ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► But I did see Star Wars last night, we can talk about that for a while.

00:00:03 ◼   ► Yeah, it's old news.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Aw, man, I missed my chance.

00:00:06 ◼   ► Now that Marco's seen it, it's old news.

00:00:08 ◼   ► It's all downhill from there.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Do you want to do some follow-up?

00:00:12 ◼   ► Sure, we actually have some.

00:00:14 ◼   ► One person who's not...

00:00:17 ◼   ► I don't know if this person lives in Dubai or just knows about the Apple Store in Dubai,

00:00:21 ◼   ► but I'm trying to think of a reason why this person is not like every single person in

00:00:25 ◼   ► the United States on vacation and not sending us any follow-up. But in episode

00:00:31 ◼   ► 149 we talked about the foliage walls and the Apple model store things from

00:00:37 ◼   ► the 60 minutes television show. They showed like oh here's a store where we

00:00:42 ◼   ► try out all the different ideas we have for Apple stores and they have this one

00:00:45 ◼   ► wall of the store that had plants like real living plants just sort of

00:00:48 ◼   ► cascading down the wall and I thought that would be funny if they actually put

00:00:50 ◼   ► that in a store. Well apparently they have it's just goes to show that

00:00:54 ◼   ► that everything they show in 60 minutes has to be something that already exists, so that

00:00:57 ◼   ► no secrets are revealed.

00:00:59 ◼   ► The Apple Store in Dubai, they have a foliage wall.

00:01:02 ◼   ► So there you go.

00:01:03 ◼   ► That's super exciting.

00:01:04 ◼   ► That is a definite reason to visit there.

00:01:07 ◼   ► To just pet the foliage wall.

00:01:09 ◼   ► I wonder how that would, like, I mean I guess they have to have people keeping the plants

00:01:12 ◼   ► alive, but, like, why don't we get foliage?

00:01:15 ◼   ► If it's a good idea, why isn't it a good idea everywhere?

00:01:18 ◼   ► Why is it only a good idea in the desert?

00:01:19 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:01:21 ◼   ► Beats me.

00:01:24 ◼   ► It struck me as a little weird, although I really did like—and I think, Jon, you had

00:01:27 ◼   ► briefly mentioned this when we talked about it—I really liked the display case for all

00:01:34 ◼   ► the cases, the iPhone cases, where the case is on the outside of what ends up being a

00:01:40 ◼   ► drawer.

00:01:41 ◼   ► So you grab the case and pull the case, and then there's a drawer of these cases behind

00:01:46 ◼   ► it.

00:01:47 ◼   ► That was a terrible word picture, but hopefully that makes sense.

00:01:49 ◼   ► I thought that was really clever, and I don't recall having ever seen that before.

00:01:52 ◼   ► did write in, I misplaced their email or maybe it was a tweet, and said that those pull-out

00:01:57 ◼   ► drawer things actually exist in stores too. So basically there's nothing in 60 Minutes

00:02:00 ◼   ► that they showed you that doesn't already exist in an Apple Store, which is not surprising.

00:02:05 ◼   ► Not surprising, but a little bit sad. That's okay, though. All right, so any other follow-up

00:02:10 ◼   ► we need to talk about? That's it, everyone's still on vacation, including us. So not only

00:02:14 ◼   ► California, but everyone is on vacation. Well, California's always on vacation. That is true.

00:02:20 ◼   ► Do you want to tell us about something that's awesome Marco?

00:02:23 ◼   ► - We respond to this week by Backblaze.

00:02:25 ◼   ► Go to backblaze.com/atp for simple online backup.

00:02:30 ◼   ► Backblaze is the best online backup service I've used.

00:02:34 ◼   ► It has over 150 petabytes of data backed up.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Now anybody can back up your data,

00:02:39 ◼   ► but what about getting it back?

00:02:41 ◼   ► Backblaze has restored over 10 billion files

00:02:44 ◼   ► for their customers.

00:02:45 ◼   ► You can access your data anywhere with Backblaze.

00:02:48 ◼   ► They have iPhone and Android apps

00:02:49 ◼   ► access and share any of your files plus a web interface if you need that. And this is

00:02:53 ◼   ► not just for computer disasters. Now you can actually just restore one file easily if you

00:02:59 ◼   ► want to. So for instance if you're on a trip or if you need access to a file that's only

00:03:02 ◼   ► on your home computer and you are somewhere else you can just log into Backblaze with

00:03:07 ◼   ► your phone or your computer and restore just one file. 25% of all their restores are just

00:03:13 ◼   ► one file like this. If disaster strikes and you need everything back you can just order

00:03:17 ◼   ► USB hard drive if you don't want to wait for the download or if you want to

00:03:20 ◼   ► download it all you can do that too. Backblaze was founded by ex-apple

00:03:24 ◼   ► engineers it has native apps that run natively on your Mac and PC there's no

00:03:29 ◼   ► Java there's no runtime anything like that these are native high-performing

00:03:32 ◼   ► apps that run natively on Mac and PC there's no add-ons there's no gimmicks

00:03:37 ◼   ► there's no additional charges Backblaze is just five dollars a month per

00:03:40 ◼   ► computer for unlimited un-throttle backup that's truly unlimited space I

00:03:45 ◼   ► I use it, my wife uses it, we have something like 6 terabytes in Backblaze now and we just

00:03:50 ◼   ► pay $5 a month per computer.

00:03:52 ◼   ► Simple, unlimited, un-throttled online backup.

00:03:55 ◼   ► Stop putting this off.

00:03:56 ◼   ► It is way too important to protect your data.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Start getting backed up today.

00:04:00 ◼   ► You can get a free, no risk, no credit card required trial by going to backblaze.com/atp.

00:04:08 ◼   ► Really do it today.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Backblaze.com/atp.

00:04:11 ◼   ► Thanks a lot for sponsoring our show.

00:04:13 ◼   ► So the Christmas time has come and passed, and Casey has some new toys, ladies and gentlemen.

00:04:20 ◼   ► It's exciting.

00:04:21 ◼   ► So we have talked about the new Apple TV.

00:04:27 ◼   ► I now have a new Apple TV.

00:04:30 ◼   ► And now I will make everyone sit here and listen to my oh-so-outdated thoughts about

00:04:34 ◼   ► the Apple TV.

00:04:35 ◼   ► That's all right.

00:04:36 ◼   ► I'll talk about the Mac Pro later, so I'll get you back.

00:04:38 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:04:39 ◼   ► serious, then I will happily forego the Apple TV talk, if that means you will forego the

00:04:44 ◼   ► Mac Pro talk.

00:04:45 ◼   ► Well, I have to tell you about the new Mac Pro I got.

00:04:47 ◼   ► Oh, dear God, I hope you're kidding. I don't have any alcohol nearby, so this is going

00:04:50 ◼   ► to be a long night for me. Well, on a happier note, set up via Bluetooth on my new Apple

00:04:55 ◼   ► TV. Flawless. No issues whatsoever. So let's just be a lesson, children, that you never

00:05:01 ◼   ► actually do want to have the fear of missing out that I have a chronic case of, and you

00:05:05 ◼   ► do actually want to wait just a little bit to get something new.

00:05:08 ◼   ► Because I had no problems with Bluetooth setup.

00:05:11 ◼   ► I had no real problems with the remote app.

00:05:16 ◼   ► Although it took me a minute to realize that I needed to do

00:05:19 ◼   ► the software update in order to get it, if memory serves.

00:05:24 ◼   ► Speaking of the software update, at 7 o'clock--

00:05:26 ◼   ► I think this was Christmas Day, 7 o'clock in the evening

00:05:28 ◼   ► on Christmas Day.

00:05:28 ◼   ► Flawless.

00:05:29 ◼   ► No issues.

00:05:31 ◼   ► I connected via Ethernet, which might have made things a lot

00:05:34 ◼   ► easier, but that was really nice.

00:05:37 ◼   ► Oh, that's what it was.

00:05:37 ◼   ► It wasn't that the software update screwed me up for the

00:05:39 ◼   ► remote app.

00:05:40 ◼   ► I actually did take notes.

00:05:41 ◼   ► I just didn't read far enough.

00:05:42 ◼   ► It took me a while to remember that the remote app is paired

00:05:48 ◼   ► to your home sharing account.

00:05:51 ◼   ► And I had not yet set up my home sharing account in the

00:05:55 ◼   ► Apple TV, even after I'd done the update and all that.

00:05:57 ◼   ► So for the life of me, I couldn't understand why the

00:05:59 ◼   ► remote app wouldn't see the Apple TV.

00:06:01 ◼   ► And then I forget how I figured it out.

00:06:02 ◼   ► But somehow or another I realized, oh, no, I need to sign into home sharing.

00:06:07 ◼   ► And so once I did that, that worked no problem, which was really nice.

00:06:11 ◼   ► The control receiver, or the remote in general, having a Bluetooth remote is wonderful.

00:06:18 ◼   ► I've learned that from the Fire TV Stick.

00:06:21 ◼   ► But it's really great having that Bluetooth remote on the Apple TV as well.

00:06:24 ◼   ► I also really, really liked, and maybe we talked about this and I just had a brain fart

00:06:29 ◼   ► or something, but I really liked that it gave me the option of instead of controlling volume

00:06:36 ◼   ► on my TV via HDMI CEC or whatever magic it uses, I could program an IR remote that it

00:06:43 ◼   ► would use, it would emit that same IR to change a different thing's volume, which is exactly

00:06:50 ◼   ► what I needed to do because I have my receiver doing the speakers and all that.

00:06:54 ◼   ► And so I had the remote learn my receiver's IR profile, or whatever you want to call it.

00:07:00 ◼   ► And that worked no problem.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And so now the volume controls the receiver, which is really awesome.

00:07:04 ◼   ► I didn't even know that was a thing.

00:07:05 ◼   ► I didn't like that I had no idea how much battery power the remote has.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And at some point or another I saw some dialogue or something that said, "Oh, we'll tell you

00:07:15 ◼   ► when the remote needs charging," which is an Apple thing to do, and that's fine.

00:07:19 ◼   ► But it was weird that I couldn't even see it when I went digging into the remote settings

00:07:22 ◼   ► screens.

00:07:23 ◼   ► I didn't like and I don't like that there's no native Spotify app.

00:07:26 ◼   ► Yes, I am aware that there is such a thing as AirPlay.

00:07:31 ◼   ► That is what I've been doing with my Apple TV for a long time now.

00:07:33 ◼   ► But it seems to me like there's no reason why I couldn't select songs or do whatever

00:07:37 ◼   ► in a native app.

00:07:40 ◼   ► Or just have some sort of scenario wherein the Spotify app on my phone controls an instance

00:07:47 ◼   ► of it on the TV.

00:07:49 ◼   ► that's the way Spotify works, is I can control the playback from my computer from the Spotify

00:07:55 ◼   ► app on my phone. And it's kind of like the remote app works. And it's really, really

00:07:59 ◼   ► awesome. And I'd like to not have to have my phone be beaming all that data to the Apple

00:08:04 ◼   ► TV when it could just do that on its own. And on a final note, surprising precisely

00:08:11 ◼   ► no one, oh my God, you guys, Plex is so good. It's so good. It's worth the cost of admission

00:08:16 ◼   ► just for Plex. But to that end, I have like four apps on this thing. I have Plex, I have

00:08:21 ◼   ► Netflix, I think I put the ESPN app on there, and I think that might be it. And so I'm not

00:08:27 ◼   ► really seeing what's so great about the App Store yet, with the exception of Plex of course.

00:08:32 ◼   ► But there's been no other killer app that I've thought to myself, "Man, I really, really,

00:08:36 ◼   ► really want to download whatever."

00:08:38 ◼   ► Well, to be fair, I mean like the kind of device that it is, where this is like this

00:08:43 ◼   ► this TV-connected box, I mean, how many apps

00:08:46 ◼   ► do most people really use in that kind of context?

00:08:49 ◼   ► I mean, to me, it is useful to have a large selection

00:08:52 ◼   ► of apps, but to any one person, any one user of this device,

00:08:57 ◼   ► it might only ever use two to four apps,

00:09:00 ◼   ► and that might be perfectly fine enough for them.

00:09:03 ◼   ► For you, it might be Plex and Netflix.

00:09:06 ◼   ► For me, it might be a game and Netflix,

00:09:11 ◼   ► and maybe, I probably won't use Plex,

00:09:13 ◼   ► I might, you know, I will use the iTunes store stuff,

00:09:16 ◼   ► and then maybe down the road I might get HBO Now,

00:09:19 ◼   ► go whichever one is one that doesn't use cable.

00:09:22 ◼   ► That, you know, one of those, like, you know,

00:09:23 ◼   ► it's like, it's the kind of thing,

00:09:24 ◼   ► and if everything works well, which is still debatable,

00:09:29 ◼   ► but if everything works well, then I think that's enough.

00:09:32 ◼   ► You know, you don't need, it isn't a phone,

00:09:35 ◼   ► you know, you don't need to be doing

00:09:37 ◼   ► tons of different apps all the time on your TV.

00:09:39 ◼   ► I think most people are gonna pick like three or four,

00:09:41 ◼   ► at most, you know?

00:09:42 ◼   ► So wouldn't it be a good enough device

00:09:45 ◼   ► and a valuable purchase,

00:09:46 ◼   ► even if you never use any other apps for it

00:09:49 ◼   ► than what you use now?

00:09:50 ◼   ► - I think you're absolutely right.

00:09:51 ◼   ► And you know, as you were talking,

00:09:52 ◼   ► I was thinking to myself, well, why am I,

00:09:54 ◼   ► I don't know, I'm not bummed out,

00:09:56 ◼   ► but I can't think of a better way to describe it,

00:09:57 ◼   ► but why am I a little disappointed

00:09:59 ◼   ► that I don't have 305 apps on this thing

00:10:02 ◼   ► that I was really excited about?

00:10:04 ◼   ► And you know what I think a part of it is,

00:10:05 ◼   ► is that it looks so paltry and silly

00:10:08 ◼   ► compared to the prior-gen Apple TV, which had, like, what is it, 40 or 50 apps and new

00:10:14 ◼   ► ones just spawning like rabbits constantly? But to be fair, you're exactly right that

00:10:20 ◼   ► I really never used any of those. And so in the end of the day, it was really clutter.

00:10:24 ◼   ► But because it feels like I have fewer things now, it feels worse, even though in reality

00:10:31 ◼   ► it's actually probably a lot better. You should put some other, like, sort of staples

00:10:36 ◼   ► on there like I think you should probably put the YouTube app on there and maybe does

00:10:40 ◼   ► Amazon have like free video maybe Amazon video one if they have some things for free or if

00:10:44 ◼   ► you have Amazon Prime?

00:10:45 ◼   ► No I don't think there is an Amazon video app there that's kind of the whole point of

00:10:49 ◼   ► that whole thing.

00:10:50 ◼   ► No?

00:10:51 ◼   ► I used the Siri thing recently where I I think you have to say show me I don't know it sounds

00:10:56 ◼   ► so dumb to say show me but I said show me and then spoke a movie title and I was impressed

00:11:00 ◼   ► by two things.

00:11:01 ◼   ► that it actually transcribed what I was saying as I spoke it.

00:11:05 ◼   ► Three things.

00:11:06 ◼   ► Two, that it properly title-cased the title of the movie in real time as I spoke it.

00:11:13 ◼   ► Wait, which proper title casing?

00:11:16 ◼   ► Just the regular one.

00:11:18 ◼   ► So did it capitalize prepositions and articles in the middle of the title and stuff like

00:11:23 ◼   ► that?

00:11:24 ◼   ► It doesn't matter.

00:11:25 ◼   ► My son wanted to see The Maze Runner, so all those words are capped.

00:11:27 ◼   ► I said show me the Maze Runner and the was capital, Maze was capital, and you know in real time as it spatted out

00:11:33 ◼   ► So that was impressive and three it gave me a bunch of options for

00:11:37 ◼   ► Where to watch it one of which was because I was if I had done it

00:11:41 ◼   ► Let me put it this way if I had done it with the old Apple TV

00:11:44 ◼   ► I would have been like we don't have the Maze Runner

00:11:46 ◼   ► So let me just look to see if it's available on iTunes and either buy it or rent it based on how likely I think

00:11:50 ◼   ► We as a household are to want to watch this again

00:11:53 ◼   ► But instead I said show me the maze runner and I put it down there as an option and I clicked on it

00:11:59 ◼   ► And it was available on HBO go

00:12:01 ◼   ► So I just played it for free

00:12:02 ◼   ► and so that's that's a pretty flawless victory for the new Apple TV over the old one because

00:12:07 ◼   ► It took less time because it just picked up to the remote and spoken to it

00:12:10 ◼   ► It did the right thing and it let me watch for free, you know, cuz I already pay for HBO

00:12:14 ◼   ► It didn't have to go rent it from iTunes. So thumbs up there

00:12:18 ◼   ► Yeah, something I haven't tried, but I'd really like to and I just didn't think about it until you said that is, you know,

00:12:25 ◼   ► can I

00:12:26 ◼   ► get into my Plex library through Siri from like the home screen and I believe there's APIs that allow that to happen

00:12:33 ◼   ► But I don't have the faintest idea whether or not Plex supports it. Yeah, I had some Plex a couple run-ins with Plex

00:12:39 ◼   ► I was trying to watch I forget I was watching trying to watch something that I that I had

00:12:45 ◼   ► available in many different ways and my TV due to weirdness of

00:12:49 ◼   ► HDMI and

00:12:52 ◼   ► misguided attempts at copy protection if I play through the DLNA

00:12:55 ◼   ► Client on my television very often it only wants to output like stereo down to my receiver

00:13:00 ◼   ► It won't even though it'll be fed 5.1 from my DLNA server in the basement

00:13:05 ◼   ► That 5.1 goes into my television

00:13:08 ◼   ► But it never gets to leave what comes out the back of it instead is like even though it's on the audio return channel

00:13:13 ◼   ► But anyway, I fought with it for a while.

00:13:14 ◼   ► And like bottom line is, if it goes,

00:13:16 ◼   ► if I have my, the television itself,

00:13:18 ◼   ► the smart TV feature do it,

00:13:20 ◼   ► sometimes I don't get the high quality audio.

00:13:21 ◼   ► So I'm like, well, this video has high quality 5.1 audio.

00:13:25 ◼   ► I want to get that directly.

00:13:26 ◼   ► But I didn't want to turn on the PlayStation,

00:13:27 ◼   ► which also would have worked because it's noisy.

00:13:28 ◼   ► So I said, it's time for the Apple TV to do it.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And then I did like a search,

00:13:32 ◼   ► like is there a simple DLNA client for Apple TV?

00:13:35 ◼   ► And there are a bunch of them, but I said,

00:13:36 ◼   ► you know what, let me try Plex.

00:13:37 ◼   ► 'Cause I have the Plex server set up on Synology.

00:13:40 ◼   ► So I did, and the thing was there.

00:13:42 ◼   ► And for whatever reason, it just wouldn't play

00:13:45 ◼   ► off of the Synology.

00:13:46 ◼   ► I don't know if the Synology couldn't transcode it

00:13:48 ◼   ► 'cause it was too high a bit rate

00:13:50 ◼   ► or didn't understand the codec or something.

00:13:53 ◼   ► But then I remembered like I have Plex all over the place.

00:13:55 ◼   ► So I just started Plex on my wife's new iMac,

00:13:58 ◼   ► pointed it at the same, you know,

00:13:59 ◼   ► I had already had it set up there.

00:14:01 ◼   ► I just mounted the Synology there.

00:14:03 ◼   ► And my wife's iMac had no problem transcoding it

00:14:05 ◼   ► and I played it from there.

00:14:07 ◼   ► So Plex kind of came through for me there, like halfway.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I mean, it was flexible enough that if it didn't work

00:14:13 ◼   ► off of my NAS, I could just run it

00:14:15 ◼   ► on the much more powerful Mac, and that did work.

00:14:18 ◼   ► So, kind of thumb sideways there.

00:14:20 ◼   ► But anyway, it let me play the video I wanted to play

00:14:24 ◼   ► and the quality I wanted with 5.1

00:14:26 ◼   ► without having to hear a fan, so that's good.

00:14:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's funny because I moved the now old

00:14:32 ◼   ► and busted Apple TV from the family room to the bedroom,

00:14:37 ◼   ► and I had on like MTV Unplugged or something like that

00:14:40 ◼   ► this morning. I forget specifically what it was, but I was...

00:14:43 ◼   ► - I hope it was the Alice in Chains. That's the best one.

00:14:44 ◼   ► - No, I don't think I have that one. I'm sure whatever one it was you would judge me for,

00:14:48 ◼   ► and we don't need to go into that. We'll save that for the after show.

00:14:51 ◼   ► - Many of them are very good, including the seal one that you gave me that I don't think

00:14:54 ◼   ► is available legally anywhere. - I believe that's right. And that was one

00:14:58 ◼   ► of them that we watched. It was an MTV Unplugged morning. Maybe we can argue about that in

00:15:02 ◼   ► the after show, since that appears to be what we do these days.

00:15:04 ◼   ► - I mean, everyone loves the Nirvana one, and the Nirvana one is very good, but I think

00:15:08 ◼   ► the Alice in Chains one is better.

00:15:09 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like I've heard it at some point, but not any time recently, so I should take

00:15:14 ◼   ► a note to listen to that again.

00:15:17 ◼   ► But anyway, so I was trying to--the point of the matter is, I was trying to play Plex

00:15:20 ◼   ► from--onto the old Apple TV, which was wired via Ethernet, now is Wi-Fi, and is the way

00:15:30 ◼   ► the crow flies, so to speak, through the house.

00:15:33 ◼   ► like 15 to 20 feet away from my airport extreme.

00:15:39 ◼   ► Now granted that's through like two or three walls.

00:15:42 ◼   ► And oh my god, the new Apple TV, I don't know if it's because of Ethernet, I don't know

00:15:46 ◼   ► if it's because I'm not doing AirPlay hop.

00:15:49 ◼   ► I'm sure it's a combination of both, but it was so much nicer watching this stuff on the

00:15:55 ◼   ► new Apple TV than it was air playing from the Plex app on the old Apple TV.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Anyway, but so yeah, I'd say at least one thumb probably two thumbs up for the new Apple TV

00:16:05 ◼   ► The play the Plex experience just is everything to me and it's wonderful. I mean, there's a couple of minor issues

00:16:11 ◼   ► I have here and there but but overall really really like it

00:16:14 ◼   ► Do you like the I think the Plex UI on Apple TV looks plain to me

00:16:18 ◼   ► Like I know I'm Plex you can pick like a background for the things then they have all these

00:16:22 ◼   ► You know background images that people have made and I remember the the Mac Plex client

00:16:28 ◼   ► Had all these fancy backgrounds and the UI looked all different the Apple TV one

00:16:31 ◼   ► It's kind of boring especially if you view by folder I use Plex by the way to watch harmy's do specialized editions

00:16:36 ◼   ► My parents wanted to see the the first three Star Wars movies before going to see the seventh

00:16:41 ◼   ► Not not the first three episode one two and three guys

00:16:45 ◼   ► And new hope Empire and Jedi and I wanted to show him harmony. It was the same situation

00:16:50 ◼   ► I could play it off my PlayStation, but then you'd have to hear the PlayStation fan

00:16:55 ◼   ► so and I wanted to get all you know that the multi-channel sound and everything and

00:17:00 ◼   ► So Plex to the rescue again, it could it could play them and it played them correctly and I didn't have to hear a fan

00:17:07 ◼   ► But when you view by folder went into my little Star Wars folder and navigated to it

00:17:11 ◼   ► it was kind of boring looking it was just like a list of words and

00:17:13 ◼   ► You know a cover art off to the left

00:17:16 ◼   ► I don't know. I I just expected Plex to be fancier like not that I demand it to be fancy. But I

00:17:23 ◼   ► I don't know. It seemed to be not up to the standards of the other Plex clients I can remember.

00:17:28 ◼   ► Same thing with the PlayStation 4 client, by the way, but that's the least of my concerns.

00:17:32 ◼   ► If it just gets to the video and plays it, I'm happy. So, uh, Plex is rising in esteem in this household, let's say.

00:17:38 ◼   ► [Laughter]

00:17:39 ◼   ► No, I agree with you. I think that the UI is good. I would not say it's great.

00:17:43 ◼   ► And I think it could definitely use some massaging here and there.

00:17:47 ◼   ► However, it is so much a better experience

00:17:50 ◼   ► than having to have some like iOS device

00:17:52 ◼   ► sitting around air playing everything

00:17:54 ◼   ► that even with the world's ugliest UI,

00:17:57 ◼   ► it could still in many ways do no wrong in my book

00:18:00 ◼   ► because oh my goodness, it's so nice having that natively

00:18:04 ◼   ► on the Apple TV now.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - You should share your Plex library with me.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - I would be happy to, I should do that.

00:18:09 ◼   ► Okay, or both of you.

00:18:12 ◼   ► - I don't think I can share it with you

00:18:13 ◼   ► is my mass is not exposed to the internet at all.

00:18:18 ◼   ► So I don't think I can share with you,

00:18:19 ◼   ► but that doesn't matter.

00:18:20 ◼   ► I just want to get your stuff.

00:18:21 ◼   ► - Are you running Plex on your Synology?

00:18:23 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:24 ◼   ► - Really?

00:18:25 ◼   ► - You can do that?

00:18:26 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, you can,

00:18:27 ◼   ► but I found it was,

00:18:28 ◼   ► whenever I tried to transcode anything live,

00:18:30 ◼   ► it was a disaster.

00:18:31 ◼   ► - Well, that's what I was saying.

00:18:32 ◼   ► I couldn't watch the,

00:18:34 ◼   ► one of the things I wanted to watch just didn't play at all

00:18:36 ◼   ► and I had to use the iMac,

00:18:37 ◼   ► but Harmony Specialized Edition's played fine.

00:18:40 ◼   ► - Hmm.

00:18:41 ◼   ► You know, I think what it might be is if you have it formatted,

00:18:43 ◼   ► it formatted as like, I'm gonna get this wrong, video nerds, I apologize, but if you have

00:18:47 ◼   ► it in some Apple friendly format, let me just be vague.

00:18:49 ◼   ► No, I don't, I do not pre-transcode anything like so. Whatever I downloaded the harmies

00:18:55 ◼   ► as, that's what they are. I refuse to like throw them into Handbrake and reconvert them

00:18:58 ◼   ► because then you're going double lossless, right? So if it won't play exactly as it was

00:19:02 ◼   ► downloaded, then I find something else to play.

00:19:05 ◼   ► Completely agree. I've lamented in the past that this is, the technology that we all have,

00:19:09 ◼   ► as an 1813+ does not have a quick enough processor to do transcoding.

00:19:14 ◼   ► And a lot of people, and I've complained about this in the past, have said, "Oh, we'll just

00:19:18 ◼   ► transcode everything and make it all in whatever magical Apple format I need."

00:19:22 ◼   ► And I completely agree, Jon.

00:19:23 ◼   ► That's just a bunch of work.

00:19:24 ◼   ► Whether or not you have the double lossy conversion, it's just so much work that I just don't want

00:19:29 ◼   ► to have to do.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Jon Streeter And I found my technology does transcode a

00:19:32 ◼   ► whole bunch of stuff on the fly at a reasonable speed for me.

00:19:35 ◼   ► All it needs to do is be able to keep up with real time, and it can in a lot of cases, but

00:19:39 ◼   ► In other cases it just doesn't matter.

00:19:41 ◼   ► That's why I threw the iMac at it, which, you know, didn't break a sweat, can transcode

00:19:44 ◼   ► anything on the fly because it's super duper fast and makes my Mac Pro feel bad.

00:19:49 ◼   ► And that's why I have my old platter-driven MacBook Pro sitting on constantly.

00:19:54 ◼   ► I probably never used this thing if it wasn't for the fact that it is my Plex server.

00:19:58 ◼   ► So yeah, so I will invite you guys after the fact to share, to see my Plex stuff and so

00:20:05 ◼   ► you can stream all of the things that I have.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - Legally.

00:20:09 ◼   ► - Totally.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Well, I mean, you can only stream it, you can't download it.

00:20:13 ◼   ► I'd like to talk about another gift I got,

00:20:15 ◼   ► but do you wanna talk about something else that's awesome,

00:20:17 ◼   ► or do you want me to just keep on truckin'?

00:20:20 ◼   ► - We are also sponsored this week by Casper.

00:20:22 ◼   ► Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses

00:20:25 ◼   ► for a fraction of the price.

00:20:27 ◼   ► The mattress industry has inherently forced consumers

00:20:29 ◼   ► into paying notoriously high markups.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Casper is revolutionizing the mattress industry

00:20:34 ◼   ► by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers and showrooms

00:20:37 ◼   ► and passing that savings directly to the consumer.

00:20:40 ◼   ► Casper mattresses provide two technologies,

00:20:43 ◼   ► latex foam and memory foam,

00:20:45 ◼   ► that come together for just the right sink,

00:20:47 ◼   ► just the right bounce,

00:20:49 ◼   ► giving you better nights and brighter days.

00:20:51 ◼   ► This is an obsessively engineered mattress

00:20:53 ◼   ► made right here in America

00:20:55 ◼   ► and offered to you at a shockingly fair price.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Mattresses can cost well over $1,500,

00:21:01 ◼   ► but Casper mattresses cost only between $500 for a twin,

00:21:05 ◼   ► up to $8.50 for a queen and $9.50 for a king.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Now Casper understands that buying a mattress online

00:21:11 ◼   ► can have consumers wondering how this is possible,

00:21:14 ◼   ► whether it's a risk, what if they don't like it.

00:21:16 ◼   ► This is completely risk-free.

00:21:18 ◼   ► Casper offers free delivery and painless free returns

00:21:22 ◼   ► within a 100 day period.

00:21:24 ◼   ► It's that simple.

00:21:25 ◼   ► Now if you just lie in a bed in a showroom

00:21:27 ◼   ► for a few minutes, you really have no idea

00:21:29 ◼   ► whether you're gonna like it or not.

00:21:30 ◼   ► Casper lets you sleep on it in your own home

00:21:32 ◼   ► for up to 100 days.

00:21:34 ◼   ► and if you don't like it, you call them up

00:21:36 ◼   ► and they will arrange for a free painless return for you.

00:21:40 ◼   ► Casper understands the importance of truly trying

00:21:42 ◼   ► out a mattress that in reality you spend

00:21:44 ◼   ► a third of your life on.

00:21:46 ◼   ► Check it out today, these are mattresses once again

00:21:48 ◼   ► with just the right sink, just the right bounce

00:21:50 ◼   ► with a combination of latex foam and memory foam

00:21:53 ◼   ► for better nights and brighter days.

00:21:55 ◼   ► Try it out today with free delivery and painless returns.

00:21:58 ◼   ► These are made in America,

00:21:59 ◼   ► high quality engineered mattresses.

00:22:02 ◼   ► Go to casper.com/atp.

00:22:05 ◼   ► Now you will get $50 towards any mattress purchase

00:22:08 ◼   ► from the URL casper.com/atp

00:22:10 ◼   ► to get $50 towards any mattress.

00:22:12 ◼   ► Terms and conditions do apply.

00:22:13 ◼   ► Thank you very much to Casper

00:22:15 ◼   ► for sponsoring our show once again.

00:22:17 ◼   ► - All right, so the other thing

00:22:18 ◼   ► that I received this Christmas,

00:22:20 ◼   ► which I know everyone is so excited about the accidental

00:22:22 ◼   ► look at me and humble bragging podcast,

00:22:24 ◼   ► is Erin got me a new RetinaPad Mini.

00:22:28 ◼   ► She got me an iPad Mini 4 with Retina and cellular, and I am really into this device.

00:22:35 ◼   ► I've always loved my iPad Minis.

00:22:39 ◼   ► This is my fourth iPad.

00:22:40 ◼   ► I had the original.

00:22:41 ◼   ► I had the iPad 3, which was the first with the Retina, which is what you are still rocking,

00:22:47 ◼   ► Jon?

00:22:48 ◼   ► Is that right?

00:22:49 ◼   ► Yeah, still.

00:22:50 ◼   ► It's getting long in the tooth, man.

00:22:51 ◼   ► I don't know how long I can keep it up.

00:22:52 ◼   ► It's getting heavy in the tooth.

00:22:53 ◼   ► Yeah, too.

00:22:55 ◼   ► Then I had the original Retina Mini and now the iPad Mini 4.

00:23:02 ◼   ► And the last two, both the Minis have been cellular.

00:23:05 ◼   ► In the last couple of months I've given up on my AT&T Unlimited plan and so now I can

00:23:10 ◼   ► actually tether.

00:23:11 ◼   ► I'm not entirely sure going cellular was the most right choice, but so far I've liked it.

00:23:18 ◼   ► And the Apple SIM is actually pretty cool.

00:23:20 ◼   ► I put a post on my site about some random things that I've discovered with regard

00:23:25 ◼   ► to the Apple SIM, and so you can go check that out if that's interesting to you.

00:23:29 ◼   ► The short, short version is it's a single SIM card that you can use with multiple carriers,

00:23:34 ◼   ► which is really kind of fascinating.

00:23:37 ◼   ► I don't have too much to say about the device other than, why didn't somebody tell me

00:23:41 ◼   ► that this iPad multitasking stuff was really cool?

00:23:43 ◼   ► Like I wish Federico had said something or something like that, because this is kind

00:23:47 ◼   ► of exciting.

00:23:48 ◼   ► - I love that this episode is like,

00:23:50 ◼   ► "Casey discovers after Christmas

00:23:52 ◼   ► "what everyone else in Apple community discovered

00:23:54 ◼   ► "in the fall."

00:23:55 ◼   ► - That's what I've been talking about for months.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - Welcome to October.

00:23:59 ◼   ► - And he saw Star Wars too.

00:24:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I saw Star Wars just yesterday,

00:24:03 ◼   ► actually, as we record.

00:24:04 ◼   ► So anyway, I won't go on about this

00:24:06 ◼   ► like I did about the Apple TV,

00:24:08 ◼   ► but suffice to say, it genuinely,

00:24:10 ◼   ► I'm not trying to be funny,

00:24:12 ◼   ► it genuinely changes how you use the device

00:24:16 ◼   ► when you can genuinely do more than one thing at once.

00:24:20 ◼   ► Well, on the old Mini, I could do,

00:24:22 ◼   ► I believe it's slide over,

00:24:23 ◼   ► where you can just slide something in and interact with it,

00:24:25 ◼   ► and then you have to make it go away

00:24:27 ◼   ► because they wouldn't let you do

00:24:29 ◼   ► a full-on two-pane multitasking.

00:24:32 ◼   ► I could do picture-in-picture,

00:24:33 ◼   ► which, by the way, quick aside,

00:24:36 ◼   ► Plex on the iPad actually does support picture-in-picture,

00:24:39 ◼   ► even though it doesn't have the same UI

00:24:41 ◼   ► that everything else on the planet does.

00:24:43 ◼   ► As it turns out, if you just hit the Home button

00:24:45 ◼   ► while you're playing something,

00:24:46 ◼   ► it will automatically kick on picture in picture, which is really awesome.

00:24:51 ◼   ► So anyway, so I really, really have liked having multitasking on it.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And I can't think of any specific thing that I've done that has been amazing, but just

00:25:04 ◼   ► the ability to be able to say, "Hang out in Slack," while catching up on Twitter or what

00:25:10 ◼   ► have you, has been so awesome and genuinely changes.

00:25:14 ◼   ► I know I've said that word like 18 times, but it really does.

00:25:16 ◼   ► It changes the way I think about my iPad, and it makes me feel like even my mini is

00:25:23 ◼   ► so much more capable.

00:25:25 ◼   ► This new mini is so much more capable than the mini that came before it for me.

00:25:30 ◼   ► And I'm really excited to be able to dig into using this a little more, not for work stuff

00:25:35 ◼   ► or anything like that, but just to be more, I don't know, productive or efficient maybe

00:25:40 ◼   ► is the word I'm looking for, while even just goofing off.

00:25:43 ◼   ► And so I'm really stoked with it, really pleased with it.

00:25:46 ◼   ► And so far I'm excited that I got a cellular one.

00:25:51 ◼   ► And I now understand Federico's rage over people, over apps that don't support the two-pane

00:25:57 ◼   ► multitasking, because it is really annoying.

00:26:00 ◼   ► Marco, were you the one who tweeted or retweeted something showing some person saying, "You

00:26:06 ◼   ► know, guys, it doesn't take too many changes to UI window to make it into it."

00:26:10 ◼   ► Like, they had, like, windows?

00:26:12 ◼   ► Yeah, Steve TS did just like a little mock-up, like a working mock-up demo of multiple UI

00:26:18 ◼   ► windows on screen at once with draggable edges and draggable titlebars.

00:26:22 ◼   ► And this is on the iPad, and what they basically had it look like is OS X windows, but with

00:26:25 ◼   ► really big finger-sized widgets for the little stoplight widgets.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And it looked silly, and I'm going to say this is probably not the way you should go,

00:26:34 ◼   ► but people are mad with power now, basically.

00:26:37 ◼   ► Like "Split View?

00:26:38 ◼   ► Wait a second.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Wait a second, the CPU is capable of doing more than things it wants.

00:26:42 ◼   ► I need Windows and I need to arrange for them.

00:26:43 ◼   ► They're just, you know, recreating all, they're recreating my desktop on their iPads, which

00:26:47 ◼   ► is probably not what they want.

00:26:49 ◼   ► They're not ready for that.

00:26:50 ◼   ► But it's, you know, I guess someone could do that.

00:26:54 ◼   ► Maybe Apple would reject it because they're kind of like that, oh, this tries to make

00:26:56 ◼   ► a new, you know, windowing environment or I don't know, I'm sure Apple would find some

00:27:00 ◼   ► way to reject it because like imagine an app.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Yeah, well, there's been a rule forever against apps that try to create their own like desktop

00:27:07 ◼   ► type environments inside themselves to have any kind of like multiple widgets inside of

00:27:11 ◼   ► one central app there.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Like, and it's a very vague rule, but that's been there since the very beginning.

00:27:15 ◼   ► It's like the one that got status board rejected, but then not because it was ridiculous to

00:27:19 ◼   ► reject status board, but like, but definitely making actual windows because I don't even

00:27:23 ◼   ► know how you would, what you, what would you put in those windows?

00:27:26 ◼   ► Like, well, I think it was my, maybe if someone did like a sketching application for the iPad

00:27:30 ◼   ► Pro where it had a bunch of pallets that were like literally just pallets, like Photoshop

00:27:34 ◼   ► palettes, some kind of weird dockable palettes with big finger-sized things on the top of

00:27:38 ◼   ► them. Would Apple reject that because it gives too much flexibility about where you put the

00:27:42 ◼   ► palettes? I don't know, like, it seems like there is, there's something there where people,

00:27:47 ◼   ► somebody is daring enough, because the ability to arrange the palettes the way you want in

00:27:51 ◼   ► Photoshop or any other design application, that's a feature. Like, people have different

00:27:54 ◼   ► tools that they want to use at certain times, and, I mean, it's not that the Mac versions

00:27:59 ◼   ► of these applications are infinitely flexible, you're still kind of stuck with this set of

00:28:02 ◼   ► palette and you can arrange them and make them skinny or wide or whatever but talk to

00:28:07 ◼   ► any designer or watch them work.

00:28:08 ◼   ► People have preferences about what goes where on the screen.

00:28:11 ◼   ► Where is the layers palette?

00:28:12 ◼   ► Where is the history palette?

00:28:13 ◼   ► What's hidden?

00:28:14 ◼   ► What's shown by default?

00:28:15 ◼   ► Is it skinny or wide?

00:28:17 ◼   ► What's docked here and there?

00:28:19 ◼   ► Is it the full screen thing or is it the small window?

00:28:21 ◼   ► These are just options within Photoshop.

00:28:24 ◼   ► If there was an iPad Pro sketching application that gave similar flexibility, people would

00:28:29 ◼   ► use that flexibility because maybe they want...

00:28:31 ◼   ► is the thing that they always go to?

00:28:32 ◼   ► They go to the color well frequently, they change brush sizes frequently, they don't

00:28:36 ◼   ► have like a keyboard to hit the square brackets to make the brush size go up and down.

00:28:39 ◼   ► So being able to sort of arrange their workspace within an application using things that I

00:28:44 ◼   ► guess you kind of not call them windows to avoid getting rejected, but I really hope

00:28:48 ◼   ► Apple wouldn't reject an app like that because I think that's a great idea for, and for all

00:28:52 ◼   ► I know, because I'm not a designer, for all I know there are that perhaps that already

00:28:54 ◼   ► do this, so if that's the case then never mind, it's already been done.

00:28:58 ◼   ► But if not, that's definitely a direction that I think it's safe.

00:29:02 ◼   ► It should be safe to go in that direction with design applications, for example, on

00:29:06 ◼   ► the iPad Pro.

00:29:07 ◼   ► And seeing this multitasking, to bring it back around, just makes me understand that

00:29:13 ◼   ► much more why someone would really like an iPad Pro, despite the fact that I do think

00:29:19 ◼   ► it is just comically large.

00:29:22 ◼   ► I can see how it would be really, really useful to have all that extra screen real estate.

00:29:26 ◼   ► So it's interesting.

00:29:27 ◼   ► But I really, really like the new Retina iPad Mini.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Two thumbs up for that,

00:29:33 ◼   ► two thumbs up for the iPad multitasking.

00:29:35 ◼   ► Really, really been digging it.

00:29:37 ◼   ► - On the iPad Pro being comically large,

00:29:39 ◼   ► I still, as I dwell on this,

00:29:42 ◼   ► I think the problem is that it's not big enough.

00:29:43 ◼   ► Not the problem, not that there's a problem with it per se,

00:29:46 ◼   ► but like the reason it seems so large

00:29:47 ◼   ► is because we are comparing it to like the, you know,

00:29:51 ◼   ► the quote unquote full-size iPad.

00:29:53 ◼   ► If it was really comically large, like as in 21 inch,

00:29:56 ◼   ► No one would be comparing it to, like no one would think,

00:29:59 ◼   ► oh, I'm gonna put this in my backpack.

00:30:00 ◼   ► It would be for designers to work with at their desk.

00:30:03 ◼   ► It's like, why is it even an iPad at that point?

00:30:05 ◼   ► Why aren't you just, why isn't it just a Mac?

00:30:06 ◼   ► Why, you know, well,

00:30:07 ◼   ► 'cause you draw on the screen with a pen

00:30:09 ◼   ► and you don't do that with a Mac.

00:30:10 ◼   ► And it's not indirect like a Cintiq

00:30:12 ◼   ► where you got the Mac over here.

00:30:13 ◼   ► You know, like I still feel like it's the direction

00:30:15 ◼   ► we're going in, albeit at this point,

00:30:17 ◼   ► we're going there at a snail's pace

00:30:18 ◼   ► 'cause it took this long to get us a stylus

00:30:21 ◼   ► and a slightly larger iPad.

00:30:22 ◼   ► But I think that will solve the problem of,

00:30:25 ◼   ► "Whoa, look at the size of this giant iPad!"

00:30:27 ◼   ► When it, you stop making that comparison

00:30:29 ◼   ► at a certain point.

00:30:30 ◼   ► When it becomes a thing that sits on your desk,

00:30:32 ◼   ► I don't mean that you have to plug it in,

00:30:34 ◼   ► although you could plug it in.

00:30:35 ◼   ► But I mean, I think there have been people

00:30:37 ◼   ► who have made these very large tablet size things

00:30:41 ◼   ► like 21 inches or whatever,

00:30:42 ◼   ► and they just haven't caught on.

00:30:45 ◼   ► I just don't think the software is there for it yet.

00:30:46 ◼   ► But in the same way that I feel like

00:30:49 ◼   ► the iPad Pro features will go downscale,

00:30:51 ◼   ► at some point you can make the iPad Pro even bigger.

00:30:54 ◼   ► Like, why not?

00:30:55 ◼   ► If it becomes a tool for designers,

00:30:58 ◼   ► who wants to design things on something

00:31:00 ◼   ► as puny as an iPad Pro?

00:31:02 ◼   ► Like, why wouldn't you want something bigger?

00:31:04 ◼   ► I think you would, naturally, eventually.

00:31:06 ◼   ► Well, why did they stop making the 17-inch MacBook Pro?

00:31:10 ◼   ► I think that is kind of like--

00:31:14 ◼   ► because the laptop's role is to be portable, right?

00:31:16 ◼   ► And I don't think the iPad's role is necessarily

00:31:18 ◼   ► to be portable, especially for design things,

00:31:21 ◼   ► because they just want to draw on the screen, right?

00:31:22 ◼   ► I think Cintiqs are bigger than that size.

00:31:26 ◼   ► - Well, I think the reason they killed the 17 inch

00:31:29 ◼   ► MacBook Pro is probably because they just weren't selling

00:31:31 ◼   ► enough of them to make it worth continuing to sell.

00:31:34 ◼   ► So a larger iPad than the Pro might have that same problem.

00:31:38 ◼   ► They might, you know, there is a maximum size

00:31:40 ◼   ► above which it is just too specialized

00:31:43 ◼   ► and not enough people will buy it

00:31:45 ◼   ► to make it worth Apple making it.

00:31:46 ◼   ► And for MacBooks, that appears to be 15 inches.

00:31:49 ◼   ► So what is it for iPads?

00:31:50 ◼   ► It might be the iPad Pro size,

00:31:52 ◼   ► that might be bigger, who knows?

00:31:53 ◼   ► - I don't buy into that because I think the generation

00:31:55 ◼   ► that's throwing mice around the room

00:31:56 ◼   ► wants something they're gonna touch.

00:31:58 ◼   ► Like that's why I keep saying the iPad

00:31:59 ◼   ► is the future of computing.

00:32:00 ◼   ► It's not gonna be too specialized.

00:32:01 ◼   ► What's gonna be too specialized

00:32:02 ◼   ► is the PCs that you can't touch.

00:32:04 ◼   ► So Apple is eventually,

00:32:05 ◼   ► for those kids who are throwing those mice

00:32:07 ◼   ► around the computer lab who are in kindergarten now,

00:32:09 ◼   ► when they are 30 years old,

00:32:11 ◼   ► I think they're gonna want a really big touchscreen

00:32:14 ◼   ► somewhere in their house to do the type of stuff

00:32:17 ◼   ► they can't do on their phones, like for sitting down.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Like in the same way that we have an iMac

00:32:21 ◼   ► or our laptops or maybe they'll just stick with laptops.

00:32:24 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:32:24 ◼   ► Like the 17 inch laptop, it's an old form factor

00:32:27 ◼   ► and it's meant to be portable

00:32:28 ◼   ► and a non-portable laptop is called desktop

00:32:30 ◼   ► and we already have that.

00:32:32 ◼   ► Like we have a massive 5K iMac.

00:32:33 ◼   ► Like I don't, one fun thing to think about is

00:32:37 ◼   ► what is the upper size limit on desktop computer screens?

00:32:41 ◼   ► 27 inches that like we went up to 30,

00:32:44 ◼   ► is that like the limit?

00:32:46 ◼   ► Or at a certain point it becomes you can't find

00:32:48 ◼   ► like a desk space big enough.

00:32:50 ◼   ► it starts blocking your view out of your home.

00:32:52 ◼   ► And like, it's just, it's just, it's just too darn big.

00:32:55 ◼   ► I have a friend who uses a television,

00:32:56 ◼   ► like people who have a vision problems, you know,

00:32:59 ◼   ► not that it's low resolution, but it's just massive, right?

00:33:02 ◼   ► I guess, you know, maybe VR have sets come

00:33:05 ◼   ► and make all this a moot point.

00:33:07 ◼   ► But anyway, thinking about the sizes screens can be

00:33:11 ◼   ► in the future, I think it's,

00:33:14 ◼   ► there's lots of interesting possibilities.

00:33:16 ◼   ► And I think a lot of our view today is colored by

00:33:19 ◼   ► what we're comparing it to or where we slot it.

00:33:22 ◼   ► You know, that's all just getting back to Casey's thing,

00:33:24 ◼   ► it's comically large.

00:33:25 ◼   ► And like in some respects it is.

00:33:27 ◼   ► It's like the world's biggest iPhone

00:33:29 ◼   ► or it's a comically large iPad.

00:33:31 ◼   ► But in other respects,

00:33:32 ◼   ► it's a comically small laptop screen

00:33:35 ◼   ► detached from a keyboard.

00:33:36 ◼   ► It's a comically small iMac that you can touch, right?

00:33:40 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:33:41 ◼   ► Anyway, that was an aside.

00:33:42 ◼   ► - We are also sponsored this week by Blue Apron.

00:33:46 ◼   ► Go to blueapron.com/atp

00:33:49 ◼   ► to get your first two meals for free.

00:33:51 ◼   ► Now, you need to know how to cook.

00:33:54 ◼   ► Not only should you know your way around the kitchen,

00:33:55 ◼   ► but cooking at home means eating healthier and saving money

00:33:58 ◼   ► instead of ordering expensive, unhealthy takeout

00:34:01 ◼   ► every night.

00:34:02 ◼   ► But where do you start?

00:34:03 ◼   ► Blue Apron has you covered.

00:34:05 ◼   ► For less than $10 per meal, Blue Apron delivers

00:34:08 ◼   ► all the fresh ingredients you need

00:34:09 ◼   ► to create home-cooked meals.

00:34:11 ◼   ► Just follow the easy step-by-step instructions

00:34:13 ◼   ► for each recipe with pictures of every step

00:34:16 ◼   ► printed right on the recipe cards

00:34:17 ◼   ► and many more online how-to videos

00:34:20 ◼   ► to teach you any fundamentals and techniques

00:34:21 ◼   ► you may not be familiar with.

00:34:23 ◼   ► Now, I use Blue Apron, my wife and I have used it

00:34:25 ◼   ► for a while now, and I can honestly say,

00:34:28 ◼   ► it is as easy as they say, and we do enjoy it.

00:34:30 ◼   ► Now, each meal can be prepared in 40 minutes or less,

00:34:33 ◼   ► and comes with exactly the ingredients you need.

00:34:36 ◼   ► No overwhelming trips to the grocery store,

00:34:38 ◼   ► no rotting leftovers in the fridge,

00:34:40 ◼   ► and no more sad takeout.

00:34:42 ◼   ► Regardless of your dietary preferences,

00:34:43 ◼   ► Blue Apron makes it a breeze to discover and prepare dishes

00:34:46 ◼   ► like apple cider glazed chicken with roasted parsnip, carrots, and baby sweet potatoes

00:34:51 ◼   ► right in your own kitchen.

00:34:53 ◼   ► You also cook with ingredients that you've never used before like watermelon radishes,

00:34:57 ◼   ► farro, and purple potatoes.

00:35:00 ◼   ► All Blue Apron's recipes are between 500 to 700 calories per portion.

00:35:04 ◼   ► This is delicious and good for you.

00:35:06 ◼   ► Right now you can get your first two meals for free at BlueApron.com/ATP.

00:35:12 ◼   ► Once again, that's BlueApron.com/ATP.

00:35:16 ◼   ► Blue Apron, a Better Way to Cook.

00:35:18 ◼   ► All right, so John, you had come up with a topic or theme perhaps for the remainder of

00:35:26 ◼   ► today's episode.

00:35:27 ◼   ► Would you like to introduce that and kind of kick us off?

00:35:29 ◼   ► The last episode of 2015, that means you have a sort of a year-end thing.

00:35:32 ◼   ► You could do a year in review.

00:35:34 ◼   ► You could do predictions for next year.

00:35:37 ◼   ► What I wanted to do was something kind of in between, which is a 2016 wish list with

00:35:43 ◼   ► a set of rules.

00:35:44 ◼   ► Of course, there are rules.

00:35:45 ◼   ► So the first rule is that these are not predictions.

00:35:48 ◼   ► So that gets us entirely out of the game

00:35:50 ◼   ► of trying to predict what is actually going to happen

00:35:52 ◼   ► in 2016, because that's fun to do sometimes.

00:35:55 ◼   ► And it's easy to tell whether you're right

00:35:57 ◼   ► for the most part, but I don't know,

00:36:00 ◼   ► like I'm less interested in predicting what will happen

00:36:03 ◼   ► than in talking about what I would like to happen.

00:36:06 ◼   ► And for stuff that you would like to happen,

00:36:09 ◼   ► you can't pick like blue sky stuff where it's like,

00:36:12 ◼   ► if I could have a pony and a unicorn,

00:36:15 ◼   ► this is what I would want.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So the rules are not predictions and pick things

00:36:19 ◼   ► that are plausible and feasible

00:36:22 ◼   ► and that you wanna see in 2016.

00:36:24 ◼   ► And I guess we'll have to just judge

00:36:25 ◼   ► whether the thing you're asking for is a fantasy

00:36:28 ◼   ► that's never gonna happen

00:36:29 ◼   ► and has to be straightened from the list.

00:36:31 ◼   ► But those are the ground rules.

00:36:33 ◼   ► And I hope you guys did some semblance of homework.

00:36:36 ◼   ► - I have a text file in front of me.

00:36:37 ◼   ► - That sounds serious.

00:36:39 ◼   ► - Does it have more than one thing in it?

00:36:41 ◼   ► - It has 36 lines with text on them.

00:36:43 ◼   ► - Well, including white space.

00:36:45 ◼   ► 36 lines.

00:36:46 ◼   ► - All right, and this is, it's not even like top four,

00:36:48 ◼   ► they don't even need to be ordered.

00:36:49 ◼   ► This is an unordered list, UL.

00:36:51 ◼   ► - So you might actually do okay with this, Marco.

00:36:53 ◼   ► - Well, it was very hard for me to do this

00:36:56 ◼   ► in a way that wasn't just predictions.

00:36:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:36:59 ◼   ► - Like, keeping it to plausible things was fairly easy,

00:37:04 ◼   ► but making it not just a list of what I think will happen,

00:37:07 ◼   ► or what I think is very likely to happen, that is harder,

00:37:10 ◼   ► and I've definitely had a harder time with that.

00:37:13 ◼   ► So my list is a little bit predictive.

00:37:15 ◼   ► And well, to getting away from predictions,

00:37:17 ◼   ► the reason I don't wanna do predictions

00:37:18 ◼   ► is because that allows cynicism in the door.

00:37:20 ◼   ► Because you could say, these dummies are gonna do this

00:37:22 ◼   ► even though they shouldn't.

00:37:23 ◼   ► And this is more just like, what do you want to happen?

00:37:25 ◼   ► Like what, if you could make certain things happen,

00:37:29 ◼   ► and you know, non-magical things,

00:37:31 ◼   ► what do you wanna see in 2016?

00:37:33 ◼   ► And it can be anything tech, I guess.

00:37:34 ◼   ► I mean, we're probably all thinking of Apple stuff,

00:37:36 ◼   ► but realize that it can be anything tech related.

00:37:38 ◼   ► - And honestly, I mean, my list is actually pretty optimistic

00:37:43 ◼   ► or like it isn't a pessimistic or cynical list

00:37:45 ◼   ► because, you know, look, and my list is very,

00:37:48 ◼   ► very Apple focused, I just wasn't really thinking

00:37:51 ◼   ► of other stuff because frankly,

00:37:52 ◼   ► the rest of the tech industry is kind of boring

00:37:54 ◼   ► most of the time, to be honest.

00:37:56 ◼   ► But, you know, for me, the Apple side of it,

00:37:59 ◼   ► I am optimistic simply because I think Apple

00:38:03 ◼   ► in 2015 and 2014 really did a lot of 1.0s.

00:38:08 ◼   ► Like a lot of things are either brand new product lines

00:38:12 ◼   ► or new product sub-lines like the iPad Pro,

00:38:16 ◼   ► or new services like Apple Music and Photo Cloud stuff.

00:38:21 ◼   ► There's a lot of restarts and 1.0s recently,

00:38:26 ◼   ► in this past year.

00:38:27 ◼   ► And so I'm really hoping that 2016 brings

00:38:32 ◼   ► a lot of 1.1s and 2.0s, you know?

00:38:34 ◼   ► Just like a lot of revision, a lot of maybe maturing

00:38:39 ◼   ► of these lines and of these various new products.

00:38:41 ◼   ► you know, just kind of a slow down in brand new cutting edge launches, because Apple's

00:38:46 ◼   ► cutting edge launches have been all over the map in terms of quality and usefulness and

00:38:50 ◼   ► everything. And so to have some time where that can be kind of calmed down and matured

00:38:56 ◼   ► and stabilized and developed further rather than just more and more 1.0s of everything

00:39:03 ◼   ► would be very welcome. And I think that's what will happen, and I hope that's what

00:39:08 ◼   ► will happen. So that is my main theme of my wishes is just stop at the 1.0s for a little

00:39:15 ◼   ► while and just take all these 1.0s forward to their next steps in their growth.

00:39:21 ◼   ► There was a really good, well I didn't finish it, I only had time to read about the first

00:39:25 ◼   ► half, but I think it was Nielle Patel wrote something on The Verge yesterday, I believe

00:39:32 ◼   ► it was. It's entitled "2015 Apple's Year in Beta." And it very much echoes what you just

00:39:39 ◼   ► said, that basically there's been a lot of half-cooked stuff that's been released in

00:39:43 ◼   ► this year, and that's really kind of unfortunate. And I didn't get to the portion which actually

00:39:48 ◼   ► sounds perhaps even more interesting to me, which is "New platform ideas in search of

00:39:54 ◼   ► sticky user behavior." So for example, 3D Touch, which I find I'm using more and more

00:39:59 ◼   ► over time, but I did not have the instant, like, "Oh my god, I'm using this always"

00:40:06 ◼   ► experience that I was kind of expecting to, actually. So we'll link this in the show notes,

00:40:10 ◼   ► but it was a little on the negative side, but I think it was pretty fair, all told.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, you know, at this point in Apple's evolution, they are really throwing a lot

00:40:20 ◼   ► more spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks, and whether that used to happen more in private

00:40:25 ◼   ► and is now more public, or whether, as I said

00:40:28 ◼   ► in a recent show, I think there's just been a lot

00:40:31 ◼   ► of low-hanging fruit that has all been picked,

00:40:33 ◼   ► and now in order to find the next big thing

00:40:36 ◼   ► or the next success in the business, it's harder.

00:40:41 ◼   ► And the successes are getting smaller, relatively speaking,

00:40:45 ◼   ► and all the low-hanging fruit has already been picked

00:40:48 ◼   ► in a lot of these industries, so it's just getting harder

00:40:50 ◼   ► to find what's next and to find success.

00:40:52 ◼   ► And so we are seeing things that come out that are kind of like, "Eh, really?"

00:40:58 ◼   ► Or things that you're not really sure will work, and many of them don't, and many of

00:41:02 ◼   ► them do.

00:41:03 ◼   ► And it's happening more in public now with Apple than it used to, I think.

00:41:07 ◼   ► Or maybe we're just remembering wrong, I don't know.

00:41:09 ◼   ► But it does seem like we are seeing a lot more things come out of Apple that are not

00:41:14 ◼   ► clear wins from day one.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Obviously you can look back to the past and you can say, "Well, it was never perfect."

00:41:21 ◼   ► And that's true.

00:41:22 ◼   ► But I think if you look at the iPhone 1.0,

00:41:25 ◼   ► or even the early iPods, and many of their earlier

00:41:29 ◼   ► 1.0 releases versus today's 1.0 releases,

00:41:33 ◼   ► I think the number of asterisks and downsides in the past

00:41:37 ◼   ► was probably lower than it is today.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And in part that's because they are a bigger company.

00:41:43 ◼   ► I do think it has to do in part

00:41:45 ◼   ► with Steve not being there anymore.

00:41:47 ◼   ► And I think in part it is just because

00:41:48 ◼   ► the products now are more complicated.

00:41:49 ◼   ► as I just said, like, it's more challenging now to find new territory that will be a success.

00:41:55 ◼   ► Yeah, from this piece that I was talking about, this is Neil A. Patel, and that's really the issue.

00:42:00 ◼   ► We're not used to Apple being just fine. We're used to Apple being wildly better than the

00:42:04 ◼   ► competition or sometimes much worse, but always ahead of the curve on some significant axis. But

00:42:10 ◼   ► what we got in 2015 was an Apple that released more products than ever, all of which felt

00:42:13 ◼   ► incomplete in extremely meaningful ways, ways that meant that their products were just fine

00:42:18 ◼   ► and often just the same as everyone else's.

00:42:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know if I buy the premise,

00:42:24 ◼   ► because again, long memory,

00:42:25 ◼   ► but one thing when I think of the problem,

00:42:28 ◼   ► like the underlying thing,

00:42:29 ◼   ► I keep coming back to my hobby horse,

00:42:32 ◼   ► which is I don't know,

00:42:34 ◼   ► like in a world where products increasingly

00:42:37 ◼   ► have a backend service component,

00:42:41 ◼   ► that works against Apple,

00:42:44 ◼   ► because I don't know if they can make those things like,

00:42:46 ◼   ► They're 1.0 their buggy or whatever like I just need one more year to work out the kinks when it was just software and hardware

00:42:52 ◼   ► That shipped to customers that was true. They could work out the kinks. They'd make the hardware better

00:42:56 ◼   ► But when it's server component things like I don't I don't see a lot of like there's some progress there

00:43:04 ◼   ► But it's really slow and I that's why I don't have the confidence to like oh given

00:43:08 ◼   ► Given a year or two like contact syncing will be a solved problem. You know how long Apple's been working on contacts

00:43:14 ◼   ► I don't people don't have many contacts. I don't have many contacts to get like

00:43:17 ◼   ► hundred or so couple hundred contacts, and I just want them to be the same everywhere and to be in sync and

00:43:22 ◼   ► This should be a solved problem

00:43:26 ◼   ► But it isn't and it like is it is it because Apple hasn't had time to work on contact syncing

00:43:30 ◼   ► No, like it's just I feel like there is a fundamental

00:43:34 ◼   ► Incapability of the organization to get past some threshold of quality and as more and more things they make have that component

00:43:42 ◼   ► I worry that there's like a ceiling on how good those things are gonna be how good can Apple music be if there's necessarily a server

00:43:50 ◼   ► component how good can Apple TV be if there's no you know I

00:43:52 ◼   ► Don't know maybe maybe that's my imagination, but certainly it's true that more and more products

00:43:58 ◼   ► Even if you just think of the watch where the server is kind of the phone more and more products

00:44:03 ◼   ► Rely on something that is not inside the physical device to to do like their main job not as a frill or something right

00:44:11 ◼   ► So I don't know if like, I don't know, iCloud is better than .Mac and MobileMe and all that

00:44:21 ◼   ► other stuff and things have improved and they are going in the right direction.

00:44:25 ◼   ► But boy, it feels like slow going and as that slowly evolves, the number of new products

00:44:33 ◼   ► and new platforms for that matter that they introduced that rely on server infrastructure

00:44:37 ◼   ► things to be reliable and fast and always available is outpacing the quality of their

00:44:43 ◼   ► implementation of those things.

00:44:44 ◼   ► So I don't want to be too pessimistic.

00:44:46 ◼   ► I feel like it is a positive trend, but they are, Apple in this past year, if I had to

00:44:51 ◼   ► characterize it, it would be a year in which they, a year or two in which they introduced

00:44:56 ◼   ► a lot of new platforms and every new platform was kind of crappy in the beginning.

00:45:01 ◼   ► And so if you introduced a whole bunch of new platforms, you're going to have a whole

00:45:03 ◼   ► year or two of kind of crappy.

00:45:07 ◼   ► you gotta give them time to get their feet underneath them.

00:45:09 ◼   ► And every platform goes through cycles.

00:45:11 ◼   ► Like the Mac has been a shaky platform,

00:45:13 ◼   ► then solid, then shaky, then solid, then shaky, then solid,

00:45:15 ◼   ► then totally in crisis, then really crappy

00:45:17 ◼   ► for a whole bunch of years, that's the dawn of OS X,

00:45:20 ◼   ► and then solid again, then shaky again.

00:45:21 ◼   ► Like these things go in cycles.

00:45:23 ◼   ► So I hope we'll be on an upswing with, you know,

00:45:25 ◼   ► I don't know, are we currently in an upswing with iOS

00:45:28 ◼   ► or a downswing?

00:45:29 ◼   ► I can't really tell.

00:45:30 ◼   ► I think we're kind of plateauing with it.

00:45:33 ◼   ► Like, do you feel like iOS is in a downswing

00:45:36 ◼   ► in terms of the quality as compared to like the golden age

00:45:39 ◼   ► of what is that, iOS 4 maybe?

00:45:41 ◼   ► - No, honestly, I think iOS is great.

00:45:44 ◼   ► iOS on the iPhone I think is fantastic.

00:45:47 ◼   ► iOS, even on the iPad, it is in many ways

00:45:52 ◼   ► still pretty half-assed on the iPad

00:45:55 ◼   ► like as its own thing versus the iPhone

00:45:58 ◼   ► like versus just being a blown up phone OS.

00:46:00 ◼   ► It still needs a lot of work to really

00:46:03 ◼   ► stand on its own in the iPad.

00:46:04 ◼   ► But iOS in general and iOS on the iPhone itself,

00:46:08 ◼   ► I think the current version, which is 9, is very solid.

00:46:12 ◼   ► I'm very happy with 9.

00:46:13 ◼   ► - So like performance, UI, reliability, APIs,

00:46:18 ◼   ► like it all just seems like is this a new,

00:46:20 ◼   ► a good period for iOS where like the UI in 7

00:46:24 ◼   ► has kind of had most of the kinks worked out of it, you feel?

00:46:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, for the most part.

00:46:28 ◼   ► I mean like, nothing's perfect,

00:46:30 ◼   ► but I think iOS is pretty solid now.

00:46:34 ◼   ► Design wise, obviously there's a lot that can use improvement with the iOS 7 design

00:46:38 ◼   ► language and some of it I just think will not be improved.

00:46:43 ◼   ► Some of it would require changing that design language in ways that I don't think the current

00:46:48 ◼   ► software designers in power at Apple would ever allow.

00:46:52 ◼   ► So I don't think it's going to happen.

00:46:54 ◼   ► But overall, I think iOS and especially iOS on the iPhone is solid.

00:47:00 ◼   ► There are some things that are weird.

00:47:01 ◼   ► As you mentioned, anything that touches a cloud service

00:47:03 ◼   ► can be weird.

00:47:04 ◼   ► I don't know how many people out there with iPhones

00:47:08 ◼   ► are very frequently asked to go reenter

00:47:11 ◼   ► their iCloud password and settings.

00:47:13 ◼   ► - Periodically asked.

00:47:14 ◼   ► It's like rain, it's any dark sky app

00:47:17 ◼   ► for when am I going to be asked for my iCloud password.

00:47:20 ◼   ► Today you're gonna be asked 17 times,

00:47:22 ◼   ► then you will not be asked again for three weeks.

00:47:25 ◼   ► Why, I don't know.

00:47:27 ◼   ► - In my case, I very frequently will wake up to a phone

00:47:30 ◼   ► that I need to re-enter my passcode on,

00:47:32 ◼   ► that hasn't rebooted, but it just says Touch ID

00:47:35 ◼   ► 'cause it's been more than 48 hours,

00:47:36 ◼   ► and it's been like seven hours.

00:47:38 ◼   ► And so, you know, there's little stuff like that,

00:47:42 ◼   ► but in general, using the phone, the OS,

00:47:46 ◼   ► in general, I would say both iOS and Mac OS X

00:47:50 ◼   ► in their current versions of iOS 9 and El Capitan,

00:47:53 ◼   ► I think both are pretty solid, pretty good releases.

00:47:58 ◼   ► I would say that the Apple TV needs a lot of work.

00:48:02 ◼   ► The actual, like, the OS level, like the core, you know, kernel and everything seem fine.

00:48:11 ◼   ► The UI on the Apple TV, I think, needs a lot of work.

00:48:15 ◼   ► It is very much a UI designed to look good in screenshots and ads, and very much not

00:48:21 ◼   ► a UI designed to use well at all.

00:48:23 ◼   ► And the only thing you need to do to see this is buy a TV show on iTunes.

00:48:27 ◼   ► It's so bad.

00:48:29 ◼   ► By a TV season on iTunes.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:48:34 ◼   ► It is so clearly not designed by anybody who ever actually has done this or needs to do

00:48:39 ◼   ► this.

00:48:40 ◼   ► It was designed to look good on the screenshot once.

00:48:42 ◼   ► And it does seem like the print marketing group or whoever took over the software UI

00:48:48 ◼   ► design, I think the new Apple TV is an example of how that can go pretty badly wrong against

00:48:55 ◼   ► usability.

00:48:56 ◼   ► I hope they see that and work on that

00:48:59 ◼   ► because it is pretty rough right now

00:49:00 ◼   ► in a few areas like that that are pretty common.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And to the point where this Christmas,

00:49:06 ◼   ► usually we give Apple TVs to our relatives here and there,

00:49:09 ◼   ► and this Christmas we didn't give one to anybody

00:49:10 ◼   ► because we don't want to support it.

00:49:13 ◼   ► It's not in a good spot.

00:49:17 ◼   ► - It's kind of ironic you blame that

00:49:18 ◼   ► on the print design mentality,

00:49:20 ◼   ► when really what they need is what print design morphed into

00:49:23 ◼   ► which is web design.

00:49:24 ◼   ► is when print warmed up to web design,

00:49:27 ◼   ► they brought on the information architecture people

00:49:29 ◼   ► to explain to them,

00:49:30 ◼   ► it's not so much what your screens look like,

00:49:32 ◼   ► it's what screens are and how they connect to each other

00:49:35 ◼   ► and how the people get a sense of place about it

00:49:38 ◼   ► and how many screens, you know,

00:49:39 ◼   ► like plain old wireframe information architecture

00:49:41 ◼   ► came in to combine with the print people to say,

00:49:44 ◼   ► when you do web design, it's not a bunch of pages.

00:49:46 ◼   ► You have to actually design the information flow

00:49:50 ◼   ► and how it's connected and how it's organized

00:49:51 ◼   ► in a way that makes sense to people

00:49:53 ◼   ► allows them to get where they want to go in a reasonable fashion and not feel lost and

00:49:55 ◼   ► all that other stuff. Whereas, yeah, I feel about the Apple TV, where a lot of the screens

00:50:01 ◼   ► look really good, but they're not connected to each other in a sensible way and there

00:50:06 ◼   ► seem to be too many of them. And a lot of time, I feel like I'm going through too many

00:50:11 ◼   ► screens or I lose track of where I am. So that's just plain old, straight up O'Reilly

00:50:16 ◼   ► polar bear book business.

00:50:17 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:50:19 ◼   ► Yeah, so that is one thing on my wish list.

00:50:21 ◼   ► I really hope that the Apple TV gets just some UI tweaks

00:50:26 ◼   ► to make it more usable, 'cause right now it is so

00:50:31 ◼   ► poorly usable in so many little areas like that,

00:50:34 ◼   ► and it seems like the fix is not difficult.

00:50:37 ◼   ► It just takes some rethinking of certain screen layouts.

00:50:39 ◼   ► And so I hope they do that.

00:50:42 ◼   ► - So is that one item, maybe let Marco go first,

00:50:44 ◼   ► is that counted as one item?

00:50:46 ◼   ► Is he saying that he thinks what he wants to see is the Apple TV getting some reasonable

00:50:55 ◼   ► improvements because it's a new platform and there's a lot of obvious things they can do?

00:50:58 ◼   ► Yeah, and also, while I'm talking about the Apple TV, I would also say this has a brand

00:51:04 ◼   ► new app store.

00:51:06 ◼   ► The implementation of the store itself is pretty bad, and I would love to see that improved

00:51:11 ◼   ► as well.

00:51:12 ◼   ► in the area of apps for the Apple TV,

00:51:15 ◼   ► you know, it's still very early.

00:51:16 ◼   ► There are very few apps available for it.

00:51:19 ◼   ► I would love to see, you know,

00:51:20 ◼   ► whenever a new platform comes out,

00:51:22 ◼   ► you have people, like on the Apple TV,

00:51:24 ◼   ► I know Guy English has talked a lot about this

00:51:26 ◼   ► on his podcast and blog,

00:51:28 ◼   ► like you kinda wanna see like,

00:51:30 ◼   ► not just porting iPhone apps to it,

00:51:33 ◼   ► but we wanna see like what new kinds of apps

00:51:36 ◼   ► does this make possible that we haven't thought of yet?

00:51:39 ◼   ► And on the Apple TV, we haven't seen that yet.

00:51:41 ◼   ► I'm curious to know if during 2016 we will see

00:51:45 ◼   ► some new kind of app take off on the Apple TV

00:51:49 ◼   ► that wouldn't work just as well or better on a phone.

00:51:51 ◼   ► Like something that really takes advantage

00:51:53 ◼   ► of it being a TV app.

00:51:54 ◼   ► You know, so I would love to see that

00:51:56 ◼   ► come from the third-party community.

00:51:58 ◼   ► And I hope it does.

00:52:00 ◼   ► I really do hope it does.

00:52:01 ◼   ► And I also hope that the Apple TV becomes

00:52:03 ◼   ► a first-class game platform to release on for iOS games.

00:52:07 ◼   ► - I'm gonna hit the pie in the sky buzzer on that one.

00:52:11 ◼   ► No, I know, I know. Obviously I'm not expecting console games to be launched to it, but I

00:52:18 ◼   ► think games that are launching on iOS or that are having success on iOS, I hope that they

00:52:24 ◼   ► get ported quickly to the Apple TV or launch simultaneously would be probably the pie in

00:52:28 ◼   ► the sky goal for now. But it would be nice to see it get more gaming status because it

00:52:33 ◼   ► is really fun to play good games on the Apple TV. But that I think, you know, if this was

00:52:40 ◼   ► as a predictions episode, I would honestly predict

00:52:43 ◼   ► neither of those things would happen.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Neither it being a first party thing for games,

00:52:47 ◼   ► nor us seeing some really amazing apps for it.

00:52:48 ◼   ► I would actually say neither of those were likely to happen,

00:52:51 ◼   ► but they're both plausible, and they're both things

00:52:54 ◼   ► that I wish would happen.

00:52:56 ◼   ► - So how are we summarizing the 93 points you just made?

00:52:59 ◼   ► - Apple TV, Cullen, get better.

00:53:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, there you go.

00:53:03 ◼   ► He had some, definitely some plausible things

00:53:05 ◼   ► that could be done to Apple TV.

00:53:06 ◼   ► I think he drifted off into unicorns in the game.

00:53:09 ◼   ► or you got a PS4 now, you don't have to worry about that.

00:53:11 ◼   ► - Oh goodness, all right.

00:53:13 ◼   ► - All right, Casey, your turn.

00:53:14 ◼   ► - So I have a handful, and what do I wanna use first?

00:53:19 ◼   ► Okay, I will use App Store improvements.

00:53:22 ◼   ► App Store, colon, get better.

00:53:24 ◼   ► I think that, and it's easy for me

00:53:28 ◼   ► to make these sorts of wishes and hopes and dreams

00:53:33 ◼   ► and decisions from the position of someone who really,

00:53:37 ◼   ► this doesn't affect me,

00:53:38 ◼   ► But for those friends that I have, like Marco, like Underscore, and so many others that try

00:53:43 ◼   ► to make a living out of the App Store, I would really love to see things get better for independent

00:53:51 ◼   ► developers.

00:53:52 ◼   ► And I'm not really clear how.

00:53:53 ◼   ► I mean, a lot of the standard answers like trials and things like that, that may or may

00:53:58 ◼   ► not improve things.

00:53:59 ◼   ► But whatever the answer is, especially what with the shakeup that we discussed either

00:54:04 ◼   ► the last week or the week before,

00:54:06 ◼   ► I'd really like to see, and I think it's plausible,

00:54:08 ◼   ► to see the App Store get better,

00:54:11 ◼   ► actually both for independent developers,

00:54:13 ◼   ► which is how I was originally coming at this,

00:54:14 ◼   ► but also for users, you know, see search get better,

00:54:17 ◼   ► to see things like home sharing I've never tried

00:54:20 ◼   ► because I'm petrified of trying it

00:54:22 ◼   ► 'cause I've heard it's terrible.

00:54:24 ◼   ► All of that, can we just make that better, please?

00:54:27 ◼   ► - That's a pretty vague item.

00:54:28 ◼   ► I mean, it is plausible, definitely plausible.

00:54:30 ◼   ► Like if you'd picked one thing, for example,

00:54:32 ◼   ► say you'd picked upgrade pricing.

00:54:33 ◼   ► 100% plausible that it's merely a policy change.

00:54:36 ◼   ► It could happen, you could have said,

00:54:37 ◼   ► but instead you just kind of punted and said,

00:54:39 ◼   ► I want something better to happen for the App Store,

00:54:41 ◼   ► but you're not willing to say what that is.

00:54:43 ◼   ► I can see that it's definitely a lot of plausible things.

00:54:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think the thing of it is,

00:54:47 ◼   ► is that I'm not so convinced that all the things

00:54:50 ◼   ► everyone's been whining about are the right answer.

00:54:53 ◼   ► They may be, you know, upgrade pricing might help a lot.

00:54:57 ◼   ► Trials might help a lot,

00:54:59 ◼   ► but I'm not sure those are the silver bullets

00:55:01 ◼   ► everyone says they are.

00:55:02 ◼   ► And I haven't been able to come up with the silver bullet.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And I'm pretty sure if I could,

00:55:07 ◼   ► I would be much better compensated than I am,

00:55:10 ◼   ► and I would probably be working at Apple.

00:55:11 ◼   ► But whatever the answer may be,

00:55:14 ◼   ► there's gotta be something out there.

00:55:15 ◼   ► There's gotta be a way to make things better.

00:55:17 ◼   ► Maybe it's more transparency.

00:55:19 ◼   ► Okay, I'll go with that.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Maybe it's just a little bit more transparency.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Now you might have to hit the pie in the sky buzzer, but.

00:55:25 ◼   ► - No, I think it's an easy one.

00:55:26 ◼   ► To say that when app developers have their application

00:55:31 ◼   ► review and they have just like a status line with a canned message that tells them what phase it's in

00:55:36 ◼   ► or when it gets rejected like the fact that they can't immediately connect with someone to have a

00:55:44 ◼   ► humane discussion about the issues at hand like that just it's like there's some misunderstanding

00:55:49 ◼   ► that could be cleared up with a five-minute conversation with a person who is empowered

00:55:52 ◼   ► to do something and that conversation can never happen you just you can send email you can wait

00:55:57 ◼   ► for a response sometimes the response makes it clear that they didn't understand what you said

00:56:00 ◼   ► and just like, I don't know if you call it transparency

00:56:03 ◼   ► or like communication or like maybe it's a scaling problem

00:56:06 ◼   ► where they just can't have individual people

00:56:07 ◼   ► talk to individual developers about their problems

00:56:10 ◼   ► with their applications.

00:56:11 ◼   ► And a lot of it just has to be canned responses.

00:56:13 ◼   ► But yeah, I think that could definitely improve

00:56:16 ◼   ► even if you just threw manpower at it

00:56:18 ◼   ► or woman power or human power,

00:56:20 ◼   ► but just to just say hire more people to,

00:56:23 ◼   ► you know, so there is someone, always someone available,

00:56:26 ◼   ► a knowledgeable person available

00:56:28 ◼   ► to discuss an app rejection to explain what the deal is, what needs to be done to fix it,

00:56:35 ◼   ► if there's a misunderstanding going on. You know, because one of the ones I've seen a couple times

00:56:41 ◼   ► is someone will submit an application and it'll get rejected for reading or writing files from

00:56:45 ◼   ► a forbidden location, but the code that is reading or writing the forbidden files is from inside an

00:56:49 ◼   ► Apple framework. It's not clear, like, did I use the framework wrong? Did I misconfigure it and

00:56:57 ◼   ► and call an API on some kind of misconfigured object,

00:57:00 ◼   ► and that's why it wrote in a bad place?

00:57:02 ◼   ► Or is it a bug in Apple's own code

00:57:04 ◼   ► where no matter how you use this API,

00:57:06 ◼   ► it has the potential to write files

00:57:07 ◼   ► in a forbidden place or whatever?

00:57:09 ◼   ► And so developers who get that message,

00:57:12 ◼   ► get that rejection, they're like, what do I do now?

00:57:14 ◼   ► Can I not use that framework?

00:57:16 ◼   ► 'Cause it's like, as far as they're concerned,

00:57:17 ◼   ► it's not their code that's doing it.

00:57:19 ◼   ► And all they need is someone, whoever did this rejection,

00:57:21 ◼   ► if Apple even knows, to say, oh yeah, no,

00:57:24 ◼   ► I know it's our code doing it,

00:57:26 ◼   ► but it's because you're using your API in the wrong way.

00:57:29 ◼   ► You're using it like this, that, and that,

00:57:30 ◼   ► and it causes it to write files here.

00:57:32 ◼   ► If you use it in this other way, it won't do that.

00:57:33 ◼   ► Or have someone have the conversation and go,

00:57:36 ◼   ► "Oh, you're right, you're not doing anything wrong.

00:57:38 ◼   ► That's just a bug in our framework."

00:57:39 ◼   ► And those conversations either seem to happen

00:57:43 ◼   ► way too slowly or not happen at all,

00:57:45 ◼   ► and a lot of developers get frustrated

00:57:47 ◼   ► by a rejection that's not actionable.

00:57:50 ◼   ► Like they don't know what to do.

00:57:51 ◼   ► They just throw up their hands and say,

00:57:52 ◼   ► "Well, what am I supposed to do about that?

00:57:53 ◼   ► Am I not supposed to use that framework?

00:57:54 ◼   ► Am I doing something wrong?"

00:57:55 ◼   ► In some respects, like, well, you know,

00:57:57 ◼   ► it's not Apple's job to write your application for you,

00:57:59 ◼   ► but I don't know, I've seen enough of those cases

00:58:02 ◼   ► that I think a better, a more human connection

00:58:07 ◼   ► with the faceless machine that is App Review

00:58:09 ◼   ► could benefit all developers.

00:58:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, to me, like, my 2016 wish

00:58:14 ◼   ► in regards to App Store improvement is much more broad

00:58:18 ◼   ► and vague because, honestly, I don't expect

00:58:22 ◼   ► a lot of these things that you've mentioned to happen.

00:58:24 ◼   ► My wish is simply show us a sign that things might be changing for the better because we

00:58:34 ◼   ► got the fill taking over thing last week.

00:58:38 ◼   ► Show us a sign of movement in the right direction in actual App Store status or behavior or

00:58:44 ◼   ► policy.

00:58:45 ◼   ► For years, the attitude of the App Store shown by both their communication and by their action

00:58:53 ◼   ► or rather inaction for the most part, the attitude has been really nothing here needs

00:58:58 ◼   ► to be changed, everything is fine. And the system we have now is good and works well.

00:59:03 ◼   ► In reality the system they have now is okay and works okay, but I would not say that there's

00:59:11 ◼   ► no room for improvement, whereas the attitude from them keeps being, by their own actions,

00:59:15 ◼   ► keeps being we don't need to improve this, because they really just haven't. So I would

00:59:21 ◼   ► would like to see just some sign that they believe, that they agree inside, that they

00:59:26 ◼   ► believe that there are things that could use significant improvement and that they are

00:59:31 ◼   ► working on them. Because we really have seen nothing of that sort so far.

00:59:35 ◼   ► You just want to like issue an apology or make like a statement of purpose or make a

00:59:39 ◼   ► mission statement to say, "We agree things are wrong and we will fix them somehow vaguely."

00:59:44 ◼   ► No, I mean I would like to see action, but it doesn't have to be a big action yet. Just

00:59:48 ◼   ► So like, some kind of action that shows that they are changing things in the App Store,

00:59:54 ◼   ► that they are not satisfied with the App Store.

00:59:55 ◼   ► Because that's the thing, they appear so incredibly satisfied with it.

01:00:00 ◼   ► And just so little has changed about it in seven years or whatever.

01:00:03 ◼   ► Like I want to see something that indicates that Apple truly believes this is not good

01:00:10 ◼   ► enough.

01:00:11 ◼   ► - Casey said that he didn't know, you know, like he didn't have any specific thing.

01:00:14 ◼   ► Because maybe trials are in it, maybe upgrade pricing isn't in it.

01:00:16 ◼   ► wasn't sure exactly what it was. Well, Apple's not sure about those same things. They're not sure

01:00:22 ◼   ► that because if they were sure that upgrades would fix it, they would do it. If they're sure

01:00:25 ◼   ► that trials would make things better, they would do it. So obviously they also agree with UKC that

01:00:28 ◼   ► they're not quite sure what to do and so they're doing nothing. And like it's the same thing with

01:00:33 ◼   ► Marco's request here. If you don't have a specific thing, like I know you want something to happen,

01:00:39 ◼   ► but someone inside Apple would have to pick which thing it is and it's potentially dangerous because

01:00:44 ◼   ► say you're wrong and trials makes the app store worse instead of better. I mean

01:00:48 ◼   ► I guess that would kind of fulfill Marco's thing because at least it would be

01:00:51 ◼   ► showing well we tried something at least instead of just saying oh we're you know

01:00:53 ◼   ► like I think the impression you're getting Marco is like because if they

01:00:57 ◼   ► don't do anything we just assume well I guess they must think it's fine because

01:01:00 ◼   ► they never do anything and it doesn't change. Yes. And so it's like yeah and so

01:01:04 ◼   ► them doing something even if it was the wrong thing would at least show that

01:01:08 ◼   ► they have some internal dissatisfaction. It could be argued that the management

01:01:12 ◼   ► reshuffle counts as something, even though it is not a change yet that affects developers.

01:01:17 ◼   ► It does at least show that they think there is something amiss somewhere inside Apple's

01:01:21 ◼   ► organization. Whether they think the thing that's amiss is the App Store or some other thing that

01:01:25 ◼   ► was affected by the shuffle, we don't know. But I don't know. I can let that one slide by,

01:01:30 ◼   ► because it is definitely plausible that they will do something, something vague that we will not

01:01:35 ◼   ► specify. Hey, I had to skirt the system somehow just for you. All right, what's your first?

01:01:41 ◼   ► Why you guys are getting big vague and big picture mines are just so super specific and so easy

01:01:48 ◼   ► I want a new Mac Pro

01:01:50 ◼   ► So does Marco so does everybody everyone's in who doesn't want a new Pro a Mac Pro in every pot

01:01:56 ◼   ► It's a new Mac Pro with you know

01:02:00 ◼   ► Thunderbolt 3 and and my sub item is a new 5k

01:02:04 ◼   ► External display to drive off the thing like we all know we want it

01:02:08 ◼   ► We know it has to be coming, just make a new Mac Pro.

01:02:11 ◼   ► It is entirely plausible, 100% plausible,

01:02:13 ◼   ► and it should come in 2016, and when it comes,

01:02:16 ◼   ► I'll be excited 'cause I like that,

01:02:17 ◼   ► and I might even buy one.

01:02:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, I have that also on my list, of course,

01:02:23 ◼   ► under a heading of just complete the Retina transition.

01:02:28 ◼   ► And so what this would have to include

01:02:30 ◼   ► is a desktop standalone 5K display,

01:02:34 ◼   ► and the ability for the Mac Pro

01:02:38 ◼   ► and the laptops to drive it.

01:02:40 ◼   ► And maybe the Mac Mini as well, that would be nice.

01:02:43 ◼   ► I'm not expecting much on that front

01:02:45 ◼   ► because the Mac Mini is so rarely updated,

01:02:46 ◼   ► but that would be nice.

01:02:47 ◼   ► - People hook up screens to Mac Minis?

01:02:49 ◼   ► - That aren't TVs, right?

01:02:52 ◼   ► Yeah, so, yeah, I totally, and this is very plausible

01:02:55 ◼   ► because this is going to be the year of Skylake.

01:03:00 ◼   ► And we got like little trickles of Skylake so far.

01:03:04 ◼   ► 2016 should be, if Intel has everything together,

01:03:07 ◼   ► which is not a given, but if they have everything together,

01:03:09 ◼   ► this should be the year of Skylake everywhere.

01:03:12 ◼   ► So this should be the laptops, finally all of them,

01:03:15 ◼   ► all the pros going to Skylake,

01:03:17 ◼   ► the MacBook One going to Skylake

01:03:18 ◼   ► and getting its USB-C port upgraded

01:03:20 ◼   ► to also have Thunderbolt coming out of it.

01:03:22 ◼   ► The MacBook Pro Retina line, I expect to be,

01:03:26 ◼   ► not only upgraded to Skylake, but to also get a redesign.

01:03:29 ◼   ► We've heard rumors here and there that it will,

01:03:31 ◼   ► and I think the timing is right

01:03:32 ◼   ► because the current design came out in 2012,

01:03:34 ◼   ► and Skylake gives them an excuse

01:03:36 ◼   ► to make the battery smaller. So I expect there to be a MacBook Pro Skylake refresh. This

01:03:41 ◼   ► is, sorry, getting into predictions, but this is all just part of it. You know, like, I

01:03:46 ◼   ► want this to be finally completing the retina transition in the Mac lineup because it has

01:03:52 ◼   ► been partially complete literally since 2012. And we are so close, we're so close, and

01:04:00 ◼   ► we're just not quite there yet until we can get Skylake that can drive, Skylake chipsets

01:04:05 ◼   ► with Thunderbolt 3 that can drive external 5K displays over a single cable.

01:04:09 ◼   ► And that is so close.

01:04:11 ◼   ► We are so close to that.

01:04:12 ◼   ► Do you want to see them get rid of the MacBook Air?

01:04:15 ◼   ► So here's what I think will happen on that front.

01:04:17 ◼   ► Not what you think will happen.

01:04:18 ◼   ► Do you want them to get rid of it?

01:04:19 ◼   ► Would you be happy if you could tell Apple what to do, essentially?

01:04:23 ◼   ► Because discontinuing the MacBook Air is entirely feasible.

01:04:25 ◼   ► So if you were in charge of Apple, you'd say, "You know what?

01:04:28 ◼   ► In 2016, stop making the MacBook Air."

01:04:30 ◼   ► First of all, I think that would be too soon.

01:04:33 ◼   ► I would expect the MacBook Air to get updates from now on on a similar schedule to when

01:04:38 ◼   ► the Mac Mini gets updates. I would expect that they wouldn't get rid of the Air without

01:04:43 ◼   ► compelling things taking its place. So obviously on the low end you have the MacBook One. But

01:04:48 ◼   ► the MacBook One really does not replace the Air in a number of ways because it is so much

01:04:55 ◼   ► slower and so much more limited and has so many more compromises for that thinness than

01:05:00 ◼   ► even the Air does. I do think though that when they redesign the Skylake MacBook Pros,

01:05:07 ◼   ► the Retina MacBook Pro, I do think the newly thinner, lighter 13" Retina MacBook Pro will

01:05:14 ◼   ► be so close to the 13" MacBook Air that I think it will make the MacBook Air far less

01:05:21 ◼   ► relevant. So then on the low end you have the MacBook One eating into the 11" and then

01:05:27 ◼   ► and then you have the new thinner 13-inch MacBook Pro

01:05:31 ◼   ► eating into the 13-inch Air.

01:05:33 ◼   ► And then I think the Air line is pretty much obviated

01:05:35 ◼   ► at that point.

01:05:36 ◼   ► That doesn't mean Apple will stop selling it

01:05:38 ◼   ► because today's Apple does not stop selling anything ever.

01:05:40 ◼   ► But I do think that both ends will then be

01:05:44 ◼   ► adequately attacked and will be clearly replaced

01:05:48 ◼   ► for most Air buyers at that point.

01:05:51 ◼   ► - So Marco, you had said that you want a new Mac Pro

01:05:56 ◼   ► and God help me for encouraging you to talk about this more,

01:05:59 ◼   ► but why, what would this phantom new Mac Pro do for you

01:06:03 ◼   ► that your, and I don't mean this sarcastically,

01:06:06 ◼   ► beloved 5K iMac doesn't do?

01:06:10 ◼   ► - For the most part, I'm not sure I would get

01:06:14 ◼   ► the next generation Mac Pro, I might get the one after that.

01:06:17 ◼   ► Ultimately, what I want out of my computer

01:06:20 ◼   ► that the current iMac is not satisfying me with

01:06:22 ◼   ► is just even more sheer CPU performance.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Like that, I always want more CPU performance

01:06:29 ◼   ► than what I have.

01:06:30 ◼   ► And the way Intel's moving these days,

01:06:33 ◼   ► new CPU performance does not come easily.

01:06:35 ◼   ► It does not come quickly.

01:06:37 ◼   ► Skylake is a substantial boost, not like twice as fast,

01:06:41 ◼   ► but it's faster by a noticeable amount,

01:06:44 ◼   ► and I would get way more cores.

01:06:46 ◼   ► I would probably go eight core if I got a Mac Pro,

01:06:50 ◼   ► maybe even 12, but that would probably be insanely priced

01:06:52 ◼   ► so I would probably go with eight.

01:06:54 ◼   ► As time goes on, my CPU needs just are increasing.

01:06:57 ◼   ► You know, and now I'm taking way more pictures,

01:07:00 ◼   ► and now that I have this awesome new camera,

01:07:02 ◼   ► processing those pictures is insane.

01:07:04 ◼   ► I'm shooting 4K video now with my awesome iPhone camera,

01:07:07 ◼   ► and my fancy camera, but even more with the iPhone.

01:07:09 ◼   ► You know, so I'm dealing with bigger video files,

01:07:11 ◼   ► dealing with bigger photos.

01:07:12 ◼   ► As I'm compiling more code,

01:07:14 ◼   ► and I'll be transitioning to Swift fairly soon,

01:07:16 ◼   ► all the CPU needs of everything keep going up

01:07:18 ◼   ► for compilation and everything.

01:07:20 ◼   ► So ultimately I push my computer to the limit

01:07:24 ◼   ► fairly often in my work,

01:07:26 ◼   ► and not for massively long sustained periods

01:07:30 ◼   ► for the most part, but for brief periods of

01:07:32 ◼   ► I just need all the horsepower I can get

01:07:34 ◼   ► for the next two minutes kind of thing.

01:07:36 ◼   ► And I do that kind of thing frequently.

01:07:38 ◼   ► So I really would like more CPU power.

01:07:40 ◼   ► And that is mainly what I'd be looking for.

01:07:43 ◼   ► In all other ways, I'm extremely happy with the Time Act.

01:07:47 ◼   ► And even CPU power-wise,

01:07:49 ◼   ► versus the lineup that's available today,

01:07:51 ◼   ► it is at the top for single-threaded.

01:07:54 ◼   ► I guess the newer Broadwell-based one

01:07:56 ◼   ► probably beats it by a few percentage points,

01:07:58 ◼   ► but it is relative to the entire Mac lineup,

01:08:01 ◼   ► it is one of the top couple or top three

01:08:04 ◼   ► that have ever existed in single-threaded performance.

01:08:06 ◼   ► And even in multi-core, it is pretty far up the list

01:08:10 ◼   ► until you get into the very high-core count Mac pros.

01:08:13 ◼   ► So it is really close to as good as you can get already.

01:08:17 ◼   ► That's why I'm saying I would probably wait

01:08:19 ◼   ► a generation of Mac Pro, but I don't know,

01:08:22 ◼   ► if the generation's keeping two or three years long,

01:08:25 ◼   ► that might change.

01:08:26 ◼   ► So the Mac Pro has a timing issue,

01:08:27 ◼   ► because the Xeons that it would use,

01:08:31 ◼   ► that would go in an update,

01:08:33 ◼   ► the Broadwell Xeons are coming out next week,

01:08:35 ◼   ► but that chipset will not support Thunderbolt 3.

01:08:39 ◼   ► So that chipset most likely won't be able to drive

01:08:42 ◼   ► a theoretical 5K Apple display.

01:08:45 ◼   ► But the Skylake Xeons are coming out,

01:08:47 ◼   ► quote, later this year.

01:08:48 ◼   ► that would be a way better chip to use

01:08:50 ◼   ► in a Mac Pro update in theory

01:08:52 ◼   ► because then you could rev the whole thing

01:08:53 ◼   ► with Thunderbolt 3, USB-C ports,

01:08:56 ◼   ► and the ability to drive a new 5K monitor.

01:09:00 ◼   ► So I hope that's what they do.

01:09:02 ◼   ► I don't know if that's what they'll do,

01:09:03 ◼   ► but I hope they will wait for Skylake-E chips

01:09:05 ◼   ► and give us a nice little update.

01:09:07 ◼   ► And if they do, that would be a really interesting option

01:09:11 ◼   ► for me to consider, but I would probably

01:09:14 ◼   ► still wanna wait a generation

01:09:15 ◼   ► just to get a bigger boost over what I have now.

01:09:18 ◼   ► - You're talking like me now,

01:09:19 ◼   ► oh I don't wanna buy this one, I wanna buy the next one.

01:09:21 ◼   ► But the difference is historically

01:09:23 ◼   ► is that you do buy this one, and also the next one.

01:09:25 ◼   ► - Truth.

01:09:26 ◼   ► - That's usually the case, yeah.

01:09:27 ◼   ► Well once I learned how easy it is to resell Macs,

01:09:30 ◼   ► it makes it a lot easier, 'cause then it becomes like,

01:09:32 ◼   ► well, is it worth spending like, you know,

01:09:35 ◼   ► a thousand dollars to use this computer for 18 months?

01:09:38 ◼   ► And it's like sometimes the answer is yes.

01:09:40 ◼   ► You know, if you can get like the best computer

01:09:42 ◼   ► in the world for what you do every single day,

01:09:45 ◼   ► buy it when it comes out and then sell it a year later

01:09:47 ◼   ► for 500 to $1,000 less than what you paid,

01:09:51 ◼   ► that's not that bad.

01:09:52 ◼   ► That's pretty good, actually.

01:09:53 ◼   ► - If someone wants to make a cottage business,

01:09:55 ◼   ► you could be the only client

01:09:56 ◼   ► and they could just rent you Macs

01:09:58 ◼   ► like they rent you headphones and cameras.

01:09:59 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

01:10:00 ◼   ► - So, I mean, I guess that's fine and makes sense and all.

01:10:04 ◼   ► I'm surprised that you really are CPU-bound that often,

01:10:06 ◼   ► 'cause about the only time I'm CPU-bound

01:10:07 ◼   ► is when I'm compressing video files

01:10:09 ◼   ► that I've ripped from a Blu-ray or something like that.

01:10:12 ◼   ► It's so rare that I'm CPU-bound on anything else that I do.

01:10:15 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:10:16 ◼   ► - All right, so whose turn is it now?

01:10:19 ◼   ► Marco's, I believe?

01:10:20 ◼   ► - I mean, it basically just,

01:10:21 ◼   ► I stole John's Mac Pro topic.

01:10:23 ◼   ► - Well, you had it on your list too.

01:10:24 ◼   ► It was a duplicate.

01:10:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it really is, you know, for me,

01:10:26 ◼   ► it really is part of this kind of,

01:10:27 ◼   ► this general thing of like,

01:10:29 ◼   ► I hope it's gonna be the year of Skylake everywhere,

01:10:31 ◼   ► and also finally finish the retina transition on Mac.

01:10:34 ◼   ► Finally cover the whole product line with retina.

01:10:37 ◼   ► - No, I know how Tiff feels.

01:10:38 ◼   ► Marco cannot follow instructions.

01:10:40 ◼   ► - No.

01:10:41 ◼   ► - All's about what he predicts and what he--

01:10:42 ◼   ► - No, that's a wish.

01:10:43 ◼   ► 'Cause that is not guaranteed.

01:10:46 ◼   ► You know, like this 5K display might not actually come out.

01:10:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

01:10:51 ◼   ► - You know, like a new Mac Pro using Skylake

01:10:53 ◼   ► might not come out.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Or it might come out using Broadwell

01:10:56 ◼   ► and not have Thunderbolt 3 for the next three years.

01:10:58 ◼   ► We have no idea.

01:10:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, like, my, actually, my items are two things.

01:11:02 ◼   ► Like, I want a new Mac Pro,

01:11:04 ◼   ► even if it's just the Broadwell one,

01:11:06 ◼   ► and the sub-item is I want a new 5K display.

01:11:08 ◼   ► And so if I get one of those, I get a new Mac Pro,

01:11:10 ◼   ► yeah, I'm glad, because here's why I'd want a new Mac Pro.

01:11:13 ◼   ► Even though it doesn't drive the 5K display,

01:11:15 ◼   ► even though I've said that I'm not gonna buy it

01:11:17 ◼   ► until it does, a new Mac Pro would signal

01:11:20 ◼   ► that the Mac Pro is not on the Mac Mini update cycle.

01:11:23 ◼   ► You know what I mean?

01:11:24 ◼   ► - Right, right.

01:11:25 ◼   ► - That it is a line of computers that they consider updating

01:11:28 ◼   ► on something approaching a reasonable schedule

01:11:30 ◼   ► based on the availability of the chips

01:11:32 ◼   ► that everyone thinks they should put in.

01:11:33 ◼   ► Unlike the Mini, which is like,

01:11:34 ◼   ► eh, I'll skip a year or two, whatever.

01:11:37 ◼   ► And then someone wakes up and goes,

01:11:38 ◼   ► oh, Mac Mini, what?

01:11:38 ◼   ► All right, here's a new one.

01:11:40 ◼   ► And then goes back to sleep again.

01:11:42 ◼   ► I would like to see some sort of solid story, I guess, around Swift on the server.

01:11:50 ◼   ► Something that's considered, that's deliberate, that's well thought out.

01:11:55 ◼   ► Some sort of nice Swift on the server package setup, framework, whatever adjective you'd

01:12:02 ◼   ► like to use.

01:12:03 ◼   ► I want to see Swift on the server.

01:12:04 ◼   ► I think that would be cool.

01:12:05 ◼   ► JE: From Apple or from somebody else?

01:12:07 ◼   ► JF.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Don't care.

01:12:09 ◼   ► I mean, from Apple would be better, I guess, since it's first party.

01:12:11 ◼   ► But really, if there was some accepted and understood standard, I would really love to

01:12:17 ◼   ► see it.

01:12:19 ◼   ► Not one of those situations like CocoaPods versus Carthage or anything like that.

01:12:23 ◼   ► In honest to goodness, good, robust, mature as much as it can be, given this is all new,

01:12:30 ◼   ► Swift on the server framework.

01:12:31 ◼   ► I think that would be really, really awesome.

01:12:33 ◼   ► I almost had an item like that on my list, but I didn't quite know how to phrase it,

01:12:36 ◼   ► and I am obviously more demanding about avoiding vagueness

01:12:41 ◼   ► than either of you are.

01:12:41 ◼   ► But it was like, maybe, you know,

01:12:46 ◼   ► do we just need a bunch of libraries for HTTP,

01:12:50 ◼   ► for just handling the protocol,

01:12:51 ◼   ► and then like, you know,

01:12:52 ◼   ► sort of web frameworks on top of that,

01:12:54 ◼   ► or another possibility is some standardized way

01:12:59 ◼   ► to talk to databases from Swift, you know?

01:13:03 ◼   ► Like, is there so many pieces,

01:13:04 ◼   ► And I'm thinking obviously, quote unquote, web applications.

01:13:07 ◼   ► So web applications may just be something

01:13:09 ◼   ► that accepts and returns JSON over HTTP.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Is that a web application?

01:13:14 ◼   ► But just what we think of is when you say server side

01:13:16 ◼   ► things, that's what we're all talking about.

01:13:18 ◼   ► Not many people are making servers these days

01:13:20 ◼   ► that aren't talking HTTP.

01:13:24 ◼   ► And so I don't know if you need--

01:13:28 ◼   ► especially in the first year, it's too much to ask, I think,

01:13:31 ◼   ► to say, oh, there should be a giant proliferation of web

01:13:36 ◼   ► framework things, and they should all duke it out

01:13:38 ◼   ► until one clear victor emerges.

01:13:40 ◼   ► Like, that's going to take like five years, right?

01:13:42 ◼   ► So maybe we'll start smaller and say,

01:13:44 ◼   ► how about just a standard for starting a server,

01:13:47 ◼   ► listening on a port, dealing with HTTP,

01:13:50 ◼   ► receiving requests, and sending responses.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Sort of the bare bones, the equivalent of WSGI and Python,

01:13:57 ◼   ► or PSGI plaque and Perl, or whatever.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Like maybe we could start with that.

01:14:01 ◼   ► That seems like a reasonable one year goal.

01:14:04 ◼   ► And even there, I bet there'd be like

01:14:05 ◼   ► five competing standards and they have to just duke it out

01:14:07 ◼   ► and then the second year it'll be clear

01:14:08 ◼   ► which one is the best support or whatever.

01:14:11 ◼   ► But yeah, I would really like something like that too.

01:14:14 ◼   ► I just didn't know how to phrase it.

01:14:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, people have started doing this.

01:14:18 ◼   ► There's Taylor, which the chat room is linking me to.

01:14:21 ◼   ► We'll put that in the show notes.

01:14:23 ◼   ► I feel like there was something else

01:14:24 ◼   ► with a really cheesy name.

01:14:25 ◼   ► - There's one called Nest, I think.

01:14:27 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm not familiar with that.

01:14:28 ◼   ► Wasn't there one called like Perfect or something?

01:14:30 ◼   ► I'm sure there's like 19 of them.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Like, this is, you know, what we're asking for is like there to be one or two that are

01:14:36 ◼   ► really good, well supported, debugged, that people are building things on.

01:14:41 ◼   ► Like it's a tough year one goal.

01:14:43 ◼   ► Like I mean, I think we'll be making progress on it, but anytime you sort of give this kind

01:14:47 ◼   ► of playground to people, no pun intended, they're just going to, everyone's going to

01:14:51 ◼   ► try a whole bunch of things.

01:14:53 ◼   ► And there's, I don't know if you can really fast forward through that to get to the end

01:14:56 ◼   ► part where we all decide on jQuery or whatever and then regret it because jQuery is too big

01:15:00 ◼   ► and we have to do--yeah, I forget, I don't want to bring JavaScript into this, this is

01:15:03 ◼   ► too painful.

01:15:04 ◼   ► Oh, God, you and your JavaScript.

01:15:07 ◼   ► All right, any other thoughts on this or should we move back to John?

01:15:10 ◼   ► All right, John.

01:15:11 ◼   ► All right, so my second, or third, if you count the 5K display item list, I'm going

01:15:17 ◼   ► to throw this out there because remember this is not a prediction.

01:15:20 ◼   ► Not a prediction.

01:15:21 ◼   ► New file system.

01:15:22 ◼   ► Ding, ding.

01:15:23 ◼   ► for OS X and for iOS, sure they can have it too if they really want, it's fine.

01:15:29 ◼   ► I think it's plausible. How long has Apple known they need a new file system?

01:15:33 ◼   ► For a really really long time. They should have been working on this for

01:15:37 ◼   ► years and years and years and years and years and they should have been working on it

01:15:40 ◼   ► and they have been. Like they've worked out long enough to have a ZFS dead end

01:15:43 ◼   ► many years back. Like I feel like it is plausible. I don't think it's gonna happen.

01:15:48 ◼   ► I feel like if I had to predict I would say 2017-ish but it is plausible and

01:15:52 ◼   ► And so when I sit down to watch WWDC, whether in person or remotely, in 2016, I am going

01:16:00 ◼   ► to have a plausible hope, as opposed to this year, which was a slightly less plausible hope,

01:16:04 ◼   ► that they announce a new file system. And I guess they would announce it in the context of the Mac,

01:16:09 ◼   ► or maybe they wouldn't announce it at all. I don't even know. I just want it to exist.

01:16:12 ◼   ► So again, this is not a prediction. This is a wish, and I believe it is. And if it's not plausible,

01:16:18 ◼   ► shame on Apple. Because if you say, "Oh, it's too soon. We just started working on this project

01:16:22 ◼   ► six months ago, you did?

01:16:23 ◼   ► Did you really start six months ago?

01:16:25 ◼   ► Anyway, new file system.

01:16:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, good luck.

01:16:29 ◼   ► All right, Marco, for you.

01:16:32 ◼   ► - So I have this whole section here on the Apple Watch.

01:16:36 ◼   ► I want the Apple Watch to find its way.

01:16:40 ◼   ► By all accounts, the Apple Watch is doing decently.

01:16:43 ◼   ► But by many people's estimations,

01:16:45 ◼   ► looking at server logs and everything,

01:16:46 ◼   ► it does seem like many of them were given

01:16:48 ◼   ► as Christmas gifts this past week.

01:16:51 ◼   ► And before that it seems like the Apple Watch

01:16:53 ◼   ► was doing decently sales-wise.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Not a massive, like, "Saturday Night on Fire" kind of thing.

01:16:59 ◼   ► Not the next iPhone by any means, but doing decently.

01:17:03 ◼   ► So sales-wise it seems like it's gonna be here to stay.

01:17:06 ◼   ► It's a line that is working for Apple.

01:17:10 ◼   ► I worry that it will have the same growth curve as the iPad.

01:17:15 ◼   ► It will shoot up now as it's the new cool thing,

01:17:18 ◼   ► and then a lot of people will just drop off,

01:17:21 ◼   ► or the upgrade cycle will become very long,

01:17:23 ◼   ► way longer than Apple wants it to be.

01:17:25 ◼   ► I think the Apple Watch is a product

01:17:27 ◼   ► that is like 75% good.

01:17:31 ◼   ► It just needs a lot of refinement

01:17:35 ◼   ► because everything it does,

01:17:36 ◼   ► it does things that are incredibly compelling

01:17:39 ◼   ► and it just does them all almost really well.

01:17:42 ◼   ► So for the last few days,

01:17:44 ◼   ► I have been wearing a mechanical watch.

01:17:46 ◼   ► I have not worn my Apple Watch since,

01:17:48 ◼   ► I don't know, a week ago or so.

01:17:50 ◼   ► So I'm wearing a mechanical watch that I got as a Christmas gift and I'm learning what

01:17:54 ◼   ► this world is like.

01:17:56 ◼   ► One of the cool things about a mechanical watch, besides the fact that I think honestly,

01:18:00 ◼   ► I'm finally understanding when the watch people said, when the Apple Watch launched, that

01:18:07 ◼   ► that is just not a fashion item.

01:18:10 ◼   ► When you compare the way traditional style watches look versus the way the Apple Watch

01:18:16 ◼   ► looks, I think you can say in isolation that the Apple watch can look good. In many of

01:18:22 ◼   ► its configurations I think it does look good, but when you compare it fashionability wise

01:18:27 ◼   ► to a mechanical watch, I think it's honestly no contest. But it's not even in the same

01:18:34 ◼   ► league, but that's okay, it doesn't need to be, it just needs to be good. But anyway,

01:18:38 ◼   ► there are so many areas of it in which like the notifications, I do miss, now that I'm

01:18:42 ◼   ► this watch, I do miss, like when Casey sent me a message earlier, my pocket vibrated and

01:18:49 ◼   ► I glanced at my wrist and only saw the time. And I do miss like having to take my phone

01:18:55 ◼   ► out does feel inconvenient now when I get a message to go try to read it and see what

01:18:59 ◼   ► it is. But that feature of the Apple Watch is also very frustrating because for me it

01:19:04 ◼   ► works most of the time but not all of the time. Every so often at seemingly random intervals,

01:19:11 ◼   ► I will just stop receiving notifications on my Apple Watch.

01:19:14 ◼   ► But my phone thinks it sent into the watch, so then just they get dropped on the floor

01:19:19 ◼   ► and I just don't receive messages until next time I check my phone, which I'm not in the

01:19:23 ◼   ► habit of doing anymore because I have the Apple Watch.

01:19:25 ◼   ► I can look at all the Apple Watch's core benefits and they all work like 75% well like that.

01:19:32 ◼   ► And it's frustrating.

01:19:33 ◼   ► And yes, it is still its first year.

01:19:36 ◼   ► And so yes, many of these things are like 1.0 bugs even though technically it's on software

01:19:39 ◼   ► version 2.0 but that doesn't seem to mean what you would expect from a 2.0. I just think

01:19:45 ◼   ► that this product has so much promise but it just needs to be better. And it needs to

01:19:53 ◼   ► be better in ways that typically don't happen quickly. You know like if a product is launched

01:19:58 ◼   ► and it's like almost really great, that almost is really hard to resolve and to remove into

01:20:04 ◼   ► to just being really great.

01:20:07 ◼   ► And I hope Apple can do that with the watch,

01:20:10 ◼   ► because it really is a very compelling product

01:20:14 ◼   ► in a number of ways most of the time,

01:20:17 ◼   ► and it's just so frustrating that it isn't all the time.

01:20:20 ◼   ► I am so happy having this thing on my wrist now

01:20:23 ◼   ► these past few days that just,

01:20:25 ◼   ► it doesn't do nearly as much as the Apple Watch

01:20:28 ◼   ► by a long shot, but it does it every single time.

01:20:33 ◼   ► Every time I look at my wrist, the time is displayed.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Every single time.

01:20:37 ◼   ► And that's what you want out of something like that.

01:20:39 ◼   ► You want it to be that reliable.

01:20:41 ◼   ► The Apple Watch isn't, and I hope it can be,

01:20:44 ◼   ► and I hope it is.

01:20:46 ◼   ► - I think there's some good hope for the upgrade cycle

01:20:48 ◼   ► because if any device had fashion going for it,

01:20:52 ◼   ► both it's got the tech thing,

01:20:53 ◼   ► where this is the big fat version

01:20:54 ◼   ► and surely they're gonna get thinner, right?

01:20:56 ◼   ► So that will help because it'll make it feel less like

01:20:58 ◼   ► a giant restroom trailer on your wrist.

01:21:00 ◼   ► And it's got the fashion thing.

01:21:01 ◼   ► Even if they had made it as thin as they wanted to make it and they were actually making it

01:21:06 ◼   ► bigger again for fashion reasons, the way you get someone to buy a new watch next year

01:21:11 ◼   ► is convince them this really is a fashion accessory and then make it look different.

01:21:16 ◼   ► People are into fashion and fashion things want things to look different.

01:21:19 ◼   ► They don't want to wear the same thing year after year.

01:21:22 ◼   ► At the very least, it will have a motivator to shorten the upgrade cycle that the iPad

01:21:28 ◼   ► doesn't have because no one is upgrading their iPad because their old one is not fashionable

01:21:31 ◼   ► Yeah, I think that's true. I recently, I don't know, maybe it was a week or two ago, wrote

01:21:36 ◼   ► an Apple Watch Revisited post on my site. And I agree with you, Marco, that I have very

01:21:43 ◼   ► mixed feelings about the Apple Watch. And in fact, on the upgrade-ies, on Relay, this

01:21:49 ◼   ► is with Jason Snell and Mike Hurley, they do their year-end kind of recap and, you know,

01:21:54 ◼   ► a funny award show. And they had solicited feedback from any of the Relay hosts that

01:22:00 ◼   ► felt like they wanted to participate. And I forget exactly what the categories were, but I had listed

01:22:06 ◼   ► the Apple Watch both for the most disappointing device as well as the one that has changed my life

01:22:12 ◼   ► the most. Because I really do feel both of those things are true. That I had such high expectations

01:22:19 ◼   ► for the watch, which I don't think they've really, it's really met. But at the same time,

01:22:27 ◼   ► you know, to quote myself from my site, you know, it's become, it's made my phone transition

01:22:37 ◼   ► from being a personal device to a private device. And that's a really big change. It's now,

01:22:46 ◼   ► my phone is only for me, and I'm not taking it out constantly unless I choose to.

01:22:53 ◼   ► it stays in my pocket all the time unless I'm choosing to get it out. And that's very different

01:22:59 ◼   ► than it used to be when it was buzzing constantly and I would take my phone out in order to see what

01:23:04 ◼   ► was going on and triage it and whatnot. And I agree with you, Marco, that having notifications

01:23:08 ◼   ► on your wrist, as long as they work, which 99% of the time it does for me, although occasionally

01:23:13 ◼   ► my watch just kind of forgets that it's connected to the phone, as long as they work, it's phenomenal

01:23:18 ◼   ► and it's really changed the way I interact with my phone. And so I agree with you. I'd like to see

01:23:23 ◼   ► Apple Watch colon get better,

01:23:25 ◼   ► but it is an extremely impressive device

01:23:28 ◼   ► and I think I would really miss it if I stopped wearing it.

01:23:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm also, you know,

01:23:32 ◼   ► on the UI side of the Apple Watch,

01:23:36 ◼   ► I think that's another product where the UI needs

01:23:38 ◼   ► a lot of help in certain areas.

01:23:40 ◼   ► Like just, I mean, honestly, I don't think,

01:23:44 ◼   ► I think this falls off the end of plausibility,

01:23:46 ◼   ► but I would love to see a complete rethinking

01:23:49 ◼   ► of the entire app launching paradigm on the watch.

01:23:52 ◼   ► you know, make it more of a like clock face plus glances

01:23:56 ◼   ► only kind of thing and get rid of the entire honeycomb screen

01:24:01 ◼   ► and the idea of launching apps that way,

01:24:03 ◼   ► get rid of that entire paradigm.

01:24:05 ◼   ► Like I wanna see major rethinking of the watch UI.

01:24:10 ◼   ► I also just like, it is a smart watch, it is a computer,

01:24:14 ◼   ► be smarter, like the clock faces themselves,

01:24:17 ◼   ► the watch faces themselves are in many ways

01:24:21 ◼   ► still somewhat dumb. And I mentioned this before so I won't go too far into it, but

01:24:27 ◼   ► just get smarter with what can be shown on the face, what you have to choose between

01:24:33 ◼   ► the relevance of certain information, certain kind of like, you know, some kind of heuristic

01:24:39 ◼   ► of like, you know, do I have to have the timer always showing on the face in order to have

01:24:44 ◼   ► it show when it's counting down when I have one running? Like stuff like that. Just like

01:24:50 ◼   ► the watch face is smarter. Why does the minute hand of the utility face ever cover up the

01:24:58 ◼   ► date so you can't see what date it is? Like simple things like that.

01:25:02 ◼   ► It's humorism, that's why. Right, like it's a computer. You can do smarter

01:25:07 ◼   ► things. When you compare it to mechanical watches, now that I've seen this world a little

01:25:11 ◼   ► bit, when you compare it to mechanical watches, the Apple Watch face isn't that much smarter.

01:25:17 ◼   ► it has many of the same downsides as mechanical watches do. It's a computer, it has the

01:25:21 ◼   ► ability to show anything, to be smarter, to be considerate and to be really, you know,

01:25:27 ◼   ► intelligent and flexible in a way that the current Apple Watch face environment doesn't

01:25:33 ◼   ► take advantage of it and doesn't really expose or allow. And I really hope to see

01:25:38 ◼   ► more of that. And, you know, but again, I think this pushes the bounds of plausibility

01:25:43 ◼   ► because a lot of that would require gutting and redoing and redesigning and rethinking

01:25:49 ◼   ► much of the Apple Watch's existing UI. Honestly, I don't see Apple doing that. Instead, we

01:25:54 ◼   ► have these rumors that the version 2 hardware will just be like a FaceTime camera added,

01:25:59 ◼   ► and that sounds insane to me. Like, I hope that my, what I have listed on here is like

01:26:05 ◼   ► second gen hardware. Please let it be substantially faster because the speed of the watch really

01:26:11 ◼   ► impedes the kinds of usefulness that you can do with its apps. It would be nice if it was

01:26:15 ◼   ► a little bit thinner. It probably won't happen. And then I have here, "FaceTime camera?"

01:26:20 ◼   ► I hope I'm missing something. Because I really, I hope there's a good use for that

01:26:26 ◼   ► camera that I'm not thinking of. Because I can think of one really bad use which should

01:26:31 ◼   ► be FaceTime. So I really hope that's not it.

01:26:35 ◼   ► - Somebody for Apple to sell nose hair trimmers

01:26:37 ◼   ► in its stores.

01:26:38 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:26:39 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

01:26:40 ◼   ► - 'Cause as soon as people start using that FaceTime camera,

01:26:43 ◼   ► there's gonna be a run on nose hair trimmers.

01:26:46 ◼   ► - You know, they could sell them right next

01:26:47 ◼   ► to the hedge trimmers they need to trim,

01:26:50 ◼   ► God damn it, I totally butchered that.

01:26:51 ◼   ► - The foliage wall, we got it, we finished it for you.

01:26:54 ◼   ► - God bless America.

01:26:55 ◼   ► - Don't worry Casey, you almost get credit for that joke.

01:26:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, we're just gonna have to cut all that out.

01:27:00 ◼   ► Ah, goodness.

01:27:02 ◼   ► All right, so does that make it, it's my turn again.

01:27:06 ◼   ► To keep with the super nerdy topics,

01:27:10 ◼   ► there's a Swift package manager for OS 10.

01:27:14 ◼   ► I'd like to see that on iOS, which I'm sure it's coming,

01:27:16 ◼   ► and I'd like to see that get adopted

01:27:19 ◼   ► so the previously mentioned Carthage versus CocoaPods war

01:27:24 ◼   ► just goes away.

01:27:25 ◼   ► - All right, be careful what you wish for there,

01:27:27 ◼   ► because, you know, (laughing)

01:27:29 ◼   ► for all the faults you may find

01:27:31 ◼   ► with the existing package managers,

01:27:32 ◼   ► they're still more mature than this brand spanking

01:27:34 ◼   ► new Swift one.

01:27:35 ◼   ► So I don't know.

01:27:37 ◼   ► I think what you're asking for is like unification,

01:27:39 ◼   ► even if it's unifying around something that is less mature

01:27:42 ◼   ► at this point and yeah, I think that would be good.

01:27:44 ◼   ► I don't know if that's plausible for next year.

01:27:48 ◼   ► 'Cause yeah, that's like a forward looking thing where like,

01:27:50 ◼   ► I would like to see this mess sorted out

01:27:52 ◼   ► so that I don't have to deal with these differences.

01:27:54 ◼   ► And there's just one way that everyone agrees on

01:27:57 ◼   ► of doing this thing like, you know,

01:27:59 ◼   ► Gem and Ruby or C-band and Perl or whatever.

01:28:02 ◼   ► And having one thing is better than that one thing

01:28:06 ◼   ► being particularly debugged or worked out or whatever.

01:28:08 ◼   ► But I think we're in for a couple of years

01:28:11 ◼   ► with more pain in that.

01:28:12 ◼   ► - Oh, I think you're right.

01:28:13 ◼   ► But I think if Apple made something really robust

01:28:16 ◼   ► and really solid, I think it could kind of solve the problem

01:28:20 ◼   ► once and for all.

01:28:21 ◼   ► - For Mac and iOS, probably.

01:28:24 ◼   ► But like then what are the,

01:28:26 ◼   ► your previous thing about the server side of people,

01:28:27 ◼   ► Maybe they come up with their own system, I don't know.

01:28:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's all I had, well, for this one anyway.

01:28:34 ◼   ► So John.

01:28:35 ◼   ► - All right, the next item is another,

01:28:38 ◼   ► see how simple and concise mine are?

01:28:40 ◼   ► New Mac Pro, new file system, new 5K display,

01:28:43 ◼   ► another concise one.

01:28:44 ◼   ► Apple Pencil for iPad non-Pro.

01:28:47 ◼   ► That's it, the regular, what we used to call

01:28:49 ◼   ► full-sized iPads, I want one of those with pencil support.

01:28:53 ◼   ► It is totally plausible and it would be awesome

01:28:55 ◼   ► and I would probably buy one.

01:28:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, and that honestly, that's pretty plausible.

01:28:59 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure, I wouldn't expect to see it in the Mini,

01:29:04 ◼   ► but I would expect to see it at least in the Air line.

01:29:08 ◼   ► The next Air probably this fall or whatever.

01:29:10 ◼   ► I hope they do that.

01:29:11 ◼   ► - I mean that's probably the main reason

01:29:13 ◼   ► I'm not buying a new iPad now,

01:29:15 ◼   ► 'cause my iPad 3, it's really chugging these days.

01:29:18 ◼   ► Or it's slowing down, I don't know if it's iOS 9

01:29:20 ◼   ► that's making it slow down,

01:29:21 ◼   ► or just like I'm getting used to my iPhone 6 too much,

01:29:23 ◼   ► I just can't, I'm doing much more on my phone

01:29:25 ◼   ► using it as a really, really small iPad

01:29:28 ◼   ► 'cause I just can't stand going over to my slow iPad.

01:29:30 ◼   ► And so I would have bought a new iPad this year

01:29:32 ◼   ► except I couldn't get it out of my head

01:29:33 ◼   ► that I don't wanna buy one this year

01:29:34 ◼   ► and the next year they have one with a pencil

01:29:36 ◼   ► because that would be cool.

01:29:38 ◼   ► So yeah, I would like to see that next year.

01:29:40 ◼   ► - All right, Marco.

01:29:43 ◼   ► - I would like to see general maturing of the iPad Pro

01:29:47 ◼   ► now that we're on this topic.

01:29:48 ◼   ► The iPad Pro, obviously it's very new.

01:29:51 ◼   ► It's like a month old or something now, so it's very new.

01:29:55 ◼   ► The hardware seems really great.

01:29:59 ◼   ► The software seems like it needs still a lot of time to bake

01:30:03 ◼   ► and that's both first party and third party software.

01:30:05 ◼   ► My worry is that this fall,

01:30:08 ◼   ► before the iPad Pro is even out,

01:30:10 ◼   ► we saw, as you mentioned earlier, Casey,

01:30:12 ◼   ► we saw the launch of multitasking on the iPad

01:30:14 ◼   ► and there are still so many incredibly useful iPad apps

01:30:19 ◼   ► that have not been updated for multitasking.

01:30:22 ◼   ► And this is not just some fluke.

01:30:25 ◼   ► This is because it is not really worth developers

01:30:28 ◼   ► putting a lot of effort into most iPad apps.

01:30:30 ◼   ► And that's a big problem for the iPad.

01:30:33 ◼   ► So I really hope that in 2016 we see

01:30:37 ◼   ► enough worthwhile gains on the iPad market-wise

01:30:42 ◼   ► to be worth developers updating their software.

01:30:44 ◼   ► Because as any iPad Pro owner can tell you,

01:30:46 ◼   ► it is really great when you're using apps

01:30:48 ◼   ► that resize properly to the iPad Pro

01:30:51 ◼   ► and support multitasking properly,

01:30:52 ◼   ► and it's really rough when you're not.

01:30:55 ◼   ► And it's bad enough on the 1024 by 768 iPad,

01:31:00 ◼   ► the Air and the Mini, it's bad enough on those

01:31:02 ◼   ► when you have something that doesn't support multitasking.

01:31:05 ◼   ► But it's way worse on an iPad Pro

01:31:08 ◼   ► when you have something that brings up

01:31:09 ◼   ► that tremendous old keyboard

01:31:12 ◼   ► because the app is being scaled up, it's really rough.

01:31:15 ◼   ► That will hold the iPad Pro back until it is resolved.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Right now, it doesn't appear as though

01:31:21 ◼   ► that's going to be resolved easily.

01:31:24 ◼   ► 'Cause developers of many iPad apps

01:31:27 ◼   ► are really not rushing to update them

01:31:29 ◼   ► for these new capabilities because it has been,

01:31:33 ◼   ► historically it has been so hard to justify

01:31:35 ◼   ► putting more effort into iPad programming

01:31:38 ◼   ► because the market has not rewarded it

01:31:41 ◼   ► in a commensurate way for most app types.

01:31:44 ◼   ► I really hope to see that change

01:31:45 ◼   ► and to see a lot more iPad software

01:31:48 ◼   ► get updated for modern devices,

01:31:50 ◼   ► because if that doesn't happen,

01:31:52 ◼   ► a year from now we're gonna hear a lot of

01:31:54 ◼   ► really disappointed iPad owners talking about it.

01:31:57 ◼   ► - I mean, I don't have an iPad Pro,

01:31:58 ◼   ► so I have nothing to contribute to this,

01:32:00 ◼   ► but it makes sense to me.

01:32:01 ◼   ► - Well, but you just said,

01:32:02 ◼   ► you do have an iPad now with multitasking support,

01:32:04 ◼   ► and it does suck when you want to multitask

01:32:07 ◼   ► with an app that doesn't support it.

01:32:08 ◼   ► So this is all tied in.

01:32:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right about that.

01:32:11 ◼   ► - Can we just lump in the lack of an Instagram iPad app

01:32:14 ◼   ► in there just for the hell of it?

01:32:16 ◼   ► Because things that will annoy every iPad aren't yet.

01:32:19 ◼   ► It has always amazed me.

01:32:21 ◼   ► The iOS applications that don't think it's important

01:32:24 ◼   ► to pick your thing, to be updated for the iPhone 6 size,

01:32:29 ◼   ► to do anything sensible on the iPad,

01:32:31 ◼   ► to have an iPad app at all.

01:32:34 ◼   ► It's tough when you're not number one,

01:32:35 ◼   ► even just the number two iOS device platform.

01:32:38 ◼   ► It's just that's a big drop off after the iPhone.

01:32:42 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then while I'm on the quick iOS topic,

01:32:45 ◼   ► or iOS device topic here, the iPhone 7,

01:32:49 ◼   ► I have a quick little bullet point here of,

01:32:52 ◼   ► iPhone 7's coming out this year,

01:32:53 ◼   ► it's gonna be, if they follow the pattern,

01:32:55 ◼   ► which they will almost certainly follow,

01:32:57 ◼   ► it's gonna be a redesign year for the external casing

01:33:00 ◼   ► of the iPhone this year.

01:33:02 ◼   ► I'm not gonna wish for more battery life,

01:33:03 ◼   ► 'cause that's not plausible.

01:33:05 ◼   ► - It is plausible, you could totally,

01:33:07 ◼   ► yes it is, it is 100% plausible.

01:33:09 ◼   ► You could say you want more battery life

01:33:11 ◼   ► in terms of the number of minutes, or like wall clock time,

01:33:14 ◼   ► or you could just say I want more milliamp hours.

01:33:17 ◼   ► - You know what, I would actually,

01:33:19 ◼   ► this is, I would like more milliamp hours,

01:33:20 ◼   ► and I know they won't do that,

01:33:22 ◼   ► because that would make it heavier and thicker.

01:33:23 ◼   ► They just won't.

01:33:25 ◼   ► The way Apple gets battery life these days

01:33:27 ◼   ► is a combination of power saving parts

01:33:29 ◼   ► as technology advances and software improvements

01:33:32 ◼   ► to kind of reduce the idle draw

01:33:35 ◼   ► and to get more into idle time.

01:33:38 ◼   ► The problem I have with the modern battery life is,

01:33:42 ◼   ► which I talked about to death,

01:33:42 ◼   ► I'm going to go over it very quickly now, is that we have not seen significant advancement

01:33:47 ◼   ► in the battery life of things that are under load, things that are, like processors that

01:33:53 ◼   ► are being used. If you're playing, you know, a game or you're using GPS or you're streaming

01:33:58 ◼   ► music over the cell network through Bluetooth or something, where things are not going into

01:34:01 ◼   ► low power states, or if you're on a laptop, you're processing photos, you're compiling,

01:34:06 ◼   ► you're doing, you know, you're doing hard work, you're making the computer work hard.

01:34:10 ◼   ► So you're not seeing big changes in the battery life under load. We're seeing almost

01:34:15 ◼   ► all the gains you've had in the last few years have been by stretching out idle time,

01:34:20 ◼   ► by making idle time more efficient, and by making the CPUs enter idle time more often.

01:34:24 ◼   ► So I want to see that top end be raised also. And I just think that's not going to happen.

01:34:30 ◼   ► I think it's very obvious that Apple is content to mostly not address that, and to

01:34:35 ◼   ► instead address the bottom end, because the bottom end can be addressed without bigger,

01:34:40 ◼   ► batteries so I don't think it's going to happen but I would like my plausible

01:34:45 ◼   ► thing my plausible wish list item on the iPhone 7 is to to somehow address the

01:34:51 ◼   ► handhold ability and make it make it more handholdable without a case because

01:34:58 ◼   ► the iPhone 6 is the first one I've used with the case I before that every

01:35:01 ◼   ► previous iPhone I've used without a case because I just liked it I don't like

01:35:05 ◼   ► having to use a case I like having an iPhone that just feels good enough and

01:35:08 ◼   ► secure enough in my hand that I don't feel the need for a case.

01:35:11 ◼   ► The 6 did not do that at all.

01:35:13 ◼   ► It was way too slippery in both shape and finish.

01:35:16 ◼   ► The 6S improved it a little bit in that it is still slippery in shape but the finish

01:35:20 ◼   ► was less slippery, the surface itself.

01:35:23 ◼   ► I would like to see the 7 design hopefully address the ability to hand hold it in a way

01:35:28 ◼   ► that feels secure and that is secure because all the previous ones I thought were way more

01:35:34 ◼   ► hand holdable.

01:35:36 ◼   ► The sixth design I think was, is pretty rough in that way.

01:35:40 ◼   ► I'm hoping the seventh will be better.

01:35:41 ◼   ► Just the handholdability.

01:35:43 ◼   ► The rest I know is mostly not plausible.

01:35:46 ◼   ► But that I want.

01:35:47 ◼   ► - I think you're not following my definition of plausible

01:35:50 ◼   ► as in able to be done in the physical world

01:35:52 ◼   ► without any magic, without saying,

01:35:53 ◼   ► I want there to be five gigahertz CPUs.

01:35:55 ◼   ► But anyway, for your gripability,

01:35:58 ◼   ► you just need a foliage wall.

01:35:59 ◼   ► They just need to put moss on the outside of it.

01:36:01 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:36:02 ◼   ► They're testing that right now, right now.

01:36:03 ◼   ► The iPhone foliage wall.

01:36:06 ◼   ► little just a, you know, it's like a chia pet. You just, you water it.

01:36:08 ◼   ► Oh, God.

01:36:09 ◼   ► Then you're going to use fuel cell technology to give Marco his increased battery life that

01:36:13 ◼   ► he is afraid to ask for. And then it'll be like a chia pet because you'll fill it up

01:36:17 ◼   ► with liquid and that'll run the fuel cell and the water vapor that comes out will help

01:36:21 ◼   ► the little hydroponic moss grow and it'll be really grippy.

01:36:25 ◼   ► That would be awesome.

01:36:27 ◼   ► And it'll be green.

01:36:28 ◼   ► Yeah, literally.

01:36:29 ◼   ► - All right, my next one, hand on heart,

01:36:33 ◼   ► as written in my field notes earlier today,

01:36:36 ◼   ► is increased battery life for the new iPhone.

01:36:40 ◼   ► - See, he has the guts to say it.

01:36:43 ◼   ► It's plausible, you can just put more battery in there,

01:36:45 ◼   ► you just make it thicker.

01:36:46 ◼   ► It's straightforward, totally doable, could be done,

01:36:50 ◼   ► you could say, and it would make you happy if it was done,

01:36:53 ◼   ► and so there you go.

01:36:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I mean, maybe the answer is just

01:36:56 ◼   ► don't make the next iPhone thinner.

01:36:59 ◼   ► Because to my memory, every single iPhone redesign

01:37:03 ◼   ► has been just that little bit thinner than the last.

01:37:05 ◼   ► Maybe you know what, Apple, you go really crazy

01:37:09 ◼   ► and you just don't make it thinner this year

01:37:11 ◼   ► and just add battery.

01:37:12 ◼   ► - They should make it thinner,

01:37:13 ◼   ► but then have a lump on the back where the extra battery is.

01:37:16 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:37:18 ◼   ► 'Cause then they could say, look how much thinner it is.

01:37:21 ◼   ► We made it so they could make it really thin

01:37:23 ◼   ► and they just put it all in the lump,

01:37:24 ◼   ► like, oh, don't count the lump.

01:37:25 ◼   ► So we're not counting that in the thickness.

01:37:27 ◼   ► - No, I mean, what this comes down to is that

01:37:30 ◼   ► the thinness is not the main problem here.

01:37:33 ◼   ► The main problem here is weight.

01:37:34 ◼   ► Thinness is the consequence of that.

01:37:38 ◼   ► They're not minimizing battery size to make it thinner.

01:37:42 ◼   ► They want to make it thinner overall,

01:37:44 ◼   ► and they're trying to hit a weight goal,

01:37:47 ◼   ► and then the size of the battery,

01:37:50 ◼   ► batteries are the heaviest thing in there,

01:37:51 ◼   ► So the size of the battery is what lets them,

01:37:55 ◼   ► if they can keep the battery small,

01:37:57 ◼   ► that keeps the weight down,

01:37:59 ◼   ► and then they can make the enclosure

01:38:00 ◼   ► really small and thin around it.

01:38:03 ◼   ► So this is really about weight,

01:38:05 ◼   ► more than thinness by itself.

01:38:07 ◼   ► I think thinness is a secondary consequence

01:38:10 ◼   ► of reducing weight.

01:38:11 ◼   ► So what we're really asking for,

01:38:14 ◼   ► if we want bigger batteries,

01:38:16 ◼   ► what we're asking for is to make the phones heavier.

01:38:18 ◼   ► And that's why I'm not sure they would do it.

01:38:21 ◼   ► - Did the iPhone 6 get heavier than the 5S?

01:38:23 ◼   ► - I believe it did.

01:38:25 ◼   ► - I thought that was the 6S versus 6

01:38:28 ◼   ► because of the 3D touch stuff.

01:38:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I just mean when the phone got bigger

01:38:32 ◼   ► than the four inch screen, you know.

01:38:34 ◼   ► - Well, but that's explainable even to a regular consumer

01:38:37 ◼   ► because, oh look, it's bigger, thus there's more stuff.

01:38:40 ◼   ► - I know, but it's not unprecedented to go heavier.

01:38:45 ◼   ► Anyway, the amount of extra weight added by the batteries

01:38:48 ◼   ► is minimal, but yeah, this is reversing a trend.

01:38:50 ◼   ► they're making it thinner because they want it to be lighter, they want it to be lighter,

01:38:52 ◼   ► you know, that's the direction they're going.