 ◼   ► And so everyone who was depending on that constant growth

00:53:43 ◼   ► of the platform to just drive new licenses

00:53:45 ◼   ► for a pay once business model,

00:53:47 ◼   ► I think a lot of those companies are gonna now face

00:53:49 ◼   ► this problem of, hey, you know what,

00:53:51 ◼   ► we're seeing this curve flatten out now.

00:53:53 ◼   ► Our income might be dropping or leveling off,

00:53:57 ◼   ► and we are still having to support this software

00:53:59 ◼   ► with a staff and with costs and with ongoing maintenance.

00:54:04 ◼   ► there has to be some way to fund that.

00:54:06 ◼   ► And if you're not being able to fund it

00:54:07 ◼   ► through the new users coming in

00:54:10 ◼   ► that you didn't have before,

00:54:11 ◼   ► giving you these 30, 40 bucks at a time

00:54:13 ◼   ► for the one-time license,

00:54:15 ◼   ► then subscriptions really are the best way to do it.

00:54:19 ◼   ► Now, there is an alternative.

00:54:20 ◼   ► You can do paid upgrades,

00:54:22 ◼   ► which 1Password has done for a while.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And most of these companies that,

00:54:26 ◼   ► like on iOS it's less common,

00:54:28 ◼   ► but on the Mac, that's how things have worked for a while.

00:54:31 ◼   ► But paid upgrades have their own problems too.

00:54:34 ◼   ► For instance, you have this weird feature batching incentive

00:54:37 ◼   ► where you as the software developer are incentivized

00:54:40 ◼   ► not to really improve the existing version of the app

00:54:43 ◼   ► in meaningful ways if you can save those up

00:54:46 ◼   ► for the next paid upgrade.

00:54:48 ◼   ► Then you have to batch up your releases

00:54:51 ◼   ► and possibly not put out anything for two years

00:54:53 ◼   ► then all of a sudden you have this boom, big drop

00:54:55 ◼   ► where you drop a whole bunch of features.

00:54:57 ◼   ► Then you have other problems like feature bloat.

00:54:59 ◼   ► Then you look at what happened with Microsoft and Adobe apps

00:55:02 ◼   ► over the last 20 years.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Lots of companies have gone through this.

00:55:07 ◼   ► And what you end up coming, oh, and also,

00:55:09 ◼   ► users who hate subscriptions,

00:55:10 ◼   ► who say they never wanna pay that,

00:55:12 ◼   ► users have similar problems with upgrade pricing,

00:55:15 ◼   ► 'cause there's problems with that too.

00:55:16 ◼   ► Neither of these things is perfect for what users expect.

00:55:21 ◼   ► Like upgrade pricing has the problem of,

00:55:23 ◼   ► what if you buy it, and then the next version comes out

00:55:26 ◼   ► six months later?

00:55:27 ◼   ► should you get more of a discount

00:55:29 ◼   ► than someone who bought it five years ago?

00:55:32 ◼   ► 'Cause you just bought it.

00:55:34 ◼   ► You might be really mad if the upgrade comes out

00:55:36 ◼   ► soon after you bought it.

00:55:37 ◼   ► You might expect that your ancient version

00:55:40 ◼   ► running on OS X Tiger should still work today

00:55:43 ◼   ► on the newest version of OS X,

00:55:45 ◼   ► but they might say, sorry, you have to pay an upgrade

00:55:48 ◼   ► for the new one, sorry.

00:55:50 ◼   ► There's problems with that too.

00:55:53 ◼   ► What it really boils down to is

00:55:56 ◼   ► When you make people pay, they'll grumble about it.

00:55:59 ◼   ► No matter how you make people pay,

00:56:00 ◼   ► they're going to grumble about it.

00:56:02 ◼   ► And the one thing they'll grumble about the most

00:56:04 ◼   ► and get really mad about is when you change

00:56:06 ◼   ► the way you make them pay.

00:56:08 ◼   ► But once you can get past that problem of,

00:56:12 ◼   ► hey, people are all mad right now during this transition,

00:56:16 ◼   ► once you get past that and you're on the other side

00:56:18 ◼   ► of the transition, if you are moving to subscriptions,

00:56:21 ◼   ► yeah, people will be mad.

00:56:23 ◼   ► And some people will never buy it again.

00:56:26 ◼   ► They'll be so mad, they'll hold that grudge forever.

00:56:28 ◼   ► I mean, look, Adobe has this problem, right,

00:56:30 ◼   ► with Creative Cloud stuff.

00:56:33 ◼   ► But Adobe's doing great right now,

00:56:35 ◼   ► because they made this transition,

00:56:36 ◼   ► they're doing fantastically.

00:56:37 ◼   ► They are better off on the other side of it,

00:56:40 ◼   ► even though some people are still mad

00:56:42 ◼   ► and will be mad forever about subscriptions,

00:56:44 ◼   ► some people will never use it as a result,

00:56:47 ◼   ► but the people who are left,

00:56:50 ◼   ► they're making Adobe more money,

00:56:52 ◼   ► and Adobe is in a healthier place now.

00:56:54 ◼   ► Same thing with Microsoft, I think,

00:56:55 ◼   ► with Office and that kind of stuff.

00:56:58 ◼   ► And so, honestly, I haven't been paying attention

00:57:01 ◼   ► to this entire kerfuffle,

00:57:03 ◼   ► or to whatever happened with TextExpander.

00:57:06 ◼   ► I don't know if Smile ever released numbers

00:57:08 ◼   ► or gave any indication on whether they're doing better now

00:57:11 ◼   ► with the new subscription model as they were before.

00:57:14 ◼   ► But if 1Password or Smile,

00:57:18 ◼   ► if these companies can get to the other side

00:57:20 ◼   ► of this transition,

00:57:21 ◼   ► and even if they lose customers along the way,

00:57:25 ◼   ► they will probably be in a better place financially

00:57:29 ◼   ► and they'll be more stable than they were before

00:57:31 ◼   ► with the old pay, maybe every few years

00:57:35 ◼   ► for a paid upgrade model.

00:57:36 ◼   ► And so even if this loses them customers,

00:57:40 ◼   ► it still might be the best approach to take.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Now that being said, there are complicating factors

00:57:44 ◼   ► with this particular arrangement.

00:57:46 ◼   ► One password, because of the nature of it,

00:57:47 ◼   ► is dealing with this extremely sensitive data

00:57:51 ◼   ► that a lot of customers have either requirements

00:57:53 ◼   ► or requests that the vault that is being,

00:57:58 ◼   ► the database of your passwords not leave their network.

00:58:02 ◼   ► And they've had forever this local vaults feature

00:58:05 ◼   ► where you can literally not use a sync service at all.

00:58:09 ◼   ► You can have basically like your Mac sync its local vault

00:58:14 ◼   ► over the local wifi to your iOS devices.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Or you can just not use sync at all

00:58:19 ◼   ► and just not use it on iOS or whatever.

00:58:22 ◼   ► And a lot of companies, that's the method they have to use.

00:58:24 ◼   ► I've heard here and there that some groups within Apple

00:58:27 ◼   ► use 1Password, and they depend on that feature being there,

00:58:31 ◼   ► because Apple, I don't think, would permit its employees

00:58:34 ◼   ► to have passwords stored on some external service

00:58:37 ◼   ► or synced via Dropbox or anything like that.

00:58:40 ◼   ► So I do think 1Password moving to a subscription pricing

00:58:45 ◼   ► model is totally fine.

00:58:48 ◼   ► And yeah, people are gonna get mad,

00:58:51 ◼   ► but that's probably fine.

00:58:53 ◼   ► And by the way, they haven't said they're doing that.

00:58:56 ◼   ► All they've, they basically just like

00:58:58 ◼   ► laid some groundwork and some commentary

00:59:00 ◼   ► that suggests that they're considering that in the future.

00:59:03 ◼   ► But they're not, they haven't actually said that yet.

00:59:06 ◼   ► But anyway, I do think a move to subscription pricing

00:59:10 ◼   ► is probably fine and probably the right move

00:59:13 ◼   ► for a lot of software companies that require

00:59:16 ◼   ► ongoing work for their products to work.

00:59:17 ◼   ► And by the way, you might say,

00:59:19 ◼   ► person listening who hates subscriptions,

00:59:21 ◼   ► You might say, well, it's just a password manager,

00:59:22 ◼   ► why do I have to pay every month for this?

00:59:25 ◼   ► Well, what happens when the new version of Chrome comes out

00:59:28 ◼   ► and their extension breaks?

00:59:29 ◼   ► They have to fix their extension.

00:59:31 ◼   ► What happens when new, when like,

00:59:33 ◼   ► people find websites the extension doesn't work on

00:59:35 ◼   ► and they have to fix that?

00:59:36 ◼   ► New versions of iOS come out

00:59:37 ◼   ► and they have to update to 64-bit or whatever.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Like, there's constantly ongoing work here.

00:59:42 ◼   ► 1Password is a very complicated app

00:59:44 ◼   ► with lots of different components.

00:59:46 ◼   ► It runs on many different operating systems

00:59:48 ◼   ► and it runs in every web browser

00:59:50 ◼   ► and it runs in iOS extensions,

00:59:52 ◼   ► and it's on all these different platforms

00:59:54 ◼   ► and all these different parts of it

00:59:55 ◼   ► that are all interdependent and have to interact

00:59:59 ◼   ► with the web, which is a constantly changing environment.

01:00:03 ◼   ► So they have to put constant effort into that.

01:00:05 ◼   ► Whether you realize it or not, if they stopped,

01:00:08 ◼   ► or if your version stopped getting updates,

01:00:10 ◼   ► you'd be mad, because it wouldn't work as well.

01:00:13 ◼   ► So subscription pricing, I'm on board with that.

01:00:16 ◼   ► And by the way, I do pay for this subscription.

01:00:19 ◼   ► I started paying for it about six months ago.

01:00:22 ◼   ► When I started reducing my dependence on Dropbox,

01:00:25 ◼   ► I switched to their sync system,

01:00:26 ◼   ► and it's been totally fine.

01:00:28 ◼   ► However, the removal of local vaults,

01:00:31 ◼   ► if that is the plan, I think that's a mistake for this app,

01:00:35 ◼   ► because that will probably cost them a lot of customers

01:00:39 ◼   ► that can never come back, even if they change their mind

01:00:41 ◼   ► about how they wanna pay.

01:00:43 ◼   ► So I do think they should probably,

01:00:45 ◼   ► I mean, they know better than I do what their customers want,

01:00:48 ◼   ► but me sitting over here as an armchair observer,

01:00:51 ◼   ► I think removing local vaults is probably a bad idea.

01:00:54 ◼   ► But subscription pricing is fine.

01:00:56 ◼   ► - I think the reason they might be tempted

01:00:59 ◼   ► to entangle these two things,

01:01:01 ◼   ► the subscription pricing and the whole cloud sync

01:01:03 ◼   ► or whatever, is that companies still feel,

01:01:05 ◼   ► for a lot of the reasons that you just mentioned,

01:01:08 ◼   ► that they want to have a story

01:01:11 ◼   ► about why you're paying every month,

01:01:12 ◼   ► and any kind of cloud sync thing

01:01:14 ◼   ► where they store your data on their servers that they run,

01:01:18 ◼   ► like, "Oh, well, you're paying us every month because we're taking your data and we're storing

01:01:21 ◼   ► it in our servers and we have to pay money to run those servers." And it's something that you can

01:01:25 ◼   ► have a better chance of explaining to people, like, "Why am I paying for this every month?"

01:01:29 ◼   ► But in reality, the reason they need you to pay for every month is everything that Marco just said.

01:01:34 ◼   ► It has nothing to do with, "Oh, we have to run servers." Even if there's no servers involved

01:01:38 ◼   ► whatsoever and it's entirely local vaults and direct device-to-device sync and they didn't run

01:01:42 ◼   ► any servers, you should still pay them monthly in the same way that you would for Photoshop or

01:01:47 ◼   ► or whatever, because that's the business model that allows them to continue to support their

01:01:51 ◼   ► software. And it's kind of one of the goals I feel like of modern software applications is to become

01:01:58 ◼   ► valuable enough that people will pay you monthly. Obviously artists who make their living,

01:02:03 ◼   ► you know, in Photoshop or Illustrator or whatever, it's a no-brainer as a business expense

01:02:09 ◼   ► that they make more money, you know, if they're experts in Photoshop and they're like, "Well,

01:02:13 ◼   ► I'm going to learn an entirely new graphics program or find something else that I can do

01:02:16 ◼   ► to be working because I don't want no you'll totally pay the monthly fee because that's

01:02:20 ◼   ► how valuable Photoshop is for your work and for things like password managers or I don't

01:02:26 ◼   ► know maybe text editors in some cases or whatever some sort of integral tool that's like it's

01:02:32 ◼   ► not just a frivolous thing that you have on your Mac that you kind of like it's like no

01:02:36 ◼   ► I can't get my work done without this even something like slack where if your whole company

01:02:40 ◼   ► starts using slack and like your company runs on slack you realize is slack valuable enough

01:02:45 ◼   ► to our company for us to pay whatever Slack is charging for it.

01:02:49 ◼   ► And there's a limited number of those type of applications.

01:02:51 ◼   ► You can't look in your applications folder and say, "Oh, I'm going to pay a subscription

01:02:54 ◼   ► for every single one of those apps."

01:02:55 ◼   ► You won't.

01:02:56 ◼   ► They're not all that valuable to you.

01:02:57 ◼   ► So if you're making software, in these days, it should be your goal to be one of those

01:03:03 ◼   ► applications that's valuable enough for people to pay a subscription fee for it.

01:03:07 ◼   ► And a password manager, I think, is definitely in that category of things because we all

01:03:12 ◼   ► have lots of passwords and we want to store them securely and we want it to be convenient but also

01:03:17 ◼   ► not vulnerable and don't want to have to think about the security. We want an application that

01:03:24 ◼   ► has a long life, a company that has a reputation for security that's not owned by an advertising

01:03:30 ◼   ► company or something like that. And so I feel like 1Password will eventually do well if they can get

01:03:35 ◼   ► through this transition because people are motivated to pay them money on a recurring basis

01:03:41 ◼   ► just so they don't get bought out by some evil corporation or aren't tempted to sell their

01:03:45 ◼   ► personal information or do something dumb. And like a lot of the stuff with the, you know,

01:03:48 ◼   ► the cloud sync and, you know, I don't want to type my one password into a webpage because who knows

01:03:52 ◼   ► what could be happening. Like in the end, you have to trust the company that makes one password

01:03:58 ◼   ► because they control the field that you're typing your one password into. And you don't know what

01:04:02 ◼   ► they're doing with that. They could be grabbing all your keystrokes and sending it off to someone

01:04:05 ◼   ► for, you know, but they're not like, that's why you buy from them because, you know, this is a

01:04:08 ◼   ► a company that's good, I trust their reputation, right? So I think their customer base would be,

01:04:14 ◼   ► enough of their customer base would be willing to pay them a recurring subscription even if there

01:04:20 ◼   ► was no server involved. Like you don't need to convince them, "Oh, we'll run servers for you."

01:04:25 ◼   ► And do it like local vault only. In fact, maybe they're willing to pay more for the one with

01:04:30 ◼   ► fewer features. So this is an interesting case because, like Marco was saying, they're not just

01:04:35 ◼   ► any random application there, a specific kind of application with specific privacy concerns

01:04:40 ◼   ► that makes it so that cloud sync or cloud storage is almost a demerit against them in

01:04:46 ◼   ► terms of privacy. And it should not be tied in any way to their recurring revenue.

01:04:52 ◼   ► So yeah, it's easy for us to say, for us computer nerds who love to pay for software,

01:04:59 ◼   ► or who are software developers ourselves who make our livings from other people paying for

01:05:03 ◼   ► our software. But when I talk to non-computer enthusiasts, people who just, you know, they're

01:05:11 ◼   ► not into computers at all, they have a phone obviously, they have, maybe they have a computer

01:05:16 ◼   ► or whatever, the idea of paying anything at all ever for software still seems alien to

01:05:21 ◼   ► a lot of people. So again, the strategy is to both become valuable enough that people

01:05:29 ◼   ► are willing to pay and probably to make an application that appeals to people who are

01:05:36 ◼   ► acquainted with the concept of paying money for software.

01:05:39 ◼   ► So don't make an application that appeals greatly to people who have never paid for

01:05:44 ◼   ► software and think it's ridiculous to do so.

01:05:47 ◼   ► Because even if you make an application that they all love, they'll never pay you for it.

01:05:50 ◼   ► It's bad.

01:05:51 ◼   ► Make an application for people who are willing to pay for software and make your application

01:05:57 ◼   ► valuable enough for them that they're willing to pay on a recurring basis.

01:06:00 ◼   ► And it's just a question of finding the right price.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Obviously, they're not going to pay $700 a month for a password manager unless maybe

01:06:08 ◼   ► it's some super-duper secure one that has some sort of legal indemnity that goes with

01:06:12 ◼   ► their self-heal, though it probably costs them more than $700 a month, right?

01:06:16 ◼   ► But they'd pay one cent a month, so find the right number between one cent and $700, and

01:06:22 ◼   ► you'll be happy.

01:06:23 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:06:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, that's part of how Adobe has managed

01:06:26 ◼   ► their pricing, where Creative Suite is something like

01:06:30 ◼   ► 50 bucks a month if you buy the whole thing,

01:06:31 ◼   ► and it goes down from there if you only need parts of it.

01:06:34 ◼   ► But if you were buying it before,

01:06:37 ◼   ► they have priced it such that it actually is fairly

01:06:42 ◼   ► comparable to if you were actually just buying it

01:06:46 ◼   ► every version or two before.

01:06:49 ◼   ► Now, a lot of the customers weren't buying it at all,

01:06:51 ◼   ► a lot of them were pirating it,

01:06:52 ◼   ► and a lot of them were also not buying every version.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Like, they would skip versions,

01:06:58 ◼   ► or they would buy one and use it for six years

01:07:00 ◼   ► because they just didn't care about the stuff

01:07:01 ◼   ► in the new versions,

01:07:03 ◼   ► or they didn't want to spend the money,

01:07:04 ◼   ► or they couldn't spend the money, or whatever else.

01:07:06 ◼   ► But for the most part, they set the pricing

01:07:08 ◼   ► of the subscription such that if you were buying it already,

01:07:12 ◼   ► it actually is a sensible price.

01:07:14 ◼   ► And that's why I subscribed to Adobe Creative Suite,

01:07:16 ◼   ► because I was buying them already,

01:07:18 ◼   ► And so it ends up like, yeah, this is actually totally fine.

01:07:22 ◼   ► And yeah, for them, I think they can set a price that makes sense here.

01:07:26 ◼   ► I honestly don't even remember what I'm paying them because...

01:07:30 ◼   ► It's too much for me to pay for, I can tell you that, because I have CS6, the last non-cloud

01:07:35 ◼   ► version.

01:07:36 ◼   ► No, no, no, I'm talking about, sorry, 1Password is what I'm talking about.

01:07:38 ◼   ► Oh, right.

01:07:39 ◼   ► Oh, it's $5 a month for the family plan, $3 a month for the individuals.

01:07:44 ◼   ► That's okay.

01:07:45 ◼   ► That's totally fine.

01:07:46 ◼   ► I think there might be a discount if you go a year at a time.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I'm not positive about that, so I might be wrong.

01:07:51 ◼   ► But I mean, $5 a month, a soda at a regular restaurant,

01:07:56 ◼   ► like when John is feeling really, really saucy

01:07:59 ◼   ► and wants to get himself a Sprite at a restaurant,

01:08:01 ◼   ► that's probably $2.50.

01:08:03 ◼   ► And he's literally pissing that away a few hours later.

01:08:06 ◼   ► This is $5.

01:08:07 ◼   ► I mean, this is not a lot of money.

01:08:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that isn't how people think about it.

01:08:12 ◼   ► - I know, I know.

01:08:12 ◼   ► - You know as well as I do, you're an iOS developer now.

01:08:15 ◼   ► you know, like this is not how people think about this

01:08:17 ◼   ► at all, but yeah, I mean, yeah, one password being

01:08:20 ◼   ► three or five dollars a month, that's totally fine

01:08:24 ◼   ► because it is a power user productivity security tool

01:08:29 ◼   ► that is often used by businesses.

01:08:32 ◼   ► Like all of those words are things that can make

01:08:36 ◼   ► paying for software valuable and reasonable.

01:08:40 ◼   ► And yeah, this is no brainer to me.

01:08:43 ◼   ► to ensure that this app is financially healthy

01:08:47 ◼   ► and here for the long haul,

01:08:49 ◼   ► $3 a month is totally fine.

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01:11:15 ◼   ► - Hi Marco, tell me about what's going on

01:11:20 ◼   ► with Overcast these days,

01:11:21 ◼   ► 'cause I feel like I haven't heard much,

01:11:23 ◼   ► which means either you're not working

01:11:24 ◼   ► or more likely you're working a lot

01:11:26 ◼   ► and you're just keeping it all quiet.

01:11:28 ◼   ► - I'm mostly not working, 'cause you know, summer.

01:11:31 ◼   ► However, when I am working, I have a dilemma,

01:11:35 ◼   ► and I talked about it on Under the Radar recently,

01:11:38 ◼   ► but in case, the listener base of that

01:11:40 ◼   ► is not the listener base of this,

01:11:41 ◼   ► so there are people who haven't heard it,

01:11:43 ◼   ► and I haven't heard what you, who probably won't care,

01:11:46 ◼   ► and especially what Jon, who probably has an opinion

01:11:48 ◼   ► about this, think about this.

01:11:50 ◼   ► So my main dilemma with updating Overcast to iOS 11

01:11:55 ◼   ► is iOS 11 adds drag and drop stuff

01:11:59 ◼   ► to the standard system widgets.

01:12:01 ◼   ► - Oh, I have opinions about this.

01:12:02 ◼   ► I definitely have opinions.

01:12:04 ◼   ► - You can now full-time reorder table views

01:12:08 ◼   ► and collection views in iOS if the app supports it,

01:12:11 ◼   ► and supporting it is very easy.

01:12:13 ◼   ► I already built my own full-time reordering system

01:12:16 ◼   ► to reorder items in Playlist and Overcast,

01:12:20 ◼   ► so you can drag around episodes

01:12:21 ◼   ► and you can reorder them right there

01:12:22 ◼   ► with the little drag handles on the right side.

01:12:24 ◼   ► Doing this in my way was an incredibly complex pile of hacks

01:12:29 ◼   ► that works most of the time, but has a few weird

01:12:32 ◼   ► little random bugs that I just cannot solve

01:12:36 ◼   ► and will probably never solve.

01:12:38 ◼   ► But for the most part it does work, and it's fast,

01:12:40 ◼   ► and it's very clear and discoverable right there.

01:12:43 ◼   ► I also have a problem with Overcast 3.0.

01:12:47 ◼   ► The method that I chose of tapping the episode cells

01:12:52 ◼   ► to expand a little menu, like Tweetbot style,

01:12:55 ◼   ► and that the play button is one of the items in that menu,

01:12:58 ◼   ► as opposed to the previous behavior where just tapping on an episode row would just

01:13:02 ◼   ► immediately start playing it no matter what. A lot of people still do not like this. And

01:13:07 ◼   ► the user base seems, this seems like a very polarizing decision among the user base and

01:13:13 ◼   ► it has not stopped being polarizing. People have not gotten used to it. That, you know,

01:13:16 ◼   ► I am used to it and I like it, but a lot of people still don't and they seem to not be

01:13:20 ◼   ► changing. So it doesn't seem like this is the kind of thing where, oh, you'll just get

01:13:25 ◼   ► used to having to tap twice to play,

01:13:27 ◼   ► no like a lot of people really hate

01:13:28 ◼   ► having to tap twice to play.

01:13:30 ◼   ► So my idea is what if I replace the drag handle

01:13:34 ◼   ► on the right side of the cells with a one tap play button,

01:13:37 ◼   ► move the info button that's there in selection mode

01:13:40 ◼   ► down to where the play button was in the middle

01:13:42 ◼   ► of that little bar menu that comes up,

01:13:44 ◼   ► and then use the system's full time drag rotor and control

01:13:49 ◼   ► replacing my giant pile of hacks.

01:13:51 ◼   ► I think this is a good idea.

01:13:53 ◼   ► There's lots of advantages of doing this.

01:13:56 ◼   ► However, one of the big disadvantages of doing this,

01:14:00 ◼   ► first of all, it's another change.

01:14:01 ◼   ► People hate change.

01:14:02 ◼   ► So I'm now moving the play button again,

01:14:05 ◼   ► which will, even though people have been

01:14:08 ◼   ► screaming their heads off for one tap play to come back,

01:14:12 ◼   ► if I give that to them, a different group of people

01:14:14 ◼   ► will scream their heads off that I moved it.

01:14:16 ◼   ► And then the other problem is that the system

01:14:19 ◼   ► drag and drop implementation has a small delay

01:14:23 ◼   ► where you have to hold the cell down

01:14:25 ◼   ► before it pops up to be draggable.

01:14:27 ◼   ► And mine, before my hack job, was instant.

01:14:31 ◼   ► You can just immediately drag that handle

01:14:32 ◼   ► and you wouldn't have to wait.

01:14:34 ◼   ► So the system version of it is

01:14:36 ◼   ► a little bit slower to activate,

01:14:38 ◼   ► however the system version will also allow me

01:14:41 ◼   ► to put the play button on the side of the cell.

01:14:44 ◼   ► So I would bring back one tap playing,

01:14:46 ◼   ► at least in like the right quarter of the cell.

01:14:48 ◼   ► It wouldn't be the full width of the cell,

01:14:50 ◼   ► 'cause I'd still have the little pop-up menu

01:14:51 ◼   ► if you tap the rest of the cell.

01:14:53 ◼   ► But if you tap the little right side thing,

01:14:55 ◼   ► that could be a play button,

01:14:56 ◼   ► and I could make the touch target pretty tall

01:14:59 ◼   ► and wide on that so people could get

01:15:01 ◼   ► their one touch playback.

01:15:03 ◼   ► Also I could get rid of my giant hack,

01:15:05 ◼   ► which barely works now and is likely to break

01:15:08 ◼   ► in future OS updates.

01:15:10 ◼   ► So I think I should do this.

01:15:14 ◼   ► But how big of a problem is it

01:15:16 ◼   ► that the new standard reordering method

01:15:19 ◼   ► has a small delay before you activate it?

01:15:21 ◼   ► This is not a question, and I really, really love Under the Radar, but there are episodes

01:15:28 ◼   ► where I switch from loving and listening to Under the Radar to hate listening to Under

01:15:33 ◼   ► the Radar, because I so deeply disagree with one or both of you.

01:15:37 ◼   ► And I started this particular episode, which I believe is number 87, I'll have a link in

01:15:42 ◼   ► the show notes, it's never longer than 30 minutes, so let's get started.

01:15:45 ◼   ► Anyway, this episode I started hate listening and then ended up just listening and enjoying,

01:15:51 ◼   ► Because my opinion, spoiler alert, is that you talked yourself into implementing this

01:15:57 ◼   ► using the new APIs by the end of the episode.

01:15:59 ◼   ► Now it sounds like maybe that isn't quite so cut and dry, since you're talking about

01:16:02 ◼   ► it with us now.

01:16:03 ◼   ► But to me, this is not even a question.

01:16:06 ◼   ► This is absolutely use new API, end of meeting.

01:16:10 ◼   ► And there's a couple reasons for that.

01:16:11 ◼   ► Number one, it may feel weird now that you have a little bit of a delay and whatnot,

01:16:17 ◼   ► but I don't think it will feel weird soon.

01:16:20 ◼   ► Now in your defense, drag and drop I suspect is going to be a lot less prevalent on the

01:16:24 ◼   ► iPhone than it is on the iPad.

01:16:26 ◼   ► So those of us who perhaps only use overcast on the iPhone and maybe don't use iPads that

01:16:31 ◼   ► often, it may feel a little weird at first.

01:16:33 ◼   ► And like you said, moving the UI around is always going to tick somebody off.

01:16:37 ◼   ► But...

01:16:38 ◼   ► More than somebody.

01:16:39 ◼   ► Well, you know what I mean.

01:16:40 ◼   ► You have many somebodies off.

01:16:43 ◼   ► But as someone who really, really, really dislikes third-party libraries, because you

01:16:48 ◼   ► feel like you have no control over them, and oftentimes they are a pile of hacks, and really

01:16:52 ◼   ► it's kind of a dangerous position to put yourself in to have a third-party library, especially

01:16:58 ◼   ► one that's like really, really, I can't think of a way to phrase it, but like it's wide-reaching

01:17:04 ◼   ► and it's taking a system thing and it's totally rejiggering it and you are like wed to this

01:17:10 ◼   ► library.

01:17:11 ◼   ► You have created your own first-party equivalent of that, and you must burn it with fire as

01:17:15 ◼   ► soon as you possibly can.

01:17:17 ◼   ► This is not a question, you must get rid of it, you must use new APIs, end a meeting.

01:17:22 ◼   ► Jon, what do you think?

01:17:23 ◼   ► I have a question.

01:17:25 ◼   ► If you use the native dragging thing, can you do a thing where you like, whatever, tap

01:17:31 ◼   ► and hold so it like it pops up and now you've grabbed it.

01:17:34 ◼   ► Can you, with another finger, flick scroll the stuff behind it?

01:17:39 ◼   ► Yes, and it's amazing.

01:17:40 ◼   ► So it solves your problem of like this of the bump bump bump bump bump scrolling speed.

01:17:44 ◼   ► Yes, you have to do it then.

01:17:46 ◼   ► you can pick up multiple items. Well yeah I don't think I'd be doing that too much

01:17:50 ◼   ► but maybe on the iPad but yeah you totally need to do the native thing. I

01:17:53 ◼   ► think the native native dragging yes all right the second question is okay so I

01:17:59 ◼   ► do native drag now I have these options I don't need the drag handles anymore or

01:18:02 ◼   ► whatever what do I do with that space and for that I think I'll have to use it

01:18:06 ◼   ► to see what it's like I understood what you're getting at what the pay button

01:18:09 ◼   ► play button will be over here the info button will be in a little you know

01:18:11 ◼   ► expandy bar thing maybe that'll be fine maybe it'll be weird I don't know I

01:18:15 ◼   ► I think it's worth separating, like determining exactly what to do with this newfound space

01:18:20 ◼   ► and freedom, and gesture freedom.

01:18:22 ◼   ► Because I'm not entirely sure, but Native Dragon Drop seems like a no-brainer.

01:18:26 ◼   ► Like Casey said, you get rid of your hacks.

01:18:29 ◼   ► It's a better interface, and as Dragon Drop in theory becomes more prevalent, it's what

01:18:33 ◼   ► people will expect, so just do it.

01:18:35 ◼   ► And I also forgot to mention that I am one of those people who is still grumbly about

01:18:38 ◼   ► the fact that there's a two-tap play scheme.

01:18:43 ◼   ► And so bringing back the play button on the right will make me very happy.

01:18:46 ◼   ► And we all know that Overcast is written specifically to make Casey happy.

01:18:50 ◼   ► So yeah, I think you're going to have to do it, Marco.

01:18:53 ◼   ► If I do that, can you stop asking me for a Mac app?

01:18:57 ◼   ► When's the last time I've asked you for one?

01:18:58 ◼   ► Because I'll tell you.

01:18:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I'll tell you when the last time I asked for a Mac app was probably about a day or

01:19:04 ◼   ► two before I got my AirPods.

01:19:06 ◼   ► Because now, the reason I wanted a Mac app so badly was because the Bluetooth headphones

01:19:11 ◼   ► that I was using previously were such a pain to switch between my Mac and my iPhone.

01:19:16 ◼   ► But now with the AirPods, it takes two seconds to switch between them.

01:19:19 ◼   ► So when I'm listening to Overcast, I'm connected to my phone, and when I'm listening to anything

01:19:23 ◼   ► else in the world, I'm connected to my Mac.

01:19:26 ◼   ► And it's no worries.

01:19:27 ◼   ► Speaking of apps that Marco doesn't want to develop and/or maintain, I have a feature

01:19:31 ◼   ► request/bug report for the Mac version, or not the Mac version, the web version of Overcast.

01:19:36 ◼   ► Oh, God.

01:19:37 ◼   ► Alright, so frequently people will tweet overcast links with offsets, which is cool.

01:19:42 ◼   ► It's like, "That's exactly what you want.

01:19:43 ◼   ► I'm going to tap this link and it's going to take me right to the second in the podcast

01:19:47 ◼   ► that they're trying to refer me to."

01:19:49 ◼   ► As long as it isn't a major NPR podcast.

01:19:51 ◼   ► Yes.

01:19:52 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:53 ◼   ► But if it is a podcast that I subscribe to and am in the middle of listening to, is it

01:19:59 ◼   ► just my imagination or does that throw off my offset?

01:20:02 ◼   ► Because I'm logged into my overcast account and it sent me to an offset and I play it.

01:20:07 ◼   ► - It sinks that offset and now I've lost where I was

01:20:10 ◼   ► because I was earlier or later in the thing.

01:20:12 ◼   ► Is that a thing or is it just my imagination?

01:20:13 ◼   ► - That is indeed what happens.

01:20:15 ◼   ► And I've thought about this before,

01:20:16 ◼   ► like whether that should be what happens or not.

01:20:18 ◼   ► And it's hard 'cause it's like,

01:20:21 ◼   ► when you put it this way, yeah, that shouldn't happen,

01:20:23 ◼   ► you're right.

01:20:25 ◼   ► But what would the alternative be?

01:20:27 ◼   ► And once you start thinking, okay, well what should happen?

01:20:29 ◼   ► Like if you're logged in and if you have this podcast

01:20:33 ◼   ► in your list so it's not unplayed,

01:20:36 ◼   ► or rather it's not played, like it's an active item

01:20:38 ◼   ► in your list and you have a position in it,

01:20:41 ◼   ► then you get sent a timestamp link

01:20:43 ◼   ► for a different time in that, then should it play that,

01:20:47 ◼   ► but then not ever update your synced position?

01:20:50 ◼   ► What if you play past your synced position?

01:20:52 ◼   ► Should it update it then?

01:20:54 ◼   ► Like it's fairly complex as to what it should do,

01:20:57 ◼   ► and so I haven't really addressed it yet.

01:20:59 ◼   ► What do you think it should do?

01:21:00 ◼   ► - I think it should, I'm pretty sure it should

01:21:02 ◼   ► just not update the synced position.

01:21:05 ◼   ► only if you go to a link with an offset in it.

01:21:08 ◼   ► But I can't think of a scenario where I would,

01:21:10 ◼   ► I would, the play head would be at some non-zero position

01:21:13 ◼   ► in the podcast, right?

01:21:15 ◼   ► I think the tricky bit that you were talking about

01:21:18 ◼   ► is like, I haven't started playing it.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Then I'm not quite sure what to do.

01:21:21 ◼   ► But if I have started to play it,

01:21:23 ◼   ► I think it's pretty clear that you,

01:21:27 ◼   ► and I go to an offset,

01:21:29 ◼   ► I want to play from that offset in the web player

01:21:32 ◼   ► and have it not affect my other offset.

01:21:33 ◼   ► 'Cause I can't think of a scenario

01:21:34 ◼   ► I would want it to affect it. Why would I formulate an overcast web link for myself

01:21:39 ◼   ► to jump to an offset with the intention of me going for it? Now, if the thing is at the

01:21:44 ◼   ► zero position, I haven't started playing it and I go to an offset to listen to a thing,

01:21:48 ◼   ► I personally would also like it not to update the thing because very often what happens

01:21:53 ◼   ► is it does update it and then I will go to that episode and it will start playing it

01:21:57 ◼   ► and be like, "I guess I listened to the beginning of this one, huh? Because here I am in the

01:22:01 ◼   ► middle of it, like I'll forget. I don't realize, no, I just missed the entire beginning because

01:22:05 ◼   ► of that offset link that I followed like, you know, three days ago or whatever. So my

01:22:10 ◼   ► solution obviously is just if you just run your web browser in incognito mode or whatever,

01:22:16 ◼   ► when you tap that link, you know, you won't be logged into Overcast or log yourself out

01:22:19 ◼   ► of Overcast or whatever.

01:22:20 ◼   ► That's a terrible solution.

01:22:21 ◼   ► I know. But anyway, if you're just looking for the quick fix, quick fix is offset in

01:22:27 ◼   ► in URL equals never sync playhead position,

01:22:30 ◼   ► and then just make a different set of people angry.

01:22:32 ◼   ► - I think that's right, actually.

01:22:34 ◼   ► That actually sounds like a really good solution.

01:22:36 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause if there's an offset in the URL,

01:22:38 ◼   ► 'cause the regular web interface

01:22:39 ◼   ► does not put those offsets there,

01:22:42 ◼   ► so if there's an offset in the URL,

01:22:43 ◼   ► just don't touch the synced position at all.

01:22:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think that makes sense to me, too.

01:22:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, so it's kinda like the one tap to play.

01:22:52 ◼   ► Like, for a few years, make one set of people angry,

01:22:55 ◼   ► and then you switch it back,

01:22:56 ◼   ► and then for a few more years make Go set people angry

01:22:58 ◼   ► and then we'll see how it goes.

01:22:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, tell me about it.

01:23:00 ◼   ► - I think, you know, so really,

01:23:01 ◼   ► how many people use the web interface, right?

01:23:03 ◼   ► - Honestly, very few.

01:23:04 ◼   ► It's a very, like--

01:23:05 ◼   ► - Just get all of us in the chat room and we'll vote.

01:23:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:23:09 ◼   ► All seven.

01:23:09 ◼   ► - That actually might be possible.

01:23:10 ◼   ► Like, it's very few people.

01:23:13 ◼   ► And every time somebody tweets a web link with Overcast,

01:23:18 ◼   ► there are responses that are like,

01:23:20 ◼   ► oh my God, I didn't know it had a web interface.

01:23:22 ◼   ► No one knows it's there.

01:23:24 ◼   ► And even the people who do know it's there,

01:23:25 ◼   ► no one uses it. And yes, part of that is because it's pretty bare bones and I could make it

01:23:30 ◼   ► a lot better or more full featured if I put a lot of work into it. But it's kind of a

01:23:36 ◼   ► chicken and egg thing. Like part of the reason I don't put a lot of work into it is that

01:23:38 ◼   ► nobody uses it.

01:23:39 ◼   ► I'm also glad you don't chuck me into the app because that's the other option that most

01:23:43 ◼   ► people would do.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Oh yeah, that's true.

01:23:45 ◼   ► It's like, oh, there's a web interface but it immediately knows whether you have the

01:23:48 ◼   ► app installed and chucks you to the app because I certainly don't want you to go into the

01:23:51 ◼   ► app. Again, if you're playing, if it's an episode that I haven't started playing yet

01:23:55 ◼   ► or one that I'm in the middle of,

01:23:56 ◼   ► I don't want it to go into my app

01:23:57 ◼   ► and change my play head position, like inside the app.

01:24:00 ◼   ► If you did send to the app, I would say,

01:24:02 ◼   ► go to the app, but open a totally alternate one time,

01:24:07 ◼   ► like you just saw it in offset link player interface

01:24:09 ◼   ► that is disconnected entirely

01:24:11 ◼   ► with the actual listening interface.

01:24:12 ◼   ► Because when you follow a link with an offset,

01:24:15 ◼   ► someone's trying to show you something in an episode,

01:24:18 ◼   ► it is clearly not the same as I am listening to the episode.

01:24:20 ◼   ► They're trying to say,

01:24:21 ◼   ► here's this little snippet right here,

01:24:23 ◼   ► listen to this bit, right?

01:24:25 ◼   ► And that I feel like is a different activity than I'm going to now listen to the next episode of my favorite podcast.

01:24:30 ◼   ► All right, thanks to our three sponsors this week, Hover, Fracture, and Aftershocks. We will see you next week.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

01:24:43 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:24:49 ◼   ► John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:24:54 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:25:00 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:25:05 ◼   ► If you're into Twitter, you can follow them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:25:14 ◼   ► So that's Kasey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:25:18 ◼   ► A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

01:25:26 ◼   ► It's accidental (It's accidental)

01:25:29 ◼   ► They didn't mean to accidental (Accidental)

01:25:34 ◼   ► ♫ Tech podcast so long

01:25:37 ◼   ► - So I felt left out with you having your impulse purchases.

01:25:44 ◼   ► - Uh oh.

01:25:45 ◼   ► - And so Aaron and I bought a car tonight.

01:25:47 ◼   ► - Whoa!

01:25:48 ◼   ► Wait, like during the show?

01:25:51 ◼   ► - Well, not a car, right?

01:25:53 ◼   ► - Well, okay, so I would call it a truck,

01:25:56 ◼   ► but Aaron would correct me and say,

01:25:58 ◼   ► "No, it's not a truck, it's an SUV."

01:26:00 ◼   ► - It's like a big sneaker, really.

01:26:01 ◼   ► Sorry, tennis shoes.

01:26:02 ◼   ► - Oh, that's so cruel.

01:26:05 ◼   ► - I don't really get why people--

01:26:06 ◼   ► - Boot, army boot?

01:26:07 ◼   ► - Like people who call SUVs trucks,

01:26:08 ◼   ► I feel like that's unearned.

01:26:11 ◼   ► Like, a truck is a truck.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Like, if it doesn't have like a bed on it,

01:26:15 ◼   ► like that's not a truck.

01:26:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's exactly what Aaron would say.

01:26:18 ◼   ► Probably verbatim.

01:26:20 ◼   ► To me, anything that is taller than a car is a truck.

01:26:22 ◼   ► I'm not saying I'm right.

01:26:23 ◼   ► Like, I'm not trying to convince the listeners

01:26:26 ◼   ► or anyone, or you two.

01:26:27 ◼   ► I'm not saying I'm right.

01:26:28 ◼   ► It's just the way I've always thought of it,

01:26:29 ◼   ► which is probably bananas.

01:26:32 ◼   ► But, yeah, we a few hours ago bought Erin a brand new Volvo XC90 and it's very nice.

01:26:41 ◼   ► And we're very happy.

01:26:43 ◼   ► And Erin is sad that she's left her Mazda 6 behind.

01:26:48 ◼   ► We bought her a Mazda 6 a couple months after we got married.

01:26:54 ◼   ► And so that car has been in the family from new, the Mazda 6 that is, for almost exactly

01:27:01 ◼   ► ten years. We brought it home at the end of August of 2007 and we let it go today.

01:27:06 ◼   ► And it's sad. It's weird, right? Because a car is just a thing, right? It's just a machine.

01:27:10 ◼   ► But it kind of makes you sad when you see one go. Especially, well, Marco, you

01:27:14 ◼   ► wouldn't know about this because you don't keep cars for more than two

01:27:16 ◼   ► minutes, but for those of us who keep cars for a while like John and me, it's

01:27:21 ◼   ► sad to see one go because it's been a part of the family for so

01:27:25 ◼   ► darn long. No, I totally get it. I have felt that as well and yeah, I mean, I

01:27:29 ◼   ► I almost cried when I gave up the M5.

01:27:32 ◼   ► Like, I liked it so much.

01:27:34 ◼   ► - Well, and you had a very unique experience,

01:27:36 ◼   ► I mean, we actually had a very unique experience

01:27:38 ◼   ► in that car, so yeah, I mean, she was weepy,

01:27:41 ◼   ► I was on the verge of weepy, and it's funny

01:27:43 ◼   ► because I mean, I liked her Mazda, don't get me wrong.

01:27:45 ◼   ► It was a very nice car, and more than anything else,

01:27:49 ◼   ► it has given us, or had, oh, it had given us

01:27:53 ◼   ► no problems in its 10 years.

01:27:55 ◼   ► I mean, I think we had to do an alternator once,

01:27:59 ◼   ► But everything else was routine maintenance.

01:28:01 ◼   ► I mean, it was bulletproof,

01:28:03 ◼   ► which is probably a Japanese thing

01:28:06 ◼   ► in that most Hondas I've heard about are bulletproof.

01:28:08 ◼   ► Most Toyotas seem to be bulletproof.

01:28:12 ◼   ► And this Mazda was certainly bulletproof.

01:28:15 ◼   ► This one individual Mazda 6 was bulletproof.

01:28:17 ◼   ► And so, yeah, so I was sad to see it go,

01:28:21 ◼   ► but we're really excited to have the new car.

01:28:23 ◼   ► - I only have one question, and you know what it is.

01:28:25 ◼   ► - It is not white.

01:28:26 ◼   ► It is not white. - Is it white?

01:28:28 ◼   ► - It is not white.

01:28:29 ◼   ► There was a brief window of time where, as I've described and as you do not like to agree,

01:28:34 ◼   ► but I was backed into white on my most recent car, not the prior ones.

01:28:40 ◼   ► The prior ones were more deliberate than not.

01:28:42 ◼   ► But, well, really it was only the Subaru that was deliberate.

01:28:44 ◼   ► Anyway, go listen to neutral and you'll get the story.

01:28:47 ◼   ► But happens to be white.

01:28:49 ◼   ► Yeah, the BMW happened to be white.

01:28:51 ◼   ► And a couple of the other cars happened to be white.

01:28:53 ◼   ► The Subaru was a deliberate choice.

01:28:55 ◼   ► But anyway, this one is silver.

01:28:57 ◼   ► We wanted, well, maybe more me than her.

01:28:59 ◼   ► I don't think she cared that much.

01:29:01 ◼   ► I wanted a deeper gray,

01:29:02 ◼   ► which happens to be what her Mazda was.

01:29:04 ◼   ► But for this one, we ended up,

01:29:09 ◼   ► can I complain for a moment?

01:29:12 ◼   ► - Please.

01:29:13 ◼   ► - Can I whine about--

01:29:14 ◼   ► - That's what this show is about.

01:29:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, really.

01:29:16 ◼   ► Can I whine for a minute about how awful it is to buy a car?

01:29:21 ◼   ► Although I hear Tesla, it's just,

01:29:23 ◼   ► you go online and you price,

01:29:24 ◼   ► and you pick it out and that's that.

01:29:25 ◼   ► I don't wanna hear about it,

01:29:26 ◼   ► because it just makes me--

01:29:27 ◼   ► from Tesla is like ordering from Amazon.

01:29:29 ◼   ► Like, it's literally like add to cart, buy.

01:29:33 ◼   ► - Makes me so sad.

01:29:34 ◼   ► It makes me so sad.

01:29:34 ◼   ► So, when we bought Aaron's Mazda,

01:29:37 ◼   ► we started the process in,

01:29:39 ◼   ► I think it was like August of 2016, give or take a month,

01:29:44 ◼   ► and we bought in August of 2017.

01:29:47 ◼   ► And we literally haggled with the dealer for a year

01:29:51 ◼   ► to get her car, because we just refused to budge

01:29:54 ◼   ► on the price that we wanted.

01:29:56 ◼   ► So we walked into the local Volvo dealer at the end of December last year.

01:30:01 ◼   ► I can't recall an exact day, it doesn't really matter, but the very end of December.

01:30:05 ◼   ► I believe it was between Christmas and New Year's, I think.

01:30:08 ◼   ► And today, on the 17th of July, we brought the car home.

01:30:12 ◼   ► I have spent the last, since Thursday or Friday, I have spent all day, every f***ing day, emailing

01:30:22 ◼   ► every dealer between Philadelphia and Greensboro, North Carolina, trying to get a good deal

01:30:29 ◼   ► on this car. Now, before anyone complains, yes, I did this to myself. But what ended

01:30:34 ◼   ► up happening was I emailed all these dealers saying, "Look, what's your best out-the-door

01:30:39 ◼   ► price? I don't even worry about a trade-in. Just tell me with tax, with everything, what

01:30:45 ◼   ► is your best out-the-door price?" And you would think that that would be easy, but of

01:30:48 ◼   ► Of course it's not, because their job is to not give me their best out-the-door price.

01:30:53 ◼   ► Their job is to give me their crappiest out-the-door price and hope that I agree to it.

01:30:59 ◼   ► So what ended up happening, long story short, is I got our Richmond dealer in a bidding

01:31:06 ◼   ► war with a couple other dealers, and we were mostly victors.

01:31:10 ◼   ► And so eventually we got this car at an extreme, well, I think of an extreme discount.

01:31:15 ◼   ► And I'm really pleased with that.

01:31:17 ◼   ► And you have to understand that Erin has never been a particular fan of my car.

01:31:22 ◼   ► She thinks it's fine, but she hates BMW drivers because, well, we're all jerks.

01:31:27 ◼   ► And so she's never really been a tremendous fan of my car.

01:31:31 ◼   ► Guess what car saved her several thousand dollars because of a Volvo promotion that's

01:31:35 ◼   ► going on right now?

01:31:37 ◼   ► My BMW.

01:31:38 ◼   ► If you happen to own a BMW, Lexus, Audi, etc., you can get a multi-thousand dollar discount

01:31:43 ◼   ► on a brand new Volvo.

01:31:45 ◼   ► So how about them apples?

01:31:47 ◼   ► - Wait, do you have to trade it in?

01:31:48 ◼   ► Or just by you owning it?

01:31:50 ◼   ► - Just by owning it because they're trying to,

01:31:53 ◼   ► they're trying to get owners of other luxury marquees,

01:31:57 ◼   ► marques, marquees, whatever, those things,

01:32:00 ◼   ► get luxury owners to come to Volvo.

01:32:03 ◼   ► And so just by having one in the family,

01:32:05 ◼   ► we got, I think it was $3,000 off, which is pretty awesome.

01:32:08 ◼   ► - Wow.

01:32:09 ◼   ► - So that was pretty cool.

01:32:10 ◼   ► But yeah, buying a car is terrible.

01:32:12 ◼   ► It's terrible.

01:32:14 ◼   ► It's just a friggin' nightmare from start to finish.

01:32:17 ◼   ► I mean, if I didn't care about the cost of the car,

01:32:20 ◼   ► it'd be great, no worries.

01:32:21 ◼   ► But it's terrible, because not unlike buying a house,

01:32:25 ◼   ► the dealer's one and only job is to get as,

01:32:28 ◼   ► to extract all of the money from you.

01:32:31 ◼   ► And your one and only position is to try to extract

01:32:34 ◼   ► as little as possible from your own wallet.

01:32:39 ◼   ► So, you know, like, Miss The Baron in the chat is saying,

01:32:43 ◼   ► "Well, could I have just paid MSRP?"

01:32:44 ◼   ► Sure, I could have, but that would have been

01:32:47 ◼   ► almost $10,000 more than we paid.

01:32:49 ◼   ► Like, no, that's no.

01:32:52 ◼   ► I'm not made of money, so no, I'm not going to do that.

01:32:55 ◼   ► Oh my God, I hate, I hate buying a car.

01:32:59 ◼   ► I just, I don't wanna do it for a long time.

01:33:01 ◼   ► And that's why I think that in part of the reason,

01:33:03 ◼   ► I mean, Erin loved her Mazda, as I said,

01:33:04 ◼   ► but part of the reason that she didn't want a new car

01:33:07 ◼   ► was because she didn't wanna go through this.

01:33:08 ◼   ► And it's just, it's a fricking nightmare.

01:33:10 ◼   ► I hate it.

01:33:11 ◼   ► So what color silver did you get?

01:33:13 ◼   ► I think it's just silver-silver.

01:33:14 ◼   ► I forget what the official--

01:33:15 ◼   ► Bright silver metallic?

01:33:16 ◼   ► Osmium gray metallic?

01:33:18 ◼   ► No, Osmium gray is what I really thought would be good.

01:33:21 ◼   ► Oh, the color options on this car are friggin' terrible,

01:33:23 ◼   ► unless you get into the super expensive--

01:33:25 ◼   ► Seville gray metallic?

01:33:26 ◼   ► No, I believe it was just silver.

01:33:29 ◼   ► The Osmium is what I thought looked the best

01:33:31 ◼   ► of the available options.

01:33:32 ◼   ► So it's a XC90 Momentum, which is the cheapest XC90 they make.

01:33:36 ◼   ► However, within XC90 Momentums, you

01:33:39 ◼   ► can get five-seat or seven-seat, and we got the seven-seat one with the bright silver

01:33:45 ◼   ► metallic.

01:33:47 ◼   ► Like I was starting to say, I thought the Osmium Gray actually looked better, but we

01:33:51 ◼   ► ended up with silver because that's the one that the dealer could get their hands on and

01:33:54 ◼   ► make a good deal on.

01:33:56 ◼   ► What engine did you get?

01:33:57 ◼   ► Did you get T5 or T6?

01:33:59 ◼   ► So it's a T6, which is—because as soon as you go third row, that means you're getting

01:34:03 ◼   ► a T6.

01:34:04 ◼   ► So it's a T6 all-wheel drive.

01:34:07 ◼   ► So it's both—

01:34:08 ◼   ► You had to get the fast engine.

01:34:09 ◼   ► Well, not exactly. So here's the thing, the XT90 ranges from $40,000 or $45,000 to $110,000

01:34:17 ◼   ► or something like that. I saw that. It's like a Porsche. You could just double the price of the

01:34:21 ◼   ► car with options. That's it. Yeah, because, well, what it is is they make a version,

01:34:25 ◼   ► I forget the name of it. It doesn't have a hybrid thing. Yeah, well, but not only is it a V8 hybrid,

01:34:29 ◼   ► but beyond that, it's actually a four seater. So the back is just blocked off and it's clearly like

01:34:34 ◼   ► an executive's "I'm going to be chauffeured in the SUV" sort of thing. But anyway, so yeah, so ours was,

01:34:41 ◼   ► ours, we started as cheap as you could go in terms of the trim and then made it seven-seat, so that

01:34:48 ◼   ► makes it slightly fancier, and then it's actually pretty darn well optioned, which is great. So it

01:34:54 ◼   ► has pretty much all of the the bits and bobs that we could possibly want. But it's pretty cool. I

01:34:59 ◼   ► mean, I haven't driven this one yet. We did do an overnight test drive several months ago of

01:35:04 ◼   ► of a less loaded one.

01:35:06 ◼   ► And it does have carplay, which I played with very briefly

01:35:10 ◼   ► when we test drove it, and it was really nice.

01:35:12 ◼   ► There are definitely problems with it,

01:35:14 ◼   ► but it was really nice.

01:35:15 ◼   ► It has the bird's eye view, it has a heads up display.

01:35:17 ◼   ► So a lot of it is very similar to the M5 actually,

01:35:21 ◼   ► or reminds me of the M5.

01:35:23 ◼   ► But I'm really looking forward to it.

01:35:25 ◼   ► It has a heated steering wheel,

01:35:27 ◼   ► which we've never had before.

01:35:28 ◼   ► It parks itself, which is something we've never had before.

01:35:30 ◼   ► - It's got an automatic, just like the new M5.

01:35:32 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:35:33 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:35:34 ◼   ► - I haven't been watching that, but that makes me sad.

01:35:37 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:35:38 ◼   ► What they've done to the M5 is sad.

01:35:41 ◼   ► - Indeed.

01:35:42 ◼   ► Oh, and it's both supercharged and turbocharged.

01:35:45 ◼   ► How about that?

01:35:46 ◼   ► - That's possible?

01:35:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I haven't read into this much,

01:35:50 ◼   ► but I think the idea is that the supercharger,

01:35:53 ◼   ► which is belt-driven, is good for low RPM,

01:35:56 ◼   ► like when you're just taking off,

01:35:57 ◼   ► and then the turbocharger's better

01:35:59 ◼   ► once you've got some motion going