ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► So I went and cleared out everything that was obviously outdated.

00:00:03 ◼   ► We had, of course, like bullet points on speculation about what TV kit might be,

00:00:10 ◼   ► and rumors of the new Apple TV remote.

00:00:13 ◼   ► We should talk about that. We'd be, we'd get those predictions right.

00:00:16 ◼   ► In the realm of follow-up, we have more follow-up about the TiVo that neither Marco nor I cares about.

00:00:24 ◼   ► Oh, you care. You need to care.

00:00:26 ◼   ► need to care. Actually, there's one item about the TiVo that's not in the follow-up that

00:00:29 ◼   ► I want to briefly mention. So since last week, I think more people have either followed our

00:00:34 ◼   ► links to the TiVo bolts or seen people tweeting about it or, you know, it's made the rounds

00:00:38 ◼   ► in the tech news sites and stuff. And people have looked at it and listened to my comments

00:00:42 ◼   ► about how I can't believe that they made a thing that you can't stack something on top

00:00:45 ◼   ► of. And a lot of people have responded with other TV-connected devices that are un-stackable

00:00:50 ◼   ► in various ways. One of the ones that came up a lot was the Boxee Box. Do you guys remember

00:00:54 ◼   ► that?

00:00:55 ◼   ► It basically looked like a cube tilted on its corner and then set down into the table.

00:01:01 ◼   ► So it was sort of a cube on an angle.

00:01:04 ◼   ► It wasn't actually a cube they chopped off part of it.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Anyway, clearly nothing can go on top of it, because if it was a cube just resting normally

00:01:11 ◼   ► on the table, it would work fine, but it's tilted and then the corners are chopped off.

00:01:14 ◼   ► That's ridiculous.

00:01:16 ◼   ► The reason I think the TiVo Bolt is worse than the Boxee Box and those other things

00:01:20 ◼   ► is that the TiVo Bolt, like I said in the show, it's like thumbing its nose at you.

00:01:24 ◼   ► so close to being just a flat box. But they said, "You know what? Eh, screw you. We're

00:01:30 ◼   ► bending it." It's not a, you know, because the Boxee Box, I give it a pass. It's like,

00:01:34 ◼   ► "Oh, they're making a little piece of art. It's like a sculpture." It's like, it's not

00:01:37 ◼   ► even close to it. It is clearly never going to be something you can stack. Also, it's

00:01:41 ◼   ► not wider. The Boxee Box is a plain old normal proportion box that you put under a TV in

00:01:47 ◼   ► terms of like, it's around the size of a regular TiVo. It's around the size of like a Blu-ray

00:01:50 ◼   ► player or a game console or anything like that, it's exactly flat on all sides and then

00:01:55 ◼   ► they just bent it.

00:01:56 ◼   ► And that, I feel, is just the worst.

00:02:01 ◼   ► And then one other item that's not here, people have already started opening the thing up

00:02:04 ◼   ► and figuring out if they can upgrade the little 2.5 inch drive to whatever the max capacity

00:02:08 ◼   ► 2.5 inch drives they have, and apparently that's successful.

00:02:11 ◼   ► So if people are buying this, even though again this is not the high-end TiVo and the

00:02:15 ◼   ► TiVo folks themselves have had a series of Q&As and stuff where they've re-emphasized,

00:02:20 ◼   ► that you know this wasn't a question like we said in the last show this is

00:02:22 ◼   ► not the pro product they still sell a pro product that is has more features

00:02:26 ◼   ► and more storage and more tuners and everything and they said don't worry you

00:02:29 ◼   ► know eventually we will come out with the pro model whether the pro model will

00:02:33 ◼   ► also be bent will it even be called the bolt we don't know they just basically

00:02:36 ◼   ► said this product is not for you people who want the highest end TiVo this is

00:02:42 ◼   ► and they were pretty candid I wish I could find this Q&A I go did we link it

00:02:46 ◼   ► last week maybe we didn't anyway the guy who was talking was from TiVo was

00:02:49 ◼   ► basically saying, look, he's talking to a bunch of very enthusiastic TiVo fans,

00:02:53 ◼   ► like, and saying, I know you guys don't want this because it doesn't have lots

00:02:56 ◼   ► of storage and it's not big and fancy and has fewer tuners and it's like

00:02:59 ◼   ► basically a downgrade from the one you have now. This is not for you, but

00:03:02 ◼   ► basically if we just continue to make products for you, we would go out of

00:03:05 ◼   ► business. We need to make a low-end product that is distinctive and

00:03:10 ◼   ► appealing. He was also basically defending the crazy shape, saying that's

00:03:14 ◼   ► what we have to do to stay in business. We have to find a way to sell something

00:03:17 ◼   ► to people who otherwise wouldn't buy TiVo.

00:03:19 ◼   ► There are not enough people like me

00:03:21 ◼   ► who want the high-end TiVo to keep us in business.

00:03:23 ◼   ► I think he said something like they got 150,000

00:03:25 ◼   ► new customers last year, as in people

00:03:27 ◼   ► who hadn't previously owned TiVos,

00:03:28 ◼   ► like new TiVo customers, and that's just not enough.

00:03:32 ◼   ► So what they're trying to do is make a cheap product

00:03:36 ◼   ► that will stand out, that people will notice it.

00:03:38 ◼   ► They're like, "Oh, it's that crazy bent thing that's white."

00:03:40 ◼   ► I mean, I don't know if that's noticing in a good way

00:03:42 ◼   ► or a bad way, but hey, it's noticing.

00:03:44 ◼   ► and have it be an actual good product.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Like have features, have interesting features,

00:03:49 ◼   ► be faster, be more responsive, all that good stuff.

00:03:51 ◼   ► Have the automatic commercial skipping and everything.

00:03:54 ◼   ► So this is one of their many ploys to stay in business.

00:03:58 ◼   ► It's sad that the high end customers can't sustain them

00:04:01 ◼   ► as a company.

00:04:01 ◼   ► I'm not quite sure what their expenses are.

00:04:03 ◼   ► It's not like they're Netflix

00:04:04 ◼   ► for their licensing content or something.

00:04:06 ◼   ► They're just making basically a little computer

00:04:08 ◼   ► that you attach to your TV.

00:04:10 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:04:11 ◼   ► - And making hardware is easy.

00:04:12 ◼   ► - Well, it's not the same as like,

00:04:13 ◼   ► What is your burn rate?

00:04:14 ◼   ► How many employees do you need?

00:04:16 ◼   ► And especially if you've been doing it for many, many years,

00:04:19 ◼   ► I guess just 150,000 is just not enough sales

00:04:21 ◼   ► and you just need to sell more of them.

00:04:23 ◼   ► So I want TiVo to stay in business.

00:04:24 ◼   ► So I guess everyone should wait for them

00:04:27 ◼   ► to come out with the high-end TiVo

00:04:28 ◼   ► and then buy the most expensive one

00:04:30 ◼   ► and then throw it in the garbage, whatever.

00:04:32 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:04:33 ◼   ► Want them to stay in business.

00:04:35 ◼   ► So anyway, the actual follow-up that was in here

00:04:37 ◼   ► is the question from last week.

00:04:39 ◼   ► What kind of TiVo Bolt features

00:04:41 ◼   ► could possibly come through a software update to existing TiVo owners, to the Romeo models,

00:04:48 ◼   ► which is the old high-end one.

00:04:50 ◼   ► And someone from TiVo, who's @tivodesign on Twitter, said "Quick Mode," which is a thing

00:04:54 ◼   ► that's like Smart Speed where you watch 30% faster, and "Channel Logos and the Guide"

00:04:59 ◼   ► are two items that are coming through a software update.

00:05:02 ◼   ► Not mentioned is the thing that skips commercials, which is totally technically possible to bring

00:05:05 ◼   ► to the other ones.

00:05:06 ◼   ► Quick Mode was the one I had a question about, and apparently that's coming.

00:05:09 ◼   ► It didn't mention the commercial skipping and that could just be like, "Oh, we're

00:05:12 ◼   ► going to save that for the other models to make you upgrade," which, whatever, I'm

00:05:15 ◼   ► fine.

00:05:16 ◼   ► If they come out with the new high-end TiVo, I will probably buy it.

00:05:19 ◼   ► History has shown that I will probably buy it.

00:05:22 ◼   ► So I think that's it for the Bolt.

00:05:24 ◼   ► We should note that Jeremy Clarkson has tweeted today, which in and of itself is unremarkable,

00:05:29 ◼   ► but he has tweeted, "With a skeleton crew filming for Amazon Prime's new motoring

00:05:33 ◼   ► program spelled incorrectly has begun."

00:05:37 ◼   ► And it has a shot of, what are these cars?

00:05:39 ◼   ► This is a LaFerrari, a McLaren--

00:05:42 ◼   ► - P1.

00:05:43 ◼   ► - Thank you, the P1 and whatever the Ferrari du jour

00:05:46 ◼   ► of the hour is.

00:05:47 ◼   ► - No, it's a Porsche, it's the 918.

00:05:49 ◼   ► - Oh, that's the, oh, that's the 918?

00:05:50 ◼   ► Oh, it looks like a-- - Come on, come on.

00:05:52 ◼   ► You've been away from the show,

00:05:53 ◼   ► you can't even identify.

00:05:55 ◼   ► This is, as I tweeted, this is the,

00:05:57 ◼   ► when are they gonna get to the fireworks factory?

00:05:58 ◼   ► Because in the last, in the sad last season of Top Gear,

00:06:02 ◼   ► they were like, oh, finally, when the LaFerrari comes out,

00:06:05 ◼   ► we're gonna test it, we're gonna test all these,

00:06:07 ◼   ► these hybrid supercars or whatever, are they all hybrid?

00:06:10 ◼   ► I forget if the P1 is hybrid, maybe not.

00:06:12 ◼   ► Anyway, we're gonna test all these top-end supercars

00:06:14 ◼   ► against each other because they tested the 918 on its own,

00:06:18 ◼   ► they tested the P1 on its own, and a lot of Ferrari came out

00:06:20 ◼   ► and they tested it on its own, and now we're gonna have

00:06:22 ◼   ► these guys do a shootout.

00:06:23 ◼   ► And the very last episode where they were all together,

00:06:25 ◼   ► they were like, oh, the manufacturers wouldn't let us

00:06:27 ◼   ► race them against each other, so sorry, guys.

00:06:31 ◼   ► We're working on it, but right now, they're all big babies

00:06:33 ◼   ► because they're all afraid their car's gonna lose,

00:06:35 ◼   ► so they don't want them to race each other.

00:06:36 ◼   ► trying to work something out. And eventually it's like, "Oh, we've worked something out.

00:06:39 ◼   ► They've all agreed to race under whatever conditions." And then Clarkson went and punched

00:06:43 ◼   ► somebody and the show was over.

00:06:44 ◼   ► That's absolutely right.

00:06:46 ◼   ► Pretty good summary. So I was like, "When are they going to get to the fireworks factory?"

00:06:49 ◼   ► They kept teasing, "I want to see that showdown between those three cars. That's exactly what

00:06:53 ◼   ► I want to see." So I am super excited that this Amazon show, the first picture they show

00:06:57 ◼   ► is, "Guess what? We got those three cars. Presumably we're going to race them against

00:07:00 ◼   ► each other."

00:07:01 ◼   ► The other follow-up we had is this big kerfuffle that's been going around, particularly as

00:07:06 ◼   ► we record on Wednesday, with regard to battery life for the two different A9s. Apparently

00:07:14 ◼   ► both Samsung and TSMC, what does that stand for? Taiwan Semiconductor? Something like

00:07:20 ◼   ► that. Apparently both of them are fabbing the A9 and apparently one of them is, one

00:07:28 ◼   ► One of these things is not like the other, you could say.

00:07:31 ◼   ► So Marco, you were talking about this earlier today.

00:07:33 ◼   ► Would you like to fill us in on some of the details?

00:07:35 ◼   ► - Well, unfortunately, we don't know a lot yet.

00:07:37 ◼   ► It might not be a story, but it might be a story.

00:07:40 ◼   ► And at the time we record this on Wednesday night,

00:07:43 ◼   ► it's way too early to say whether there's anything here

00:07:46 ◼   ► or whether this is just a couple of people

00:07:47 ◼   ► getting weird test results.

00:07:50 ◼   ► The gist of it is, so we know for sure

00:07:53 ◼   ► that the A9 chip in the iPhone 6, as you mentioned,

00:07:56 ◼   ► is being fabbed by two companies, TSMC and Samsung.

00:07:59 ◼   ► And they have two different manufacturing processes

00:08:03 ◼   ► at those two companies.

00:08:04 ◼   ► The Samsung one is actually the smaller feature size.

00:08:07 ◼   ► Samsung is 14 nanometer, TSMC is 16.

00:08:10 ◼   ► So normally you would expect the smaller feature size one

00:08:13 ◼   ► being Samsung to have better battery life

00:08:16 ◼   ► 'cause it uses less power.

00:08:17 ◼   ► - Well, not in the days of leakage current dominating

00:08:19 ◼   ► because now it's not, like, that used to be true,

00:08:22 ◼   ► but then once the leakage current became a thing,

00:08:23 ◼   ► it kind of kept on because what people would do is like,

00:08:25 ◼   ► I can't even make like a 22 nanometer chip until I solve this leakage current problem

00:08:30 ◼   ► so they would solve that by using like high K dielectric or whatever, you know things that they're doing and

00:08:34 ◼   ► Then it would shrink and you would get lower power and it's like yay

00:08:38 ◼   ► Everything's following along but really the only reason you got less power is because they figured out the leakage thing

00:08:42 ◼   ► And so as we get smaller and smaller, it's like oh we got that problem again. We got all this leakage

00:08:46 ◼   ► How what are we gonna do? So you're right that in the old thinking in like the you know, 45 nanometers 65 nanometer thinking

00:08:53 ◼   ► shrinking is better, but now the size is right now,

00:08:56 ◼   ► shrinking is not necessarily better

00:08:58 ◼   ► unless you know the intimate details of the geometry

00:09:01 ◼   ► and materials of their actual transistors.

00:09:03 ◼   ► - Right, so anyway, the gist is there's a couple of people,

00:09:07 ◼   ► and again, the test size here is really small,

00:09:09 ◼   ► but there's a couple of people who are getting results

00:09:12 ◼   ► that indicate that the TSMC manufactured one,

00:09:16 ◼   ► which is actually the larger feature size,

00:09:17 ◼   ► but as John just explained,

00:09:18 ◼   ► it doesn't really matter as much anymore.

00:09:21 ◼   ► basically the TSMC manufactured A9s are yielding

00:09:25 ◼   ► substantially better battery life than the Samsung ones.

00:09:28 ◼   ► The test so far suggests that it might be as much as

00:09:31 ◼   ► like 20, 25% more battery life.

00:09:33 ◼   ► - Well, do you know, let's put a qualifier on that

00:09:35 ◼   ► because here's my first question about these things.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Are they yielding better battery life

00:09:40 ◼   ► or are they yielding better Geekbench battery scores?

00:09:43 ◼   ► Because I'm not entirely convinced that there isn't

00:09:45 ◼   ► something about the Geekbench battery test

00:09:48 ◼   ► that behaves differently on one thing than the other.

00:09:51 ◼   ► Like, you know, like if this is our only metric,

00:09:53 ◼   ► like you said, it's a small number of people.

00:09:55 ◼   ► It's like, you know, a few dozen people.

00:09:57 ◼   ► And if they're all running the Geekbench battery test,

00:10:00 ◼   ► I don't know what else you do to test battery life.

00:10:02 ◼   ► Like you need to have to do something.

00:10:03 ◼   ► You can't just have anecdotal,

00:10:04 ◼   ► like I use my phone for a day

00:10:05 ◼   ► and it seemed like it was slower.

00:10:06 ◼   ► But if they're all using the same test

00:10:08 ◼   ► and it's a low number, I don't know yet.

00:10:10 ◼   ► Like I'm trying to think of like,

00:10:12 ◼   ► what could it be about the Geekbench test

00:10:14 ◼   ► that would care who manufactured the CPU?

00:10:17 ◼   ► Are they different in ways other than the size of the features and the materials and

00:10:22 ◼   ► geometry of the individual transistors?

00:10:23 ◼   ► Are they different in, like if we were to look at the layout of the chips, are they

00:10:27 ◼   ► different in that way too?

00:10:28 ◼   ► Maybe they are.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Do they have different instructions?

00:10:31 ◼   ► They have different cache sizes?

00:10:34 ◼   ► We don't know anything about them, so there's too many questions here.

00:10:37 ◼   ► But the most compelling thing I think we have is that thing that, who is it that tweeted

00:10:41 ◼   ► this?

00:10:42 ◼   ► pool-tweeted graphs of the Geekbench scores for the different phones.

00:10:48 ◼   ► And it's not labeled which ones have which CPU, but you can see two humps in the iPhone

00:10:53 ◼   ► 6s one and one hump in the iPhone 6 one.

00:10:55 ◼   ► Of course, the iPhone 6 one has a tremendous number of trials.

00:10:57 ◼   ► Right, it was something like 20 or 30 times as many.

00:11:00 ◼   ► Right, but still, with the small number of trials, it clearly shows two humps instead

00:11:05 ◼   ► of one.

00:11:06 ◼   ► So in the coming days and weeks, we'll figure this out.

00:11:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:11:09 ◼   ► curious to see and you can tell which one you have. There's an app called Lyrum Info,

00:11:15 ◼   ► like we put in the show notes. If you launch this, it's obviously made to dump a bunch

00:11:20 ◼   ► of technical info. It shows the model number on the first screen and for the 6S, it's

00:11:28 ◼   ► N71 AP and then if you have the "good one", it's N71 M AP. There's a little lower case

00:11:35 ◼   ► and the middle model number.

00:11:36 ◼   ► That is the TSMC one, and that's the one that,

00:11:39 ◼   ► if this is true, that's the one you want to have.

00:11:41 ◼   ► That's the one I have, I'm very happy about that.

00:11:44 ◼   ► I have not been using it long enough to really say

00:11:46 ◼   ► whether I'm noticing extra battery life.

00:11:48 ◼   ► It seems, yeah, roughly the same to me, but I don't know.

00:11:52 ◼   ► I haven't really been running it down a lot

00:11:54 ◼   ► during this usage.

00:11:56 ◼   ► I keep charging it during the day, so I don't know.

00:11:59 ◼   ► Casey, did you check yours?

00:12:00 ◼   ► - I did. - How'd you do?

00:12:02 ◼   ► - I have the no bueno one.

00:12:04 ◼   ► - Oh, no M. - It's kinda like dead pixels.

00:12:06 ◼   ► And maybe you should just not look.

00:12:08 ◼   ► 'Cause basically you think like,

00:12:10 ◼   ► am I dissatisfied with the battery life?

00:12:12 ◼   ► If I'm not dissatisfied, then just don't look.

00:12:14 ◼   ► But it's too late, it's too late, you looked.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - Whatever, meh.

00:12:17 ◼   ► It seems to be fine.

00:12:18 ◼   ► It doesn't seem particularly different than the last phone.

00:12:21 ◼   ► As with every iPhone I've ever owned,

00:12:23 ◼   ► I wish it did better.

00:12:25 ◼   ► I wish I had a few more millimeters of battery

00:12:28 ◼   ► somewhere in there, as we've talked about to death,

00:12:30 ◼   ► but that's still how I feel.

00:12:31 ◼   ► - But it's thinner.

00:12:33 ◼   ► But man, it's so thin and so bendy, wait, what?

00:12:36 ◼   ► So anyway, so point being, I do have the quote, unquote,

00:12:40 ◼   ► bad one, I did not check Aaron's phone.

00:12:42 ◼   ► I have no reason to believe that it would be any different

00:12:45 ◼   ► other than just complete luck.

00:12:48 ◼   ► But again, I've not seen any difference in battery life

00:12:51 ◼   ► from the 6 to the 6S, and so I'm not too worked up about it.

00:12:56 ◼   ► - It is kind of unfortunate.

00:12:57 ◼   ► I'm assuming that they probably just couldn't get enough

00:13:02 ◼   ► to make them all the TSM seek chip.

00:13:04 ◼   ► I imagine that's probably a volume and yield issue.

00:13:07 ◼   ► You know, you can look at it either as your phone

00:13:10 ◼   ► gets worse battery life than 40% of them out there,

00:13:13 ◼   ► or you get a bonus if you have the other one.

00:13:16 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:13:17 ◼   ► - What I don't understand is, I mean, last I checked,

00:13:21 ◼   ► I know these phones are doing a lot of background processing

00:13:24 ◼   ► on various and sundry things.

00:13:25 ◼   ► However, 99% of the time, these CPUs are sitting

00:13:29 ◼   ► damn near idle, are they not?

00:13:31 ◼   ► So what is it that's making that much of a difference?

00:13:35 ◼   ► Like, good grief, that's a big difference.

00:13:38 ◼   ► And it just seems weird to me.

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Well, what's the big difference?

00:13:41 ◼   ► 'Cause I've seen the reports like,

00:13:43 ◼   ► oh, you get two hours different battery life,

00:13:44 ◼   ► but where are they getting that number from?

00:13:46 ◼   ► The only numbers I've seen are these ones

00:13:47 ◼   ► with this benchmark and the benchmark scores

00:13:50 ◼   ► are like, you know, 2,000 to 3,500.

00:13:52 ◼   ► I don't know what those numbers mean.

00:13:53 ◼   ► It's just an arbitrary number.

00:13:54 ◼   ► They're not number of seconds or times or hours.

00:13:57 ◼   ► - There was a time test on,

00:13:58 ◼   ► I think it was the Engadget post republished it

00:14:01 ◼   ► from whoever it originated, there was a time-based test

00:14:03 ◼   ► and it was like seven hours versus five hours

00:14:06 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:14:07 ◼   ► And I assume it's some kind of like,

00:14:08 ◼   ► it's probably some kind of like max out the CPU

00:14:10 ◼   ► to run it down as quickly as you can kind of test.

00:14:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know how representative that is

00:14:15 ◼   ► of what you're gonna actually do with the phone.

00:14:18 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

00:14:18 ◼   ► So again, this is probably a non-story.

00:14:21 ◼   ► We probably shouldn't have even talked about it

00:14:23 ◼   ► for this long, but it's worth monitoring the story.

00:14:26 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, we know they're using two different parts

00:14:28 ◼   ► and there is precedent as many people tweeted

00:14:31 ◼   ► for Apple using different parts from different manufacturers

00:14:33 ◼   ► and one of them being the good one,

00:14:34 ◼   ► as Marco knows for someone who got,

00:14:35 ◼   ► didn't you originally have the MacBook Pro

00:14:37 ◼   ► with the bad screen?

00:14:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, I had like the, I think it was the LG

00:14:41 ◼   ► instead of the Samsung or one of those.

00:14:42 ◼   ► Whatever panel you didn't want in the Retina MacBook Pro,

00:14:44 ◼   ► that's the one I had.

00:14:45 ◼   ► - But anyway, I think it will probably be fine

00:14:49 ◼   ► as long as, like Marco said, as long as the bad chip gets,

00:14:54 ◼   ► you know, and I'm sure Apple made sure of this,

00:14:56 ◼   ► Like as long as the bad chip fulfills the criteria

00:15:00 ◼   ► that they put on the product page.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Oh, you get about this number of hours doing this,

00:15:03 ◼   ► about this number of hours, and they have, you know,

00:15:05 ◼   ► I'm sure there's some little tiny asterisk gonna say,

00:15:07 ◼   ► here's what we use to determine those numbers.

00:15:09 ◼   ► And if someone, there's some class action lawsuit about it,

00:15:11 ◼   ► Apple's gonna say, look, the bad phones get these numbers.

00:15:14 ◼   ► The good ones get even wetter, getting better numbers.

00:15:16 ◼   ► Congratulations, you're lucky.

00:15:17 ◼   ► Like I'm sure they're covering their bases by doing that.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Hope so.

00:15:21 ◼   ► - All right, let's see.

00:15:23 ◼   ► Any other follow-up worth talking about?

00:15:25 ◼   ► I don't think there is.

00:15:27 ◼   ► - I did wanna quickly mention this awesome artwork

00:15:29 ◼   ► that we got today.

00:15:30 ◼   ► - Ah yes, I completely forgot, thank you.

00:15:32 ◼   ► - This is fantastic.

00:15:33 ◼   ► This is, I'm gonna attempt your name here.

00:15:35 ◼   ► This is by Mendogas Rudokas, and it is awesome.

00:15:40 ◼   ► So he drew, he illustrated this artwork called

00:15:44 ◼   ► Business as Usual at ATP, and it's like a comic style,

00:15:47 ◼   ► three frames, one of Jon, one of Casey, and one of me

00:15:51 ◼   ► as we do the podcast, like from the back.

00:15:53 ◼   ► And the level of reference details in here,

00:15:58 ◼   ► this is amazing.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Here, I'll put the link in chat here.

00:16:03 ◼   ► There are so many little references and details

00:16:06 ◼   ► that he got exactly right.

00:16:08 ◼   ► Like it shows John Scream with a ton of windows,

00:16:11 ◼   ► Casey with a giant glass of water next to his MacBook Air.

00:16:16 ◼   ► I'm issued me in my red office with all the fractures,

00:16:19 ◼   ► including the half fallen off,

00:16:21 ◼   ► half-broken piece fracture.

00:16:23 ◼   ► - And the pile of microphones with sale written on it.

00:16:26 ◼   ► - Yep, and there's so many little details

00:16:28 ◼   ► in each of these that are correct.

00:16:30 ◼   ► It even got our keyboard types.

00:16:31 ◼   ► I mean, it's really quite something.

00:16:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, it really is.

00:16:37 ◼   ► I have a glass desk, which is exactly what I have.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Although I am using what looks to be the Shure SM7B,

00:16:44 ◼   ► which I haven't used in a while.

00:16:46 ◼   ► And it looks to me as though you're using Xcode,

00:16:49 ◼   ► like vaguely. - Yeah, that's Xcode.

00:16:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:16:52 ◼   ► - And it's just magnificent.

00:16:54 ◼   ► Everything about this is wonderful.

00:16:56 ◼   ► I saw this, and this was completely unsolicited.

00:16:59 ◼   ► None, or at least I didn't, I didn't think you guys

00:17:01 ◼   ► had any idea this was coming.

00:17:03 ◼   ► It just kind of showed up all of a sudden,

00:17:05 ◼   ► and it is magnificent.

00:17:08 ◼   ► So like Marco said, we'll put this in the show notes.

00:17:10 ◼   ► - And I asked him for a high-res version

00:17:13 ◼   ► that wasn't crushed by Twitter's terrible image compression,

00:17:16 ◼   ► and he gladly volunteered it,

00:17:19 ◼   ► doesn't even want any money for it,

00:17:20 ◼   ► and suggest that I can put it up and have,

00:17:22 ◼   ► if anybody wants to get a fracture print of it,

00:17:25 ◼   ► that I can, he designed it for the medium fracture size

00:17:30 ◼   ► in mind, so I can put it up and people can order fracture.

00:17:34 ◼   ► So I'm definitely getting one.

00:17:35 ◼   ► Like the reason I asked for it,

00:17:37 ◼   ► it was before he even told me that the reason I asked for it

00:17:39 ◼   ► was definitely so that I could get a fracture print of it.

00:17:42 ◼   ► And right as I was getting it from Tiff in our chat,

00:17:46 ◼   ► she was upstairs and she was like,

00:17:48 ◼   ► "Order this from Fracture right now."

00:17:50 ◼   ► I didn't even have to talk to her first.

00:17:52 ◼   ► We both had the immediate thought,

00:17:53 ◼   ► oh man, we're both getting,

00:17:55 ◼   ► we have to get this and hang it in the office.

00:17:57 ◼   ► So I offered to pay him for the high-res version

00:18:00 ◼   ► and to support his work, 'cause this is awesome.

00:18:02 ◼   ► And all he said was he won't take money.

00:18:04 ◼   ► If people wanna support his work, which I definitely do,

00:18:08 ◼   ► he has an app in the store called Disco Timer.

00:18:10 ◼   ► And I downloaded it before the show.

00:18:12 ◼   ► It's pretty good.

00:18:13 ◼   ► It's like, it's a timer,

00:18:15 ◼   ► and you just turn to set the time.

00:18:17 ◼   ► It is so simple.

00:18:18 ◼   ► It is completely over designed in the best possible way.

00:18:23 ◼   ► It's full of animation and really strong visuals.

00:18:28 ◼   ► And you can, just go buy Disco Timer

00:18:31 ◼   ► and unlock the in-app purchase.

00:18:32 ◼   ► It's like three bucks.

00:18:34 ◼   ► Just go buy, unlock this,

00:18:35 ◼   ► 'cause this guy does awesome work.

00:18:36 ◼   ► And so check it out.

00:18:37 ◼   ► I'll put the link in the show notes as well.

00:18:39 ◼   ► Yeah, it's a fantastic piece of art.

00:18:41 ◼   ► - It's so good and so chock full of references.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And every time I look at Jon's screen,

00:18:46 ◼   ► and I just laugh a little bit

00:18:47 ◼   ► because it is so out of control.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Oh, I love it.

00:18:50 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, there's tons of windows

00:18:52 ◼   ► and there's a toaster oven next to John.

00:18:54 ◼   ► And even like the pile of microphones

00:18:55 ◼   ► that are sitting next to me that says sale,

00:18:57 ◼   ► those are the microphones I was selling.

00:18:59 ◼   ► Like they actually look like,

00:19:02 ◼   ► again, the level of, he got, you know, my keyboard,

00:19:05 ◼   ► I mean, the level of detail here is really quite something.

00:19:08 ◼   ► - I'm deeply impressed.

00:19:09 ◼   ► - And almost all the details are correct.

00:19:11 ◼   ► - John, anything to add on this

00:19:13 ◼   ► or are you pretty much happy with what we just discussed?

00:19:16 ◼   ► - That's fine, there are lots of corrections

00:19:18 ◼   ► I could add to it, but I don't want to.

00:19:20 ◼   ► I don't want to put that into the head of the artist

00:19:22 ◼   ► as if he's got to go back and fix all the mistakes,

00:19:24 ◼   ► because they are there, but it'll just never end.

00:19:28 ◼   ► So it's best to just go with what you've got

00:19:30 ◼   ► and instead of spending all your time

00:19:32 ◼   ► fixing all the minor errors.

00:19:33 ◼   ► - I love you, Jon.

00:19:35 ◼   ► - So I think I'll ask him to make a few alterations

00:19:37 ◼   ► to yours that make it even less accurate,

00:19:40 ◼   ► and then I'll mail you a gift fracture

00:19:42 ◼   ► with an even less accurate version of yours.

00:19:43 ◼   ► - Oh, that would be phenomenal.

00:19:45 ◼   ► You don't even know all the corrections.

00:19:47 ◼   ► I'll tell you in the after show.

00:19:50 ◼   ► The after after show.

00:19:51 ◼   ► - Oh, that's amazing.

00:19:53 ◼   ► - Oh my goodness.

00:19:54 ◼   ► All right, why don't you tell us about something else

00:19:56 ◼   ► that's awesome.

00:19:57 ◼   ► - Okay, we are sponsored this week

00:19:58 ◼   ► by our friends at Squarespace.

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00:20:10 ◼   ► and enter offer code ATP at checkout.

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00:22:10 ◼   ► All right, so Microsoft has done something interesting, which every time I say that I

00:22:16 ◼   ► have a little bit of surprise in my voice, but I shouldn't, because they've been doing

00:22:19 ◼   ► some interesting stuff for a while now.

00:22:21 ◼   ► And they've come out with the Surface Book, which at first glance, having not really seen

00:22:27 ◼   ► much about it, I was kind of like, "Kay."

00:22:31 ◼   ► And then I looked into it a little bit earlier today.

00:22:34 ◼   ► And it actually looks pretty good.

00:22:36 ◼   ► I'm actually fairly impressed by it.

00:22:38 ◼   ► One of the gripes I had about the Surfaces that have existed thus far is that it just

00:22:43 ◼   ► seemed like a terrible compromise in every direction.

00:22:47 ◼   ► It's kind of a "meh" tablet, it's kind of a "meh" laptop, and it just didn't seem from

00:22:52 ◼   ► a--just physically, it didn't seem like it was a very good endpoint for this series of

00:23:00 ◼   ► compromises.

00:23:01 ◼   ► This, however, the Surface Book, looks like a much better designed laptop that can do

00:23:07 ◼   ► more than just a laptop.

00:23:10 ◼   ► And although I haven't had time to read into it a lot, I am very impressed by the

00:23:14 ◼   ► little bit I've seen so far.

00:23:16 ◼   ► This is an example of the only Apple stuff.

00:23:20 ◼   ► This is an only Microsoft thing.

00:23:21 ◼   ► Only Microsoft could have made this.

00:23:22 ◼   ► And why?

00:23:23 ◼   ► Because only Microsoft has an operating system that is the same one, the same in name and

00:23:29 ◼   ► in concept anyway that runs on their tablets and on their laptops.

00:23:33 ◼   ► Apple couldn't make this because then what would you do when you take off the tablet

00:23:36 ◼   ► part?

00:23:37 ◼   ► Would it switch to iOS and then when you click it back together it would switch back to OS

00:23:40 ◼   ► 10?

00:23:41 ◼   ► That would be weird.

00:23:42 ◼   ► So literally only Microsoft could make this because they're the only one who has a software

00:23:45 ◼   ► platform that works like that.

00:23:48 ◼   ► So kudos to them for taking advantage of, I mean I'm sure they consider it their strength,

00:23:53 ◼   ► but surely whether it's a strength or a weakness it's surely a differentiator because it is

00:23:57 ◼   ► It is a seamless experience from having the thing connected

00:24:00 ◼   ► and having it not connected,

00:24:01 ◼   ► because it's not like you change OSs or anything.

00:24:02 ◼   ► It's always the same OS.

00:24:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, and what makes this different

00:24:06 ◼   ► from a hardware point of view is that the,

00:24:11 ◼   ► instead of being this like really chintzy looking kickstand,

00:24:13 ◼   ► which I always thought was so ridiculous,

00:24:15 ◼   ► it has, what do they call this?

00:24:16 ◼   ► A snake hinge, a spider hinge,

00:24:19 ◼   ► some sort of fancy hinge that had a animal analogy.

00:24:22 ◼   ► Anyways, it has this weird hinge,

00:24:23 ◼   ► so you can fold it back on top of the keyboard

00:24:26 ◼   ► then you can just pop the tablet-y part out and use it as a traditional tablet, which

00:24:32 ◼   ► also looks pretty good except for the fact that it appears at least on the right side,

00:24:36 ◼   ► if not both sides. It's got a humongous like grill for the fan, which is a little unfortunate.

00:24:41 ◼   ► But by and large, it looks like it's a lot less chintzy than all the surfaces, sur--

00:24:49 ◼   ► sur-- surface to date have been. I don't know. Marco, what do you think about this?

00:24:53 ◼   ► My concern with this, so right now it looks really good.

00:24:56 ◼   ► It looks amazing.

00:24:57 ◼   ► Like, hardware-wise, this is like,

00:25:00 ◼   ► I'd be really interested if Apple made something like this.

00:25:03 ◼   ► Of course, we know they won't.

00:25:04 ◼   ► But I'd be really interested if Apple made something

00:25:06 ◼   ► like this because I know that, you know,

00:25:11 ◼   ► I am ultimately a laptop person

00:25:13 ◼   ► when it comes to mobile computing.

00:25:15 ◼   ► You know, I don't, with the iPad,

00:25:18 ◼   ► it doesn't resonate with me the way it does

00:25:20 ◼   ► with a lot of people.

00:25:20 ◼   ► Like, I am really a laptop person

00:25:22 ◼   ► with the kind of work I like to do

00:25:23 ◼   ► in the way I like to do it.

00:25:25 ◼   ► But I do occasionally, I am occasionally interested

00:25:28 ◼   ► in stuff like taking a screen somewhere

00:25:33 ◼   ► for some kind of like touch or pen input.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I am very interested in pen type stuff

00:25:37 ◼   ► to see what I could do with that,

00:25:39 ◼   ► even though in real life I'm not much of a pen person

00:25:40 ◼   ► and maybe that should just tell me right there

00:25:42 ◼   ► I don't need it.

00:25:43 ◼   ► But the hardware on this does look really interesting.

00:25:46 ◼   ► Unfortunately, the software is still Windows

00:25:50 ◼   ► And I don't mean to be too harsh on Microsoft here,

00:25:54 ◼   ► 'cause it does kinda feel like kicking them

00:25:56 ◼   ► while they're down, but Windows,

00:25:59 ◼   ► the best that people can say about it these days,

00:26:03 ◼   ► which is the best that people keep saying

00:26:04 ◼   ► about their hardware, is what you open up with, Casey,

00:26:07 ◼   ► that it's interesting.

00:26:09 ◼   ► And interesting is great.

00:26:11 ◼   ► People have been saying that when Windows Phone 8 came out,

00:26:15 ◼   ► whatever that was officially called,

00:26:17 ◼   ► when Windows 8 came out with the phone thing

00:26:19 ◼   ► and the whole redesign and the artist formerly known

00:26:22 ◼   ► as Metro Interface Style, people said the same thing.

00:26:25 ◼   ► Oh, this is really interesting.

00:26:27 ◼   ► People said the same thing about POMO,

00:26:29 ◼   ► WebOS, WebOS, that WebOS was really interesting.

00:26:34 ◼   ► And even before that, like, BOS was really interesting.

00:26:39 ◼   ► Lots of things can get the tech press

00:26:40 ◼   ► to say they're interesting, and to get geeks like us

00:26:42 ◼   ► to look at them and say, oh, that's interesting.

00:26:45 ◼   ► The problem is how often that translates

00:26:47 ◼   ► doesn't translate into actually buying and using these things. So many of the reviews

00:26:53 ◼   ► of these interesting products in tech history have all been like, "Yeah, this would be

00:26:57 ◼   ► really nice maybe for somebody who's not me." And that seems to always be the case.

00:27:03 ◼   ► Like, the Surface Book here, this would be really interesting for us if we weren't

00:27:08 ◼   ► already using Macs for everything. And that, you know, it's like, yeah, okay, this would

00:27:12 ◼   ► be really interesting if we loved the Windows world but didn't love the other PCs that

00:27:17 ◼   ► that have been keeping us there all this time.

00:27:19 ◼   ► I bet a lot of people are gonna look at this

00:27:21 ◼   ► and say it's interesting, but I bet very few of them

00:27:23 ◼   ► are actually gonna buy it.

00:27:24 ◼   ► And that's been the problem Microsoft has had

00:27:26 ◼   ► with a lot of their recent stuff.

00:27:28 ◼   ► - Well Mac users aren't gonna buy it, right?

00:27:30 ◼   ► But this is different than Windows Phone

00:27:32 ◼   ► in that there is a built-in customer base for this

00:27:35 ◼   ► because Microsoft is shrewdly this time presenting it

00:27:38 ◼   ► as a laptop, hey, we made a laptop.

00:27:40 ◼   ► Oh, and by the way, the screen comes off

00:27:41 ◼   ► and you can kinda use it as a tablet.

00:27:42 ◼   ► But yeah, I don't know if you know this, Marco,

00:27:45 ◼   ► but I don't think you would want it

00:27:46 ◼   ► because the tablet part gets like a four hour battery life

00:27:49 ◼   ► because half the battery, more than half the battery,

00:27:50 ◼   ► it's like 80% of the batteries is in the base or whatever.

00:27:53 ◼   ► - They split the, I guess that makes sense

00:27:54 ◼   ► for weight reasons, you'd have to, that's crazy.

00:27:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, they had to split the battery.

00:27:57 ◼   ► But anyway, it's a four hour battery life in a tablet.

00:27:59 ◼   ► But anyway, Microsoft are presenting this as,

00:28:01 ◼   ► forget about the whole detaching thing.

00:28:03 ◼   ► This is just a good Windows notebook.

00:28:05 ◼   ► And Windows notebook is not like a speculative product

00:28:07 ◼   ► like the Surface was where it's like, I don't know,

00:28:09 ◼   ► maybe people wanna use this thing

00:28:10 ◼   ► with the stand and the pen.

00:28:12 ◼   ► People buy Windows notebooks.

00:28:13 ◼   ► That is a thing that people buy.

00:28:14 ◼   ► This looks like a pretty good Windows notebook.

00:28:17 ◼   ► Like the performance is good, the design is pretty nice.

00:28:20 ◼   ► The features they tout about it,

00:28:22 ◼   ► like the keyboard looks like it's well designed.

00:28:24 ◼   ► One of the features they tout,

00:28:25 ◼   ► it has really good key travel on the keys.

00:28:27 ◼   ► And again, how can they have good key travel on the keys?

00:28:29 ◼   ► Because the computer is in the screen.

00:28:31 ◼   ► And the only thing that's in the keyboard part

00:28:33 ◼   ► is the batteries and a GPU and some other stuff.

00:28:37 ◼   ► It also doesn't have the teardrop shape.

00:28:39 ◼   ► Yeah, the tech part is interesting

00:28:41 ◼   ► because like it's dual GPU.

00:28:43 ◼   ► So in the base where the keyboard is, there's a bunch of battery, there's a keyboard, and

00:28:47 ◼   ► there's a big GPU.

00:28:49 ◼   ► And in the tablet part of it, there's a smaller GPU and some battery and the actual CPU and

00:28:57 ◼   ► the memory and the rest of the guts of the computer.

00:28:58 ◼   ► I would love to know what their interconnect is.

00:29:00 ◼   ► Like is it some proprietary PCI Express thing?

00:29:03 ◼   ► Is it actually Thunderbolt over a custom connector?

00:29:06 ◼   ► It's not a standard connector.

00:29:07 ◼   ► They made up their own connector.

00:29:08 ◼   ► And even that, like they're doing interesting Apple-style things like, "Oh, how do we connect

00:29:12 ◼   ► the top to the bottom part with these little like, I think they call them like metal muscles,

00:29:17 ◼   ► but it's like wires that remember their shape and reform to their shape if you apply current

00:29:21 ◼   ► to them. Using that to sort of pull tight these little clasps and stuff and they have like a

00:29:24 ◼   ► little, it's like your BMW Marco, like when they disengage the little hooks to let you know it's

00:29:29 ◼   ► disengaged, the speakers play a sound like a little snick so you know when it, you know.

00:29:35 ◼   ► It is a, you know, just again, ignoring the tablet part of it, it's a pretty neat Windows laptop.

00:29:39 ◼   ► And so I think their positioning of this product as a Windows laptop first

00:29:43 ◼   ► and by the way

00:29:43 ◼   ► it has this pen and touch stuff second is really smart and I

00:29:47 ◼   ► Think it's not doomed like the surface is it to be like well, it's interesting

00:29:51 ◼   ► But I don't really want them because even though we're not gonna get it because we want to run OS 10, right?

00:29:56 ◼   ► People who are already buying Windows laptops who are in the market for a small Windows laptop that they travel with or whatever and they're looking

00:30:04 ◼   ► At well, should I get like a Dell laptop or should I get a Lenovo laptop or should I get this thing?

00:30:08 ◼   ► This has a lot of appeal because it's it's nicer looking than the most of the other you know Windows notebooks

00:30:13 ◼   ► I see it's it's interesting with with the

00:30:15 ◼   ► The tablet angle and you can always say like well if I know if the tablet thing turns out not to be useful to me

00:30:20 ◼   ► It's still a nice laptop

00:30:22 ◼   ► so I think I have

00:30:24 ◼   ► Feel good things about this this product success in the market the only question marks in my mind in terms of how they're gonna do

00:30:31 ◼   ► Selling this is just a plain old laptop is like how good is it Microsoft in manufacturing things anymore?

00:30:36 ◼   ► 'cause they're making this themselves,

00:30:38 ◼   ► they're not outsourcing as far as I understand.

00:30:39 ◼   ► And they have a lot of practice with the service

00:30:41 ◼   ► and dealing with manufacturing things.

00:30:42 ◼   ► And like this is a skill set that Microsoft is developing.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Apple has developed it, Apple's got it, right?

00:30:48 ◼   ► And presumably Lenovo and Dell and all those other things

00:30:51 ◼   ► have their own version of this expertise, right?

00:30:53 ◼   ► But Microsoft is clearly aiming at the,

00:30:55 ◼   ► we want the fit and finish of an Apple type product,

00:30:57 ◼   ► the design expertise of an Apple type product

00:30:59 ◼   ► and I guess they're probably gonna go for,

00:31:00 ◼   ► we wanna be as good a manufacturer as Apple too.

00:31:02 ◼   ► But that's a long road,

00:31:04 ◼   ► they're currently traveling that road.

00:31:06 ◼   ► So it is an interesting product.

00:31:09 ◼   ► I think it is a smart move.

00:31:13 ◼   ► I mean, they did make the Surface 4.

00:31:14 ◼   ► Like, they're still going in that surface direction.

00:31:16 ◼   ► But this is a smart move to say, you know,

00:31:19 ◼   ► this is a product that only Microsoft could make.

00:31:21 ◼   ► It advances our goals on all fronts

00:31:24 ◼   ► in terms of getting better at making products

00:31:26 ◼   ► and having them well-designed and stuff like that.

00:31:28 ◼   ► And it will appeal to an actual customer base

00:31:32 ◼   ► that is, you know, every year buying a bunch of Windows.

00:31:34 ◼   ► Now Windows laptops is not a growth industry.

00:31:37 ◼   ► Neither are Macs for that matter,

00:31:38 ◼   ► although they're growing more than that.

00:31:40 ◼   ► But hey, start small.

00:31:42 ◼   ► I think it was Satya Nadella said,

00:31:45 ◼   ► what is it, this is our, these are colorful iMacs.

00:31:47 ◼   ► I guess everything can't be their colorful iMacs,

00:31:49 ◼   ► but they're recognizing that they're in the beginning stage

00:31:52 ◼   ► of a resurgence.

00:31:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think this is the right way to do it.

00:31:56 ◼   ► I think if they want to get more of the Apple-like market

00:32:01 ◼   ► or the Apple-like appeal of having this really nice hardware

00:32:04 ◼   ► with good integration with the software.

00:32:06 ◼   ► People have been saying that one of the problems

00:32:08 ◼   ► they have with this is their relationship with OEMs

00:32:11 ◼   ► and how this is going to change that and harm that possibly.

00:32:14 ◼   ► And I don't think that's really a concern at this point

00:32:17 ◼   ► because I think, what is Dell gonna do?

00:32:21 ◼   ► Start putting Linux in those things?

00:32:23 ◼   ► No, they--

00:32:24 ◼   ► - They're gonna copy this design.

00:32:25 ◼   ► They have the same thing with all the servers.

00:32:27 ◼   ► That's what all the OEMs will do.

00:32:28 ◼   ► They will make things that look and act just like this,

00:32:30 ◼   ► which I think is also fine with Microsoft.

00:32:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I think what we've seen over the last,

00:32:35 ◼   ► I don't know, decade, where like, you know,

00:32:36 ◼   ► Microsoft has been pushing various things here and there,

00:32:39 ◼   ► and the OEMs have been trying to compete better with Apple,

00:32:41 ◼   ► and I think what we keep seeing over and over again

00:32:44 ◼   ► is that the Windows PC makers just aren't very good

00:32:48 ◼   ► at really truly competing with Apple on hardware,

00:32:50 ◼   ► you know, for whatever reason.

00:32:51 ◼   ► If they just can't do it right,

00:32:54 ◼   ► or if they just can't take the margin hit

00:32:57 ◼   ► by making better stuff, whatever the case may be,

00:32:59 ◼   ► they aren't doing it.

00:33:00 ◼   ► So if Microsoft can step in and attempt to do it,

00:33:03 ◼   ► then more power to them.

00:33:05 ◼   ► The biggest problem I think with this though is,

00:33:08 ◼   ► kind of going back to what I was saying earlier,

00:33:09 ◼   ► but who will buy this and will it appeal to them?

00:33:14 ◼   ► So right now, people who have wanted a premium quality,

00:33:19 ◼   ► well thought out, highly integrated computer

00:33:22 ◼   ► for the last decade or more have been buying Macs.

00:33:25 ◼   ► Even PC people like me and Casey

00:33:27 ◼   ► who started out as PC people,

00:33:30 ◼   ► many of us, especially like in the web developer community, so many of us moved to Macs over

00:33:34 ◼   ► the last decade that, you know, the question of like, you know, who's going to switch

00:33:40 ◼   ► back I think is going to be a pretty small number and all the remaining people who use

00:33:45 ◼   ► PCs, which is still, you know, I think it's still by far the dominant platform, the question

00:33:49 ◼   ► is will this appeal to those people? You know, relative to, if you look at why people who

00:33:56 ◼   ► do buy PCs, who aren't buying Macs, why they still buy PCs. And a lot of that is for cheaper

00:34:03 ◼   ► hardware, much more variety of the type of hardware that's available, different types

00:34:08 ◼   ► of more powerful stuff you can get for the money or more powerful stuff you can get in

00:34:12 ◼   ► different form factors like people who buy PCs often want really beefy gaming GPUs and

00:34:18 ◼   ► laptops and stuff like that, or people who buy stuff for offices want stuff to be really

00:34:22 ◼   ► cheap and easily managed and stuff.

00:34:24 ◼   ► So will the people who are still buying PCs today

00:34:29 ◼   ► want to buy this?

00:34:30 ◼   ► And I know some of them will.

00:34:33 ◼   ► But the question is will enough buy it to really matter,

00:34:36 ◼   ► to really kind of shift things around

00:34:38 ◼   ► and start meaningful momentum behind this?

00:34:40 ◼   ► And I don't know.

00:34:42 ◼   ► - I think the answer's definitely yes.

00:34:44 ◼   ► So my brother-in-law is deep into the Microsoft stack.

00:34:48 ◼   ► He does the same sort of work I do,

00:34:51 ◼   ► typically more around CMSs than I do, although I do a lot of that work.

00:34:56 ◼   ► He sent me a text today telling me that he was getting the Surface Book, he was getting

00:35:02 ◼   ► the new version of the Microsoft Band, and I didn't ask him if he's going to stick with

00:35:06 ◼   ► his Windows Phone or not, but I'm pretty sure he's feeling the pain in that department.

00:35:12 ◼   ► But he loves his existing Microsoft Band, he loves his existing Surface, and he is seriously

00:35:18 ◼   ► amped up over the Surface Book.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And I think the thing is that for PC users that are genuinely content being PC users—not

00:35:27 ◼   ► ones with a philandering eye that are looking at Apple saying, "Mm, that looks interesting."

00:35:33 ◼   ► But ones who are really into PCs, they're saying this is perfect.

00:35:39 ◼   ► It is the no-compromise machine that really is nothing but compromises.

00:35:44 ◼   ► But it's the no-compromise machine.

00:35:46 ◼   ► It is a perfect tablet that can do anything, not like your piece of crap iPad that can

00:35:51 ◼   ► only do iPad things.

00:35:52 ◼   ► It can do anything as soon as it becomes a tablet.

00:35:56 ◼   ► I don't have to compromise and use a neutered operating system.

00:36:00 ◼   ► Then when I feel like typing, I have a perfectly good full-size keyboard.

00:36:05 ◼   ► Not this hacky keyboard that kind of folds up on itself and folds around behind or in

00:36:10 ◼   ► front or whatever.

00:36:11 ◼   ► It's a full honest-to-goodness keyboard.

00:36:14 ◼   ► This is perfect for those kinds of people.

00:36:17 ◼   ► I'm not saying I'm one of them.

00:36:18 ◼   ► I can't imagine that this would be terribly great to use.

00:36:21 ◼   ► And even though I've heard great things about Windows 10, I have no particular interest

00:36:25 ◼   ► in getting into that.

00:36:27 ◼   ► However, if you're in that mindset of, "I want something with no compromises.

00:36:31 ◼   ► I don't want Apple telling me what to do and how to do it.

00:36:33 ◼   ► I want something that I can do whatever I want with in any form factor at any time with

00:36:38 ◼   ► no compromises," again, actually built on compromises, then this is the thing for me.

00:36:44 ◼   ► And it really is playing to their market, and I think it's doing it well.

00:36:47 ◼   ► I mean, I admire what they're doing.

00:36:49 ◼   ► I think they're playing to their market very well.

00:36:51 ◼   ► It's just that that's not for me, and I think it's safe to say it's not for you guys either.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Let's take a night now to list everything that's wrong with us, now that we've all said

00:36:59 ◼   ► nice things about it.

00:37:00 ◼   ► Sure.

00:37:01 ◼   ► So, this is kind of shooting fish in a barrel.

00:37:04 ◼   ► If you want to feel better about it, think about the first MacBook Air, which was also

00:37:08 ◼   ► a mess as a product, and this is doing better than that.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Let's start with the hinge that we just talked about.

00:37:15 ◼   ► If you haven't seen the pictures you'll be like, "What are they talking about with the

00:37:17 ◼   ► hinge?

00:37:18 ◼   ► A hinge is just a hinge, right?"

00:37:19 ◼   ► This hinge is weird because, well, the first thing you have to know about it is when it's

00:37:22 ◼   ► in the closed position, the top half does not touch the bottom half completely, like

00:37:28 ◼   ► it does on the Mac laptops.

00:37:29 ◼   ► There's a big gap, like you could drop coins, you could put the thing vertically and drop

00:37:33 ◼   ► coins through it.

00:37:34 ◼   ► It's like a big opening.

00:37:35 ◼   ► You can see daylight through it, a very large opening.

00:37:38 ◼   ► There is actually one advantage to this very large opening,

00:37:40 ◼   ► which Andy Anocco pointed out,

00:37:42 ◼   ► is that you don't get your finger schmutz

00:37:44 ◼   ► from the keys onto the screen.

00:37:46 ◼   ► That has happened with a lot of Mac laptops in the past,

00:37:48 ◼   ► and I don't know if any of the current ones have the problem.

00:37:50 ◼   ► You guys can tell me 'cause I don't really use laptops.

00:37:53 ◼   ► - The 15 does a little bit.

00:37:54 ◼   ► It depends a lot on how you put it in your bag

00:37:57 ◼   ► and what is pushing against it.

00:37:59 ◼   ► If you don't have a lot of pressure

00:38:00 ◼   ► that pushes it more closed, if that makes sense,

00:38:03 ◼   ► if you can avoid that kind of pressure in your bag

00:38:06 ◼   ► with either how you put it in

00:38:07 ◼   ► how much other stuff you put in the bag with it,

00:38:09 ◼   ► you generally won't get those marks.

00:38:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, anyway, and that's a problem Apple can solve

00:38:12 ◼   ► by, hey, guess what, had a little extra clearance there.

00:38:14 ◼   ► But anyway, that is the one advantage to that thing.

00:38:16 ◼   ► - They killed the keyboard, John.

00:38:18 ◼   ► The one place you need clearance.

00:38:20 ◼   ► - I know, I know. - They're like, oh,

00:38:21 ◼   ► we can cut, that's not important, we can cut that out.

00:38:22 ◼   ► - Hey, I bet the MacBook One keys don't touch the screen

00:38:25 ◼   ► 'cause they're so repressed. (laughing)

00:38:27 ◼   ► You know, they don't even poke up from the, anyway.

00:38:30 ◼   ► The disadvantage, of course,

00:38:31 ◼   ► is that it makes the wide end wider.

00:38:34 ◼   ► It makes it really wide.

00:38:35 ◼   ► And that's not great for it.

00:38:38 ◼   ► It depends on how you feel about like, you ever seen those things where they show a picture

00:38:42 ◼   ► of a bunch of pencils all lined up and one pencil is poking out and various other things

00:38:45 ◼   ► that are slightly disordered.

00:38:46 ◼   ► And if you're the type of person who likes all your books lined up neatly on your bookshelf

00:38:50 ◼   ► and all your things just so looking at those pictures can give you discomfort, this laptop

00:38:54 ◼   ► – I'm one of those people, by the way – this laptop gives me a little bit of discomfort

00:38:57 ◼   ► of like, "Can't you just close it all the way?

00:39:00 ◼   ► Can't you just make it flat?

00:39:01 ◼   ► You just want to just stomp on that hinge."

00:39:04 ◼   ► Anyway.

00:39:05 ◼   ► So, the practical consideration is that it makes the thing wider on the end, which isn't

00:39:09 ◼   ► great because you do want a laptop to be thin.

00:39:13 ◼   ► Because the screen part of it is basically the computer and the bottom part of it, even

00:39:17 ◼   ► though it has a GPU and a keyboard and a bunch of ports on it, is not the computer, the screen

00:39:22 ◼   ► part is wider than you would expect on a laptop because these days on the Mac laptops the

00:39:27 ◼   ► screen part is really thin.

00:39:28 ◼   ► All it is is a screen.

00:39:29 ◼   ► It's really, really, really thin.

00:39:31 ◼   ► This can't be really thin.

00:39:32 ◼   ► That's where the whole CPU is.

00:39:33 ◼   ► fan and there's a whole bunch of other stuff.

00:39:34 ◼   ► And as we know from other surfaces,

00:39:36 ◼   ► when you do that, that makes that top part heavy.

00:39:39 ◼   ► And if you're not careful,

00:39:40 ◼   ► when you put it in a laptop shape, it can tip over.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Because you don't have it at exactly a right angle,

00:39:46 ◼   ► you open up to a wider angle than that.

00:39:48 ◼   ► And once you open up to a wider angle,

00:39:49 ◼   ► if the top part is heavy and the keyboard part is light,

00:39:52 ◼   ► it can just tip over.

00:39:53 ◼   ► And of course you don't want to do that.

00:39:54 ◼   ► You want it to stay like a laptop, right?

00:39:56 ◼   ► That's what this hinge is doing.

00:39:58 ◼   ► They're so close.

00:39:59 ◼   ► Basically what they did was they took

00:40:01 ◼   ► They took the battery, battery is their ballast, right?

00:40:05 ◼   ► So they've got the GPU here,

00:40:07 ◼   ► we've got the CPU and the screen there,

00:40:08 ◼   ► we've got the ports, but we haven't put battery anywhere yet.

00:40:11 ◼   ► In that arrangement with no battery anywhere,

00:40:12 ◼   ► the top is heavier because the top has more stuff in it.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Like it is just the screen alone, the glass on the screen,

00:40:17 ◼   ► like it is just the heaviest part.

00:40:19 ◼   ► And so like, all right,

00:40:20 ◼   ► this thing doesn't stand upright in this situation,

00:40:22 ◼   ► but we haven't put any battery in yet.

00:40:23 ◼   ► We need to distribute the battery so it sits upright.

00:40:26 ◼   ► And they don't want to take all the battery

00:40:29 ◼   ► and shove it into the keyboard part

00:40:30 ◼   ► because then when you detach it as a tablet,

00:40:31 ◼   ► you get 30 seconds of battery life.

00:40:32 ◼   ► So they want as much as possible in the screen.

00:40:35 ◼   ► So they're doing this balancing act where like,

00:40:37 ◼   ► put some battery in the bottom,

00:40:38 ◼   ► put some battery in the top,

00:40:39 ◼   ► and just doing this is gonna balance,

00:40:40 ◼   ► like how can we get it so it doesn't tip over,

00:40:42 ◼   ► but we have the most battery possible in the top part.

00:40:45 ◼   ► And to get just a little bit of extra battery

00:40:48 ◼   ► in the top part, to get it to not tip over,

00:40:50 ◼   ► that's where the hinge comes in.

00:40:51 ◼   ► Because when you open the hinge,

00:40:53 ◼   ► the hinge effectively makes the base wider.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Like it puts the heavy part farther away.

00:40:58 ◼   ► You can, you know, we'll have Dr. Drang

00:40:59 ◼   ► the force diagram for you, but like,

00:41:01 ◼   ► but basically the hinge lays down on the table,

00:41:04 ◼   ► effectively making the base longer

00:41:06 ◼   ► so that the weight that's at the end of the base,

00:41:08 ◼   ► that the part like where the track pad is,

00:41:09 ◼   ► which by the way is a glass track pad

00:41:11 ◼   ► and not a chintzy plastic one,

00:41:12 ◼   ► that weight now can hold that end down better.

00:41:15 ◼   ► Like they're getting just a little bit of extra stability

00:41:18 ◼   ► by making the hinge suddenly become part of,

00:41:21 ◼   ► like the three segments of the hinge

00:41:22 ◼   ► become part of the bottom part of the hinge.

00:41:24 ◼   ► And you're like, seriously,

00:41:25 ◼   ► does that extra half an inch or a centimeter

00:41:28 ◼   ► make a difference?

00:41:29 ◼   ► That's what kind of hairline they're drawing in terms of like tip-ability, not tip-ability.

00:41:32 ◼   ► I'm not saying it's like teetering on the brink, I'm saying they had some criteria for

00:41:35 ◼   ► how tip-able they want it to be, like where the center of gravity is or whatever.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And those three little segments that lay on the table when you open it up, give them a

00:41:43 ◼   ► little bit of extra margin.

00:41:45 ◼   ► Let them put a little bit of extra battery in the top part.

00:41:47 ◼   ► That is, like Casey said, is a hell of a compromise.

00:41:50 ◼   ► Like this hinge is not there for design reasons, it's not there for style reasons, and it's

00:41:53 ◼   ► not there to keep your finger shimps off the screen by putting a half inch gap between

00:41:57 ◼   ► the key caps and the screen.

00:41:58 ◼   ► It's there to try to work around the compromise they've had to deal with.

00:42:02 ◼   ► And the final compromise is that tablet gets four hours of battery life, and that is just

00:42:06 ◼   ► no good.

00:42:07 ◼   ► If you want to use it as a tablet any substantial amount of time, don't get this one.

00:42:13 ◼   ► Get the actual Surface Pro 4, because most of the battery in this thing is in the base

00:42:18 ◼   ► part of it.

00:42:20 ◼   ► And the final thing I would say is for Microsoft Design and everything, I admire all the interesting

00:42:25 ◼   ► things that they're doing and that they're trying to gain expertise but they still seem

00:42:30 ◼   ► with their hardware designs if not their software designs trapped in the white room that Johnny

00:42:35 ◼   ► Ive made.

00:42:36 ◼   ► This is a silver metallic laptop.

00:42:38 ◼   ► It's got a light up logo on the back of it that's not shaped like an apple.

00:42:40 ◼   ► It's shaped like the little silly windows logo which is not a great look.

00:42:43 ◼   ► Like squint and it looks like every other laptop and every other laptop looks like an

00:42:47 ◼   ► apple laptop.

00:42:48 ◼   ► I know it's magnesium and not aluminum but like the aesthetic.

00:42:51 ◼   ► overall sort of, you know, the keys are look like Apple's keys, but they're, you know, magnesium

00:42:55 ◼   ► instead, and they're not domes, which is like, Apple so dominates hardware design visually that

00:43:00 ◼   ► every single other computer, including Microsoft super innovative ones, just, they just live in the

00:43:06 ◼   ► shadow of everything that Apple's design team has done. And I feel like eventually they're going to

00:43:11 ◼   ► have to go their own way and get out of that shadow. Like, it's the thing that Johnny I've

00:43:16 ◼   ► said a million times, like, we want to make a design that after we do what everyone thinks,

00:43:18 ◼   ► it's inevitable and it's it's the blessing and the curse because like people like well of course

00:43:22 ◼   ► that's what a laptop has to be shaped like because that's what they're shaped like no that's just the

00:43:24 ◼   ► way johnny i've made them like don't accept his it's not actually inevitable it's great design

00:43:29 ◼   ► that makes you think it's inevitable but it's like everyone else is like well this is what laptops

00:43:33 ◼   ► look like we have no choice but to make a lap down to making a glass trackpad for crying out like

00:43:37 ◼   ► they use the materials the colors the appearance just you know again microsoft getting out of the

00:43:42 ◼   ► materials saying we're gonna use magnesium it's better than aluminum and we're gonna deal with

00:43:45 ◼   ► with only manufacturing. It's like, fine, good, but you still end up making a silver

00:43:48 ◼   ► laptop with your glowing logo on the back of it. So that's it for someone who has never

00:43:53 ◼   ► actually touched one of these things, just looking at the pictures of what I think is

00:43:56 ◼   ► wrong with this. It gets up to 12 hours of video playback, John.

00:44:00 ◼   ► When it's connected to the giant battery and the keyboard.

00:44:03 ◼   ► I found a typo on their website. Oh yeah?

00:44:06 ◼   ► Yeah, the link here, I put a page in the show notes, their main page under tech specs. You

00:44:11 ◼   ► You scroll down past the picture of the two laptops,

00:44:14 ◼   ► choose the power you need,

00:44:15 ◼   ► and it says Intel Core i5 with Intel HG graphics.

00:44:19 ◼   ► It's supposed to be HD graphics.

00:44:21 ◼   ► Intel HG graphics don't exist.

00:44:23 ◼   ► Hopefully they put more attention to detail

00:44:24 ◼   ► into the actual manufacturing of the product.

00:44:26 ◼   ► - The OS integration is, again,

00:44:28 ◼   ► it's great that Microsoft,

00:44:30 ◼   ► not only Microsoft could do this,

00:44:31 ◼   ► 'cause Apple can do it as well,

00:44:33 ◼   ► but it's a typical Apple move.

00:44:34 ◼   ► Like, hey, we're gonna make this weird thing with two GPUs.

00:44:37 ◼   ► Is that gonna be supported well in Windows?

00:44:38 ◼   ► Yeah, 'cause we write Windows,

00:44:39 ◼   ► so we'll make sure that,

00:44:41 ◼   ► It's kind of like when Apple did the GPU switching, where we have discrete and integrated in the

00:44:45 ◼   ► same laptop, and we'll smartly switch between them, and Apple kind of screwed that up.

00:44:49 ◼   ► Hopefully Microsoft did a better job, because they basically have the same thing.

00:44:51 ◼   ► They have the big, faster GPU in the keyboard part, and the lower power, not as fast GPU

00:44:56 ◼   ► in the tablet part.

00:44:58 ◼   ► And I'm assuming it does some either, if not smart switching between them, then just two

00:45:02 ◼   ► modes, like one all discrete and one all integrated.

00:45:05 ◼   ► Going back a sec to what you said about the Johnny Ive trap of design here, honestly,

00:45:10 ◼   ► and bringing this back to Apple a little bit,

00:45:12 ◼   ► I would love to see more variety.

00:45:14 ◼   ► I think it seems like Apple's computer design

00:45:17 ◼   ► is really kind of stuck in a rut,

00:45:19 ◼   ► and I don't know, maybe Johnny Ive has just reached

00:45:24 ◼   ► the limit of what he cares to do on computer designs.

00:45:27 ◼   ► - Well, it's not him, it's his team,

00:45:28 ◼   ► but anyway, the Mac Pro was a breath of fresh air,

00:45:30 ◼   ► or not so fresh air, but you can't say it looked like

00:45:33 ◼   ► an aluminum-machined rounded corner rectangle.

00:45:36 ◼   ► - That's true, yeah, the Mac Pro I think looks great.

00:45:39 ◼   ► It's, I don't know, but we all know

00:45:42 ◼   ► that they really mostly just sell laptops these days,

00:45:44 ◼   ► and I am a little bit, I don't know,

00:45:47 ◼   ► maybe I'm just bored 'cause I've been using laptops

00:45:49 ◼   ► that look basically the same for the last 15 years,

00:45:52 ◼   ► 10 years that I've been buying Macs, so I don't know.

00:45:56 ◼   ► I would love to see a little more variety

00:45:59 ◼   ► in what Apple offers.

00:46:01 ◼   ► - Well, they are doing colors now, right?

00:46:03 ◼   ► - The colors are barely different from each other.

00:46:05 ◼   ► - I get what you're saying, though.

00:46:06 ◼   ► They are very, like, there is, we are in a rut.

00:46:09 ◼   ► We are in the design route for this and there is room to do more interesting things but

00:46:15 ◼   ► here's what I think the problem that Apple faces with this design, I think we talked

00:46:20 ◼   ► about this in past shows for laptops.

00:46:22 ◼   ► One, laptops are constrained by being laptops to some degree.

00:46:25 ◼   ► You can make the Mac Pro a weird tube because whatever, like you don't carry it around.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Laptops for the most part have to be a thing that is small and light and that is reasonably

00:46:36 ◼   ► portable which probably means it has to fold flat into some kind of shape that's not too

00:46:40 ◼   ► big to fit in a bag.

00:46:41 ◼   ► Those constraints really, you know, the screen's not going to be circular, there's only so

00:46:45 ◼   ► much you can do.

00:46:46 ◼   ► And within the constraints, you know, the Apple design has been like "oh we just need

00:46:50 ◼   ► to refine it down to its essence and blah blah blah" and they've been doing that and

00:46:54 ◼   ► they eventually settled on material which is big giant blocks of aluminum that they

00:46:57 ◼   ► carve out that's strong and light and attractive and durable and all that stuff which is just

00:47:01 ◼   ► so much better than everything else they tried which included plastic and titanium and aluminum

00:47:06 ◼   ► that wasn't carved out of a single giant block, the aluminum unibody is a great design for

00:47:12 ◼   ► a laptop.

00:47:13 ◼   ► And so the problem they're faced with is either we can continue to do aesthetic things with

00:47:18 ◼   ► a single block of aluminum, which I think there's room for that.

00:47:20 ◼   ► You could make a Darth Vader black one and charge $150 for it in the tradition of the

00:47:24 ◼   ► old black book and that would be great.

00:47:27 ◼   ► Or you could make one that has a mirror finish or something.

00:47:30 ◼   ► There are things you can do within the metal, but that's mostly just surface design.

00:47:35 ◼   ► To go to the next stage of design, you have to change materials.

00:47:39 ◼   ► And I'm sure in a lab somewhere, Apple is constantly evaluating, "Is aluminum really

00:47:43 ◼   ► the best material to make a laptop?

00:47:45 ◼   ► Is there anything else?

00:47:46 ◼   ► Can we do carbon fiber?

00:47:47 ◼   ► Can we revisit titanium?

00:47:48 ◼   ► What about magnesium?

00:47:49 ◼   ► Microsoft's doing that."

00:47:51 ◼   ► New materials could mean something new for them.

00:47:54 ◼   ► And especially if they say, "Now we're into the era where things are going to be flexible

00:47:57 ◼   ► instead of rigid," or we have floppy OLED screens that roll out on little stilts.

00:48:02 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:48:03 ◼   ► But for the foreseeable future, I think machined aluminum is the best choice, and then there

00:48:10 ◼   ► are aesthetic choices within that are constrained both by being a laptop and by like there's

00:48:16 ◼   ► only so much you can do with it.

00:48:17 ◼   ► But in the end, their timid tinting of the aluminum is still pretty wimpy.

00:48:23 ◼   ► Like a jet black one alone would be exciting enough that maybe you'd be like, "Oh, that

00:48:28 ◼   ► looks cool.

00:48:29 ◼   ► I'll be interested to not have yet another million silver laptops in my house."

00:48:31 ◼   ► - Right, I mean look at what they're able to do

00:48:33 ◼   ► with the iPod Touch colors, they look great.

00:48:34 ◼   ► And the iPods from forever ago,

00:48:35 ◼   ► like the iPod Nano, the iPod Touch,

00:48:38 ◼   ► those have these bold, bright colors

00:48:40 ◼   ► that change every few years.

00:48:43 ◼   ► That would be really interesting on laptops, on the phones,

00:48:47 ◼   ► but they're so much more conservative.

00:48:50 ◼   ► And I'm sure there's good reason for that

00:48:52 ◼   ► with design, marketing, fashion, whatever,

00:48:55 ◼   ► but I admit I'm really kinda bored with their designs.

00:48:59 ◼   ► And maybe that's obviously a really stupid thing

00:49:02 ◼   ► to whine about, but I would like to see them

00:49:04 ◼   ► just try a little bit more variety there.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - You gotta be careful what you ask for though,

00:49:07 ◼   ► because the thing that just flashed into my mind

00:49:09 ◼   ► was a MacBook One, which is not actually called

00:49:12 ◼   ► the MacBook One new listeners, which is what we call it,

00:49:14 ◼   ► the really skinny one with the bad keyboard.

00:49:17 ◼   ► But where it's still silver, or maybe it's black,

00:49:21 ◼   ► or maybe it's like tinted gray, or whatever,

00:49:23 ◼   ► it's still aluminum, the only thing you have

00:49:25 ◼   ► to mess with color-wise there is the keyboard.

00:49:27 ◼   ► why not make the keyboard Dalmatian?

00:49:30 ◼   ► Why not make the keyboard flower power?

00:49:32 ◼   ► These are things that have happened.

00:49:35 ◼   ► Why did the Dalmatian flower power exist?

00:49:37 ◼   ► 'Cause at a certain point you're like,

00:49:38 ◼   ► the iMac is defined by CRT, we've got a slot loading drive,

00:49:42 ◼   ► we've done a bunch of tweaks to the design,

00:49:43 ◼   ► you know what, we've got this big giant canvas,

00:49:46 ◼   ► let's do something with it.

00:49:47 ◼   ► They don't have much of a canvas in other ones.

00:49:48 ◼   ► I guess they could make the back of the screen have weird,

00:49:51 ◼   ► you see all this aftermarket stuff

00:49:52 ◼   ► where they laser etch your laptop

00:49:54 ◼   ► with flowers or whatever.

00:49:57 ◼   ► There's only so much room for things until you,

00:50:00 ◼   ► for innovation in this space, if you stick to aluminum,

00:50:03 ◼   ► unless you start saying, all right,

00:50:05 ◼   ► it's time to wallpaper things.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Time to just like, there's a bunch of services

00:50:08 ◼   ► that I treat as billboards,

00:50:09 ◼   ► and I'm just going to put a bunch of stuff on them.

00:50:11 ◼   ► And I don't think the flower power and Dalmatian IMAX,

00:50:14 ◼   ► which are real things, young people,

00:50:16 ◼   ► that actually happened, I don't think they sold very well,

00:50:19 ◼   ► but that's sort of the logical conclusion

00:50:21 ◼   ► of we are in a design rut,

00:50:24 ◼   ► and we can't think of anything else.

00:50:25 ◼   ► We've done colors, we've done shapes.

00:50:27 ◼   ► We're stuck with this until we can come up

00:50:29 ◼   ► with the flat panel I'm at, you know,

00:50:31 ◼   ► in which case they started innovating again in the design.

00:50:34 ◼   ► At the very end of that life cycle,

00:50:35 ◼   ► they said, all right, patterns, whatever.

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00:53:04 ◼   ► - All right.

00:53:05 ◼   ► Question for you guys.

00:53:07 ◼   ► Do we really care that Jack Dorsey's back at Twitter?

00:53:10 ◼   ► 'Cause I do not care.

00:53:13 ◼   ► - I couldn't possibly care less.

00:53:15 ◼   ► a lot of our friends are like really excited about this

00:53:18 ◼   ► and I don't care.

00:53:21 ◼   ► Why should I care?

00:53:22 ◼   ► - I mean I care about Twitter,

00:53:24 ◼   ► but the Twitter leadership over the years

00:53:27 ◼   ► has been such a revolving door

00:53:29 ◼   ► that's just like I don't know.

00:53:31 ◼   ► It seems like they have a lot of issues up there

00:53:33 ◼   ► that are way above most of our heads

00:53:36 ◼   ► and it doesn't really, I don't know.

00:53:39 ◼   ► I think Twitter is a really, really useful thing,

00:53:43 ◼   ► a really important thing in the world right now

00:53:45 ◼   ► and I hope they don't screw it up, but I have no idea whether this is a step in the right

00:53:48 ◼   ► direction or not. I have no clue.

00:53:50 ◼   ► >> Yeah, that's the thing too. I care about Twitter's leadership, I care about the direction

00:53:54 ◼   ► of Twitter as a Twitter user, but I don't know enough about Jack Dorsey or the history

00:53:59 ◼   ► behind the leadership or what's really going on behind the scenes to know whether this

00:54:02 ◼   ► is a good or a bad thing or it's just, you know, wait five minutes and someone else will

00:54:06 ◼   ► be in charge so it doesn't matter. So I really hope this is a good thing. A lot of people

00:54:10 ◼   ► seem to think it is, but I have no particular information or faith that this is going to

00:54:15 ◼   ► things better than they have been.

00:54:17 ◼   ► - I mean, I will say that it did seem like they were going in a bad direction. And so,

00:54:22 ◼   ► you know, a change is probably for the best, but you know, the reason they were going in

00:54:27 ◼   ► a bad direction was probably not because of who the CEO was, it's probably because of

00:54:32 ◼   ► all the pressures they're facing. You know, they face so much pressure, now they're a

00:54:35 ◼   ► public company and they're really not hitting their growth or usage goals. They're under

00:54:39 ◼   ► so much pressure from everybody, from the investors, from the public, from the press,

00:54:46 ◼   ► almost certainly from the board as a result of all those things. They are under so much

00:54:49 ◼   ► pressure to juice their numbers and really get the growth and get the usage up because

00:54:55 ◼   ► they're not keeping up with where they want it to be and their stock price isn't doing

00:54:58 ◼   ► that well as a result and blah, blah, blah. And so it has a lot less to do I think with

00:55:04 ◼   ► somebody sitting in a conference room saying, "This is what I feel is best for the product."

00:55:07 ◼   ► I think instead it's like dealing with that giant pile of crap that whoever is in charge

00:55:12 ◼   ► of Twitter has to deal with now as a result of these market pressures and them really

00:55:17 ◼   ► not hitting their numbers recently.

00:55:22 ◼   ► Anybody in that position is going to have a big challenge.

00:55:25 ◼   ► It does seem like people are confident in Jack and he does seem to have a lot of political

00:55:29 ◼   ► capital there.

00:55:30 ◼   ► So maybe this is promising, who knows, but it's not a simple problem and it's not,

00:55:38 ◼   ► you know, the things they change might not be, you know, all great and lucky for us.

00:55:43 ◼   ► I mean, Dick Costolo was doing a pretty good job on a lot of fronts. You know, he wasn't

00:55:48 ◼   ► doing great on everything, but he was doing pretty well on a lot of things and a lot of

00:55:51 ◼   ► those things were things we didn't like, like some of the monetization and ad stuff,

00:55:54 ◼   ► but he was doing fairly well on that kind of stuff as far as I know.

00:55:57 ◼   ► So I don't think, you know, if Twitter starts making changes for, you know, to keep themselves

00:56:06 ◼   ► afloat, to keep, you know, their numbers going up, to keep their product, you know, going

00:56:11 ◼   ► where it should be going, most of that sounds to me like they need to do things we don't

00:56:18 ◼   ► like. Like they need to inject ads into the stream for third-party clients. They need

00:56:22 ◼   ► to actually really not boost third-party clients because they need to take control of their

00:56:26 ◼   ► own product. This is all stuff that I don't like, but it's probably going to happen.

00:56:32 ◼   ► The control of their own product, A, they've kind of had it for a while, and B, it's clear

00:56:35 ◼   ► they don't know what to do with that control. It's like, now we control the product, and

00:56:39 ◼   ► what we're going to do with it is let most of our clients rot to crap, and then we don't

00:56:43 ◼   ► know what we're going to do with the few clients we do pay attention to. And so that's, it's

00:56:47 ◼   ► like, well, you got the control, but the second part of having the control is doing something

00:56:51 ◼   ► with that control. And so far, they've just been floundering. Like, it makes, that's why

00:56:56 ◼   ► people are optimistic like, "Oh, Jack Dorsey, you'll maybe understand that developers are

00:57:00 ◼   ► important." I'm not saying that's a good strategy, but at least that's a strategy where something

00:57:05 ◼   ► would happen. I think the problem has been, there hasn't been a clear... The direction was like,

00:57:11 ◼   ► "Okay, so much for third parties. We're going to take control." But they didn't take that and take

00:57:15 ◼   ► the ball and run with it. Like, "All right, we've got control. Now let's go boldly off into this

00:57:18 ◼   ► direction," which may have been the wrong direction, but at least you can say, "Well,

00:57:21 ◼   ► this is the thing they did. They took control from third-party developers and they ran as fast as they

00:57:24 ◼   ► they could in this direction and guess what?

00:57:25 ◼   ► There was a brick wall, oh well.

00:57:27 ◼   ► But at least they tried something.

00:57:29 ◼   ► The only thing that we know would have some effect is,

00:57:33 ◼   ► well, you could run back in the other direction

00:57:36 ◼   ► where it used to be like, oh, third parties, you're welcome.

00:57:38 ◼   ► And everybody who wants to have an API key,

00:57:41 ◼   ► maybe we'll have some revenue sharing arrangement

00:57:43 ◼   ► where if you sell a Twitter client and you use our API,

00:57:45 ◼   ► you have to give us a percentage of the money

00:57:47 ◼   ► or something like that, but that's not gonna make them rich.

00:57:49 ◼   ► That's not gonna move the needle on their stock price.

00:57:51 ◼   ► We know it would work.

00:57:52 ◼   ► Developers would love to do it.

00:57:53 ◼   ► third-party clients would flourish,

00:57:55 ◼   ► they would make some money off of it,

00:57:56 ◼   ► but it would be peanuts compared to what they have to make

00:57:58 ◼   ► to be the company that everyone thinks

00:58:00 ◼   ► they're supposed to be.

00:58:02 ◼   ► The only good thing you could say about Twitter

00:58:03 ◼   ► at this point is no matter who's in charge,

00:58:06 ◼   ► eventually as these CEOs rotate,

00:58:08 ◼   ► as bad as things get,

00:58:10 ◼   ► as long as Twitter continues to be like it is now,

00:58:12 ◼   ► somebody can always sell it.

00:58:14 ◼   ► 'Cause there's plenty of people who will buy Twitter

00:58:16 ◼   ► right now today if the price is right,

00:58:18 ◼   ► including probably Apple.

00:58:20 ◼   ► Because Twitter is still a thing,

00:58:22 ◼   ► It is popular, hashtags are everywhere, you see them on TV, it has gotten into the culture

00:58:27 ◼   ► to the degree that, worst case scenario, the very very worst is the last CEO out the door

00:58:33 ◼   ► sells the company to one of the million eager buyers.

00:58:36 ◼   ► Maybe not for what they could have got at the peak of their fame, but surely enough

00:58:39 ◼   ► to give that CEO a golden parachute and to say, "Well, we made some money for our investors

00:58:44 ◼   ► and it's fine and we couldn't fare what to do with the company.

00:58:47 ◼   ► Let it be absorbed into another company that has some other way to make tons of money and

00:58:51 ◼   ► and we're just like a little nice to have value at.

00:58:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, we'll see.

00:58:55 ◼   ► I don't know, I just,

00:58:56 ◼   ► I've been trying to get excited about this

00:58:57 ◼   ► and I just don't care.

00:58:59 ◼   ► Have you guys seen the new moment thing?

00:59:01 ◼   ► - I don't even know what anyone's talking about with that.

00:59:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, neither do I.

00:59:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, I like the fact that like,

00:59:05 ◼   ► that's the Twitter that we don't use.

00:59:07 ◼   ► Like the Twitter of people who use the official client.

00:59:09 ◼   ► It's like, it's everybody who's not a tech nerd

00:59:11 ◼   ► and cable sasser, I think.

00:59:12 ◼   ► Other people who use the official Twitter client.

00:59:15 ◼   ► - And Vitice, I think.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, maybe.

00:59:17 ◼   ► - I think even he finally went back.

00:59:18 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:59:19 ◼   ► - Here's the thing.

00:59:20 ◼   ► I still launched the official,

00:59:21 ◼   ► I have the official client installed and I still launch it every once in a while, mostly

00:59:24 ◼   ► because I don't know, this is irrational, but I don't, when people send me Twitter DMs,

00:59:30 ◼   ► all of the third party clients I feel nervous about whether I'm correctly using them to

00:59:34 ◼   ► send DMs and the official Twitter client has a more reassuring interface for DMs I've found.

00:59:39 ◼   ► Even Tweetbot 4 which I just installed tonight, I was going to do some DMs over there and

00:59:43 ◼   ► I hit like the plus button and typed in someone's name and it didn't come up in the search and

00:59:47 ◼   ► I'm like, well I know this person follows me but I don't follow them and it's not coming

00:59:50 ◼   ► and I don't know how to send this person a message,

00:59:52 ◼   ► and I'm always afraid to do D space, you know,

00:59:54 ◼   ► the old ways.

00:59:55 ◼   ► The old ways may be the best ways,

00:59:57 ◼   ► but at this point, I'm so nervous

00:59:59 ◼   ► that some Twitter client is not going to honor the D space,

01:00:02 ◼   ► whatever name, and I'm going to publicly tweet something

01:00:04 ◼   ► that I'm trying to DM.

01:00:05 ◼   ► So anyway, all this to say is that I do launch

01:00:07 ◼   ► the official Twitter client, you know,

01:00:09 ◼   ► maybe once a month or so, and just,

01:00:12 ◼   ► I can't make heads or tails of it in there.

01:00:13 ◼   ► I don't know what's going on.

01:00:14 ◼   ► I just wanna get the hell out of there

01:00:15 ◼   ► and back to any other client as fast as I can.

01:00:19 ◼   ► - Just for what it's worth, Jon,

01:00:20 ◼   ► if you ever need a DM guinea pig,

01:00:22 ◼   ► I'm happy to be that guy.

01:00:23 ◼   ► I'm here for you.

01:00:24 ◼   ► - No, that's the problem.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Like it'll work on you.

01:00:26 ◼   ► And then like, I'll accidentally put an extra space in

01:00:29 ◼   ► or use a capital D because I didn't notice

01:00:31 ◼   ► that the shift key was auto down.

01:00:32 ◼   ► And just, I just feel,

01:00:33 ◼   ► I want to read more reassuring GUI interfaces.

01:00:35 ◼   ► Like you're in the DM zone now.

01:00:37 ◼   ► And first you're gonna pick the person you're DMing

01:00:39 ◼   ► by tapping on them, like not typing their name.

01:00:42 ◼   ► And the next is, okay, this is a DM to this person.

01:00:45 ◼   ► The UI clearly states that you're in a DM to this person,

01:00:47 ◼   ► type your DM here.

01:00:48 ◼   ► And the only thing you can do from that screen is type a DM, right?

01:00:52 ◼   ► I'm really nervous about just the generic field.

01:00:55 ◼   ► Even though I used to do it back in the old days, especially now that DM length limits

01:00:57 ◼   ► are up and people are using it more like I am, I just want to get the hell off Twitter

01:01:01 ◼   ► DM as fast as possible because I'm so afraid that I'm going to accidentally start, you

01:01:05 ◼   ► know, put something in public that shouldn't be.

01:01:08 ◼   ► That's bad enough with like iMessages with everything in one window.

01:01:10 ◼   ► I'm constantly sending people the wrong message because I didn't notice which thing is selected

01:01:12 ◼   ► in the sidebar because it's a single window interface.

01:01:15 ◼   ► You need your windows.

01:01:16 ◼   ► I know.

01:01:17 ◼   ► ADM remembers the size and position of the windows for each individual person.

01:01:22 ◼   ► I'm way less likely to do wrong window in ADM than I am in the admin messages.

01:01:27 ◼   ► And historically, like, I just did it the other day.

01:01:29 ◼   ► I'm pretty much average.

01:01:31 ◼   ► Every other month I send someone the wrong message in iMessage.

01:01:35 ◼   ► And ADM, I think I've maybe done it once in three years.

01:01:39 ◼   ► I can't believe you still use ADM.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Well, I mean, I can't with all you iMessage people.

01:01:44 ◼   ► Sorry.

01:01:45 ◼   ► - Sorry.

01:01:46 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:01:47 ◼   ► - Yeah, I signed out of my AIM name,

01:01:49 ◼   ► I think a couple of years ago,

01:01:51 ◼   ► and just, like I just removed it from iChat,

01:01:53 ◼   ► and just like, "Ah, I'm done."

01:01:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think pretty much everyone I converse with

01:01:58 ◼   ► in a way that I would previously have described

01:02:00 ◼   ► as instant messaging, it's all iMessage,

01:02:03 ◼   ► or very rarely, just text messages

01:02:05 ◼   ► that I'm typing on my Mac.

01:02:08 ◼   ► - Our final sponsor this week is Fracture.

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01:02:17 ◼   ► These are beautiful pictures printed in vivid color

01:02:19 ◼   ► directly on glass.

01:02:21 ◼   ► And I, let me tell you people,

01:02:23 ◼   ► I have so many fractures around my office,

01:02:25 ◼   ► as noted by our friend in the artwork

01:02:28 ◼   ► that I'll link to during this.

01:02:31 ◼   ► It is so good.

01:02:33 ◼   ► If you want this on a fracture, go get it,

01:02:35 ◼   ► and use code ATP15 for 15% off.

01:02:37 ◼   ► It is, oh, it's so good.

01:02:38 ◼   ► I'm gonna do that.

01:02:39 ◼   ► So fracture photos, first of all, these are great.

01:02:41 ◼   ► They are, it's just, it's photos printed on glass,

01:02:44 ◼   ► and it's not heavy.

01:02:46 ◼   ► It is a very thin piece of glass,

01:02:48 ◼   ► adhered to a piece of foam core,

01:02:51 ◼   ► and you can hang it from the foam core.

01:02:54 ◼   ► It is nice and light, so you don't have to worry about

01:02:57 ◼   ► tearing a giant hole out of your wall or anything like that,

01:03:00 ◼   ► or dropping it or things like that.

01:03:02 ◼   ► It's very nice and convenient, very easy,

01:03:04 ◼   ► and it just looks fantastic.

01:03:05 ◼   ► The photo is printed edge to edge in this piece of glass,

01:03:09 ◼   ► and so it just looks clean and modern.

01:03:11 ◼   ► You don't frame them.

01:03:12 ◼   ► They are framed, basically.

01:03:14 ◼   ► they don't need their own extra framing.

01:03:17 ◼   ► So you save money, you save hassle,

01:03:18 ◼   ► and it just looks super clean and modern.

01:03:20 ◼   ► Really great look, I always get compliments on these

01:03:22 ◼   ► when people come over and they see them in my office.

01:03:24 ◼   ► It's really, I can't explain well enough

01:03:27 ◼   ► how good they are, but trust me, you want these.

01:03:29 ◼   ► They also make great gifts.

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01:03:32 ◼   ► this week, they really want to, first of all,

01:03:35 ◼   ► send a ginormous thank you.

01:03:37 ◼   ► They actually use the word ginormous here in the script,

01:03:39 ◼   ► so I'm going to say it.

01:03:40 ◼   ► I'm not sure I've ever said ginormous before tonight,

01:03:42 ◼   ► but they really wanted to send a ginormous thank you

01:03:44 ◼   ► to everybody who has been ordering fractures

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01:03:48 ◼   ► They are very thankful,

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01:03:51 ◼   ► Now here's the thing with fracture.

01:03:53 ◼   ► All these are handmade and hand printed

01:03:55 ◼   ► in their fractory in Florida by human beings.

01:03:59 ◼   ► And so what happens is during the holidays,

01:04:02 ◼   ► they often get backlogged.

01:04:03 ◼   ► And so if you want to get fractures made as gifts,

01:04:06 ◼   ► which I highly recommend, I'll be doing this myself,

01:04:08 ◼   ► I already did a couple, I'm gonna do a couple more.

01:04:10 ◼   ► If you want fractures as gifts, which they are great at,

01:04:14 ◼   ► get a nice picture, get it off your phone,

01:04:16 ◼   ► get it off Instagram, put it on glass,

01:04:19 ◼   ► send it to your family, send it to your friends,

01:04:21 ◼   ► whatever the case may be.

01:04:22 ◼   ► If you wanna do that, get your orders in now,

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01:05:04 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to Fracture for sponsoring our show again.

01:05:07 ◼   ► - Excellent.

01:05:08 ◼   ► So Tweetbot 4 came out, finally, and it's really good.

01:05:13 ◼   ► I'm really liking it.

01:05:15 ◼   ► And I was talking about this recently on another show,

01:05:20 ◼   ► and I have nothing against Twitterific.

01:05:23 ◼   ► I love Craig Hockenberry to death, and I like Twitterific,

01:05:28 ◼   ► but it doesn't operate the way my brain operates,

01:05:32 ◼   ► and that doesn't make it wrong by any stretch.

01:05:33 ◼   ► And clearly, Jon, it operates the way your brain operates.

01:05:36 ◼   ► - Is it just the unified timeline?

01:05:38 ◼   ► - No, the unified timeline doesn't bother me,

01:05:40 ◼   ► but the way Tweetbot has the,

01:05:44 ◼   ► well, I'm thinking specifically about the phone,

01:05:46 ◼   ► and I used Twitter, if it's more on the iPad,

01:05:50 ◼   ► and I don't have my iPad within arm's reach,

01:05:51 ◼   ► but looking at replies, I know there was a tab for that.

01:05:56 ◼   ► Gosh, it's a very valid question

01:05:59 ◼   ► that I can't remember off the top of my head

01:06:01 ◼   ► what would bother me about it,

01:06:02 ◼   ► but any time I went to drill deeper

01:06:05 ◼   ► into a conversation, for example. Something about it was always backwards from what I

01:06:09 ◼   ► expected. It's just things didn't work the way I expected them to, whereas in Tweetbot,

01:06:17 ◼   ► everything worked the way I expected it to. I'll have to take it as homework to come up

01:06:20 ◼   ► with some specifics for next week.

01:06:22 ◼   ► Rob Markman Was it like the swipe directions and stuff?

01:06:25 ◼   ► It's like sometimes swipe directions are like muscle memory. Like, I don't--if you ask me,

01:06:29 ◼   ► I don't even know what the swipe directions are to show the conversation and--or replies

01:06:33 ◼   ► and stuff in Twitter, my fingers just do them. It's kind of like Emacs key combos, I've realized

01:06:37 ◼   ► now with new people at work who I try to tell Emacs key things to, that I don't know what the

01:06:43 ◼   ► keys are. My hands know, but I don't know. And I try to explain it and I say the wrong thing and

01:06:48 ◼   ► they try it and like I tried that and nothing happened. I'm like, I guess that's not it. And

01:06:52 ◼   ► I said, I have to put my hands on the keyboard and just do this. I'm like, oh yeah, it's control x b,

01:06:57 ◼   ► but it's not control. Anyway, like... In all fairness, nobody knows what Emacs

01:07:03 ◼   ► Some people know them but like but muscle memory it's it with iOS apps with gestures

01:07:06 ◼   ► I find this true a lot of the case where you just get used to like

01:07:09 ◼   ► And it's weird to say like is it swipe to the left it depends on how you conceptualize it like am I revealing more information?

01:07:15 ◼   ► From the right or am I moving the virtual tile to the left?

01:07:18 ◼   ► I know tweetbot has like the controls on the bottom and

01:07:21 ◼   ► Twitterific like doesn't reveal an extra set of controls on the bottom and anyway

01:07:26 ◼   ► I I can see how the gestures might be different

01:07:28 ◼   ► But I think that's like a surmountable,

01:07:30 ◼   ► like the muscle memory is a surmountable thing.

01:07:32 ◼   ► But anyway, Tweetbot's fine.

01:07:34 ◼   ► I've got it installed.

01:07:35 ◼   ► Twitteriffic is fine.

01:07:36 ◼   ► They got it installed.

01:07:37 ◼   ► Unified timeline is my big feature.

01:07:38 ◼   ► But other than that, I feel like it's like six of one,

01:07:40 ◼   ► half of another than the other.

01:07:42 ◼   ► - And that's probably true.

01:07:43 ◼   ► And the thing of it is, is that just for me,

01:07:46 ◼   ► it's gestures, it's some of the ways things are displayed.

01:07:49 ◼   ► I'm actually opening it on my phone,

01:07:51 ◼   ► even though I don't typically use,

01:07:52 ◼   ► I never use Twitteriffic on my phone.

01:07:54 ◼   ► Just some of the stuff was just kind of backwards

01:07:56 ◼   ► and weird to me.

01:07:57 ◼   ► When I swipe to see a conversation, the thing--

01:08:01 ◼   ► although Tweetbot is now doing this, which kind of

01:08:04 ◼   ► drives me crazy.

01:08:04 ◼   ► But the tweet that I was looking into the conversation

01:08:09 ◼   ► for, so kind of the subject of that gesture, is all the way

01:08:12 ◼   ► at the bottom, which drives me crazy.

01:08:13 ◼   ► And now Tweetbot's doing that, which drives me insane.

01:08:17 ◼   ► That always kind of annoyed me.

01:08:19 ◼   ► Let's see.

01:08:20 ◼   ► Replying was always basically OK.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:08:23 ◼   ► I'll have to play around with it again and see what it was

01:08:26 ◼   ► that bothered me.

01:08:27 ◼   ► But maybe it just does come down to gestures, just being backwards from what I'm expecting.

01:08:31 ◼   ► In any case, Tweetbot is out, it includes the iPad app.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I love it, I think it's great.

01:08:36 ◼   ► I like the new activity tab.

01:08:39 ◼   ► I'm a little sad that a while ago now the retweets tab kind of died in a fire, which

01:08:45 ◼   ► I used to like looking at.

01:08:46 ◼   ► Yeah, I missed that too.

01:08:48 ◼   ► I campaigned during the beta, but the activity screen went out.

01:08:53 ◼   ► Yeah, I did the same and I was told that in certain terms it's not happening.

01:08:57 ◼   ► But I do like the activity screen.

01:08:59 ◼   ► I think it's kind of cool.

01:09:01 ◼   ► Definitely not something I should be looking at because the last thing I need to do is

01:09:03 ◼   ► be looking at Twitter more and trying to engage with my brand more.

01:09:08 ◼   ► But nevertheless I do like it.

01:09:09 ◼   ► I think it's cool.

01:09:10 ◼   ► But there was a lot of anger as with every time that the Tweetbots, excuse me, Tapbots

01:09:16 ◼   ► guys release a new version that costs money.

01:09:20 ◼   ► People are really upset about paying $5 for an app

01:09:22 ◼   ► that if they're anything like me,

01:09:23 ◼   ► they use for hours every single day.

01:09:26 ◼   ► And jeez, just when are we gonna get off this treadmill?

01:09:29 ◼   ► - Well, you know, I wonder like,

01:09:32 ◼   ► how much of it is just people who can be safely ignored?

01:09:34 ◼   ► You know, because the reality is they still hit

01:09:36 ◼   ► number one paid app on the chart.

01:09:39 ◼   ► I don't know where they are now,

01:09:40 ◼   ► but they hit that on their launch day.

01:09:41 ◼   ► So, you know, it's selling well.

01:09:43 ◼   ► You're always gonna have, when you have that many people,

01:09:46 ◼   ► you're gonna have a lot of people who complain.

01:09:48 ◼   ► and it's always just a percentage of the user base

01:09:51 ◼   ► who's gonna be angry no matter what.

01:09:53 ◼   ► The question is are there more than what could be expected

01:09:58 ◼   ► for that number of people?

01:09:59 ◼   ► And honestly, I don't think there are.

01:10:00 ◼   ► I mean, I don't see their support email,

01:10:02 ◼   ► and I don't read all their tweets, so I don't know,

01:10:03 ◼   ► but from just what I've heard here and there,

01:10:06 ◼   ► what I've seen, I looked at their App Store reviews,

01:10:08 ◼   ► and it doesn't seem like it's any worse

01:10:11 ◼   ► than what you'd expect from any app

01:10:13 ◼   ► that had that many people using it.

01:10:15 ◼   ► So yeah, they charge for an upgrade.

01:10:17 ◼   ► Who cares?

01:10:18 ◼   ► The people who care are people who, you know,

01:10:21 ◼   ► I think we'd all be better off just ignoring those people,

01:10:25 ◼   ► honestly.

01:10:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think you're right.

01:10:27 ◼   ► But I love the new app, I think it's great.

01:10:29 ◼   ► I have always loved Tweetbot,

01:10:31 ◼   ► I will probably forever love Tweetbot.

01:10:33 ◼   ► Marco, I assume you're into it as well, you're digging it?

01:10:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I've been using it for a while,

01:10:38 ◼   ► and I really like it.

01:10:39 ◼   ► - Jon, is it just not even worth you looking,

01:10:41 ◼   ► I mean, I know you said you installed it,

01:10:42 ◼   ► but not even worth you taking seriously

01:10:44 ◼   ► because no unified timeline?

01:10:46 ◼   ► It's my backup Twitter client.

01:10:47 ◼   ► Like if I want, if something is wonky,

01:10:50 ◼   ► or if I want to make sure this is the client issue,

01:10:52 ◼   ► or if I want to, you know, use the activity view,

01:10:55 ◼   ► I don't think I would ever use that,

01:10:56 ◼   ► but if it's, that's an example of a feature

01:10:57 ◼   ► that Twitter doesn't have,

01:10:58 ◼   ► and if I wanted something like that, I would go there.

01:11:01 ◼   ► So it's like Twitter, I think,

01:11:02 ◼   ► is what I use every day, all day.

01:11:03 ◼   ► Tweetbot, if I feel like I want to try something

01:11:05 ◼   ► in a different client, and then finally following

01:11:07 ◼   ► all the way back to the official client,

01:11:08 ◼   ► if there's something that is only supported

01:11:10 ◼   ► in the official client, or I want to see

01:11:12 ◼   ► what it's like in the official client, or whatever.

01:11:14 ◼   ► So I've always got Tweetbot installed,

01:11:16 ◼   ► but it's on like another page of icons.

01:11:19 ◼   ► It's not in a folder, it's out of a folder.

01:11:21 ◼   ► The official Twitter one is in a folder.

01:11:23 ◼   ► But yeah, I keep it around and I always buy it and upgrade it.

01:11:25 ◼   ► Maybe it's I'm wasting my money on it buying an app

01:11:28 ◼   ► that I'm gonna launch like five times

01:11:29 ◼   ► before the next upgrade, but I like seeing

01:11:32 ◼   ► what's happening in the Twitter client space.

01:11:34 ◼   ► I spend a lot of time in Twitter.

01:11:36 ◼   ► - Yep, same here.

01:11:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, this is my most used app on the iPhone,

01:11:41 ◼   ► no question, and on the Mac, it's up there.

01:11:44 ◼   ► on the Mac maybe Mail and Safari beat it,

01:11:47 ◼   ► but otherwise it's my most used app,

01:11:49 ◼   ► which is really sad, but the fact is,

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, me too.

01:11:51 ◼   ► - Yeah, like as you mentioned,

01:11:54 ◼   ► it's part of so many of our professional and social lives.

01:11:59 ◼   ► It's all intertwined in there,

01:12:01 ◼   ► and it's very hard to get out of that.

01:12:04 ◼   ► So, I don't know.

01:12:06 ◼   ► I think Twitter is here to stay for a while for a lot of us,

01:12:12 ◼   ► And if you're gonna be using Twitter,

01:12:15 ◼   ► one of these apps that's not the official Twitter app

01:12:17 ◼   ► is usually the right move.

01:12:18 ◼   ► And Tweetbot is the one that fits me best.

01:12:20 ◼   ► As you mentioned, I've tried Twitterific.

01:12:23 ◼   ► I can see why people like it,

01:12:25 ◼   ► but it doesn't fit me as well.

01:12:27 ◼   ► - Yep, I completely agree.

01:12:28 ◼   ► - So yeah, to me this is a great update,

01:12:32 ◼   ► and I'm happy with it.

01:12:34 ◼   ► All right, thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week,

01:12:37 ◼   ► Squarespace, MailRoute, and Fracture.

01:12:40 ◼   ► And we will see you next week.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin

01:12:49 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental (accidental)

01:12:52 ◼   ► Oh, it was accidental (accidental)

01:12:55 ◼   ► John didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:13:00 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental (accidental)

01:13:03 ◼   ► Oh, it was accidental (accidental)

01:13:06 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:13:11 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

01:13:15 ◼   ► @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:13:19 ◼   ► So that's Kasey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:13:24 ◼   ► Auntie Marco Arment

01:13:26 ◼   ► S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

01:13:31 ◼   ► It's accidental

01:13:34 ◼   ► They didn't mean to

01:13:37 ◼   ► Accidental

01:13:39 ◼   ► ♫ Tech podcast so long

01:13:43 ◼   ► - You bought your Tesla yet?

01:13:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I bought it with all the piece money

01:13:49 ◼   ► and then had to return it.

01:13:50 ◼   ► - Oh, that sucks.

01:13:52 ◼   ► Man, tough luck.

01:13:53 ◼   ► - I keep seeing a red one in town.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Somebody in town has the red P85D.

01:13:58 ◼   ► And it looks really good.

01:13:59 ◼   ► So I think I'm gonna go red if I do it.

01:14:01 ◼   ► I still, before I make a final decision,

01:14:03 ◼   ► I still do wanna do one more test drive.

01:14:05 ◼   ► And I would like to test drive the non-P version,

01:14:09 ◼   ► just the 85 or 90D, because that's the one

01:14:12 ◼   ► I would probably want to get.

01:14:14 ◼   ► I don't think I wanna go all the way to the P,

01:14:17 ◼   ► just because even though I did love driving it,

01:14:20 ◼   ► it's like 20 grand more, mostly for this insane mode

01:14:25 ◼   ► that I actually found too fast and slightly unpleasant.

01:14:30 ◼   ► - You have to try the ludicrous mode though.

01:14:33 ◼   ► Maybe that goes, it wraps around.

01:14:34 ◼   ► It's like shooting the moon, right?

01:14:36 ◼   ► It wraps around and it becomes sublime, right?

01:14:38 ◼   ► - So what's the 95D has ludicrous mode?

01:14:40 ◼   ► - No, 90 only, but yeah, it only has 90 right now.

01:14:43 ◼   ► - What is the 90D?

01:14:44 ◼   ► It's not even shown on the website.

01:14:45 ◼   ► - It's just a range boost on the 85.

01:14:47 ◼   ► You pay like an extra three grand,

01:14:48 ◼   ► you get, it's just a bigger battery.

01:14:50 ◼   ► - But that's the one with ludicrous mode, right?

01:14:53 ◼   ► Which is the step up from insane mode.

01:14:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, well you can get any of them in that capacity,

01:14:57 ◼   ► but ludicrous mode requires it.

01:15:00 ◼   ► But it doesn't, I mean, I'm definitely not doing

01:15:02 ◼   ► ludicrous mode, that's, you know.

01:15:03 ◼   ► - You have to try it at least once,

01:15:05 ◼   ► like I said, it could wrap around, you don't know.

01:15:07 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:15:09 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:15:09 ◼   ► - So wait, so I'm sorry, you said you,

01:15:10 ◼   ► which one do you think you want?

01:15:12 ◼   ► - The one I probably would get would be the 90D.

01:15:14 ◼   ► So it is the one that is roughly as fast as the M5,

01:15:18 ◼   ► and it is the longest range you can get in their lineup.

01:15:22 ◼   ► The things about the P version,

01:15:25 ◼   ► like it basically gets you like red brake calipers,

01:15:29 ◼   ► which look cool, but I don't need them,

01:15:30 ◼   ► and the option for a carbon fiber spoiler,

01:15:33 ◼   ► which I think actually looks bad.

01:15:34 ◼   ► So, you know, eh, I don't really need it.

01:15:37 ◼   ► And for the dip for that, like I wouldn't feel good

01:15:39 ◼   ► spending that much extra money on it

01:15:41 ◼   ► if the 85/90D is almost as good.

01:15:46 ◼   ► I also like, you know, the fact is my car right now

01:15:52 ◼   ► is faster than what I usually can use with it.

01:15:55 ◼   ► You know, I live in a neighborhood.

01:15:56 ◼   ► I drive around residential streets most of the time.

01:15:59 ◼   ► I can't and really shouldn't have a faster car

01:16:01 ◼   ► than what I have now.

01:16:02 ◼   ► I don't even need a car that's as fast as the one I have now.

01:16:05 ◼   ► And I'm also, as I mentioned once before,

01:16:07 ◼   ► I'm kind of over having a loud car.

01:16:12 ◼   ► I never liked my cars to be loud.

01:16:17 ◼   ► I've been getting cars that are loud

01:16:19 ◼   ► because I like the way they drive

01:16:21 ◼   ► and I like that they're fast and sporty.

01:16:23 ◼   ► But I always feel self-conscious

01:16:25 ◼   ► with driving a very loud car on a residential street.

01:16:29 ◼   ► And so, and it seems like, you know,

01:16:32 ◼   ► the loudness of the M cars is completely artificial.

01:16:37 ◼   ► Like, not even just with the radio in the car,

01:16:39 ◼   ► but even the outside noise.

01:16:40 ◼   ► Like, you can put any muffler on there

01:16:42 ◼   ► that sounds like anything you want,

01:16:44 ◼   ► and the only reason they make them loud

01:16:45 ◼   ► is because a lot of people want that, and it sounds fast.

01:16:48 ◼   ► And so a lot of people who are buying fast cars--

01:16:50 ◼   ► - Oh, it sounds so good.

01:16:51 ◼   ► - Right, a lot of people who are buying fast cars want,

01:16:53 ◼   ► they demand that it be loud.

01:16:57 ◼   ► Like that's, but to me it always, it feels so,

01:17:01 ◼   ► just like pandering, it feels so artificial,

01:17:04 ◼   ► it almost feels insulting to my intelligence

01:17:06 ◼   ► that like they take this car and they just make it louder

01:17:09 ◼   ► because they think I will require that.

01:17:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:17:13 ◼   ► So I don't, that doesn't feel great to me

01:17:16 ◼   ► and you know as I'm getting older

01:17:19 ◼   ► and like you know I have my kid now

01:17:21 ◼   ► and I'm around a lot of other people with kids

01:17:23 ◼   ► and there's kids all over the block

01:17:24 ◼   ► I'm driving this loud car down the street.

01:17:27 ◼   ► I get a little self-conscious about it,

01:17:28 ◼   ► so I'm over having a loud car.

01:17:31 ◼   ► And if you look at BMW's lineup,

01:17:34 ◼   ► the only way to get a transmission that I would tolerate

01:17:38 ◼   ► is either to have a loud M car,

01:17:40 ◼   ► which by the way, still there's no all-wheel drive version,

01:17:42 ◼   ► unless you count the X5/6Ms, which shouldn't exist.

01:17:46 ◼   ► So if you count only the real M cars,

01:17:50 ◼   ► there is still, and I know, please everyone,

01:17:53 ◼   ► I know that the next M5 generation is very likely to have all-wheel drive, but that's

01:17:57 ◼   ► still a couple years out, and it would still be very loud. So, you know, I think I'm

01:18:03 ◼   ► out of the BMW line unless I'm willing to go down back to the 3 Series and get basically

01:18:09 ◼   ► Casey's car, which is a great car. The one you have is a great car, the 335 E92, E90

01:18:16 ◼   ► Series, whatever it is. That is a great car. However, I do like the size and the extra

01:18:22 ◼   ► luxuries of the 5 Series, I would miss a lot of that.

01:18:26 ◼   ► And also, that car's not incredibly quiet either,

01:18:29 ◼   ► but it's not as loud as the M cars.

01:18:31 ◼   ► But also, I don't like the F30, I really don't.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Like, I, Tifs is decent, it's a very good all-arounder,

01:18:39 ◼   ► but there's like certain things about it I don't like,

01:18:42 ◼   ► and I think the regular sedan version of it,

01:18:45 ◼   ► it just, I don't, I think it feels cheaper

01:18:48 ◼   ► than the E90 Series, and it doesn't feel as good,

01:18:51 ◼   ► I'm not crazy about it.

01:18:54 ◼   ► CMF in the chat pointing out the 550,

01:18:56 ◼   ► the 550X would be the one I would want

01:18:58 ◼   ► 'cause I like all the drive.

01:19:01 ◼   ► The 550, the problem with that is it is not available

01:19:03 ◼   ► in a transmission that I would tolerate.

01:19:06 ◼   ► It is only auto.

01:19:08 ◼   ► And Tif's car has the sportiest auto BMW currently sells,

01:19:13 ◼   ► although I haven't tried,

01:19:14 ◼   ► I think the new 7 Series has a slightly sportier one,

01:19:17 ◼   ► but it's like nine gears now or something, it's crazy.

01:19:20 ◼   ► So the sportiest one that is available

01:19:24 ◼   ► that is still automatic,

01:19:25 ◼   ► I drive that one all the time on Tif's car,

01:19:27 ◼   ► and I drive it in automatic mode

01:19:29 ◼   ► because manually shifting it sucks.

01:19:31 ◼   ► Like it is no substitute for either a DCT or a real stick.

01:19:36 ◼   ► It is no substitute.

01:19:37 ◼   ► So I would require either a DCT or a real stick

01:19:43 ◼   ► or no gears whatsoever,

01:19:45 ◼   ► which is what the electric cars give me.

01:19:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:19:48 ◼   ► typical automatic transmission is just not an option for me.

01:19:52 ◼   ► And by the way, on the noise front, if Eddy Cue or any other members of the Ferrari board

01:19:55 ◼   ► are listening, disregard Marco, I still want to hear the sound of a flat-plane crank V8

01:20:01 ◼   ► in my Ferrari.

01:20:03 ◼   ► It's not just the volume, it's like, you don't like it because it's loud.

01:20:08 ◼   ► People do like it to be loud, but it's also like the sound that it makes.

01:20:11 ◼   ► I don't think anybody wants the Viper V10 to be loud because it sounds weird, because

01:20:14 ◼   ► V10s sound weird.

01:20:16 ◼   ► a Ferrari V8 does not sound weird. It sounds like beautiful music. And so that's what

01:20:21 ◼   ► people want. Not just the sound, but a specific sound, whether it's a burbling V8 of like

01:20:25 ◼   ► a Mustang or something, which is kind of what your car has, which is kind of weird and unseemly

01:20:28 ◼   ► that it has the burble, or the screaming wail of the flat-plane V8. And that's what we

01:20:36 ◼   ► Italians want.

01:20:37 ◼   ► No, and I like the sound my car makes. I really do like it when I want that kind of thing,

01:20:44 ◼   ► but that is almost none of the time that I'm driving it.

01:20:47 ◼   ► And actually, I don't like the sound of the new M3.

01:20:49 ◼   ► I think the new M3 sounds terrible.

01:20:52 ◼   ► I've now heard them in person a few times,

01:20:54 ◼   ► and I think they really cranked up the sound of that V6,

01:20:58 ◼   ► trying to get it to sound really impressive

01:20:59 ◼   ► like the old V8 did, and it just doesn't.

01:21:03 ◼   ► The new M3, I think, sounds like a cheap car

01:21:08 ◼   ► that somebody put a cheap aftermarket pipe on

01:21:10 ◼   ► to sound faster.

01:21:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the problem all the cars have,

01:21:12 ◼   ► including even Ferrari, because they added the turbos to the, whatever, the 488 or whatever

01:21:15 ◼   ► the new one is, that like, well, that tends to muffle some of the sound, and that sound

01:21:21 ◼   ► that you want is not—and they, Ferrari has struggled mightily to try to get that sound

01:21:26 ◼   ► back.

01:21:27 ◼   ► I wonder if, like, by the time we're, you know, old and gray and grandparents, that

01:21:31 ◼   ► Ferrari will be selling, like, a throwback model, where it's like a normally aspirated

01:21:34 ◼   ► V8 with the old geometries and everything, just because by then everything will be, like,

01:21:39 ◼   ► electric or hybrid, and it'll be impossible to get that sound, because it'll all be,

01:21:42 ◼   ► tiny small displacement turbo engines like they kind of are now in every other car.

01:21:45 ◼   ► And it's like, you know, like, well, they start selling like retro models. Like,

01:21:49 ◼   ► this is not a modern car, but this is like, it's like a scale model or not a scale model,

01:21:54 ◼   ► like a reproduction. So it's got some modern things in it, but the powertrain is a complete

01:21:58 ◼   ► throwback. I don't know if it'll even be legal to sell those in the United States at that point, but

01:22:02 ◼   ► You could even have like this weird transmission where you need three legs in order to operate.

01:22:07 ◼   ► Yeah, like a big silver ball on a big silver stick.

01:22:09 ◼   ► Wouldn't that be weird?

01:22:11 ◼   ► - God, that'd be crazy.

01:22:12 ◼   ► To go back to the Tesla, I freaking love

01:22:14 ◼   ► that the Tesla, or the Model S page on the Tesla website

01:22:19 ◼   ► outlining battery performance and drive options.

01:22:22 ◼   ► All I see on this page is 5.5 seconds, 5.4 seconds,

01:22:27 ◼   ► 5.2 seconds, 4.2 seconds, 3.1 seconds,

01:22:31 ◼   ► or if you'd like to pony up for the ludicrous speed upgrade,

01:22:34 ◼   ► 2.8 seconds.

01:22:35 ◼   ► Like this is how I would choose the car,

01:22:36 ◼   ► is simply how fast would you like to go?

01:22:39 ◼   ► Like how amazing is this?

01:22:41 ◼   ► - And by the way, the chat room was like,

01:22:43 ◼   ► noting like that I made a Spaceball joke.

01:22:46 ◼   ► I didn't make a Spaceball joke.

01:22:48 ◼   ► Tesla made it.

01:22:49 ◼   ► These are the actual names.

01:22:50 ◼   ► Insane Mode and Ludicrous Mode are their brand names

01:22:53 ◼   ► for these like software update packages or whatever.

01:22:55 ◼   ► Like they are making Spaceball references, not me.

01:22:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's amazing.

01:22:59 ◼   ► I would also like to go on record

01:23:01 ◼   ► that I will be completely stunned

01:23:05 ◼   ► and will buy you a coffee of your choice, Marco.

01:23:08 ◼   ► as much as I hate to say this, if you do not end up with the maximum level Tesla available,

01:23:15 ◼   ► because that is the only way you know how to buy things.

01:23:17 ◼   ► Well, I definitely would not get ludicrous. You know, it is still possible.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Well, no, but you say that. Here's how it would happen. If the seats that you find the

01:23:26 ◼   ► most comfortable are only available in the one ludicrous, you're getting in the car.

01:23:31 ◼   ► No, it's so true.

01:23:32 ◼   ► The only—if I do get a Tesla, which is looking increasingly likely, but again, I still do

01:23:36 ◼   ► want to drive one again before I make that decision. But if I do get a Tesla, it's really

01:23:40 ◼   ► to me between the 90D and the P90D. I would not get the insane, crazy, I would get insane

01:23:46 ◼   ► but not ludicrous. These names are stupid.

01:23:48 ◼   ► Yeah, to me, the P90D counts. I agree with you that ludicrous speed is pretty much not

01:23:54 ◼   ► going to happen. I will agree with that.

01:23:56 ◼   ► Right. Like if I bought a new M5, I would not get the competition package, which is

01:24:00 ◼   ► like, it's a similar kind of price to gain ratio there, you know? Because that is crazy.

01:24:06 ◼   ► and I don't care, I don't need it.

01:24:08 ◼   ► The only reason I would go with the P85 or P90D in this case

01:24:11 ◼   ► would be if the 90 really just feels anemic,

01:24:15 ◼   ► and I don't think it does.

01:24:16 ◼   ► I think the 85/90D is really very similar

01:24:21 ◼   ► in performance to the M5.

01:24:23 ◼   ► - It's similar, but if memory serves,

01:24:25 ◼   ► I don't recall the M5 0-60 time off the top of my head,

01:24:29 ◼   ► but I believe it is--

01:24:29 ◼   ► - Something like 4.2 or something?

01:24:31 ◼   ► - See, I think it's a little quicker than that.

01:24:33 ◼   ► - Maybe 3.9, I don't know.

01:24:34 ◼   ► - See, that's the thing.

01:24:36 ◼   ► The 85D is listed at 4.2, and I think you're right.

01:24:39 ◼   ► I think the M5 is just eking it in under four seconds.

01:24:43 ◼   ► And I bet you that'll be enough of a difference,

01:24:46 ◼   ► as silly as it sounds, that that's

01:24:47 ◼   ► going to push you to the P85D.

01:24:49 ◼   ► Because all he'll feel is the instant torque

01:24:52 ◼   ► from zero miles an hour.

01:24:53 ◼   ► Like, he'll feel the acceleration

01:24:54 ◼   ► from zero to 20 and 30.

01:24:55 ◼   ► Like I said, I think the only thing that

01:24:57 ◼   ► will drive him to the big fancy miles

01:24:59 ◼   ► is trim level or option differences.

01:25:01 ◼   ► And there really aren't-- you have to go to the P

01:25:04 ◼   ► if you want the spoiler that I think looks bad in person.

01:25:08 ◼   ► I don't know what the deal is with these spoiler designs.

01:25:11 ◼   ► So the problem is the Tesla Model S

01:25:14 ◼   ► is a kind of like a fat-bottomed car.

01:25:16 ◼   ► It's one of those like wide bottoms

01:25:18 ◼   ► that a lot of large shadans have these days.

01:25:21 ◼   ► - Big bottom, you're making a spinal-type reference

01:25:23 ◼   ► and you don't even know it.

01:25:24 ◼   ► - Right, exactly.

01:25:24 ◼   ► So whatever reference I'm making,

01:25:26 ◼   ► it has like a wider bottom

01:25:27 ◼   ► than like the passenger cabin above it.

01:25:29 ◼   ► So it kind of looks like a hovercraft almost,

01:25:33 ◼   ► I can't even just cushion around the base.

01:25:35 ◼   ► And the spoiler is not the full width of the trunk.

01:25:39 ◼   ► 'Cause the full, like it's,

01:25:41 ◼   ► it almost looks like, - Yeah, this is no good.

01:25:42 ◼   ► - It looks like a mustache on all the stuff there.

01:25:45 ◼   ► - Well, you can't get the commercial skipping on the,

01:25:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:25:48 ◼   ► - That's all right, I feel too bad about it.

01:25:50 ◼   ► - They're not gonna give that to you in a software update,

01:25:52 ◼   ► they want you to get the whole new model.

01:25:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, looks like I can't get the red brake calipers.

01:25:57 ◼   ► But I can get everything else.

01:25:58 ◼   ► - Hugely, hugely important question.

01:26:01 ◼   ► I want you to think about this and choose wisely.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Will you or will you not get the rear-facing seats?

01:26:06 ◼   ► - That is a very good question.

01:26:07 ◼   ► - I'm kind of not kidding because, oh my God,

01:26:10 ◼   ► I remember having a wagon when we were kids

01:26:11 ◼   ► that had the rear-facing seats,

01:26:13 ◼   ► and it was terrible but also delightful.

01:26:15 ◼   ► - I'm gonna say, I gotta give a thumbs down on those.

01:26:19 ◼   ► - So we have some friends with the Tesla

01:26:21 ◼   ► and they have the rear-facing seats.

01:26:22 ◼   ► And it is really nice if you have to transport

01:26:26 ◼   ► a whole bunch of kids around, but we don't.

01:26:28 ◼   ► And I'm probably gonna be getting it

01:26:29 ◼   ► on a three-year lease, and it's like,

01:26:32 ◼   ► within the next three years,

01:26:33 ◼   ► am I gonna have three more kids?

01:26:35 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:26:36 ◼   ► - And also, you'd only put the kids

01:26:37 ◼   ► you don't really care about back there,

01:26:38 ◼   ► because that's like the death seat

01:26:40 ◼   ► in the case of a rear-end collision.

01:26:41 ◼   ► - Well, the rumor, or the story behind it

01:26:44 ◼   ► is that because Elon Musk has a bunch of kids,

01:26:46 ◼   ► he made those like the safest seats in the whole car.

01:26:48 ◼   ► There's like extra roll keg around it and everything, so.

01:26:51 ◼   ► - Well, there's five-point harness from the looks of it.

01:26:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, it is, and so,

01:26:54 ◼   ► and rear-facing is actually statistically safer.

01:26:57 ◼   ► That's why car seats for infants are rear-faced for a while,

01:27:00 ◼   ► basically as long as they can be.

01:27:01 ◼   ► So the safety is not as much of a concern for me there.

01:27:06 ◼   ► The biggest concern for me is, first of all,

01:27:09 ◼   ► that I just wouldn't use them.

01:27:10 ◼   ► Like I don't think I need them.

01:27:11 ◼   ► And also some of the owners who have them

01:27:15 ◼   ► say that the biggest problem back there

01:27:17 ◼   ► is that there's no HVAC stuff back there.

01:27:19 ◼   ► So it gets really hot.

01:27:20 ◼   ► 'Cause they're sitting under the rear windshield.

01:27:23 ◼   ► And there's some vents that serve the back seats,

01:27:26 ◼   ► the regular back seats,

01:27:28 ◼   ► but they don't reach all the way back there.

01:27:29 ◼   ► So if it's like a hot, sunny day,

01:27:31 ◼   ► it's gonna be pretty hot back there.

01:27:33 ◼   ► It also is just kind of weird when you have to load

01:27:35 ◼   ► and unload your kid from your trunk.

01:27:37 ◼   ► But regardless, if I had a really big family,

01:27:41 ◼   ► I would consider it.

01:27:43 ◼   ► Although honestly the Model X I think would be

01:27:44 ◼   ► a much better way to serve that

01:27:46 ◼   ► 'cause it's actually a proper three row car.

01:27:48 ◼   ► But this, yeah, for my needs, you know,

01:27:53 ◼   ► I have one kid I can foresee in the next three years

01:27:56 ◼   ► having at most two kids total.

01:27:58 ◼   ► So, you know, I really don't think I would need more than that.

01:28:03 ◼   ► So I'm not going to do the, I would not order that.

01:28:07 ◼   ► I like the, someone put in the chat room, a YouTube video of P85D versus the Ferrari