ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm gonna go to bed and put my Parmesan cheese back in the fridge.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Yeah, good idea.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I would recommend that.

00:00:04 ◼   ► [

00:00:08 ◼   ► and I have a kid, so that's a given, right?

00:00:13 ◼   ► - Every ounce of my being wants to get smug about how,

00:00:15 ◼   ► oh come on, I never get sick.

00:00:16 ◼   ► You must be just weak of immune system,

00:00:20 ◼   ► but I know that I will be paying this price

00:00:23 ◼   ► in two to three years.

00:00:24 ◼   ► - One year, try one year.

00:00:26 ◼   ► - Probably, that's true.

00:00:28 ◼   ► So my office has opened a,

00:00:31 ◼   ► San Francisco, well strictly speaking, an Oakland office,

00:00:35 ◼   ► which I guess is different enough from San Francisco

00:00:37 ◼   ► that people from the area get perturbed

00:00:39 ◼   ► if you confuse the two.

00:00:41 ◼   ► - Those California sensitivities.

00:00:43 ◼   ► - Indeed.

00:00:44 ◼   ► Well, they've opened a Oakland office,

00:00:47 ◼   ► and the other day I was trying to get something accomplished

00:00:50 ◼   ► with one of my coworkers out there,

00:00:53 ◼   ► and he had said, "Oh, I have to go for a long lunch

00:00:56 ◼   ► "because all the executives are in town,

00:00:57 ◼   ► "and so, you know, always on vacation in California,

00:00:59 ◼   ► "blah, blah, blah."

00:01:01 ◼   ► And then I finally caught up with him after his long lunch.

00:01:04 ◼   ► this is already like roughly quitting time for me.

00:01:07 ◼   ► And he says, "Oh, you know what?

00:01:08 ◼   ► I can't do a Google Hangout with you

00:01:11 ◼   ► to work through this issue

00:01:12 ◼   ► because we're all going to the Tesla factory

00:01:14 ◼   ► for a tour right now."

00:01:15 ◼   ► And I'm jealous.

00:01:18 ◼   ► And I wish I could have gone.

00:01:19 ◼   ► And I'm sad.

00:01:20 ◼   ► - They don't get free cars, you know,

00:01:21 ◼   ► they just, you know, see other cars being made.

00:01:24 ◼   ► - I loved the BMW factory tour so much.

00:01:27 ◼   ► It was almost, if not,

00:01:29 ◼   ► it probably was one of the highlights of that trip.

00:01:31 ◼   ► I thought it was phenomenally cool.

00:01:33 ◼   ► Yeah. Did you see the video that I think Greg put on Twitter of the...

00:01:38 ◼   ► It's like a lathe, you know, metal milling machine lathe thing.

00:01:42 ◼   ► Oh my god, yeah, with the coolant coming out the center of it?

00:01:45 ◼   ► No, not that one. He showed it... It was... You know, a lathe is just a thing that spins an item

00:01:49 ◼   ► and usually you bring a tool close to it as it spins and you can shave off parts of it.

00:01:52 ◼   ► But this was a thing where the item spun and also the cutting tool also moved in and out and up and down.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And it was making basically a crankshaft for an engine, which, you know, is not just...

00:02:02 ◼   ► Which you know, I totally miss that. Yeah, it was really cool because it's got you can imagine what a crankshaft looks like

00:02:07 ◼   ► You can't just leave it out. It's not

00:02:09 ◼   ► Rotationally symmetrical so it has to cut all that stuff like it's rotating the piece

00:02:14 ◼   ► Imagine just trying to cut like part of the part of a crankshaft that connects to the piston

00:02:18 ◼   ► Right while it's while the crankshaft is rotating along its normal rotational axis

00:02:22 ◼   ► The thing that cuts the piston it has to trace that to make like it was amazing amazing looking

00:02:27 ◼   ► I don't know if that's how all crankshafts are made

00:02:29 ◼   ► I'm like, "Jesus, if this is what it takes to make one crankshaft, no wonder internal combustion engines cost so much money."

00:02:33 ◼   ► Seriously, was this Greg Koenig?

00:02:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:02:36 ◼   ► I am thoroughly intrigued by this, and I follow Greg, so I'm surprised that I didn't notice it when it flew by.

00:02:42 ◼   ► Maybe I declared bankruptcy that day or something.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Fair enough. How's everything else? So Marco's sick, John, you alive?

00:02:49 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm okay. I'm too busy worrying about my children's health.

00:02:53 ◼   ► My son has had a cough for a month now?

00:02:55 ◼   ► Hey.

00:02:56 ◼   ► Somewhere in the middle, more than a month, somewhere in the middle of that, after several

00:02:59 ◼   ► weeks we took him to the doctor and they're like, "No, he doesn't have bronchitis or pneumonia

00:03:03 ◼   ► or any other thing that we can do anything about." And they just gave him an inhaler

00:03:06 ◼   ► and sent him home and it's like he's still coughing so now we're trying Zyrtec, just

00:03:10 ◼   ► like allergy medication, a theory that somehow he's allergic to the change in seasons. I

00:03:16 ◼   ► don't know. Anyway, I spend most of my time worrying about them, but I'm doing fine.

00:03:20 ◼   ► Fisherman's friend.

00:03:21 ◼   ► Oh, is that that cough, like crazy cough drop thing that you like?

00:03:24 ◼   ► - Talking on gross tasting things, Kiera's also cold.

00:03:27 ◼   ► (laughter)

00:03:28 ◼   ► - So, okay, basically, yes, they are my crazy gross

00:03:31 ◼   ► cough drops, the Fisherman's Friend original, you know,

00:03:33 ◼   ► red labeled variety.

00:03:35 ◼   ► You can get them on Amazon even, which is nice.

00:03:38 ◼   ► They basically have like the most menthol

00:03:40 ◼   ► and the least sugar of most cough drops.

00:03:43 ◼   ► The problem with cough drops is basically that

00:03:45 ◼   ► they only really work when they're in your mouth.

00:03:48 ◼   ► Once they're gone, they stop working almost immediately.

00:03:51 ◼   ► But they do work while you still have them.

00:03:54 ◼   ► And so you kind of tend to have a lot of them.

00:03:56 ◼   ► When you're really coughing a lot

00:03:57 ◼   ► and you kind of have to make it all day,

00:03:58 ◼   ► you tend to have a lot of cough drops in one day.

00:04:01 ◼   ► And if you have the regular big square ricola kind

00:04:04 ◼   ► or things like that, your mouth just gets so coated in sugar

00:04:09 ◼   ► it's just disgusting.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Your teeth get all slimy.

00:04:11 ◼   ► It's just really gross in your mouth

00:04:12 ◼   ► after not that long of a time.

00:04:14 ◼   ► Whereas Fisherman's Friend, they're incredibly strong,

00:04:17 ◼   ► like very dense menthol flavor,

00:04:20 ◼   ► and there's a lot less sugar in them.

00:04:21 ◼   ► and they look gross and they taste gross.

00:04:24 ◼   ► But they come in a convenient little,

00:04:27 ◼   ► like a little Ziploc pouch,

00:04:28 ◼   ► so you can just keep that pouch in your pocket

00:04:30 ◼   ► so you don't have to be unwrapping cough drops.

00:04:32 ◼   ► And then what do you do with these two wrappers

00:04:34 ◼   ► that come around each one?

00:04:35 ◼   ► And you have a whole pocket full of spent cough drop wrappers

00:04:39 ◼   ► like it avoids that whole problem too.

00:04:40 ◼   ► So they're good.

00:04:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, a friend of ours, a neighbor/friend,

00:04:47 ◼   ► swore by whatever it is, the fisherman's friend

00:04:49 ◼   ► that I guess you had recommended years ago.

00:04:51 ◼   ► because he has a seasonal cough

00:04:53 ◼   ► that just won't go away for months.

00:04:55 ◼   ► And yeah, he told me that it's the real deal,

00:04:57 ◼   ► that those are the only things that can get him from hack,

00:05:00 ◼   ► to keep him from hacking constantly.

00:05:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it's just menthol cough drops.

00:05:04 ◼   ► There's no secret ingredient.

00:05:05 ◼   ► It's menthol cough drops.

00:05:07 ◼   ► But menthol works.

00:05:08 ◼   ► And as far as I can tell from the basic research

00:05:11 ◼   ► I did a couple years ago,

00:05:13 ◼   ► there doesn't seem to be any kind of horrible side effect

00:05:15 ◼   ► to using a bunch of menthol cough drops when you have a cough

00:05:18 ◼   ► so it seems like it's a pretty good bet.

00:05:21 ◼   ► It is very effective.

00:05:22 ◼   ► When you have this kind of bronchial irritation,

00:05:25 ◼   ► nothing else really works to stop it.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Like treating it with an inhaler and things

00:05:31 ◼   ► can solve the long-term problem,

00:05:33 ◼   ► but if you are coughing, over-the-counter stuff

00:05:35 ◼   ► like DXM syrup does not really affect this kind of cough.

00:05:38 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm an expert in coughing in the last few years.

00:05:41 ◼   ► Only in the winter.

00:05:44 ◼   ► - 10,000 hours is all it takes, right?

00:05:45 ◼   ► Just 10,000 hours of coughing.

00:05:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:49 ◼   ► - I'll get there, give me a few more years.

00:05:50 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, all right, so this is the video John yeah, so if you go to like you know

00:05:54 ◼   ► The three quarters of the way done is starting to take shape is what you really want to see is how does it carve out?

00:05:58 ◼   ► The little parts that connect to the pistons because those aren't along the rotational axis

00:06:02 ◼   ► And then you see the thing rotating in the tool at the same time. It's it's crazy

00:06:07 ◼   ► Oh my I mean you just want to watch the whole video

00:06:09 ◼   ► Can be kind of meditative to watch a 15-minute video of machine building another part of a machine god. That's intense

00:06:16 ◼   ► "Wow, that is pretty damn cool.

00:06:18 ◼   ► "I want one of these for no reason, just I want it."

00:06:22 ◼   ► - I think it's bigger than your house.

00:06:23 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm sure it is.

00:06:24 ◼   ► There's no doubt in my mind that it is,

00:06:25 ◼   ► but I kind of want it.

00:06:26 ◼   ► God, think of all the cool things

00:06:27 ◼   ► I would never be able to figure out how to build.

00:06:29 ◼   ► This is why Greg just has one of the niftiest jobs

00:06:32 ◼   ► in the world.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - This is what, when you're a software developer,

00:06:36 ◼   ► anybody who builds physical objects just blows your mind.

00:06:39 ◼   ► - It's so true. - We don't make anything.

00:06:41 ◼   ► We just make bits move around, we make nothing.

00:06:44 ◼   ► And so the physical world baffles us.

00:06:46 ◼   ► It's this mystic world that we don't know

00:06:49 ◼   ► how these things get here.

00:06:50 ◼   ► They just get here and we can complain about them.

00:06:52 ◼   ► - Don't include me in this.

00:06:53 ◼   ► I know how things get here.

00:06:54 ◼   ► I know where food comes from.

00:06:55 ◼   ► - Here we go.

00:06:56 ◼   ► - That's why you are royal and I am serval.

00:06:58 ◼   ► - No, food comes from square packages.

00:07:00 ◼   ► - All right, so we should probably start

00:07:02 ◼   ► with some followup and try to get this train

00:07:04 ◼   ► back on the tracks.

00:07:06 ◼   ► So Alex Howell wrote in to tell us about the Nintendo 3DS.

00:07:10 ◼   ► So I believe that's your job, John, to tell us about this.

00:07:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, last show when we were talking about Nintendo Switch,

00:07:17 ◼   ► I was questioning whether, and we were all questioning,

00:07:20 ◼   ► like, what does this mean for the 3DS for Apple,

00:07:22 ◼   ► or for Nintendo's portable line?

00:07:23 ◼   ► I did that mistake like three times in the last episode too,

00:07:25 ◼   ► saying Apple instead of Nintendo.

00:07:27 ◼   ► Easy to get them confused until they buy each other.

00:07:29 ◼   ► Anyway, and I said, you know, I haven't been following this,

00:07:33 ◼   ► so if someone knows, please send a link.

00:07:34 ◼   ► So Alex Howell did.

00:07:35 ◼   ► It's an interview with the president of Nintendo,

00:07:37 ◼   ► who I still realized in my mind,

00:07:40 ◼   ► I keep thinking it's Iwata, but he died, sadly, his untimely death, I think last year, or

00:07:46 ◼   ► maybe it was already this year, I don't remember.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Anyway, there's this new person whose name is Tatsumi Kimishima, if I'm pronouncing it

00:07:54 ◼   ► correctly.

00:07:55 ◼   ► Kimishima, yeah, I'm close.

00:07:58 ◼   ► And it's an interview, and the question from the interview is in Bloomberg.

00:08:04 ◼   ► Question, "Will you discontinue 3DS?"

00:08:06 ◼   ► Answer from the president of Nintendo, "Thanks to our software, the 3DS hardware is still

00:08:09 ◼   ► growing. So that business still has momentum. And certainly rather than being cannibalized

00:08:14 ◼   ► by the Switch, we think 3DS can continue in its own form. Which is a perfectly business-like

00:08:18 ◼   ► answer that completely fits with Marco's suggestion on the last show, which is that

00:08:22 ◼   ► they're just going to keep it going. If the Switch takes off, they can can it. If

00:08:25 ◼   ► the Switch doesn't take off, then they'll be glad they kept it going. So that seems

00:08:28 ◼   ► like what they're doing.

00:08:29 ◼   ► Fair enough. Is that all our follow-up?

00:08:32 ◼   ► Yeah. You guys are slacking off on the follow-up. I mean, it was a lot of Switch/show and this

00:08:36 ◼   ► This is the only, oh the other follow up I have item on the Switch, some random thing

00:08:40 ◼   ► that I read that I don't have a link for, was about the Switch when you, you know, so

00:08:46 ◼   ► you pick it up and it's like a little thing you hold in your hand, it's got the little

00:08:48 ◼   ► controllers that slide on the side, but if you're gonna sit on your couch and do it,

00:08:51 ◼   ► you put the Switch, but it looks like a big, you know, 16 by 9-ish screen, you put that

00:08:56 ◼   ► in like a docking station, looks kind of like a napkin holder, right, it's like a little

00:09:02 ◼   ► upright vertical thing that you slide the switch into.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And something I read the other day was that when you put the switch in that docking station,

00:09:11 ◼   ► one of the advantages to being docked, aside from obviously not running down the battery

00:09:14 ◼   ► because the dock will be connected to power, is that the switch itself becomes more powerful

00:09:19 ◼   ► because the docking station provides additional cooling, allowing the internals to be at max,

00:09:25 ◼   ► you know, to run at full tilt without hitting thermal limits.

00:09:28 ◼   ► Which is really weird if you think about it.

00:09:29 ◼   ► So basically it means when it's handheld it won't be as powerful or as good.

00:09:33 ◼   ► So does that mean like this frame rate will suffer or will it crank down the detail and

00:09:37 ◼   ► that's part of the game maker's API or whatever.

00:09:39 ◼   ► But anyway, all the more reason for you to just keep it plugged into your TV and pretend

00:09:43 ◼   ► like Nintendo is still making TV connected consoles instead of making really weird much

00:09:47 ◼   ► more powerful portable systems that you can also use on a TV.

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00:12:00 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:12:03 ◼   ► - Jon, tell me what's going on with your keychain.

00:12:05 ◼   ► Sounds like there's trouble in Syracuse County.

00:12:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Sierra situation, I upgraded my old SiMac,

00:12:12 ◼   ► 5K Mac to Sierra pretty quickly after release.

00:12:15 ◼   ► And I think I mentioned on the show

00:12:18 ◼   ► a few weird bumps with keychain stuff.

00:12:20 ◼   ► I'm like, well, that happens when you just did the upgrade

00:12:22 ◼   ► and apps need to be reauthorized because they think something's different or the Apple built-in

00:12:27 ◼   ► apps have updated themselves and now, you know, whatever.

00:12:33 ◼   ► It's a common thing that happens after you upgrade that you have to do some stuff involving

00:12:37 ◼   ► Keychain.

00:12:38 ◼   ► But here we are, I don't know how many months after Sierra was released, and I'm ready to

00:12:42 ◼   ► call this a persistent problem that I can't attribute to data-related things because it

00:12:47 ◼   ► happens on, we all have accounts on our 5K, it happens on my account there and it happens

00:12:51 ◼   ► on her account. I don't know if it happens on the kid's account, but they probably don't have much

00:12:54 ◼   ► stuff in their keychain. And this is what happens. So we'll all be using the computer, you know,

00:12:59 ◼   ► people go up to it and switch to their account and do their stuff, and my son goes and changes

00:13:02 ◼   ► his account and plays Minecraft, and my wife comes and changes to her account and does stuff, you

00:13:05 ◼   ► know, whatever. You use the computer for a while, everything is fine. At a certain point, I think

00:13:10 ◼   ► it's probably multiple days, because we never turn this computer off. It just goes to sleep, but it's

00:13:14 ◼   ► never actually off or restarted. After a couple of days, you get a little notification in the upper

00:13:19 ◼   ► right hand corner of the screen.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Usually, again, I see it on my account or my wife's account,

00:13:22 ◼   ► but that's probably because they're

00:13:23 ◼   ► the one it's on most often.

00:13:25 ◼   ► And it says, you need to create a new iCloud security code.

00:13:28 ◼   ► And the buttons on the notification dialog

00:13:30 ◼   ► are Create and Later.

00:13:32 ◼   ► If you hit Later, it goes away.

00:13:33 ◼   ► If you hit Create, it opens the iCloud preference pane

00:13:37 ◼   ► and then does nothing.

00:13:38 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't do anything in the iCloud preference pane.

00:13:41 ◼   ► It just sits there.

00:13:42 ◼   ► I actually have gone through the motion of, OK,

00:13:45 ◼   ► I will create a new iCloud security code.

00:13:48 ◼   ► I know how to do it.

00:13:49 ◼   ► I'll go into the thing and click on the thing, blah, blah, blah, and enter new code, and

00:13:52 ◼   ► blah, blah.

00:13:53 ◼   ► That appears to have no effect.

00:13:54 ◼   ► You can do it, but it doesn't matter.

00:13:56 ◼   ► A couple days later, you're going to see that dialogue.

00:13:57 ◼   ► When you see that dialogue, what it's trying to tell you, like what you will find out later

00:14:00 ◼   ► if you just continue to use your computer, is that basically nothing involving passwords

00:14:04 ◼   ► works.

00:14:05 ◼   ► It usually shows up for me that like it can't mount the Synology anymore, because the password

00:14:09 ◼   ► for the Synology is in the keychain, right?

00:14:11 ◼   ► And so if it can't mount the Synology to do time machine backups to it, it will stop doing

00:14:15 ◼   ► time machines backups to it and complain that it can't do that, or if you try to log into

00:14:19 ◼   ► a website or whatever, you know, like, that it's not getting passwords out of the keychain.

00:14:23 ◼   ► If you try to log in somewhere and enter a password and then try to save the password,

00:14:27 ◼   ► it will say, "Sorry, couldn't find the system keychain," or "couldn't find the login keychain,"

00:14:31 ◼   ► or something like that to save your password in.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And if you launch Keychain Access and look at it, you see a bunch of blank icons in the

00:14:38 ◼   ► sidebar and a little text that says "read only mode."

00:14:42 ◼   ► It's like your keychains are all gone.

00:14:43 ◼   ► They're all still there.

00:14:44 ◼   ► If you look in your library keychains thing, they're all sitting there.

00:14:47 ◼   ► The files are there.

00:14:48 ◼   ► They're perfectly fine as far as I can tell, but Keychain Access won't even show their

00:14:51 ◼   ► icons let alone any of their contents and it says everything is in read-only mode.

00:14:55 ◼   ► And the only way to fix this is to reboot.

00:14:57 ◼   ► I mean, you reboot everything's fine again for a couple days.

00:14:59 ◼   ► All your passwords are still there.

00:15:00 ◼   ► Nothing is corrupted.

00:15:01 ◼   ► They removed the Keychain First Aid menu item.

00:15:03 ◼   ► I have no idea what the hell it did, but it made me feel good.

00:15:05 ◼   ► I would have tried that if that option was still there, but it's not.

00:15:09 ◼   ► But it's totally explicable to me.

00:15:11 ◼   ► I keep looking in activity monitor to see like is there some sekdi demon that has hung

00:15:16 ◼   ► or something and I'll see it showing up as red because it's not pulling events off or

00:15:19 ◼   ► you know what I don't like is there some thing I can restart but I have not figured this

00:15:23 ◼   ► out and because it's one of those every few days type of problems sometimes maybe only

00:15:27 ◼   ► once a week and the cure is a very fast reboot like my motivation to troubleshoot it has

00:15:35 ◼   ► been low but it's increasing but I don't really know what to do people are saying to you know

00:15:41 ◼   ► "riskutil reset user permissions" on everything, or the equivalent of "repair permissions"

00:15:46 ◼   ► and stuff like that. The permissions all seem to be fine. And I don't quite know what is

00:15:53 ◼   ► going wrong after days of using the computer that suddenly the keychains just go away.

00:15:57 ◼   ► Like it's not corrupt files, it's not corrupt data, because then just nothing would work

00:16:01 ◼   ► ever. And I don't even know whether to attribute this to Sierra. I keep hoping there will be

00:16:06 ◼   ► a point update to Sierra and like, well, whatever, this will be some glitch and then it will

00:16:09 ◼   ► go away in a point update, but the point updates to Sierra don't seem to be coming out very

00:16:13 ◼   ► quickly.

00:16:14 ◼   ► I know there's one in flight right now, but I'm not on the beta train.

00:16:17 ◼   ► Maybe I should get on that and see if it changes things.

00:16:20 ◼   ► But anyway, all this is to say is that it has prevented me—one of the many things

00:16:24 ◼   ► that has prevented me from upgrading my technically incompatible Mac Pro to Sierra.

00:16:27 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, I don't want to deal with that.

00:16:30 ◼   ► My Mac Pro works the way it's supposed to, and I don't have any of these problems,

00:16:34 ◼   ► so why would I want to bring them on?"

00:16:36 ◼   ► It could be related to a MOS/IMAC, could be related to the specific data on there.

00:16:40 ◼   ► Who knows?

00:16:41 ◼   ► It could be something corrupt in iCloud.

00:16:44 ◼   ► It's one of those things that's very difficult to know what the deal is.

00:16:46 ◼   ► But half the reason I'm mentioning it on the show is because I've been stewing on it for

00:16:51 ◼   ► a long time, and it's worth getting out there in case other people have any problem.

00:16:55 ◼   ► But really, selfishly, I'm hoping someone's going to tell me how to fix it, because I

00:17:00 ◼   ► just haven't had time to dive into this and figure out what the deal is, and googling

00:17:04 ◼   ► for it is not turning up anything, maybe I'll actually, you know, you know you're really

00:17:09 ◼   ► desperate when I'm thinking of filing a radar. Like, just, that's, because what can you even

00:17:12 ◼   ► say? Like, after some weird amount of time, usually a couple days, this happens, and I'll

00:17:17 ◼   ► just send them, like, screenshots of Keychain Access showing everything is blank and reboot

00:17:21 ◼   ► and it fixes it. So, I don't know.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Sort of tangentially related, I don't remember when it was, but it was easily a couple of

00:17:31 ◼   ► years ago, I used to very frequently get this weird bug with my Magic Mouse.

00:17:36 ◼   ► And I don't remember it happening with the trackpad on my laptops, but maybe it did.

00:17:42 ◼   ► But certainly with Magic Mouse, if I would use the one finger, say, left to right scroll

00:17:47 ◼   ► in order to go back a page in Safari, the active page would move right maybe 50 points,

00:17:56 ◼   ► 100 points, and then it would just freeze.

00:17:58 ◼   ► And Safari would be like freaking useless until you quit it and restart it.

00:18:03 ◼   ► And just in the last day or two, this has started to come back.

00:18:06 ◼   ► And it happened, I believe, on both my work and personal machines, which was super creepy

00:18:11 ◼   ► and really weird.

00:18:13 ◼   ► And it's only happened a couple times, and I haven't had it happen since, but this was

00:18:17 ◼   ► infuriating when it was common a couple of years ago, because I would have to like quit

00:18:22 ◼   ► Safari constantly.

00:18:23 ◼   ► And it actually also happened in Chrome once, which was also super weird.

00:18:29 ◼   ► And I don't need to hear anyone emailing me about how I should use Chrome and not Safari,

00:18:32 ◼   ► or about how I should use Safari and not Chrome.

00:18:34 ◼   ► My web browser choices are my business, thank you very much.

00:18:38 ◼   ► But it was certainly very weird and very not reliably reproducible.

00:18:42 ◼   ► So similarly, I'm not sure what kind of radar I should file other than, "Hey, look, the

00:18:47 ◼   ► window is frozen with me 100 points into a back animation."

00:18:52 ◼   ► That's weird.

00:18:53 ◼   ► Totally sounds like a laptop bug. Everyone has a laptop, always has like core graphics

00:18:57 ◼   ► bugs radiated to like their GPU drivers or weird GPU issues, especially with the dual

00:19:01 ◼   ► GPU switching, stuff like that.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Could be.

00:19:04 ◼   ► My favorite thing is that the bug is syncing itself helpfully between your work and home

00:19:07 ◼   ► computers.

00:19:08 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Unlike your keyboard shortcuts or whatever.

00:19:10 ◼   ► I was just about to say that. Get out of my head. I was just about to say that. My damn

00:19:14 ◼   ► keyboard shortcuts are still lost in the ether, but hey, this bug is syncing just great. Thanks,

00:19:18 ◼   ► iCloud.

00:19:19 ◼   ► One more thing about my keychain thing that I remembered.

00:19:22 ◼   ► Many times-- I don't know if this is related or separate--

00:19:24 ◼   ► but many times since upgrading to Sierra,

00:19:27 ◼   ► the computer will get into a state where it cannot go to

00:19:30 ◼   ► any website using HTTPS.

00:19:34 ◼   ► TLS, SSL, all that.

00:19:36 ◼   ► If you try to load one of them, it

00:19:38 ◼   ► will say, sorry, couldn't make a secure connection,

00:19:41 ◼   ► or whatever weird error screen to the browser.

00:19:43 ◼   ► Doesn't matter the browser.

00:19:44 ◼   ► Sierra, Safari, Chrome, I think I even tried Firefox once.

00:19:48 ◼   ► It just can't do it.

00:19:49 ◼   ► A lot of these symptoms are all explained by like,

00:19:51 ◼   ► oh, your time, your clock is off,

00:19:53 ◼   ► 'cause many things will get screwed up

00:19:55 ◼   ► if your clock is off.

00:19:56 ◼   ► A lot of like certificates and expiration things

00:19:58 ◼   ► or just agreement between the two ends of a connection

00:20:02 ◼   ► about what the hell time and date it is.

00:20:04 ◼   ► So almost all of the Googling that you do about this is like,

00:20:08 ◼   ► oh, you just need to, you know,

00:20:10 ◼   ► your computer's clock is wrong.

00:20:11 ◼   ► That's why you can't do anything involving Keychain

00:20:13 ◼   ► or that's why you can't do anything involving secure sites.

00:20:15 ◼   ► So I can't tell you the number of times like it's happened

00:20:17 ◼   ► and I immediately look at the clock and say,

00:20:18 ◼   ► Is that clock right?

00:20:19 ◼   ► Is that today's date?

00:20:20 ◼   ► You know, what year is it?

00:20:22 ◼   ► It's like a time traveler.

00:20:24 ◼   ► And I've turned off NTP and turned it back on.

00:20:26 ◼   ► And just as far as I can tell,

00:20:28 ◼   ► every time this has happened,

00:20:30 ◼   ► the time and date have been exactly correct.

00:20:32 ◼   ► And toggling that stuff does not restore anything

00:20:34 ◼   ► to a working state.

00:20:35 ◼   ► And again, the solution is always to restart

00:20:36 ◼   ► and it comes back like nothing is wrong

00:20:37 ◼   ► and everything is perfectly fine.

00:20:39 ◼   ► - You remember when we used to make fun

00:20:41 ◼   ► of the Windows users for restarting

00:20:43 ◼   ► their computers constantly?

00:20:45 ◼   ► That was awesome.

00:20:46 ◼   ► - I mean, the thing is, as somebody who was a Windows user

00:20:50 ◼   ► a lot until 2005 or six or so,

00:20:55 ◼   ► I generally only had to restart my Windows computer

00:20:59 ◼   ► about as often as I restart my Mac.

00:21:02 ◼   ► And that was partly because I got on the Windows NT

00:21:04 ◼   ► kernel early, like I started using Windows 2000

00:21:06 ◼   ► since it's a beta in February '99,

00:21:09 ◼   ► and like dropped the 98 kernel by the wayside

00:21:13 ◼   ► as quickly as I possibly could.

00:21:15 ◼   ► Even though I couldn't print for like a year,

00:21:16 ◼   ► but it was worth it.

00:21:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:18 ◼   ► So it's fine.

00:21:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:20 ◼   ► But, so you know, generally if you treat your computers well

00:21:24 ◼   ► if you know what you're doing,

00:21:26 ◼   ► you don't usually have to restart Windows or Macs

00:21:29 ◼   ► more frequently than the other.

00:21:31 ◼   ► It is though a little concerning that like,

00:21:34 ◼   ► oh man there's so many bugs in Mac OS now.

00:21:36 ◼   ► It's really kind of sad, it makes me sad.

00:21:39 ◼   ► You know, we get feedback telling us to stop complaining

00:21:42 ◼   ► about Apple because for some reason we aren't allowed to,

00:21:44 ◼   ► but it really does make me sad to see

00:21:46 ◼   ► my computing platform of choice that I love so much.

00:21:50 ◼   ► There's a lot of bugs now.

00:21:52 ◼   ► And it's not like massive showstoppers

00:21:54 ◼   ► like Jon's password thing, most of the time.

00:21:56 ◼   ► Like most of the time it's more little stuff.

00:21:58 ◼   ► Like the other day, I've been using Apple's new Notes app

00:22:02 ◼   ► since it was launched in what, iOS 9, whenever that was?

00:22:06 ◼   ► - I think that's right.

00:22:07 ◼   ► - And I've been using that for all my little notes.

00:22:10 ◼   ► And I'm a pretty light Notes user in general.

00:22:13 ◼   ► I never heavily use the Dropbox editors before that.

00:22:16 ◼   ► I have something like 50 notes maybe.

00:22:19 ◼   ► It's not like a large number of them.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And they're not always open.

00:22:23 ◼   ► I'll open it, check one thing, and then close it.

00:22:25 ◼   ► And it's worked perfectly for me until last week.

00:22:29 ◼   ► Now, notes just basically don't sync reliably

00:22:32 ◼   ► between devices anymore.

00:22:35 ◼   ► And I've tried logging out of iCloud,

00:22:37 ◼   ► logging back in, it doesn't work.

00:22:39 ◼   ► Nothing can make my notes sync reliably

00:22:41 ◼   ► to certain devices anymore.

00:22:43 ◼   ► my laptop, logging in, logging out worked.

00:22:45 ◼   ► My iPad, logging in, logging out didn't work.

00:22:47 ◼   ► Like it's just like everything,

00:22:50 ◼   ► I never had to do this stuff before

00:22:51 ◼   ► and it's just like, come on.

00:22:53 ◼   ► And this is what makes iCloud bugs and iMessage also,

00:22:58 ◼   ► like you know, people have these problems

00:22:59 ◼   ► with iMessage since the beginning.

00:23:01 ◼   ► So often the answer that you get if you ask people

00:23:05 ◼   ► or even if you can get Apple to tell you anything,

00:23:07 ◼   ► the answer that you get is usually like,

00:23:09 ◼   ► well just like sign out of iCloud, clear everything off,

00:23:12 ◼   ► sign everything back in, and it's like,

00:23:14 ◼   ► that's not a solution.

00:23:15 ◼   ► That should never be the answer.

00:23:17 ◼   ► That is never good enough.

00:23:18 ◼   ► That's like telling somebody, restore your phone,

00:23:20 ◼   ► and don't restore from backup.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Start cleaning from your phone, erase everything,

00:23:23 ◼   ► just lose everything.

00:23:24 ◼   ► That's not an answer.

00:23:25 ◼   ► That is not a good solution.

00:23:26 ◼   ► And there's just so many bugs now

00:23:29 ◼   ► that come up seemingly for no reason

00:23:31 ◼   ► in not even edge case usage.

00:23:35 ◼   ► I feel like now you're in edge case

00:23:36 ◼   ► if you don't have one of these bugs

00:23:37 ◼   ► hitting at least one of your various Apple sync services.

00:23:41 ◼   ► - I actually, outside of my damn keyboard shortcuts,

00:23:43 ◼   ► which in the grand scheme of things are not that important,

00:23:46 ◼   ► I actually don't really have any of these problems.

00:23:48 ◼   ► For the longest time when people would complain

00:23:50 ◼   ► and moan about iMessage,

00:23:51 ◼   ► almost everyone had a horror story.

00:23:53 ◼   ► I might be an iMessage unicorn

00:23:55 ◼   ► because I cannot recall a time

00:23:57 ◼   ► that I've had more than just a very brief hiccup,

00:24:00 ◼   ► not this continual non-delivered messages

00:24:03 ◼   ► or out-of-band messages.

00:24:05 ◼   ► - You don't have split conversations

00:24:07 ◼   ► where you're sending a message to me

00:24:08 ◼   ► and then I reply to you a day later,

00:24:10 ◼   ► but it shows up in a separate conversation.

00:24:12 ◼   ► So now you have two conversations that are just me and you.

00:24:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that makes perfect sense.

00:24:16 ◼   ► Like I, it's an unfortunate scenario.

00:24:18 ◼   ► - No, it does not make perfect sense at all.

00:24:19 ◼   ► - Oh sure it does.

00:24:20 ◼   ► No, no, so the problem,

00:24:21 ◼   ► this is particularly bad with group messages,

00:24:23 ◼   ► but I believe the problem to be that somebody say,

00:24:27 ◼   ► like let's say it's the three of us,

00:24:29 ◼   ► and I send an iMessage to John's phone number

00:24:32 ◼   ► and Marco's email address.

00:24:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know the source of the problem,

00:24:35 ◼   ► but we're the same people.

00:24:36 ◼   ► Like this is not, you know,

00:24:37 ◼   ► oh, you sent it to my Apple ID and not to my phone number.

00:24:39 ◼   ► like we're the same people, it's the same icon in the application. Combine them, don't

00:24:42 ◼   ► make them separate.

00:24:43 ◼   ► No, no, I agree with you, I totally agree with you, but at least that problem kind of

00:24:46 ◼   ► sort of makes sense.

00:24:47 ◼   ► And really, and like there is no solution to that, because it's like, you know, you

00:24:51 ◼   ► have to make sure, even if you make sure all your devices are set to, when I send a message,

00:24:55 ◼   ► I want to send it from either my phone number or my Apple ID. If you like, if you make it

00:24:58 ◼   ► all consistent on your end, it doesn't matter because you can't control how people contact

00:25:01 ◼   ► you. And it's just, it's chaos. It's, you will never be merged. You can just, you just

00:25:05 ◼   ► got to hope that people will reply to the same thing that they got it on, on a device

00:25:09 ◼   ► that is configured like it's intractable.

00:25:11 ◼   ► It's not good.

00:25:12 ◼   ► They need to come up with a solution to this.

00:25:14 ◼   ► - See this is why the unified timeline's bad

00:25:16 ◼   ► 'cause it gets you spoiled.

00:25:18 ◼   ► - It's spoiled by consistency.

00:25:19 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:25:20 ◼   ► - And a series of events, one following the other.

00:25:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:25:24 ◼   ► - No, but that's fine.

00:25:25 ◼   ► - Incredibly confusing.

00:25:26 ◼   ► - Right?

00:25:27 ◼   ► I know, it's ridiculous.

00:25:28 ◼   ► No, but all I'm trying to say is that

00:25:30 ◼   ► outside of my damn keyboard shortcuts

00:25:32 ◼   ► which drive me absolutely bananas,

00:25:34 ◼   ► I actually don't really have any common bugs

00:25:37 ◼   ► that I feel like I hit on a regular basis now that my RAM is actually working. But I

00:25:43 ◼   ► do feel that the one-off bugs, like for example, I had a kernel panic earlier today, which

00:25:49 ◼   ► is something I haven't had happen in a long time.

00:25:51 ◼   ► That's got to be the RAM.

00:25:53 ◼   ► Yep.

00:25:54 ◼   ► No, it was my work computer. It was my work computer. Nice try.

00:25:56 ◼   ► I haven't had a kernel panic. I average about one kernel panic per year over all my devices

00:26:01 ◼   ► at this point.

00:26:02 ◼   ► Yeah, that's about right.

00:26:03 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:26:04 ◼   ► And I go multiple years without any. And just like, yeah, and then they cluster in a year

00:26:06 ◼   ► or you know, whenever I see one I think something is wrong hardware-wise at this point.

00:26:11 ◼   ► Talking about how often you reboot like in the bad old days of the Macs in the 90s, you

00:26:16 ◼   ► would hear the bongs, the little bongs that Marco will insert into the podcast at this

00:26:19 ◼   ► point all over the office all the time from poor developers on classic Mac OS trying to

00:26:26 ◼   ► use Adobe products to get their work done and it was just inevitable that you would

00:26:29 ◼   ► get a whole system freeze at some point, probably averaging like one point something per day

00:26:33 ◼   ► for them. If you knew what you were doing and had a limited set of non-Adobe software,

00:26:38 ◼   ► essentially, like I could go days and days with just my BB Edit and IE5 running or whatever,

00:26:43 ◼   ► but eventually, if you were doing anything complicated or stressing it and weren't just

00:26:49 ◼   ► staying in this little groove, you know, no memory protection. It's like the same reason

00:26:53 ◼   ► Marco got off Windows 95 and 98 and onto 2000 because he just wanted to get out of that

00:26:57 ◼   ► So things are still way better than you know in living memory and my very vivid living memory of how bad it used to be

00:27:04 ◼   ► And you know the kernel packs like in terms of what is the stability of the core system?

00:27:08 ◼   ► And this is one of the things I emphasized early on in my OS 10 reviews

00:27:11 ◼   ► Then called Mac OS 10 they they did a really good job with the like does the operating system crash

00:27:19 ◼   ► but as a user you don't care basically if the kernel crashes because if the if the entire UI freezes and

00:27:27 ◼   ► and the only way to get out of it is like, you know, kill login window and send you back to the login screen,

00:27:32 ◼   ► it might, the kernel might as well have crashed because everything you were doing is hosed.

00:27:36 ◼   ► It's like, oh, the operating system is fine. Like the kernel is still running.

00:27:39 ◼   ► It just killed a bunch of processes and it came back. So basically like UI freeze versus operating system crash.

00:27:44 ◼   ► It doesn't matter from the user's perspective, but technically speaking,

00:27:48 ◼   ► I would say that MAGOS 10 specifically and iOS to some degree,

00:27:51 ◼   ► although I can tell you about some of my iOS weirdness after this,

00:27:54 ◼   ► But the core OS is very solid like to have used Mac OS 10 for how many years you know

00:28:02 ◼   ► 10 years 15 years 17 whatever the hell it is

00:28:05 ◼   ► Kernel panics are just not a thing in my life and like you said Marco if you see one

00:28:09 ◼   ► Immediately think hardware problem. That's how reliable the core OS is

00:28:13 ◼   ► Things above that might start to get flaky and by the way the the suggestion from the chat room

00:28:18 ◼   ► Which I'm definitely gonna try because it smells right to me from a to be tipster for it to solve my problem

00:28:23 ◼   ► is turn off iCloud keychain, which I have turned on.

00:28:27 ◼   ► Because anything that involves iCloud could be like

00:28:30 ◼   ► locking my files in some weird ass way.

00:28:32 ◼   ► It's like fine, I will just turn that feature off

00:28:34 ◼   ► and not have the stuff sync and see if that solves it.

00:28:37 ◼   ► Because everything that we've listed so far is like,

00:28:39 ◼   ► if it involves iCloud, that means it involves something

00:28:41 ◼   ► other than the bits on your computer

00:28:43 ◼   ► and is very often buggy.

00:28:47 ◼   ► But anyway, I think the stability and reliability

00:28:51 ◼   ► of everything not having to do with cloud services

00:28:53 ◼   ► on the Mac has pretty much gotten better over time.

00:28:56 ◼   ► It's a lumpy path.

00:28:57 ◼   ► There are regressions and everything.

00:28:58 ◼   ► It's not a straight upward line.

00:29:00 ◼   ► It goes up and down, up and down, but in general,

00:29:02 ◼   ► the trend is good.

00:29:03 ◼   ► So I'm thankful for that every day.

00:29:06 ◼   ► And it makes me appreciate all the more

00:29:07 ◼   ► of my beautiful 2008 Power Mac,

00:29:11 ◼   ► which is just at this point,

00:29:12 ◼   ► because it's running like the very latest version of El Cap.

00:29:16 ◼   ► And I mean, it's just incredibly solid.

00:29:18 ◼   ► I can't remember the last time I had any kind of problem

00:29:20 ◼   ► with it, which is yet another reason

00:29:22 ◼   ► not motivated to upgrade it. That's a good machine. All I was trying to say

00:29:26 ◼   ► earlier is that you know outside of these one-offs here and there I do think

00:29:29 ◼   ► that things are pretty good and this is what you were you know saying John that

00:29:31 ◼   ► things are so much better than they used to be and I don't I don't want to

00:29:35 ◼   ► perpetuate the oh all the three of us do is complain idea but because things are

00:29:41 ◼   ► pretty darn great as long as you're not trying to keep a sync keyboard text

00:29:44 ◼   ► replacement other than that we're okay. I have literally never used that feature I

00:29:48 ◼   ► I have never created or deleted any of these things

00:29:52 ◼   ► until earlier last week when I was setting up my new laptop

00:29:56 ◼   ► and I noticed I was going through all the preference windows

00:29:58 ◼   ► it was the first clean install I had done in a long time.

00:30:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:30:02 ◼   ► And in this text shortcuts was about 16 copies

00:30:07 ◼   ► of the default on my way entry that's there.

00:30:10 ◼   ► Like that's-- - Ah, delightful.

00:30:12 ◼   ► - Like oh great, I have literally never touched this feature

00:30:15 ◼   ► and somehow I have 16 copies of this.

00:30:16 ◼   ► It's like, obviously there is no effort

00:30:18 ◼   ► being put into this feature.

00:30:21 ◼   ► - Well, the reason that feature always comes up

00:30:22 ◼   ► in our circles is because it is like,

00:30:25 ◼   ► it's like the easiest toy example of sync.

00:30:27 ◼   ► Like the amount of data is so small

00:30:30 ◼   ► and it's all just text and it's a lightly

00:30:32 ◼   ► or unused feature.

00:30:34 ◼   ► It's almost as if like,

00:30:35 ◼   ► if you wanted to do a demo application of like CloudKit

00:30:38 ◼   ► and the syncing services, the modern syncing services,

00:30:41 ◼   ► you would say, let's just pretend we're syncing,

00:30:43 ◼   ► you know, keyboard shortcuts,

00:30:44 ◼   ► where it's just, you know, name value pairs, all plain text.

00:30:48 ◼   ► Like it can't get any easier than that.

00:30:50 ◼   ► And if that doesn't work 100% rock solid,

00:30:52 ◼   ► reliably what hope in the world does anybody have

00:30:54 ◼   ► to build a reliable syncing engine for an application

00:30:56 ◼   ► with actual complicated data

00:30:58 ◼   ► on top of Apple's cloud services?

00:31:01 ◼   ► So that's why it always comes up.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Like it's not just because we're all obsessed

00:31:05 ◼   ► with tech shortcuts, it's because it's like a canary.

00:31:08 ◼   ► You know, it's like, if that doesn't work,

00:31:10 ◼   ► then, you know, as a developer,

00:31:12 ◼   ► A, don't even bother trying to build

00:31:14 ◼   ► your sophisticated application on top of the syncing engine.

00:31:17 ◼   ► And if that doesn't work, then as a user,

00:31:21 ◼   ► it makes you less confident in any of Apple's own

00:31:23 ◼   ► more complicated syncing things.

00:31:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's why Notes having a problem for me

00:31:28 ◼   ► this past week is really concerning for me.

00:31:30 ◼   ► Because it was reliable for the last year and a half,

00:31:35 ◼   ► or whatever it's been since they launched it,

00:31:37 ◼   ► and then all of a sudden now it's just not.

00:31:39 ◼   ► And I've tried the basic debugging technique

00:31:41 ◼   ► of like, oh, log out, log back in, clear everything, restore.

00:31:44 ◼   ► It's like, that doesn't work.

00:31:45 ◼   ► It's like, well, okay, now what?

00:31:48 ◼   ► - That's not a debugging technique.

00:31:49 ◼   ► That's just like the only thing you can do.

00:31:51 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:31:52 ◼   ► - But Notes is actually surprisingly sophisticated.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Like it's not just text shortcuts.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Because it does do like, try to do like merging of changes

00:32:00 ◼   ► and simultaneous accents for shared notes.

00:32:02 ◼   ► Do you use shared notes?

00:32:03 ◼   ► Like do you have like a shared like grocery list

00:32:05 ◼   ► with you and Tiff where you both have access

00:32:07 ◼   ► to the same note to read, write,

00:32:08 ◼   ► you know, Google Docs style thing?

00:32:10 ◼   ► - I've only ever done that with OneNote

00:32:11 ◼   ► and it's no longer there.

00:32:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I mean, we take it for granted,

00:32:14 ◼   ► like with the fact that we sit here

00:32:16 ◼   ► and I'll edit this Google Doc

00:32:17 ◼   ► that has our show notes in it.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Have we ever had data destroying bugs

00:32:21 ◼   ► or things that have caused it to be corrupt

00:32:23 ◼   ► or Casey writes something and I say,

00:32:26 ◼   ► Casey, did you write something?

00:32:27 ◼   ► I don't see anything.

00:32:28 ◼   ► That has literally never happened.

00:32:29 ◼   ► Google Docs, whatever they're doing, it just always works.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Is it the greatest app in the world?

00:32:33 ◼   ► No.

00:32:34 ◼   ► Is it possible to get weird things?

00:32:35 ◼   ► Like when I was trying to select some text

00:32:36 ◼   ► and Casey was writing earlier,

00:32:37 ◼   ► my selection moved because the text was going under it,

00:32:39 ◼   ► but you just stop selecting and you try again.

00:32:41 ◼   ► But that's one of the reasons I have such faith in Google and their cloud service stuff,

00:32:46 ◼   ► plus or minus privacy stuff, which, you know, use your own judgment, is that the basics,

00:32:52 ◼   ► you know, Google Docs, can multiple people edit a text document at the same time doesn't

00:32:55 ◼   ► get screwed up?

00:32:56 ◼   ► Proof is in the pudding, yes, they totally can.

00:32:58 ◼   ► Whereas, if we had gone with Margo's one time, perhaps, sarcastic suggestion to use like

00:33:03 ◼   ► a shared pages document, I have little faith that it would have been as successful.

00:33:07 ◼   ► I never said shared pages.

00:33:09 ◼   ► I would never have suggested that.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - Someone, one of you suggested we try iWork.com

00:33:13 ◼   ► or something, I don't know, it could have been a joke.

00:33:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, we did try, there was like,

00:33:17 ◼   ► there were a couple of other web services

00:33:19 ◼   ► that we tried that people had recommended

00:33:21 ◼   ► and none of those really worked out for us either.

00:33:23 ◼   ► And so we just came back to the Google Docs

00:33:25 ◼   ► 'cause it's, Google Docs is basically like the windows

00:33:28 ◼   ► of online collaboration, it's like--

00:33:31 ◼   ► - That's too harsh, I think.

00:33:34 ◼   ► When it comes to shared text documents, reliability,

00:33:38 ◼   ► I mean, it's not a bad application.

00:33:40 ◼   ► It's not great, the UI could be a little bit weird,

00:33:42 ◼   ► but it works all the time,

00:33:45 ◼   ► and it more or less has the features we need,

00:33:47 ◼   ► and none of us ever think about it.

00:33:50 ◼   ► I don't think we spend time worrying about

00:33:52 ◼   ► how Google Docs is working.

00:33:53 ◼   ► - That's true.

00:33:54 ◼   ► - And that's ideal for a tool you're gonna use

00:33:58 ◼   ► for this purpose, just like,

00:33:59 ◼   ► it's not in the front of any of our minds ever.

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00:35:36 ◼   ► I get to my iOS issues. It's the same as last time. I just want to give an update.

00:35:43 ◼   ► This is probably – it's just like a whole like bug complaint show.

00:35:46 ◼   ► No, I don't want it to be. I'm trying to bring it back, but we all have too many new

00:35:51 ◼   ► pieces of –

00:35:51 ◼   ► It's bug complaint slash desperately try to crowdsource solutions to your own personal

00:35:57 ◼   ► problems by using your position on that podcast. In theory, you could be helping other people

00:36:03 ◼   ► So this should have been a follow-up, but too late.

00:36:05 ◼   ► I was talking about plugging my big fat ugly lightning connected ear pods into my iPhone

00:36:11 ◼   ► 7 and how occasionally it doesn't work and I described some scenarios where it doesn't

00:36:16 ◼   ► work.

00:36:17 ◼   ► I come up with a new scenario where it doesn't work where I pick up my phone.

00:36:21 ◼   ► I don't know what order I do things and maybe I probably already unlocked it and overcast

00:36:25 ◼   ► it's the front-most app or whatever.

00:36:27 ◼   ► I plug in my headphones, put the ear pods in my ear.

00:36:30 ◼   ► I hit the big honking triangle play button in Overcast and sound starts coming out of

00:36:34 ◼   ► the speakers in the phone.

00:36:35 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:36 ◼   ► And there's a long time between the time when I plugged in the headphones and the time when

00:36:40 ◼   ► that happens it's like getting on an escalator that's not moving.

00:36:44 ◼   ► You're like, "Wait, what?"

00:36:46 ◼   ► I plugged in the headphones like seven seconds ago.

00:36:51 ◼   ► You know, sometimes you plug in the headphones then, you know, go to Springboard or go to

00:36:55 ◼   ► Overcast or like eventually you get there, you know, go to the podcast, you hit the play

00:36:58 ◼   ► button.

00:36:59 ◼   ► your ears for what seemed like forever and you hit play and it starts playing audio out

00:37:03 ◼   ► of the phone speaker and you just like you just shake your head at the phone like what is what

00:37:08 ◼   ► are you doing like this is your basics like none of your previous iPhones had this problem when I

00:37:13 ◼   ► plugged in the damn headphones and hit play on an audio app the sound always came out of the

00:37:17 ◼   ► headphones and like always did like a hundred percent of the time I've run this experiment

00:37:20 ◼   ► many times on every single iPod touch and every single iPhone every single iPod shuffle when I hit

00:37:25 ◼   ► "

00:37:41 ◼   ► it'll just play through the phone speaker still.

00:37:43 ◼   ► Even though the car thinks it's connected,

00:37:45 ◼   ► the phone thinks it's connected to the car,

00:37:47 ◼   ► but it still plays out through

00:37:47 ◼   ► the phone's internal speaker instead.

00:37:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, but Bluetooth never works.

00:37:50 ◼   ► Like, I'm not in a car.

00:37:51 ◼   ► - No, Bluetooth usually works.

00:37:53 ◼   ► Like, that's the-- - Yeah, I agree.

00:37:55 ◼   ► - My Bluetooth is not, my Bluetooth and my Honda

00:37:57 ◼   ► is incredibly unreliable, and I have all sorts

00:37:59 ◼   ► of situations like that that I'm used to dealing with.

00:38:01 ◼   ► But headphones, like the reason it's so,

00:38:03 ◼   ► the reason it's so disturbing to me is like,

00:38:05 ◼   ► headphones are just, you know,

00:38:06 ◼   ► I'm just in my kitchen, right?

00:38:07 ◼   ► this is previously 100% reliable technology.

00:38:11 ◼   ► So I'm really, my opinion is going downhill fast.

00:38:15 ◼   ► - Well, it was never, the way iOS handles audio routing

00:38:19 ◼   ► to different devices has never been 100% reliable.

00:38:22 ◼   ► I think, and different releases, as they update

00:38:25 ◼   ► and change certain subsystems to enable new things

00:38:27 ◼   ► or whatever, certain OSs are better than others.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And I think iOS 10 is particularly bad in this area

00:38:32 ◼   ► of selecting the right output device reliably.

00:38:35 ◼   ► But almost every iOS version that comes out,

00:38:39 ◼   ► almost every, betas one through five

00:38:42 ◼   ► of almost every iOS version every year

00:38:44 ◼   ► have some massive problem with audio routing.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I don't know why audio routing is just always messed with.

00:38:50 ◼   ► I assume all the changes in iOS 10

00:38:52 ◼   ► were to accommodate the AirPods and all the different,

00:38:56 ◼   ► 'cause that's like Bluetooth audio

00:38:57 ◼   ► got really messed up for a while in the betas

00:38:58 ◼   ► and I'm pretty sure that's why.

00:39:00 ◼   ► But whatever they do, it seems like they're always

00:39:02 ◼   ► having to mess with the audio stack in weird ways

00:39:05 ◼   ► that leave it very unreliable.

00:39:07 ◼   ► And one of the very frequent problems

00:39:09 ◼   ► I've always had with phones,

00:39:10 ◼   ► every once in a while you will tell your podcast to play

00:39:14 ◼   ► and it'll think there's no speakers

00:39:15 ◼   ► connected to the phone of any form.

00:39:17 ◼   ► Like it'll show like nothing in the source list

00:39:21 ◼   ► from the AirPlay icon,

00:39:23 ◼   ► or it'll show like iPhone as the only entry.

00:39:27 ◼   ► And usually you have to just reboot when that,

00:39:29 ◼   ► like there's nothing you can do to use reboot at that point.

00:39:31 ◼   ► But that's been a long-standing iOS bug.

00:39:33 ◼   ► And again, almost every iOS version has something like that

00:39:37 ◼   ► that's going wrong with it every so often.

00:39:39 ◼   ► - But have you ever plugged in plain old headphones

00:39:41 ◼   ► into a plain old headphone jack on an iOS device

00:39:44 ◼   ► and then played audio and not had it come out

00:39:45 ◼   ► to headphones?

00:39:46 ◼   ► I've literally never had that experience

00:39:47 ◼   ► until like this week with the lighting.

00:39:49 ◼   ► - That's a good point.

00:39:50 ◼   ► I know I have not had that happen to me,

00:39:52 ◼   ► but now every device is whatever class of device

00:39:58 ◼   ► that like Bluetooth and car things get.

00:40:00 ◼   ► Like now headphones are like that too

00:40:03 ◼   ► because of progress and courage.

00:40:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, now they got their own little computers in there.

00:40:06 ◼   ► Yeah, so the other thing that I saw,

00:40:09 ◼   ► which is I'm sure related to this,

00:40:11 ◼   ► but it was really weird 'cause I've never seen this one.

00:40:13 ◼   ► You know, iOS occasionally freaks out.

00:40:15 ◼   ► iOS for the most part is incredibly reliable.

00:40:17 ◼   ► Like I don't reboot my iOS devices.

00:40:19 ◼   ► They just run and run and run and run,

00:40:20 ◼   ► and that's the way it's supposed to be.

00:40:22 ◼   ► But recently on my iPhone 7,

00:40:24 ◼   ► again, plugging in the headphones,

00:40:25 ◼   ► So I plug in the headphones and then I hit the play button.

00:40:29 ◼   ► I think it might have just been on the lock screen because you know the little – the

00:40:32 ◼   ► media controls are still on lock screen.

00:40:33 ◼   ► I hit the play button to play and it doesn't play anything.

00:40:36 ◼   ► Like well fine whatever.

00:40:37 ◼   ► It doesn't play anything.

00:40:38 ◼   ► Let me just unlock the phone.

00:40:39 ◼   ► Well first let me unplug and plug – replug the headphones which is usually the first

00:40:42 ◼   ► thing.

00:40:43 ◼   ► Hit the play button, nothing happens.

00:40:44 ◼   ► And I'm like wait, is the play button even activating?

00:40:46 ◼   ► Let me unlock the phone and actually go to overcast and hit the play button there.

00:40:49 ◼   ► And I noticed that I can't unlock the phone.

00:40:51 ◼   ► I'm like oh, is it the stupid fingerprint?

00:40:52 ◼   ► Is that the problem?

00:40:53 ◼   ► Oh, forget about the fingerprint.

00:40:54 ◼   ► press the home button so I can do the, you know, enter my password so I can unlock my

00:40:59 ◼   ► phone, which I never do because I use Touch ID all the time, and I can't get the password

00:41:02 ◼   ► screen to come up.

00:41:03 ◼   ► And then I hit the home button and nothing's happening.

00:41:06 ◼   ► And I hit the power button and the phone doesn't go back to sleep.

00:41:10 ◼   ► And so I'm hitting every physical control and semi-physical control.

00:41:14 ◼   ► I'm pulling out the headphones and putting them back in.

00:41:16 ◼   ► I'm hitting the non-moving home button.

00:41:18 ◼   ► I'm hitting the power button and literally nothing is happening.

00:41:22 ◼   ► The screen is just sitting there staring at me.

00:41:24 ◼   ► It is not turning on, it is not turning off, it is not unlocking, it is not presenting

00:41:27 ◼   ► me with an unlock screen.

00:41:28 ◼   ► I tried to do what I think, I don't know if this is the case, but I'm trying to go from

00:41:32 ◼   ► memory like, "Oh, what's the new hard reboot thing?"

00:41:36 ◼   ► So I'm doing volume up and the power button, I think that's wrong.

00:41:39 ◼   ► I didn't, you know.

00:41:40 ◼   ► It's volume down.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:41:42 ◼   ► Well, anyway, I tried various combinations of buttons, probably all of which were wrong,

00:41:44 ◼   ► none of which did anything.

00:41:45 ◼   ► I think if I had correctly found the one that kills it, I'm assuming it would have just

00:41:50 ◼   ► turned off like the equivalent of yanking the plug, right?

00:41:52 ◼   ► but I didn't find it, right?

00:41:54 ◼   ► And I'm doing this for, I don't know,

00:41:56 ◼   ► a minute, two minutes,

00:41:57 ◼   ► and then eventually things start happening

00:41:59 ◼   ► and I realize it is catching up

00:42:00 ◼   ► with everything that I've done

00:42:01 ◼   ► over the past several minutes.

00:42:03 ◼   ► - I've seen this happen.

00:42:03 ◼   ► - It happened to me once too.

00:42:05 ◼   ► And all of a sudden I see the volume changing

00:42:07 ◼   ► and going up and down and the lock screen coming

00:42:09 ◼   ► and just, and then it was fine.

00:42:11 ◼   ► - And then everything freaks out.

00:42:12 ◼   ► The Apple Pay screen pops up

00:42:13 ◼   ► because you kept hitting the home button.

00:42:14 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep.

00:42:15 ◼   ► It eventually got all that out of its system.

00:42:18 ◼   ► I'm like, okay, well it's back to normal.

00:42:19 ◼   ► And bottom line is I didn't reboot the thing,

00:42:21 ◼   ► but that whole time when it was freaking out,

00:42:23 ◼   ► it seemed to be kicked off by me plugging in my headphones,

00:42:26 ◼   ► but who the heck knows?

00:42:27 ◼   ► And anyway, that's very anti-social behavior

00:42:29 ◼   ► that also makes me concerned about my iPhone.

00:42:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, that happened to me a few,

00:42:34 ◼   ► maybe a couple of months ago, and I tweeted about it,

00:42:37 ◼   ► and I got a lot of responses from people saying

00:42:39 ◼   ► that happened to them too, and so it seems like

00:42:41 ◼   ► that's not that uncommon.

00:42:43 ◼   ► But, yeah, oh jeez.

00:42:45 ◼   ► - Like Sierra, iOS 10 is new,

00:42:47 ◼   ► so I just want more point releases to come out.

00:42:49 ◼   ► - It's not that new.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Well I guess, but like Sierra still, Sierra has not had a lot of point releases.

00:42:54 ◼   ► What is it up to?

00:42:55 ◼   ► Is it just the point one still?

00:42:56 ◼   ► Yes.

00:42:57 ◼   ► 10.12.1?

00:42:58 ◼   ► Yeah, although dot two is I believe in pretty late beta at this point, but.

00:43:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I saw all the rumors about the new Polaris GPU drivers with making people think about

00:43:06 ◼   ► Mac Pros in there.

00:43:07 ◼   ► But anyway, I'm ready for point releases, because every point release I'm like, well

00:43:11 ◼   ► maybe they fixed this annoying thing, so.

00:43:14 ◼   ► And 10.2 they're saying they're on beta seven of 10.2.

00:43:16 ◼   ► I mean obviously they're more cautious with the iOS releases, so it's taken a while for

00:43:19 ◼   ► for 10.2 to appear, but it was like 10.1,

00:43:22 ◼   ► they don't do the three digit numbers on iOS versions,

00:43:25 ◼   ► do they? - Yeah, they do,

00:43:26 ◼   ► but it's only for bug fixes for the last digit.

00:43:28 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:43:30 ◼   ► Anyway, hopefully when both of these OSs,

00:43:33 ◼   ► both Mac OS and iOS get their next point releases,

00:43:37 ◼   ► some or all of these things will improve.

00:43:39 ◼   ► - All right, on that happy note,

00:43:42 ◼   ► tell us about Amazon Go.

00:43:44 ◼   ► So Amazon, as chief summarizer and chief,

00:43:47 ◼   ► Amazon has come up with a,

00:43:49 ◼   ► "Hey, look what we're building video

00:43:52 ◼   ► that is only a couple minutes long, it's worth watching."

00:43:54 ◼   ► And basically it's taking Apple's easy steal

00:43:57 ◼   ► to the next level.

00:43:58 ◼   ► And the general premise is you scan a,

00:44:02 ◼   ► I think it was like a QR code that's on your phone

00:44:05 ◼   ► as you walk through a turnstile on your way in,

00:44:07 ◼   ► then you grab whatever it is you want to purchase,

00:44:10 ◼   ► and then you walk out.

00:44:11 ◼   ► And between like computer vision

00:44:13 ◼   ► and presumably like weight detection

00:44:16 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:44:17 ◼   ► RFID, I would imagine.

00:44:18 ◼   ► And RFID, yeah.

00:44:19 ◼   ► No RFID.

00:44:20 ◼   ► What?

00:44:21 ◼   ► Oh, did they say it wasn't RFID?

00:44:23 ◼   ► I'm surmising that.

00:44:25 ◼   ► Oh, okay.

00:44:26 ◼   ► So what are the catchphrases they use?

00:44:28 ◼   ► Computer vision, deep learning algorithms, sensor fusion are the three things they say.

00:44:34 ◼   ► We just know you bought a ton of Altoids.

00:44:35 ◼   ► You always buy a ton of Altoids.

00:44:37 ◼   ► We just assume you're going to buy one every time at this point.

00:44:39 ◼   ► They'll speculatively charge you for things that you're going to buy in the future, Minority

00:44:42 ◼   ► Report style.

00:44:43 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:44:44 ◼   ► A bunch of bald people in bathtubs know what you're going to buy.

00:44:47 ◼   ► Which is probably not far from the truth minus the bathtubs and the people.

00:44:50 ◼   ► They know what you're going to buy.

00:44:51 ◼   ► That's why Target sends you the thing with the baby supplies before you know you're pregnant.

00:44:55 ◼   ► They call that big data.

00:44:57 ◼   ► That really happened, kids.

00:44:58 ◼   ► I'm not going to put an article in the show notes because it'll take me three days to

00:45:01 ◼   ► find it, but that really did happen.

00:45:02 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:45:03 ◼   ► It'll take you three seconds to find that one.

00:45:04 ◼   ► It may be.

00:45:05 ◼   ► But the point is, you walk in, you scan a QR code in your phone to identify who you

00:45:09 ◼   ► are, you buy some things, then you leave.

00:45:12 ◼   ► And there's no checkout.

00:45:13 ◼   ► You just walk right out.

00:45:14 ◼   ► And in principle, this sounds pretty neat to me.

00:45:19 ◼   ► We should probably have a moment to mention Humans Need Not Apply, which is a great video

00:45:25 ◼   ► by a friend of the show, CGP Grey, about how when things like these automations happen,

00:45:31 ◼   ► that means that eventually humans will not have jobs, which is a problem.

00:45:34 ◼   ► But that horrible dystopian future aside, this sounds pretty cool.

00:45:38 ◼   ► So here's what I think about how this works based on this video.

00:45:43 ◼   ► The store, by the way, isn't open yet.

00:45:44 ◼   ► There's going to be one location in Seattle.

00:45:46 ◼   ► It's not open yet.

00:45:46 ◼   ► So all you've got is a video and a page that has a bunch of information on it.

00:45:49 ◼   ► Um, so it shows there's no turnstile, by the way, that would be barbaric.

00:45:53 ◼   ► You walk in through these, you know, these little, you know, they have little

00:45:58 ◼   ► dividers that you scan your QR code, but it's not as if you're going through like

00:46:00 ◼   ► a subway, you know, turnstile or amusement park, turnstile.

00:46:03 ◼   ► So you just walk through the QR code is scanned.

00:46:05 ◼   ► Now the thing knows you're in the store.

00:46:07 ◼   ► And I think one of the key technologies is the video says, and then just put your

00:46:11 ◼   ► phone away.

00:46:11 ◼   ► Like it's not like you're scanning things with your phone like on Apple's Apple store app or whatever

00:46:15 ◼   ► Once you scan your QR code and enter you still have to have your phone on you, but you can just put it in your pocket

00:46:20 ◼   ► It's not involved in this. You're not you're not tapping products with your phone

00:46:23 ◼   ► You're not scanning them with your phone and your phone's camera is not seeing them like it's in your pocket, right?

00:46:28 ◼   ► But they do have I think one part of this is proximity

00:46:31 ◼   ► Like it knows roughly where you are in the store probably using those eye beacons or similar type of technology

00:46:36 ◼   ► It knows what you like your phone has to be on

00:46:38 ◼   ► So it knows where it knows that you're in the store and knows roughly where you are and the computer vision thing

00:46:44 ◼   ► Like if you look at the video

00:46:45 ◼   ► every product that people are getting is kind of like they're inside a giant vending machine where things like slide down like the candy bar slides

00:46:51 ◼   ► Down a little twisty corkscrew, right?

00:46:52 ◼   ► And the next one comes like everything is in a single file lane

00:46:55 ◼   ► Where you grab the product at the front which by the way?

00:46:58 ◼   ► I would never do because you always got to pull from the back or middle, right?

00:47:00 ◼   ► And I assume they have cameras all over plus like you're saying weight sensors and any other things like sensor fusion

00:47:08 ◼   ► of knowing someone has picked a product off of this shelf.

00:47:12 ◼   ► You know which product it is

00:47:14 ◼   ► because you know which row it came in.

00:47:15 ◼   ► It's not like they're haphazardly shelved

00:47:16 ◼   ► or some employees like shelving them.

00:47:18 ◼   ► They're in precise rows.

00:47:20 ◼   ► And when you pull one off, they know you pulled one off.

00:47:22 ◼   ► And they know it was you based on proximity

00:47:25 ◼   ► of where your phone is.

00:47:26 ◼   ► Now, what if you are shoulder to shoulder

00:47:28 ◼   ► with three other people who are also pulling things off?

00:47:31 ◼   ► I suppose if you all reach over each other

00:47:32 ◼   ► and all three grab things out of the same aisle

00:47:35 ◼   ► that you're standing in front of,

00:47:36 ◼   ► it's possible to confuse the thing.

00:47:37 ◼   ► But what I'm getting is I think it's not RFID.

00:47:40 ◼   ► I think there is no, there are not RFID tags

00:47:42 ◼   ► on every single one of these things.

00:47:43 ◼   ► I think there's plain old containers.

00:47:45 ◼   ► There's nothing special about the containers.

00:47:47 ◼   ► Everything is about sensing where you are with the phone

00:47:50 ◼   ► and figuring out when people pull things out

00:47:52 ◼   ► of these very specific restricted little columns of food.

00:47:56 ◼   ► And the food that you were getting,

00:47:57 ◼   ► it's not like your supermarket where you can go buy,

00:48:01 ◼   ► you know, a loaf of bread, mayonnaise, you know,

00:48:04 ◼   ► some ground beef, like just,

00:48:05 ◼   ► It is more like prepared foods in little tins,

00:48:08 ◼   ► like in the prepared food section of Whole Foods

00:48:09 ◼   ► or whatever, plus maybe a couple of staples

00:48:11 ◼   ► like milk and butter and stuff like that.

00:48:13 ◼   ► But it is not a full-fetch grocery store

00:48:15 ◼   ► with everything you expect to see there.

00:48:17 ◼   ► I think partially because it would be hard

00:48:20 ◼   ► to get all that into this format,

00:48:21 ◼   ► into this little slidey-down, you know, whatever,

00:48:25 ◼   ► like these little rows of food

00:48:26 ◼   ► in neat little containers that are all uniformly sized,

00:48:29 ◼   ► 'cause that's not how real grocery stores work.

00:48:31 ◼   ► And then finally, the idea is that you,

00:48:35 ◼   ► you grab the food and you just take it with you

00:48:37 ◼   ► and you just leave.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Like there is no,

00:48:39 ◼   ► there's no scanning of your items as you leave.

00:48:41 ◼   ► There's no like,

00:48:42 ◼   ► you don't even have to scan your QR code on the way back out.

00:48:44 ◼   ► You just walk out of the store.

00:48:46 ◼   ► It doesn't care what you put the items in.

00:48:47 ◼   ► You don't have to put them into a special bag.

00:48:49 ◼   ► You don't have to like, just,

00:48:50 ◼   ► you just take the crap and you leave.

00:48:51 ◼   ► And they say, and you know,

00:48:53 ◼   ► we'll charge your account for the amount that you bought,

00:48:56 ◼   ► you know, 'cause it's Amazon.

00:48:57 ◼   ► They have all your information

00:48:58 ◼   ► and your credit cards or whatever.

00:48:59 ◼   ► And if you're interested in looking at the receipt,

00:49:02 ◼   ► you can look at it right in the same app

00:49:04 ◼   ► that you scanned on the way in.

00:49:05 ◼   ► you launch this free app, this Amazon Go app, and it says, "Oh, you just bought these five

00:49:09 ◼   ► things." Right? And when I saw that, and I had my wife look at this too, and I knew what

00:49:14 ◼   ► her reaction would be to some degree, and when I saw it, what I thought of was like,

00:49:18 ◼   ► "Oh, no checkout lines, no waiting in line." But if everybody who used this was like my

00:49:24 ◼   ► wife, which I don't think everybody in the world is, but there are enough of them, what

00:49:27 ◼   ► would happen instead of people waiting in checkout lines is everybody would exit the

00:49:31 ◼   ► store with their stuff. And as soon as they got the door, they would be staring at their

00:49:36 ◼   ► phone, stopped in place, staring at their phone to make sure that the receipt in the

00:49:39 ◼   ► app exactly matches everything that's in their bag. To make sure they weren't overcharged

00:49:42 ◼   ► for anything, right? And so what would actually happen is the entrance to the store would

00:49:46 ◼   ► be clogged with a bunch of people who were all frantically checking their receipt to

00:49:49 ◼   ► make sure they didn't get charged for 500 cans of Hellmann's mayonnaise when really

00:49:53 ◼   ► they just took one or whatever. And then going back into the store and trying to correct

00:49:56 ◼   ► it like, you have to have, for this to work, it has to be like the people in the video

00:50:00 ◼   ► where it's like, I just walk out of the store and I'm fine.

00:50:03 ◼   ► Like I don't even need to look at this receipt.

00:50:04 ◼   ► Maybe later when I'm doing like my bills,

00:50:06 ◼   ► I'll look at the receipt, but I trust that it's fine.

00:50:08 ◼   ► But people who are, I don't know,

00:50:12 ◼   ► who are very careful about money spending

00:50:14 ◼   ► want to know immediately,

00:50:15 ◼   ► the same reason you check a paper receipt.

00:50:17 ◼   ► Like are you guys paper receipt checkers?

00:50:19 ◼   ► Like after you go to the grocery store,

00:50:20 ◼   ► do you look down the receipt or do you watch the scanning

00:50:23 ◼   ► to make sure that everything is being scanned

00:50:24 ◼   ► for the right price and that, you know,

00:50:26 ◼   ► oh, those are supposed to be two for $5.

00:50:28 ◼   ► And you know, do you check the receipt to make sure

00:50:30 ◼   ► that they didn't charge you for something you didn't buy and that you got the right

00:50:33 ◼   ► prices?

00:50:34 ◼   ► Not usually. Never.

00:50:35 ◼   ► Yeah, well, some people are receipt checkers. I'm definitely a scan watcher, because what

00:50:41 ◼   ► else do you have to do during that time? I watch the items being scanned in case they,

00:50:44 ◼   ► like, you know, scan the, you know, the potatoes, five potatoes I have, and it comes up as,

00:50:50 ◼   ► like, some ridiculous price because they thought it was, you know, you know, seven pounds of

00:50:54 ◼   ► saffron or something. You want to be watching for that stuff. If you're not one of those

00:50:59 ◼   ► people and you can go la-dee-da and just leave but I think there's enough receipt checkers

00:51:03 ◼   ► like if you're just to watch people leaving who just at least glance over the receipt

00:51:06 ◼   ► you know make sure the total makes sense make sure if you saw something you bought because

00:51:10 ◼   ► they were two for five dollars and that was a discount that you actually do get them for

00:51:14 ◼   ► two for five dollars and it's not like real grocery stores are clogged with people checking

00:51:18 ◼   ► their receipts but that anxiety that like this magical system like can I trust this

00:51:24 ◼   ► magical system initially that's going to be there now if it works really well eventually

00:51:28 ◼   ► people will just let go and say, "Oh, I don't need to keep checking that." It's more reliable

00:51:32 ◼   ► than humans. It's more reliable than self-checkout. It's more reliable than having real cashier,

00:51:37 ◼   ► which I think will be a real challenge because a really good supermarket cashier is way better

00:51:40 ◼   ► than -- that's why self-checkout sucks. When you check yourself out, you realize an experienced

00:51:44 ◼   ► cashier who knows exactly what code to enter for these particular kinds of green beans,

00:51:49 ◼   ► just bip, bip, bip, bip, bip, you know, like the things that don't have codes on them,

00:51:52 ◼   ► a good human cashier is worth way more than we pay them. And you don't realize until you

00:51:56 ◼   ► You either have to check yourself out or you get a bad human cashier.

00:51:59 ◼   ► Anyway, if the machines can ever match that, we will be happy and we will stop obsessing

00:52:05 ◼   ► with it.

00:52:06 ◼   ► But I think we have a long way to go to get there.

00:52:08 ◼   ► And in the meantime, the possibility of being overcharged is one thing.

00:52:11 ◼   ► And the second possibility is that the stupid thing will miss a bunch of stuff and you'll

00:52:14 ◼   ► get a lot of free food.

00:52:15 ◼   ► So that's a possible reason to check out the flagship store because I would imagine there's

00:52:20 ◼   ► going to be at least an equal number of situations where it doesn't keep track of something and

00:52:24 ◼   ► you just got some free food.

00:52:25 ◼   ► And if you're not a receipt checker, you're not going to know or care, and you're going

00:52:28 ◼   ► to eat the thing, and then later at the end of the month when you reconcile stuff, you'll

00:52:31 ◼   ► be like, "Hmm, everything was pretty cheap.

00:52:33 ◼   ► Oh, I guess it keeps missing those bunch of bananas that I take from the store every week

00:52:36 ◼   ► and it hasn't been charging me for them."

00:52:38 ◼   ► Because there's no one there watching.

00:52:39 ◼   ► So I don't know.

00:52:41 ◼   ► Someone who lives in Seattle should try the store out and then right into the show.

00:52:44 ◼   ► How many bananas are you buying where you would even notice whether you got them for

00:52:48 ◼   ► free or not?

00:52:49 ◼   ► Because they don't cost a lot.

00:52:51 ◼   ► I mean, it's one banana, Michael.

00:52:53 ◼   ► What could it cost?

00:52:54 ◼   ► Ten dollars?

00:52:55 ◼   ► You get a lot of bananas. You make a lot of banana bread. That's a staple around here.

00:52:58 ◼   ► You get a lot of bananas and if they go over, they get too brown for people to want to eat.

00:53:03 ◼   ► Banana bread, banana muffins, it's like, you know, bonus.

00:53:06 ◼   ► Kind of sounds like you're buying too many bananas on a number of fronts here.

00:53:10 ◼   ► Can never have too much banana bread. I don't think that's possible.

00:53:12 ◼   ► Oh, amen. Amen. Couldn't agree more. I don't know. I'm interested in this. I think it looks

00:53:17 ◼   ► pretty neat. I suspect that it won't be commonplace for years. We discussed this briefly on Clockwise

00:53:24 ◼   ► today which I happen to be a guest host on. We'll put a link in the show notes. And I

00:53:29 ◼   ► think this is the indication of the future, but I don't think we're quite into the future

00:53:35 ◼   ► yet. So we'll see. But it looks very cool if it works and if it's reliable.

00:53:39 ◼   ► So…

00:53:40 ◼   ► And this is the type of thing I like to see Amazon doing. Amazon does lots of things,

00:53:43 ◼   ► a lot of which don't seem to be part of their core competencies or only, you know,

00:53:51 ◼   ► like it's arguable whether everything that would eventually become Amazon Web

00:53:55 ◼   ► Services and you know S3 and EC2 and all that stuff is that part of Amazon's core

00:53:59 ◼   ► comps? Don't they sell books on the internet you know in the 90s version of

00:54:03 ◼   ► them right? But of course they have to run their own servers but then they

00:54:07 ◼   ► weren't really running their own servers on their web services for a long time

00:54:09 ◼   ► but then eventually they want to be so you can argue that like it may not seem

00:54:14 ◼   ► like this is a core part of a company that sells you things over the internet

00:54:17 ◼   ► but it is because this is how they run their business and then they do stuff

00:54:20 ◼   ► like the Fire Phone and the tablets and you can kind of argue about that and like well

00:54:24 ◼   ► it kind of works in with giving you an easier way to buy things and so on and so forth.

00:54:27 ◼   ► But this one seems very straightforward to me. Amazon at this point is a place that sells

00:54:31 ◼   ► you anything that can be sold to people like physical goods. And people think about Amazon

00:54:37 ◼   ► physical stores like how funny that is. Ah, they you know they drove all the booksellers,

00:54:41 ◼   ► the brick and mortar booksellers out of business and now now that they're all dead they'll

00:54:44 ◼   ► buy up all the retail space that they vacated and start their own stores. Haha. It's kind

00:54:48 ◼   ► of morbid. but a store where you sell things, this is an Amazon way to do that.

00:54:55 ◼   ► selling things is Amazon's core competency, right? if anyone's gonna

00:54:58 ◼   ► figure out how to sell things better it would be Amazon. and selling things like

00:55:03 ◼   ► without having to pay cashiers or anything like that, like basically a you

00:55:06 ◼   ► know a store that is just like a big place that you go into and grab stuff

00:55:10 ◼   ► and Amazon figures how to efficiently extract your money, that's Amazon's core

00:55:14 ◼   ► competency too. the king of the stupid one-click patent. like Amazon wants to

00:55:18 ◼   ► make it so you buy things when you sneeze. Like you accidentally buy things. It's so

00:55:22 ◼   ► easy to buy things, it is harder not to buy things. Like you can't even look at it. It's

00:55:26 ◼   ► like don't look at the Amazon web page. You'll accidentally buy something with your retinal

00:55:29 ◼   ► buying thing that sees your gaze lingering on something. Like that's, you know, anyway.

00:55:35 ◼   ► And most people like it. Like it's the reason we all use Amazon. Like they, despite all

00:55:40 ◼   ► the things we may not like about their labor practices and all sorts of stuff like that,

00:55:44 ◼   ► draw of their product, making it convenient to buy things, is a real thing. And so if

00:55:50 ◼   ► anyone's going to bring this to us, I give Amazon a fair shot because this is definitely

00:55:54 ◼   ► in their wheelhouse and I want to go to a store that's like this. I want them to work

00:55:58 ◼   ► on this store over years and years and iterate and iterate and iterate. I don't want them

00:56:01 ◼   ► to give up on it like the Fire Phone or whatever. I want this one to work so that 5-10 years

00:56:06 ◼   ► from now there's one near me that we can just go into and you don't have to wait on checkout

00:56:10 ◼   ► lines anymore. I hope they don't put all the other supermarkets out of business and I doubt

00:56:14 ◼   ► they will, but I'm really rooting for this. And it's not like implausible future, like

00:56:19 ◼   ► hoverboards or whatever. Not the fake ones, the real ones. I think that we're close to

00:56:27 ◼   ► this kind of technology, unlike what I've said about true self-driving cars, which I

00:56:31 ◼   ► think are farther off than everybody else thinks they are, but people really just don't

00:56:34 ◼   ► have the same definition as me about self-driving cars. Anyway, I think this is close enough

00:56:39 ◼   ► to work. The first one's going to be a disaster, whatever, but like work out the kinks, give

00:56:42 ◼   ► it a few years, stick to it, and I'm excited for this.

00:56:46 ◼   ► I would love it if it would ever come to the suburbs where I live, but I think that's unlikely.

00:56:51 ◼   ► I would definitely come to where you live, because rich people are the core market for

00:56:53 ◼   ► this.

00:56:54 ◼   ► Totally want to buy, you know, if someone has prepared foods, like can you imagine how

00:56:57 ◼   ► much this stuff's going to cost you?

00:56:58 ◼   ► No, go into Whole Foods and try to buy a tiny cup of cut up fruit.

00:57:02 ◼   ► It's like each one of them is made out of dollar bills.

00:57:04 ◼   ► That's true.

00:57:05 ◼   ► It's the most expensive food items per pound in the universe.

00:57:08 ◼   ► Two thoughts here.

00:57:09 ◼   ► First of all, I love John making fun of Marco for being where the rich people live, because

00:57:14 ◼   ► John, I think you need to—

00:57:15 ◼   ► I'm in the way the rich people are too.

00:57:16 ◼   ► Okay, exactly.

00:57:17 ◼   ► That's where these doors are going to be.

00:57:18 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure your neighborhood is more upscale than mine, for the record.

00:57:22 ◼   ► It's not.

00:57:23 ◼   ► You live next to Batman.

00:57:24 ◼   ► I live next to the people who work on Batman's staff.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Wow, that was a pissing match I did not expect to be a part of.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Anyway, the other thing I will say, which is now not nearly as funny, but one time I

00:57:41 ◼   ► was at work like two years ago and I'd forgotten to bring a lunch or maybe I didn't bring a

00:57:47 ◼   ► lunch because I thought I was going out to eat.

00:57:49 ◼   ► And so I was without a lunch.

00:57:50 ◼   ► I was launchless.

00:57:51 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, "You know what?

00:57:52 ◼   ► I'm going to treat myself.

00:57:53 ◼   ► I'm going to go to Whole Foods.

00:57:54 ◼   ► I'm going to get me one of those boxes where I go to the hot bar and I put a whole bunch

00:57:58 ◼   ► of stuff in there."

00:57:59 ◼   ► So I went and I got, I think, like a little thing of ribs.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Don't go for the hard-boiled eggs.

00:58:03 ◼   ► They weigh too much.

00:58:04 ◼   ► solid bar tricks.

00:58:05 ◼   ► It's funny you say that because I made the critical mistake of getting mac and cheese,

00:58:10 ◼   ► which is like 18 pounds of mac and cheese for like one bite.

00:58:15 ◼   ► And I went to check out and I put my box of goodies on the scale and it was like literally

00:58:21 ◼   ► $18.

00:58:22 ◼   ► Something like that.

00:58:23 ◼   ► I was about to guess $18 as a joke price.

00:58:25 ◼   ► I was going to guess $27, but I have a gauge on exactly how much food you're piling into

00:58:32 ◼   ► there.

00:58:33 ◼   ► That's the thing about prepared foods.

00:58:34 ◼   ► Like, A, they're really expensive and you kind of understand how they're really expensive.

00:58:37 ◼   ► You start doing the math on they have to pay for the raw ingredients, they have to pay

00:58:41 ◼   ► for the people who have them, and they must have a huge amount of waste because all that

00:58:43 ◼   ► stuff doesn't get sold every day and they got to just dump it or give it away or whatever.

00:58:47 ◼   ► So I understand why it's expensive, but B, it doesn't taste very good.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Like if I was paying a lot of money, if I was going to a restaurant and paying $18 for

00:58:58 ◼   ► I want something that tastes you know that tastes good enough to be worth $18

00:59:02 ◼   ► But that's stuff that's sitting in there under like heat lamps or whatever. I don't like it is it is

00:59:07 ◼   ► It doesn't taste good to me. So I will never buy that I will I will sooner buy

00:59:12 ◼   ► Just the plain ingredients to something and make myself a sandwich out of the loaf of bread and the three ingredients

00:59:20 ◼   ► I got then buy one of their prepared things

00:59:22 ◼   ► Maybe I'm just allergic to prepared foods and I want it to either be freshly made or

00:59:27 ◼   ► something that doesn't need to be fresh like a, you know, I don't know, like a thing

00:59:31 ◼   ► of yogurt or something where it's not like they're making it right there but it's,

00:59:33 ◼   ► you know, it's a sealed prepared food versus they made something for you at some point

00:59:38 ◼   ► in the hopefully not too distant past and then just sits there waiting for you to buy

00:59:42 ◼   ► it.

00:59:43 ◼   ► It seems like they don't know that salt exists at most of these prepared food bars.

00:59:47 ◼   ► Well, you should never be going to these.

00:59:49 ◼   ► You should just be going to a deli.

00:59:50 ◼   ► You have actual delis.

00:59:51 ◼   ► go there and they'll make you a sandwich out of the ingredients.

00:59:54 ◼   ► And those ingredients like that are sitting there in the thing like, you know, my beloved

00:59:57 ◼   ► egg salad and your beloved chicken salad, it's the same deal.

00:59:59 ◼   ► Someone has to prepare that and hopefully in the not too distant past and there's a

01:00:02 ◼   ► lot of waste and they get rid of it.

01:00:04 ◼   ► But it's a difference between the chicken salad sitting in a tub or even like whatever

01:00:10 ◼   ► and chicken salad sandwiches sitting there in a case waiting for you to show up.

01:00:15 ◼   ► When you show up, they make you the chicken salad sandwich with the chicken salad sitting

01:00:18 ◼   ► in the tub, but they make it right there and hand it to you.

01:00:20 ◼   ► And that is so much better than if the sandwich

01:00:23 ◼   ► was sitting there.

01:00:24 ◼   ► - Oh, totally.

01:00:25 ◼   ► I mean, you're talking now, just like our previous discussion

01:00:27 ◼   ► about like Subway, and it's like now you're in the category

01:00:30 ◼   ► of like airport triangle box sandwiches.

01:00:32 ◼   ► And those are just always soggy and never good.

01:00:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, Whole Foods is hopefully

01:00:36 ◼   ► a little bit better than that.

01:00:37 ◼   ► But there's nothing you can do about that.

01:00:38 ◼   ► You can't have, how long has that rotisserie chicken

01:00:42 ◼   ► been sitting under the heat lamps?

01:00:45 ◼   ► And that's a pretty shelf stable thing

01:00:47 ◼   ► where it's not gonna get too gross,

01:00:48 ◼   ► but it's gross enough not to be worth like the $18

01:00:50 ◼   ► that Casey's paying for the thing.

01:00:52 ◼   ► - I will say though, so I don't usually participate

01:00:56 ◼   ► in the prepared food bar at grocery stores

01:00:58 ◼   ► because as you pointed out,

01:01:00 ◼   ► I typically have more options around

01:01:02 ◼   ► that I can just go to one of those.

01:01:04 ◼   ► However, my crazy indulgence is the pre-chopped vegetables

01:01:09 ◼   ► that come in the produce section.

01:01:13 ◼   ► - The lazy person section.

01:01:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like if I have to cook a meal,

01:01:18 ◼   ► I don't buy everything pre-chopped.

01:01:20 ◼   ► But things that are really tedious,

01:01:21 ◼   ► I will often go that route.

01:01:23 ◼   ► Just grab it, just fine, this is fine.

01:01:24 ◼   ► It's good enough, I'll save 10 minutes.

01:01:26 ◼   ► It's worth the extra--

01:01:28 ◼   ► - Do you not look at the price so you can sleep at night?

01:01:30 ◼   ► 'Cause that, it's brutal.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - Some of them I look and I'm like,

01:01:33 ◼   ► all right, even I can't do that.

01:01:34 ◼   ► I cannot justify that.

01:01:36 ◼   ► - You can't stomach $9 for the chopped walnuts.

01:01:38 ◼   ► Just put 'em back.

01:01:39 ◼   ► - Well, nobody would use walnuts

01:01:40 ◼   ► 'cause walnuts are terrible.

01:01:41 ◼   ► And they would never cost $9 'cause walnuts are worthless

01:01:43 ◼   ► because they're terrible.

01:01:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, I heard about your walnut hate.

01:01:45 ◼   ► - No, they're just the worst nuts ever.

01:01:47 ◼   ► they cost nothing because nobody likes them.

01:01:49 ◼   ► And yeah, anyway.

01:01:50 ◼   ► - They also look like brains.

01:01:51 ◼   ► - But like, you know, if somebody like pre-chopped,

01:01:53 ◼   ► you know, an onion that I'm gonna throw in anyway,

01:01:56 ◼   ► or like a whole bunch of peppers,

01:01:57 ◼   ► like that's gonna save me time.

01:01:59 ◼   ► And I also hate chopping onions

01:02:00 ◼   ► 'cause they make my eyes crazy.

01:02:02 ◼   ► So it's like, all right, like I'll pay an extra

01:02:05 ◼   ► like $2 premium for that.

01:02:06 ◼   ► - By the way, do you get pre-chopped onions?

01:02:08 ◼   ► - Not every time, but like, you know,

01:02:10 ◼   ► if I'm making something that night.

01:02:12 ◼   ► - I have to draw the line at that

01:02:13 ◼   ► because once you break the cell walls

01:02:15 ◼   ► and that stuff starts reacting,

01:02:16 ◼   ► It changes the nature of the product.

01:02:17 ◼   ► You have to do it at time of preparation.

01:02:19 ◼   ► You can't have those sitting there.

01:02:21 ◼   ► - If these are going in a frying pan, who cares?

01:02:23 ◼   ► - No, but you know how long they've been sitting there?

01:02:25 ◼   ► As soon as you chop an onion, the reactions start.

01:02:28 ◼   ► You've got everything mixing with the air,

01:02:30 ◼   ► producing that sulfuric acid with the water in your eyes

01:02:33 ◼   ► that is causing you to tear up.

01:02:35 ◼   ► That reaction starts as soon as you cut that onion.

01:02:38 ◼   ► So I don't want that to start three hours

01:02:41 ◼   ► before I prepare my meal so I can pick up the things.

01:02:44 ◼   ► The limit of our prepared food laziness is,

01:02:47 ◼   ► and I've never done this, but it has been done

01:02:49 ◼   ► and I have accepted that it has been done,

01:02:51 ◼   ► buying pre-shredded Parmesan cheese.

01:02:53 ◼   ► I would rather shred it myself,

01:02:54 ◼   ► 'cause the pre-shredded adds like $5 a pound

01:02:57 ◼   ► or something obscene to the price

01:02:59 ◼   ► of the already very expensive Parmesan cheese.

01:03:01 ◼   ► - I buy that.

01:03:03 ◼   ► - You buy the, yeah, of course you buy the cheese.

01:03:04 ◼   ► - It's some kind of like fancy, like imported aged.

01:03:07 ◼   ► - No, it's just Parmigiano-Reggiano.

01:03:09 ◼   ► There's only one thing.

01:03:10 ◼   ► It is a specific product.

01:03:12 ◼   ► This is what you should buy if you want.

01:03:14 ◼   ► No, there's different grades though. There's different age lengths and there's like whether

01:03:18 ◼   ► you get like DOP official one or some crazy one.

01:03:21 ◼   ► No, only the official one. Everything else that is not stamped on the outside as the

01:03:24 ◼   ► real thing is, I don't think Helplitz even sells it and nobody should sell it and nobody

01:03:27 ◼   ► should buy it. Just the question is whether do you bring home a big chunk of this hard

01:03:31 ◼   ► cheese and grade it yourself or do you buy it pre-graded. And the pre-graded adds tremendously

01:03:36 ◼   ► to the cost and I don't like how they grade it. They grade it too fine. I like it to be

01:03:39 ◼   ► a little bit thicker little pieces than them. That's as far as I'll go.

01:03:44 ◼   ► Nope, I buy the pre-grated. I think it's something like 12 bucks a pound.

01:03:48 ◼   ► No, it's way more than that. Way more than that. Ungraded is 15 to 20 a pound. Ungraded.

01:03:54 ◼   ► Do you want me to go look?

01:03:55 ◼   ► Go ahead, go look.

01:03:56 ◼   ► All right, one sec.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Is this really happening? What has the show turned into?

01:04:00 ◼   ► I don't know the price of many things, but I know the price of Parmesan cheese. It is

01:04:04 ◼   ► a staple in our house the same as milk and butter and eggs.

01:04:09 ◼   ► Parmesan was the cheese you had me shred for the pizzas, and then you utterly shamed me

01:04:13 ◼   ► for my inability to shred?

01:04:14 ◼   ► - No, can you not identify cheese?

01:04:17 ◼   ► - No, that was mozzarella, that was mozzarella, wasn't it?

01:04:19 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:04:20 ◼   ► - My bad.

01:04:21 ◼   ► - What I tell the kids is pizza cheese.

01:04:24 ◼   ► - I was so scarred by the experience of you shaming me

01:04:26 ◼   ► for my inability to shred appropriately.

01:04:29 ◼   ► - All right, I'm back.

01:04:30 ◼   ► - I'm gonna predict $19 a pound.

01:04:32 ◼   ► - That is exactly right.

01:04:33 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:04:35 ◼   ► It is the Ambrosi brand, Parmesan or Reggiano DOP,

01:04:39 ◼   ► Grated, imported from Italy, 19 bucks a pound.

01:04:43 ◼   ► Really fine grated, right?

01:04:44 ◼   ► Really fine?

01:04:45 ◼   ► Like they're tiny little wispy things?

01:04:48 ◼   ► That's too fine for me.

01:04:49 ◼   ► I'm sorry.

01:04:50 ◼   ► I want it a little bit thicker than that.

01:04:51 ◼   ► But yeah, sometimes if you're in a hurry and you realize you don't have it and it takes

01:04:55 ◼   ► time to do it, someone will come and arrive with a pre-threaded thing.

01:04:59 ◼   ► And I always keep it separate from my real cheese, which is in the dedicated Tupperware

01:05:02 ◼   ► container in the fridge.

01:05:03 ◼   ► I don't want to mix them together.

01:05:05 ◼   ► But sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.

01:05:07 ◼   ► But that's it.

01:05:08 ◼   ► - Pre-cut vegetables, no.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Pre-cut onions, definitely no.

01:05:12 ◼   ► My wife gets to pre-cut fruit all the time,

01:05:14 ◼   ► which I can't stand.

01:05:15 ◼   ► I just try desperately not to look at the price,

01:05:17 ◼   ► and I'm just like, I wanna peel it off without looking at it

01:05:19 ◼   ► so I just don't see like $12.99 on this like tub of like

01:05:22 ◼   ► sad looking watermelon and cantaloupe pieces.

01:05:25 ◼   ► Like $12.99, really, really?

01:05:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean like certain things it works better than,

01:05:30 ◼   ► it was like watermelon, I don't buy pre-cut

01:05:32 ◼   ► because it is so expensive,

01:05:33 ◼   ► and whole watermelons cost basically nothing.

01:05:36 ◼   ► - Right. - It's kind of shocking

01:05:37 ◼   ► how little whole watermelons cost per pound.

01:05:38 ◼   ► He's like, "How did these even get transported here?"

01:05:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, as soon as you cut it into cubes,

01:05:42 ◼   ► it becomes like gold.

01:05:43 ◼   ► It's dipped in printer ink.

01:05:45 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:05:47 ◼   ► The only substance on earth more expensive

01:05:49 ◼   ► than pre-cut fruit at Whole Foods.

01:05:51 ◼   ► - Certain things are actually worth getting pre-cut

01:05:54 ◼   ► and certain things work better.

01:05:54 ◼   ► So one of the things,

01:05:56 ◼   ► if you need shredded Brussels sprouts

01:06:00 ◼   ► for a salad or something like that,

01:06:01 ◼   ► they sell those in a little box now and it's pretty good.

01:06:04 ◼   ► And you can't tell, they taste just as good

01:06:06 ◼   ► if you would have chopped fresh Brussels sprouts

01:06:08 ◼   ► and it takes way less time,

01:06:09 ◼   ► and here you have shredded Brussels sprouts

01:06:11 ◼   ► and it isn't that expensive.

01:06:12 ◼   ► So certain things it's worth it,

01:06:14 ◼   ► but obviously not everything, not watermelon.

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01:07:33 ◼   ► [Music]

01:07:36 ◼   ► Not to ruin the Accidental Food podcast, but

01:07:40 ◼   ► late-breaking news. Microsoft is bringing Windows desktop apps

01:07:44 ◼   ► to mobile ARM processors. So this is sort of kind of Windows RT,

01:07:48 ◼   ► but not. Windows 10 on ARM, this is from the Verge, is arriving thanks to a

01:07:52 ◼   ► partnership with Qualcomm. Initially, Microsoft will support the Qualcomm

01:07:55 ◼   ► Snapdragon 835 processors, and laptops are expected to be the first

01:07:59 ◼   ► devices we'll see in the market next year. Microsoft is enabling Windows 10

01:08:02 ◼   ► Windows 10 to support ARM chips directly by building an emulator into the operating system.

01:08:08 ◼   ► Devices will be able to run x86 Win32 applications, but it will not support x64.

01:08:14 ◼   ► >> This is part of that story we had on a past show. And the rumor was that it was going to be

01:08:19 ◼   ► ARM64 would emulate x86-64 stuff, and that was going to be in the future. I don't know if this

01:08:27 ◼   ► This is a separate story where they're doing 32 now and 64 later, but the power savings

01:08:32 ◼   ► that they get from having laptops with ARM processors in them is not going to be helped

01:08:37 ◼   ► by emulating x86.

01:08:38 ◼   ► So true.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Interesting, though.

01:08:40 ◼   ► It's certainly interesting, because we've been talking on and off about the Macs on

01:08:45 ◼   ► ARM, and in fact, I should plug Upgrade had a wonderful episode this week where Jason

01:08:51 ◼   ► and Snell made some really fascinating points on ARM Macs

01:08:54 ◼   ► and kind of what the position of the Mac is.

01:08:57 ◼   ► I won't try to summarize his position,

01:09:00 ◼   ► but I really agreed with a lot of it

01:09:02 ◼   ► and you should take a listen to that show.

01:09:04 ◼   ► - Agreed, that was excellent.

01:09:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, but this is somewhat interesting news

01:09:09 ◼   ► 'cause Windows RT from everything I understood

01:09:11 ◼   ► was kinda crappy because nothing was cross-compiled for it.

01:09:15 ◼   ► So yeah, in and of itself it was fine

01:09:17 ◼   ► and maybe the battery life was good

01:09:18 ◼   ► And I think maybe those were the surfaces,

01:09:21 ◼   ► Surfy that didn't have fans, if memory serves.

01:09:25 ◼   ► But anyways, but nobody could run any apps on it

01:09:27 ◼   ► 'cause nobody cross-compiled for ARM.

01:09:29 ◼   ► So this could solve that problem.

01:09:31 ◼   ► But I also agree with you, Jon,

01:09:32 ◼   ► that it's not necessarily going to help things

01:09:35 ◼   ► in terms of battery life if you're emulating in 0x86.

01:09:39 ◼   ► - I think they want people to compile their apps

01:09:43 ◼   ► for Windows for ARM.

01:09:44 ◼   ► Like that's what they want to happen.

01:09:45 ◼   ► That's why they tried to get that with Windows RT

01:09:47 ◼   ► and it didn't.

01:09:48 ◼   ► So it's like, all right, try number two.

01:09:50 ◼   ► What if we have emulation?

01:09:51 ◼   ► Then more people will buy them because they won't feel like--

01:09:54 ◼   ► they're trying to solve the chicken and egg situation.

01:09:56 ◼   ► People won't buy it if there's no apps,

01:09:57 ◼   ► and people won't make apps if no one buys them.

01:09:59 ◼   ► So like, all right, we'll put the emulation in,

01:10:00 ◼   ► and hopefully that will trick people into buying them.

01:10:03 ◼   ► I don't want to say trick, but hopefully that

01:10:04 ◼   ► will motivate people to buy them.

01:10:05 ◼   ► Oh, yeah, no, you can totally run your existing

01:10:07 ◼   ► copy of Office.

01:10:08 ◼   ► It'll be fine, really.

01:10:10 ◼   ► And then once we get everyone to buy them,

01:10:11 ◼   ► then app developers will say, your app

01:10:13 ◼   ► can run better on their cool ARM-powered Ultrabook thing

01:10:18 ◼   ► because yours will be compiled natively for ARM

01:10:19 ◼   ► and that will give you a selling advantage.

01:10:21 ◼   ► I don't know, do people still buy software in Windows

01:10:23 ◼   ► other than Adobe software and AutoCAD?

01:10:26 ◼   ► Anyway, should make fun of that

01:10:28 ◼   ► because they probably have a more robust

01:10:30 ◼   ► professional application ecosystem

01:10:31 ◼   ► than Apple does at this point.

01:10:33 ◼   ► - Probably.

01:10:33 ◼   ► - But yeah, so this is, I mean,

01:10:38 ◼   ► it's a pretty smart attempt to try to solve this problem.

01:10:41 ◼   ► Now why Microsoft is so seemingly desperate

01:10:45 ◼   ► to get Windows off of x86, I don't know.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Maybe like this is the slow divorce of Wintel, right?

01:10:51 ◼   ► Where Microsoft wants to be everywhere on all platforms

01:10:55 ◼   ► and Intel CPUs are expensive compared to ARM ones

01:10:59 ◼   ► of supposedly equivalent ballpark power.

01:11:02 ◼   ► And Microsoft's not making its own ARM CPUs at this point,

01:11:05 ◼   ► but maybe partnering with Qualcomm

01:11:07 ◼   ► is a different power balance than partnering with Intel.

01:11:11 ◼   ► And I don't know, but this definitely seems like

01:11:13 ◼   ► a very slow change happening.

01:11:16 ◼   ► over in a mostly unwatched corner of the market

01:11:20 ◼   ► 'cause everyone's looking at mobile phones and stuff

01:11:23 ◼   ► and not many people are looking at laptops and PCs

01:11:26 ◼   ► these days except to be depressed about them.

01:11:28 ◼   ► But I wish them luck because anything that changes

01:11:33 ◼   ► the existing fairly boring status quo is good

01:11:35 ◼   ► or even if it just motivates Intel to do a better job,

01:11:37 ◼   ► that helps everybody.

01:11:38 ◼   ► - I think this is worth thinking about.

01:11:41 ◼   ► It's like we've talked for forever about what about our Macs

01:11:46 ◼   ► And the idea here is that, well, Intel is not doing

01:11:51 ◼   ► what Apple wants it to do fast enough

01:11:54 ◼   ► or achieving enough efficiency or whatever,

01:11:57 ◼   ► and that maybe ARM chips that Apple can make itself

01:11:59 ◼   ► would be better and everything.

01:12:01 ◼   ► And it's interesting to see basically now Microsoft

01:12:04 ◼   ► seemingly possibly making the same hedged bet here

01:12:07 ◼   ► of like, you know, Intel's not really working that well

01:12:10 ◼   ► for us either, which actually just means,

01:12:13 ◼   ► you know, Intel's just not working that well, period.

01:12:16 ◼   ► Well they're working but they charge a lot of money.

01:12:18 ◼   ► Like the Intel is still able to charge pretty big margins compared to what the ARM vendors

01:12:28 ◼   ► charge for their things.

01:12:30 ◼   ► And it's one of the reasons people always say that the Mac laptops cost so much because

01:12:34 ◼   ► if you, people do these silly bill of material things where they're adding up the retail

01:12:39 ◼   ► prices which is not how this stuff works.

01:12:41 ◼   ► But anyway they try it at the price and they realize price wise the Intel CPU is a surprisingly

01:12:45 ◼   ► large portion or the you know the the chips from Intel are a surprisingly

01:12:49 ◼   ► large portion of the price of a laptop and that was more it was more pronounced

01:12:55 ◼   ► when there was more parts inside a laptop at this point there's not much in

01:12:57 ◼   ► there anymore except for Intel CPUs some supporting chips a big battery a screen

01:13:03 ◼   ► and half of a keyboard that's all that's all that's left in these things but there

01:13:07 ◼   ► used to be all sorts of other stuff in there was you know the hard drive and

01:13:10 ◼   ► even the SSD thrown into the mix but I think it's still the case that Intel's

01:13:14 ◼   ► Apple's margins are would be the envy of any ARM vendor and especially in the case of Apple

01:13:19 ◼   ► where Apple is doing the design essentially they've got the ARM license they do the design

01:13:24 ◼   ► they pay someone to fab it for them that relationship is much more straightforward and it's what

01:13:27 ◼   ► Apple is used to like working with a supplier to build a thing I'll tell you what to build

01:13:32 ◼   ► you don't you don't you know you don't have to design anything you're gonna build this

01:13:36 ◼   ► and here it is and give them you know the their chip design and they just fab it for

01:13:40 ◼   ► them and I know there's more to it that it's not a matter of just like taking a design

01:13:43 ◼   ► printing it like there is more to it but that is that is a relationship where you

01:13:48 ◼   ► don't have to pay for the margin that Intel is charging you for like we

01:13:51 ◼   ► designed this whole chip and we designed all these things and we're not just a

01:13:55 ◼   ► dumb fab we're selling you this value-added chip so I'm putting in the

01:13:58 ◼   ► chat room that Intel has 60% gross margins which are which is pretty darn

01:14:02 ◼   ► good for someone who says physical things instead of selling software so I

01:14:07 ◼   ► don't think Intel is not doing its job and I think they are trying to serve

01:14:12 ◼   ► of Apple's needs, but they're still charging more and from Apple's perspective, Apple

01:14:21 ◼   ► can't control their schedules to the degree that they control their own schedules for

01:14:24 ◼   ► their A-series chips. So there is a definite reason to go in that direction long-term anyway.

01:14:31 ◼   ► So here's a question. One of the concerns I have with Apple, sorry to turn this back

01:14:40 ◼   ► into Apple complaints, just for a minute, I promise.

01:14:43 ◼   ► One of the concerns I have with Apple is that,

01:14:45 ◼   ► obviously, I think everybody, even people who think

01:14:47 ◼   ► they're doing fine, can generally agree

01:14:49 ◼   ► that they're also stretched very thin,

01:14:51 ◼   ► and that a lot of their products are having

01:14:53 ◼   ► to take a backseat to something,

01:14:56 ◼   ► whether it's the car or the idea that the iPhone

01:14:59 ◼   ► is progressing really fast even though it seems not to be,

01:15:01 ◼   ► or whatever else, it's like, everything seems

01:15:03 ◼   ► to be taking the backseat to something.

01:15:05 ◼   ► So my question is, when the next big shifts happen

01:15:10 ◼   ► in important markets to Apple,

01:15:12 ◼   ► so things like computers, phones, tablets,

01:15:16 ◼   ► when big shifts happen, like for instance,

01:15:18 ◼   ► if everyone moves to arms processors for their PC computers,

01:15:23 ◼   ► like you know, not just tablets and phones,

01:15:26 ◼   ► but like for full-size computers and laptops,

01:15:28 ◼   ► in Apple's current state,

01:15:32 ◼   ► where it's kind of like their immune system is strained,

01:15:34 ◼   ► Like, they're like, I mean, it's not a great analogy,

01:15:37 ◼   ► but like, they can barely hold together what they have now,

01:15:40 ◼   ► like keeping things on their current path,

01:15:42 ◼   ► because they're doing so much.

01:15:43 ◼   ► And obviously there's a lot of resources being devoted

01:15:46 ◼   ► to like some other future projects,

01:15:49 ◼   ► but like stuff like the Mac,

01:15:50 ◼   ► and it seemed like it's just like barely holding on.

01:15:53 ◼   ► And there was the awfully concerning rumor today

01:15:56 ◼   ► that the next iPhone might just add a red color

01:16:00 ◼   ► and still have the exact same general case and design

01:16:03 ◼   ► - Now, aren't they saying that it was also gonna be out

01:16:06 ◼   ► at the same time as the new Allglass thing,

01:16:09 ◼   ► or was that trying to say like next year,

01:16:11 ◼   ► just a new color, and the year after that,

01:16:12 ◼   ► the Allglass one?

01:16:13 ◼   ► - I believe it was the latter, but anyway,

01:16:15 ◼   ► which would be concerning, but anyway,

01:16:17 ◼   ► we have one thing that said that, so who knows?

01:16:19 ◼   ► But anyway, so given the way it appears

01:16:22 ◼   ► as though Apple is having a hard time keeping up

01:16:24 ◼   ► with other product lines already as it is,

01:16:27 ◼   ► when the next big shift happens,

01:16:29 ◼   ► Do you think they will be able to go with it,

01:16:33 ◼   ► to write it, to adapt it?

01:16:34 ◼   ► Or are they gonna fall behind?

01:16:36 ◼   ► Because they won't be prepared,

01:16:37 ◼   ► because they won't be devoting enough resources

01:16:39 ◼   ► to these areas.

01:16:40 ◼   ► Microsoft right now doesn't have a successful phone business

01:16:44 ◼   ► to worry about or to manage or to take forward.

01:16:48 ◼   ► So Microsoft is pouring everything they can

01:16:50 ◼   ► into what they do have, which is PCs.

01:16:53 ◼   ► They do well there, they're pouring everything they have.

01:16:55 ◼   ► That's why we're getting interesting new developments,

01:16:58 ◼   ► like the Surface Studio, and like who knows which of these things will take off, if any,

01:17:02 ◼   ► but like they are there, they are ready to adopt whatever comes out now. But Apple isn't.

01:17:07 ◼   ► Like Apple is seemingly like keeping the Mac kind of coasting for the most part and not

01:17:12 ◼   ► doing a whole lot of new stuff with it and not really keeping it up to date, not really

01:17:16 ◼   ► keeping it competitive, kind of just like sitting back and letting off the gas. And

01:17:22 ◼   ► this isn't just the Mac. I would say this definitely applies to the Mac. It sort of

01:17:26 ◼   ► of applies to the iPad, although there's not a lot of direct competitors anymore, really,

01:17:30 ◼   ► unless you count laptops, which I'm not sure I would anymore. And on the iPhone, it's kind

01:17:35 ◼   ► of, it seems like they might be letting off the gas a little bit, honestly. Obviously,

01:17:40 ◼   ► we'll see what happens next year, but it certainly looks so far that, like, things are progressing

01:17:45 ◼   ► more slowly than before. Will Apple be ready for the next big shift, and will they actually

01:17:53 ◼   ► them or will they lead them anymore, the way they have been for the last decade or so?

01:17:59 ◼   ► Or are they too busy building cars and stuff?

01:18:01 ◼   ► I don't know about any of that. I think basing your thoughts on the premise of their

01:18:08 ◼   ► stepping off of the gas, I understand how you come to that conclusion. I wouldn't

01:18:15 ◼   ► be so fast to come to that conclusion. In fact, I would almost go so far as to say that

01:18:22 ◼   ► A lot of silence from Apple may even be indicating that they're standing on the gas harder than

01:18:27 ◼   ► they ever have before.

01:18:28 ◼   ► Now, truth be told, it's hard for me to make that argument with a straight face given what's

01:18:33 ◼   ► been going on with, say, the Mac Pro, but one point does not align make.

01:18:39 ◼   ► And obviously, none of us know one way or the other.

01:18:41 ◼   ► It very well could be that you're right, Marco, but if I were to take a read of the tea leaves,

01:18:45 ◼   ► I would say that it is quite possible that big things are afoot and we're just not hearing

01:18:51 ◼   ► about it because guess what, Apple never tells us about these things until it's all over.

01:18:56 ◼   ► So about the specific shift that you were talking about, like what if everyone goes

01:18:59 ◼   ► to ARM, for that specific change, I think Apple would be fine because if that happened,

01:19:06 ◼   ► Apple would see it as an efficiency.

01:19:08 ◼   ► It would be the last little bit Apple needs to get to kick it over the line to say, "Okay,

01:19:13 ◼   ► I guess we will transition."

01:19:14 ◼   ► Because we always talk about all the things that are keeping them from transitioning.

01:19:16 ◼   ► Is the Mac even worth this big expensive transition and this disruption to users and the dev tools

01:19:20 ◼   ► and like, like, is it even worth it to do that for the little old Mac?

01:19:24 ◼   ► Probably like that's probably one of the biggest things stopping our Macs at this point is

01:19:27 ◼   ► that the Mac itself is not worth that kind of investment.

01:19:30 ◼   ► But if everyone else switches over anyway, suddenly is the Mac even worth it?

01:19:34 ◼   ► Like, well, everyone else is going that way anyway.

01:19:36 ◼   ► And so we might as well just get on that train and we're already designing new A-series CPUs

01:19:40 ◼   ► every year.

01:19:41 ◼   ► We're already really good at it and we're going to make that CPU anyway.

01:19:43 ◼   ► And the CPU for the next iPhone is going to be plenty powerful for all but the most powerful

01:19:47 ◼   ► laptops.

01:19:48 ◼   ► add more cores, you know like it's an efficiency that they're ready to grab

01:19:52 ◼   ► and a control that they want anyway, any little bit that kicks them over into

01:19:56 ◼   ► doing that I think they would see as okay well that now that decision has been

01:20:00 ◼   ► taken out of our hands and they would leap at it because they do get

01:20:02 ◼   ► efficiencies out of it. Now we don't have to deal with two things we just have one

01:20:05 ◼   ► architecture, we control our own destinies, all the advantages of the arm

01:20:08 ◼   ► stuff come in. So for that specific change I think they would be fine. For all the

01:20:11 ◼   ► other changes you said you know that they're stretched thin, well as we

01:20:15 ◼   ► discussed in the past few shows they're stretched less thin than they used to be

01:20:18 ◼   ► They're not making Wi-Fi routers anymore. They're not making screens anymore. They're not making the Mac Pro and the Mac Mini anymore apparently

01:20:24 ◼   ► so they are

01:20:27 ◼   ► condensing and

01:20:29 ◼   ► All these you know all the dark matter the case he was talking about like we have no idea what the hell they're doing except for

01:20:33 ◼   ► the self-driving car stuff

01:20:35 ◼   ► You know their augmented reality thing is that related to the car thing where they're displaying stuff on the dashboard or whatever like

01:20:42 ◼   ► The way to be ready for in Apple the typical Apple way to be ready for these changes to be the one that brings them

01:20:48 ◼   ► on so presumably app has all sorts of experiments going on with AR and VR and

01:20:52 ◼   ► machine learning and self-driving car stuff and you know like

01:20:57 ◼   ► Those all those efforts are exactly what they should be doing to be ready for the next change and to perhaps be the one that

01:21:02 ◼   ► Initiates the change but that doesn't help us out here because we don't know about that stuff except for like

01:21:07 ◼   ► You know the car project there is too big to hide at this point

01:21:10 ◼   ► And that is you know the rumors about it just being about self-driving technology

01:21:13 ◼   ► I think the most concerning about thing about all those projects is that I've said this a million times. I'll say it again

01:21:19 ◼   ► They increasingly rely on

01:21:22 ◼   ► integration with cloud computing and Apple still scrappy at it and

01:21:26 ◼   ► They're getting better really slowly

01:21:28 ◼   ► Probably not even keeping pace with everybody else

01:21:31 ◼   ► so there are very few precious few things that you can do that don't involve some kind of cloud thing and

01:21:36 ◼   ► Apple's just not shown to be good for that. So the next big thing is cloud machine learning in the cloud

01:21:41 ◼   ► it's hard to envision Apple even keeping up with the Joneses let alone being a pioneer in that field because you know, they're

01:21:48 ◼   ► Maybe though again, maybe they'll surprise us with a brand new version of Siri. That's way better

01:21:52 ◼   ► But I think they're mostly getting their butt kicked in this area

01:21:55 ◼   ► Self-driving cars and that type of tech does also does not strike me as something that's an Apple's wheelhouse

01:22:01 ◼   ► I don't really think I would not be comforted by self-driving car saw her written by Apple being installed into my thing

01:22:06 ◼   ► Especially considering you know, I mean all they've done is carplay and it hasn't you know, it's fine whatever but

01:22:13 ◼   ► The gap between that and also drive the car for me and do a cool AR display on

01:22:19 ◼   ► HUD on on my windshield

01:22:21 ◼   ► Such a huge gap, but whatever, you know, like whatever the next big thing is

01:22:26 ◼   ► Apple should be out there trying to find it and the act of trying to find it appears invisible

01:22:31 ◼   ► For a company like Apple. We have no idea what it is

01:22:34 ◼   ► the stretch thin feeling comes from

01:22:37 ◼   ► You know, you know do that R&D do that experimental thing investigate things kill a project if it doesn't like it's working out do all

01:22:45 ◼   ► that stuff

01:22:46 ◼   ► But you also have to have one eye on the rest of your business and we mostly complain about the max

01:22:51 ◼   ► We like the Mac

01:22:51 ◼   ► I think they are definitely not stepping off the gas on the iPhone in all areas except for perhaps

01:22:57 ◼   ► Industrial design and that could be just because they keep grabbing for that whatever the next all glass phone is

01:23:01 ◼   ► But if you look at how the internals of the iPhone have improved enter after generation

01:23:07 ◼   ► We would kill for that kind of improvement in the Mac

01:23:09 ◼   ► Every a series ship is so much better than the past one the cameras get better

01:23:13 ◼   ► the battery life gets better plus or minus apples needs to thin stuff down like

01:23:18 ◼   ► They are you know, the iPhone is so clearly their main product and they improve it in ways that

01:23:23 ◼   ► We can only dream of in the Mac world. So I think that's doing fine

01:23:27 ◼   ► I think a lot of it is superficial like oh you're gonna make it the same shape again. That's boring. That's a problem

01:23:31 ◼   ► That's a marketing problem. That's a PR problem

01:23:33 ◼   ► That's a problem for being able to sell these things to people

01:23:35 ◼   ► But if you view it as like how much money did they invest in making the iPhone better?

01:23:39 ◼   ► Just because they don't have a new case because they they keep trying to go for that cool wireless charging all-glass

01:23:44 ◼   ► Whatever magic phone like I can't get it year after year

01:23:47 ◼   ► I gave them a pass on that because what's inside the phones is just getting better so much faster.

01:23:52 ◼   ► So, you know, I'm not concerned about the iPhone business, not even concerned about the iPad

01:23:58 ◼   ► business, except for the fact that they don't seem to be willing to field any competitors to

01:24:01 ◼   ► something like the Surface Book, whether that's an iOS device or not. But it just gets back to

01:24:05 ◼   ► us whining about our Macs, but we're all. That's true. Now, did you guys, I didn't have a

01:24:10 ◼   ► chance to read this, but I saw some headlines and the chat rooms brought this up as well.

01:24:14 ◼   ► courts had a piece entitled "Inside the Secret Meeting, Where Apple Revealed the State of

01:24:19 ◼   ► its AI Research."

01:24:20 ◼   ► And I guess there was an invite-only lunch at an industry AI conference where Apple showed

01:24:27 ◼   ► a bunch of slides, a couple of which, or a handful of which, courts got their hands on.

01:24:32 ◼   ► And so one of them says, "Machine learning research summary."

01:24:35 ◼   ► And there's several different segments that Apple's apparently looking at.

01:24:39 ◼   ► Health and vital signs, volumetric detection of LIDAR, which to me means self-driving car,

01:24:44 ◼   ► Prediction with structured outputs, and there's a picture of cars driving.

01:24:47 ◼   ► Image processing and colorization.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Intelligent assistant and language modeling and activity recognition.

01:24:53 ◼   ► And then later on, I didn't get a chance to read into this much, but there are a couple

01:24:57 ◼   ► of graphs where at a glance it seems to hint that Apple's GPUs are being used for machine

01:25:05 ◼   ► learning and are considerably quicker than equivalent Amazon AWS offerings.

01:25:10 ◼   ► Now, again, I've only glanced at this, I might be butchering the details, but it certainly

01:25:16 ◼   ► seems that, at least in an academic sense, maybe Apple's machine learning chops aren't

01:25:24 ◼   ► so bad after all.

01:25:25 ◼   ► Now, to be fair, that has to get applied and executed upon.

01:25:30 ◼   ► And certainly, here we are giggling but also crying about keyboard text replacement.

01:25:37 ◼   ► so you do need to apply all this machine learning at some juncture. But the academic R&D stuff

01:25:44 ◼   ► seems like they might be keeping up, maybe even making improvements.

01:25:48 ◼   ► John "Slick" Baum: The historic complaint about all this type of academic research stuff at Apple

01:25:53 ◼   ► is that academics want to publish because it's vital for their continued career as an academic,

01:25:58 ◼   ► and Apple doesn't want you to publish. And so the fact that they're presenting this is maybe a

01:26:03 ◼   ► change in you know a slight lessening of Apple's incredible drive for secrecy

01:26:08 ◼   ► that you can't get the best academics to come work for you if you won't let them

01:26:12 ◼   ► do stuff like this because it's vital for their career to be able to do this

01:26:15 ◼   ► you can't just take them and hide them away like they do with the industrial

01:26:17 ◼   ► designers who Johnny I've only let's out once a year and the rest of the time

01:26:21 ◼   ► they spend in that room they sleep under black sheets right and then in the

01:26:24 ◼   ► morning they just come out anyway it's difficult to get people to work for you

01:26:29 ◼   ► if you do that Google has a much more open environment Google is probably the

01:26:33 ◼   ► leader in this because they have so many freaking PhDs and they put the stuff to

01:26:38 ◼   ► use in the magic that is every Google thing that you just type something into

01:26:42 ◼   ► and it figures out what the hell you mean. I mean Google search being the best

01:26:44 ◼   ► example. I still, it is still not worn off to me that I can type in queries and

01:26:50 ◼   ► Google finds results and like it is I've long since gotten past the point where I

01:26:55 ◼   ► where I can even understand how Google figured out what I was talking about and

01:26:58 ◼   ► gave me the thing I wanted but it's like the magic of big data it's the magic of

01:27:02 ◼   ► you know that they're doing it for real and Apple all we have from them to demonstrate their chops is Siri which

01:27:09 ◼   ► has its ups and downs but

01:27:12 ◼   ► charitable yeah, yeah like

01:27:15 ◼   ► It's not no one no one except someone who works for Apple is gonna put it as the leader in this

01:27:20 ◼   ► They're all kind of silly all those voices since they're kind of silly

01:27:22 ◼   ► But Siri had such a lead and everyone caught up really quickly and Google just seems to be on top of this stuff

01:27:27 ◼   ► So I hope I hope it's true that Apple is doing it

01:27:29 ◼   ► I think it is table stakes in the future to have competency in this area.

01:27:34 ◼   ► So Apple has to just be doing this just to keep up.

01:27:36 ◼   ► I don't know if this means that there's something going to be the leader in it or whatever,

01:27:39 ◼   ► but it seems like they're learning what it takes to attract those people to come work

01:27:43 ◼   ► for Apple and put them on projects.

01:27:46 ◼   ► And hopefully, like Casey said, something comes out of it.

01:27:49 ◼   ► You have to make a product eventually.

01:27:51 ◼   ► Doing this research is important, and if you don't do this research, you'll never be able

01:27:53 ◼   ► to make a product because we're in that phase now with machine learning where it's not commoditized

01:27:58 ◼   ► at this point, you have to have yourself in house to do it.

01:28:02 ◼   ► I'm not entirely sure that the best application of all this technology is self-driving car

01:28:08 ◼   ► tech, which seems to be the path they're going, which is a hard problem, and someone's gonna

01:28:12 ◼   ► be first, and maybe it'll be Apple, and maybe they'll be known as the company that puts

01:28:15 ◼   ► self-driving software into all of our cars, but for now we just have rumors and a lot

01:28:20 ◼   ► of money spent, and no announced anything from Apple, and all this stuff could be canned

01:28:28 ◼   ► at any time or use for an entirely different purpose like Google Goggles or some other

01:28:34 ◼   ► weird AR thing, who knows.

01:28:36 ◼   ► So from this article, "Machine learning scientists have long criticized Apple for

01:28:40 ◼   ► its reluctance to contribute back to the research community.

01:28:43 ◼   ► During the presentation, which served to bring a small, select group of researchers up to

01:28:46 ◼   ► speed with Apple's efforts, some individual Salakhindov – I'm sorry, I didn't practice

01:28:55 ◼   ► that before the show because I didn't know I was going to be talking about this – a

01:28:57 ◼   ► A prominent AI researcher himself at Carnegie Mellon said that Apple would begin to publish

01:29:01 ◼   ► its research and make a greater effort to work with the research community, according

01:29:05 ◼   ► to attendees, just like you said, John.

01:29:07 ◼   ► Additionally, Oliver Cameron, who is self-describing as the lead of the self-driving car team at

01:29:13 ◼   ► Udacity, had a series of five tweets, which we'll put in the show notes, which begins

01:29:18 ◼   ► with him saying, "Hey, this article, this court's article deserves more attention."

01:29:24 ◼   ► And he says, "Apple's clearly 1,000% working on autonomous vehicles powered by machine

01:29:29 ◼   ► learning."

01:29:30 ◼   ► See volumetric detection of LIDAR in that slide.

01:29:33 ◼   ► They may be building custom GPUs for machine learning, perhaps only internally.

01:29:38 ◼   ► They also have a custom image dataset twice the size of ImageNet, which I'm not entirely

01:29:42 ◼   ► clear what that is, but I'm assuming it's—

01:29:44 ◼   ► That's a public set of images for training neural networks to recognize things.

01:29:47 ◼   ► There you go.

01:29:48 ◼   ► Thanks.

01:29:49 ◼   ► benchmarked MXNet, which is Amazon's framework of choice on their GPUs and custom image data

01:29:55 ◼   ► set and not TensorFlow. So TLDR, this is again still Oliver, TLDR, the new Apple is catching

01:30:02 ◼   ► up fast in machine learning. And this is from someone who theoretically doesn't have any

01:30:06 ◼   ► vested interest in saying such things.

01:30:08 ◼   ► **Matt Stauffer** This phrase says "catching up fast," not vaulting

01:30:10 ◼   ► to the lead or leaving the competition behind. But it is the minimum bar that you have to

01:30:16 ◼   ► because it's so clear that this type of technology is coming to the point where it can do useful things.

01:30:21 ◼   ► And if you don't have this capability in-house, if you just wait around until it becomes like...

01:30:27 ◼   ► until Amazon is essentially vending the seventh version of this as part of their web services offering,

01:30:33 ◼   ► until it becomes commoditized, it's a big advantage to be able to do it in-house.

01:30:37 ◼   ► In some respects, this is part of the thing that made Google into Google,

01:30:41 ◼   ► is they had a good idea for a search algorithm

01:30:46 ◼   ► and they eventually were faced with the problem of scale

01:30:49 ◼   ► of how to build their data centers

01:30:50 ◼   ► and how to do all this stuff.

01:30:51 ◼   ► And they did a lot of stuff in-house

01:30:54 ◼   ► that for a long time gave Google abilities

01:30:59 ◼   ► that other companies didn't have

01:31:00 ◼   ► to scale out to worldwide data centers

01:31:03 ◼   ► to give good performance to everybody

01:31:04 ◼   ► to do these really complicated things.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Right?

01:31:07 ◼   ► And they had to build a lot of that in-house

01:31:09 ◼   ► and they had to figure all this out.

01:31:11 ◼   ► And eventually it started to become commoditized to the point where Google itself is vending

01:31:15 ◼   ► some of its cloud services and of course Amazon has its web services and so many things are

01:31:19 ◼   ► built on that.

01:31:20 ◼   ► And so now it is no longer really a competitive advantage or at least not as big as it used

01:31:25 ◼   ► to be to be really good at setting up your data centers and having a strategy for redundancy

01:31:31 ◼   ► and being close to everybody in the world and dealing with large volumes of data.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Because it's been figured out enough that if you want to get off the ground you can

01:31:40 ◼   ► bootstrap yourself onto one of these things

01:31:42 ◼   ► and not have to have this in-house.

01:31:44 ◼   ► But machine learning is still at the point

01:31:45 ◼   ► where if you wanna do this,

01:31:46 ◼   ► if you wanna participate in this at all,

01:31:48 ◼   ► you have to do it in-house

01:31:50 ◼   ► because nobody has got it figured out and commoditized

01:31:52 ◼   ► to the point where it's no longer an advantage.

01:31:54 ◼   ► So Apple has to do this.

01:31:55 ◼   ► Microsoft has to do this.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Google has to do it and Amazon,

01:31:58 ◼   ► they all have to do it and Facebook for that matter.

01:32:02 ◼   ► And it's kind of a, you might think it's like,

01:32:04 ◼   ► isn't this like duplication of effort,

01:32:05 ◼   ► but that's just called competition.

01:32:06 ◼   ► So they all have to be doing it.

01:32:08 ◼   ► And if Apple wasn't doing it, we should be really concerned.

01:32:12 ◼   ► So there is a degree.

01:32:13 ◼   ► It's like if they weren't doing it at all,

01:32:14 ◼   ► we should be super concerned.

01:32:16 ◼   ► What we're concerned about now is, OK, they're doing it,

01:32:18 ◼   ► but are they doing it well enough

01:32:19 ◼   ► to keep up with the big boys?

01:32:21 ◼   ► And it seems like probably, yeah.

01:32:23 ◼   ► But again, the proof will be in the products.

01:32:26 ◼   ► They may be keeping up with the basic research,

01:32:28 ◼   ► but when does that translate into making Siri better?

01:32:33 ◼   ► Or is this all just for self-driving car tech,

01:32:35 ◼   ► because that's a big bet.

01:32:38 ◼   ► even the bet that Apple will be involved in all of that

01:32:41 ◼   ► because it seems like Apple's not making its own car.

01:32:43 ◼   ► And if people who do make cars

01:32:45 ◼   ► don't want Apple's technology,

01:32:46 ◼   ► then all Apple's work is pointless

01:32:49 ◼   ► because if the car companies don't want it,

01:32:52 ◼   ► you know, Tesla doesn't want it,

01:32:53 ◼   ► Honda doesn't want it, Ford don't want it, right,

01:32:55 ◼   ► then who is the customer for this?

01:32:57 ◼   ► Apple will have this great self-driving car technology

01:32:58 ◼   ► and they can use it to power like the shiny white go-karts

01:33:01 ◼   ► that you use to go around the spaceship campus.

01:33:02 ◼   ► Great.

01:33:03 ◼   ► Like that's it.

01:33:04 ◼   ► You know, you gotta get this into a car.

01:33:06 ◼   ► And if you're not gonna make a car,

01:33:07 ◼   ► you better convince somebody that they should buy your thing

01:33:09 ◼   ► instead of, you know, because it's not like

01:33:11 ◼   ► the car companies are sitting on their hands

01:33:13 ◼   ► waiting for a technology company

01:33:14 ◼   ► to offer them self-driving tech.

01:33:16 ◼   ► Like they're not waiting on Apple,

01:33:17 ◼   ► they're all doing their own things.

01:33:19 ◼   ► So, I don't know, that concerns me a little bit.

01:33:22 ◼   ► - So which Mac do you think the,

01:33:25 ◼   ► all this like AI and GPU development,