ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I'm sorry, I ruined follow-up.

00:00:05 ◼   ► So I feel like we should start tonight's programming with a tale of woe.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I'll start by saying I bought a computer.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I bought a 5K iMac.

00:00:16 ◼   ► Whoa, okay, so first of all, congratulations.

00:00:20 ◼   ► Well, eh, maybe not.

00:00:21 ◼   ► So, hand on heart, Jon and Marco did not know that this happened.

00:00:25 ◼   ► I've been keeping this a secret from them so I could spring it on the show.

00:00:29 ◼   ► I bought a 5K iMac.

00:00:30 ◼   ► - Is it in your possession yet or did you just order it?

00:00:33 ◼   ► - Oh, it's here.

00:00:34 ◼   ► It's in my trunk.

00:00:36 ◼   ► - You didn't unpack it yet?

00:00:37 ◼   ► - Oh no, I did.

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Uh oh.

00:00:39 ◼   ► - This is my tale of woe.

00:00:40 ◼   ► - Does it fit in your trunk?

00:00:41 ◼   ► You only have three series.

00:00:42 ◼   ► - Oh, stop.

00:00:43 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:45 ◼   ► I bought this 5K iMac, I don't know, like a week ago.

00:00:48 ◼   ► And I watched it march across the United States

00:00:50 ◼   ► via FedEx ground, which was infuriating.

00:00:53 ◼   ► I mean, I did it to myself,

00:00:55 ◼   ► 'cause I didn't pay for the super fast shipping,

00:00:57 ◼   ► But I'm not a patient man, and it was infuriating watching it march across the US.

00:01:01 ◼   ► But anyway, it arrived yesterday.

00:01:04 ◼   ► And I booted it.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I set it up.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I moved files from my personal computer with my beloved yet very old Circa 2011 Hi-Res

00:01:15 ◼   ► Antigler 15-inch MacBook Pro.

00:01:17 ◼   ► I moved files from my work computer, my retina MacBook Pro, my 15-inch retina MacBook Pro.

00:01:26 ◼   ► I got everything set up, I put all the software I wanted on it, at least at a glance anyway.

00:01:32 ◼   ► Everything seemed okay.

00:01:34 ◼   ► I then performed a software update.

00:01:38 ◼   ► I let the software update go, I walked away from the computer, I came back to the computer,

00:01:42 ◼   ► it seemed like everything had hung after like 20 minutes or something like that, which was

00:01:47 ◼   ► well under the, or well over the time it had estimated to take the software update to run.

00:01:52 ◼   ► There was nothing on the screen, the backlight was on, the computer had not, to my knowledge,

00:01:55 ◼   ► everything was just there. Or I should say nothing was there actually. So I powered the machine off,

00:02:02 ◼   ► which to be clear may have been the fatal mistake. We'll come back to that. I powered the machine off,

00:02:06 ◼   ► I powered it back on. The chime sounds. That's it. The backlight's on, the chime sounds, nothing else.

00:02:14 ◼   ► Okay. Turn the computer back off after having let it sit for a while. Turn it back on. The chime sounds.

00:02:22 ◼   ► sounds and that's it. Hmm this is not good. Okay let's go through the steps. PRAM

00:02:31 ◼   ► reset no good. SMC reset no good. Make a USB boot disk no good. Mash down on the

00:02:38 ◼   ► D key to try to get to diagnostics no good. Recovery no good. Internet recovery

00:02:42 ◼   ► no good. It's in a trunk. I have a Genius Bar appointment tomorrow although I may

00:02:46 ◼   ► just end up returning it and buying a different one because it's already

00:02:48 ◼   ► completely hosed. I have no idea what I did. It might have been me. I'm not saying

00:02:52 ◼   ► it wasn't me. I am not looking for the internet to tell me what it was with respect to the

00:02:57 ◼   ► internet. It will be figured out tomorrow. I have engaged two ex-Apple geniuses. I have

00:03:04 ◼   ► engaged a friend of the show. Nobody could tell me a good answer as to what I could do

00:03:10 ◼   ► to resuscitate it. I think something just genuinely broke.

00:03:14 ◼   ► >>Trevor

00:03:14 ◼   ► During the problem, were there any USB or other devices connected to it that you could

00:03:20 ◼   ► have unplugged, and did you try unplugging them?

00:03:21 ◼   ► Oh yes.

00:03:23 ◼   ► So I had my microphone installed because I was all smug and happy, because the way this

00:03:28 ◼   ► episode was supposed to go was I was supposed to say to you, "Guess what, guys?

00:03:34 ◼   ► I am now talking to you on my 5K iMac."

00:03:38 ◼   ► The way this episode is actually going is, "Guess what, guys?

00:03:42 ◼   ► I actually have to either return or get this thing repaired tomorrow, which is exactly

00:03:47 ◼   ► what I'm going to do.

00:03:48 ◼   ► I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet.

00:03:50 ◼   ► I'm very sad.

00:03:51 ◼   ► I did try target disk mode.

00:03:54 ◼   ► Somebody is asking in the chat, I tried target disk mode.

00:03:56 ◼   ► I have tried everything in my repertoire and everything that two ex-geniuses and a friend

00:04:02 ◼   ► that works at Apple has asked me to try.

00:04:05 ◼   ► None of it has worked.

00:04:07 ◼   ► I'm very sad.

00:04:08 ◼   ► But I will tell you, in the two or three hours that it was working, it was a magnificent

00:04:13 ◼   ► computer, and I cannot wait to hopefully get one that works sometime in the next week.

00:04:20 ◼   ► Yeah, so I'm very sad.

00:04:22 ◼   ► It's a sad, sad day for me.

00:04:23 ◼   ► This is kind of like when my grandfather would complain that modern cars—actually, his

00:04:28 ◼   ► specific complaint was modern car engine bays don't have any place for you to get your

00:04:32 ◼   ► hands down in them, you know?

00:04:34 ◼   ► Like because everything was all packed together really tightly, and then he would complain

00:04:36 ◼   ► about the plastic shrouds covering everything up and complaining about how hard it is to

00:04:40 ◼   ► replace things like air filters and they don't have carburetors anyway.

00:04:43 ◼   ► But the related complaint to your 5k iMac is like back in the days of my most feverish

00:04:50 ◼   ► trying to diagnose problems, one of the things that I would do in this situation, and I almost

00:04:55 ◼   ► suggest it until I realize it's pointless, is to try to figure out what the hell is going

00:04:59 ◼   ► on.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Like you hear the chime, it passes the post-test, right?

00:05:02 ◼   ► And then what happens?

00:05:03 ◼   ► Like, can it not find the disk?

00:05:06 ◼   ► Are you getting into the boot process?

00:05:07 ◼   ► And the way you usually tell that is you could hear

00:05:10 ◼   ► whether it had started accessing the hard drive

00:05:12 ◼   ► and you knew by the series of ticks and sounds,

00:05:14 ◼   ► is it looking for a boot sector?

00:05:16 ◼   ► Is it just cycling disks on and off?

00:05:19 ◼   ► Or is it actually beginning the boot process,

00:05:21 ◼   ► which has a distinctive sound to it?

00:05:23 ◼   ► Or in the old days with the floppy drive,

00:05:24 ◼   ► you could tell what the computer was doing

00:05:25 ◼   ► and at what point things went wrong.

00:05:27 ◼   ► But with an SSD and nothing on the screen

00:05:30 ◼   ► and definitely no indicator lights or anything like that,

00:05:32 ◼   ► you know, hardware indicator lights for the PC folks,

00:05:35 ◼   ► You have no idea what's going on.

00:05:37 ◼   ► They post, there's no image on the screen.

00:05:39 ◼   ► Has it begun the boot process?

00:05:41 ◼   ► Can it not find the hard drive?

00:05:43 ◼   ► If it couldn't find the hard drive,

00:05:44 ◼   ► you'd have the blinking question mark.

00:05:47 ◼   ► But it did pass post,

00:05:48 ◼   ► because I think that the chime only sounds

00:05:50 ◼   ► after it does the whole,

00:05:51 ◼   ► post is power on self-test.

00:05:53 ◼   ► Like the whole, if you have bad RAM or whatever,

00:05:56 ◼   ► you'd get one of the bad chimes or something like that.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So like all my old diagnostic tools

00:06:02 ◼   ► are useless for these computers

00:06:03 ◼   ► that don't make any noise except for the stupid fan.

00:06:05 ◼   ► Is the fan going? There we go. We can ask that. Is the fan turning?

00:06:07 ◼   ► Yes, yes it was. As far as I can tell.

00:06:09 ◼   ► Does it crank up to full speed if you let it sit there?

00:06:11 ◼   ► No it does not. And I actually let it sit overnight

00:06:13 ◼   ► just to be extra specially sure

00:06:15 ◼   ► that that wasn't just me being impatient.

00:06:17 ◼   ► Did you spill water into it?

00:06:19 ◼   ► I did not. Thank you for asking, but I did not.

00:06:21 ◼   ► It's important to establish that.

00:06:23 ◼   ► Where? I mean, are there any openings that face upwards?

00:06:25 ◼   ► Is there one in the back maybe?

00:06:27 ◼   ► No, he can get water in there.

00:06:29 ◼   ► I have faith.

00:06:31 ◼   ► Because there's openings in the bottom here. I'm going to look behind my eyes.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - Oh God, that's funny.

00:06:36 ◼   ► - There are no openings that face upward that I can find.

00:06:38 ◼   ► - There's not, there's not like a slit on the top part?

00:06:40 ◼   ► - I don't see one.

00:06:41 ◼   ► - I didn't think so.

00:06:42 ◼   ► So yeah, so it's sitting in my trunk.

00:06:43 ◼   ► To be honest with you, I'll probably just return it

00:06:46 ◼   ► and probably just order a new one

00:06:47 ◼   ► because I feel like it's already tainted.

00:06:49 ◼   ► - I'm still hoping or thinking or suspecting

00:06:51 ◼   ► like this is actually a software,

00:06:53 ◼   ► like it's not a hardware problem, it's a software problem.

00:06:55 ◼   ► Did you, I know you said you tried a million things,

00:06:57 ◼   ► the only other one that you didn't mention

00:06:58 ◼   ► that I could think of, well, two things I could think of.

00:07:00 ◼   ► One, I'm assuming since you consulted all these experts,

00:07:03 ◼   ► you made sure that they all had the most recent up-to-date knowledge about the keys that you

00:07:07 ◼   ► have to mash because those have changed over the past couple of years and a lot of people

00:07:11 ◼   ► might give you advice to hold down key combinations that are no longer the correct ones for the

00:07:15 ◼   ► same operations.

00:07:16 ◼   ► But assuming that's handled, the only one I didn't hear you mention is verbose booting

00:07:21 ◼   ► mode.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I believe it's command V. You should look it up.

00:07:23 ◼   ► The one that spews, you know, the Unix console text to your screen during the boot process.

00:07:30 ◼   ► That's a good way to find out at what point things go off the rails during the boot process,

00:07:34 ◼   ► assuming the boot process even began.

00:07:36 ◼   ► I did not try that.

00:07:37 ◼   ► However, I did not mention that I also phoned AppleCare at like—

00:07:41 ◼   ► They're not going to help you.

00:07:43 ◼   ► Well, my thought was, let me give them a shot, see what they could figure out.

00:07:48 ◼   ► And I started the conversation slightly—well, mildly passive-aggressively, and I said, "Here's

00:07:53 ◼   ► what I've tried.

00:07:54 ◼   ► PRM reset, SMC reset, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to try to establish

00:07:57 ◼   ► we really don't need to go through all of this again if you please.

00:08:00 ◼   ► Have you tried blowing the dust out of the plug?

00:08:05 ◼   ► Well if the SMC reset apparently on these Macs is to unplug it, wait 15 seconds and

00:08:10 ◼   ► plug it back in or something along those lines.

00:08:12 ◼   ► In any case, I tried everything I knew how to try, I tried everything that the Apple

00:08:17 ◼   ► Care person told me to do, so in all likelihood I will just return it tomorrow.

00:08:22 ◼   ► I have not yet cancelled my Genius appointment, we will see what happens.

00:08:26 ◼   ► I cannot stress enough, internet, that by the time you hear this episode, this will

00:08:30 ◼   ► already be resolved one way or another.

00:08:33 ◼   ► Well, it'll be in the process of being resolved.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Well, it'll be in the process of being resolved.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Please, internet, I appreciate your feedback, but it is too late by the time you've heard

00:08:42 ◼   ► this.

00:08:43 ◼   ► You can use the fast shipping for the replacement?

00:08:45 ◼   ► If I order a new one, I will absolutely spring for the fast shipping, because now I'm really,

00:08:50 ◼   ► really sad that my—literally, I used the thing—let's see, it was seven o'clock,

00:08:55 ◼   ► was after Declan went to bed that I booted it and started transferring everything, and

00:09:00 ◼   ► at 10 o'clock or thereabouts was when I was calling AppleCare. So I used it for three

00:09:05 ◼   ► hours.

00:09:06 ◼   ► I feel so bad for you for this, because, like—

00:09:08 ◼   ► Well, and let's not forget, this is the first desktop I've bought in easily a decade.

00:09:12 ◼   ► Yeah, and we will definitely interrogate you about why you chose to do this and why you

00:09:16 ◼   ► did it now and et cetera, because I really want to know all these things. But first of

00:09:20 ◼   ► all, I do want to express my sincere condolences, because, like, I hate it. Like, it can't—it's

00:09:25 ◼   ► puts a damper on like, you know, a big purchase of a thing you're really excited about that

00:09:30 ◼   ► you hardly ever get to buy, and all of it, and like it comes and it has some problem

00:09:35 ◼   ► that you have to deal with. Like that sucks. It puts such a damper on the whole thing.

00:09:38 ◼   ► Yeah, it really does. And you know what I thought about, so yesterday obviously I was

00:09:41 ◼   ► much more angry and pissed off than I am now. But yesterday I was thinking about it and

00:09:46 ◼   ► I thought, what if, for the sake of conversation, this was my very first Mac? Like that's a

00:09:53 ◼   ► terrible experience. Now, admittedly, this is definitely a fluke. This is weird. This

00:10:00 ◼   ► is not something that normally happens. To my recollection, in my eight years of owning

00:10:05 ◼   ► Macs, I think that's right, eight-ish years of owning Macs, I have never had a software

00:10:09 ◼   ► update fail. So, to be clear, this is a fluke. It's weird. But, damn if it isn't frustrating.

00:10:18 ◼   ► And oh my goodness, if this was my first Mac,

00:10:21 ◼   ► I would go running back to Dell.

00:10:24 ◼   ► Now, I'm not an idiot, so I'm not going to do that.

00:10:27 ◼   ► - I'm not going crazy here.

00:10:28 ◼   ► - No, I agree, I agree.

00:10:30 ◼   ► But I'm just saying, imagine if your first experience

00:10:33 ◼   ► with this, it was like the $3,000, $3,200 computer.

00:10:38 ◼   ► Imagine your first experience is,

00:10:39 ◼   ► oh, it works for three hours and then it's dead.

00:10:41 ◼   ► - Well, it doesn't really matter.

00:10:43 ◼   ► That experience doesn't really matter

00:10:45 ◼   ► unless it's some kind of epidemic,

00:10:47 ◼   ► which I'm assuming it isn't, right?

00:10:48 ◼   ► But every company has like the DOA things.

00:10:51 ◼   ► All that matters is what happens after.

00:10:53 ◼   ► That's all that, that's what, you know what I mean?

00:10:55 ◼   ► Like for Dell, the reason, speaking of Dell,

00:10:56 ◼   ► the reason a lot of people like Dell

00:10:57 ◼   ► in the enterprise anyway, is that when something happens,

00:11:01 ◼   ► when someone drops their Dell laptop,

00:11:03 ◼   ► when something breaks or whatever,

00:11:04 ◼   ► you can have new hardware in your hands

00:11:07 ◼   ► in a shockingly small amount of time.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And so it's not, you know, things are gonna happen.

00:11:12 ◼   ► You're gonna get, you're gonna buy 50 Dell laptops

00:11:15 ◼   ► and one of them's gonna be DOA.

00:11:17 ◼   ► That's not the thing that annoys you.

00:11:18 ◼   ► It would annoy you, for example,

00:11:20 ◼   ► if you were going through Apple,

00:11:21 ◼   ► if you had to wait a week to get the new one.

00:11:22 ◼   ► It doesn't annoy you if the next morning

00:11:24 ◼   ► when you come into work,

00:11:25 ◼   ► somebody from Dell is there with a box and says,

00:11:27 ◼   ► "Give me your old one, here's your new one later."

00:11:29 ◼   ► And you're like, "Oh, that was easy."

00:11:30 ◼   ► And so for Apple, the thing that counts is

00:11:34 ◼   ► how good was your Apple Care phone experience,

00:11:36 ◼   ► which in my experience is not that great.

00:11:38 ◼   ► How, when you go to the Genius Bar,

00:11:39 ◼   ► how is that experience going to be?

00:11:41 ◼   ► And how much fuss do they give you?

00:11:44 ◼   ► How sympathetic are they?

00:11:45 ◼   ► This matters too.

00:11:46 ◼   ► pathetic as the person to your frustration about getting a DOA computer, which is basically

00:11:51 ◼   ► how it's categorized this, because assuming this is a hardware thing, it's not like

00:11:53 ◼   ► the software update broke it, it's just, you know, if it's a hardware problem, this

00:11:57 ◼   ► machine was just DOA, and it's best to find this out now, right? It's all about how

00:12:01 ◼   ► it's handled after the fact. And my one—I have two Apple stories about this, I think

00:12:05 ◼   ► I told the other one on a past podcast, but when I got my SC30, the power supply made

00:12:10 ◼   ► a high-pitched noise that only people under 30 could hear.

00:12:12 ◼   ► I do remember this.

00:12:13 ◼   ► Yeah, and that was my most disappointing one because I was a kid.

00:12:18 ◼   ► And when you're a kid, or like when you're a kid at heart like Casey, you get your hopes

00:12:21 ◼   ► all from this exciting new shiny computer and it comes and you're sad.

00:12:25 ◼   ► Right, so that was the most crushing one.

00:12:27 ◼   ► And the other one, which I may have mentioned in the past, is when, this was the Pizzabock

00:12:31 ◼   ► PowerPC Performer actually, Performer 61 something CD.

00:12:38 ◼   ► that for Christmas and, or it was a family computer but whatever it's mine, and the terrible

00:12:46 ◼   ► gross PC sourced 15 inch multi sync Apple monitor that came with it was DOA, like the

00:12:53 ◼   ► monitor just didn't work, you plugged it in, nothing happened, no lights came on the screen,

00:12:57 ◼   ► so I got that on Christmas day, and I was older so I wasn't totally, you know, devastated,

00:13:02 ◼   ► I didn't have any other monitors that could fit it because of the differences in the connectors,

00:13:06 ◼   ► was a multi sync monitor, it's basically a PC monitor connector, but with a slight difference,

00:13:10 ◼   ► and anyway all my other ones wouldn't work with it. So you get something on Christmas

00:13:14 ◼   ► and you can't use it on Christmas, you're sad too. Apple had a new monitor on our front

00:13:19 ◼   ► doorstep the morning after Christmas. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, so not only did they

00:13:25 ◼   ► not wait for us to ship it back, or you know, ship it to us and get it a few days later,

00:13:30 ◼   ► it was like, you're sad on Christmas Day, you go to sleep, you wake up the next morning,

00:13:33 ◼   ► monitors on your doorstep. And so that was pretty amazing.

00:13:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm curious to see how this works out, but you're absolutely right that it's all

00:13:43 ◼   ► about how sympathetic people are and how people react to it, and I think it'll be fine, it'll

00:13:51 ◼   ► all work itself out, but man, what a bummer. What a serious bummer.

00:13:56 ◼   ► And how much hassle it is. Like, do you have to convince anyone of anything? Is there a

00:14:00 ◼   ► a lot of paperwork to fill out,

00:14:02 ◼   ► how long does it take for you to have the situation

00:14:05 ◼   ► remedied to your satisfaction?

00:14:07 ◼   ► Like, it can make a big difference.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Even if like you got it fixed the next day,

00:14:11 ◼   ► but to do that you had to like argue with someone

00:14:13 ◼   ► on the phone, that's a terrible experience.

00:14:14 ◼   ► But if you go through it and someone is sympathetic

00:14:17 ◼   ► and just, you know, it seems like bump, bump, bump,

00:14:20 ◼   ► oh, that's it, yep, that's it,

00:14:21 ◼   ► you'll have a new computer on day X.

00:14:23 ◼   ► You're like, oh, that was easy.

00:14:24 ◼   ► And you come away from that experience

00:14:26 ◼   ► if everything has gone well,

00:14:28 ◼   ► actually liking the brand more than you would have

00:14:30 ◼   ► if you had just gotten the thing and it worked out of the box.

00:14:32 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, totally.

00:14:33 ◼   ► The perverse way that human nature works.

00:14:35 ◼   ► The worst one though, the one you can't recover from, luckily we're all out of this phase,

00:14:40 ◼   ► is like when I got my obscenely expensive Apple 22 inch LCD monitor and had dead pixels

00:14:46 ◼   ► on it.

00:14:47 ◼   ► And I tried not to look for them, but I could see them.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And there's nothing you can do about that because I knew going in what the policy was.

00:14:53 ◼   ► The policy is if there's an X number of pixels and they're this far apart or whatever, sorry,

00:14:56 ◼   ► luck of the draw, you got unlucky.

00:14:58 ◼   ► And I guess I suppose I could have returned it and tried again and returned it and tried

00:15:03 ◼   ► again and returned it and tried again, but I was just not up for that.

00:15:06 ◼   ► You know, yesterday I was really upset.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Not even just angry.

00:15:10 ◼   ► I was genuinely upset.

00:15:12 ◼   ► But today, with a little bit of clarity now, I can see that this is like the most first

00:15:18 ◼   ► world of first world problems.

00:15:19 ◼   ► The most shiny new computer didn't work immediately.

00:15:22 ◼   ► Oh well, like get over yourself.

00:15:24 ◼   ► But man, it did bum me out a little bit.

00:15:27 ◼   ► You paid good money for that thing.

00:15:28 ◼   ► you know, don't diminish this.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, so hopefully it'll rectify itself.

00:15:33 ◼   ► We don't need to talk about this anymore.

00:15:35 ◼   ► If you guys don't have anything to say,

00:15:37 ◼   ► we can move on to follow up,

00:15:38 ◼   ► but if you have any other questions,

00:15:39 ◼   ► I'm happy to field them.

00:15:40 ◼   ► - I have so many questions, but first,

00:15:41 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:15:42 ◼   ► we have to do a sponsor review.

00:15:44 ◼   ► - Fair enough.

00:15:45 ◼   ► - And first, a quick correction.

00:15:46 ◼   ► A couple weeks ago, I did a read for Casper,

00:15:49 ◼   ► the mattress company, Casper,

00:15:50 ◼   ► and I forgot to give the coupon code.

00:15:52 ◼   ► So if you go to casper.com/atp

00:15:56 ◼   ► for their wonderful deals on mattresses,

00:15:57 ◼   ► please use coupon code ATP for 50 bucks off at Mattress Purkis. Once again, code ATP at

00:16:03 ◼   ► Casper dot com slash ATP for 50 bucks off. So anyway, thank you Casper, sorry about the

00:16:07 ◼   ► mistake. We are also sponsored this week by Fracture. Go to Fractureme dot com and use

00:16:13 ◼   ► code ATP 15 for 15% off your first order there. Fracture is vivid color photo prints printed

00:16:19 ◼   ► directly on glass. Fracture prints are beautiful. You get your photos printed on these thin,

00:16:24 ◼   ► thin, flat, light pieces of glass.

00:16:27 ◼   ► And it's a very modern, minimal presentation.

00:16:30 ◼   ► It's just literally, your photo goes edge to edge,

00:16:33 ◼   ► printed on this piece of glass.

00:16:34 ◼   ► It's very thin, very lightweight,

00:16:36 ◼   ► so you don't have to worry about it

00:16:37 ◼   ► crashing down off the wall or being hard to hang

00:16:39 ◼   ► or hard to install or anything like that

00:16:41 ◼   ► or breaking and chipping.

00:16:42 ◼   ► All sorts of worries you might have

00:16:43 ◼   ► about getting a giant photo print on glass,

00:16:45 ◼   ► that all those worries have always been alleviated

00:16:48 ◼   ► for me with Fracture.

00:16:49 ◼   ► But these prints look great,

00:16:50 ◼   ► and they really want you to get your print

00:16:52 ◼   ► you know, out of the Instagram feed, out of the Facebook galleries and everything,

00:16:56 ◼   ► like, get photos that are great printed because once you put them in like a

00:17:00 ◼   ► social feed like that, once like a week passes, those are gone. You never see them

00:17:04 ◼   ► again. Like, it really helps to enjoy your photos, to have them printed out. They

00:17:08 ◼   ► also make fantastic gifts for other people in your life who want to enjoy

00:17:11 ◼   ► your photos, like family members, like especially like if you have kids or

00:17:14 ◼   ► anything you want to like send a picture of your kids to their grandparents or

00:17:17 ◼   ► whatever. There are so many great uses for fracture. Gifts, photos for yourself,

00:17:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and just to double down on that real quick, just this past week when I was in a

00:17:27 ◼   ► happier mood, I actually made a like six item fracture order because I have plenty of fractures

00:17:34 ◼   ► around the house and we're actually going to start distributing them as gifts.

00:17:38 ◼   ► And so we bought a bunch for gifts, including one for our own house.

00:17:42 ◼   ► They really are fantastic.

00:17:44 ◼   ► And I tell you what, I have them.

00:17:45 ◼   ► I've paid for them in the past.

00:17:46 ◼   ► I've paid for them just this week and they're great.

00:17:49 ◼   ► You really should try it out.

00:17:50 ◼   ► So check them out.

00:17:51 ◼   ► Go to fractureme.com and use code ATP15 to get 15% off your first order.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Fracture for sponsoring us this week.

00:18:00 ◼   ► One of my questions was about, I know you're not going to mess with it yourself, but RAM

00:18:05 ◼   ► that wiggles loose as the thing took its bumpy little journey across the entire country?

00:18:10 ◼   ► It's funny you say that.

00:18:11 ◼   ► I reseated the RAM just to be safe, no difference.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Ah, see I would have said the safe thing is to not try to do that because, I don't know,

00:18:19 ◼   ► Like you just got your feet on the carpet and like, I don't know.

00:18:22 ◼   ► I would be like, look, I just can't, I haven't touched the thing that came out of the box.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I've been using it like you use a computer by pressing buttons on the keyboard and mouse

00:18:29 ◼   ► or trackpad and now it's fried.

00:18:31 ◼   ► Like, oh, you opened it up.

00:18:32 ◼   ► Well, but you're supposed to be able to open it up.

00:18:35 ◼   ► So I just, I'm always paranoid with Apple, so I would not have even tried that.

00:18:37 ◼   ► I would have just brought it in instead of the RAMs unseated.

00:18:39 ◼   ► It's not my problem.

00:18:41 ◼   ► I didn't touch it.

00:18:42 ◼   ► Fair point.

00:18:43 ◼   ► And actually that brings up a really interesting point.

00:18:45 ◼   ► Let me tell you how I know I'm old.

00:18:47 ◼   ► I was extremely, and remain actually, extremely skeptical that me doing like Command-R for

00:18:55 ◼   ► recovery, I believe that's right, I was looking at the documents when I was doing these keystrokes,

00:19:00 ◼   ► so if I get them wrong now I apologize, but like Command-R, Option-Command-R, whatever

00:19:03 ◼   ► it is for internet recovery, and D for diagnostics, all these things that I was mashing, I initially

00:19:08 ◼   ► was doing that on the new Bluetooth keyboard that came with it, which by the way I like

00:19:12 ◼   ► quite a bit.

00:19:13 ◼   ► I really liked it a lot a lot.

00:19:15 ◼   ► This is the new like semi-skinny one right? That's correct, but anyway, so I'm doing all of this and

00:19:20 ◼   ► I'm doing it on a Bluetooth keyboard and

00:19:23 ◼   ► The old man in me is so damn skeptical that this keyboard is even

00:19:29 ◼   ► Connected to the computer that I first plugged it in with the lightning cable then I decided no

00:19:36 ◼   ► I'm not even convinced that's good enough, and I have a hundred and one key Apple keyboard that I got from God knows where that's USB

00:19:43 ◼   ► I plugged that in and did all these keystrokes again just to be safe, but it weirded me out

00:19:50 ◼   ► to be relying on wireless devices in order to try to kick off these extremely low-level

00:19:55 ◼   ► like boot sequences.

00:19:56 ◼   ► I don't know, just that's me being old and weird I suppose.

00:20:01 ◼   ► Anyway, any other questions or should we do some follow-up?

00:20:03 ◼   ► Why'd you get this computer?

00:20:05 ◼   ► Right, so I knew it was time to get a different computer.

00:20:09 ◼   ► I hadn't bought a computer since my—I already mentioned 2011 Hi-Res Antigler MacBook Pro.

00:20:18 ◼   ► That thing sits on my desk constantly.

00:20:20 ◼   ► That's all it does, is sit on the desk.

00:20:23 ◼   ► And even though I've been a laptop guy for easily a decade and change—in fact, I think

00:20:28 ◼   ► I made the switch during school, so somewhere in the early 2000s was when I really became

00:20:32 ◼   ► a laptop kind of guy.

00:20:34 ◼   ► And I thought to myself, I will have a work laptop, as we discussed quite a bit several

00:20:41 ◼   ► episodes back.

00:20:42 ◼   ► I'll have a work laptop.

00:20:43 ◼   ► And it occurred to me just yesterday that I have my high-res anti-glare MacBook Pro

00:20:49 ◼   ► that I could put an SSD in, like we were just talking about.

00:20:52 ◼   ► So I will still have a laptop, and even in a real pinch, I can take Aaron's scuba diving

00:20:59 ◼   ► MacBook Air and use that if I really wanted to use a laptop.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Beyond that, as I've also talked about on the show, Erin got me a brand new iPad Mini

00:21:10 ◼   ► for Christmas.

00:21:12 ◼   ► And for a lot of things, especially when mated to a Bluetooth keyboard, that's probably sufficient.

00:21:17 ◼   ► So say I wanted to write a blog post downstairs while I'm sitting next to Erin on the couch,

00:21:22 ◼   ► I could use my iPad, I could use her laptop, I could use my old laptop, I could use my

00:21:26 ◼   ► work laptop.

00:21:27 ◼   ► So if I have like 84 portable devices rolling around the house, do I really need another?

00:21:32 ◼   ► But I have a couple of things that I really want running all the time, like Plex, for

00:21:36 ◼   ► example.

00:21:37 ◼   ► Why not have that running on a desktop rather than running on my laptop?

00:21:43 ◼   ► And so it seems to me like I'm running out of good reasons to have a laptop.

00:21:50 ◼   ► And so if I'm gonna get a desktop, and damned if I don't lust after these Apple Cinema displays

00:21:56 ◼   ► that are all over the place, the client that I'm working at, which we've talked about in

00:21:59 ◼   ► the past. Why not just bite the bullet and get a damn iMac? And that's what I did. And

00:22:04 ◼   ► I tell you what, it's weird only having one monitor because at home, not right now actually,

00:22:09 ◼   ► because I put it away, but at home I typically have two monitors. At work, I always have

00:22:13 ◼   ► two monitors. It's weird only having one monitor.

00:22:16 ◼   ► >> Steve - He knows you can have two. Don't email him.

00:22:18 ◼   ► >> John - Yeah, I know you. Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God. Thank you. I know you can

00:22:21 ◼   ► have two. But when it's a 27-inch screen, you really don't need it. It's really okay.

00:22:28 ◼   ► "Oh my god, is that screen beautiful?"

00:22:30 ◼   ► Did you guys know that that screen is really pretty?

00:22:33 ◼   ► I feel like we should have talked about this

00:22:34 ◼   ► in the past or something.

00:22:35 ◼   ► - Well, Marco has the worst one,

00:22:37 ◼   ► but I have the same one as you, so.

00:22:38 ◼   ► (laughter)

00:22:40 ◼   ► - You know, if only somebody would have told you

00:22:43 ◼   ► about a month ago about all the benefits of desktops.

00:22:45 ◼   ► - Yes, yes, yes.

00:22:46 ◼   ► So eventually I thought, you know,

00:22:48 ◼   ► so all kidding aside, I thought,

00:22:49 ◼   ► "You know, let me just try this desktop thing,"

00:22:51 ◼   ► 'cause you know what?

00:22:52 ◼   ► It's a lot of, no question, full stop.

00:22:55 ◼   ► It's a lot of money.

00:22:57 ◼   ► What I got was, I don't know, I apologize if I said this already, but I got a middle-of-the-road

00:23:00 ◼   ► one.

00:23:01 ◼   ► I got it with 8 gigs of RAM because I was planning on putting some aftermarket RAM in

00:23:05 ◼   ► it.

00:23:06 ◼   ► Did you get the good CPU?

00:23:07 ◼   ► I got the 4 gigahertz CPU.

00:23:09 ◼   ► Yes.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And I got the 1 terabyte SSD.

00:23:14 ◼   ► So basically, a fairly loaded, middle-of-the-road 5K iMac because I didn't see the need for

00:23:21 ◼   ► a really fancy graphics card because I don't ever play games.

00:23:25 ◼   ► So I loved the machine for the three hours I got

00:23:30 ◼   ► to use it before it died.

00:23:32 ◼   ► And I'm really looking forward to sticking with it.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I really think this is probably gonna be

00:23:36 ◼   ► the right answer for me.

00:23:38 ◼   ► Asked me again in a few months, obviously,

00:23:39 ◼   ► and I say that both sarcastically and seriously

00:23:42 ◼   ► because I'm curious to see if I miss it.

00:23:43 ◼   ► - If it works yet?

00:23:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, if it works.

00:23:46 ◼   ► But I'm really thinking that this was probably

00:23:50 ◼   ► the right answer, especially if I start doing

00:23:52 ◼   ► a little more iOS development,

00:23:53 ◼   ► which I'm hoping to be doing soon,

00:23:56 ◼   ► that's a pretty good way to do it.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And I will say that after having used

00:24:01 ◼   ► this 27-inch 5K iMac for two and a half to three hours,

00:24:05 ◼   ► as I was going to troubleshoot,

00:24:08 ◼   ► I got out my work 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro,

00:24:12 ◼   ► and hand on heart, the first thing I thought to myself was,

00:24:15 ◼   ► "Holy God, this screen is tiny."

00:24:18 ◼   ► And I had never thought that about a 15-inch laptop

00:24:21 ◼   ► before in my life.

00:24:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, so two things you and I ruined on.

00:24:26 ◼   ► First of all, the screen quality of the 5K

00:24:29 ◼   ► is still way better, even the one I have

00:24:33 ◼   ► that has the worst color gamut than yours.

00:24:36 ◼   ► The screen on the 5K is way better than the screen

00:24:39 ◼   ► on any of the laptops, including the newest 15s.

00:24:42 ◼   ► We'll see if that changes when they go to Skylake

00:24:44 ◼   ► in a few months or whatever, but as of today,

00:24:48 ◼   ► the iMac screen is by far the nicest screen

00:24:51 ◼   ► that Apple sells.

00:24:52 ◼   ► Maybe the iPad Pro, I haven't looked too much at it, but--

00:24:54 ◼   ► - I thought the iPad Mini was actually

00:24:56 ◼   ► the best of the portables.

00:24:57 ◼   ► - I mean, maybe, you know, for certain metrics,

00:24:59 ◼   ► I know the tests you're talking about,

00:25:01 ◼   ► but among Macs, I think the 5K iMac is just far and away,

00:25:06 ◼   ► far ahead of the other ones,

00:25:07 ◼   ► because just everything about it,

00:25:09 ◼   ► like the color, the contrast, the pixel density,

00:25:13 ◼   ► I don't know, a bunch of stuff I don't understand,

00:25:15 ◼   ► it just looks great,

00:25:16 ◼   ► and once you're accustomed to looking at a 5K,

00:25:19 ◼   ► when you look at a Retina MacBook Pro,

00:25:21 ◼   ► you can tell the Retina MacBook Pro screen

00:25:24 ◼   ► almost seems blurry by comparison.

00:25:25 ◼   ► It is a very different look,

00:25:28 ◼   ► and it looks fantastic on the 5K.

00:25:30 ◼   ► So first of all, you are now ruined.

00:25:32 ◼   ► So yes, you can plug in additional monitors to it,

00:25:36 ◼   ► but you won't want to,

00:25:37 ◼   ► because anything else you plug into it

00:25:39 ◼   ► will look like garbage.

00:25:40 ◼   ► And Apple is not yet shipping

00:25:42 ◼   ► a standalone version of this monitor.

00:25:44 ◼   ► I hope they do in the future,

00:25:45 ◼   ► for people who do want multi-monitor,

00:25:46 ◼   ► or who don't have a 5K but have a laptop or something.

00:25:50 ◼   ► But for now, this is the best screen Apple sells

00:25:53 ◼   ► and the only way you can get it is inside a 5K iMac

00:25:55 ◼   ► and nothing else matches it.

00:25:58 ◼   ► And even having a laptop next to it is just no contest.

00:26:01 ◼   ► So A, you're ruined on screen quality

00:26:03 ◼   ► and B, you're definitely ruined on screen size.

00:26:05 ◼   ► And this is how I feel, how I felt for years

00:26:08 ◼   ► ever since I got a giant monitor like this.

00:26:10 ◼   ► I can do work on my 15 inch MacBook Pro

00:26:13 ◼   ► and I have and I need to usually a few times a year.

00:26:16 ◼   ► I need to do something really heavy on the MacBook Pro,

00:26:18 ◼   ► I'm glad I have it.

00:26:19 ◼   ► But every time I do work on the MacBook,

00:26:22 ◼   ► or I'm tempted to work on the MacBook Pro,

00:26:23 ◼   ► and I can work on the desktop,

00:26:25 ◼   ► like either it's just on the other side of the house,

00:26:29 ◼   ► or I'll be back home in a couple days and I can do it then,

00:26:32 ◼   ► I will just put off work until I can do it on the big screen

00:26:35 ◼   ► because I know that I will be way happier

00:26:38 ◼   ► and more productive doing it on the big screen.

00:26:40 ◼   ► So you will probably follow a similar path

00:26:44 ◼   ► you'll be like, "Well, I could work on this laptop, but the screen is so cramped.

00:26:50 ◼   ► I might as well just wait until I can go upstairs and do it on the iMac."

00:26:53 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, we'll see.

00:26:55 ◼   ► I am genuinely a little—I'm going to use the word "worried" because I can't think

00:26:59 ◼   ► of a better word—but I'm a little worried about what this means for my home life and

00:27:05 ◼   ► for my relationship with Aaron.

00:27:06 ◼   ► Because I don't often sit with a laptop downstairs next to Aaron, but I wouldn't

00:27:11 ◼   ► say it's uncommon either.

00:27:13 ◼   ► And now, if I want to use my computer, I'm going to have to be upstairs in one of our

00:27:18 ◼   ► bedrooms, which is my in-home office.

00:27:21 ◼   ► And that's where I'm sitting right now to record.

00:27:23 ◼   ► And so, I don't want to ignore Aaron on a regular basis, just because I want to be upstairs

00:27:29 ◼   ► on my fancy new iMac.

00:27:30 ◼   ► But we'll see what happens.

00:27:32 ◼   ► I mean, if that's the most of my problems, I'm in pretty damn good shape, aren't I?

00:27:35 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:27:36 ◼   ► But I don't mean this to be snarky.

00:27:38 ◼   ► I mean, genuinely.

00:27:39 ◼   ► And in the two and a half, three hours I used the thing.

00:27:43 ◼   ► I really, really, really loved it.

00:27:45 ◼   ► I really did.

00:27:46 ◼   ► And admittedly, some of that was like, ooh, shiny.

00:27:49 ◼   ► But it was fast.

00:27:51 ◼   ► It worked well.

00:27:53 ◼   ► I was transferring things from both laptops to the iMac.

00:27:57 ◼   ► God knows what's going to happen with that data if I

00:27:59 ◼   ► return it.

00:28:00 ◼   ► But anyway, I was transferring stuff to the iMac at

00:28:04 ◼   ► ridiculous speeds.

00:28:05 ◼   ► I was doing like 18 things at once.

00:28:07 ◼   ► I'm a really heavy user of, what is it, Spaces, the multiple virtual screens.

00:28:11 ◼   ► I know it's all wrapped into mission control now, but I barely use them on this iMac because,

00:28:17 ◼   ► God help me, I have like 10 different windows open at once.

00:28:21 ◼   ► Shut up, John.

00:28:22 ◼   ► I had like 10 different windows open at once, which is like eight more than I usually have.

00:28:27 ◼   ► I don't know, maybe I just have a simple mind.

00:28:29 ◼   ► I think you're not the only one with Spaces.

00:28:31 ◼   ► I see with all these youngsters at work who, like, we have many more Macs at work now and

00:28:35 ◼   ► have many more youngsters at work. And it's very easy to get multiple monitors at work.

00:28:40 ◼   ► So the main, like the way young people, I'm generalizing, the way of young people I see

00:28:48 ◼   ► at my work, kids these days, right? Exactly, use their max is they have multiple monitors,

00:28:54 ◼   ► they like lots of monitors, like the more the better. One guy had like six, it was ridiculous.

00:28:58 ◼   ► And they full screen everything and they attempt to use spaces and mission control

00:29:05 ◼   ► to cycle through things. Like I'll be sitting there and watching somebody do something at their

00:29:09 ◼   ► they'll be demonstrating something and they'll have they'll have a text editor full screen on one

00:29:13 ◼   ► 17 inch monitor and another text editor or web browser full screen another 17 inch monitor and

00:29:18 ◼   ► sometimes it'd be like well go to this web page go to the source file go to this go to that go to

00:29:22 ◼   ► that terminal window all these things would fit in like one 17 inch screen if the person like used

00:29:27 ◼   ► windows the way they're supposed to be done because really the terminal a terminal filling an entire

00:29:32 ◼   ► letterbox format 17 inch screen is ridiculous, right?

00:29:36 ◼   ► But instead it's like, where's that window again?

00:29:38 ◼   ► Where's that window?

00:29:39 ◼   ► Lots of gestures and keyboard combinations to, you know,

00:29:42 ◼   ► go through spaces with the control arrow keys

00:29:44 ◼   ► and gestures to swipe from one to the other

00:29:45 ◼   ► to try to make the thing they're looking for

00:29:48 ◼   ► appear on one of the two screens.

00:29:50 ◼   ► And they can't see what's in front of behind.

00:29:52 ◼   ► They just have to like,

00:29:53 ◼   ► and they don't seem to have an awareness.

00:29:54 ◼   ► There's no like, like it used to be where spaces were 2D

00:29:57 ◼   ► instead of just like a 1D strip.

00:29:59 ◼   ► Remember the 2D spaces things

00:30:00 ◼   ► where you go up, down, left, and right.

00:30:01 ◼   ► then at least I'd have a fighting chance. Instead, what I see is two screens that I

00:30:05 ◼   ► see hands moving furiously and I see two screens blink blink blink blink blink blink blink.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Oh, I found it. There it is. And then we'll go back to the other thing. OK. Blink blink

00:30:13 ◼   ► blink, blink, blink, blink, blink. Oh, I found it. This is this does not seem efficient.

00:30:20 ◼   ► So yeah. Anyway, people like we should we should know this from from Windows. Windows

00:30:25 ◼   ► taught us that people like to maximize everything. And the Mac users like well Mac users don't

00:30:29 ◼   ► maximize everything. Well guess what? Now that Macs are more common, the people who

00:30:33 ◼   ► maximize everything have Macs and they try to work the same way. So don't do that, Casey.

00:30:37 ◼   ► It's a waste of your screen space.

00:30:39 ◼   ► I don't typically maximize everything, but what I typically do is have spaces kind of

00:30:45 ◼   ► orient like things. So as an example, probably the best example is I have one space that

00:30:52 ◼   ► has my work IM, the relay Slack, and iMessages in three tiles on that space that take up

00:31:00 ◼   ► the whole screen.

00:31:01 ◼   ► So the left half of the screen is work IM, this is on my work computer of course.

00:31:06 ◼   ► The left half of the screen is work IM, and then the right half of the screen is split

00:31:09 ◼   ► in half.

00:31:10 ◼   ► So the top half is relay Slack, and the bottom half is iMessages.

00:31:15 ◼   ► And that's actually what's going on right now.

00:31:17 ◼   ► So that's just a simple example.

00:31:19 ◼   ► I like spaces, it's not for everyone, but like I said, when I was using the Saimak,

00:31:24 ◼   ► I found that I could just tile damn near everything on the one space, which is a weird thing for

00:31:30 ◼   ► me.

00:31:31 ◼   ► But my love of spaces is also the reason that I feel like I can't use any other mouse other

00:31:36 ◼   ► than the Magic Mouse, because I am addicted to the two-finger swipe.

00:31:40 ◼   ► I understand that Mike's beloved MX Revolution or whatever it is has configurations in which

00:31:45 ◼   ► you can swap spaces with buttons and whatnot. But for me, I've always used the Magic Mouse

00:31:51 ◼   ► and I love it.

00:31:52 ◼   ► Plus, that mouse crippled him, so.

00:31:53 ◼   ► And that mouse also crippled him, so there's that too.

00:31:55 ◼   ► Minor details.

00:31:56 ◼   ► Right, no big deal, right? So anyway, so yeah, in my brief usage, and again, I know I sound

00:32:02 ◼   ► snarky, but I'm not trying to be. In my very brief usage of this machine, I actually really,

00:32:06 ◼   ► really, really liked it. And if I return it tomorrow, if I get it repaired tomorrow one

00:32:11 ◼   ► way or the other, I am looking forward to having some honest-to-goodness time with it.

00:32:16 ◼   ► But it was fast, it was nice, it was pretty, the screen was beautiful, I really enjoy the

00:32:23 ◼   ► new peripherals.

00:32:25 ◼   ► The new Magic Mouse seemed roughly the same to me, I couldn't tell any major differences.

00:32:30 ◼   ► Like I understand what the differences are, but just from feel and whatnot, I couldn't

00:32:34 ◼   ► really tell the differences.

00:32:36 ◼   ► The new keyboard though, I really, really liked a lot.

00:32:38 ◼   ► I feel like every single Apple keyboard in the house, I have the 2011 MacBook Pro, I

00:32:43 ◼   ► have the 2015 MacBook Pro, I have the 101-key keyboard, I have a four-battery Bluetooth

00:32:52 ◼   ► keyboard, I have Aaron's MacBook Air.

00:32:55 ◼   ► Every single one of those keyboards, I swear to you, feels just a little bit different.

00:32:58 ◼   ► But I really liked the new Bluetooth one.

00:33:02 ◼   ► What is it, the Magic Keyboard or something?

00:33:04 ◼   ► I always get the names wrong.

00:33:05 ◼   ► Anyway, whatever the brand new one is.

00:33:07 ◼   ► I really liked it a lot.

00:33:08 ◼   ► So the hardware, excepting the fact that it died, was wonderful.

00:33:15 ◼   ► And I, you know, to a quick personal anecdote, my office is a disaster.

00:33:21 ◼   ► The one in my house is a disaster.

00:33:22 ◼   ► You could barely see the carpet and there was like a path between the door and the chair

00:33:26 ◼   ► and that was about it.

00:33:28 ◼   ► And in preparation for this thing, as it was marching across the country, I finally did

00:33:32 ◼   ► what Aaron has been begging me to do for like two years now, and I cleaned up my office

00:33:37 ◼   ► And my desk was all clean.

00:33:38 ◼   ► I have a glass desk because I've had it for forever, but I guess I'm that kind of a loser.

00:33:43 ◼   ► And so I have this glass desk, it was all cleaned off.

00:33:45 ◼   ► I moved my mic from one side of the desk to the other, which if you're a podcaster, is

00:33:49 ◼   ► like a really big deal.

00:33:50 ◼   ► And I was all ready to go, and it was going to be great.

00:33:54 ◼   ► And now it's in my trunk to get repaired or returned tomorrow.

00:33:58 ◼   ► That sucks.

00:33:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm very sad.

00:34:01 ◼   ► I really do feel so bad for you because I just,

00:34:05 ◼   ► as I said earlier, the idea of having thought about it

00:34:09 ◼   ► and saved up and then finally ordered and tracked

00:34:11 ◼   ► and received this thing only to have it then just be broken,

00:34:14 ◼   ► it's such a damper on what should be the exciting time

00:34:18 ◼   ► that you finally got.

00:34:20 ◼   ► You paid for it, you waited patiently, you got it.

00:34:23 ◼   ► - Like I said, as silly as it is,

00:34:25 ◼   ► one of the things I was most excited for

00:34:27 ◼   ► was to say to the two of you, guess what?

00:34:30 ◼   ► - Right.

00:34:31 ◼   ► of my new iMac. Like I said, when I was doing all of this installation, I already had my

00:34:36 ◼   ► mic connected because there's no reason not to. And then, never mind. Sad times. So anyway,

00:34:43 ◼   ► we've talked about this far too long. We should probably do some follow-up, especially since

00:34:47 ◼   ► we have a fair bit of it. But I appreciate you indulging me, and next week we will have

00:34:52 ◼   ► some amount of follow-up. Either I returned it, or maybe I got it repaired. We'll see

00:34:57 ◼   ► what happens but we'll follow back up next week.

00:35:00 ◼   ► Before you move on, do you want to preemptively apologize to Declan for his bad Minecraft 2.3 frame rates?

00:35:07 ◼   ► [laughter]

00:35:09 ◼   ► Well, given that he's, what, 14 and a half months now, I'm not too worried about that.

00:35:14 ◼   ► I said Minecraft 2.3. By the time he reaches Minecraft age, you'll still have that computer,

00:35:18 ◼   ► he'll be using it, and the new version of Minecraft will probably not get great frame rates,

00:35:22 ◼   ► and he'll ask why, and then you'll have to explain to him, "Daddy didn't want the good graphics card."

00:35:27 ◼   ► Do you really think the good graphics card would make a difference when he's playing a game on a seven-year-old computer?

00:35:32 ◼   ► I think it will because Minecraft is like I assume there will be no Minecraft 2, but who knows at that point in his life

00:35:38 ◼   ► but minecraft does can be surprisingly demanding if you crank everything up to max on my

00:35:44 ◼   ► 5k iMac which has the best video card that you can get in that particular machine

00:35:48 ◼   ► You can make it chug occasionally like it can happen

00:35:51 ◼   ► You know obviously he's not gonna have the graphics settings max

00:35:54 ◼   ► But I think even at standard graphics settings with a reasonable draw distance, by the time

00:36:00 ◼   ► he is of age and Minecraft has evolved to have slightly fancier graphics perhaps, it's

00:36:04 ◼   ► not going to get great frame rates.

00:36:07 ◼   ► And someone's going to have to answer for that.

00:36:09 ◼   ► And I guess I'll explain it to him if you don't want to.

00:36:11 ◼   ► Because it's not like you're going to get rid of that beautiful screen.

00:36:13 ◼   ► Like you're going to use that thing for as like it'll be a viable computer for a really

00:36:17 ◼   ► long time, except maybe for Minecraft.

00:36:19 ◼   ► Okay, first of all, I need to teach you guys about selling computers while they're still

00:36:23 ◼   ► worth something.

00:36:24 ◼   ► Second of all, I love, Jon, that you assume there might not be a Minecraft 2.

00:36:31 ◼   ► I know, Microsoft bought them, I understand.

00:36:34 ◼   ► It's a billion dollar business.

00:36:36 ◼   ► There will definitely be a Minecraft 2.

00:36:38 ◼   ► It might not be good, and it might not be for a while, but there will definitely be

00:36:42 ◼   ► a Minecraft 2.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Well, it's already on the App Store, did you see it?

00:36:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:47 ◼   ► Alright, no, I mean, put it this way.

00:36:49 ◼   ► If Notch still owned it, I mean, there should have already been a Minecraft 2 and 3, but

00:36:53 ◼   ► wasn't because the company and the person who owned it just continued to revise the

00:36:57 ◼   ► program and continued to sell the original program.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Now that Microsoft owns it, you're right, there will surely be a Minecraft 2 at some

00:37:05 ◼   ► point, but I'm not quite sure when that will be.

00:37:08 ◼   ► It could be borderline.

00:37:10 ◼   ► I don't know what kind of priority it is for them to get their Minecraft 2 out versus just

00:37:16 ◼   ► revising and continuing to sell Minecraft on every single new platform.

00:37:19 ◼   ► Because they are selling the same game over and over again.

00:37:21 ◼   ► They'll sell it on PS4, they'll sell it, well, you know, less so now, but they'll sell it

00:37:24 ◼   ► on Xbox One, they'll sell it on the PC version, they'll probably sell a Windows Phone version,

00:37:29 ◼   ► you know, they'll sell, they keep selling the iOS version.

00:37:33 ◼   ► So I don't know if there, there is a burning need to make Minecraft 2 before Declan reaches

00:37:38 ◼   ► that age, but we'll see.

00:37:39 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Blue Apron, helping you cook better at home.

00:37:43 ◼   ► Go to BlueApron.com/ATP to get your first two meals for free.

00:37:47 ◼   ► Now look, you need to know how to cook.

00:37:49 ◼   ► Not only should you know your way around the kitchen, but cooking at home means eating

00:37:52 ◼   ► healthier and saving money instead of ordering an expensive unhealthy takeout every night.

00:37:57 ◼   ► But where do you start?

00:37:58 ◼   ► Blue Apron has you covered.

00:37:59 ◼   ► For less than $10 per meal, they deliver all the fresh ingredients you need to create home-cooked

00:38:04 ◼   ► meals.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Just follow the easy step-by-step instructions they give you for each recipe, with pictures

00:38:08 ◼   ► of every step right on the recipe cards so you can see exactly what it's supposed to

00:38:11 ◼   ► look like.

00:38:12 ◼   ► It comes with exactly the ingredients you need.

00:38:14 ◼   ► There's no like massive amount of extra like some herb that you need to throw away in a

00:38:18 ◼   ► week when it goes rotten. Regardless of your dietary preferences, they have lots of options.

00:38:22 ◼   ► They make it a breeze to discover and prepare dishes right in your own kitchen. So this

00:38:27 ◼   ► week they have things like Garganelli pasta and tomato sauce with fresh mozzarella and

00:38:31 ◼   ► arugula orange salad. That's a mouthful, literally. And buffalo chicken sandwiches with endive

00:38:37 ◼   ► and blue cheese salad. You'll also cook with ingredients that you've probably never used

00:38:41 ◼   ► before, like this week's poblano chili or baby bok choy or pearl onions. Now all these

00:38:46 ◼   ► All these recipes are between 500 and 700 calories

00:38:49 ◼   ► per portion, so it's really delicious and good for you.

00:38:52 ◼   ► Right now, you can get your first two meals for free

00:38:55 ◼   ► at blueapron.com/atp.

00:38:57 ◼   ► That's blueapron.com/atp.

00:39:00 ◼   ► Blue Apron, a better way to cook.

00:39:02 ◼   ► I am still thinking about that Thai soup

00:39:03 ◼   ► they had like two months ago.

00:39:04 ◼   ► Man, that was good.

00:39:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, it's funny you bring that up.

00:39:07 ◼   ► So as part of Blue Apron sponsoring us,

00:39:09 ◼   ► they gave us a few weeks of free meals.

00:39:11 ◼   ► And I have been wanting to try Blue Apron

00:39:14 ◼   ► for the longest time.

00:39:15 ◼   ► It took us all of one week for Aaron and I to look at each other and say, "This might

00:39:18 ◼   ► be worth it, because this is really, really, really good."

00:39:22 ◼   ► And tonight we had Korean—and I'm going to butcher this—Korean T'yak and spicy

00:39:26 ◼   ► pork ragu.

00:39:28 ◼   ► And this was one of those things that it's not totally out of our comfort zone, but not

00:39:32 ◼   ► in our comfort zone, if that makes sense.

00:39:35 ◼   ► And oh man, was it really good.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And last week was our first week.

00:39:39 ◼   ► We had a few different things and they were all good.

00:39:41 ◼   ► No, I'm really loving Blue Apron so far,

00:39:44 ◼   ► and I think it's a pretty much done deal

00:39:47 ◼   ► that Aaron and I are gonna end up signing up

00:39:49 ◼   ► and actually using our own money to pay for it,

00:39:51 ◼   ► 'cause it's awesome.

00:39:52 ◼   ► - Casey, we had the same dinner today.

00:39:54 ◼   ► - Oh, did we?

00:39:55 ◼   ► Oh, that's delightful.

00:39:55 ◼   ► - I had the exact same thing.

00:39:56 ◼   ► I had the exact same Blue Apron meal, yeah.

00:39:59 ◼   ► - Did you like it?

00:39:59 ◼   ► - I did.

00:40:00 ◼   ► It was one of my favorite ones that I've had so far.

00:40:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, same here.

00:40:03 ◼   ► It was one of those things where we were both like,

00:40:05 ◼   ► "Yeah, we'll try it.

00:40:06 ◼   ► "We'll see how it goes."

00:40:07 ◼   ► And then Aaron and I looked at each other

00:40:08 ◼   ► after having had a few bites,

00:40:09 ◼   ► We were like, "Wow, is this good!

00:40:12 ◼   ► We didn't expect it!"

00:40:13 ◼   ► Yeah, I found that I've not been able to predict ahead of time which ones I'm going to like

00:40:17 ◼   ► and which ones I'm not going to, mostly because they're so varied that you really have no

00:40:25 ◼   ► baseline to say, "Well, I like that.

00:40:27 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:40:28 ◼   ► I've never had anything like that before."

00:40:30 ◼   ► The other thing—this is getting out of the Ed

00:40:36 ◼   ► Read, but into Blue Apron hacks.

00:40:37 ◼   ► I don't know if this is a thing that people do.

00:40:38 ◼   ► So say you sign up for Blue Apron and you do it for a while, and it's interesting.

00:40:39 ◼   ► reasons I think you should do it even if you just do it for a short time is just to see

00:40:43 ◼   ► it try a bunch of different new foods or whatever and they give you like they give you the ingredients

00:40:47 ◼   ► and they also give you like oh it's always one page marker would know like a one page

00:40:51 ◼   ► thing on how to cook it. I've never seen it be more than one page it's always been it's

00:40:55 ◼   ► always one sheet of paper with about eight steps in the back. Right and it has the ingredients

00:40:59 ◼   ► on the other side right? Well the front of it has like a big picture and then it lists

00:41:02 ◼   ► the ingredients and then the back of it has like like a two column grid of instructions

00:41:06 ◼   ► with photos at each step.

00:41:08 ◼   ► - Right, so when you're done with Blue Apron,

00:41:09 ◼   ► say you decide not to pay for it anymore,

00:41:11 ◼   ► you still have all those recipes.

00:41:13 ◼   ► So if you liked one of them, in theory,

00:41:15 ◼   ► you could go and make it yourself.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Go buy the ingredients yourself.

00:41:17 ◼   ► I mean, you're not gonna get the perfect little portions

00:41:19 ◼   ► that Blue Apron gave you,

00:41:20 ◼   ► so you'll have to adjust the amounts

00:41:21 ◼   ► and maybe you'll have leftovers

00:41:22 ◼   ► and maybe you will have that rotting herbs

00:41:24 ◼   ► in the refrigerator.

00:41:27 ◼   ► But you can make these again yourself.

00:41:29 ◼   ► Like, there's no reason.

00:41:30 ◼   ► Like, if you find one that's a super favorite,

00:41:32 ◼   ► just add it to your collection of things

00:41:33 ◼   ► that you regularly make for yourself.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, we've been with Blue Aprons for, I don't know,

00:41:37 ◼   ► maybe six months now?

00:41:39 ◼   ► Long before they were a sponsor, we've been using them.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And we've been doing that since the start.

00:41:43 ◼   ► We've collected all the recipes we like,

00:41:45 ◼   ► we just have this giant stack of them

00:41:47 ◼   ► accumulating on our bookshelf.

00:41:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah. - Yeah.

00:41:49 ◼   ► And the problem I had though, I wanted to make the awesome,

00:41:52 ◼   ► I think it's like chicken kasoule or something, I'm sorry,

00:41:54 ◼   ► I forgot exactly what the name of it is,

00:41:57 ◼   ► but it's this awesome chicken Thai soup.

00:41:59 ◼   ► And I tried to go buy the ingredients for it last week,

00:42:01 ◼   ► and just like, my store had almost none of them.

00:42:05 ◼   ► But yeah, we've been using it a long time,

00:42:08 ◼   ► and that should tell you all you need to know.

00:42:09 ◼   ► I mean, we keep using it.

00:42:10 ◼   ► What I like about it, this is way too long

00:42:12 ◼   ► for a sponsor, Reid, but sorry.

00:42:13 ◼   ► What I like about it is that the reason we did it

00:42:16 ◼   ► was that we don't like to have to think about

00:42:19 ◼   ► what are we making this week,

00:42:20 ◼   ► and then plan a huge version of this.

00:42:22 ◼   ► We lasted two weeks trying to do that,

00:42:24 ◼   ► and every six months we would try to do that again,

00:42:26 ◼   ► and we would just fail so soon afterwards.

00:42:28 ◼   ► They'd take all the decision-making out of it for you,

00:42:31 ◼   ► which is really nice when you just don't wanna have

00:42:34 ◼   ► make all of these decisions about what are we having every single night, you know? So

00:42:38 ◼   ► it's really nice for that.

00:42:39 ◼   ► So, the chat room says the recipes are actually available online for free. Blueapron.com/cookbook.

00:42:45 ◼   ► And also their logo looks like Totoro. So there you go. What more could you ask for?

00:42:48 ◼   ► All right. So…

00:42:49 ◼   ► All right. So we should do some follow-up. And we have a fair bit, so let's buckle

00:42:54 ◼   ► up kids. Let's start with—we talked about Plex a little bit last episode in—or maybe

00:42:59 ◼   ► it was the episode before, but regardless, we got a lot of people writing in to ask,

00:43:03 ◼   ► Have you tried Infuse for the Apple TV?

00:43:06 ◼   ► And we'll have a link in the show notes.

00:43:08 ◼   ► The idea with Infuse is that it's somewhat Plex-like in

00:43:11 ◼   ► that it will auto discover metadata about your media

00:43:16 ◼   ► collection.

00:43:17 ◼   ► So it'll show you your list of movies with movie posters and

00:43:21 ◼   ► things of that nature.

00:43:23 ◼   ► But the real kick and the party trick that Infuse has,

00:43:28 ◼   ► from what I've gathered, is that it will actually do the

00:43:31 ◼   ► transcoding on your device.

00:43:33 ◼   ► So really, there's no reason that you couldn't just sit a

00:43:38 ◼   ► bunch of files on an underpowered Synology and let

00:43:44 ◼   ► Infuse just look at it and then do the transcoding right

00:43:47 ◼   ► on the Apple TV.

00:43:48 ◼   ► That is excellent, and it sounds great.

00:43:50 ◼   ► I haven't tried it yet, but it does sound good.

00:43:52 ◼   ► The problem I have with this, though, is that it doesn't

00:43:53 ◼   ► solve a couple of the other problems that Plex does fix,

00:43:59 ◼   ► which is, number one, it doesn't give you external access to your media. So one of the

00:44:03 ◼   ► greatest pieces of Plex is that you can get to your media from outside of your home if

00:44:08 ◼   ► you set it up properly. And secondly, you can't share other people's libraries. So like

00:44:14 ◼   ► Marco and John and I, we have all shared our libraries with each other so that Marco, for

00:44:19 ◼   ► example, could stream one of the movies that I have—

00:44:22 ◼   ► John: Been doing it all week.

00:44:23 ◼   ► [laughs]

00:44:24 ◼   ► Steven: —from my house to his house.

00:44:25 ◼   ► John; We've been watching through your top gear.

00:44:27 ◼   ► Well, right, and the reason that it hasn't worked for the last 24 hours is because I

00:44:30 ◼   ► moved all my Plex stuff to the iMac that's now in my trunk. But anyway, so yeah, so it

00:44:36 ◼   ► doesn't do that. It doesn't do external access and doesn't do sharing.

00:44:38 ◼   ► Yeah, I tried Infuse as soon as people suggested it, because I'll jump on top of anything.

00:44:41 ◼   ► Like, as soon as we talked about it, I don't know, it was like many, many shows ago. Like,

00:44:44 ◼   ► oh great, Infuse, I immediately bought the $10, like, pro version or whatever. Yes, sure,

00:44:49 ◼   ► come right on, I'll give it a try, sight unseen, you know, because I got two recommendations

00:44:52 ◼   ► from it from random strangers. But the whole reason the whole reason I wanted it, I'm trying

00:44:58 ◼   ► to support the app economy, the whole reason I wanted it was to... You're the one. I had this

00:45:02 ◼   ► file that I was trying to play that I had to eventually end up using my... This is one that

00:45:08 ◼   ► I had to use my iMac as the Plex server for because the iMac has no problem transcoding it.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Plex served from the iMac to my Apple TV was the only thing that played this thing with all,

00:45:18 ◼   ► you know, played it all period, but played it smoothly and everything. So I tried to

00:45:22 ◼   ► fuse, I immediately looked at those, that exact file, which turns out is, this is the

00:45:26 ◼   ► info from MPlayer, so I don't know how to parse it, but it's HEVC, which I think is

00:45:31 ◼   ► H.264, particular profile, 1920 by 1080, so 1080, I don't know if it's I or P, I assume

00:45:37 ◼   ► it's P, because it's all a video file. 24 frames per second, about 1100 kilobits per

00:45:43 ◼   ► second, two-track 48 kilohertz AAC audio, the Apple TV can't play without

00:45:50 ◼   ► stuttering. So if it's decoding it on the device, it can't handle this. So I

00:45:56 ◼   ► was sad because that was the one reason I bought it. But aside from that, it's a

00:46:00 ◼   ► reasonable way, like Casey said, if you have a whole bunch of folders full of

00:46:05 ◼   ► video files sitting somewhere on your network, this will go through the folders

00:46:09 ◼   ► and play stuff for you.

00:46:12 ◼   ► And so I'm not sad that I purchased it, I am sad that apparently their software combined

00:46:17 ◼   ► with the wimpy A8, relatively wimpy A8 CPU system on a chip thing inside my Apple TV

00:46:24 ◼   ► can't play this fairly demanding file.

00:46:27 ◼   ► And I already watched the whole show.

00:46:28 ◼   ► I watched it on my iPad by the way, because what I did was I went into Plex and finally,

00:46:31 ◼   ► I finally had to give in and say "fine Plex, you can optimize this" quote unquote "optimize

00:46:37 ◼   ► by re-encoding it to a smaller size, and then I watched it on my TV and on my iPad over

00:46:41 ◼   ► the course of a few days.

00:46:43 ◼   ► Wait, so you said this was HEVC video?

00:46:45 ◼   ► 'Cause that's H.265, that's kind of a big deal.

00:46:49 ◼   ► That's like, it's very reasonable to not be strong enough to play that.

00:46:52 ◼   ► Oh, well that's probably, it doesn't have the hardware?

00:46:55 ◼   ► I remember reading about some Apple thing that actually has H.265 hardware, but it isn't

00:47:00 ◼   ► actually used, but anyway, that would make sense in that, like, Infuse probably does

00:47:05 ◼   ► great because the aid has dedicated H.264 decode hardware.

00:47:09 ◼   ► But if it's not H.264 and instead it's H.265 and either the system on a chip doesn't have

00:47:13 ◼   ► hardware for it or the hardware isn't enabled by Apple's OS, then yeah, it would have to

00:47:18 ◼   ► be trying to do it all on the CPU and I can understand why it would choke to death.

00:47:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I also should point out that just earlier today I listened to MacPowerUser's episode

00:47:29 ◼   ► 299, which we will put a link in the show notes.

00:47:32 ◼   ► And if you've ever wanted an unbiased opinion about, or certainly not biased by me, opinion

00:47:37 ◼   ► about Plex, if you've wondered how to get started with it, if you've wondered what it

00:47:43 ◼   ► brings to the table, listen to Back Hour Users 299.

00:47:45 ◼   ► It's a really great episode that goes all into Plex.

00:47:48 ◼   ► So you should check that out.

00:47:49 ◼   ► Here's one more drive-by complaint about Plex, which I cannot believe that they don't do.

00:47:53 ◼   ► I just assume they did, and maybe I haven't found it yet.

00:47:55 ◼   ► So you have a blog post, which maybe you can link in the show notes, Casey, about like

00:47:58 ◼   ► introduction to Plex that you did a while ago, like how to name your files, linking

00:48:02 ◼   ► to like the Plex file naming guide and figuring out, I'm like, and I wondered when I read

00:48:06 ◼   ► that at the time, like, because I wasn't using Plex that much, I'm like, this seems weird,

00:48:10 ◼   ► mate. Why is he doing this? Just because like, Oh, if you want to have everything perfect,

00:48:13 ◼   ► just do it this way. But like surely there's a feature in this thing where you can essentially

00:48:16 ◼   ► just find some media that it either has shrugged its shoulders at or has misidentified and

00:48:21 ◼   ► say, Oh, well you got it wrong. And go in there and just type some random words in a

00:48:25 ◼   ► a search box until you find the search result you want and go, "Oh yeah, it's that one."

00:48:29 ◼   ► So like, say you mislabeled Star Wars or something and it's confused about what it is, and you're

00:48:34 ◼   ► like, "Oh, well, you don't know what this is because I have the files named weird or

00:48:37 ◼   ► whatever, so I'm just going to go in to your search box and type 'Star Wars' and see the

00:48:41 ◼   ► 8,000 results for Star Wars and find the one that is not the special edition but the original

00:48:45 ◼   ► 1977 version and just click on that one and say, 'Yeah, this is that one.'" Is that feature

00:48:49 ◼   ► not existent Plex? If it exists, I can't find it.

00:48:51 ◼   ► No, it does.

00:48:52 ◼   ► I can't find it.

00:48:53 ◼   ► - I swear it does, but I can't walk you through where it is

00:48:55 ◼   ► because my iMac is in my trunk right now.

00:48:58 ◼   ► - All right, well anyway, maybe I haven't found it yet,

00:48:59 ◼   ► but like every time I go to edit the metadata,

00:49:01 ◼   ► it's like, you know, if I name the file,

00:49:04 ◼   ► then yeah, we'll figure it out.

00:49:05 ◼   ► If I don't name the file right,

00:49:06 ◼   ► all I can do is like pick cover art and stuff.

00:49:08 ◼   ► If it is totally wrong about the metadata,

00:49:11 ◼   ► I can't do a search and say,

00:49:13 ◼   ► surely the database that you are using has this metadata

00:49:15 ◼   ► and that you're just not finding the right one.

00:49:17 ◼   ► So rather than me editing the individual metadata,

00:49:19 ◼   ► which I don't wanna do, I just wanna say,

00:49:21 ◼   ► let me do a search of your big database full of stuff,

00:49:24 ◼   ► like a pretty broad search,

00:49:26 ◼   ► and let me pick the blob of metadata

00:49:28 ◼   ► that I'm telling you is this one,

00:49:29 ◼   ► so that I can manually fix everything that I had.

00:49:31 ◼   ► Like, so that if I didn't know how to label,

00:49:33 ◼   ► like some, you know, special of a show,

00:49:36 ◼   ► like a Christmas special of a show,

00:49:37 ◼   ► that's not part of any particular season,

00:49:39 ◼   ► if I didn't know the secret season zero weird,

00:49:41 ◼   ► you know, convention they have,

00:49:43 ◼   ► I can be like, oh, well,

00:49:43 ◼   ► let me just do a chronological search

00:49:46 ◼   ► of the most recent episodes from this series,

00:49:48 ◼   ► and I will find whatever blob of metadata corresponds

00:49:51 ◼   ► to this and then click on it

00:49:52 ◼   ► and it will automatically label it as like season zero.

00:49:54 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, I would never figure that on my own.

00:49:57 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm still working through my Plex expertise.

00:50:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, you know, the thing with Plex is it's very

00:50:02 ◼   ► opinionated about file names and file conventions.

00:50:05 ◼   ► But once you understand its opinions,

00:50:07 ◼   ► it's actually very simple to work with.

00:50:09 ◼   ► And that's what my blog post was about.

00:50:11 ◼   ► I am almost positive the feature that you're talking about,

00:50:13 ◼   ► John, about fixing mismatches, I'm almost sure it's there,

00:50:17 ◼   ► but I don't want to say that for certainty

00:50:19 ◼   ► because I can't try it right now,

00:50:21 ◼   ► because again, my Plex server is currently

00:50:22 ◼   ► in the trunk of my car.

00:50:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll keep looking for it,

00:50:25 ◼   ► but the thing with the opinionated naming,

00:50:28 ◼   ► its opinions are wrong, so.

00:50:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:30 ◼   ► I refuse to comply.

00:50:31 ◼   ► I know the naming scheme now.

00:50:33 ◼   ► I've read the documentation,

00:50:34 ◼   ► but there's no way in hell I'm putting a year in parentheses

00:50:36 ◼   ► at the end of my movies or television shows, no.

00:50:39 ◼   ► And I object to season zero.

00:50:41 ◼   ► I don't like it.

00:50:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:43 ◼   ► - For the record, season zero for TV shows,

00:50:46 ◼   ► specials. So like the Top Gear Polar special, for example, would be a season zero entry.

00:50:51 ◼   ► Anyway, we have a fair bit of feedback about Swift and Default Final, and I'm stunned.

00:50:57 ◼   ► I'm flabbergasted. It appears that Marco has done some homework and has put something

00:51:01 ◼   ► in the show notes.

00:51:02 ◼   ► I flagged an email, yeah.

00:51:03 ◼   ► Wow.

00:51:04 ◼   ► Yeah, I hit three keys to make this happen.

00:51:05 ◼   ► Are you okay? Do you feel all right?

00:51:07 ◼   ► No.

00:51:08 ◼   ► All right, so this was feedback from Nick Matsakis from a longer email. It's very

00:51:15 ◼   ► very thoughtful. I'm going to read just a quote here. He said, so we were talking about

00:51:18 ◼   ► Swift basically having classes be default final as a proposed change to the language

00:51:24 ◼   ► during the revolution. That's kind of a debate raging on right now. And this would mean basically

00:51:28 ◼   ► that by default classes couldn't be sub-classed. That you could, sub-classing would still exist

00:51:33 ◼   ► in the language but the default, unless the class was specially marked with whatever keyword

00:51:38 ◼   ► would say, you know, extensible or whatever, the default would be you can't sub-class things.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Nick says, "The late 80s and early 90s were the heyday for object-oriented programming,

00:51:48 ◼   ► and in languages designed in that time, like C++, Objective-C, and Java, it was taken as

00:51:52 ◼   ► a given that subclassing was a good thing and should be used pervasively. However, a

00:51:56 ◼   ► couple of decades of experiences with such languages has led to two key insights I think

00:52:00 ◼   ► we've learned as an industry. The first is that in order to write classes that can be

00:52:03 ◼   ► robustly extended through inheritance, allowing both the base and derived classes to evolve

00:52:08 ◼   ► with minimal risk of breaking each other, see also the fragile base class problem, careful

00:52:12 ◼   ► for consideration should be given at the time the class is designed and written. I think

00:52:16 ◼   ► this argues for default closed. I think we've learned an even more important lesson though,

00:52:20 ◼   ► which is that class inheritance should be thought of as a limited tool to solve a prescribed

00:52:24 ◼   ► set of problems, not a general mechanism for code reuse. So this makes a lot of sense to

00:52:30 ◼   ► me. Like this, I totally agree with Nick. You know, I think I kind of breezed by when

00:52:34 ◼   ► we were talking about this last week, a quick statement of basically saying like I think

00:52:38 ◼   ► we've seen a lot of anti-patterns and dysfunction

00:52:40 ◼   ► that subclassing everywhere can bring,

00:52:43 ◼   ► and some of the challenges it brings, some of the,

00:52:45 ◼   ► I think I agree that what we've seen

00:52:48 ◼   ► is that it basically shouldn't be the default

00:52:50 ◼   ► that's everywhere, and the Java people

00:52:53 ◼   ► will have to find a different way to program, I guess.

00:52:56 ◼   ► And they can, and the PHP people

00:52:58 ◼   ► have to find somebody else to copy.

00:53:00 ◼   ► - This is actually a pretty old nugget of wisdom,

00:53:04 ◼   ► the whole, the downsides of subclassing.

00:53:07 ◼   ► And you can tell it's old because Objective-C is,

00:53:12 ◼   ► in many ways, a reaction to it.

00:53:13 ◼   ► Objective-C is like 1989-ish.

00:53:15 ◼   ► Like it is itself a very old language.

00:53:17 ◼   ► And not Objective-C so much,

00:53:19 ◼   ► but like the frameworks built on it,

00:53:20 ◼   ► AppKit or whatever it was called.

00:53:22 ◼   ► I think it was maybe it was always called AppKit.

00:53:23 ◼   ► But anyway, the next step frameworks,

00:53:27 ◼   ► especially the UI frameworks, use delegation a lot,

00:53:30 ◼   ► a lot more than contemporary frameworks

00:53:33 ◼   ► for doing similar things that were all about subclassing.

00:53:35 ◼   ► They were either functional,

00:53:36 ◼   ► in which case they didn't have object classes at all,

00:53:39 ◼   ► or they were enamored of the idea of subclassing.

00:53:42 ◼   ► But the next APIs and frameworks

00:53:45 ◼   ► heavily use delegation patterns to avoid subclassing

00:53:49 ◼   ► and to say this is a better way.

00:53:50 ◼   ► That way we have understandable individual objects

00:53:53 ◼   ► that just use each other to do things.

00:53:55 ◼   ► And the way you alter behavior

00:53:57 ◼   ► is by giving it a different delegate.

00:53:59 ◼   ► I mean, hell, that's essentially,

00:54:01 ◼   ► Marco can correct me if I'm wrong,

00:54:03 ◼   ► the next equivalent of like, you know,

00:54:06 ◼   ► you don't write a main routine,

00:54:07 ◼   ► there is a main routine obviously,

00:54:08 ◼   ► but your app delegate is basically your application.

00:54:12 ◼   ► Am I correct in my vague understanding

00:54:14 ◼   ► of the Cocoa frameworks?

00:54:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, you don't subclass UI application.

00:54:19 ◼   ► You provide an app delegate that conforms to the protocol

00:54:22 ◼   ► and you get messages delivered there

00:54:23 ◼   ► and if you don't pay attention it bloats over time

00:54:26 ◼   ► and eventually all of the code in your app

00:54:28 ◼   ► is in the app delegate.

00:54:29 ◼   ► - Well, that's like writing all of your code in main,

00:54:31 ◼   ► like a rookie mistake, right?

00:54:33 ◼   ► But yeah, but like so even like the very simplest starting

00:54:38 ◼   ► point of your program is done through delegation.

00:54:40 ◼   ► And lots of the UI frameworks are done through delegation.

00:54:43 ◼   ► And then delegation eventually--

00:54:47 ◼   ► not specifically delegation, but trying to avoid inheritance

00:54:51 ◼   ► can lead you to a sort of the inversion of a control pattern,

00:54:55 ◼   ► which can get kind of weird and nasty,

00:54:57 ◼   ► speaking of Java, where you're trying to use composition

00:55:00 ◼   ► instead of inheritance, but you want

00:55:01 ◼   ► to give people access to the different pieces that get composed into the whole, and so your

00:55:07 ◼   ► entire program is dictating what things are composed into what to get your classes into

00:55:12 ◼   ► the parts we need to go.

00:55:13 ◼   ► Anyway, any sort of code reuse, essentially, technology, a code reuse technique, whether

00:55:19 ◼   ► it's inheritance or delegation or composition or any of the other patterns in the little

00:55:22 ◼   ► big pattern of books, can go awry.

00:55:24 ◼   ► But I think pretty early on in the histriology-oriented programming, the downsides of inheritance

00:55:31 ◼   ► clear and anything that came after that sort of understanding has tried to do something

00:55:36 ◼   ► different including the things that were the precursors to the frameworks that Apple now

00:55:40 ◼   ► uses.

00:55:41 ◼   ► But we were talking about in the context of like even AppKit and UIKit and all these frameworks

00:55:44 ◼   ► that use delegation patterns as application programmers often use subclass either because

00:55:50 ◼   ► that's the intended use of the thing still in some cases or because you like that thing

00:55:55 ◼   ► but you just want it to be a little bit different or you need to just override this but just

00:55:59 ◼   ► You know, like, because it's possible, it is a tool that's in the tool belt of programmers

00:56:03 ◼   ► to get what they want out of frameworks, whether or not their framework really ever intended

00:56:06 ◼   ► you to subclass that thing.

00:56:08 ◼   ► Yep.

00:56:09 ◼   ► All right.

00:56:10 ◼   ► So another thing that was written in Andreas Hartl, he made some great points about mocking

00:56:16 ◼   ► using Swift.

00:56:17 ◼   ► He said there's another unforeseen consequence of going final by default.

00:56:21 ◼   ► Tests that could have used mocks to ensure their framework method was called can't do

00:56:25 ◼   ► that anymore.

00:56:26 ◼   ► because mocks rely on subclassing to replace all API functionality with noops.

00:56:30 ◼   ► I'm not going to get into what mocking is if you're not familiar with it, but suffice

00:56:34 ◼   ► to say that in the last couple of years I've really gotten into unit testing, like formal

00:56:40 ◼   ► unit testing, and mocking is kind of your path to happiness there.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And it's what really made me understand why designing to interfaces or protocols, if you

00:56:49 ◼   ► will, is really kind of the right idea.

00:56:52 ◼   ► And that's not an insignificant problem

00:56:54 ◼   ► if this is the way that Swift goes.

00:56:57 ◼   ► So I thought that was a very astute point.

00:56:59 ◼   ► - It seems like it's a not insignificant problem to me

00:57:01 ◼   ► because I assume there would always be a compiler mode

00:57:05 ◼   ► that says disregard the final keyword.

00:57:07 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

00:57:07 ◼   ► Like for when you run your unit tests,

00:57:10 ◼   ► don't seal anything up as final

00:57:12 ◼   ► because it shouldn't affect functionality.

00:57:14 ◼   ► Maybe you would disable some optimizations

00:57:16 ◼   ► and maybe you wouldn't have a bug for bug compatible thing

00:57:18 ◼   ► in terms of maybe there's like a bug in the compiler

00:57:20 ◼   ► because the optimization goes awry,

00:57:22 ◼   ► but it seems trivial to me to have a compiler option

00:57:26 ◼   ► that says either just ignore final entirely,

00:57:31 ◼   ► like don't seal up any classes,

00:57:32 ◼   ► or change what the default is,

00:57:35 ◼   ► or something like that that allows you

00:57:36 ◼   ► to mock in your unit tests.

00:57:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, that's an interesting point.

00:57:40 ◼   ► I don't know how that would be handled.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Moving on, Neil Cronin was one of a few people

00:57:45 ◼   ► to write in and point out the error in what I,

00:57:47 ◼   ► or potential error in what I had said.

00:57:48 ◼   ► I don't recall exactly how I'd phrase things,

00:57:50 ◼   ► but it sounds like I probably got it a little wrong.

00:57:53 ◼   ► He pointed out that C# methods are final by default,

00:57:58 ◼   ► but classes are not.

00:58:00 ◼   ► And so I think I might have interspersed classes and methods

00:58:03 ◼   ► a little bit last episode, but to be absolutely clear,

00:58:06 ◼   ► classes are not final by default, but methods are.

00:58:09 ◼   ► So that's my bad on that.

00:58:11 ◼   ► We'll have a link in the show notes to that.

00:58:13 ◼   ► Also, Chris D.,

00:58:16 ◼   ► I'm not gonna even try to pronounce your surname.

00:58:19 ◼   ► - Zomback, I mean, I go with Zomback.

00:58:21 ◼   ► - Okay, there you go.

00:58:23 ◼   ► Pointed out that you can do something like final

00:58:25 ◼   ► and Objective-C with a couple of fancy compiler directives.

00:58:30 ◼   ► - You put enough underscores and anything is possible in C/C++.

00:58:35 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:35 ◼   ► Underscore, underscore, attribute, underscore, underscore,

00:58:38 ◼   ► double open parens, objc, subclassing restricted,

00:58:41 ◼   ► double close parens.

00:58:43 ◼   ► Yes, there are so many attributes you can add.

00:58:46 ◼   ► You could annotate all your things with nullability information for the Swift bridging and you

00:58:50 ◼   ► can say Objective-C subclassing restricted.

00:58:54 ◼   ► That's from Jesse Squires, gave that little attribute.

00:58:56 ◼   ► Yikes.

00:58:57 ◼   ► Goodness.

00:58:58 ◼   ► All right, and then one of you guys wanted to talk about Rust versus Swift versus Go.

00:59:03 ◼   ► Yeah, that was me.

00:59:05 ◼   ► The Rust people have come out to defend the honor of their language and to differentiate

00:59:10 ◼   ► it from those other things, Go and Swift.

00:59:12 ◼   ► we were talking about, the languages that are kind of in a little group of these static

00:59:17 ◼   ► compiled languages with an eye towards being a better C++ without all the downsides of

00:59:24 ◼   ► C or C++, you know, being like Swift essentially.

00:59:29 ◼   ► And Benjamin Sago, yes, points out that Rust—I mean, I think we mentioned in the show, but

00:59:35 ◼   ► he's emphasized by a lot of Rust people—Rust is not garbage collected.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Go uses garbage collector at runtime, Swift of course uses reference counting.

00:59:43 ◼   ► That means there are programs you can write in Rust that you couldn't write in Swift or

00:59:46 ◼   ► Go, such as graphics intensive game, a browser engine, an OS or device driver or a garbage

00:59:50 ◼   ► collector, anything that has to interact with the language that has its own garbage collector.

00:59:53 ◼   ► Now I would imagine the Swift people at the very least would object to the idea that you

00:59:58 ◼   ► can't write a graphics intensive game or browser engine or an OS because those are some of

01:00:02 ◼   ► the stated goals of Swift.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Oh yeah, I would even object to his characterization of reference counting as a form of garbage

01:00:08 ◼   ► collection.

01:00:09 ◼   ► I don't think I agree with that.

01:00:10 ◼   ► >> But what he's talking about is like my understanding, I'm sure we'll get more email

01:00:14 ◼   ► about this with Russ because I haven't done enough of my homework, is that the way Russ

01:00:17 ◼   ► gets around not having a garbage collector and not doing reference counting is at compile

01:00:21 ◼   ► time it figures out what it has to do with memory rather than at run -- you know, in

01:00:29 ◼   ► other words, it's not like the thing against garbage collection we know is like at some

01:00:32 ◼   ► point you have to go wander all of your stuff and clean out the garbage and that takes time

01:00:36 ◼   ► and even if you do it on another thread,

01:00:39 ◼   ► at some point you may need to pause the program.

01:00:42 ◼   ► And if you don't need to pause it

01:00:43 ◼   ► and you have a pause-free garbage collection,

01:00:44 ◼   ► there's always some kind of overhead

01:00:46 ◼   ► of having to do the garbage collection

01:00:49 ◼   ► while your program is running.

01:00:51 ◼   ► And the SWIFT solution,

01:00:53 ◼   ► and the objective solution for that matter,

01:00:55 ◼   ► but the SWIFT solution is figure out,

01:00:59 ◼   ► use reference counting to figure out

01:01:00 ◼   ► when things aren't needed anymore

01:01:01 ◼   ► and put the reference count,

01:01:04 ◼   ► put the stuff that deals with the reference counting

01:01:05 ◼   ► in line with your program.

01:01:07 ◼   ► So while your program is running,

01:01:08 ◼   ► it will do this thing, do this thing,

01:01:10 ◼   ► increment this reference count,

01:01:11 ◼   ► do this thing, do this thing, do this thing,

01:01:12 ◼   ► decrement this reference count.

01:01:13 ◼   ► And like when the reference count goes to zero,

01:01:14 ◼   ► you can get rid of that memory.

01:01:18 ◼   ► So it's in line in your program.

01:01:20 ◼   ► It's actual code execution.

01:01:21 ◼   ► It's not another thread

01:01:22 ◼   ► running in a garbage collector or anything like that.

01:01:23 ◼   ► It's like, it's as if you had written in your program

01:01:25 ◼   ► in C parlance, you're writing malloc and free, right?

01:01:28 ◼   ► You know when you can free the memory

01:01:29 ◼   ► 'cause that's when you write the free thing.

01:01:30 ◼   ► And you know when you're allocating memory

01:01:32 ◼   ► 'cause you write malloc and you have to figure out,

01:01:34 ◼   ► Now, it's reference counting, but it's inline.

01:01:36 ◼   ► And so in some code, you don't want this bookkeeping

01:01:40 ◼   ► of incrementing and decrementing this number

01:01:42 ◼   ► to keep track of how many references there are to it.

01:01:45 ◼   ► You just don't.

01:01:46 ◼   ► Like when you're writing the kernel of an operating system

01:01:48 ◼   ► in C, most of the time, you're not

01:01:50 ◼   ► implementing your own reference counting system.

01:01:52 ◼   ► You're just putting the mallocs in the right place

01:01:53 ◼   ► and putting the threes in the right place.

01:01:54 ◼   ► Or if you're in a particular part of the kernel,

01:01:57 ◼   ► you can't use malloc or free.

01:01:59 ◼   ► You've got to do everything with wired down memory.

01:02:01 ◼   ► And so you can't have anything having to, you know,

01:02:04 ◼   ► like it's not appropriate to have automated

01:02:08 ◼   ► memory management in that way.

01:02:10 ◼   ► I would imagine the answer for Swift is

01:02:12 ◼   ► that you can write those parts of the program.

01:02:15 ◼   ► If you understand enough about how Swift manages memory,

01:02:18 ◼   ► even though you don't see any of the memory management,

01:02:20 ◼   ► you can do it in such a way that you know

01:02:22 ◼   ► that all of the silly reference counting,

01:02:25 ◼   ► increment decrement stuff will be removed by the optimizer

01:02:28 ◼   ► as no ops, because you know exactly how, you know,

01:02:30 ◼   ► how things are gonna get sorted out

01:02:32 ◼   ► and this thing will run straight through

01:02:33 ◼   ► without any memory access stuff.

01:02:34 ◼   ► But still Rust is heavily focused on the idea

01:02:37 ◼   ► that it does not use a garbage collector

01:02:39 ◼   ► and it doesn't use reference counting.

01:02:40 ◼   ► So it's really trying to be like C and C++.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Both of them do not have garbage collections

01:02:45 ◼   ► and they don't use reference counting

01:02:46 ◼   ► unless you write it yourself.

01:02:47 ◼   ► So Rust is definitely a closer match

01:02:51 ◼   ► to a replacement for those programs.

01:02:53 ◼   ► And I do believe that there are probably some programs,

01:02:55 ◼   ► especially now with Swift as young as it is,

01:02:59 ◼   ► that could be written in Rust

01:03:00 ◼   ► could not be written as efficiently in Swift. But long term, I think that'll be quite a battle.

01:03:04 ◼   ► All right. Anything else about Swift? Please no.

01:03:08 ◼   ► All right. How about MagSafe and USB-C ports? Last episode, I think, we were talking about

01:03:16 ◼   ► the MacBook One connector with that MagSafe adapter that fits in the little USB-C port on

01:03:22 ◼   ► the side and whether it was really necessary. And none of us had MacBook Ones that we had tripped

01:03:26 ◼   ► over or yanked the cord out of, and I said I thought that nobody had done that experiment.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Well, Glenn Fleischmann didn't do the experiment, but did delve into the science behind the

01:03:36 ◼   ► USB-C connector to try to figure out, with a thought experiment and some basic physics

01:03:42 ◼   ► calculations and some numbers from the USB-C spec, what would happen if you tripped over

01:03:47 ◼   ► a MacBook One cord that was plugged in, as compared to what would happen if it had a

01:03:51 ◼   ► MagSafe connector.

01:03:52 ◼   ► And the conclusion of this article, which again, this is an older article, might have

01:03:55 ◼   ► been even before the MacBook One was out, but it had been announced obviously, was that

01:04:00 ◼   ► your laptop will fall on the ground.

01:04:02 ◼   ► That yes, you totally can pull a MacBook One off of a surface onto the ground by tripping

01:04:07 ◼   ► over the cord just based on the forces involved and the speed of the yanking and the angle

01:04:15 ◼   ► and all these other things.

01:04:16 ◼   ► You can read the article to find out.

01:04:18 ◼   ► Perhaps not as good as actually doing the experiment, perhaps not as good as a bunch

01:04:21 ◼   ► of people who own MacBook Ones having their children trip over the cords and find out

01:04:25 ◼   ► what happens, but so far no one has written in about that happening, so all we have is

01:04:28 ◼   ► this speculation by Glenn Fleischman. But there you go, there's an answer.

01:04:31 ◼   ► All right, and why don't you tell us about UpThere and whether or not they use AWS?

01:04:35 ◼   ► Yeah, just a quickie follow-up. Last time, someone had said they used AWS, and UpThere

01:04:40 ◼   ► had replied on Twitter, "No, we don't. We host all our own stuff." And so a couple

01:04:43 ◼   ► people went back and forth on Twitter trying to figure out, well, then why is UpThere connecting

01:04:47 ◼   ► to AWS? And a theory was that it was because of Crashlytics, which was a crash reporting

01:04:51 ◼   ► thing, and up there confirmed they do use Crashlytics and Crashlytics said if you use

01:04:57 ◼   ► Crashlytics you will connect to AWS, so there's your answer to why up there is connecting

01:05:01 ◼   ► to AWS, it's for Crashlytics.

01:05:04 ◼   ► Excellent.

01:05:05 ◼   ► That's the magic of Twitter by the way, random podcast that we do, random listener of the

01:05:10 ◼   ► podcast uses a little snitch software to say they saw it connecting to AWS, and then the

01:05:15 ◼   ► three companies that replied, the three sort of corporate Twitter accounts, the little

01:05:19 ◼   ► Snatch account, the Crashlytics account, and the UpThere account. It's the magic of Twitter.

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01:07:24 ◼   ► - Excellent.

01:07:25 ◼   ► So you went to a tech talk?

01:07:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, I went yesterday to the Apple TV tech talk

01:07:30 ◼   ► in New York.

01:07:31 ◼   ► So the tech talks are basically,

01:07:32 ◼   ► Apple goes around the country

01:07:33 ◼   ► with the developer relations team,

01:07:36 ◼   ► maybe not every year, maybe every couple of years,

01:07:38 ◼   ► it depends on like when they can do it,

01:07:39 ◼   ► but they basically send the team around,

01:07:41 ◼   ► kind of as like a halfway point between WWDCs.

01:07:46 ◼   ► And they put on these little,

01:07:47 ◼   ► it's basically a one day mini WWDC

01:07:51 ◼   ► that is usually focused on just one relatively new platform.

01:07:56 ◼   ► So I went to one a few years ago that was just for iOS.

01:07:58 ◼   ► I believe last year, I might have watched one, I forget,

01:08:01 ◼   ► but this year they're doing Apple TV tech talks.

01:08:04 ◼   ► And so it's free, it's one day,

01:08:06 ◼   ► you sign up, it's just picked by lottery,

01:08:08 ◼   ► and it's in a bunch of cities around the world,

01:08:11 ◼   ► and you just go and it's in like a hotel meeting room

01:08:14 ◼   ► or whatever, it looks exactly like mini WWDC.

01:08:18 ◼   ► It's great and very well presented,

01:08:20 ◼   ► high quality presentations,

01:08:22 ◼   ► but only like a few hundred people in attendance

01:08:25 ◼   ► rather than 5,000 in the giant Moscone Center.

01:08:27 ◼   ► So it's a nice small scale, you actually get to talk

01:08:31 ◼   ► to the Apple people and meet other developers

01:08:33 ◼   ► on a nicer, smaller, shorter,

01:08:36 ◼   ► and way less expensive scale.

01:08:38 ◼   ► So I went and it was great.

01:08:40 ◼   ► I still am not entirely convinced

01:08:44 ◼   ► that I want to be developing for the Apple TV yet.

01:08:46 ◼   ► I would like to do it sometime.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I'm not sure that time is now.

01:08:50 ◼   ► I'm very excited to develop for it.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I just, I don't know.

01:08:54 ◼   ► I'm not seeing the market demand for it yet, really.

01:08:59 ◼   ► So if you really want overcast on the Apple TV,

01:09:01 ◼   ► I guess let me know, but right now,

01:09:04 ◼   ► I just haven't heard from enough people

01:09:06 ◼   ► who really want that, and other things,

01:09:08 ◼   ► I think, are more important for now.

01:09:10 ◼   ► But I do look forward to it.

01:09:11 ◼   ► It's a great platform.

01:09:13 ◼   ► And the talks were all about basically

01:09:17 ◼   ► video playback and games.

01:09:19 ◼   ► Like that was like the main areas that they focused on.

01:09:21 ◼   ► Because that is what the Apple TV is best at,

01:09:23 ◼   ► video playback and games.

01:09:25 ◼   ► As an audio only podcast app,

01:09:27 ◼   ► I'm not sure there's much for me to do there

01:09:29 ◼   ► besides get people's audio into their

01:09:33 ◼   ► like home theater system.

01:09:33 ◼   ► Which people do occasionally request,

01:09:35 ◼   ► but it doesn't seem like there's much demand for me there.

01:09:38 ◼   ► But we will see.

01:09:39 ◼   ► IOS 9.3 and tvOS, whatever, is it also 9.3?

01:09:42 ◼   ► The new beta that we should talk about.

01:09:44 ◼   ► They added a podcast app,

01:09:46 ◼   ► like their own Apple podcast app finally.

01:09:47 ◼   ► So I guess we'll see if a lot of people use that

01:09:51 ◼   ► and I started hearing people saying,

01:09:51 ◼   ► "Oh, I switched back to the podcast app

01:09:53 ◼   ► "so I could play it on my Apple TV."

01:09:55 ◼   ► If that happens a lot, I will definitely respond to that

01:09:58 ◼   ► and I'll make it happen.

01:09:59 ◼   ► But I think eventually it might,

01:10:03 ◼   ► but I don't think the time is yet.

01:10:05 ◼   ► So I guess we'll see.

01:10:06 ◼   ► if you're somebody who makes the app for a video owner.

01:10:11 ◼   ► A lot of the people there I talked to,

01:10:13 ◼   ► they were the iOS programmer or on the iOS programming team

01:10:16 ◼   ► for a TV network or something like that.

01:10:19 ◼   ► That makes sense.

01:10:20 ◼   ► For them to be making apps, that makes total sense.

01:10:23 ◼   ► But for me, I'm not sure it makes sense yet, but we'll see.

01:10:27 ◼   ► Anyway, so I think we should honestly talk about iOS 9.3.

01:10:31 ◼   ► Do you guys--

01:10:32 ◼   ► - I was just gonna second your endorsement of Tech Talks.

01:10:34 ◼   ► I've only been to one, but it was exactly what you said.

01:10:37 ◼   ► It's like a little mini WWDC in a worse venue.

01:10:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's free, and it's one day, it's great.

01:10:43 ◼   ► - With slightly worse food.

01:10:45 ◼   ► - Honestly, the food here was better by a lot.

01:10:48 ◼   ► - Maybe things have changed.

01:10:49 ◼   ► I guess it probably depends on the hotel.

01:10:50 ◼   ► Maybe they have to use the hotel's catering,

01:10:52 ◼   ► but the one I went to,

01:10:53 ◼   ► they had these terrible little box lunches,

01:10:55 ◼   ► which granted, the box lunches at WWDC

01:10:56 ◼   ► aren't that great either, but these were even worse.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - No, we had a hot buffet, and it helped.

01:11:02 ◼   ► I didn't even try the coffee

01:11:03 ◼   ► because there was a Cafe Grumpy downstairs.

01:11:05 ◼   ► So I just went to the Cafe Grumpy

01:11:07 ◼   ► and get excellent coffee there.

01:11:09 ◼   ► Anyway, so yeah, 9.3.

01:11:13 ◼   ► So this was weird.

01:11:14 ◼   ► - This was very weird.

01:11:16 ◼   ► - Monday or yesterday, I forget.

01:11:17 ◼   ► Anyway, this week, earlier this week,

01:11:19 ◼   ► Apple unveiled a page on their website

01:11:23 ◼   ► called iOS 9.3 Preview.

01:11:26 ◼   ► So, and they released, I guess, Beta 1,

01:11:28 ◼   ► or I hadn't even looked at it yet,

01:11:29 ◼   ► but they released Beta 1 of iOS 9.3,

01:11:33 ◼   ► whatever version of watchOS I think corresponds to that,

01:11:35 ◼   ► and then tvOS the same,

01:11:37 ◼   ► whatever version corresponds to that.

01:11:38 ◼   ► And so there's a few very interesting things about this.

01:11:43 ◼   ► So first of all, Apple has never given this public unveiling

01:11:48 ◼   ► of a beta OS before, and in a marketing way.

01:11:54 ◼   ► - They do it in OS X.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Like at a certain point in the OS X beta release cycle

01:11:57 ◼   ► for many, many years now, they've had a page

01:11:59 ◼   ► It's basically apple.com/OS with a little x, /preview or some other word and it shows

01:12:06 ◼   ► you the features of the upcoming as yet unreleased.

01:12:09 ◼   ► This is even before they had the public betas.

01:12:10 ◼   ► They wouldn't do it for the very first build.

01:12:12 ◼   ► Very often they'd wait until it was a WWDC announcement but they would have an entire

01:12:16 ◼   ► section of their site dedicated to the OS that you cannot yet download.

01:12:20 ◼   ► The weird thing for iOS is, I don't know if they've ever done it for iOS because they

01:12:23 ◼   ► don't pay that much attention, but they did it pretty much simultaneously with the beta

01:12:27 ◼   ► release to developers.

01:12:29 ◼   ► So it's not like developers would go to Apple's public website to see the features of the

01:12:32 ◼   ► beta that they are just able to download now.

01:12:35 ◼   ► Yeah, like it's great.

01:12:37 ◼   ► And what would usually happen in the past iOS is like the beta would come out and then

01:12:42 ◼   ► immediately all the rumor sites would have people digging through it and then like within

01:12:46 ◼   ► hours of it being released, rumor sites would have like 10 articles about each little minor

01:12:50 ◼   ► change somewhere in the settings screen or an app got a new tweak or whatever.

01:12:55 ◼   ► So this makes sense as a way for Apple to basically

01:12:58 ◼   ► just kind of own that and control the message

01:13:00 ◼   ► and have it be a proper marketing handling

01:13:04 ◼   ► of this kind of event rather than just letting

01:13:07 ◼   ► the rumor sites dictate everything.

01:13:09 ◼   ► So that's good.

01:13:10 ◼   ► It's kind of like legalizing pot.

01:13:12 ◼   ► It's like if you want to discourage the bad behavior,

01:13:14 ◼   ► just take away the value.

01:13:17 ◼   ► Apple just, here, here's everything that's new.

01:13:19 ◼   ► Here you go.

01:13:20 ◼   ► - Well, not everything that's new.

01:13:21 ◼   ► I still hope, I assume the rumor sites found all the new.

01:13:23 ◼   ► 'cause that little change in that settings screen,

01:13:25 ◼   ► Apple's not gonna put it on their giant preview page.

01:13:27 ◼   ► - What, the Wi-Fi Assist label of how much data's used?

01:13:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, or stuff like that.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Like, there's still plenty of fodder

01:13:32 ◼   ► for rumor sites to dig into, but they hit the highlights.

01:13:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, but it's plenty of boring fodder

01:13:37 ◼   ► for them to dig into, and yeah, Apple--

01:13:39 ◼   ► - Well, that's their core, the core audience needs to know,

01:13:42 ◼   ► tell me every screen that changed,

01:13:44 ◼   ► did they change the spacing on this label?

01:13:46 ◼   ► - One of the most high-profile changes they've made

01:13:51 ◼   ► is called Night Shift. And Apple was the very first people to ever come up with this idea

01:13:58 ◼   ► of changing the color balance on your display, changing the white balance, so that it's cool

01:14:05 ◼   ► temperature and what we consider now to be neutral during the day. And then at night,

01:14:10 ◼   ► it slowly changes to a warmer color temperature. So you don't have your eyes be shown blue

01:14:15 ◼   ► light that keeps you awake and makes you sleep worse. So it slowly warms the color temperature

01:14:20 ◼   ► on the display until you go to bed

01:14:22 ◼   ► and then changes automatically the next day.

01:14:24 ◼   ► I wish this was available on my Mac.

01:14:27 ◼   ► For years I've wanted something like this

01:14:29 ◼   ► and no one has ever thought of it before.

01:14:31 ◼   ► - If only.

01:14:32 ◼   ► - Your tone of voice makes me think

01:14:33 ◼   ► you suddenly support patents.

01:14:34 ◼   ► - Yes, other people have had this idea before

01:14:37 ◼   ► but you can't, an idea is out there for anybody to take.

01:14:40 ◼   ► So I really hope, I forgot if they even did have a patent

01:14:43 ◼   ► or whatever but this is an obvious enough idea

01:14:46 ◼   ► that I would not call this a Sherlocking.

01:14:49 ◼   ► I would not call this a case where Apple is taking an application wholesale, like, you

01:14:54 ◼   ► know, the Watson application and making their own equivalent that's named based on the same

01:15:00 ◼   ► theme as the original application that looks like the other application that works like

01:15:03 ◼   ► the other.

01:15:04 ◼   ► This is not an application.

01:15:05 ◼   ► This is a fairly simple idea that was not invented, I'm sure, by the creators of the

01:15:10 ◼   ► Flex application that you're referring to.

01:15:12 ◼   ► Yes.

01:15:13 ◼   ► That I'm totally okay with Apple taking because it's a good idea, and I don't think anyone

01:15:18 ◼   ► on that idea, even if someone actually does.

01:15:20 ◼   ► - Well, I think I might disagree with both of those points.

01:15:22 ◼   ► So yeah, I was being sarcastic, obviously.

01:15:26 ◼   ► What we're talking about is there's been this application

01:15:28 ◼   ► called Flux, spelled F dot L-U-X,

01:15:31 ◼   ► and it's been available on computers forever.

01:15:34 ◼   ► And they had an iOS hack version where you couldn't,

01:15:38 ◼   ► they couldn't put it in the app store,

01:15:41 ◼   ► so they did a silo where you could download

01:15:43 ◼   ► a binary library with a project into Xcode,

01:15:47 ◼   ► and have it installed onto your phone.

01:15:50 ◼   ► And they did this back in November,

01:15:53 ◼   ► and it got thousands or millions,

01:15:55 ◼   ► there are tons of downloads.

01:15:57 ◼   ► And then on November 12th, two months ago,

01:16:01 ◼   ► they posted saying that Apple had contacted them

01:16:06 ◼   ► and had said that the iOS download

01:16:10 ◼   ► of their kind of sideloaded app here

01:16:12 ◼   ► was in violation of the developer agreement.

01:16:15 ◼   ► So this method of install is no longer available.

01:16:18 ◼   ► Apple has indicated this should not continue.

01:16:21 ◼   ► So they don't really say like if Apple like legally threatened them or anything because

01:16:27 ◼   ► technically they could have continued to distribute it probably.

01:16:32 ◼   ► So this was all just two months ago.

01:16:34 ◼   ► And then all of a sudden now in what is the next major iOS feature update, that next update

01:16:42 ◼   ► has a feature that is a direct copy of what this does.

01:16:46 ◼   ► So I wonder if they actually made some kind of small deal

01:16:49 ◼   ► where maybe Apple said, "We don't want you doing this.

01:16:52 ◼   ► "Shut it down and we're gonna do it ourselves

01:16:54 ◼   ► "and we won't sue you, or shut it down,

01:16:57 ◼   ► "we'll give you a small amount of money

01:16:58 ◼   ► "and we'll do it ourselves and you won't say anything."

01:17:00 ◼   ► You know, it's probably something like that, but--

01:17:02 ◼   ► - The only reason they have to give them some money

01:17:04 ◼   ► is if they have a super dumb patent on this idea, right?

01:17:06 ◼   ► There's two separate issues here.

01:17:07 ◼   ► One, being mean to the makers of Flux

01:17:10 ◼   ► and not letting them use sideloading to this.

01:17:12 ◼   ► Not allowing sideloading at all.

01:17:14 ◼   ► Like that's a whole separate issue of like,

01:17:15 ◼   ► hey Apple, why is the only way

01:17:17 ◼   ► that people can get applications on their devices

01:17:19 ◼   ► through the App Store?

01:17:20 ◼   ► What about a way that you won't complain about

01:17:23 ◼   ► that expert users can use?

01:17:25 ◼   ► Not a lot of people are gonna use it.

01:17:26 ◼   ► No one's gonna download Xcode

01:17:27 ◼   ► and build their own thing and sideload.

01:17:29 ◼   ► Like only, you know, only the nerds are gonna do it.

01:17:31 ◼   ► Why not just let that go?

01:17:32 ◼   ► That is a separate issue.

01:17:34 ◼   ► The separate issue from, is it okay for Apple

01:17:37 ◼   ► to take this idea that again,

01:17:40 ◼   ► I think the inventors of flux probably did not invent,

01:17:43 ◼   ► of changing the color temperature of your display

01:17:45 ◼   ► based on the time of day,

01:17:47 ◼   ► and incorporate that into their OS

01:17:49 ◼   ► for their most popular platform.

01:17:50 ◼   ► That seems like a no-brainer slam dunk,

01:17:52 ◼   ► and the only thing that Apple would trip across

01:17:54 ◼   ► is if someone has a super dumb patent on it

01:17:56 ◼   ► and they have to pay somebody for it.

01:17:57 ◼   ► I have no idea about those legalities,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but I think that whole system of the law is stupid.

01:18:01 ◼   ► I am totally okay with Apple incorporating this idea,

01:18:03 ◼   ► because it's a good idea,

01:18:04 ◼   ► and because nobody should own this idea.

01:18:06 ◼   ► - First of all, I think the way they're doing it,

01:18:08 ◼   ► Just the timing of this and the way they came down

01:18:11 ◼   ► so hard on Flux and then immediately made their own thing,

01:18:14 ◼   ► I think that makes Apple look like a jerk, really.

01:18:16 ◼   ► - Did they make their own thing

01:18:17 ◼   ► or were they already making it?

01:18:19 ◼   ► Had they, like how long has this feature been,

01:18:21 ◼   ► you know, again, Flux is an old application

01:18:23 ◼   ► and there have probably been applications before it,

01:18:25 ◼   ► but I don't think the timing is they saw people

01:18:27 ◼   ► side loading Flux and then they said,

01:18:29 ◼   ► "Oh, we gotta get on that," and decided to add the feature.

01:18:32 ◼   ► It seems like the type of thing that might have been

01:18:33 ◼   ► in the works for a while, but who knows?

01:18:35 ◼   ► - Honestly, I disagree.

01:18:36 ◼   ► I think it's exactly, it's a simple enough feature

01:18:39 ◼   ► that that is exactly what probably happened.

01:18:40 ◼   ► - All right, so even if they did it,

01:18:42 ◼   ► then what difference does it make?

01:18:43 ◼   ► Like, someone saw the idea, this is a thing

01:18:46 ◼   ► that users want, again, separate from the notion

01:18:49 ◼   ► of telling Flux they can't do it,

01:18:50 ◼   ► because that I agree is kind of jerky and annoying, right?

01:18:53 ◼   ► Telling Flux they can't do it is separate from the idea

01:18:55 ◼   ► of, oh, that's a good idea, we should build that in,

01:18:57 ◼   ► because that's exactly how they should work.

01:18:58 ◼   ► If there's something that's a really popular idea

01:19:00 ◼   ► that is very much a system-level thing,

01:19:02 ◼   ► which I'm amazed that Flux could even do what they did,

01:19:04 ◼   ► it seems so much like a system level thing, right? That should be built into the operating

01:19:08 ◼   ► system. And how do you find those things? You either think of them yourself, or you

01:19:10 ◼   ► see that there's lots of user demand for this type of thing. Oh, lots of people are interested

01:19:13 ◼   ► in this feature. We should build it into the stupid OS. And so they do.

01:19:17 ◼   ► - Like, I'm not saying Apple shouldn't have been allowed to do this, or that they shouldn't

01:19:21 ◼   ► have even, I'm not even saying they shouldn't have done it, but the timing of it, the way

01:19:25 ◼   ► they did it and the timing of it, I think is distasteful and makes them look pretty

01:19:29 ◼   ► jerky. - I disagree. I don't think they look any

01:19:32 ◼   ► more or less like jerks. The thing that makes them look like jerks is not letting them sideload.

01:19:36 ◼   ► Incorporating the feature in the OS makes them look like smart OS vendors. I don't think it makes

01:19:40 ◼   ► them look like jerks. I don't think there's any timing. I don't think if they even said,

01:19:44 ◼   ► "We exactly copied this. We were inspired by Flux," and if they came out publicly and said

01:19:49 ◼   ► that the story you're surmising is true, I still think that would be fine. Because I think that's

01:19:52 ◼   ► like, that's, this is a consequence of the idea of people not owning ideas. Like, you want people

01:19:57 ◼   ► to not own ideas, but it still seems distasteful to you that someone came up with this thing and

01:20:01 ◼   ► and that they immediately copied it from them.

01:20:04 ◼   ► There's nothing, you know, they didn't own it.

01:20:07 ◼   ► It's the transfer of ideas.

01:20:09 ◼   ► It's the reason I, at least, am against patents

01:20:11 ◼   ► is the idea that someone will have an idea

01:20:13 ◼   ► and another person will hear that idea

01:20:14 ◼   ► and say that's a good idea and take that idea

01:20:16 ◼   ► and run with it and it's not theirs to own

01:20:20 ◼   ► and there's no copying going on.

01:20:21 ◼   ► It's a shared, anyway, whatever, hippy-dippy stuff.

01:20:25 ◼   ► - I should point out, I did a very similar feature

01:20:27 ◼   ► at Instapaper like five years ago.

01:20:29 ◼   ► Like, it's not new.

01:20:31 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not, like I said, it's not a new idea to computing, it's not a new idea to

01:20:35 ◼   ► like non-computing related lights, like the whole light theory, I don't know, there was

01:20:39 ◼   ► probably some study many, many, many years ago about color temperature and light affecting

01:20:43 ◼   ► sleep patterns that all this has spun out from.

01:20:47 ◼   ► But yeah, and that's why I fear, if I remember, I don't know if someone will send us the link,

01:20:52 ◼   ► I fear that Flux actually does have a patent on this because seriously, like, it should

01:20:56 ◼   ► not be patentable, period. And even under the rules of our current patent system, it

01:21:01 ◼   ► should have been rejected based on prior art, but you know, that never happens.

01:21:04 ◼   ► It doesn't mean anything. But anyway, so I do want to get into a slightly a discussion

01:21:09 ◼   ► of the assumption or the scientific basis of this. So first of all, just to clarify,

01:21:16 ◼   ► when we say it changes the color temperature, for anybody who doesn't know, if you've

01:21:19 ◼   ► ever seen somebody buy a CFL or LED light bulb that looks really blue when you put it

01:21:24 ◼   ► in the house, especially at night, or if you have one that was way too yellow or orange,

01:21:30 ◼   ► you're kind of seeing the issues of color balance and our expectations. So basically,

01:21:36 ◼   ► in the middle of the day during daylight, daylight colored light is more towards the

01:21:42 ◼   ► blue end of the color balance spectrum the way we normally think about it. And then at

01:21:46 ◼   ► night, things like fires and old street lights and incandescent bulbs, those we think of

01:21:54 ◼   ► especially like the bulbs, we think of those as making white light, but in reality it's

01:22:00 ◼   ► more yellow tinted than daylight is. And so our eyes adjust for this, cameras adjust for

01:22:05 ◼   ► this, this is about white balances and cameras, our eyes adjust for this. And so we think

01:22:10 ◼   ► when we're sitting in a room lit by slightly yellow incandescent lights at night time when

01:22:15 ◼   ► it's dark outside, we don't think of it as being a yellow light, we think of it as being

01:22:19 ◼   ► a neutral white light, but then if you see something that is neutral colored like daylight,

01:22:25 ◼   ► it looks blue to you by comparison because you've adjusted to that orange. So anyway,

01:22:30 ◼   ► the principle behind this is that your computer screens, they don't change their color tone

01:22:35 ◼   ► without this. They don't change their color tone throughout the day so that what looks

01:22:38 ◼   ► like a neutral white color balance during the day on a computer screen does look bluish

01:22:43 ◼   ► and or too bright it can be perceived as, and it's kind of tricky, but it looks like

01:22:48 ◼   ► too harsh or too blue or too bright in a dimly lit nighttime room, for the most part. And

01:22:54 ◼   ► the idea here is that this can confuse your body into not preparing for sleep or not sleeping

01:23:02 ◼   ► as well or something like that. And I've looked into, I've tried to see what the scientific

01:23:11 ◼   ► basis for this is, because the idea is that if you can make the screen shift its color

01:23:17 ◼   ► temperature into the warm area. So basically make your computer devices change their own

01:23:23 ◼   ► white balance along with what's going on in your house and around you and your environment

01:23:27 ◼   ► so that in the daytime they're neutral and what we might consider a bluish or a cold

01:23:31 ◼   ► white but then at night they shift and everything gets tinted yellow. The idea that that will

01:23:37 ◼   ► help you sleep, I'm not entirely sure that the evidence I've seen so far proves that.

01:23:43 ◼   ► I think it's a good theory, it might be true.

01:23:47 ◼   ► The studies that are cited everywhere mostly seem to indicate that brightness of light

01:23:53 ◼   ► is important.

01:23:54 ◼   ► So it might not be important to change your lights to be more yellow at night, it might

01:24:00 ◼   ► just be important to avoid bright screens at night and using bright screens like in

01:24:05 ◼   ► bed or before bed or whatever.

01:24:08 ◼   ► That I think makes, from the actual study I've been able to find which is pretty few

01:24:12 ◼   ► and far between, but the Flux site has a good list of them. Bright light emitting devices

01:24:18 ◼   ► are a problem to use late at night for this purpose, but it doesn't necessarily follow

01:24:23 ◼   ► that changing the color temperature of those screens fixes that problem. The studies I'm

01:24:28 ◼   ► looking at, like the one that Flux post posted most recently on, is it Public National Academy

01:24:33 ◼   ► of Sciences? Anyway, I read that one and that was like, you know, iPad versus book. And

01:24:36 ◼   ► it's like, if you read an iPad for four hours before bed versus if you read a book for four

01:24:41 ◼   ► before going to bed, the iPad users measurably had worse sleep and related issues. I thought

01:24:48 ◼   ► at first, if you're bouncing around with apps, that's engaging your brain in a different

01:24:52 ◼   ► way, but no, it sounds like they controlled for that. They had people watching to make

01:24:56 ◼   ► sure that you're actually reading a book, but it's like, if you're staring at an iPad

01:24:59 ◼   ► screen before bed versus reading a book, reading the book is better. But they didn't test if

01:25:03 ◼   ► you stare at an iPad screen with neutral color temperature versus one that is slowly shifting

01:25:08 ◼   ► itself yellow, they didn't say that was better. So it seems like this is two separate

01:25:13 ◼   ► things that the studies that have been done so far show that bright lights at night can

01:25:19 ◼   ► hurt your sleeping. And also we think it's more pleasant and easier on your brain to

01:25:24 ◼   ► tint things yellow, but nothing has actually proven that. And Apple's wording on the

01:25:28 ◼   ► feature is actually very carefully aligned with this. So it says, "Many studies have

01:25:32 ◼   ► shown that exposure to bright blue light in the evening can affect your circadian rhythms

01:25:37 ◼   ► and make it harder to fall asleep.

01:25:39 ◼   ► Night shift uses your iOS device's clock

01:25:40 ◼   ► and geolocation, blah, blah, blah.

01:25:42 ◼   ► It automatically shifts the colors in your display

01:25:43 ◼   ► to the warmer end of the spectrum,

01:25:45 ◼   ► making it easier on your eyes.

01:25:47 ◼   ► It doesn't say that the color shift

01:25:49 ◼   ► will make it easier to fall asleep.

01:25:52 ◼   ► It says bright lights have been shown

01:25:54 ◼   ► to make it harder to fall asleep,

01:25:56 ◼   ► and this will be easier on your eyes,

01:25:59 ◼   ► but there's no connection to sleep there.

01:26:01 ◼   ► - I'm surprised they can't get sued for easier on your eyes,

01:26:04 ◼   ► 'cause I don't even know if that's supportable.

01:26:06 ◼   ► more yellowish is easier on your eyes, how is that?

01:26:09 ◼   ► Maybe it's because it's not measurable,

01:26:10 ◼   ► that's why it's supportable, because it's vague enough

01:26:13 ◼   ► that you're like, well, what does easier mean?

01:26:16 ◼   ► So maybe it's vague enough that they're okay, but.

01:26:19 ◼   ► - Right, and there's all sorts of theories about,

01:26:22 ◼   ► that's why you see a lot of yellow-tinted sunglasses,

01:26:25 ◼   ► theories about if you reduce the blue light

01:26:27 ◼   ► more than the other colors, it's easier on the eyes.

01:26:29 ◼   ► There are other things about that, but I don't,

01:26:31 ◼   ► and so I think that's probably backed up,

01:26:34 ◼   ► but it doesn't seem like this is connected necessarily.

01:26:37 ◼   ► So I think if you're concerned about this,

01:26:40 ◼   ► sure, try Flux or try this, try Night Shift.

01:26:43 ◼   ► If you find it pleasant, great, that's a separate thing.

01:26:47 ◼   ► It might not be helping you sleep,

01:26:49 ◼   ► but I think if you want to sleep,

01:26:51 ◼   ► we do have evidence so far, it seems,

01:26:53 ◼   ► that either reducing the brightness of the screen

01:26:56 ◼   ► is probably way more important.

01:26:58 ◼   ► - The screen already does that automatically,

01:26:59 ◼   ► to some degree.

01:27:00 ◼   ► You can pick your brightness, but it does adjust

01:27:02 ◼   ► based on ambient temperature within some range.

01:27:04 ◼   ► So it does-- - Sure, but I would say

01:27:06 ◼   ► reduce the brightness, especially at night.

01:27:08 ◼   ► Either keep it low all the time like I do,

01:27:10 ◼   ► or just set it lower at night,

01:27:13 ◼   ► even set it at the middle point lower.

01:27:15 ◼   ► Or just if you're concerned about this,

01:27:17 ◼   ► and maybe you should be,

01:27:18 ◼   ► just don't use your devices before bed,

01:27:21 ◼   ► because the studies are pretty clear that that helps a lot.

01:27:23 ◼   ► But I don't think we know that changing it to yellow

01:27:26 ◼   ► has a meaningful effect on the quality of your sleep.

01:27:28 ◼   ► It might be more pleasant,

01:27:29 ◼   ► but it might not have a meaningful effect here.

01:27:32 ◼   ► But if you believe it will, then it will. Because the placebo effect is incredibly strong.

01:27:36 ◼   ► And so like there's two aspects. One, some people just find it more pleasant. Like it,

01:27:40 ◼   ► they just like it. It's like, call it fashion or aesthetics or just gives them a warm fuzzy

01:27:44 ◼   ► feeling, they just like it.

01:27:45 ◼   ► Right, and that's fine.

01:27:46 ◼   ► They're fine, right? And the other one is, if they believe it will give them better sleep,

01:27:49 ◼   ► there is a chance that that belief will cause them to have better sleep.

01:27:52 ◼   ► Maybe. But you know, it could be, you know, just like if you start thinking about having

01:27:56 ◼   ► better sleep and wanting to make changes in your life to give you better sleep, you will

01:28:00 ◼   ► probably make other changes that will also give you better sleep. So if you want better

01:28:05 ◼   ► sleep, chances are you should be doing multiple things. And one of those might be don't

01:28:09 ◼   ► be reading your phone every single second at night until the second you go to bed.

01:28:14 ◼   ► I have the opposite of the placebo effect because I do, usually the last thing I do

01:28:18 ◼   ► right before I go to bed is look at an iOS device which is pretty bright in a pretty

01:28:23 ◼   ► dark room. And I've been doing this for years and years and years, since iOS has

01:28:27 ◼   ► has existed as a thing, since the iPod Touch has existed.

01:28:30 ◼   ► And every so often, I think, this is exactly what they tell

01:28:34 ◼   ► you what not to do, like a bright, mostly white light

01:28:38 ◼   ► in your face, like right before bed.

01:28:41 ◼   ► I wonder if this is making me not be able to sleep,

01:28:43 ◼   ► and then I go to sleep instantly.

01:28:44 ◼   ► So everyone's gonna know how I think about it.

01:28:47 ◼   ► It's like I'm trying to convince myself that what I'm doing

01:28:49 ◼   ► is going to be harmful, and I sleep fine.

01:28:52 ◼   ► So it's not-- - Yeah, it's funny

01:28:53 ◼   ► how that is. - If Apple,

01:28:55 ◼   ► maybe the Apple feature does more,

01:28:56 ◼   ► Like maybe it also adjusts the brightness.

01:28:59 ◼   ► If not, maybe it should.

01:29:00 ◼   ► Like that would be like, if it also,

01:29:03 ◼   ► like what I just said, like you know,

01:29:04 ◼   ► reduce the brightness of your screen at night also

01:29:06 ◼   ► in addition to like the automatic thing.

01:29:09 ◼   ► - The brightness range, yeah.

01:29:10 ◼   ► Like basically move the slider for you.

01:29:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, like move like the set point down also.

01:29:15 ◼   ► Or yeah, move the whole range down.

01:29:17 ◼   ► If it also does that automatically,

01:29:19 ◼   ► that's a lot more valuable and maybe it does.

01:29:20 ◼   ► I haven't tried it yet.

01:29:22 ◼   ► - Although I'd be like, is my device getting dim?

01:29:24 ◼   ► What the hell?

01:29:25 ◼   ► Oh, it's that stupid thing again.

01:29:26 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:29:27 ◼   ► I hate when my display looks too dim

01:29:29 ◼   ► and I realize that I've acted like a kid

01:29:30 ◼   ► has leaned on the brightness button

01:29:31 ◼   ► on my keyboard or something, you know?

01:29:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, and like for a long time,

01:29:35 ◼   ► people have complained, many people have complained,

01:29:38 ◼   ► that, and I agree with this complaint,

01:29:41 ◼   ► that the lowest brightness setting on iOS device screens

01:29:45 ◼   ► often isn't low enough.

01:29:46 ◼   ► That if you're in a room where that is the only illumination,

01:29:50 ◼   ► like if you're reading in bed at night,

01:29:52 ◼   ► the lowest brightness setting is often still too bright,

01:29:55 ◼   ► especially if you're using an app with a white background.

01:29:58 ◼   ► And there's been all sorts of people

01:29:59 ◼   ► who will use the accessibility toggles

01:30:02 ◼   ► to try to make it even dimmer,

01:30:03 ◼   ► which messes with my app,

01:30:05 ◼   ► and then they send me bug reports.

01:30:07 ◼   ► There's all sorts of people,

01:30:09 ◼   ► like people who've been doing this for years,

01:30:10 ◼   ► of using special accessibility settings

01:30:13 ◼   ► or special app features to try to reduce it even further.

01:30:16 ◼   ► I mean, in an old version of Instapaper,

01:30:18 ◼   ► when I first introduced dark mode,

01:30:20 ◼   ► in order to get around this problem,

01:30:21 ◼   ► I actually had a translucent black layer

01:30:25 ◼   ► that I could put over the entire window.

01:30:27 ◼   ► Just a giant UI view over the entire window,

01:30:30 ◼   ► or a layer, I forget which one,

01:30:31 ◼   ► but just a giant overlay that I could just dim

01:30:36 ◼   ► as necessary in dark mode,

01:30:37 ◼   ► because the entire interface was not dim enough,

01:30:41 ◼   ► especially on an iPad where you have this giant bright screen

01:30:44 ◼   ► that's way more of a problem on iPads than it is on iPhones.

01:30:46 ◼   ► - Most people should just go into another room,

01:30:47 ◼   ► because I think the bottom brightness setting

01:30:49 ◼   ► is too dim to look at.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Like there's two things that are here.

01:30:53 ◼   ► One is, is it putting off enough light

01:30:55 ◼   ► to annoy another person who's trying to sleep in the room?

01:30:57 ◼   ► Yes, I grant you it's doing that.

01:30:58 ◼   ► But the other is, does it look like a normal screen

01:31:01 ◼   ► or does it look like a screen that's broken?

01:31:02 ◼   ► And when you put the brightness of the bottom setting

01:31:04 ◼   ► in any iOS device, it basically looks broken.

01:31:06 ◼   ► Like things don't look right anymore.

01:31:08 ◼   ► It's not just a dimmer version of the screen.

01:31:09 ◼   ► Now you're changing it in a material way.

01:31:11 ◼   ► Like there are things that you can't read

01:31:13 ◼   ► because the contrast is too low.

01:31:15 ◼   ► Everything is super dark.

01:31:16 ◼   ► It does not look like a slightly dimmer version.

01:31:18 ◼   ► I thought you were going to say about the screens is,

01:31:21 ◼   ► and I've heard this complaint as well,

01:31:22 ◼   ► is that with the dawning of LED backlights

01:31:24 ◼   ► many years ago on most devices, they go way too high.

01:31:28 ◼   ► Like the top brightness setting is blinding in noon.

01:31:31 ◼   ► In the noonday sun, you have to just put it on max brightness

01:31:33 ◼   ► and like these like monitors from random brands

01:31:38 ◼   ► that are not like Apple monitors or Dell or HP,

01:31:41 ◼   ► but just, I mean, you know,

01:31:43 ◼   ► brands that you've never heard of,

01:31:45 ◼   ► they have these really cheap monitors

01:31:46 ◼   ► and they're top brightness setting.

01:31:47 ◼   ► you can like cook eggs with it.

01:31:49 ◼   ► They get really, really bright.

01:31:51 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, I mean even apples.

01:31:53 ◼   ► I have my 5K, I should have,

01:31:54 ◼   ► my 5K is set to just one notch above the middle.

01:31:57 ◼   ► Because it's way too bright if I set it up more than that.

01:32:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's just crazy bright, which is good.

01:32:02 ◼   ► I like having that headroom, I guess.

01:32:04 ◼   ► I mean, and maybe you still want it,

01:32:05 ◼   ► like I said, noon day sun,

01:32:07 ◼   ► but if you actually have your iPhone 6 out

01:32:09 ◼   ► in the noon day sun and put it at max brightness,

01:32:11 ◼   ► you'll see it's actually not that bright after all,

01:32:12 ◼   ► compared to the sun.

01:32:13 ◼   ► - Right, I mean that's the thing.

01:32:15 ◼   ► They do this, it makes a lot of sense

01:32:17 ◼   ► portable devices especially because if you have to use it outside in sunlight

01:32:22 ◼   ► it you really need every bit of brightness you can get. But what you need

01:32:25 ◼   ► there, what you need there is a different display tech because LCDs as you crank

01:32:29 ◼   ► the brightness you just get like if you have a completely black screen and you

01:32:32 ◼   ► crank the brightness to max that you can use a black LED backlit screen

01:32:37 ◼   ► completely black one as a flashlight in a dark room because that's how much

01:32:40 ◼   ► light just comes through it is it because it's basically the backlight is

01:32:42 ◼   ► on behind every single pixel and the little liquid crystal things are trying

01:32:45 ◼   ► not to light the light through, but they do, which is why plasma TVs look better.

01:32:49 ◼   ► So OLED doesn't have that problem because it is just not causing the pixels that are

01:32:54 ◼   ► not lit up, they're just not emitting any light.

01:32:56 ◼   ► There's no light behind them, they don't have to block anything, they're just not putting

01:32:58 ◼   ► it like a plasma, they're just not putting out any light.

01:33:01 ◼   ► So the move to OLED could help because if you did have like, "Oh, I'm cranking my iPhone

01:33:05 ◼   ► 6 brightness in the noon day sun and I still can't see the screen," even if you put a backlight

01:33:09 ◼   ► behind there that was this gigantic super bright backlight, the contrast between the

01:33:14 ◼   ► the white regions and the black would still be basically the same ratio and so it would

01:33:18 ◼   ► still look all washed out in the noonday sun.

01:33:20 ◼   ► What you really need is to say this is, you know, you can turn the backlight down to a

01:33:24 ◼   ► degree where the LCD screen can block the light going through because the light is so

01:33:29 ◼   ► wimpy that it doesn't go through but the room is so dark that where it does come through

01:33:34 ◼   ► you get a better contrast ratio.

01:33:35 ◼   ► So different display tech, and this is even before you get to reflective display tech,

01:33:39 ◼   ► which of course is a real way to go where there's not actually light coming from behind

01:33:41 ◼   ► it but like a kindle you're relying on the sunlight coming down and bouncing off and

01:33:46 ◼   ► you just make regions of it black so it doesn't bounce off as much and then you get something

01:33:49 ◼   ► that acts like yay an actual book a paper book where it becomes more readable in sunlight

01:33:53 ◼   ► instead of less but we do not have a good hybrid between backlit and reflective screens

01:33:59 ◼   ► there are a lot of ones that have been tried involving either ink and lcd or combinations

01:34:03 ◼   ► of various other tech and none of them are mainstream yet so we'll still wait for that

01:34:07 ◼   ► but in the meantime oled is the next significant step in this area that should really help

01:34:10 ◼   ► On this week's Connected, Federico talks a bit about night shift. And he had said that he had

01:34:18 ◼   ► been using it for a while, and then he went back to—I think he had turned it off or something like

01:34:23 ◼   ► that—and he said—I think he had said that it was like getting stabbed in the eye, because,

01:34:27 ◼   ► you know, Federico doesn't believe in sleeping when the rest of Italy sleeps. He sleeps when we

01:34:32 ◼   ► sleep. And so he said it was really jarring when he had turned it off in the middle of the night.

01:34:37 ◼   ► So whether or not it's real, it certainly is a strong placebo from what I can tell.

01:34:42 ◼   ► I mean, it's also just like, you know, as I mentioned, like your eyes adjust to it.

01:34:46 ◼   ► Your eyes have, you know, auto white balance, you know, in camera terms.

01:34:49 ◼   ► The difference when you're not adjusted, it's a huge difference.

01:34:53 ◼   ► You know, and the easy way to see this difference is if you have a camera,

01:34:58 ◼   ► set the white balance on it manually to daylight and take a picture outside during daylight,

01:35:05 ◼   ► and it should look normal.

01:35:07 ◼   ► Then, with it still set to daylight,

01:35:10 ◼   ► take a picture inside your house at night,

01:35:11 ◼   ► and everything will look insanely yellow.

01:35:14 ◼   ► It's a huge difference.

01:35:16 ◼   ► This is not a subtle shift in colors.

01:35:18 ◼   ► It's a massive difference.

01:35:20 ◼   ► If you are just using your device one night

01:35:23 ◼   ► with this feature enabled the whole night,

01:35:25 ◼   ► and the next night you have the feature disabled

01:35:27 ◼   ► the whole night, you might not even notice the difference

01:35:29 ◼   ► 'cause your eyes are adjusting as night falls

01:35:32 ◼   ► the entire time as this thing is happening.

01:35:34 ◼   ► it's a slow change. But if you then immediately, while your eyes are adjusted to the warm color,

01:35:39 ◼   ► immediately see cool colors, then it's going to be very jarring. I don't think that necessarily

01:35:45 ◼   ► says like how big of a difference this makes or whatever. I think that just like, yeah,

01:35:49 ◼   ► the shift is a big shift, you know, but I still don't, I don't think we have anything

01:35:56 ◼   ► to show that this is like super effective. I think, you know, it's primarily an aesthetic

01:36:01 ◼   ► preference and then it might be related to eye strain or the ease on your eyes, but the

01:36:10 ◼   ► connection to sleep quality I think is still very unproven.

01:36:14 ◼   ► So we're running a bit long and I'd like to wrap somewhat soon, but I really wanted to

01:36:19 ◼   ► at least bring up this multi-user iPad thing for the classroom.

01:36:23 ◼   ► So apparently there's going to be a whole bunch of changes for using iPads in the classroom,

01:36:30 ◼   ► And again, this was covered in the most recent episode of Connected where Frasier Spears

01:36:34 ◼   ► showed up.

01:36:35 ◼   ► And it genuinely seems really, really interesting, some of the stuff they're doing.

01:36:40 ◼   ► Teachers can look at their pupil screens.

01:36:43 ◼   ► We're not sure if that's live or if it's just like a snapshot.

01:36:48 ◼   ► There's multi-user iPads, so a user can log into any iPad and get their home folder, so

01:36:54 ◼   ► to speak, on that iPad.

01:36:56 ◼   ► We don't know a whole lot about it, but it seems really interesting.

01:36:59 ◼   ► I'm fascinated to hear the reports from the field how this works, but I'm very skeptical

01:37:06 ◼   ► it'll ever land on regular consumer iPads.

01:37:09 ◼   ► What do you guys think?

01:37:10 ◼   ► Oh, it's gotta come to regular.

01:37:12 ◼   ► This is one of the bigger iPads.

01:37:14 ◼   ► Like it's guaranteed this is gonna come eventually.

01:37:16 ◼   ► It's just a question of when.