ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm actually fighting with a fly in my arm.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Marco will hear the fly later.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I'm distracted by trying to track down and kill this fly.

00:00:07 ◼   ► I'll get it eventually.

00:00:08 ◼   ► I feel like I have to take a break from the show for me to hunt it down.

00:00:12 ◼   ► But anyway, do you want me to lend you an iPad too?

00:00:15 ◼   ► I've forgotten about that.

00:00:17 ◼   ► Oh my god, that's old school.

00:00:19 ◼   ► Oh my goodness.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Talk amongst yourselves for a moment.

00:00:21 ◼   ► I will kill or shoo this fly out of the room.

00:00:23 ◼   ► It needs to be done.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Hang on.

00:00:25 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:27 ◼   ► This fly did not want to leave, did not want to die.

00:00:31 ◼   ► How did you convince it? Did you argue with it until it realized it was wrong?

00:00:35 ◼   ► I would have killed it if I could have caught it, but it wouldn't land.

00:00:39 ◼   ► I was trying to get it to leave the room, so I was turning off the lights in this room

00:00:42 ◼   ► and turning on bright lights elsewhere to try to lure it out.

00:00:45 ◼   ► If you want, we can start talking about destiny. It'll leave immediately.

00:00:49 ◼   ► It's truth.

00:00:50 ◼   ► Just bore it out of the room.

00:00:51 ◼   ► Oh, the flies love destiny.

00:00:53 ◼   ► [Music]

00:00:54 ◼   ► So a friend of the show Dave Nanian wrote in and he has opinions about

00:00:59 ◼   ► universal remotes and things of that nature. Of super duper fame, Dave Nanian.

00:01:04 ◼   ► Yep. One of a backup application that you should use, or equivalent to make

00:01:09 ◼   ► multiple backups of your stuff. Anyway. Oh, he's not talking about universal

00:01:12 ◼   ► remotes, I'm sorry, he's talking about CEC. Yeah, he has very often been the

00:01:17 ◼   ► proponent of the "spend a lot of money to solve your electronics problem"

00:01:22 ◼   ► solution which is one possible solution I've never been particularly a fan of it

00:01:28 ◼   ► because I feel like I'm sure no matter how not because I don't want to spend a

00:01:32 ◼   ► lot of money on things I've ever really expensive TV but I feel like no matter

00:01:35 ◼   ► how much money you spend it will still never work right and you'll feel worse

00:01:40 ◼   ► if you spent a lot more money but anyway he's happy with his setup he has banging

00:01:44 ◼   ► olives and stuff and he has a banging olives and TV which itself acts as like

00:01:49 ◼   ► the hub for everything is like six HDMI inputs and built-in sound system that you can connect like 18 speakers to the TV

00:01:55 ◼   ► And it does wireless stuff and it integrates with like home control systems

00:01:59 ◼   ► you can raise and lower your blinds and turn on your lights and security cameras like all all the rich people stuff than you would

00:02:05 ◼   ► imagine and

00:02:06 ◼   ► Because the TV itself is the hub for all this stuff. You don't have a situation like Casey

00:02:11 ◼   ► described last time of the universal remote

00:02:15 ◼   ► Having to track the state of all your devices and if it gets out of sync then it's very confused

00:02:19 ◼   ► The TV knows the state of everything because it is the hub for everything and it can you know sense when it's getting input on

00:02:24 ◼   ► Different things and the speakers are hooked up directly to the television. So it takes out a lot of the guesswork

00:02:28 ◼   ► And they have all these

00:02:30 ◼   ► fancy-pants things where you can take all of your equipment that's big and noisy and put it in the basement and connect it with a

00:02:35 ◼   ► Big ethernet cable up to your system upstairs

00:02:38 ◼   ► You can hide all the stuff in all the the the things that you would spend thousands and thousands of dollars for of course

00:02:43 ◼   ► The downside of this is you have to, at the very least,

00:02:46 ◼   ► have this big fancy Bang & Olufsen TV

00:02:48 ◼   ► and some other proprietary components that go with it.

00:02:50 ◼   ► And Bang & Olufsen doesn't really make good TVs.

00:02:54 ◼   ► This is a problem, right?

00:02:56 ◼   ► So the television that I have,

00:02:58 ◼   ► at the time that I bought it,

00:03:00 ◼   ► had I bought a fancy Bang & Olufsen thing,

00:03:02 ◼   ► I would be getting a worse television set

00:03:04 ◼   ► in terms of picture quality

00:03:05 ◼   ► in exchange for all this other stuff.

00:03:06 ◼   ► So I'm still stuck because of my priorities,

00:03:11 ◼   ► buying individual components and slapping them together

00:03:14 ◼   ► and trying to make do with it.

00:03:15 ◼   ► But if you're willing to compromise

00:03:17 ◼   ► on not having the absolute very best

00:03:19 ◼   ► of every individual component,

00:03:20 ◼   ► you can buy an integrated solution

00:03:22 ◼   ► for a tremendous amount of money

00:03:24 ◼   ► that I don't think is worth it, but you'll be happy.

00:03:27 ◼   ► By the way, another solution I was asking

00:03:29 ◼   ► a while back in Twitter, the best solution for,

00:03:32 ◼   ► we talked about this in the show,

00:03:33 ◼   ► for me to get the video off of my Blu-rays

00:03:36 ◼   ► without recompressing it, just preserve it exactly,

00:03:39 ◼   ► bit for bit the way it is on my Blu-rays and then play it back on my television without

00:03:43 ◼   ► having a spinning plastic disc?

00:03:44 ◼   ► That's make MKV, isn't it? That'll do it.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Yeah, but remember, my issue was playback. I can't get 24 frames per second cadence

00:03:52 ◼   ► playback out of my boxes. Anyway, we talked about that on a past show, which none of us

00:03:57 ◼   ► will be remembering in the show notes. But anyway, one of the rich person solutions to

00:04:02 ◼   ► that is those boxes they sell that I think is technically legal because someone paid

00:04:06 ◼   ► a lot of money to the Blu-ray association where you buy the super expensive box and

00:04:11 ◼   ► you feed it all your Blu-rays in a big jukebox or one at a time and it basically rips your

00:04:15 ◼   ► Blu-rays for you losslessly and lets you play them back, but it does it in a way that like

00:04:20 ◼   ► complies with the letter of the law, I don't know, whatever.

00:04:23 ◼   ► It's not a pirate's thing, it's an entirely legal thing, but it's tremendously expensive

00:04:27 ◼   ► and it's just like outside the amount of money I'm willing to pay for that.

00:04:30 ◼   ► I will just stick the disc in the Blu-ray player and deal with the spinning disc noise

00:04:35 ◼   ► at this point, but hopefully we'll get there eventually.

00:04:37 ◼   ► We're close, like I said, we're really close.

00:04:38 ◼   ► The only barrier remaining is me not having a way

00:04:43 ◼   ► to play that content back on my television,

00:04:45 ◼   ► preserving the correct frame rate and everything

00:04:48 ◼   ► without doing a spinning disk.

00:04:49 ◼   ► - I should point out that I have achieved 80% of this.

00:04:53 ◼   ► I also would have the same problem with 24 frames a second,

00:04:57 ◼   ► but I don't care, I don't think I have anything of that rate

00:04:59 ◼   ► and I usually watch TV shows,

00:05:01 ◼   ► but I rip the entire wire Blu-ray set.

00:05:04 ◼   ► and it was very, very easy with modern tools

00:05:09 ◼   ► because all I had to do was use MakeMKV to rip the Blu-ray

00:05:14 ◼   ► and then subler to basically rewrap it in an MP4 container

00:05:18 ◼   ► without having to transcode the video.

00:05:20 ◼   ► Although I believe I had to transcode the audio

00:05:22 ◼   ► because I don't care about surround sound,

00:05:23 ◼   ► please email Jon.

00:05:24 ◼   ► - You've modified it already.

00:05:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, who cares?

00:05:27 ◼   ► But that's optional.

00:05:29 ◼   ► You could have left the giant AC3 and DTS tracks on there

00:05:32 ◼   ► if you really wanted to.

00:05:33 ◼   ► but I don't even have surround speakers anymore

00:05:35 ◼   ► because I decided years ago they weren't worth the hassle.

00:05:38 ◼   ► So anyway, so I was able to rip the entire TV series

00:05:41 ◼   ► with Subler and MakeMKV in surprisingly little time.

00:05:46 ◼   ► And just like this roughly $100 USB 3 Blu-ray drive

00:05:51 ◼   ► that I had in the closet from a little while back.

00:05:54 ◼   ► And yeah, it works great.

00:05:55 ◼   ► And now I play them in Plex,

00:05:57 ◼   ► and it has all the metadata from Plex somehow magically

00:06:01 ◼   ► through some probably not quite legal service.

00:06:03 ◼   ► and it's great, I absolutely love it.

00:06:05 ◼   ► And it's way faster and more reliable

00:06:07 ◼   ► and way better quality than the HBO Go, now,

00:06:11 ◼   ► Mini, app, whatever it is, the HBO Mini app on TV,

00:06:15 ◼   ► it's way better than that, way better quality,

00:06:17 ◼   ► no drop in frames issues, so it wasn't a problem

00:06:20 ◼   ► with like the bit rate or anything,

00:06:20 ◼   ► it was a problem with HBO sucking.

00:06:22 ◼   ► And yeah, overall, a great solution

00:06:25 ◼   ► to watch any kind of HBO show is buy the Blu-rays

00:06:28 ◼   ► and rip them all, and it actually works surprisingly well.

00:06:32 ◼   ► - That's what I do with the content

00:06:33 ◼   ► I don't actually care about.

00:06:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:06:36 ◼   ► Once I care about it,

00:06:37 ◼   ► I need it to be the highest possible quality.

00:06:38 ◼   ► So yeah, I have tons of stuff in Plex,

00:06:40 ◼   ► I have tons of things that are, you know,

00:06:41 ◼   ► but for the things I care about,

00:06:44 ◼   ► I want the very best quality,

00:06:45 ◼   ► and that's still putting the disc in the little drive.

00:06:48 ◼   ► - But wait a minute though,

00:06:49 ◼   ► so the only limitation of what I was just saying

00:06:51 ◼   ► is possibly audio,

00:06:52 ◼   ► is if the Apple TV can output whatever DTS

00:06:55 ◼   ► or whatever over the optical port,

00:06:57 ◼   ► then you wouldn't have any quality problems, right?

00:06:59 ◼   ► - It's not an optical port,

00:07:00 ◼   ► you can do it over HDMI if it's smart enough.

00:07:01 ◼   ► So a lot of the applications won't send the unmodified audio,

00:07:06 ◼   ► like they won't send the DTS HD stream

00:07:09 ◼   ► directly to my receiver, they just won't do it.

00:07:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I bet Plex would, or there's probably an option.

00:07:14 ◼   ► - Plex and Infuse, depends on which one is in the best mood,

00:07:17 ◼   ► or like the DS video app, I have many options to do it.

00:07:21 ◼   ► But really it's the video,

00:07:22 ◼   ► 'cause most of the content I really care about,

00:07:23 ◼   ► I'm mostly talking about movies,

00:07:25 ◼   ► and they're 24 frames per second, and it's a deal breaker,

00:07:27 ◼   ► I can't get that to my TV any other way.

00:07:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that's mainly a hardware issue, right,

00:07:31 ◼   ► that you don't have any TV boxes that run software

00:07:34 ◼   ► that could play movies and would output the right signal?

00:07:37 ◼   ► - It's not hardware, it's software.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Like Apple TV could be changed in such a way

00:07:41 ◼   ► to output 24 frames per second cadence video.

00:07:44 ◼   ► My PlayStation 3 can output that.

00:07:46 ◼   ► That's what I put the Blu-ray into, right?

00:07:47 ◼   ► I've even tried putting the video files

00:07:50 ◼   ► on the PlayStation 3 and having it do it,

00:07:51 ◼   ► but I can't get that to work either.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So the only time my PlayStation 3 outputs in this way

00:07:55 ◼   ► is when it's playing a Blu-ray.

00:07:57 ◼   ► The Apple TV is always locked at 60 frames per second

00:07:59 ◼   ► or whatever it's outputting at, and I just try and,

00:08:02 ◼   ► we went through this in the past.

00:08:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

00:08:04 ◼   ► - But I have nothing that can do it,

00:08:05 ◼   ► and there's no technical reason.

00:08:06 ◼   ► It's not like these things aren't powerful enough

00:08:07 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:08:08 ◼   ► A lot of people have newer televisions than mine

00:08:10 ◼   ► that can do the, what do you call it,

00:08:13 ◼   ► detecting the cadence and accounting for it and everything,

00:08:15 ◼   ► but I run all the video tests,

00:08:16 ◼   ► and it just, nothing can get 24 frames per second out there

00:08:19 ◼   ► except for my Blu-ray player.

00:08:20 ◼   ► So that's what I keep using.

00:08:21 ◼   ► My next setup, hopefully we'll be able to do it.

00:08:24 ◼   ► If not, it's not the end of the world.

00:08:26 ◼   ► Like Blu-ray player, it's not a thing I do frequently,

00:08:29 ◼   ► And it's only for a small subset of movies,

00:08:31 ◼   ► so I'll just keep sticking my desk in.

00:08:32 ◼   ► - Although my solution doesn't have fan noise either.

00:08:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:08:36 ◼   ► - But you're missing out on the things

00:08:37 ◼   ► that Jon's eyeballs can't even see.

00:08:39 ◼   ► And he'll know that he's missing out on it.

00:08:42 ◼   ► - I can see them.

00:08:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:08:44 ◼   ► - So a couple thoughts, mostly on what Marco had said.

00:08:46 ◼   ► I'd like to completely agree with him about MakeMKV.

00:08:50 ◼   ► It is wonderful, especially as paired with,

00:08:52 ◼   ► if you're willing to recompress stuff.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Don Melton's compression scripts,

00:08:56 ◼   ► which we've talked about in the past,

00:08:58 ◼   ► and I believe I've written a post about it

00:09:00 ◼   ► at some point or another.

00:09:01 ◼   ► If I have, I'll put it in the show notes.

00:09:02 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, those are awesome.

00:09:04 ◼   ► But nowadays, I mean, recompressing Blu-ray

00:09:07 ◼   ► is still, even on modern hardware,

00:09:09 ◼   ► still a very computer-intensive,

00:09:12 ◼   ► pretty long-running process,

00:09:13 ◼   ► and you can just run 'em in a batch overnight,

00:09:15 ◼   ► but it still takes a lot,

00:09:17 ◼   ► and if you have any way to use

00:09:20 ◼   ► three-and-a-half-inch hard drives as your storage medium,

00:09:23 ◼   ► so any way, whether that's external drives in your desk

00:09:26 ◼   ► or a NAS in the closet full of disks,

00:09:28 ◼   ► whatever it is, three and a half inch hard drives

00:09:31 ◼   ► are so massive and cheap these days

00:09:34 ◼   ► that you just have basically infinite storage space

00:09:38 ◼   ► if you can use those drives somehow.

00:09:40 ◼   ► And so I just, these days I rip them all from Blu-rays

00:09:44 ◼   ► and the whole wire series is 560 gigs from somewhere

00:09:49 ◼   ► and it doesn't matter at all.

00:09:52 ◼   ► - Most feature films are 30 or 40 gigs, I think,

00:09:55 ◼   ► something like that.

00:09:56 ◼   ► And the wire is considerably longer than that.

00:09:58 ◼   ► And to go back one more step, you were talking, and I know you said it jokingly, about, oh,

00:10:03 ◼   ► some illegal way that Plex gets metadata.

00:10:05 ◼   ► I don't believe it's legal at all.

00:10:06 ◼   ► They don't use IMDB, which I presume is for some sort of licensing reason or something,

00:10:11 ◼   ► but they do use the TV database, which is the TVDB.com, and the movie database, which

00:10:16 ◼   ► is the MovieDB.org.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And we'll put those links in the show notes.

00:10:20 ◼   ► Those are less geared around browsing, in my opinion, who did what and when, and more

00:10:25 ◼   ► about getting metadata about films,

00:10:27 ◼   ► which is probably why Plex uses it,

00:10:29 ◼   ► but they are, to the best of my knowledge, completely legal.

00:10:32 ◼   ► - What about all the copyrighted material on them?

00:10:34 ◼   ► Is it one of those weird gray areas, or is it--

00:10:36 ◼   ► - You mean like the Google image search for movie posters,

00:10:39 ◼   ► and you just shove them in there?

00:10:40 ◼   ► Probably not really.

00:10:42 ◼   ► - Oh, that's true, actually.

00:10:43 ◼   ► I didn't think about that.

00:10:44 ◼   ► I don't know, but anyway, anything else on video

00:10:47 ◼   ► and that sort of thing?

00:10:48 ◼   ► We have one other piece of follow-up real quick.

00:10:50 ◼   ► - Oh, I do have a quick bit of follow-up

00:10:51 ◼   ► on my HDMI CEC situation.

00:10:55 ◼   ► - Mm.

00:10:56 ◼   ► - The setting was off.

00:10:57 ◼   ► - I told you so.

00:10:58 ◼   ► - Huh, that's a casey,

00:10:59 ◼   ► casey debugged your problem last week.

00:11:01 ◼   ► - You're right, yeah.

00:11:01 ◼   ► I hadn't checked, I didn't even know you could turn it off,

00:11:04 ◼   ► so I hadn't checked it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► And it was on, but like, it worked for months.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Somehow it turned off.

00:11:09 ◼   ► It's pretty deep in the settings.

00:11:10 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have accidentally done that

00:11:12 ◼   ► since I never go to the settings screen.

00:11:13 ◼   ► But I don't know, maybe one of the software updates

00:11:16 ◼   ► might have turned it off, I don't know.

00:11:18 ◼   ► - One of the features of CEC is it can turn off CEC.

00:11:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:23 ◼   ► Oh, goodness gracious.

00:11:25 ◼   ► All right, the last piece of follow-up we have

00:11:28 ◼   ► from a friend of the show, Matt Bischoff.

00:11:30 ◼   ► John, I think, especially was talking last episode

00:11:33 ◼   ► about what ingredients are in what ice creams.

00:11:36 ◼   ► And, you know, hey, in John's opinion,

00:11:39 ◼   ► if I recall correctly, he said there should only be

00:11:41 ◼   ► a handful of ingredients in any true and decent ice cream.

00:11:45 ◼   ► And Matt Bischoff has done a survey

00:11:47 ◼   ► of many of the popular ice cream brands that we've mentioned

00:11:49 ◼   ► and even a couple of others,

00:11:51 ◼   ► and put together an air table, which is a site I've never heard of before, but it's very cool.

00:11:56 ◼   ► It looks like basically a Google Sheet or Excel spreadsheet, if you will, but also a little bit

00:12:02 ◼   ► more than that. And so you can see all the different ingredients. Matt has included the

00:12:06 ◼   ► ingredients, the ingredient count, calorie per serving, serving size, calories per gram,

00:12:10 ◼   ► and even links because he is that thorough. Is there anything that guy doesn't do pretty much

00:12:15 ◼   ► perfectly? I doubt it. But anyway, worth checking out. John, now that you've seen this, any opinions

00:12:19 ◼   ► on any of this stuff.

00:12:20 ◼   ► >> A lot of people wanted to write in and tell me why all those ingredients are in there.

00:12:24 ◼   ► I know why they're in there.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Unfortunately, the list of ingredients doesn't tell you what I really want to know, which

00:12:28 ◼   ► I should have emphasized last time, is how much of this stuff.

00:12:31 ◼   ► All right, so the things that we're talking about that are not things that you would put

00:12:34 ◼   ► in ice cream that you make in your own house with your ice cream maker, which, by the way,

00:12:37 ◼   ► is really easy and everyone should do.

00:12:38 ◼   ► It doesn't even take up a lot of room.

00:12:39 ◼   ► You should get one.

00:12:40 ◼   ► They're fun.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Is they're putting in ingredients to make it so that when the ice cream thaws and then

00:12:47 ◼   ► and then refreezes, you don't get those big chunky ice crystals.

00:12:49 ◼   ► You ever do that?

00:12:50 ◼   ► With any ice cream, whether you buy it from the store or whatever, it thaws a little bit.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Or if your refrigerator or freezer, like your kid leaves a door open or something, or the

00:12:59 ◼   ► power goes out for a long time and everything kind of like melts a little bit, but then

00:13:02 ◼   ► it refreezes.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And then you take the ice cream, like, "Oh, you can tell that it's melted and refrozen."

00:13:06 ◼   ► Someone can find a physics video on YouTube explaining how the ice crystals, like the

00:13:11 ◼   ► water separates from the non-water parts and then it forms larger ice crystals and it tastes

00:13:15 ◼   ► all crunchy and gross.

00:13:16 ◼   ► And you don't like that.

00:13:17 ◼   ► Um, egg yolk is one example of like an emulsifier essentially that will keep the things mixed

00:13:23 ◼   ► together kind of like how egg yolk and like a salad dressing will keep the oil and the

00:13:26 ◼   ► vinegar mixed together.

00:13:27 ◼   ► It will keep them from separating.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Same thing, it will keep like the liquid, the water from separating from the solid ingredients

00:13:32 ◼   ► and making the big ice crystals when it remounts.

00:13:34 ◼   ► Um, egg yolks are more expensive obviously.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Almost all the other things they put in, these various gums and other what they call stabilizers,

00:13:40 ◼   ► they're called stabilizers because they want to account for the fact that the ice cream

00:13:43 ◼   ► is going to be shipped from far away in trucks with imperfect refrigeration and it's going

00:13:48 ◼   ► to melt and refreeze and melt and refreeze and melt and refreeze and if it didn't have

00:13:50 ◼   ► these stabilizers in them, it would taste terrible.

00:13:53 ◼   ► It would just be like, you know, big chunky water sharp ice crystals in there doesn't

00:13:58 ◼   ► taste good.

00:13:59 ◼   ► You want it to be smooth and creamy.

00:14:01 ◼   ► So the cheaper ice creams, in addition to this thing, what is it called, Overrun, I

00:14:05 ◼   ► forget what the hell it's called, how much air they blow into it to make you buy air

00:14:09 ◼   ► instead of densely packed things.

00:14:10 ◼   ► why hagandas is more dense than regular stuff. But anyway, setting aside the air thing, because

00:14:14 ◼   ► some people just like a softer ice cream, the cheaper the ice cream, the more stabilizer

00:14:20 ◼   ► they put in it. And they put lots and lots of stabilizers, so it can be very resilient

00:14:23 ◼   ► to freezing and thawing, and they don't have to put any egg yolks or any other more expensive

00:14:27 ◼   ► ingredient in there. And it still seems smooth and creamy right where you get it. So it's

00:14:33 ◼   ► not just that there are stabilizers, it's how much. And the ingredient list doesn't

00:14:36 ◼   ► tell you how much because they don't have amounts. It's just an order by, you know,

00:14:39 ◼   ► the most, the ingredients that there's the most of and then the second most and so on and so

00:14:43 ◼   ► forth. But it doesn't give you numbers. And my impression of the really the worst ice cream

00:14:48 ◼   ► flavors is they have a lot of stabilizers and a lot of other things that affect texture and stuff,

00:14:53 ◼   ► and that there's more of them. That, you know, like Häagen-Dazs, a couple of their flavors have

00:14:57 ◼   ► some stabilizers in them, but not a lot is my impression. And then other ones that have the

00:15:02 ◼   ► exact same ingredient list, tastes like I'm eating,

00:15:05 ◼   ► I don't know, foam rubber or something.

00:15:07 ◼   ► It just doesn't taste right or taste natural.

00:15:09 ◼   ► So that's, and this list, like going down

00:15:12 ◼   ► to Cold Stone Creamery, having 17 ingredients,

00:15:14 ◼   ► including like ethyl alcohol and artificial flavor,

00:15:18 ◼   ► whatever that is, and triethyl citrate,

00:15:21 ◼   ► and you know, all sorts of other things

00:15:22 ◼   ► to affect the color, the flavor,

00:15:27 ◼   ► and then to avoid all those ice crystals and everything.

00:15:30 ◼   ► And what I heard from somebody was it,

00:15:31 ◼   ► I don't know if it was Twitter or someone emailing me

00:15:33 ◼   ► or something about Haagen-Dazs for example.

00:15:34 ◼   ► How can they get away with not having stabilizers

00:15:37 ◼   ► and for example, their vanilla ice cream?

00:15:38 ◼   ► How can they do that?

00:15:39 ◼   ► Because apparently they own their distribution chain

00:15:42 ◼   ► and they own their own refrigerated trucks

00:15:43 ◼   ► and they basically make sure that their ice cream

00:15:44 ◼   ► never melts and refuises.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Because if you were to melt and refreeze Haagen-Dazs,

00:15:49 ◼   ► I've done it, we had power outages and stuff,

00:15:51 ◼   ► it tastes terrible.

00:15:52 ◼   ► It's got all the ice crystals formed in it.

00:15:54 ◼   ► No stabilizers except for egg yolks,

00:15:55 ◼   ► which are expensive, right?

00:15:57 ◼   ► So anyway, try making your own ice cream.

00:16:00 ◼   ► try avoiding the ice creams,

00:16:01 ◼   ► not that have any stabilizers in them,

00:16:03 ◼   ► but that basically tastes like

00:16:04 ◼   ► you're eating a big thing of plastic,

00:16:06 ◼   ► and you'll be happier.

00:16:08 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, just try avoiding the ones

00:16:10 ◼   ► whose ingredients sound like jet fuel

00:16:12 ◼   ► is basically a good rule here.

00:16:13 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:16:16 ◼   ► - Also, a quick follow-up.

00:16:17 ◼   ► A handful of people wrote me to say,

00:16:19 ◼   ► "Oh, I didn't know that Dreyer's or Breyer's

00:16:22 ◼   ► was Edie's where you are," and so on and so forth,

00:16:25 ◼   ► and apparently I got myself very mixed up

00:16:29 ◼   ► what's Edie's versus Dryer's versus Breyer's. And so I had commented that the slow churned,

00:16:35 ◼   ► which I think I had attributed to dryers, the slow churned, which is the low fat ice cream,

00:16:42 ◼   ► is actually my favorite by taste ice cream, which I know Jon really, really hates. And somebody wrote

00:16:48 ◼   ► not only me, but Edie's ice cream on Twitter to say, you know, "Hey, what's the story? I thought

00:16:52 ◼   ► that was Edie's." And it is Edie's where I am. I had been confused. And Edie's ice cream is written

00:16:58 ◼   ► EDIS is called Dreyer's West of the Rocky Mountains, and just FYI, it's delicious

00:17:03 ◼   ► no matter what you call it.

00:17:05 ◼   ► So thank you, EDIS, social media team, for correcting my unbelievable faux pas.

00:17:10 ◼   ► That's one of my least favorite brands of ice cream, EDIS.

00:17:12 ◼   ► Yeah, but I should have recognized the container.

00:17:14 ◼   ► It's the same.

00:17:15 ◼   ► Dreyer, it's just has a different word on it.

00:17:16 ◼   ► It's kind of like the Hellmann's and Best Foods mayonnaise situation.

00:17:21 ◼   ► One flavor of EDIS, though, is a flavor this ties into last week that I don't think is

00:17:25 ◼   ► available anywhere else that I think tastes pretty terrible and does not taste like it

00:17:30 ◼   ► tastes very artificial to me and yet I still find myself eating it which is probably bad

00:17:33 ◼   ► is that they make a flavor that has basically Samoa's mixed into the ice cream.

00:17:38 ◼   ► Oh, I tried that. It's it I found it overwhelmingly like artificial and weird. Oh, totally. Totally.

00:17:44 ◼   ► It totally tastes like you're eating like puffy plastic with Samoa's in it. Yes. And

00:17:49 ◼   ► yet I still find myself eating it. So that's like I mean, I don't I would never buy it

00:17:53 ◼   ► willingly but sometimes it appears in the house and when it does appear in the house

00:17:55 ◼   ► I usually won't touch any of these at all but that one I will take some. I always feel

00:17:59 ◼   ► bad. I always stop myself after a little tiny bit and put it back but yeah. I mean that's

00:18:04 ◼   ► the draw of the Samoas I guess but I remember repulsed by the ice cream but drawn by the

00:18:07 ◼   ► broken up cookies.

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00:20:07 ◼   ► - I have done a terrible job with my duties

00:20:13 ◼   ► as chief summarizer and chief, and I have not done my homework. I've pulled a Marco,

00:20:17 ◼   ► and I apologize to everyone. Welcome. It's nice over here, really. It was very relaxing,

00:20:22 ◼   ► I will admit. So apparently something has happened with iCloud versus Dropbox for Scrivener,

00:20:28 ◼   ► is that how you pronounce it? Scrivener sinking? And I don't know which one of you put this

00:20:32 ◼   ► in the show notes, but I will kick it over to you to take over my duties and the mantle

00:20:35 ◼   ► of... Can you guess? Yeah, I figured it was you, but... I also didn't hear about this,

00:20:40 ◼   ► So this is going to be a short segment, I think.

00:20:42 ◼   ► Whee!

00:20:43 ◼   ► All right, Jon, tell us about Scrivener, if you please.

00:20:45 ◼   ► Send me all the news in.

00:20:46 ◼   ► I brought it up to the top because it ties into our past discussions about APFS and the

00:20:52 ◼   ► cloning of entire directory hierarchies without having to go down and copy each individual

00:20:56 ◼   ► file just to clone a whole tree of the file system in a copy-on-write manner, which is

00:21:01 ◼   ► good for Apple's file formats that are actually folders full of files.

00:21:05 ◼   ► Also, Scrivener is a word processing application for, like, I think it's designed mostly for

00:21:09 ◼   ► writing like books you can have like notes and your outlines and plot summary and character

00:21:14 ◼   ► information all tied together with your manuscript of the book that you're writing and everything

00:21:18 ◼   ► and it uses a file format that's also a directory full of files so you can have all these different

00:21:21 ◼   ► things it's basically like a big project format right and they have a syncing system and they

00:21:28 ◼   ► were going to use iCloud apparently but were not able to because it doesn't provide the features

00:21:32 ◼   ► they need to sync their directory full of files things they're you know they're trying to be nice

00:21:38 ◼   ► As much as we love iCloud, this is from this webpage we'll link in the show notes, from

00:21:42 ◼   ► the Scrivener people themselves.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Current limitations and difficulties with iCloud mean it's not great at present.

00:21:48 ◼   ► Not at present suited for the sort of complex package-based file format used by Scrivener.

00:21:52 ◼   ► You would think it would be totally suited for that because Apple has those file formats

00:21:55 ◼   ► too, and the next operating system is sort of the genesis of those file formats or the

00:21:59 ◼   ► popularization of them anyway.

00:22:02 ◼   ► But no.

00:22:03 ◼   ► Dropbox, on the other hand, which is what they do use for those things, which gives

00:22:06 ◼   ► them the control they need.

00:22:07 ◼   ► And one of their big complaints about iCloud

00:22:09 ◼   ► is they don't know when things will sync.

00:22:10 ◼   ► It's not as if they can initiate a sync

00:22:12 ◼   ► and get notified when it's done.

00:22:13 ◼   ► Things just magically appear behind the scenes

00:22:16 ◼   ► in sort of a background manner.

00:22:18 ◼   ► And that can leave this file format,

00:22:20 ◼   ► this folder full of files, in an unknown and inconsistent state.

00:22:24 ◼   ► And so what they say in this blog post

00:22:27 ◼   ► about these technical limitations

00:22:28 ◼   ► is they'd rather have users complaining

00:22:30 ◼   ► that they don't like manually syncing than just

00:22:33 ◼   ► lost four hours of writing because of structural changes.

00:22:35 ◼   ► like you could end up with a document.

00:22:36 ◼   ► Like if you sync and you think you're done

00:22:37 ◼   ► and you closed the lid on your laptop

00:22:38 ◼   ► but didn't really finish,

00:22:39 ◼   ► you've got like a half finished document there.

00:22:41 ◼   ► And that's bad.

00:22:42 ◼   ► And Dropbox apparently gives them the control

00:22:44 ◼   ► to sync the whole thing on demand,

00:22:46 ◼   ► let them know when it's done

00:22:47 ◼   ► and either have the thing entirely synced

00:22:49 ◼   ► or entirely in the previous state.

00:22:51 ◼   ► It's clear with Apple's new file system

00:22:53 ◼   ► that they will have at least on the local side,

00:22:56 ◼   ► the ability to do these operations atomically,

00:22:58 ◼   ► but their iCloud APIs with the sort of magic,

00:23:02 ◼   ► oh, you don't need to know the details,

00:23:03 ◼   ► just there's a folder there and eventually the documents you want will

00:23:07 ◼   ► appear everywhere and in the meantime there's like proxy documents that you

00:23:10 ◼   ► can get metadata about and so on and so forth doesn't work when what you care

00:23:13 ◼   ► about is not an individual file but an entire directory full of files because

00:23:18 ◼   ► apparently that you know the iCloud Drive and sync people weren't on the

00:23:23 ◼   ► same page with the people writing dot RTFD files and text editor maybe it

00:23:27 ◼   ► doesn't matter when you've got a half-finished dot RTFD file and they

00:23:30 ◼   ► assume it will sync in the rest of the way anyway this is yet another sad story

00:23:33 ◼   ► of a developer who desperately wants to use iCloud eventually having to go to a different

00:23:38 ◼   ► solution. Very often developers roll their own solutions or they go with Dropbox or they

00:23:42 ◼   ► go with something else. It's sort of the ongoing failure of iCloud to fulfill even

00:23:48 ◼   ► the most basic needs of some of the best developers of Mac applications or iOS applications for

00:23:54 ◼   ► that matter.

00:23:55 ◼   ► David Schanzer, Senior Head of Sales, Google Analytics, Google Analytics

00:23:56 ◼   ► File syncing, data syncing is hard in general and I think what we see is iCloud Drive, it's

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's another one of these examples where like,

00:24:04 ◼   ► when iCloud interacts with the file system,

00:24:07 ◼   ► it's not always great.

00:24:09 ◼   ► It seems like CloudKit and what they've made with CloudKit

00:24:14 ◼   ► is able to be really great.

00:24:16 ◼   ► With certain apps, with certain things that go well,

00:24:18 ◼   ► it's able to be really great.

00:24:19 ◼   ► But whenever iCloud interacts with files on disk

00:24:22 ◼   ► that have to exist in a file system

00:24:24 ◼   ► and be interacted with in other ways as well,

00:24:27 ◼   ► that seems like it's not even there yet.

00:24:30 ◼   ► And I worry about that a little bit, but, you know, we have other solutions for that.

00:24:34 ◼   ► We have Dropbox.

00:24:35 ◼   ► We have, well, Dropbox.

00:24:37 ◼   ► And it seems to work well for most people.

00:24:40 ◼   ► So I guess it's okay now.

00:24:42 ◼   ► You know, I guess it's okay in the grand scheme of things.

00:24:45 ◼   ► But it is kind of sad that Apple is still not really playing well in that game.

00:24:49 ◼   ► I mean, on an individual file basis, they have most of this.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Because the whole idea is the difference between an API where you say, "Please do sync now."

00:24:57 ◼   ► Like even a synchronous API where you say, make this call,

00:25:01 ◼   ► and when the call returns, the thing I asked to be done

00:25:03 ◼   ► is done.

00:25:04 ◼   ► That can work on an individual file basis,

00:25:05 ◼   ► and Cloud Kit is much more like that,

00:25:07 ◼   ► in that you have the control over that.

00:25:08 ◼   ► I'm not sure if they're complaining about Cloud Kit

00:25:10 ◼   ► specifically, or iCloud Drive that does it magically

00:25:12 ◼   ► behind their back.

00:25:13 ◼   ► But all of that is on an individual file.

00:25:16 ◼   ► There's no sort of like, oh, this entire tree of files.

00:25:19 ◼   ► I want you to sync all of that and tell me

00:25:21 ◼   ► when all of that is done, unless you're

00:25:23 ◼   ► going to try to do each individual one,

00:25:24 ◼   ► and then what about files that have been added or removed,

00:25:27 ◼   ► there's no API to do things at that level.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And the related thing that came up today,

00:25:33 ◼   ► this is about the Sierra beta.

00:25:35 ◼   ► Maybe I shouldn't say who's reporting this,

00:25:37 ◼   ► because I don't know what you're supposed

00:25:38 ◼   ► to say about the Sierra betas.

00:25:39 ◼   ► Is it a public beta?

00:25:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:25:41 ◼   ► I don't even know the rules anymore.

00:25:42 ◼   ► But anyway, we all know from the keynote

00:25:45 ◼   ► that MacOS Sierra has this feature where it will

00:25:48 ◼   ► automatically sync your desktop.

00:25:50 ◼   ► Remember that?

00:25:51 ◼   ► Like all the stuff in your desktop between your Macs,

00:25:53 ◼   ► and also apparently your documents folder.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I forget what it is.

00:25:56 ◼   ► When I installed it, it was like a checkbox or something.

00:25:57 ◼   ► It says, "Hey, do you want Apple to sync all this stuff

00:26:00 ◼   ► "in your documents folder in desktop?"

00:26:02 ◼   ► And I was like, "Hell no."

00:26:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:26:05 ◼   ► For reasons discussed in the past, like please don't.

00:26:07 ◼   ► Anyway, so someone we all know checked that checkbox

00:26:12 ◼   ► just to see what it was like, and like la-di-da,

00:26:13 ◼   ► it's like, especially if you have one computer, la-di-da,

00:26:16 ◼   ► it's syncing the stuff or whatever.

00:26:18 ◼   ► And at some point, they said, "All right,

00:26:21 ◼   ► "I wanna stop doing that," and like uncheck the checkbox.

00:26:23 ◼   ► And when you uncheck it, it's like that-- you know

00:26:26 ◼   ► the phrasing they use when you go into the iCloud preference

00:26:29 ◼   ► pane and uncheck contacts or something or whatever?

00:26:32 ◼   ► And it's like, keep in mind that the whatevers will no longer

00:26:35 ◼   ► be available on your Mac.

00:26:37 ◼   ► You know that phrasing?

00:26:38 ◼   ► It's like their way-- they don't want

00:26:39 ◼   ► to say we're going to delete your stuff,

00:26:41 ◼   ► but they're like, whatever you're talking about

00:26:43 ◼   ► will no longer be available on your Mac,

00:26:45 ◼   ► or some word like that.

00:26:47 ◼   ► And I don't know if people really know what that means.

00:26:50 ◼   ► I mean, it's kind of-- it's accurate,

00:26:51 ◼   ► but it means like, your stuff go bye-bye now.

00:26:54 ◼   ► Like it's not going to be there anymore.

00:26:55 ◼   ► We are going to delete it.

00:26:56 ◼   ► And this person who was checking this box is like,

00:27:00 ◼   ► but this is my documents folder.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Surely they don't mean they'll remove everything

00:27:04 ◼   ► in my documents folder if I uncheck this checkbox, right?

00:27:07 ◼   ► So this person unchecked it, and lo and behold,

00:27:10 ◼   ► the documents, everything in the documents folder went away.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Like everything.

00:27:14 ◼   ► Now, it's not really gone.

00:27:17 ◼   ► Apparently like the system is squirreling it away

00:27:19 ◼   ► in a different location.

00:27:20 ◼   ► if you know where you can find it, it's still there,

00:27:24 ◼   ► and you can make it come back

00:27:24 ◼   ► because it's synced and all that other stuff.

00:27:26 ◼   ► But this is probably working as designed,

00:27:29 ◼   ► but A, this is a terrifying design

00:27:31 ◼   ► because I don't think people expect it to happen.

00:27:33 ◼   ► I think people mostly do keep everything

00:27:35 ◼   ► that they care about on their desktop

00:27:36 ◼   ► and in their documents folder.

00:27:37 ◼   ► If they were to uncheck a checkbox,

00:27:38 ◼   ► everything disappeared,

00:27:39 ◼   ► even if they can get it back by rechecking,

00:27:41 ◼   ► the panic and the trust lost by that interaction

00:27:45 ◼   ► is terrible.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And then the other part of that is

00:27:49 ◼   ► If anything does go wrong and you check the checkbox

00:27:51 ◼   ► to try to get it back and it gives you back

00:27:52 ◼   ► like an old version of the file or something,

00:27:55 ◼   ► which could happen because sync is really hard,

00:27:58 ◼   ► that's gonna be just insult on top of injury.

00:28:01 ◼   ► It'll be terrible.

00:28:02 ◼   ► So I really hope they reconsider this interface.

00:28:05 ◼   ► And the whole idea that there's a series of checkboxes

00:28:07 ◼   ► that you can check that make stuff,

00:28:09 ◼   ► one of the most important sort of user interface decisions

00:28:13 ◼   ► that Dropbox made was that the files in Dropbox,

00:28:18 ◼   ► we'll talk about this more if we ever get to Dropbox,

00:28:20 ◼   ► is Project Infinite, which changes the decision,

00:28:22 ◼   ► but the files in your Dropbox folder

00:28:24 ◼   ► are just plain files on your Mac.

00:28:26 ◼   ► If you turn Dropbox off,

00:28:27 ◼   ► those files are still sitting on your Mac

00:28:29 ◼   ► exactly where they were.

00:28:30 ◼   ► If you never run Dropbox again,

00:28:32 ◼   ► those files are still just sitting there, right?

00:28:34 ◼   ► They're not, Dropbox doesn't like control those files

00:28:37 ◼   ► to the point where like, oh, you quit Dropbox,

00:28:39 ◼   ► your entire Dropbox folder is empty.

00:28:40 ◼   ► No, they're just files on your disk.

00:28:41 ◼   ► And when you turn Dropbox on,

00:28:43 ◼   ► it looks at its Dropbox folder and syncs them all

00:28:45 ◼   ► and does all this stuff or whatever,

00:28:46 ◼   ► when you turn it off or if Dropbox crashes in the middle,

00:28:49 ◼   ► everything is just exactly the way it was

00:28:50 ◼   ► because they're just real files on your disk.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And yes, that means that if you have five computers

00:28:54 ◼   ► all used in Dropbox,

00:28:55 ◼   ► you have five individual different copies

00:28:57 ◼   ► of those same files.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And if you uninstall Dropbox from all of them,

00:29:00 ◼   ► now all five computers have the same files on them,

00:29:02 ◼   ► but they're just plain files on disk.

00:29:04 ◼   ► Same is true of iCloud Drive,

00:29:06 ◼   ► but the policy of saying when you uncheck this checkbox,

00:29:09 ◼   ► the only way we can deal with it is to remove these things

00:29:11 ◼   ► from your documents folder from your desktop,

00:29:13 ◼   ► or just blank it out or put them into a different folder

00:29:15 ◼   ► even – or do anything with them at all other than to leave them exactly where they are

00:29:19 ◼   ► – is the wrong decision, even if it works perfectly.

00:29:23 ◼   ► So anyway, Sierra is a beta.

00:29:25 ◼   ► I don't know if this was an intended feature, a bug, anything – plenty of asterisks and

00:29:31 ◼   ► caveats on this.

00:29:32 ◼   ► I'm not slamming an unreleased operating system.

00:29:34 ◼   ► But I really hope when this feature does exist that it has a better policy than that, and

00:29:38 ◼   ► even if it does, I'm still not enabling it because I still find it really scary.

00:29:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I think this is one of those problems

00:29:44 ◼   ► where when you have the folder full of files

00:29:47 ◼   ► that need to be synced, there are so many weird little

00:29:51 ◼   ► uncomfortable edge cases or areas where you need

00:29:54 ◼   ► some kind of administrator tool.

00:29:55 ◼   ► So for instance, any kind of merge conflict

00:29:58 ◼   ► or like what Dropbox does, which we learned about

00:30:01 ◼   ► with our discussion about file names,

00:30:03 ◼   ► that apparently Dropbox will create a conflict

00:30:07 ◼   ► if you have two different Unicode encodings

00:30:09 ◼   ► the same name, it will just leave them both there

00:30:12 ◼   ► and it'll rename one or both of them,

00:30:14 ◼   ► like naming conflict or something like that, right?

00:30:16 ◼   ► And if you have a merge conflict in Dropbox,

00:30:20 ◼   ► it keeps both or all three files

00:30:22 ◼   ► and it just renames them with parentheses at the end,

00:30:24 ◼   ► like oh, you know, conflict version, whatever, whatever,

00:30:26 ◼   ► whatever format they use.

00:30:29 ◼   ► And these are all kind of ugly solutions

00:30:31 ◼   ► to real world conditions, but these are the kind of,

00:30:34 ◼   ► these are the kind of like ugly results

00:30:36 ◼   ► that you kind of can't automate this away

00:30:40 ◼   ► in a way that will never lose data for people

00:30:42 ◼   ► or that will always do exactly what people want it to do.

00:30:45 ◼   ► But Apple tries to.

00:30:46 ◼   ► So Apple seems like they're kind of institutionally allergic

00:30:51 ◼   ► to adding in these kind of administrative ugliness things

00:30:56 ◼   ► that even when they have to be there,

00:30:58 ◼   ► like a case like a merge conflict on a file share thing,

00:31:01 ◼   ► like a Dropbox folder, Apple's solution is usually,

00:31:04 ◼   ► we're just gonna guess and hope that we guess right

00:31:07 ◼   ► through some kind of heuristics that will probably

00:31:09 ◼   ► be right most of the time, and we'll just deal with it.

00:31:12 ◼   ► Like, that'll just be the way it's dealt with,

00:31:14 ◼   ► and if you lose data, oh well.

00:31:16 ◼   ► That seems to be their approach most of the time

00:31:17 ◼   ► to these kind of difficult sync problems.

00:31:20 ◼   ► But I don't think that works very well in an environment

00:31:23 ◼   ► where you have people's files in folders

00:31:25 ◼   ► that have always worked a certain way,

00:31:26 ◼   ► that people are accustomed to, that people expect,

00:31:28 ◼   ► and that people require for their data to be there

00:31:31 ◼   ► and reliable and intact and everything.

00:31:33 ◼   ► Apple's approach to just, we're just going to avoid

00:31:36 ◼   ► giving you any kind of controls to manage

00:31:38 ◼   ► the actual complexity of this problem.

00:31:40 ◼   ► I don't think that works for files.

00:31:42 ◼   ► - One of the advancements of CloudKit

00:31:44 ◼   ► was that it would delegate to the application

00:31:46 ◼   ► to make this decision, to say,

00:31:47 ◼   ► CloudKit will let you know that there is a conflict

00:31:50 ◼   ► and you'll get this call back

00:31:51 ◼   ► and it's up to you what to do about it.

00:31:52 ◼   ► And you could decide in your application,

00:31:54 ◼   ► I'm just gonna keep all three copies

00:31:55 ◼   ► and rename them with parentheses, right?

00:31:58 ◼   ► This situation with the iCloud drive or whatever,

00:32:01 ◼   ► the syncing of the desktop stuff,

00:32:03 ◼   ► is, like I said, it's more of a policy decision of saying,

00:32:05 ◼   ► what should we do when they uncheck that box?

00:32:07 ◼   ► I think the right decision when they uncheck that box

00:32:09 ◼   ► is to just leave everything exactly the way it is on disk

00:32:11 ◼   ► and not mess with it anymore.

00:32:12 ◼   ► But the decision they're making is kind of the same decision

00:32:15 ◼   ► they make for contacts or all the other things

00:32:18 ◼   ► that you can check and uncheck in the iCloud preference pane.

00:32:21 ◼   ► Well, sometimes in the iCloud preference pane,

00:32:23 ◼   ► they ask you, should we remove the ones

00:32:24 ◼   ► or leave them on your Mac?

00:32:25 ◼   ► They should ask the same thing for the documents, which again,

00:32:27 ◼   ► which makes it maybe this is an intentional feature.

00:32:29 ◼   ► They just haven't gotten around to change that dialog box

00:32:31 ◼   ► in that way.

00:32:32 ◼   ► but it just goes to show that there are lots of things

00:32:35 ◼   ► that you can do to confuse and frighten the user.

00:32:38 ◼   ► And perhaps the worst one is making all their stuff

00:32:40 ◼   ► apparently disappear.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Even if it's all safely preserved,

00:32:42 ◼   ► both locally in a different folder that they renamed

00:32:45 ◼   ► and on the cloud, that moment of trust,

00:32:48 ◼   ► you know, of you losing the user's trust

00:32:50 ◼   ► is gonna make them not wanna use that product anymore.

00:32:52 ◼   ► And Dropbox with the renaming,

00:32:53 ◼   ► with the garbage files and everything,

00:32:55 ◼   ► my experience is that happens to people

00:32:57 ◼   ► and they don't even notice until like a month later.

00:32:59 ◼   ► Like what is this whatever's conflicted copy file here?

00:33:02 ◼   ► I don't quite understand that,

00:33:03 ◼   ► but the reason they didn't notice is because

00:33:06 ◼   ► it didn't actually delete anything.

00:33:07 ◼   ► It always fails in a way that gives you extra data,

00:33:12 ◼   ► extra garbage files of like,

00:33:13 ◼   ► well, I've got the file that I expected

00:33:14 ◼   ► and I've got two more that I didn't expect.

00:33:16 ◼   ► But you've got all three versions of the file.

00:33:18 ◼   ► And if one of them is named differently

00:33:19 ◼   ► and you can't figure it out,

00:33:20 ◼   ► like you go there and you sort by name

00:33:21 ◼   ► and you'll find there's a bunch of other files.

00:33:23 ◼   ► You'll find your stuff.

00:33:24 ◼   ► Like it won't, as opposed to trying to pick

00:33:27 ◼   ► correct file for you or presenting some dialogue for you to choose how to resolve the conflict

00:33:33 ◼   ► when you don't have enough information to do that. So Dropbox's solution is not great for a lot of

00:33:38 ◼   ► situations where you don't want to make a bunch of garbage files, but it's a good choice for just

00:33:43 ◼   ► sort of a generic bin full of, you know, folder full of files without any specific purpose,

00:33:49 ◼   ► because it, you know, their strategy is the worst thing we can do is lose someone's data.

00:33:56 ◼   ► it's much better to give them a bunch of garbage files than to make stuff disappear.

00:34:00 ◼   ► Why do you think that Google Drive and like OneDrive and to some degree Box haven't tried

00:34:08 ◼   ► to be that like everything sync engine that Dropbox has seemed to become?

00:34:12 ◼   ► They are trying. They have different policies. Like I think Google Drive is very similar to

00:34:17 ◼   ► Dropbox. I haven't actually used OneDrive, but all of them, oh, all these products including

00:34:22 ◼   ► including Dropbox now with the Project Infinite thing are dancing around the other trade-off.

00:34:26 ◼   ► Like Dropbox's thing of, hey, every single file is on your Mac and we will sync it.

00:34:31 ◼   ► And then they added Selective Sync many years ago where you can choose which files you want

00:34:35 ◼   ► to sync.

00:34:36 ◼   ► Dropbox Infinite is, all right, we'll make it look like the files -- this is my understanding,

00:34:41 ◼   ► I don't actually use it -- we'll make it look like the files are on your Mac, but really

00:34:44 ◼   ► they'll be in the cloud.

00:34:45 ◼   ► Which makes a lot of sense in a pervasively network-connected office, and it'll let you

00:34:49 ◼   ► like pin, I'm assuming it will let you pin files to your Mac so they don't go away.

00:34:54 ◼   ► So you can have basically more stuff in your Dropbox than will fit on your Mac.

00:34:59 ◼   ► Or like on-demand selective sync, sort of like you're paging in the files from the cloud

00:35:03 ◼   ► onto your Mac as you use them and as you don't use them they don't need to be on your Mac.

00:35:08 ◼   ► Or you could say never bring this all down on my Mac, just sort of access it over the

00:35:11 ◼   ► network.

00:35:12 ◼   ► It's sort of a blending of NFS mounts and Dropbox complete copying of files and all

00:35:17 ◼   ► other stuff and it does that with a kernel extension, there's a whole article about it

00:35:20 ◼   ► on Dropbox's thing.

00:35:23 ◼   ► It's very interesting but it's a very different tradeoff than Dropbox makes and it's much

00:35:26 ◼   ► more dangerous because if they mess anything up there, bad things can happen.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Like the reassurance of Dropbox, like I said, is that you can quit the Dropbox app, never

00:35:35 ◼   ► relaunch it again and everything in that Dropbox folder is exactly, you know, what you see

00:35:38 ◼   ► is what's there.

00:35:39 ◼   ► None of those files are fake, none of them are proxy files that are all there, they're

00:35:42 ◼   ► all taking up disk space on your Mac.

00:35:44 ◼   ► You don't have to wonder which ones are where.

00:35:48 ◼   ► And you can move things in and out of it.

00:35:50 ◼   ► They're not constrained in any way.

00:35:52 ◼   ► They don't have weird permissions on them.

00:35:53 ◼   ► They're just plain old files.

00:35:55 ◼   ► And Project Infinite takes that away in exchange for you not having to deal with selective

00:35:59 ◼   ► sync and have you fill up your disk because someone in a shared folder puts a ton of stuff

00:36:04 ◼   ► in there and all sorts of other downsides of the traditional Dropbox model.

00:36:08 ◼   ► But it's a much higher degree of difficulty.

00:36:10 ◼   ► And I think a lot of the other vendors went right for that higher degree of difficulty

00:36:14 ◼   ► and never sort of started off as simple as Dropbox.

00:36:17 ◼   ► The advantage Dropbox had, I think,

00:36:18 ◼   ► is that even before Selective Sync,

00:36:20 ◼   ► it was a very simple user model that people could understand,

00:36:24 ◼   ► didn't have a lot of features, was so simple,

00:36:26 ◼   ► it could be implemented by a bunch of Python scripts,

00:36:28 ◼   ► for crying out loud.

00:36:29 ◼   ► And I think Dropbox built a lot of trust and goodwill

00:36:34 ◼   ► with that simple model, and now they can expand,

00:36:36 ◼   ► like as they expand to Selective Sync,

00:36:38 ◼   ► that didn't cause people to flee

00:36:39 ◼   ► 'cause it was too confusing,

00:36:40 ◼   ► 'cause it was just a tweak of the thing they understood.

00:36:42 ◼   ► We'll see if Project Infinite is a bridge too far, but I think that's the big advantage

00:36:45 ◼   ► that Dropbox had that I think big companies like Google and Microsoft can't help but

00:36:49 ◼   ► immediately implement all the complicated features.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Do you plan on trying Dropbox Infinite?

00:36:55 ◼   ► I doubt it.

00:36:57 ◼   ► I mean, I'm not dissatisfied with the plain Dropbox.

00:37:01 ◼   ► I have a lot of disk space.

00:37:02 ◼   ► I do use SelectiveSync sometimes to keep things, you know, from getting too big, because I

00:37:07 ◼   ► do have some shared folders, and I really hate Dropbox's policy of like, "Shared

00:37:10 ◼   ► count towards your quota, which is ridiculous because you know they're only storing one

00:37:13 ◼   ► copy of this stuff server-side.

00:37:16 ◼   ► Probably won't, especially since it uses a kernel extension, but I will be curious about

00:37:19 ◼   ► it, so I won't rule it out.

00:37:20 ◼   ► >> Yeah, I don't actually plan to try it, honestly.

00:37:24 ◼   ► I mean, maybe if, you know, on a laptop I might try it on my main computer, I definitely

00:37:29 ◼   ► wouldn't.

00:37:30 ◼   ► I'd rather just buy more hard drive space and just suck it up than run those risks and

00:37:34 ◼   ► everything.

00:37:35 ◼   ► But on a laptop, maybe.

00:37:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't have that much stuff in my Dropbox. Well, I have nine

00:37:44 ◼   ► gigs available of which I've used a little over half of it. So there's, I mean,

00:37:48 ◼   ► there's what, four gigs, a little more, maybe even five gigs in there. But it's

00:37:52 ◼   ► not that much, and even the smallest laptop can grab all of that. I'm still on

00:37:58 ◼   ► a free Dropbox plan. I haven't had a need to pay for it. I'm not opposed to paying

00:38:02 ◼   ► I just haven't had the need to pay for it, so.

00:38:05 ◼   ► - I actually just started paying for it at WWDC this year.

00:38:09 ◼   ► Like that's, I finally won it.

00:38:11 ◼   ► - So what put you over the edge?

00:38:13 ◼   ► - I wanted an easy way to quickly have a backup

00:38:17 ◼   ► of the podcast files that we had recorded there,

00:38:21 ◼   ► and it was just easier than setting up something else

00:38:24 ◼   ► at that moment in the very brief time

00:38:26 ◼   ► that I was sitting in the fast ethernet area of Moscone.

00:38:30 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:38:31 ◼   ► - And I thought, you know what, I kept hitting it,

00:38:32 ◼   ► 'cause I only had the regular two gig limit

00:38:34 ◼   ► plus a couple hundred megs for a minute,

00:38:36 ◼   ► but I kept running into that all the time

00:38:38 ◼   ► with just transferring podcast files back and forth.

00:38:40 ◼   ► I'm like, you know, it's about time.

00:38:42 ◼   ► Let me actually finally pay for this product

00:38:45 ◼   ► that I've been using and running my business on

00:38:46 ◼   ► for literally years.

00:38:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, makes sense.

00:38:50 ◼   ► And I also kinda like that the Synology has,

00:38:54 ◼   ► like Cloud Sync or something like that,

00:38:55 ◼   ► which puts a copy of Dropbox on the Synology,

00:38:58 ◼   ► which is neat as another backup.

00:39:00 ◼   ► - Oh, I didn't know that.

00:39:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think it's called Cloud Sync.

00:39:02 ◼   ► There's one of the apps that you can install.

00:39:04 ◼   ► I'll have to get you the name after the show.

00:39:08 ◼   ► One of the apps you can install

00:39:10 ◼   ► basically acts as another Dropbox client.

00:39:12 ◼   ► And so if you wanted to,

00:39:13 ◼   ► you could have an additional backup

00:39:15 ◼   ► of your Dropbox sitting on your Synology.

00:39:18 ◼   ► - Our second sponsor this week is Eero.

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00:40:26 ◼   ► are covered in a bunch of ugly antennas,

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00:41:30 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:41:33 ◼   ► - Apparently Hackintoshes are still a thing

00:41:37 ◼   ► and Mike Rundle just built one.

00:41:39 ◼   ► And that's about the extent of my knowledge

00:41:40 ◼   ► on this scenario.

00:41:41 ◼   ► So John, tell us about this.

00:41:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, don't call it a comeback.

00:41:44 ◼   ► People are always doing the Hackintosh thing.

00:41:47 ◼   ► It came up again because someone did another blog post

00:41:49 ◼   ► about it and as we've been talking about for weeks

00:41:52 ◼   ► the show about how it's basically the wrong time to buy any Mac because they're all woefully out

00:41:56 ◼   ► of date with the exception of the 5k iMac maybe and I guess the little MacBook I suppose because

00:42:01 ◼   ► that's fairly up to date but everything else is just has incredibly old hardware there's been

00:42:06 ◼   ► lots of snarky tweets about it involved in the store I think someone uh Marco retweeted somebody

00:42:10 ◼   ► saying uh used to be that you made a hackintosh to get yourself a cheap Macintosh now you do a

00:42:17 ◼   ► hackintosh just so you can run Mac OS on hardware that is not insanely outdated like it's not it's

00:42:22 ◼   ► It's not a money-saving move, and it's not even like I want to build this amazing

00:42:26 ◼   ► beast of a box type of move.

00:42:28 ◼   ► It's more like I just want to run my preferred operating system on hardware that was made

00:42:35 ◼   ► in the past year or two.

00:42:37 ◼   ► And so that's Apple's fault for letting that stuff go by.

00:42:40 ◼   ► But every time someone builds one of these Hackintosh people are amazed that you can

00:42:43 ◼   ► essentially build a PC, which is what modern Macs are when you get down to brass tacks

00:42:48 ◼   ► in terms of the components for an incredibly small amount of money.

00:42:52 ◼   ► So this was a $1200 hackintosh that's like, trumps any computer you could buy from Apple

00:42:56 ◼   ► at any price for the most part.

00:43:00 ◼   ► Particularly galling are things like how cheap the RAM can be.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Now it's not apples to apples, but like, "Oh, well the Mac Pro has ECC RAM and that's why

00:43:07 ◼   ► it costs more money," and all these other excuses for why the RAM is so much more expensive.

00:43:11 ◼   ► But Will Cosgrove tweeted just before the show, "Apple charges $1300 for 64GB of DDR3

00:43:17 ◼   ► for the Mac Pro, you can get 64 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM

00:43:22 ◼   ► for $275, so that is $275 versus $1300.

00:43:28 ◼   ► So the same amount of RAM, just drop the ECC.

00:43:31 ◼   ► - And granted it is ECC versus not,

00:43:33 ◼   ► but that does affect the price, but not that much.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, I mean it's nonsensical.

00:43:38 ◼   ► Like the price of the Mac Pro is crazy fast.

00:43:41 ◼   ► - Well I will say though, with this particular case,

00:43:43 ◼   ► this particular Hackintosh, it is not using the Xeon,

00:43:47 ◼   ► it is not using the server chipset,

00:43:49 ◼   ► it is not using ECC RAM.

00:43:51 ◼   ► It is really an iMac, not a Mac Pro comparison here.

00:43:55 ◼   ► This, and there, it is still a good comparison to make.

00:43:59 ◼   ► However, this is not making a very cheap Mac Pro,

00:44:02 ◼   ► this is making a very cheap iMac.

00:44:03 ◼   ► - But it's way faster than the Mac Pro though,

00:44:05 ◼   ► in every measurable way, so it doesn't really matter.

00:44:08 ◼   ► - Isn't it literally the exact same CPU

00:44:09 ◼   ► that's sold in the 5K iMac?

00:44:11 ◼   ► - Probably, I mean, the 4, the 5K iMac is faster

00:44:13 ◼   ► than the Mac Pro, like, you know,

00:44:14 ◼   ► except for in massively parallel things

00:44:16 ◼   ► where you got a 12 core blah blah blah.

00:44:17 ◼   ► I mean, this is a $1200 computer.

00:44:19 ◼   ► - Agreed, however, it is an insult to the iMac,

00:44:22 ◼   ► not the Mac Pro.

00:44:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it's an insult to Apple's entire line.

00:44:25 ◼   ► And this particular Hackintosh, whatever,

00:44:27 ◼   ► you can find a million different Hackintosh builds,

00:44:29 ◼   ► you can build it, that's the whole point of Hackintosh,

00:44:30 ◼   ► is you can build it any way you want.

00:44:32 ◼   ► And so a lot of people have been asking us

00:44:35 ◼   ► whether we would ever do a Hackintosh

00:44:37 ◼   ► or whether this is something we've considered

00:44:38 ◼   ► because we've been complaining so much about

00:44:40 ◼   ► the outdated Apple hardware.

00:44:42 ◼   ► And I'll speak for myself and say,

00:44:45 ◼   ► I look at this and it makes me sad about Apple's product line, but I had never really considered

00:44:49 ◼   ► making them on myself because I don't want to have to deal with any of the stuff that

00:44:54 ◼   ► Hackintosh has to deal with.

00:44:56 ◼   ► They have to deal with a lot of the stuff because Apple doesn't make an operating system

00:45:00 ◼   ► for just sort of any sort of hardware.

00:45:01 ◼   ► So they have to carefully match their hardware to what Apple provides drivers for or to what

00:45:07 ◼   ► they can get drivers for and it's become even harder with the driver signing thing and everything.

00:45:12 ◼   ► features, lots of major features, just don't work on the hackintosh because they haven't figured out

00:45:17 ◼   ► how to convince the operating system to make hardware that is similar enough to mac hardware

00:45:24 ◼   ► that things will work. In particular, one that really stood out to me in this particular hackintosh

00:45:27 ◼   ► story is they still haven't gotten iMessage working and that's not like a minor feature.

00:45:30 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a big message.

00:45:31 ◼   ► iMessage is a pretty like, would you like to use a mac? But by the way, you can't use iMessage. And

00:45:36 ◼   ► forget about all the modern stuff that it requires, like handoff continuity or, you know, the touch

00:45:41 ◼   ► Touch ID sensor that will appear on MacBook someday.

00:45:43 ◼   ► Forget about that stuff, because that's no way they're going to be able to do that.

00:45:46 ◼   ► They're not going to be able to get a secure enclave from Apple and stick it into their

00:45:49 ◼   ► PC and get the stuff to work.

00:45:52 ◼   ► The amount of things that just don't work that make your Mac not really a Mac is a growing

00:45:56 ◼   ► list of things.

00:45:57 ◼   ► Not that they're doing it to stop hack and dodges, but Apple keeps adding to that list.

00:46:02 ◼   ► And I don't want to deal with any of that.

00:46:03 ◼   ► I just want it to work.

00:46:05 ◼   ► I don't want to do a point update and have my machine not boot because the video drivers

00:46:08 ◼   ► don't work anymore.

00:46:09 ◼   ► I don't want to have to worry about any of that stuff.

00:46:10 ◼   ► I just want a really good, big, fast, and I'm willing to pay much more money for the

00:46:15 ◼   ► privilege of someone figuring this all out ahead of time and making me, and this is a

00:46:19 ◼   ► nice piece of hardware that works, and this is before I get into like how ugly these boxes

00:46:23 ◼   ► are and how much noise they might make and all the other, and the fact that you have

00:46:28 ◼   ► to build it yourself and like I would sooner build myself a gaming PC than I would a hackintosh.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Like gaming PC I've come really close to building many times in my various states of frustration,

00:46:38 ◼   ► But Hackintosh, never for me.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Casey?

00:46:42 ◼   ► Oh, would I build one?

00:46:44 ◼   ► Hell no.

00:46:45 ◼   ► Absolutely not.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And you built PCs before, right?

00:46:47 ◼   ► Oh yeah, oh yeah.

00:46:49 ◼   ► For a long time.

00:46:50 ◼   ► Basically, up until the time I started using Thinkpads exclusively, which was right before

00:46:54 ◼   ► I started using Macbooks exclusively, which was before I started using the iMac, I was

00:47:00 ◼   ► always building PCs.

00:47:01 ◼   ► Always, always, always, always.

00:47:03 ◼   ► And first of all, I'm so far out of the game, so to speak, like, I wouldn't even know where

00:47:07 ◼   ► to begin.

00:47:08 ◼   ► understand the components that are necessary for modern personal computer, but I don't know what

00:47:13 ◼   ► what processors are popular these days. I don't know what memory is the right memory to choose,

00:47:19 ◼   ► and obviously I could figure this out, but I just don't have the patience, the time, or the energy

00:47:24 ◼   ► for it. This is a thing, especially a computer where I only buy one once every like four to

00:47:29 ◼   ► eight years, I would much rather throw money at the problem and just have Apple fix it for me.

00:47:37 ◼   ► That being said, the whole reason we're talking about this is because Apple's doing a very good

00:47:41 ◼   ► job of avoiding taking our money. Well, not us. Maybe John, not Marco and I necessarily. But

00:47:47 ◼   ► Apple's really working hard at not updating things, except the MacBook Adorable. And to some

00:47:55 ◼   ► degree, the iMac, like you guys said earlier, what's the holdup? I don't get it.

00:48:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there was a very long span in my life

00:48:06 ◼   ► where I would gladly have built a Hackintosh.

00:48:09 ◼   ► I was building my own PCs at the time,

00:48:11 ◼   ► and it's just like building a PC

00:48:13 ◼   ► with a little bit more hassle.

00:48:14 ◼   ► But I agree with what Jon said that in the era of,

00:48:19 ◼   ► you have drivers signing now,

00:48:21 ◼   ► you have possible iMessage hiccups

00:48:23 ◼   ► with certain Hackintosh setups and handoff and stuff

00:48:26 ◼   ► being tricky to get working

00:48:28 ◼   ► 'cause of the various Wi-Fi chip hacks they do,

00:48:30 ◼   ► it seems like we are pretty clearly moving towards a point

00:48:35 ◼   ► in probably the near future where Hackintoshes

00:48:39 ◼   ► won't work anymore.

00:48:40 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:48:41 ◼   ► - Or at least enough features won't work on them

00:48:45 ◼   ► that the trade-off between pain in the buttery

00:48:49 ◼   ► and whatever you're saving or gaining by having one,

00:48:52 ◼   ► that might switch the other way.

00:48:54 ◼   ► Because as Apple increases the pain in the buttery

00:48:57 ◼   ► and the limitations and everything else,

00:48:59 ◼   ► Eventually, it's not worth it anymore,

00:49:02 ◼   ► or at least for certain people,

00:49:03 ◼   ► it won't be worth it anymore.

00:49:05 ◼   ► So I just feel like in my current set of priorities,

00:49:09 ◼   ► I'm able to trade money for time to a certain degree.

00:49:15 ◼   ► And when I was younger,

00:49:15 ◼   ► like when I was in college and high school,

00:49:17 ◼   ► building these PCs for myself and my friends,

00:49:19 ◼   ► we had nothing but time, but we had very little money.

00:49:23 ◼   ► So it made way more sense then to build our own PCs

00:49:27 ◼   ► and deal with all the massive amounts of headaches

00:49:31 ◼   ► and time sinks and crap that we had to deal with

00:49:33 ◼   ► to build our own PCs and keep them running

00:49:35 ◼   ► and keep them stable and keep them upgraded.

00:49:37 ◼   ► Like, it was a massive time sink for me and my friends.

00:49:41 ◼   ► But we did it because, again, that time-money continuum,

00:49:45 ◼   ► the balance was different for us back then.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Now, I think all of us involved back then

00:49:51 ◼   ► would all just buy a computer from Apple

00:49:54 ◼   ► and just be done with it and not have to worry about it

00:49:56 ◼   ► because quite frankly we don't have the time

00:49:59 ◼   ► to worry about it and we do have a little bit

00:50:00 ◼   ► of money to spend on them so we can do that instead.

00:50:03 ◼   ► So it all depends on whether it's worth it to you

00:50:05 ◼   ► and as the environment shifts,

00:50:07 ◼   ► whether it's worth it will shift too.

00:50:09 ◼   ► In this case, if Apple really does horribly

00:50:14 ◼   ► neglect the Mac line for longer, for a lot longer,

00:50:19 ◼   ► then I will probably be tempted

00:50:22 ◼   ► just to get more performance.

00:50:25 ◼   ► In this particular case, I was disappointed to see that

00:50:27 ◼   ► the high-end consumer desktop chips,

00:50:31 ◼   ► and their platforms that are being used

00:50:33 ◼   ► in this particular article, the Mike Rundle article,

00:50:36 ◼   ► it's the exact same chip that's available in the 5K iMac,

00:50:39 ◼   ► in the high-end configuration,

00:50:40 ◼   ► the 4 gigahertz Skylake i7.

00:50:43 ◼   ► So it's not, this was not a case of doing something

00:50:46 ◼   ► that Apple won't sell you, really.

00:50:48 ◼   ► This was more of a case of just getting

00:50:50 ◼   ► what Apple will sell you, but for way less money.

00:50:53 ◼   ► And that's cool, and there's a huge market for that

00:50:55 ◼   ► that I totally understand.

00:50:57 ◼   ► But I don't think the trade-off will be worth it to me

00:50:59 ◼   ► in my current state of time versus money.

00:51:02 ◼   ► What would be worth it, possibly in the future,

00:51:04 ◼   ► is if Apple stops selling the Mac Pro.

00:51:07 ◼   ► And for some reason, OS X keeps supporting its hardware.

00:51:09 ◼   ► And then I can get an eight or 12 or 16 core high-end

00:51:14 ◼   ► Xeon workstation running Mac OS X,

00:51:18 ◼   ► and Apple won't sell me one.

00:51:20 ◼   ► That would be very interesting to me.

00:51:21 ◼   ► But today, it's just not, I don't know,

00:51:24 ◼   ► the balance for me isn't there today.

00:51:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think we're gonna get MacBook Pro,

00:51:28 ◼   ► not that this is unique,

00:51:29 ◼   ► but I think we're gonna get MacBook Pro updates

00:51:31 ◼   ► before the end of the year.

00:51:33 ◼   ► And I think there's a decent shot

00:51:34 ◼   ► we'll get a stupid Mac Pro update

00:51:36 ◼   ► before the end of the year.

00:51:37 ◼   ► I don't think it's dead, based on no facts, just a guess.

00:51:40 ◼   ► I don't think it's dead.

00:51:42 ◼   ► But I should, to go back to Hackintosh specifically

00:51:44 ◼   ► for a moment, when I was debating,

00:51:47 ◼   ► very publicly with you, Marco,

00:51:49 ◼   ► whether or not I should get a Mac.

00:51:52 ◼   ► This is 2008-ish, I believe.

00:51:54 ◼   ► And we were having this debate via re-blogs

00:51:58 ◼   ► of each other's posts on Tumblr.

00:52:00 ◼   ► What I ended up doing was taking my then ThinkPad T30,

00:52:05 ◼   ► I believe it was, and putting a Hackintosh version

00:52:10 ◼   ► of Leopard, I believe it was at the time,

00:52:12 ◼   ► I might have that wrong, and running it for a few days

00:52:14 ◼   ► just to see if I liked OS X.

00:52:17 ◼   ► And to my recollection, Wi-Fi didn't work, but onboard

00:52:21 ◼   ► Ethernet did.

00:52:22 ◼   ► And just about everything else did, too.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Maybe sound didn't, actually.

00:52:26 ◼   ► I don't recall.

00:52:27 ◼   ► But I remember vividly that Wi-Fi didn't work, which was a

00:52:29 ◼   ► major bummer.

00:52:30 ◼   ► But I really liked it.

00:52:33 ◼   ► And it was relatively pain-free to do.

00:52:36 ◼   ► I think I acquired some version of OS X that had been

00:52:43 ◼   ► prepared for this sort of use.

00:52:45 ◼   ► And that's what I used to install it, and it worked pretty darn well.

00:52:50 ◼   ► And if it wasn't for that, I probably still would have bought the Mac anyway, but I felt

00:52:54 ◼   ► a lot more confident in doing so.

00:52:56 ◼   ► But just like you said, you hit the nail on the head.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Today, the three of us can trade money for time, if you will.

00:53:03 ◼   ► And when we were in college and kids, when we were building computers, except John, we

00:53:08 ◼   ► had plenty of time to kill and not a lot of money.

00:53:11 ◼   ► So it's funny how things change.

00:53:12 ◼   ► It's not just the time too, it's like thinking of your poor haunted iMac that could die at

00:53:17 ◼   ► any second. What you're also paying for is someone to blame.

00:53:22 ◼   ► Yeah, it's true.

00:53:24 ◼   ► If your computer goes wonky, you have someone to blame and that's Apple. If your computer

00:53:27 ◼   ► continues to be wonky and continues to behave badly, you can keep bringing it back to Genius

00:53:31 ◼   ► Bar and eventually replace it with an all new computer. Not that that's a fun thing

00:53:34 ◼   ► to do, it's still a pain in the butt, but if you build your own Hackintosh and it starts

00:53:38 ◼   ► being wonky, you have no one to go to. You certainly can't go to Apple. You can't go

00:53:42 ◼   ► to your motherboard manufacturer. You can't go to your GPU vendor. You can't go to the

00:53:47 ◼   ► company that made the case. You can't go to the monitor vendor. Like, you've just got

00:53:50 ◼   ► yourself. And so, Hackintoshes, I mean, they're way cheaper, but they're not free. So that's,

00:53:56 ◼   ► you know, that's potentially a thousand or more dollars that you spent on something.

00:54:01 ◼   ► And if it stops working or starts being weird in some way, unless it is a hardware fault,

00:54:06 ◼   ► "Oh, my GPU died and my CPU died."

00:54:08 ◼   ► Like if it just starts being flaky,

00:54:10 ◼   ► because again, it's Hackintosh,

00:54:11 ◼   ► it's running an unsupported hardware configuration

00:54:13 ◼   ► that you're trying to hack to get to work.

00:54:15 ◼   ► And by the way, it's not like iMessage

00:54:16 ◼   ► doesn't work at all.

00:54:17 ◼   ► There are these strange incantations

00:54:19 ◼   ► to try to get it to work by faking it out,

00:54:20 ◼   ► but it's very sketchy.

00:54:21 ◼   ► If things start to act weird, you've got no one to blame.

00:54:25 ◼   ► And that's not tenable.

00:54:26 ◼   ► Like maybe, maybe if you lived by yourself

00:54:30 ◼   ► and you could handle your main computer

00:54:32 ◼   ► not working or being flaky some of the time,

00:54:35 ◼   ► maybe, or it was like a secondary computer,

00:54:36 ◼   ► maybe you could handle that.

00:54:37 ◼   ► But in any sort of family environment

00:54:39 ◼   ► where any other person is relying on that computer

00:54:42 ◼   ► to be a computer, to be able to sit down in front of it

00:54:46 ◼   ► and like do your photos or whatever,

00:54:47 ◼   ► and you know, like to do stuff on that computer

00:54:50 ◼   ► and it doesn't work,

00:54:52 ◼   ► and you're the one who built this computer

00:54:54 ◼   ► and you have no one to blame,

00:54:56 ◼   ► it's at that point you will say,

00:54:57 ◼   ► I would love to be able to pay

00:54:59 ◼   ► to have someone to blame for this other than me,

00:55:01 ◼   ► because you don't want everyone looking at you and saying,

00:55:04 ◼   ► Why does this computer that you wasted all this time on not work anymore?

00:55:09 ◼   ► And you're just like, "Eh," you know, or "Why does it do this weird thing?"

00:55:11 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:55:12 ◼   ► So I think of that just as much as like the time I would spend tinkering.

00:55:16 ◼   ► I think of being, having a single company who stands behind the supposed functionality

00:55:23 ◼   ► of the entire thing.

00:55:24 ◼   ► And I mean the entire thing.

00:55:25 ◼   ► Like if something, you know, if something is wonky about it, like if Wi-Fi works intermittently

00:55:31 ◼   ► or whatever, I don't have to prove that the Wi-Fi chipset or whatever is bad and go to

00:55:38 ◼   ► that manufacturer and get them to replace it and plug it in and realize it's a conflict

00:55:42 ◼   ► between the motherboard and this other…

00:55:44 ◼   ► I don't have to deal with any of that.

00:55:45 ◼   ► I have to deal with the hassle.

00:55:46 ◼   ► It's still a hassle to go to the Apple Store, especially if you're logging a big computer

00:55:49 ◼   ► with you.

00:55:50 ◼   ► You still have to probably go back three times, but eventually you'll get some kind of satisfaction,

00:55:53 ◼   ► whereas if you built it yourself, at a certain point you're just like, "Sell the parts

00:55:58 ◼   ► off individually and try again?"

00:55:59 ◼   ► It's really grim.

00:56:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:56:01 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I've been, like as I said,

00:56:04 ◼   ► I built a good number of computers for myself

00:56:06 ◼   ► and my friends throughout high school and college,

00:56:08 ◼   ► and I've been in that position of something doesn't work,

00:56:12 ◼   ► especially if it's not even on my computer,

00:56:14 ◼   ► it usually wasn't, something doesn't work

00:56:16 ◼   ► on one of my friends' computers,

00:56:17 ◼   ► or worse, on a computer that somebody paid me

00:56:20 ◼   ► a little bit of money to build for them.

00:56:23 ◼   ► And there's just, it's just an endless sinkhole

00:56:27 ◼   ► of time and possibly my own money trying to resolve this problem, meanwhile dealing with

00:56:34 ◼   ► a very upset person who is very annoyed that this computer that they paid a good amount

00:56:40 ◼   ► of money to, even though I didn't get most of it, but that they paid a good amount of

00:56:42 ◼   ► money for all the parts and everything, and I told them I could do it, and then something

00:56:45 ◼   ► goes wrong and I'm on the hook for it. It sucks. And I gladly would have paid to have

00:56:51 ◼   ► somebody else deal with it, but at the time I didn't have a lot of money. That was the

00:56:55 ◼   ► the whole reason I was doing this,

00:56:56 ◼   ► and there was nobody that I even could have paid

00:56:57 ◼   ► to help out, and it was horrible.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - On the flip side of this, Mike Rundle, Hackintosh here,

00:57:02 ◼   ► the biggest feature for me is not the fact

00:57:04 ◼   ► that it's always a cheaper iMac,

00:57:05 ◼   ► is that he could pick any GPU that he wanted

00:57:07 ◼   ► to put in there, and he put in a better one

00:57:09 ◼   ► that's in the iMac, and he could have put

00:57:11 ◼   ► an even better one there, and in fact,

00:57:12 ◼   ► he can change his mind two years later

00:57:13 ◼   ► and get an even better GPU, and that's an option

00:57:16 ◼   ► Apple doesn't give you at all.

00:57:17 ◼   ► Apple will give you that CPU that will not give you

00:57:19 ◼   ► this GPU or the option to put in a better one.

00:57:22 ◼   ► - I mean, this sounds impressive,

00:57:23 ◼   ► but I agree that without iMessage on this Mac,

00:57:28 ◼   ► no thanks, hard pass.

00:57:29 ◼   ► - Well yeah, it's this balance, right?

00:57:33 ◼   ► And I think what we're all saying is,

00:57:35 ◼   ► we all would have reasons why we might want

00:57:37 ◼   ► to build one of these things if things got worse.

00:57:40 ◼   ► As the conditions change, we might build

00:57:42 ◼   ► Hackintoshes in three years or something, who knows?

00:57:45 ◼   ► We have no idea what we'll hold,

00:57:48 ◼   ► but if your priorities are just very slightly different,

00:57:53 ◼   ► or if your needs are just very slightly different from us,

00:57:55 ◼   ► you could very easily fall on the other side

00:57:57 ◼   ► of that balance and this could make total sense for you.

00:58:00 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:58:01 ◼   ► Yeah, there's a list of things that don't work.

00:58:02 ◼   ► Like AirDrop I use a lot and I think I'm the AirDrop unicorn

00:58:06 ◼   ► because it almost always works for me.

00:58:09 ◼   ► - Honestly, I have very good luck with AirDrop as well.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, all his audio doesn't work.

00:58:14 ◼   ► - Like the first item, like you mentioned before, Casey,

00:58:15 ◼   ► I think everything worked when I installed that,

00:58:17 ◼   ► except for Wi-Fi, oh yeah, and audio.

00:58:19 ◼   ► It's like, what is this, Linux?

00:58:21 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:23 ◼   ► - Minor features like Wi-Fi and audio don't work,

00:58:25 ◼   ► but otherwise it's perfect. - So true, so true.

00:58:27 ◼   ► - Like, audio doesn't work, you have a non-functional

00:58:29 ◼   ► computer, it's like saying, "My TV's great,"

00:58:31 ◼   ► it's just, there's no sound.

00:58:33 ◼   ► - It's so true.

00:58:34 ◼   ► I genuinely had forgotten that audio maybe didn't work,

00:58:37 ◼   ► but yeah, looking at this list, audio doesn't work,

00:58:40 ◼   ► community and handoff, continuity and handoff don't work.

00:58:42 ◼   ► Those I don't use that much.

00:58:44 ◼   ► iMessage doesn't work, I'm out.

00:58:46 ◼   ► AirDrop doesn't work, I'm out again.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Well, I was already out with audio, come to think of it, but--

00:58:50 ◼   ► - And Touch ID doesn't work, like, that's gonna be, like,

00:58:52 ◼   ► Apple just keeps accumulating these things.

00:58:54 ◼   ► I think once people get used to unlocking their laptop

00:58:56 ◼   ► with Touch ID, a Hackintosh is gonna,

00:58:58 ◼   ► it's like having a Hackintosh with no Wi-Fi.

00:59:01 ◼   ► Before Wi-Fi was a big deal,

00:59:02 ◼   ► it was just added on a toilet seat to iMacs,

00:59:04 ◼   ► or iBooks rather, and it's like,

00:59:05 ◼   ► well, you know, Wi-Fi doesn't work, but who uses that?

00:59:08 ◼   ► And at a certain point, like, Wi-Fi doesn't work,

00:59:09 ◼   ► this is junk, throw it away.

00:59:11 ◼   ► Like, I can't, a laptop without Wi-Fi is pointless, right?

00:59:14 ◼   ► Touch ID and features like that

00:59:15 ◼   ► will probably eventually feel like that.

00:59:17 ◼   ► Like, I'm not gonna type in my password

00:59:18 ◼   ► every time I unlock my computer.

00:59:20 ◼   ► That's barbaric.

00:59:21 ◼   ► And so, and you can be pretty sure

00:59:24 ◼   ► that it's gonna be very difficult

00:59:26 ◼   ► to simulate the secure enclave touch ID hardware

00:59:30 ◼   ► or whatever that Apple adds to their laptops.

00:59:32 ◼   ► Even if you can somehow source that part from the Far East

00:59:35 ◼   ► and get it installed in your Hackintosh,

00:59:37 ◼   ► that's a hell of a challenge.

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01:01:06 ◼   ► Speaking of Hackintoshes, I was recalling from the olden days when you two probably

01:01:11 ◼   ► weren't born yet, one of the original Hackintosh type things. In the early days of the Mac,

01:01:17 ◼   ► it was very difficult to clone it, not the least of us, because you needed the Mac ROM.

01:01:22 ◼   ► Most of the Mac toolbox was on the ROM chip and that was proprietary Apple and you couldn't

01:01:26 ◼   ► really buy that part.

01:01:27 ◼   ► So it was very difficult to have any sort of legitimate commercial business selling

01:01:31 ◼   ► Mac clones because you couldn't have a Mac without that ROM.

01:01:34 ◼   ► And then on top of that all the other problems.

01:01:35 ◼   ► But there was one company that used to advertise in Mac magazines, like a legitimate company

01:01:40 ◼   ► I think they were in Australia, maybe, called Outbound.

01:01:43 ◼   ► I'm trying to Google for it while you're going through the last ad.

01:01:47 ◼   ► And my recollection is they would basically get around the cloning by buying actual real

01:01:53 ◼   ► Apple stuff or requiring you to buy them or whatever and repackaging it.

01:01:58 ◼   ► So they would take like a Mac Plus motherboard or a Mac SE motherboard and put it into kind

01:02:01 ◼   ► of a laptop shape with a big battery and everything.

01:02:04 ◼   ► So they were very, very expensive.

01:02:05 ◼   ► You weren't saving any money, but you could buy a basically real Macintosh as far as the

01:02:11 ◼   ► operating system was concerned, in a case not made by Apple, simply by adding a tremendous

01:02:16 ◼   ► amount of cost. It's almost kind of like when you buy a tuner car where you're like,

01:02:19 ◼   ► "Just buy a basic Mustang and then add $100,000." You start with the Mustang as delivered to

01:02:26 ◼   ► you by Ford and then you just add lots of money. So you start with a Mac SE or a Mac

01:02:29 ◼   ► Plus and then they just take out the insides, repackage them in a different thing and sell

01:02:33 ◼   ► you the new thing and then add money on top of that.

01:02:36 ◼   ► Kind of like the mod book people from a few years back, right?

01:02:39 ◼   ► Yeah, similar to that, but going from a desktop computer to a laptop is quite a transition.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Then they had the really weird pointing device that looked like, I don't know if you guys

01:02:47 ◼   ► ever saw this, I don't think it ever caught on because it's pretty terrible.

01:02:50 ◼   ► If you can imagine your space bar replaced by a pencil, like a horizontal pencil, and

01:02:56 ◼   ► you put your thumb on the pencil, and as you roll the pencil, just rolling it, that makes

01:03:01 ◼   ► your cursor go up and down, and as you slide your finger left and right on the pencil,

01:03:05 ◼   ► that makes the cursor go left and right.

01:03:06 ◼   ► You hear what it was called.

01:03:09 ◼   ► It was not a good pointing device.

01:03:11 ◼   ► But it was an interesting way, like, before trackpads they wanted to have a pointing device

01:03:15 ◼   ► that didn't take up a lot of room, so they didn't have the nubbin at this point, I think

01:03:19 ◼   ► this predates the nubbin, and they didn't have a trackpad and there wasn't room for

01:03:21 ◼   ► that anyway, so they had below the spacebar this, whatever this was like, what is it called?

01:03:28 ◼   ► Isopoint trackbar, there you go, I googling, I don't know why it was called isopoint.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Anyway, it didn't catch on for a reason.

01:03:34 ◼   ► But there's a long history of people trying to essentially have a Mac, but not have a

01:03:40 ◼   ► a Mac and I think everything has been tried,

01:03:43 ◼   ► including actual legitimate cloning,

01:03:44 ◼   ► which hopefully you guys either don't remember

01:03:46 ◼   ► or have blocked out of your mind.

01:03:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that was before our time as Mac users.

01:03:49 ◼   ► But I mean, all these things, these make sense.

01:03:52 ◼   ► That crazy company was around when there wasn't a Mac laptop

01:03:55 ◼   ► The people who made Modbook and everything,

01:03:57 ◼   ► that was before the iPad and there was no Mac Cintiq,

01:04:01 ◼   ► basically, is what they were trying to make.

01:04:03 ◼   ► And I don't know if they still make them anyway.

01:04:05 ◼   ► And Hackintoshes are around because there's no,

01:04:07 ◼   ► what everyone calls the XMac,

01:04:09 ◼   ► which is like there's basically no like

01:04:11 ◼   ► cheap desktop tower Mac that just expandable

01:04:13 ◼   ► with regular slots.

01:04:14 ◼   ► Like the Mac Pro used to kind of almost be that

01:04:17 ◼   ► except it wasn't cheap,

01:04:18 ◼   ► and now we don't even have that anymore.

01:04:20 ◼   ► So you know, and so Hackintoshes and all these things,

01:04:24 ◼   ► they serve needs that Apple refuses to serve

01:04:27 ◼   ► for whatever reason, whether they're not profitable

01:04:29 ◼   ► or whether they're just too specialized

01:04:30 ◼   ► and not enough people would buy them,

01:04:32 ◼   ► or whether they don't fit into

01:04:34 ◼   ► Johnny Ives' Magic White Room

01:04:35 ◼   ► 'cause they have too many ports

01:04:36 ◼   ► and they're too expandable and you know,

01:04:38 ◼   ► they're too useful, I don't know.

01:04:40 ◼   ► But Apple refused to serve these markets.

01:04:44 ◼   ► You know, they're gonna get served somehow,

01:04:45 ◼   ► and either they're gonna get served by crappy PCs

01:04:48 ◼   ► with other stuff, or they're gonna get served

01:04:50 ◼   ► with illegal pirated copies of OS X.

01:04:52 ◼   ► I'm not really sure which is worse for Apple,

01:04:55 ◼   ► but I'm guessing keeping people in the Apple ecosystem

01:04:57 ◼   ► even illegally is probably better for Apple long term.

01:05:01 ◼   ► - That's an interesting point.

01:05:02 ◼   ► I don't know, this is all gonna get resolved this fall

01:05:04 ◼   ► when they release all the new hardware

01:05:06 ◼   ► and everyone will be happy except you two.

01:05:09 ◼   ► - And Mac Mini owners will also be sad.

01:05:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, we at least talk from this position

01:05:14 ◼   ► of privilege that Apple at least occasionally mentions

01:05:16 ◼   ► our computers, but Mac Mini people, ooh,

01:05:19 ◼   ► they're in a bad spot.

01:05:21 ◼   ► Mac Mini people, we're complaining like,

01:05:23 ◼   ► oh, our computers haven't gotten updated

01:05:24 ◼   ► in two or three years.

01:05:26 ◼   ► Mac Mini people, that's always their condition.

01:05:29 ◼   ► Since the beginning of the Mac Mini,

01:05:31 ◼   ► the way they treat the Mac Mini is just insulting.

01:05:35 ◼   ► It really is insulting.

01:05:36 ◼   ► And the last time they updated it,

01:05:38 ◼   ► they took away all the best options

01:05:39 ◼   ► and all the expandability.

01:05:41 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, we have it easy

01:05:45 ◼   ► compared to the Mac Mini people.

01:05:46 ◼   ► - I saw someone at work the other day considering,

01:05:49 ◼   ► ideally, like, oh, I'm thinking to get a new Mac

01:05:51 ◼   ► and I can't really decide between a 5Ki Mac and a Mac Mini.

01:05:55 ◼   ► And it dawned on me that, once again, it dawned on me,

01:05:58 ◼   ► you have to be shown that regular people don't keep track

01:06:01 ◼   ► of what the hell's inside all the different Macs.

01:06:02 ◼   ► As far as they're concerned,

01:06:03 ◼   ► it's like going to a car dealership.

01:06:04 ◼   ► well, you know, we make an SUV, we make a coupe,

01:06:06 ◼   ► we make a sedan, and you don't go to think like,

01:06:09 ◼   ► wait, does the sedan have like a steam powered engine in it?

01:06:13 ◼   ► And the coupe has an internal combustion engine,

01:06:16 ◼   ► and I'm not aware of that.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Like as far as you can say, well,

01:06:19 ◼   ► it was really just like, you know,

01:06:20 ◼   ► you don't want to buy an all in one computer

01:06:21 ◼   ► and have the big expensive screen trapped inside of there,

01:06:23 ◼   ► which is all legitimate reasons for like,

01:06:24 ◼   ► but what you don't understand is that the 5K iMac

01:06:26 ◼   ► has a Skylake CPU and the Mac mini has like a core two duo,

01:06:30 ◼   ► wherever the hell is in that thing now.

01:06:32 ◼   ► Like, you know, look on the outside,

01:06:35 ◼   ► it looks like you're just trading off form factor

01:06:37 ◼   ► and price and everything,

01:06:38 ◼   ► but really you should not buy that Mac Mini like ever.

01:06:41 ◼   ► Just when it was new, you shouldn't have bought it.

01:06:43 ◼   ► And now you definitely shouldn't buy it.

01:06:46 ◼   ► And I don't think Apple salespeople

01:06:48 ◼   ► are gonna emphasize that in the store,

01:06:50 ◼   ► although they may be confused about,

01:06:50 ◼   ► "Wait, you want a Mac what?

01:06:52 ◼   ► You sure you don't want a MacBook?

01:06:54 ◼   ► What are you saying?

01:06:54 ◼   ► Mini? You have to call someone from the back.

01:06:56 ◼   ► Do we have something called a Mac Mini?"

01:06:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:07:00 ◼   ► I mean, at least the Mac Pro is probably next to the big TV,

01:07:03 ◼   ► and they might have seen it.

01:07:03 ◼   ► Oh, you mean that's a computer?

01:07:05 ◼   ► All right.

01:07:06 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, that's the worst part of this

01:07:09 ◼   ► is that regular people shouldn't have to care about this.

01:07:13 ◼   ► They should have a reasonable expectation

01:07:14 ◼   ► that they can go into an Apple store

01:07:16 ◼   ► and sort of pick a computer based on how big they want it

01:07:18 ◼   ► to be and how much they want it to cost

01:07:20 ◼   ► and have some basic understanding of, like, well,

01:07:22 ◼   ► the more expensive ones are better and faster and fancier

01:07:25 ◼   ► than less expensive ones.

01:07:26 ◼   ► But not to have this massive gulf where it's like,

01:07:28 ◼   ► I think I'm deciding between do I

01:07:30 ◼   ► want to have an integrated screen and an external screen,

01:07:32 ◼   ► it's like no, there are tremendous trade-offs

01:07:34 ◼   ► between the 5K iMac and the Mac Mini

01:07:36 ◼   ► that you really need to grasp before you make this decision.

01:07:38 ◼   ► It's not as if they are just equivalent,

01:07:41 ◼   ► but just that the boxes are separate or together.

01:07:43 ◼   ► And that's Apple's fault.

01:07:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, you can kind of see

01:07:47 ◼   ► throughout the course of Apple's history,

01:07:49 ◼   ► especially recent history, there are certain products

01:07:51 ◼   ► that they keep around out of spite.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Or I don't know, it's like certain products that they,

01:07:57 ◼   ► maybe spite's the wrong word,

01:07:58 ◼   ► but certain products where they begrudgingly

01:08:02 ◼   ► keep them around and you can tell

01:08:03 ◼   ► they really don't like them.

01:08:05 ◼   ► And it's almost like this, it's this tense relationship

01:08:08 ◼   ► they seem to have with these products of just disdain.

01:08:11 ◼   ► And they just kinda crap out updates every so often

01:08:14 ◼   ► because they have to.

01:08:15 ◼   ► And it's the same way that Steve Jobs famously

01:08:20 ◼   ► demoing the Motorola Rocker phone,

01:08:22 ◼   ► and you could tell he just hated this device

01:08:24 ◼   ► and he was trying to put on a good face on stage,

01:08:26 ◼   ► but he just hated it.

01:08:27 ◼   ► To me, that is how Apple treats the Mac Mini,

01:08:30 ◼   ► and possibly maybe even the Mac Pro these days.

01:08:33 ◼   ► I don't know, time will tell on that one.

01:08:36 ◼   ► But the Mac Mini, certainly that is how they treated it

01:08:38 ◼   ► for a long time, where they keep it updated

01:08:41 ◼   ► because for whatever strategic reason or whatever,

01:08:45 ◼   ► they kind of have to keep offering this computer

01:08:48 ◼   ► to solve a bunch of needs, I guess.

01:08:51 ◼   ► But they hate it so much,

01:08:53 ◼   ► and they never let you forget they hate it.

01:08:54 ◼   ► And every update, they're like,

01:08:56 ◼   ► we're gonna give a little here,

01:08:57 ◼   ► but then we're gonna take away this other thing

01:08:59 ◼   ► and we're just gonna make you hate this

01:09:00 ◼   ► until you fools all stop buying it

01:09:02 ◼   ► and you switch to one of our better computers.

01:09:04 ◼   ► Like that is honestly the feeling I get about the Mac Mini

01:09:07 ◼   ► and I own one and even when I bought it,

01:09:08 ◼   ► I was mad about it and I still bought it

01:09:10 ◼   ► 'cause I needed one but it's like,

01:09:12 ◼   ► I was pricing it, I'm like,

01:09:14 ◼   ► God, this thing is such a rip off and so restricted

01:09:16 ◼   ► and so it's like, it's just, ugh,

01:09:19 ◼   ► I felt all that anger that Apple clearly has

01:09:22 ◼   ► for this product that they hate and they occasionally sell.

01:09:26 ◼   ► I wonder what the pressures are on the Mac Mini design.

01:09:28 ◼   ► Is it like that every year the margins have to get better?

01:09:31 ◼   ► 'Cause that fits the data we have,

01:09:33 ◼   ► kind of like that it does get more expensive and crappier.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Like relatively speaking, obviously it gets better

01:09:39 ◼   ► with the exception of this recent quad

01:09:41 ◼   ► to dual core transition.

01:09:42 ◼   ► For the most part it does get better,

01:09:43 ◼   ► but it seems to me that the margins get better

01:09:45 ◼   ► with every new version.

01:09:47 ◼   ► And it's like they've kind of given up on,

01:09:49 ◼   ► hey, we need to find a way to boost the sales

01:09:51 ◼   ► of the Mac Mini because the sales are probably

01:09:53 ◼   ► extremely low and not really going anywhere.

01:09:54 ◼   ► of this, but every year we can boost the margins by putting slightly cheaper stuff in it and

01:09:59 ◼   ► removing the optical drive and doing all the stuff that we can do to, you know, like every

01:10:05 ◼   ► group, you have to measure it on something. I know Apple famously has just a profit and

01:10:10 ◼   ► loss line for the entire company and is not measuring every individual department saying,

01:10:13 ◼   ► "Well, Mac Mini Team, what is your profit and loss for the year?" or whatever, but the

01:10:18 ◼   ► products are changed with some kind of purpose and increasing or at the very least maintaining

01:10:23 ◼   ► margins seems to be a big Apple incentive.

01:10:26 ◼   ► And when I look at what they're doing with the Mac Mini, what explanation for the evolution

01:10:31 ◼   ► of that hardware and that product is there, other than pressure to increase or maintain

01:10:37 ◼   ► margins with each new revision?

01:10:39 ◼   ► And not a lot of pressure to do anything with it until it's in desperate need of replacement,

01:10:43 ◼   ► because it has never been a great bargain.

01:10:46 ◼   ► But I feel like the value proposition has just gotten worse and worse.

01:10:49 ◼   ► You were getting less for more money.

01:10:52 ◼   ► And like you said, Marco, if you need a tiny little headless Mac, this is your only option.

01:10:57 ◼   ► And maybe that's just good business.

01:10:58 ◼   ► Maybe Apple knows, "Hey, if people need a tiny little headless Mac, this is their only

01:11:02 ◼   ► option."

01:11:03 ◼   ► So just add a little tiny bit extra every year.

01:11:07 ◼   ► Can we take out 10 or 20 bucks worth of hardware and add 50 bucks to the price and do that

01:11:12 ◼   ► every three years for the next nine years?

01:11:15 ◼   ► And pretty soon you have an $800 computer that's as fast as a pocket calculator.

01:11:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:11:21 ◼   ► Oh, goodness.

01:11:22 ◼   ► What did you buy your Mac Mini for?

01:11:24 ◼   ► - It's my iSCSI host, and it runs back-blazed

01:11:27 ◼   ► to back up my Synology,

01:11:28 ◼   ► and it's currently doing this live stream.

01:11:30 ◼   ► - That's true.

01:11:31 ◼   ► - And it does a few,

01:11:32 ◼   ► it's also kind of where I put like,

01:11:33 ◼   ► utility software that I don't want

01:11:35 ◼   ► junking up my main Mac,

01:11:36 ◼   ► so the iSCSI driver was one of those things.

01:11:38 ◼   ► I also use it as the Fujitsu ScanSnap software machine,

01:11:42 ◼   ► like it runs the ScanSnap software.

01:11:44 ◼   ► The scans have scans to it,

01:11:46 ◼   ► and then it just syncs things over via network sharing

01:11:49 ◼   ► to my real computer.

01:11:50 ◼   ► So it kinda does like this utility,

01:11:52 ◼   ► the set of utility functions.

01:11:53 ◼   ► It's kind of a home server in certain ways,

01:11:56 ◼   ► but not always, I don't know.

01:11:59 ◼   ► I'm always looking for possible plans

01:12:03 ◼   ► of how I can rearrange my home setup

01:12:05 ◼   ► such that I don't need it anymore,

01:12:06 ◼   ► but it is still in use.

01:12:10 ◼   ► - The correct answer to my question

01:12:11 ◼   ► was a continuous integration server, but who am I kidding?

01:12:15 ◼   ► I know what that is vaguely.

01:12:17 ◼   ► - This is the WDC sessions about the testing bots.

01:12:21 ◼   ► - Yes, it's one of those things where like,

01:12:23 ◼   ► when I see the session about a WDC,

01:12:25 ◼   ► it sounds, it looks and sounds really cool,

01:12:28 ◼   ► but it also looks and sounds like it requires

01:12:29 ◼   ► a lot of setup of testing and infrastructure

01:12:31 ◼   ► that I don't probably want to set up.

01:12:34 ◼   ► So someday, that will sound really awesome to me.

01:12:37 ◼   ► Someday when I have a staff of responsible programmers

01:12:40 ◼   ► working for me, they can set that up

01:12:42 ◼   ► and I will just enjoy the benefits of it.

01:12:44 ◼   ► We're going to start small.

01:12:46 ◼   ► We're starting with the unit tests.

01:12:47 ◼   ► We're not going to go all the way to continuous integration

01:12:49 ◼   ► server.

01:12:49 ◼   ► And for a single person in shop, you probably

01:12:51 ◼   ► don't need that, although Underscore probably

01:12:53 ◼   ► has five of them.

01:12:55 ◼   ► Continuously building his software

01:12:56 ◼   ► and running tests against them, and he

01:12:58 ◼   ► has a little dashboard that sends him a message on his watch

01:13:00 ◼   ► that tells him the state of all his applications

01:13:02 ◼   ► as of the latest beta of the software.

01:13:04 ◼   ► And now he's really good at using time,

01:13:06 ◼   ► so he probably didn't set that up.

01:13:07 ◼   ► No, he did, because now his applications write themselves.

01:13:09 ◼   ► How do you think he writes all his applications?

01:13:11 ◼   ► New betas of the OS come out.

01:13:13 ◼   ► his little minions automatically downloaded,

01:13:15 ◼   ► rebuild his software for it, click all the fix it things

01:13:18 ◼   ► in Xcode to fix all the problems that it finds.

01:13:20 ◼   ► And then he has a little dashboard display on his watch

01:13:22 ◼   ► while he's out for his evening constitutional

01:13:24 ◼   ► that tells him how many of his apps

01:13:26 ◼   ► have successfully upgraded for iOS 10 beta two.

01:13:28 ◼   ► And you know, one of them has one warning left

01:13:30 ◼   ► and he's gonna go in and sit down at his computer,

01:13:32 ◼   ► click one button, he'll fix that one.

01:13:34 ◼   ► - Jumped on.

01:13:36 ◼   ► - So this is how I picture his life.

01:13:37 ◼   ► Don't tell me it's any different.

01:13:39 ◼   ► - No, it's accurate.

01:13:40 ◼   ► I've seen his setup, it's accurate.

01:13:41 ◼   ► - All right, thanks a lot to our sponsors,

01:13:43 ◼   ► this week. Eero, Wonder Capital, and Trunk Club, and we will see you next week.

01:13:50 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

01:13:55 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:14:00 ◼   ► John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:14:05 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental

01:14:11 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:14:16 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

01:14:21 ◼   ► @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:14:25 ◼   ► So that's Kasey Liszt M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:14:30 ◼   ► Auntie Marco Arment S-I-R-A-C

01:14:35 ◼   ► USA, Syracuse, it's accidental

01:14:40 ◼   ► They didn't mean to, accidental

01:14:45 ◼   ► ♪ I've got no tech, my car's so long ♪

01:14:49 ◼   ► - All right, so tell me about your potential new Accord,

01:14:55 ◼   ► John, or the family's potential new Accord anyway.

01:14:57 ◼   ► - I mean, it makes sense.

01:14:58 ◼   ► Like, Mike has two iPads, right?

01:15:00 ◼   ► - No, I think he has 13.

01:15:01 ◼   ► - That's right, so you can have two Accords.

01:15:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I don't have any problem with that.

01:15:05 ◼   ► My wife's car is about 10 years old,

01:15:07 ◼   ► and it's usually when we start thinking about replacing them

01:15:09 ◼   ► and it's pretty beat up, and she was thinking about

01:15:11 ◼   ► what kind of car should she get,

01:15:13 ◼   ► And she faces the same problems that you kind of-- you

01:15:15 ◼   ► were talking about Casey.

01:15:16 ◼   ► She doesn't want an automatic transmission.

01:15:18 ◼   ► Her options are really limited.

01:15:21 ◼   ► We also don't want to spend a tremendous amount of money

01:15:24 ◼   ► for the car for a variety of reasons.

01:15:27 ◼   ► I mean, we know what's-- just look at her old car

01:15:29 ◼   ► and just think of you're going to buy a $60,000 car

01:15:31 ◼   ► and it's going to look like that.

01:15:33 ◼   ► For 10 years, you're going to be sad.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So we need-- and it needs to be reliable, big,

01:15:36 ◼   ► be able to fit four people in it and all of our stuff,

01:15:38 ◼   ► all that.

01:15:39 ◼   ► And we basically end up back in the same place

01:15:41 ◼   ► always end up with just like the Mazda 6 or the Honda Accord. Those are the reasonably

01:15:45 ◼   ► priced reliable four-door sporty sedans you can get with the stick shift. And she resisted

01:15:51 ◼   ► that for a while, started coming around a little bit when she was looking at the new

01:15:56 ◼   ► Accord, started doing like the little builder thingy to build your own car, and I think

01:16:00 ◼   ► what's pushing her over the edge is the fact that they have, once again, the same thing

01:16:05 ◼   ► that they had when she got her current car.

01:16:08 ◼   ► Her current car, she had a,

01:16:10 ◼   ► I always get the model years wrong

01:16:11 ◼   ► 'cause I mess up with the calendar years,

01:16:13 ◼   ► but a 2003 or four-ish accord, they got totaled.

01:16:18 ◼   ► And with, we got a pretty good amount of money

01:16:22 ◼   ► back from that, basically with the money

01:16:24 ◼   ► from that car being totaled plus a little bit extra,

01:16:26 ◼   ► we bought a 2006-ish accord, and at that point,

01:16:29 ◼   ► it was the end of the generation,

01:16:31 ◼   ► like the end of that, before they replaced it

01:16:33 ◼   ► with a super ugly one that I never bought

01:16:34 ◼   ► never considered buying because it was terrible. That was bad. Yeah that was like the worst

01:16:38 ◼   ► Accord in a long time. Anyway it was the end of the generation and I guess they do this

01:16:42 ◼   ► regularly I don't know this is I've only been buying Accords for you know 10 years or so

01:16:46 ◼   ► so I don't know. They make a special edition right at the end of the product line so that

01:16:51 ◼   ► for 2017 the Honda Accord Sport comes in a special edition which is just the Honda Accord

01:16:57 ◼   ► Sport which by the way the Sport is you know we get the Sport because it has a stick shift

01:17:00 ◼   ► you can get the stick shift in the LX but the Sport has like nicer wheels and stuff

01:17:04 ◼   ► But any of the cars with the stick shift, you can't get a lot of the nice options.

01:17:07 ◼   ► So a lot of the fancy stuff that's in the V6 or in the high-end ones,

01:17:11 ◼   ► you just can't get with a stick shift, which is a shame.

01:17:13 ◼   ► So we're kind of like limiting ourselves.

01:17:14 ◼   ► But the Sport Special Edition is still limited like the Sport,

01:17:18 ◼   ► but has a few extra niceties.

01:17:19 ◼   ► So it comes with leather seats and seat heaters,

01:17:22 ◼   ► which she's wanted for a long time and we haven't been able to get.

01:17:25 ◼   ► Because for the most part, four-door stick shift sedans do not come with

01:17:28 ◼   ► leather seats or seat heaters unless they're BMWs, like, you know, cheap cars.

01:17:31 ◼   ► So finally here is a car down in our price range with these fancy options in it

01:17:36 ◼   ► and it comes with the nice fancy wheels and all the little body treatments and all the other stuff that you want your

01:17:42 ◼   ► Accord Sport to come with and

01:17:44 ◼   ► Contrasting red stitching and a little ball shifter thing and all sorts of nice things there still doesn't come with navigation

01:17:50 ◼   ► I think you still can't get that

01:17:52 ◼   ► and the second thing that I think is attracting her to it is

01:17:57 ◼   ► For the most part the accord sport comes in super boring colors. I can get black white and gray

01:18:01 ◼   ► I think those are the only options when I bought my car. That's it. You know Honda is not

01:18:06 ◼   ► Particularly magnanimous with the color choices. That's not sure I'm looking at red right here the sport special edition right right well

01:18:13 ◼   ► So now red is an option both

01:18:15 ◼   ► 2016 red is an option and in the 2017 special edition so she wants to get a red Honda Accord sport

01:18:23 ◼   ► special edition

01:18:25 ◼   ► 2017 model these wheels are aggressive. I

01:18:27 ◼   ► Like them, but they're aggressive. I know you have them anyway, so this is probably the car

01:18:33 ◼   ► She's going to get and I think what is making her go over is the seat heaters and the leather

01:18:37 ◼   ► Which I don't think she's gonna be that big of a fan of leather. I like cloth seats personally, but seat heaters

01:18:41 ◼   ► I think she will enjoy a lot

01:18:43 ◼   ► and

01:18:45 ◼   ► The fact that she's gonna get in red so she's got she's mitten by the Marco red bug

01:18:49 ◼   ► She's at that stage in life where she wants to have a red car

01:18:51 ◼   ► I would never buy this car. I would buy this in black immediately and but she can't tolerate having two black Accords even though I could

01:18:56 ◼   ► Even though they would look as different as two of my children to me

01:18:59 ◼   ► 14 they're totally different the wheels alone. How can you not tell like what I'd ever mistakenly get in the wrong car

01:19:10 ◼   ► It would never happen, but to her she cannot have two black Accords, which is fine

01:19:14 ◼   ► It's her car. She can pick whatever color she wants and really her only options are white black gray and red

01:19:20 ◼   ► In other words, black and red.

01:19:21 ◼   ► So it looks like this is what we're going to be getting.

01:19:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:19:24 ◼   ► I don't mind that.

01:19:25 ◼   ► I like the silver.

01:19:26 ◼   ► The gray is really dark, but the silver, I think of course it does look good in silver,

01:19:29 ◼   ► but silver is not an option for this.

01:19:31 ◼   ► So will this be better than your car?

01:19:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean like obviously seat ether is going to make it better and leather technically

01:19:39 ◼   ► is better, but like I said, I think I like cloth better.

01:19:41 ◼   ► I mean it looks to me like it's better than your car in almost every way.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And how do you feel about that?

01:19:47 ◼   ► It's the same engine and transmission.

01:19:50 ◼   ► And like I said, I don't think the leather seats are actually an improvement, especially,

01:19:54 ◼   ► you know, I know the heaters are going to make them warm up in the wintertime, but it

01:19:57 ◼   ► is cold initially unless you let the seats warm up before you get into the car.

01:20:02 ◼   ► And I don't really like sitting on leather, I'd rather sit on cloth.

01:20:07 ◼   ► But everything else about it, it's not fast, it doesn't have a more powerful engine.

01:20:11 ◼   ► I'm kind of jealous of her wheels, because like Casey said, they are more aggressive

01:20:14 ◼   ► and I feel like I should have the more aggressive wheels.

01:20:16 ◼   ► But nah, it'll be fine.

01:20:19 ◼   ► I'm happy for her to have this car if she likes it then that's all I care about

01:20:23 ◼   ► I will continue to try to defend my car even as my children scrape their bicycles against the side of it

01:20:28 ◼   ► Why not uh, why not a zoom zoom?

01:20:31 ◼   ► She doesn't seem that interested in that and honestly I am still a little bit wary of Mazda reliability

01:20:38 ◼   ► There's such a small company compared to all

01:20:40 ◼   ► Aaron's car so far has been in this I know I know they're good like we we had a Mazda when I was a kid

01:20:47 ◼   ► they're fairly reliable, but I'm a little bit wary of that. I would still go with it

01:20:52 ◼   ► if that's what she wanted. I think the Secord looks better than the 6. And honestly, we've

01:20:57 ◼   ► just always been a Honda family. It seems silly to break the streak at this point. And

01:21:01 ◼   ► the other practical concern is…

01:21:02 ◼   ► That's a good reason to pick a car brand. It seems silly to pick a different one.

01:21:07 ◼   ► Yeah. I mean, we've been satisfied with Honda. It's like going to the restaurant

01:21:11 ◼   ► that you know you like rather than trying a different one. And the more practical reason

01:21:15 ◼   ► is we like to get across to the dealer, which whatever, it may be silly, but again, it's

01:21:20 ◼   ► exchanging money for a peace of mind or someone to blame or whatever. And it's a lot easier

01:21:25 ◼   ► to get to Honda dealerships from our house than it is to Mazda dealerships.

01:21:28 ◼   ► That's fair.

01:21:29 ◼   ► Whatever works.

01:21:30 ◼   ► I was going to ask you something. Shoot. Oh, somebody pointed out in the chat the same

01:21:37 ◼   ► thing I was thinking. You know, I have no issue, quite obviously, with her getting a

01:21:40 ◼   ► six-speed but if she had gotten an automatic I think that would let her get a remote start

01:21:47 ◼   ► and in the barbaric conditions in which you live that would probably be really nice unless

01:21:52 ◼   ► you would forego the garage and give her the garage spot.

01:21:54 ◼   ► I saw the remote start as an option in the little car builder thing. I didn't realize

01:21:58 ◼   ► it probably had to be associated with the automatic but it's not actually an automatic

01:22:01 ◼   ► it's a CVT is the other option. The car is so messed up. Those are your options in Honda

01:22:06 ◼   ► these days. You understand why I'm being chased down into this one little corner of Honda's

01:22:11 ◼   ► car lineup and eventually, like Casey, I will be in a situation where this goes away. But

01:22:15 ◼   ► in the meantime, I'm going to keep buying these. I really like my car. It's probably

01:22:20 ◼   ► the best car I've owned. Possible exception of the 1992 Civic, which I really like but

01:22:26 ◼   ► was a death trap.

01:22:27 ◼   ► Yeah, you keep sticking with Honda. Let me know how that works out.

01:22:31 ◼   ► Minor issues.

01:22:32 ◼   ► Yeah, they are good cars. And this does look good.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Every car was a death drop in 1992, come on.

01:22:37 ◼   ► It was a tiny little economy car.

01:22:39 ◼   ► We didn't have the technology to do this.

01:22:42 ◼   ► The Accord, this generation of Accord is a great generation.

01:22:44 ◼   ► I don't know what the next generation will be like of Accords if you're thinking of getting

01:22:47 ◼   ► an Accord and this is the last model year and they're gonna switch it over in 2018.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Get this car, get a 2016, get a 2017.

01:22:52 ◼   ► The whole model line is just great.

01:22:55 ◼   ► God, I'm building my own 2017 Accord sedan, Sport Special Edition 6-speed manual.

01:23:00 ◼   ► That's the entire model name.

01:23:02 ◼   ► Anyway, you're right, the exterior colors, black steel,

01:23:06 ◼   ► which is gray, San Marino red, or white orchid,

01:23:10 ◼   ► pearl white are your options.

01:23:12 ◼   ► Your interior color, your choices are as follows.

01:23:15 ◼   ► Black leather.

01:23:16 ◼   ► You have three choices of wheels,

01:23:18 ◼   ► a bunch of really crappy exterior accessories,

01:23:21 ◼   ► a handful of equally crappy interior accessories,

01:23:25 ◼   ► and then electronic, wait a second.

01:23:28 ◼   ► The remote engine start is available.

01:23:29 ◼   ► - As I said, electronic started on there,

01:23:30 ◼   ► but I think you're right.

01:23:31 ◼   ► How can that be associated with the manual?

01:23:33 ◼   ► How does that even work?

01:23:34 ◼   ► Can't be.

01:23:35 ◼   ► - Well, if you leave it neutral,

01:23:37 ◼   ► which is not a good idea.

01:23:38 ◼   ► - No, who does that?

01:23:40 ◼   ► That's not how you park a car.

01:23:40 ◼   ► - A lot of people do that.

01:23:42 ◼   ► I agree with you, it's barbaric.

01:23:44 ◼   ► - But if you don't do that,

01:23:44 ◼   ► and you hit the remote start,

01:23:45 ◼   ► does your car lurch forward

01:23:46 ◼   ► and slam into your garage wall?

01:23:48 ◼   ► - Yes, seriously.

01:23:49 ◼   ► How can that be?

01:23:50 ◼   ► That doesn't make any sense.

01:23:53 ◼   ► - It's probably just their website not realizing,

01:23:54 ◼   ► oh, you can't have that unless you have the CVT.

01:23:57 ◼   ► - Yep, that's probably true.

01:23:58 ◼   ► - And those stupid plastic accessories that you see,

01:24:00 ◼   ► the exterior accessories,

01:24:01 ◼   ► people buy those. I see them on the road all the time.

01:24:03 ◼   ► Like, A, look at the prices,

01:24:05 ◼   ► and B, look at what they look like.

01:24:06 ◼   ► Some of them, I think, actually do look kind of cool.

01:24:08 ◼   ► - Oh, the body side molding looks good.

01:24:10 ◼   ► - But usually people don't buy just one.

01:24:11 ◼   ► They buy like all of them.

01:24:12 ◼   ► And just look at the prices.

01:24:14 ◼   ► Look at how much money they're paying.

01:24:15 ◼   ► I don't understand it.

01:24:16 ◼   ► - Anyway, I bring all this up to say

01:24:18 ◼   ► that it is frustrating, not only how cheap this car is,

01:24:23 ◼   ► as compared to the sorts of cars that I am often pricing,

01:24:25 ◼   ► which again, I didn't buy my BMW new for that very reason,

01:24:29 ◼   ► But there are so few actual options.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Like these are just, how do you say it, accoutrement?

01:24:33 ◼   ► Or whatever, these are just--

01:24:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're all dealer installed crap.

01:24:36 ◼   ► That's what these things are. - Right, exactly.

01:24:38 ◼   ► But with BMW, they nickel and dime you over everything.

01:24:43 ◼   ► It is absurd how bad they nickel and dime you

01:24:47 ◼   ► over the dumbest crap.

01:24:49 ◼   ► In fact, I don't think you even get leather for free.

01:24:51 ◼   ► - Honda just added the floor mats

01:24:54 ◼   ► like a couple years ago, I believe.

01:24:56 ◼   ► So for the first half of my Honda buying,

01:24:59 ◼   ► you had to pay 150 bucks with the floor mats.

01:25:01 ◼   ► They finally added that in.

01:25:02 ◼   ► So that's a nice break from the norm.

01:25:04 ◼   ► But it's frustrating how few options are.

01:25:06 ◼   ► Because again, we would pay for navigation.

01:25:07 ◼   ► We would pay whatever obscene price for navigation.

01:25:09 ◼   ► It goes, that's the one I want.

01:25:11 ◼   ► Even though we all know it's better on the phone

01:25:13 ◼   ► and all this other stuff,

01:25:14 ◼   ► she just wants to have a car with navigation

01:25:15 ◼   ► to see what it's like.

01:25:17 ◼   ► - Oh no, having it built in is awesome.

01:25:19 ◼   ► I will tolerate, like, even Tesla's system is okay,

01:25:24 ◼   ► but it's not great.

01:25:26 ◼   ► but I still use it instead of using my phone

01:25:28 ◼   ► because it's built in and having it built in is awesome.

01:25:31 ◼   ► - Yep, I completely agree.

01:25:33 ◼   ► And my maps are, well, I actually happen to have

01:25:36 ◼   ► a BMW bill, a repair bill, because that's what BMWs do

01:25:39 ◼   ► is they generate repair bills.

01:25:40 ◼   ► I have one in front of me which includes a delivery date

01:25:43 ◼   ► which was December of 2010.

01:25:44 ◼   ► So I have maps from 2010 and every single time

01:25:48 ◼   ► I get in the car where I don't know where I'm going,

01:25:50 ◼   ► I will spend the time to plug it into the navigation

01:25:53 ◼   ► because it is so much more convenient and safe

01:25:56 ◼   ► to look at the screen that's designed for that sort of thing

01:25:59 ◼   ► than it is to be fumbling with my phone.

01:26:01 ◼   ► And I could not agree more.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Even an ancient car like mine is becoming,

01:26:06 ◼   ► I would still rather have the onboard nav.

01:26:07 ◼   ► So Tina is right to ask for it.

01:26:09 ◼   ► I completely agree with you.

01:26:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, but again, not an option.

01:26:12 ◼   ► Because this is basically the bottom of the line Honda,

01:26:15 ◼   ► even though this is the special edition.

01:26:16 ◼   ► And I'm wondering what are the special edition things there?

01:26:19 ◼   ► Her special edition had the faux carbon fiber trim.

01:26:22 ◼   ► that was the special edition, her wheels,

01:26:25 ◼   ► the things that distinguish her current accord

01:26:27 ◼   ► as special edition are, from the outside, is the wheels,

01:26:29 ◼   ► and if you look inside, the fake carbon fiber

01:26:32 ◼   ► that replaces the trim bits.

01:26:34 ◼   ► And that's basically it.

01:26:36 ◼   ► And the people who, we got such a good deal on her car,

01:26:39 ◼   ► the people who ordered this car before us

01:26:41 ◼   ► and then backed out did add a couple of external

01:26:44 ◼   ► bolt-on dealer accessories that I just had to stomach,

01:26:48 ◼   ► 'cause you can't really remove them,

01:26:50 ◼   ► 'cause now there's holes in the body work

01:26:51 ◼   ► where they mount them or whatever. So I had to just accept those. I don't

01:26:55 ◼   ► particularly like them. I would never bought them myself but this car was so

01:26:58 ◼   ► cheap. We got us such a good deal on this car. I assume we're not going to get that

01:27:01 ◼   ► great of a deal on this 2017. The other 2017 thing I'm looking forward to is

01:27:05 ◼   ► supposedly they made their infotainment system software better and there's a lot

01:27:11 ◼   ► of room for it to get better because it is so slow and so clunky and so

01:27:15 ◼   ► Byzantine. It took me like six months to learn how to do the most basic things on

01:27:19 ◼   ► and it still drives me nuts. So I am happy for them to advertise it as being more responsive.

01:27:28 ◼   ► Like, please, anything, any improvement in that area that you can give me, I will accept.

01:27:32 ◼   ► I'm sure they probably also made some other things worse. So anyway, I'm vaguely hopeful

01:27:38 ◼   ► about this car, but yeah, I'm slowly being chased out of the car market by stick shifts

01:27:45 ◼   ► disappearing and I'm being chased out of Honda's by Honda replacing all their transmissions with

01:27:49 ◼   ► CVTs hopefully by the time I'm really chased out of it all the CVTs will have morphed into you know automated manual

01:27:57 ◼   ► You know dual clutch transmissions and that maybe I'll be able to tolerate more than the horror that is the CVT

01:28:02 ◼   ► Now DCT is livable like if if my future is not

01:28:07 ◼   ► If my future is not an electric car then and it's not a six-speed

01:28:14 ◼   ► I will go out of my way to find a true DCT because they it is not the way I

01:28:21 ◼   ► would prefer it but it is certainly livable. Does this model year

01:28:26 ◼   ► support CarPlay? Because you get the big screen even if you don't get like a GPS

01:28:30 ◼   ► chip so to speak, right? But it's not a touchscreen it's just a display screen.

01:28:35 ◼   ► So CarPlay can use wheels and stuff too. Right, right. But

01:28:39 ◼   ► there's no, well, there's kind of a wheel. It's not, it's not like the BMW system

01:28:47 ◼   ► where you have a cursor control. It's not like that. It's more like a series of buttons.

01:28:51 ◼   ► And sometimes, sometimes the wheel scrolls, but that's it.

01:28:54 ◼   ► I mean, even like a D-pad kind of thing, like I'm pretty sure CarPlay works with all sorts

01:28:57 ◼   ► of combinations of these control schemes. You know, intentionally.

01:29:00 ◼   ► Honda does support CarPlay, so maybe it works, but really it's not even a D-pad. It's

01:29:04 ◼   ► not even a five-way thing. It is literally a cluster of buttons, one called menu, one

01:29:08 ◼   ► called back and then there's a button and then there's a wheel and the only thing the

01:29:12 ◼   ► wheel does is move the selection up and down but you're mostly hitting menu back and settings

01:29:16 ◼   ► to try to navigate and display it because some navigation options are not available

01:29:19 ◼   ► unless a particular thing is displayed. So it is a terrible interface.

01:29:23 ◼   ► Yeah, when Marco and I and a couple of friends of ours went to Cupertino and Facebook when

01:29:29 ◼   ► we were out in California, we rented a Mercedes GL45 which is a truly lovely SUV. Like it's

01:29:36 ◼   ► It's certainly not my kind of car,

01:29:37 ◼   ► not the sort of thing I would want to drive,

01:29:39 ◼   ► but darned if it wasn't really nice.

01:29:42 ◼   ► That being said, I, I mean, iDrive has its problems.

01:29:47 ◼   ► It's very opinionated, and it's a little bit weird,

01:29:51 ◼   ► although I've come to absolutely love it,

01:29:53 ◼   ► and iDrive is a BMW system.

01:29:55 ◼   ► - iDrive is great.

01:29:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, whatever they call the Mercedes system,

01:29:59 ◼   ► it is unbelievably bad.

01:30:03 ◼   ► This was, I would assume, this was like a $90,000 truck

01:30:05 ◼   ► or something like that, or whatever it was,