ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► All right, is there anything we need to talk about other than the fact the show is gonna be all follow-up?

00:00:03 ◼   ► The things the other things we have to talk about what is it like Apple TV and all that business?

00:00:07 ◼   ► That'll keep because it's all just rumors. So we should just get

00:00:10 ◼   ► If we just end up doing follow-up and stuff, that's fine

00:00:13 ◼   ► Nintendo and I think that will keep - I think because also nothing is happening in there

00:00:18 ◼   ► It's just an announcement, but we'll get to one of those

00:00:20 ◼   ► Well, don't worry about is what I'm saying because all the other stuff that we think is news news isn't really news

00:00:24 ◼   ► It's all just future news

00:00:27 ◼   ► How does Nintendo basically get bought by the world and we don't talk about it this week get bought by the world

00:00:32 ◼   ► I mean they're basically selling out like they're like they're admitting defeat

00:00:37 ◼   ► The reason I said it'll keep is because it's a press release and an announcement

00:00:42 ◼   ► It's not a thing a product, you know, we'll talk about I think it signifies something, you know

00:00:48 ◼   ► Yeah, no, I know but I'm saying is it will keep if we talk about it next week

00:00:52 ◼   ► Nothing new will have happened between this week and next week related to that story

00:00:56 ◼   ► It's not as if.

00:00:57 ◼   ► Anyway, we'll get to it.

00:00:59 ◼   ► Our entire podcast this week should be discussing like this, like before we're actually going

00:01:03 ◼   ► to say anything about a topic, just talking about what we're not going to say and what

00:01:06 ◼   ► we're going to say.

00:01:07 ◼   ► Doesn't matter.

00:01:08 ◼   ► We go in order.

00:01:09 ◼   ► We go from top to bottom.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Oh, God.

00:01:11 ◼   ► Follow forward.

00:01:12 ◼   ► Follow up.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Follow out?

00:01:14 ◼   ► Follow in.

00:01:15 ◼   ► Follow casting.

00:01:16 ◼   ► We have a lot of follow up today, and it starts with our tipster having a compatriot.

00:01:19 ◼   ► This compatriot said, "Back to the hub."

00:01:22 ◼   ► This was in the middle of an email.

00:01:23 ◼   ► It's real and it's coming just not as soon as the tips are thought it'll probably come when the MacBook Pros are announced whenever that

00:01:30 ◼   ► May be right when so the 15 inch retina MacBook Pro has not been updated yet for Broadwell and does not have the force to extract

00:01:36 ◼   ► Pad yet presumably it will be updated sometime later this year

00:01:40 ◼   ► Possibly the summer because that's because right now the only reason it wasn't dated yet as far as we know is

00:01:45 ◼   ► Because the quad core Broadwell chips aren't actually out from Intel yet

00:01:49 ◼   ► my question on this device is

00:01:53 ◼   ► whether they're gonna actually just skip that entirely and go and wait for Skylake because if Skylake is on schedule, which it

00:01:59 ◼   ► theoretically is

00:02:02 ◼   ► Then Skylake quad core chips can't be that much further off and with the Skylake chipset

00:02:07 ◼   ► Not only do you get faster CPU performance?

00:02:10 ◼   ► But you also get you know new RAM types and bit and the big thing would be you get Thunderbolt 3

00:02:13 ◼   ► And then that means you could drive a 5k external display if there was one

00:02:17 ◼   ► So this is the curse of the pro suffix that machines that have a pro suffix eventually skip Intel chip generations

00:02:23 ◼   ► Well, yeah, well what Intel messes up their entire consumer lineup for an entire year

00:02:28 ◼   ► I mean it Intel always messes up and delays the Xeon that's no big deal

00:02:33 ◼   ► And in fact, there are new Xeons for the Mac Pro and Apple's not using them. They're skipping a Xeon generation

00:02:38 ◼   ► I don't know why but they are

00:02:40 ◼   ► But yeah for the MacBook Pro, I would expect 15 inch to be this summer

00:02:44 ◼   ► with either Broadwell or Skylake,

00:02:47 ◼   ► the timing works out that if they can wait

00:02:50 ◼   ► until probably late summer, I think they can get Skylake,

00:02:53 ◼   ► and that would certainly be a better update.

00:02:55 ◼   ► - But as you said, Intel is very often late-ish with their,

00:03:00 ◼   ► it's all like, don't you think the Skylake

00:03:03 ◼   ► will inevitably be a little bit later

00:03:04 ◼   ► than we think it's going to be as well?

00:03:06 ◼   ► - Well, the issue with Broadwell was the die shrink

00:03:09 ◼   ► and getting the 14-nanometer process to have usable yields.

00:03:14 ◼   ► But Skylake is a micro-architecture change,

00:03:16 ◼   ► so it's not related to the yield issue.

00:03:19 ◼   ► So Intel is claiming,

00:03:21 ◼   ► and they're still claiming this even recently,

00:03:23 ◼   ► they are claiming that even though Broadwell

00:03:25 ◼   ► was extremely late,

00:03:26 ◼   ► that Skylake will actually not be late,

00:03:29 ◼   ► which means Skylake is shipping

00:03:30 ◼   ► in the second half of this year.

00:03:31 ◼   ► - Could be.

00:03:32 ◼   ► - Like Broadwell's actually intentionally going to be

00:03:34 ◼   ► a really short generation.

00:03:36 ◼   ► So the only question is,

00:03:37 ◼   ► what does Apple and one of the other PC manufacturers

00:03:40 ◼   ► do with that?

00:03:41 ◼   ► Do they actually make Broadwell products in mass,

00:03:43 ◼   ► or do they just make a handful like what Apple has done

00:03:45 ◼   ► and wait until Skylake for their higher end stuff

00:03:49 ◼   ► where it'll make more of a difference.

00:03:50 ◼   ► And I think if Thunderbolt 3 is right around the corner,

00:03:53 ◼   ► it would be unfortunate to have a 15 inch MacBook Pro update

00:03:57 ◼   ► like months before you can get the Thunderbolt 3 chipsets.

00:04:01 ◼   ► - You're assuming they'll have Thunderbolt 4 ports on them.

00:04:04 ◼   ► - I think they would.

00:04:05 ◼   ► This new tipster, the friend of the tipster says

00:04:08 ◼   ► that the updated Pros will have more than one port.

00:04:12 ◼   ► Now that does not by necessity mean it will have Thunderbolt, of course, but apparently

00:04:17 ◼   ► there will be at least more than one John, and so you can finally relax and be happy.

00:04:22 ◼   ► Well the context of that was it will have more than one USB-C port.

00:04:26 ◼   ► The number of other ports was not specified.

00:04:29 ◼   ► But I'm thinking Thunderbolt is not dead.

00:04:32 ◼   ► I'm thinking Thunderbolt continues on much like FireWire 800 did for so long, because

00:04:36 ◼   ► it continues on in the high-end products where, like, the typical things people would plug

00:04:40 ◼   ► drive into a laptop for, you don't really need Thunderbolt for most people's needs.

00:04:45 ◼   ► So it's fine if the low-end laptops don't have Thunderbolt anymore, that's not a huge

00:04:48 ◼   ► deal, especially something like this UltraPortable. And keep in mind, the new Airs still do, you

00:04:54 ◼   ► can still get an 11 and 13 inch Air or a 13 inch Retina MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt.

00:04:59 ◼   ► So it still goes down to the 11 inch Air, I mean that's a pretty good coverage right

00:05:04 ◼   ► there. So anyway, Thunderbolt is fine, it'll be here for a long time, so it is still worth

00:05:09 ◼   ► especially considering the high-end stuff

00:05:11 ◼   ► like the Mac Pro and everything,

00:05:12 ◼   ► it is still worth it for Apple to invest in Thunderbolt,

00:05:14 ◼   ► to support it fully, and to issue Thunderbolt 3

00:05:19 ◼   ► when it comes out.

00:05:20 ◼   ► - I don't remember seeing this email.

00:05:22 ◼   ► I didn't put it in the follow-up,

00:05:23 ◼   ► and people in the chat room were complaining about this,

00:05:25 ◼   ► and I agree with the complaints.

00:05:27 ◼   ► Where does this come from?

00:05:28 ◼   ► Why does it get to be in the follow-up?

00:05:32 ◼   ► Why do we believe this person?

00:05:34 ◼   ► - I just thought it was interesting

00:05:35 ◼   ► that somebody else apparently tried to double down

00:05:38 ◼   ► on behalf of the original person.

00:05:39 ◼   ► - I could have written this email.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:05:41 ◼   ► - I'm gonna start doing that.

00:05:42 ◼   ► I'm gonna start writing stuff, writing plausible things

00:05:45 ◼   ► into our email form and see if you two are suckered

00:05:48 ◼   ► into putting it into the show notes.

00:05:49 ◼   ► Maybe I've already done that and I'll reveal it in a year.

00:05:52 ◼   ► - That is a long, long troll.

00:05:55 ◼   ► But yeah, if that would make you happy, John,

00:05:57 ◼   ► to ruin your own show, feel free.

00:05:58 ◼   ► - The tipster's been in the house the whole time.

00:06:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:06:03 ◼   ► All right, what are we moving on to?

00:06:05 ◼   ► Oh, see, this was out of order.

00:06:08 ◼   ► We should have started with this top one

00:06:09 ◼   ► because the top one was a accidental neutral follow-up.

00:06:13 ◼   ► We're talking about the Apple Watch

00:06:15 ◼   ► and the potential for it to gain value

00:06:18 ◼   ► as a sort of collectible piece of electronics like the,

00:06:22 ◼   ► I tweeted about this and I almost tweeted the wrong thing

00:06:24 ◼   ► and now I can only remember the wrong thing.

00:06:26 ◼   ► It's not summer games, it's sports championship.

00:06:29 ◼   ► Someone in the chat room will tell me.

00:06:31 ◼   ► That's super rare NES cart

00:06:32 ◼   ► that goes for a lot of money these days,

00:06:35 ◼   ► that starts with the letter S,

00:06:37 ◼   ► I think it's sports champions,

00:06:38 ◼   ► or maybe it's the Nintendo World Champion card.

00:06:40 ◼   ► Anyway, if you got an original Apple Watch,

00:06:44 ◼   ► and especially as Marco pointed out,

00:06:45 ◼   ► if they don't make any more of the original,

00:06:47 ◼   ► not original Apple Watch, original Apple Watch Edition,

00:06:49 ◼   ► and they don't make any more of these gold ones after that,

00:06:51 ◼   ► which seems unlikely to me, but it could happen,

00:06:54 ◼   ► then it could be worth more than you paid for it

00:06:57 ◼   ► in the somewhat distant future, purely based on its rarity.

00:07:00 ◼   ► Nintendo World Championships.

00:07:02 ◼   ► the chat room says, is that rare car.

00:07:04 ◼   ► So anyway, one of the things I threw out there

00:07:06 ◼   ► related to that is say, you know,

00:07:09 ◼   ► very expensive sports cars that they only make a few of.

00:07:12 ◼   ► Like if you had bought the McLaren F1,

00:07:13 ◼   ► I said it was really expensive,

00:07:15 ◼   ► but now it goes for a lot more

00:07:16 ◼   ► than you would have paid for it.

00:07:18 ◼   ► And I threw out some numbers.

00:07:19 ◼   ► I think I threw out like 250 grand

00:07:21 ◼   ► and now they're like in the millions or something.

00:07:24 ◼   ► And I was way off.

00:07:25 ◼   ► I think I was going for the 250 or maybe 232

00:07:28 ◼   ► because I was thinking of the max speed

00:07:29 ◼   ► of the McLaren F1 from back in the day.

00:07:31 ◼   ► But TBI Rally Sport on Twitter gave us the correct numbers.

00:07:38 ◼   ► McLaren F1 was originally $960,000, so not cheap,

00:07:41 ◼   ► because that was in, what, 1990-something dollars?

00:07:45 ◼   ► And they currently go for around $10 million now.

00:07:47 ◼   ► And I recently saw a white one, the only white McLaren

00:07:50 ◼   ► F1 ever made, going for $14 million.

00:07:53 ◼   ► So if you had invested a million dollars in a McLaren F1

00:07:56 ◼   ► in the '90s, you would have got a 10x return on your investment

00:07:59 ◼   ► if it didn't kill you.

00:08:00 ◼   ► I'm not sure I would take that deal.

00:08:02 ◼   ► Like buy a white car for 10 years and then sell it?

00:08:05 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:08:06 ◼   ► - Well, it was the only white one.

00:08:06 ◼   ► It's all about rarity.

00:08:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:08:08 ◼   ► - Not the pony.

00:08:09 ◼   ► - I think there's a reason they only made one.

00:08:11 ◼   ► - I know you're trying to mess with me,

00:08:12 ◼   ► but there is a reason they only made one.

00:08:13 ◼   ► It's that it looks terrible.

00:08:15 ◼   ► - It doesn't look that bad.

00:08:16 ◼   ► I mean, it is generally a nice looking car.

00:08:19 ◼   ► It's a couple of awkward things about it.

00:08:20 ◼   ► Like the rear overhang is really small,

00:08:22 ◼   ► so it kind of looks clipped in that way.

00:08:24 ◼   ► But yeah, like I said, you get the car in white.

00:08:26 ◼   ► If it's a really nice shape, it could still look good.

00:08:28 ◼   ► McLaren F1 almost pulls it off.

00:08:30 ◼   ► Almost. I don't know, it does not look great in my personal estimation and according to Marco, I like everything that is white ever.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Well, you just happened to have bought all of your cars in white. And each time it just kind of happened to you.

00:08:46 ◼   ► No, the only time, there are two times I've bought cars on my own. And one time it was deliberate, one time it was not. Everything else, it was a hand-me-down.

00:08:56 ◼   ► - And Marco, you had something from Ed Ryan.

00:09:00 ◼   ► - Yes, last week we talked about Bluetooth headphones.

00:09:04 ◼   ► And we were talking in the context of Apple eliminating

00:09:07 ◼   ► the headphone jack from their stuff eventually

00:09:10 ◼   ► and switching over to requiring Bluetooth headphones

00:09:12 ◼   ► for everything and what that would mean.

00:09:14 ◼   ► My main complaints about it were that of not only complexity

00:09:18 ◼   ► but also battery life.

00:09:19 ◼   ► Then you have this other thing that has to be charged

00:09:22 ◼   ► and everything.

00:09:23 ◼   ► We got a lot of good feedback on this.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Some of it came from the hearing aid world,

00:09:27 ◼   ► because they have a similar set of problems

00:09:29 ◼   ► with hearing aids of,

00:09:30 ◼   ► you wanna make something as small as possible

00:09:32 ◼   ► that can pump sound into your ears,

00:09:35 ◼   ► but that also has good battery life.

00:09:37 ◼   ► And hearing aids manage pretty impressive battery life

00:09:40 ◼   ► these days, especially the high-end ones,

00:09:41 ◼   ► but there are, from what I understand,

00:09:43 ◼   ► some pretty substantial costs associated with that.

00:09:46 ◼   ► I don't know much more about it than that,

00:09:49 ◼   ► but it seems like that might be an indicator

00:09:51 ◼   ► of what's possible in the, not necessarily close future,

00:09:54 ◼   ► but what is possible with the cutting edge battery technology

00:09:57 ◼   ► and miniaturization of headphone type things.

00:10:00 ◼   ► But a number of other issues were pointed out

00:10:03 ◼   ► specifically about Bluetooth headphones.

00:10:05 ◼   ► The biggest one, which I had totally forgotten about,

00:10:08 ◼   ► is latency.

00:10:09 ◼   ► A lot of Bluetooth headphones,

00:10:10 ◼   ► and it seems like this might differ per model

00:10:13 ◼   ► or maybe per application or something.

00:10:15 ◼   ► This seems like it's inconsistent.

00:10:17 ◼   ► And I've seen this myself where it's better

00:10:19 ◼   ► or worse with some.

00:10:21 ◼   ► latency is a big problem when you're watching videos,

00:10:25 ◼   ► or of course anything that requires really up-to-date sound

00:10:28 ◼   ► to match what's on screen, there to be no latency

00:10:30 ◼   ► or, you know, inaudibly short latency.

00:10:33 ◼   ► I have found with all the Bluetooth headphones I've tried,

00:10:35 ◼   ► when I did, I did like a little roundup with it,

00:10:37 ◼   ► with I think four or five of them,

00:10:38 ◼   ► and I found the latency was noticeably bad

00:10:41 ◼   ► on all of them enough that like playing a video

00:10:43 ◼   ► on an iPhone, I didn't try it on a Mac,

00:10:45 ◼   ► but playing a video from an iPhone

00:10:47 ◼   ► was just unbearably annoying,

00:10:49 ◼   ► because the latency was extremely noticeable.

00:10:51 ◼   ► So, you know, it was out of sync,

00:10:52 ◼   ► the audio was out of sync with the video.

00:10:54 ◼   ► - I would just like to put it on record

00:10:55 ◼   ► that I use really cheap, really crappy Bluetooth headphones

00:10:58 ◼   ► with my Mac for nine hours a day, five days a week,

00:11:03 ◼   ► and I have never noticed any latency issues.

00:11:06 ◼   ► And these are not fancy headphones.

00:11:08 ◼   ► They are made by a brand called Arctic,

00:11:10 ◼   ► which I've never heard of before.

00:11:12 ◼   ► I've never bought any of their other products.

00:11:14 ◼   ► And either one of two things is true.

00:11:17 ◼   ► Either the latency on these just happens to be wonderful

00:11:21 ◼   ► in short, or I'm just not picky enough to notice.

00:11:25 ◼   ► And if it's the latter, then let this be a lesson, kids,

00:11:29 ◼   ► that being fussy about headphones and coffee

00:11:31 ◼   ► and about everything else under the sun

00:11:33 ◼   ► maybe isn't the best thing in the world.

00:11:35 ◼   ► Anyway, carry on, Marco.

00:11:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:11:37 ◼   ► - Anyway, and by the way, as I said last week,

00:11:40 ◼   ► I use Bluetooth headphones when I'm walking.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I listen to podcasts on them.

00:11:44 ◼   ► They're fantastic, and in that context,

00:11:46 ◼   ► way better than wired headphones. I love them. I use the Sennheiser PX… I think it's

00:11:53 ◼   ► the 120BT. I'll link to it in the show notes. It's like $100 and they're great. They

00:11:58 ◼   ► sound like complete garbage for music. And by the way, a lot of people are saying Bluetooth

00:12:03 ◼   ► audio because it uses lossy compression codecs, there's a lot of arguments that Bluetooth

00:12:08 ◼   ► headphones sound bad because they're Bluetooth. In the ones I've tested, most of them offer

00:12:14 ◼   ► the ability to plug in a cable. So I've tested them in both modes, cable mode direct and

00:12:19 ◼   ► Bluetooth mode, and they sound equally bad in both modes. So the reason they sound bad

00:12:23 ◼   ► is not because they're Bluetooth necessarily, it's because they're bad headphones. And it

00:12:27 ◼   ► is possible to make decent sounding Bluetooth headphones. Now, a lot of people say, "Oh,

00:12:32 ◼   ► these new headphones support aptX, this new codec, the aptX, I don't know if that's pronounced

00:12:38 ◼   ► aptX, that's how I say it." The problem is that iPhones don't support aptX. So I see

00:12:43 ◼   ► these like Amazon reviews of these headphones that say these new headphones support aptX

00:12:47 ◼   ► and it plays it sounds great for my iPhone is way better than the previous headphones.

00:12:51 ◼   ► Well they might sound better but it's not because of the aptX codec because if you're

00:12:54 ◼   ► using them on an iPhone aptX is not being used.

00:12:58 ◼   ► All that being said we got a very good email from Josh Day Lioncourt @lioncourt on Twitter

00:13:06 ◼   ► and Josh says one of the use case that wasn't mentioned in your discussion but perhaps should

00:13:09 ◼   ► have been is that of voiceover users.

00:13:11 ◼   ► I'm a writer and developer.

00:13:13 ◼   ► I spend virtually all day on my Macbook, iPad, and iPhone

00:13:15 ◼   ► plugged into headphones.

00:13:17 ◼   ► Bluetooth not only comes with the battery life issue

00:13:19 ◼   ► which is compounded by constant use by voiceover users,

00:13:22 ◼   ► but also in my experience, latency.

00:13:24 ◼   ► It's tough enough that a voiceover user

00:13:26 ◼   ► must listen to everything.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Even the slightest amount of latency in audio

00:13:29 ◼   ► can lead to frustration and disruption of productivity.

00:13:31 ◼   ► I'd imagine this is very analogous

00:13:33 ◼   ► to when touch UI suffers from lag.

00:13:35 ◼   ► So yeah, that I could definitely see

00:13:36 ◼   ► what that would be a problem.

00:13:38 ◼   ► - All right, so we should at least briefly touch

00:13:41 ◼   ► on the Apple watch edition pricing.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Um, there's been a lot of chatter that.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Tim Cook was perhaps embarrassed about the price of the watch.

00:13:51 ◼   ► It didn't show up on any slides and, uh, he kind of just said, Oh yeah.

00:13:55 ◼   ► And it's a $10,000.

00:13:56 ◼   ► So anyway,

00:13:57 ◼   ► now there will be limited quantities of the Apple watch edition.

00:14:01 ◼   ► It is priced from $10,000 and it will be available in select retail stores.

00:14:10 ◼   ► The Apple Watch Edition is the most beautiful expression of the Apple Watch.

00:14:17 ◼   ► So there's an article in the show notes that I did not read, and I'm assuming, John, you put it here?

00:14:23 ◼   ► I did. I don't remember what's in this article. I didn't open it in one of my tabs, I'm sorry,

00:14:28 ◼   ► but maybe you did and you lost it. I paid, no, I opened up the tabs right before the

00:14:33 ◼   ► show and closed them all after the show, as you well know.

00:14:38 ◼   ► Okay, I remember hearing about this before I saw the presentation because I didn't watch it live, right?

00:14:44 ◼   ► And so I knew to pay attention

00:14:46 ◼   ► during sort of that section of the thing to see if these articles that I had heard about were on the nose and

00:14:51 ◼   ► There's two things I noted about Tim Cook and the Apple watch edition the pricing thing and the presentation one

00:14:58 ◼   ► He made a comment earlier in the presentation

00:15:01 ◼   ► I believe when they're doing the health section about his heart rate

00:15:04 ◼   ► You know sort of doing the jokey kind of thing that I guess I'm not gonna say non-professional but like

00:15:11 ◼   ► Less experienced public speakers or maybe yeah

00:15:15 ◼   ► I think so like a less experienced public speakers will add something to their presentation that

00:15:19 ◼   ► acknowledges the fact that they're nervous to sort of you know cut the tension to

00:15:22 ◼   ► Get the audience on their side and to relax them and to just sort of go forward together

00:15:26 ◼   ► So we don't have to so it's not awkward, right?

00:15:28 ◼   ► Tim Cook did that in this presentation when he was showing the heart rate thing. It's like you can even check

00:15:34 ◼   ► Your heart rate and this is clearly not mine at this point in time

00:15:38 ◼   ► This is not Tim Cook's first presentation

00:15:43 ◼   ► We assume that there's some baseline level of nervousness that everyone feels when they're doing a big important presentation

00:15:47 ◼   ► We assume they're all nervous about things

00:15:49 ◼   ► but if he was gonna be nervous about something you would think he would be nervous about the revealing of the Apple watch and

00:15:55 ◼   ► Not this presentation. So what I was thinking about is alright, what is it about this presentation?

00:16:02 ◼   ► which really is just going over stuff we already knew and adding detail to the

00:16:05 ◼   ► Apple Watch. What is he nervous about in this one? And that ties into when he got

00:16:09 ◼   ► to the Apple Watch Edition and he has to say the Apple Watch Edition starts at

00:16:13 ◼   ► $10,000 simply available and select blah blah blah blah blah and he just like

00:16:17 ◼   ► ate those words like he didn't look down at his shoes and mumble them but he

00:16:21 ◼   ► might as well have like he was not he did not muster up a bunch of fake

00:16:26 ◼   ► enthusiasm saying the Apple audition is really great it's available starting at

00:16:29 ◼   ► $10,000 and it was low key.

00:16:34 ◼   ► There was no slide, there wasn't a lot of time given to it,

00:16:36 ◼   ► he didn't have a lot of enthusiasm for the announcement.

00:16:39 ◼   ► Is that what he was talking about with his heart right now?

00:16:42 ◼   ► I'm sure he's nervous when he does all his presentations,

00:16:44 ◼   ► maybe it's not a natural thing for him,

00:16:46 ◼   ► maybe they're not connected,

00:16:47 ◼   ► but whether they're connected or not,

00:16:49 ◼   ► the way the pricing of the Apple Watch Edition

00:16:51 ◼   ► was dealt with in that presentation,

00:16:54 ◼   ► at the very least shows that Apple thinks

00:16:56 ◼   ► that the audience it was communicating to in that keynote

00:17:01 ◼   ► is not really the same audience

00:17:03 ◼   ► that's going to buy this watch.

00:17:04 ◼   ► The information has to get out there.

00:17:06 ◼   ► It has to be in the press and so on and so forth.

00:17:07 ◼   ► But it's a different set of people.

00:17:11 ◼   ► It's not the tech press that was invited to this thing.

00:17:13 ◼   ► Although I'm sure they invited all the fashion people

00:17:15 ◼   ► and everything as well.

00:17:16 ◼   ► It's just not, I put it in the things,

00:17:18 ◼   ► was Tim Cook embarrassed about the 10K watch?

00:17:20 ◼   ► I don't know if he was embarrassed,

00:17:23 ◼   ► But he definitely didn't seem as excited about

00:17:27 ◼   ► the Apple Watch Edition at its price

00:17:29 ◼   ► as he was about other things.

00:17:30 ◼   ► And I guess what you could do is make a little clip

00:17:32 ◼   ► and say, let's show him saying

00:17:34 ◼   ► the Apple Watch starts at $349.

00:17:37 ◼   ► Does he say that with more or less enthusiasm?

00:17:39 ◼   ► Maybe he always says pricing in a boring way

00:17:40 ◼   ► and that's all he had to say about the edition.

00:17:42 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:17:43 ◼   ► But to me, it seemed like this product

00:17:48 ◼   ► does not sit comfortably in the same

00:17:51 ◼   ► sort of keynote presentation style

00:17:53 ◼   ► that we're accustomed to from Apple.

00:17:55 ◼   ► And that it, as in so many other things,

00:17:57 ◼   ► that it needs some other venue.

00:17:59 ◼   ► And the same way that it's gonna need

00:18:01 ◼   ► some other venue for sales, like select stores,

00:18:04 ◼   ► a special room they go to,

00:18:05 ◼   ► a different kind of treatment

00:18:06 ◼   ► from the people selling you the watch,

00:18:09 ◼   ► like the different box that it comes in.

00:18:11 ◼   ► Like everything about it is different

00:18:14 ◼   ► from other Apple products.

00:18:16 ◼   ► And I don't know, that's, did you guys notice that

00:18:19 ◼   ► when you were watching this presentation?

00:18:20 ◼   ► 'cause it really stood out to me.

00:18:21 ◼   ► Maybe I was primed to look for it, I guess, but.

00:18:24 ◼   ► - I noticed it, but I wouldn't say it was loud,

00:18:28 ◼   ► so to speak, and it's a poor choice of words

00:18:30 ◼   ► in this context, but it wasn't the sort of thing

00:18:33 ◼   ► that knocked me off my chair.

00:18:34 ◼   ► But I did notice he seemed to kind of brush by it quickly.

00:18:38 ◼   ► I don't know, Marco, what did you think?

00:18:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, basically just that, that it very clearly,

00:18:42 ◼   ► it very clearly that he rushed through it.

00:18:46 ◼   ► It was not, I don't think it was necessarily nervousness.

00:18:50 ◼   ► I don't think it was necessarily him not being excited about it.

00:18:53 ◼   ► That's just his style of speaking.

00:18:55 ◼   ► I think he really just rushed through it and that part was intentional, that they did not

00:19:00 ◼   ► want to really spend a lot of time on that.

00:19:05 ◼   ► You could tell, there was a good discussion about this on the talk show last week with

00:19:08 ◼   ► Goober and Matthew Panzareno.

00:19:11 ◼   ► They kind of think that maybe there's some debate inside the company about whether this

00:19:16 ◼   ► should even exist.

00:19:19 ◼   ► it's uncharted territory for the company. I think in order to try to minimize how much

00:19:26 ◼   ► this would alienate their existing customer base or most of their customer base that is

00:19:30 ◼   ► not buying this thing and that can't or at least won't buy it, I think in order to

00:19:38 ◼   ► just minimize the alienation there and minimize the appearance of being this new snobby company,

00:19:43 ◼   ► I think that's why they didn't give a lot of time. So I don't think it necessarily

00:19:46 ◼   ► reflects what Tim thinks about it or whether Tim was nervous about it.

00:19:49 ◼   ► I think it's really just about just making sure that it wasn't distracting from the

00:19:55 ◼   ► other parts of the presentation, like the other prices being pretty reasonable.

00:20:00 ◼   ► That's what he could possibly, in theory, be nervous about, like the idea that the entire

00:20:03 ◼   ► conversation about this product that he's clearly very excited about could get derailed

00:20:07 ◼   ► talking about this one low-volume version of this product.

00:20:10 ◼   ► And that ties into the other sort of vague rumor story narrative, the idea that Johnny

00:20:16 ◼   ► I really likes expensive watches, Mark Neusen really likes expensive watches, and as sort

00:20:22 ◼   ► of a perk to the two of them, or a perk to Johnny essentially, saying "stay with Apple,

00:20:29 ◼   ► make this watch for us, we'll let you make a ridiculously expensive one because we know

00:20:32 ◼   ► you really like that."

00:20:34 ◼   ► And it may seem silly that personal considerations like that, if they're even true, like again

00:20:38 ◼   ► we don't know this is all just rumors right but I'm imagining for a second

00:20:42 ◼   ► that this was the case that Johnny I've really liked expensive watches the idea

00:20:46 ◼   ► that the world's biggest company would do something like have a special low

00:20:51 ◼   ► volume version of its product to satisfy the person designing the product seems

00:20:56 ◼   ► crazy and weird just because it seems like are the whims of this one person

00:21:01 ◼   ► dictating entire product line by Apple but it's not weird like when Steve Jobs

00:21:06 ◼   ► was alive, the whims of an even more mercurial, as they used to say back in the 80s person,

00:21:11 ◼   ► was dictating the whims of the world's biggest company. So that's the way people work, that's

00:21:17 ◼   ► the way people deal with each other. I don't think it's out of the question that, you know,

00:21:22 ◼   ► I haven't listened to that episode of the talk show yet, but like, that there could be an internal

00:21:26 ◼   ► debate about what kind of company does Apple want to be, how is this product different from a $10,000

00:21:32 ◼   ► Mac Pro, well it's different these ways and that way, you know, like we talked about all

00:21:36 ◼   ► these things before, right?

00:21:37 ◼   ► I can imagine that same conversation going on inside the company and I can also imagine

00:21:42 ◼   ► ending up in the current situation where they make a $10,000 gold watch because one faction

00:21:48 ◼   ► of the company really likes $10,000 gold watches.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:52 ◼   ► I mean, Johnny is worth keeping around, so if anyone could pull it off, it'd be him,

00:21:58 ◼   ► but it's weird.

00:21:59 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think it's like just to satisfy him but like, you know, this it's a if there is a multiple factions and inside the company

00:22:06 ◼   ► among the decision-makers

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's reasonable to think that

00:22:11 ◼   ► That you know the side that one could include a very important person like Johnny I've was into that

00:22:17 ◼   ► Maybe that's what it took to get Mark Newsom to come to the company and Johnny really wanted Mark to come like anyway

00:22:21 ◼   ► You can make up all sorts of stories about this

00:22:22 ◼   ► But like it is I think it's notable in that I can't remember the last time

00:22:28 ◼   ► unless unless a product is something like a

00:22:30 ◼   ► compromise or

00:22:33 ◼   ► Sort of a boring product or not interesting thing

00:22:36 ◼   ► Then they gloss over it or maybe it doesn't even make it to the keynote like the new Mac Pro

00:22:41 ◼   ► That wasn't really new and stuff like that. Yeah that expect right and everything's not but this is like

00:22:44 ◼   ► the top of the top of the line fanciest

00:22:48 ◼   ► Version of the product that Apple is just super excited about right and so it's weird for this one to be like

00:22:54 ◼   ► Oh, and by the way, this is the watch edition is for rich people. It's $10,000. Never mind, right?

00:22:58 ◼   ► - Right, that was weird.

00:22:59 ◼   ► - I mean, I think it just shows how much the edition

00:23:04 ◼   ► really is, I think, an experiment from Apple.

00:23:07 ◼   ► You know, I don't think when they initially

00:23:09 ◼   ► conceive the watch that they're like,

00:23:11 ◼   ► all right, we're gonna have three versions,

00:23:12 ◼   ► you know, cheap, normal, and gold.

00:23:15 ◼   ► Like, I don't think it went like that.

00:23:16 ◼   ► - Well, I think, I mean, as Monk Benton the chapter

00:23:19 ◼   ► was pointing out, like, when we were talking

00:23:20 ◼   ► about the watch, if they decide to make a watch,

00:23:22 ◼   ► they have to have the conversation about

00:23:24 ◼   ► how is this different than everything else we made?

00:23:26 ◼   ► How do our products change once we ask people to wear them?

00:23:29 ◼   ► And no, putting an iPod shuffler on your neck doesn't count, right?

00:23:32 ◼   ► How does it change?

00:23:34 ◼   ► We have to address it differently.

00:23:35 ◼   ► And if you're going to make a watch and we're not going to sell $10 plastic watches, we're

00:23:40 ◼   ► going to sell mid-range watches, and like I said, watches go up to this high end, why

00:23:46 ◼   ► would we not make a watch like that?

00:23:49 ◼   ► And then it gets into like, "Well, it's the same as the other watch, you're just making

00:23:51 ◼   ► out of fancy materials."

00:23:52 ◼   ► Like, yes, that's something people do with watches.

00:23:55 ◼   ► because people want gold there. Why do they want gold things? Why is the gold?

00:23:57 ◼   ► Why do we get to do a 500% markup? It's like it's just it's just the way it

00:24:01 ◼   ► works. Yeah and that's the thing like you know as it like I wrote in my blog post

00:24:05 ◼   ► right before the event thinking that it would be cheaper but oh well I wrote in

00:24:09 ◼   ► that that you know the point of of Apple watch is to get people to wear it first

00:24:14 ◼   ► and then do all this other stuff like it's if you can't get people to wear it

00:24:18 ◼   ► then all the other work you do is pointless and there are certain people

00:24:22 ◼   ► who the only kind of watch they're gonna be seen wearing

00:24:24 ◼   ► is something that's expensive and made of gold, you know?

00:24:27 ◼   ► And that's for various reasons that are, you know,

00:24:29 ◼   ► we can disagree with them or not think the same way,

00:24:31 ◼   ► but people have those reasons.

00:24:33 ◼   ► So if they want people like celebrities

00:24:37 ◼   ► and really rich people who like fancy jewelry,

00:24:39 ◼   ► like if they want them to wear an Apple Watch at all,

00:24:42 ◼   ► they have to make a gold one, you know?

00:24:44 ◼   ► Like there's, and certainly there's some of it, you know,

00:24:46 ◼   ► being this, you know, this very profitable fashion world

00:24:50 ◼   ► kind of thing and being prestigious,

00:24:52 ◼   ► but I think most of it is just the goal of,

00:24:57 ◼   ► we need to make something that nobody can look at and say,

00:25:01 ◼   ► well, that's too dorky to wear.

00:25:02 ◼   ► That's not good enough for me to wear.

00:25:04 ◼   ► - And if Apple's gonna do this, which they clearly are,

00:25:08 ◼   ► I think they made the right call.

00:25:09 ◼   ► I think this is not a boondoggle for Johnny Ive.

00:25:11 ◼   ► I think more or less he was right,

00:25:12 ◼   ► but I think the company has to now become comfortable

00:25:15 ◼   ► with the idea that this is the type of thing they sell.

00:25:18 ◼   ► you wouldn't see Rolex mumbling over the pricing

00:25:21 ◼   ► of a fancy watch, right?

00:25:21 ◼   ► - No, they just don't tell you.

00:25:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, the horse power is adequate, right?

00:25:26 ◼   ► Either way, however you handle it,

00:25:28 ◼   ► either you don't mention the price,

00:25:30 ◼   ► if you have to ask, you can't afford it,

00:25:31 ◼   ► like whatever, Apple needs to figure out

00:25:33 ◼   ► how do you present products like this,

00:25:36 ◼   ► because they are making a product like this,

00:25:37 ◼   ► and it's probably a good call for them

00:25:39 ◼   ► to make a product like this,

00:25:40 ◼   ► they just have to figure out as a company

00:25:41 ◼   ► how do you present it,

00:25:42 ◼   ► because I think you have to present it differently

00:25:44 ◼   ► than the new MacBook,

00:25:45 ◼   ► or a traditional technology product.

00:25:49 ◼   ► - And speaking of the addition,

00:25:50 ◼   ► there was an omission during the keynote,

00:25:53 ◼   ► not an awkward flyby, but a straight up omission.

00:25:57 ◼   ► And that was the video about gold.

00:26:00 ◼   ► We saw a video about aluminum.

00:26:02 ◼   ► We saw a video about steel,

00:26:04 ◼   ► but we didn't see a video about gold.

00:26:07 ◼   ► But apparently such a video exists.

00:26:09 ◼   ► They just didn't play it during the keynote.

00:26:10 ◼   ► So that strikes me as slightly odd,

00:26:13 ◼   ► Although since most of the audience of that presentation is,

00:26:18 ◼   ► both in person and in general,

00:26:20 ◼   ► is probably not going to be buying an edition,

00:26:23 ◼   ► it's not terribly remarkable to me

00:26:25 ◼   ► that they didn't show that video during the presentation,

00:26:27 ◼   ► but I don't know.

00:26:29 ◼   ► - Can you imagine if they did,

00:26:30 ◼   ► so if they did show that video,

00:26:32 ◼   ► it could've just been cut for time or whatever,

00:26:33 ◼   ► but imagine they did show it.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I can imagine, given the population of that room,

00:26:36 ◼   ► despite the fact that I'm sure Apple invited people

00:26:38 ◼   ► from Vogue and all these other fashion magazines

00:26:40 ◼   ► that I don't know the names of,

00:26:41 ◼   ► I'm sure they were in the audience too,

00:26:42 ◼   ► But we know that a lot of the audience are technology,

00:26:46 ◼   ► you know, media, right?

00:26:48 ◼   ► I can imagine a little bit of weird, uncomfortable

00:26:51 ◼   ► tittering from the audience when this gold thing is playing.

00:26:54 ◼   ► 'Cause for the same reason that the nerd tech press

00:26:56 ◼   ► is kind of like totally willing to see like

00:26:58 ◼   ► CNC milling machines grinding weight aluminum

00:27:01 ◼   ► and ooh and aah-ing over asymmetrical fan blades

00:27:03 ◼   ► and stuff like that, that's what the tech press likes.

00:27:07 ◼   ► Once you start showing gold, I think they feel like

00:27:09 ◼   ► they're going out of their comfort zone.

00:27:11 ◼   ► and you know, with Johnny Ive talking in flowery terms

00:27:14 ◼   ► about the gold they have and how it's a beautiful metal

00:27:17 ◼   ► and blah, blah, blah.

00:27:18 ◼   ► Like it feels uncomfortable because you're like,

00:27:21 ◼   ► this is not engineering, this is not technology,

00:27:23 ◼   ► this is merely a fashion, right?

00:27:25 ◼   ► And it just, I don't think it,

00:27:28 ◼   ► I think it would have been fine probably,

00:27:29 ◼   ► but I can imagine if I was there in person,

00:27:31 ◼   ► you wouldn't have heard it on the slides,

00:27:32 ◼   ► but if you were there in person,

00:27:33 ◼   ► a couple of weird tisk tisks,

00:27:36 ◼   ► or at the very least the media deciding

00:27:39 ◼   ► that that's the time they're gonna check their Twitter,

00:27:40 ◼   ► right, when the gold video comes up?

00:27:43 ◼   ► - No, I just think, I think it's very simple.

00:27:45 ◼   ► I think it's that they, you know,

00:27:46 ◼   ► they wanted to not spend a lot of time on the gold pricing,

00:27:50 ◼   ► and so they just blew right by the whole gold section

00:27:53 ◼   ► of the presentation.

00:27:54 ◼   ► I don't think it's any more complicated than that.

00:27:55 ◼   ► It was, it wasn't worth the time.

00:27:57 ◼   ► They didn't want people to be focused on that.

00:27:59 ◼   ► They wanted people to be focused on the other stuff.

00:28:01 ◼   ► - I know, but I think that's a problem for the company,

00:28:03 ◼   ► like that they have to figure out,

00:28:05 ◼   ► they have to get comfortable themselves and decide,

00:28:08 ◼   ► I mean, we just have one data point now, so you don't know,

00:28:10 ◼   ► but they have to figure out how do we deal with this?

00:28:13 ◼   ► How do we deal with the vast gulf

00:28:15 ◼   ► between these product lines?

00:28:18 ◼   ► 'Cause they make future products like this,

00:28:19 ◼   ► like the Apple, you know, Monocle, the Apple Ring,

00:28:22 ◼   ► like whatever the heck they're gonna do

00:28:23 ◼   ► with wearable tech in the future,

00:28:24 ◼   ► they have to figure it out.

00:28:26 ◼   ► They have to just sort of come up with a policy

00:28:28 ◼   ► and then until it comes routine,

00:28:30 ◼   ► and we sort of expect that they either are,

00:28:33 ◼   ► aren't going to talk about the super expensive one,

00:28:35 ◼   ► or when they do it, they're gonna do it in this way,

00:28:37 ◼   ► or they are, aren't gonna mention the price

00:28:39 ◼   ► and all that business.

00:28:40 ◼   ► - Well, the good thing is our first sponsor this week

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00:30:25 ◼   ► You know, it's a piece of glass printed edge to edge

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00:30:42 ◼   ► They're very lightweight.

00:30:43 ◼   ► It is, in my opinion, it is the most practical way

00:30:46 ◼   ► to get a photo big or small printed

00:30:48 ◼   ► and hung up somewhere on the wall or put in your desk.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Really, really great.

00:30:52 ◼   ► I love fractures.

00:30:53 ◼   ► I have six of them within view right now

00:30:56 ◼   ► and I'm looking into a corner so that's pretty good.

00:30:59 ◼   ► So six of them within view and all different sizes

00:31:02 ◼   ► and yeah, just love them.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Go to fractureme.com, use coupon code ATP15,

00:31:07 ◼   ► get your photos printed directly,

00:31:09 ◼   ► in vivid color directly on glass.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to Fracture for sponsoring our show once again.

00:31:15 ◼   ► - So we have approximately six hours of MacBook follow-up.

00:31:20 ◼   ► - Oh my God.

00:31:21 ◼   ► - I don't think it's that bad.

00:31:23 ◼   ► We talked about most of these things,

00:31:24 ◼   ► just filling in little gaps.

00:31:25 ◼   ► 'Cause we spent a long time last show

00:31:28 ◼   ► talking about the new MacBook's limitations

00:31:30 ◼   ► and pros and cons and blah, blah, blah.

00:31:32 ◼   ► And here are the things that we didn't get to or that have had new bits of information

00:31:36 ◼   ► about.

00:31:37 ◼   ► The first one is about the flash in the new MacBook.

00:31:40 ◼   ► Apparently it's really, really fast, which is nice.

00:31:43 ◼   ► I linked to the bare feet benchmarking showing that if you get the new MacBook, the flash

00:31:50 ◼   ► storage is actually faster than the big black tube Mac Pro's flash storage, which is a hell

00:31:56 ◼   ► of a bargain when you consider the price of the big Mac Pro.

00:31:59 ◼   ► Yeah, I believe, I think they made PCI Express faster on this chipset.

00:32:04 ◼   ► I think that's one of the sources of this gain.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Yeah, and maybe different flash chips or whatever.

00:32:10 ◼   ► Technology marches on, flash is a relatively young technology, but we're in a weird situation

00:32:14 ◼   ► now where actually if you get this pretty much bottom of the line, close to bottom of

00:32:20 ◼   ► the line Apple notebook, you will get really fast flash storage, which is nice and hopefully

00:32:24 ◼   ► bodes well for future big tube Mac Pros and other products.

00:32:28 ◼   ► Yeah, I would expect as everything gets the updated chipsets, you know over the over the coming year

00:32:33 ◼   ► I would expect them to all have the same the same things basically no word yet on trim support or whether we need that anymore

00:32:39 ◼   ► Whether it's handled by the firmware or some cooperation with the OS like people are always asking about that

00:32:43 ◼   ► But I got the what is it Samsung 850 Pro SSD. I have not done the crazy hack to enable trim support

00:32:50 ◼   ► I'm just gonna say like, you know, you just handle it

00:32:52 ◼   ► I know there's nothing

00:32:54 ◼   ► magical that the firmware and the thing can do to make up for the fact that the OS is not telling the hardware which blocks

00:32:59 ◼   ► are unused but I

00:33:01 ◼   ► Don't know. I mean I'm trying to keep a reasonable amount of space free on it

00:33:04 ◼   ► I haven't probably filled all the space with real or deleted files yet if the performance drops off a cliff on my SSD

00:33:11 ◼   ► I'll be sure to let you guys know but so far

00:33:13 ◼   ► I'm doing okay, and I just hope I I don't I don't want to have to think about that

00:33:17 ◼   ► And I also don't want to be in any unsupported configurations

00:33:19 ◼   ► but I know a lot of people do do the hacks to enable trim support and they seem okay with it too, so

00:33:24 ◼   ► You know do whatever you got to do, but so far so good, and I'm just happy to see storage getting faster

00:33:30 ◼   ► Because you know although SSD once you go all SSD, then you're just like okay, how much faster can flash go?

00:33:36 ◼   ► Why is it so slow?

00:33:38 ◼   ► Maybe it's just me. Yeah, just you all right. You know if you got a more modern computer

00:33:43 ◼   ► You'd have faster buses and everything and I know I was thinking about that the other day

00:33:48 ◼   ► it's like boy seven years we're seven year old I'm using a seven year old computer can I make it to using a

00:33:53 ◼   ► Ten year old computer like I mean at this point you might as well try if you're this close

00:33:58 ◼   ► Now I'm gonna buy the first one that comes that you know fulfills my requirements. It never will. Yeah good

00:34:05 ◼   ► Don't hold your breath. So you'll definitely reach ten years as long as this still works

00:34:09 ◼   ► I was the current Mac Pro. I would have gotten it if it was like half the price

00:34:14 ◼   ► Here's a question if something critical died on your current one today. What would you buy to replace it?

00:34:19 ◼   ► I would probably be forced to get the iMac that you have that must be excruciating for you

00:34:24 ◼   ► It would I would not like it because it would be like I know this is just a

00:34:29 ◼   ► Stepping stone machine and you know the graphics the whole graphics performance and the overheating and whatever like I love the screen and everything

00:34:38 ◼   ► But I'd be just like a waystation on my way to

00:34:41 ◼   ► Getting something better later. I don't know. I'm hanging there. It's hanging in there by the way, whatever it's worth a graphics performance

00:34:48 ◼   ► I don't I don't know how it compares by gaming standards, but I have not had any heating problems

00:34:52 ◼   ► Yeah, you're not playing games on this is all just about game benchmarks. That's fair

00:34:56 ◼   ► But I mean like when Tuf was playing I mean, I think we were only playing portal 2

00:34:59 ◼   ► So it wasn't really stressing it that much but it was like a seven year old game

00:35:03 ◼   ► I think yeah

00:35:04 ◼   ► But when when playing portal 2 it the fan did spin up to what I would what I would consider medium speed

00:35:10 ◼   ► And it sustained at that level and it was never really a problem. It was never obnoxiously loud

00:35:15 ◼   ► It was audible, but it was not obnoxiously loud nor did it ever overheat or seem to like throttle itself in any noticeable way

00:35:21 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know if you've noticed it in a game like that because that that GP you would just eat portal to for lunch

00:35:26 ◼   ► like you're just it's I don't think it's a problem, but I

00:35:30 ◼   ► Want I want that little tube. I want it to be quiet like the little tube

00:35:35 ◼   ► I want it to be powerful like the tube

00:35:37 ◼   ► I just wanted to not cost a whole jillion dollars and I could give up one of the GPUs probably

00:35:41 ◼   ► And that's the problem that I don't think they will ever ship that machine. I know I know well anyway

00:35:46 ◼   ► I'm I'm just waiting patiently to see

00:35:48 ◼   ► To see what I can see I mean who knows like maybe the next 5k. I'm like

00:35:52 ◼   ► They resolve some of the they put a different GPU in there or pick a different vendor like they're always changing something

00:35:58 ◼   ► So I'm you know I'm in the meantime my SSD is really extended the life of this computer

00:36:04 ◼   ► Feels much snappier than it used to so I'm okay for now as long as nothing breaks

00:36:09 ◼   ► What's the next one the next one is about we've talked about the

00:36:15 ◼   ► Keyboard having a symmetrical rectangular outline because Johnny I've doesn't want to bump out the keys

00:36:23 ◼   ► Bump out the the outline for the arrow keys to have an inverted T with full-size keys in there

00:36:27 ◼   ► We have follow-up on this. Yeah

00:36:29 ◼   ► Well, you know

00:36:30 ◼   ► I talked about it on the show and I said,

00:36:32 ◼   ► "But look at the keyboard, you notice something on there

00:36:34 ◼   ► that is a step in the right direction

00:36:37 ◼   ► for Johnny Ive accepting asymmetry."

00:36:39 ◼   ► And I acknowledge that there's always

00:36:40 ◼   ► asymmetrical stuff on keyboards,

00:36:42 ◼   ► but in this model in particular,

00:36:44 ◼   ► because the trackpad is jammed right up against the space bar

00:36:47 ◼   ► and because the left edge of the space bar

00:36:48 ◼   ► is aligned with the left edge of the trackpad,

00:36:51 ◼   ► it really emphasized the fact that the track,

00:36:52 ◼   ► that the space bar is not centered on this keyboard.

00:36:56 ◼   ► And then I had to deal with, you know,

00:36:57 ◼   ► a week and a half of people telling me

00:36:58 ◼   ► the space bar is never centered on the keyboards.

00:37:01 ◼   ► Yes, I know it's never centered,

00:37:03 ◼   ► but because there's always like a buffer,

00:37:05 ◼   ► there had been historically a buffer

00:37:07 ◼   ► between the track pad and the space bar.

00:37:09 ◼   ► It wasn't just in your face so much,

00:37:11 ◼   ► but on this particular model,

00:37:12 ◼   ► because they're just touched right up against each other

00:37:15 ◼   ► and because the left edges are aligned,

00:37:17 ◼   ► it really emphasizes the fact

00:37:18 ◼   ► that the right edge is not aligned.

00:37:20 ◼   ► And someone tweeted at me, who is this?

00:37:22 ◼   ► Shane Bonham tweeted,

00:37:25 ◼   ► "How hard do you think it was to talk Johnny Ive out of this

00:37:27 ◼   ► and he shows a picture that he mocked up of a new MacBook with a perfectly aligned spacebar

00:37:34 ◼   ► that is exactly the width of the trackpad. And how did he do this? By making half-size

00:37:39 ◼   ► left and right arrow keys. So you got half-size up and down arrow keys and then flanking it half-size

00:37:46 ◼   ► left and right arrow keys. And it does surprisingly fit and it's hideous and I would hate it. And I

00:37:52 ◼   ► hope Jonny I've never seized that because it's going to give him ideas. Why do you think this is

00:37:56 ◼   ► - This is so bad, I think it looks good.

00:37:58 ◼   ► - I hate trying to, I use the inverted T arrow keys

00:38:03 ◼   ► with three fingers, middle finger is up down,

00:38:05 ◼   ► pointer finger is left, ring finger is right.

00:38:08 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:38:09 ◼   ► - I want full-size keys for those things to go on.

00:38:12 ◼   ► I hate having up and down be the half-size keys

00:38:14 ◼   ► 'cause I find myself accidentally hitting one or the other

00:38:18 ◼   ► or like trying to grope around to find the right key.

00:38:21 ◼   ► Making the left and right also half-size

00:38:23 ◼   ► is just squishing my three fingers together

00:38:25 ◼   ► until all three of them feel like they're trying

00:38:27 ◼   ► to press the same key cap on different,

00:38:29 ◼   ► press the lower left corner of the key cap,

00:38:31 ◼   ► press the right, no, full-size keys.

00:38:34 ◼   ► And again, on a tiny laptop like this,

00:38:36 ◼   ► I kind of understand, whatever.

00:38:37 ◼   ► I'm just talking about like the 15 inch,

00:38:39 ◼   ► back when they had the 17 inch,

00:38:40 ◼   ► the fact that they had a little tiny keyboard in there

00:38:42 ◼   ► was ridiculous.

00:38:43 ◼   ► Anyway, I would not like these arrow keys.

00:38:45 ◼   ► I don't like laptop keyboards at all.

00:38:47 ◼   ► But boy, if he sees this, man,

00:38:50 ◼   ► look how beautiful it is with the space bar,

00:38:52 ◼   ► exactly the same width as the track pad.

00:38:53 ◼   ► - You don't even buy laptops.

00:38:55 ◼   ► I know, I don't think Johnny Ive used laptops.

00:38:58 ◼   ► I think he just likes how the keyboards look.

00:39:00 ◼   ► It's a perfectly rectangular outline for the laptop.

00:39:03 ◼   ► - I think going back for a second,

00:39:04 ◼   ► I think if anything expresses the weirdness of Johnny Ive,

00:39:07 ◼   ► I think it's the addition watch with the white sport band.

00:39:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it doesn't,

00:39:13 ◼   ► it's how he dresses looks a lot like that watch.

00:39:16 ◼   ► Like when he dresses up,

00:39:18 ◼   ► I don't know anything about fashion again,

00:39:21 ◼   ► but sort of light colored pants

00:39:22 ◼   ► and just think of like a Bentley

00:39:25 ◼   ► with the white leather interior.

00:39:26 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the kind of Bentley he has.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Anyway, no accounting for taste as they say.

00:39:31 ◼   ► - Tell us about Marcus Brownlee and his prediction.

00:39:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot of people pointed this out.

00:39:37 ◼   ► We've talked about MKBHD before, that's his Twitter handle.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Marcus Brownlee, apparently a very popular YouTube person

00:39:44 ◼   ► that we don't know about

00:39:45 ◼   ► because we are all old, including you.

00:39:47 ◼   ► - That makes me feel so bad.

00:39:49 ◼   ► The one time when he had the supposedly Sapphire cover glass, and we were like, "This guy on

00:39:54 ◼   ► YouTube," and none of us knew who he was.

00:39:57 ◼   ► Meanwhile, he's like frickin' massive in YouTube.

00:40:01 ◼   ► He was invited to the Apple event.

00:40:02 ◼   ► He was like, he has an audience bigger than pretty much everybody we know in this space

00:40:08 ◼   ► combined.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Like, he is like the biggest guy in tech, and none of us know who he is.

00:40:14 ◼   ► That's only because your kids aren't old enough.

00:40:15 ◼   ► Once your kids get old enough, you will very quickly come to accept that you don't know

00:40:19 ◼   ► anybody and all, you know, you're there, you just don't know it yet.

00:40:23 ◼   ► Once your kids start telling you that you don't know who anybody is or start talking

00:40:26 ◼   ► about famous people and you don't recognize any of the names, that's when it really comes

00:40:29 ◼   ► home.

00:40:30 ◼   ► So you'll get, you'll both get there.

00:40:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, but like usually like, you know, it's okay for me to not know somebody who is a

00:40:35 ◼   ► really big deal like in music or TV or something.

00:40:38 ◼   ► To not know somebody who's a really big deal in my own industry.

00:40:42 ◼   ► - That's right.

00:40:43 ◼   ► I mean, for me, it was, you know, stuff about gaming, right?

00:40:45 ◼   ► I subscribe to game magazines, I read gaming news sites and stuff like that, but I do not

00:40:49 ◼   ► watch a lot of gaming YouTube channels and they are humongous and I don't know who any

00:40:54 ◼   ► of those people are.

00:40:56 ◼   ► And I'm fine with it by the way, because I just am.

00:41:00 ◼   ► But yeah, no, I mean, I've watched some of his videos, he does a great job.

00:41:04 ◼   ► I would have eaten that up if I was a kid and this YouTube existed and these channels

00:41:08 ◼   ► exist, I would have been over the moon because I was trying to illegally get copies of Mac

00:41:12 ◼   ► Week, that's what I was doing.

00:41:13 ◼   ► These guys got HD video of a guy stabbing a potential iPhone thing with a knife.

00:41:19 ◼   ► It's awesome.

00:41:20 ◼   ► Anyway, he is getting bold.

00:41:23 ◼   ► You know, these youths, they're brash predictions.

00:41:26 ◼   ► We're going to put a link to this in the show notes.

00:41:29 ◼   ► They have three minutes and 14 seconds in this video.

00:41:31 ◼   ► Here is a quote from Marques Brownlee.

00:41:33 ◼   ► I can pretty much guarantee the second generation of this thin and light new MacBook will have

00:41:38 ◼   ► more than one USB port.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Quote me.

00:41:41 ◼   ► Well, I quoted him.

00:41:42 ◼   ► That's exactly what he said.

00:41:43 ◼   ► He says, "Pretty much guarantee the pretty much hedges a little bit."

00:41:48 ◼   ► But then he says, "Quote me."

00:41:49 ◼   ► "Alright, we're quoting you.

00:41:50 ◼   ► You can pretty much guarantee that the next one's gonna have two."

00:41:54 ◼   ► I hope it does.

00:41:55 ◼   ► As has been stated at length, I really hope it does.

00:41:58 ◼   ► But this is interesting to see a popular person.

00:42:02 ◼   ► I think he thinks there's gonna be another one, assuming he has no inside info, which

00:42:04 ◼   ► I have no way of knowing.

00:42:05 ◼   ► But if he doesn't have any inside info, he's just saying, at least, you know, he's saying

00:42:09 ◼   ► what we're all thinking.

00:42:10 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, duh.

00:42:11 ◼   ► one will obviously have a second port, like it's crazy to have one port, right guys?

00:42:17 ◼   ► Right?

00:42:18 ◼   ► Like come on, you know?

00:42:19 ◼   ► That could be what he's thinking.

00:42:21 ◼   ► That could show either wisdom of knowing his history about the original MacBook Air that

00:42:27 ◼   ► had one and eventually came out with two, or not knowing exactly how stubborn Apple

00:42:33 ◼   ► can be.

00:42:34 ◼   ► I think we'll get to Apple's stubbornness a little bit later in a somewhat related topic.

00:42:38 ◼   ► But I just wanted to put that out there so that we can all hold him to his prediction.

00:42:43 ◼   ► Yes, all of us who are approximately 25 times less than his own audience.

00:42:48 ◼   ► Oh, even much less.

00:42:49 ◼   ► We're all old people and he won't even know that we're talking about him and that's fine.

00:42:53 ◼   ► But amongst ourselves, in our knitting circle, in our book club, in our little technology

00:42:56 ◼   ► nerd thing, we will talk amongst ourselves about these youngsters.

00:43:01 ◼   ► I mean, I think, I know we're going to talk endlessly about the support, but I would bet

00:43:06 ◼   ► he's wrong about this.

00:43:08 ◼   ► I would bet that this doesn't pan out that way that,

00:43:10 ◼   ► oh no, you're making, you're doing,

00:43:12 ◼   ► you shouldn't have said that.

00:43:13 ◼   ► - Why?

00:43:14 ◼   ► - Because you're always wrong about everything.

00:43:15 ◼   ► You just went through back when you said

00:43:17 ◼   ► I thought the Apple Watch traditional was gonna be cheap.

00:43:18 ◼   ► That's your thing.

00:43:19 ◼   ► Every time you do predictions on your blog,

00:43:21 ◼   ► you're like, keep in mind that my track record

00:43:23 ◼   ► of predicting Apple things is terrible.

00:43:24 ◼   ► And that's the one thing you're right about.

00:43:25 ◼   ► Your track record is not good.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And so now that you've said that, now I'm doubting.

00:43:29 ◼   ► Now I'm like, oh, damn it.

00:43:31 ◼   ► I agree with you.

00:43:31 ◼   ► And now I think I must be wrong

00:43:33 ◼   ► 'cause I agree with Marco about a prediction on Apple.

00:43:36 ◼   ► - All right, before we take this any further,

00:43:37 ◼   ► Let's go ahead and thank another sponsor and then we can go in the one versus many port black hole

00:43:43 ◼   ► Oh my god, this is gonna be all follow-up, isn't it? Told you there's we we got to put a time cap on follow-up

00:43:49 ◼   ► We'll get to Nintendo even if we have to do it in the after show. It'll be fine

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00:45:54 ◼   ► - All right, so let's go into the black hole, Jon.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:45:58 ◼   ► - Why don't you tell us about the ports again?

00:46:00 ◼   ► - So this is from Dave W.

00:46:02 ◼   ► he's getting down to the sort of philosophical reasoning

00:46:07 ◼   ► for why there's, you know,

00:46:10 ◼   ► what do I get with one point instead of two?

00:46:13 ◼   ► Why is there one point instead of two, so on and so forth.

00:46:15 ◼   ► Thus far, I've still not seen any credible practical support

00:46:20 ◼   ► for the idea that there is one instead of two.

00:46:26 ◼   ► Just lots of plausible theories.

00:46:27 ◼   ► When, you know, lots of people like,

00:46:29 ◼   ► "What if blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?"

00:46:31 ◼   ► Like, yeah, sure, I can play what if all day,

00:46:34 ◼   ► but if the what if isn't true, then we don't know.

00:46:39 ◼   ► So even though there's a bunch of potentially plausible

00:46:42 ◼   ► reasons, like we went over them before PCI Express

00:46:45 ◼   ► Lanes power concerns, blah, blah, blah,

00:46:46 ◼   ► you gotta quantify them.

00:46:47 ◼   ► You gotta know that they're actually true,

00:46:49 ◼   ► that you're just not saying this is theory,

00:46:50 ◼   ► this could be true, and then you have to quantify them,

00:46:52 ◼   ► because if you quantify them, then you can say,

00:46:54 ◼   ► oh, well, it would take more power,

00:46:56 ◼   ► but it would take .00001 more watts of power.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Then I don't care, then it's not a good reason, right?

00:47:01 ◼   ► but if it would take double the power, then I do care.

00:47:03 ◼   ► So you have to quantify.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Anyway, this reason gets more philosophical.

00:47:08 ◼   ► Dave W says, "I can think of two reasons.

00:47:10 ◼   ► "Neither are about making this MacBook better."

00:47:13 ◼   ► They're kind of both the same reason,

00:47:14 ◼   ► but I'll give them the two.

00:47:16 ◼   ► One, Apple can use customer reaction as a signal

00:47:18 ◼   ► on whether it's safe to reduce the number of ports

00:47:20 ◼   ► on the rest of their laptops.

00:47:21 ◼   ► So this is sort of like, let's try it with one

00:47:24 ◼   ► and see what the reaction is.

00:47:26 ◼   ► It's a trial balloon.

00:47:28 ◼   ► If it goes over like a lead balloon,

00:47:30 ◼   ► then Marcus Brownlee will be right,

00:47:33 ◼   ► and the next one will have two ports,

00:47:34 ◼   ► and you know, lesson learned, right?

00:47:36 ◼   ► And number two, related,

00:47:39 ◼   ► those who adjust first to having only one port

00:47:42 ◼   ► effectively carve a path that makes it easier

00:47:43 ◼   ► for the rest of us to follow.

00:47:45 ◼   ► There's a lot of things about the carving the path,

00:47:47 ◼   ► it's like you get used to it,

00:47:49 ◼   ► you get acclimated to it on a small thing,

00:47:51 ◼   ► that the industry of adapters and everything

00:47:53 ◼   ► can be built up around that,

00:47:54 ◼   ► so then it's safer to go to the other models,

00:47:56 ◼   ► the idea that it's a transition point

00:47:57 ◼   ► try to go to zero ports or go to one port everywhere.

00:48:02 ◼   ► All of this sort of accepts as a premise that one port is the way to go and then just explains

00:48:08 ◼   ► how Apple would be using this as a strategy to get to one port.

00:48:12 ◼   ► I don't think it answers the essential question from a consumer's perspective of like, "What

00:48:17 ◼   ► am I getting with one that I wouldn't be getting with two?"

00:48:20 ◼   ► So that is still an open question.

00:48:22 ◼   ► I will re-emphasize that does not mean I think there is not an answer.

00:48:25 ◼   ► I think there very well could be an answer, but the answer would have to be something

00:48:31 ◼   ► in the form of "here is a technical reason" or whatever, that this couldn't be done.

00:48:35 ◼   ► Not just "there could be a technical reason like this!"

00:48:38 ◼   ► Yeah, there could be, but we're not, you know what I mean?

00:48:42 ◼   ► It's not interesting to me to hear people speculate about how much power they think

00:48:46 ◼   ► it would have taken to add a second port if they have no idea how much power it would

00:48:49 ◼   ► have added to take a second port, if any.

00:48:52 ◼   ► So we may never know.

00:48:55 ◼   ► We'll have to wait till the next version of this thing comes out.

00:48:57 ◼   ► If it still has one port, it shows

00:48:59 ◼   ► that it didn't matter enough for Apple

00:49:02 ◼   ► to care that it only had one.

00:49:03 ◼   ► And related to that--

00:49:08 ◼   ► I've got to have a whole section about this down there.

00:49:10 ◼   ► I didn't realize how long this goes.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Sorry, guys.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Related to the idea--

00:49:17 ◼   ► So I'll see you next week.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:49:18 ◼   ► Related to the idea that the case design dictates this,

00:49:22 ◼   ► that they really wanted to have this case.

00:49:23 ◼   ► Casey came up with this, fittingly based on his name,

00:49:26 ◼   ► that they really wanted to have this case.

00:49:29 ◼   ► Have you ever had that particular pun

00:49:33 ◼   ► based on your name in your life?

00:49:34 ◼   ► - What, caseless?

00:49:35 ◼   ► - About a computer case?

00:49:38 ◼   ► - No, there's a first time for everything.

00:49:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, people who have names

00:49:41 ◼   ► and get teased about them, it's like,

00:49:42 ◼   ► oh, it's the first time I've heard that one.

00:49:44 ◼   ► Well, you've gone through 30-something years of life

00:49:47 ◼   ► and no one has ever compared your first name

00:49:49 ◼   ► to a computer case until now.

00:49:51 ◼   ► - Yep, that's true.

00:49:52 ◼   ► This is what I say every single time somebody says Marco Polo.

00:49:55 ◼   ► - Yeah, I see Marco has heard that one before.

00:49:57 ◼   ► I'll have to think of some novel way

00:49:58 ◼   ► to compare Marco's name to something, but not today.

00:50:02 ◼   ► - Damn.

00:50:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, so Casey's thing was they just wanted this case.

00:50:07 ◼   ► And then I started considering the notion,

00:50:10 ◼   ► is that the way that anyone would design anything,

00:50:12 ◼   ► that you just come up with the case and you just say,

00:50:14 ◼   ► okay, now you just, whatever you can fit inside that,

00:50:16 ◼   ► go for it?

00:50:17 ◼   ► We've got a lot of armchair speculation about that

00:50:20 ◼   ► from listeners and from us on the show saying,

00:50:24 ◼   ► I was saying that regardless of whether this is

00:50:25 ◼   ► how Apple designs things, it's a bad way to design things

00:50:28 ◼   ► 'cause it doesn't make any sense to me.

00:50:29 ◼   ► And realistically speaking, it's an impossible way

00:50:32 ◼   ► to design things because why isn't the MacBook

00:50:36 ◼   ► as thin as a piece of paper?

00:50:37 ◼   ► Well, that's the case I wanna have.

00:50:39 ◼   ► There are practical considerations

00:50:41 ◼   ► that the people designing the case know.

00:50:42 ◼   ► They know it can't be as thin as a piece of paper

00:50:44 ◼   ► because they know at minimum there's some certain thickness

00:50:46 ◼   ► for the CPU.

00:50:47 ◼   ► You can't make the CPU the thickness

00:50:49 ◼   ► of a sheet of paper right now.

00:50:50 ◼   ► They know that, and they're not engineers,

00:50:53 ◼   ► but they know, everyone knows, like, okay,

00:50:54 ◼   ► there's going to be a CPU in this.

00:50:56 ◼   ► The CPU can't be a thickness of a piece of paper,

00:50:58 ◼   ► so I'm not gonna say this is the case.

00:51:01 ◼   ► The case is always defined by what's inside it,

00:51:03 ◼   ► because the people designing it know the limitations,

00:51:06 ◼   ► roughly, of the stuff that's inside it.

00:51:08 ◼   ► But you can say, yeah, within the bounds of that,

00:51:10 ◼   ► they just assign it the outside,

00:51:11 ◼   ► and then the inside comes after.

00:51:13 ◼   ► Well, I don't think we need to speculate

00:51:15 ◼   ► about what actually goes on inside Apple,

00:51:18 ◼   ► because Johnny Ive in a video interview with Vanity Fair

00:51:21 ◼   ► at six minutes and 38 seconds in is asked,

00:51:24 ◼   ► or is this a question I guess, the interviewer asks,

00:51:27 ◼   ► so when you started off you were designing

00:51:29 ◼   ► the outsides of machines almost exclusively,

00:51:31 ◼   ► and again I would encourage people to read

00:51:33 ◼   ► that Johnny Ive book that we will put a link to

00:51:36 ◼   ► in the show notes, that it goes over his history

00:51:39 ◼   ► in the company and how kind of he would,

00:51:41 ◼   ► back in the bad old days he would kind of get

00:51:43 ◼   ► a completed machine and he was asked to sort of

00:51:47 ◼   ► put a nice looking thing around the box, right?

00:51:50 ◼   ► And that's not the way he liked the work.

00:51:52 ◼   ► So Johnny's answer is, yes, that in the bad old days,

00:51:57 ◼   ► this was how it was going.

00:51:57 ◼   ► Yes, but I think if you're going to do a good job,

00:51:59 ◼   ► you can't just impose an outside on something.

00:52:01 ◼   ► You have to have a bigger idea,

00:52:03 ◼   ► and that always meant that you're involved

00:52:04 ◼   ► in designing the layout and the internal architecture

00:52:06 ◼   ► with the engineers.

00:52:07 ◼   ► It's one of the things I really love.

00:52:08 ◼   ► I really love doing a lot.

00:52:10 ◼   ► So there it is from the horse's mouth.

00:52:12 ◼   ► He is not just designing the outside.

00:52:14 ◼   ► He's designing the outside of the inside together,

00:52:15 ◼   ► because that's the better way to design things.

00:52:17 ◼   ► That's what he loves doing.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Period, end of story.

00:52:20 ◼   ► - All right.

00:52:23 ◼   ► - Are we done with the follow-up yet?

00:52:24 ◼   ► - Oh no, we have a humongous section on naysayer notions.

00:52:29 ◼   ► So.

00:52:30 ◼   ► - This just looks big.

00:52:31 ◼   ► You should go show them all these.

00:52:32 ◼   ► - Oh my God, this is.

00:52:33 ◼   ► - You should open up all these links in tabs.

00:52:35 ◼   ► I think we'll breeze through this

00:52:36 ◼   ► 'cause it's really just a lot of.

00:52:37 ◼   ► - My screen's not big enough.

00:52:38 ◼   ► - A lot of links.

00:52:39 ◼   ► And just open a new window

00:52:41 ◼   ► and just put all the tabs lined up in it.

00:52:43 ◼   ► - I'm at my window limit.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Not so bad.

00:52:49 ◼   ► So these are all the various naysayers about the idea that we're going to call MacBook

00:52:58 ◼   ► fatalism or hardware design fatalism.

00:53:02 ◼   ► That the way things are is the only way they could ever have been because that is the way

00:53:06 ◼   ► they are.

00:53:07 ◼   ► Like it's a tautological, fatalistic notion that Apple has done something, therefore the

00:53:13 ◼   ► The only way Apple could have done something is the way Apple did something because that's

00:53:15 ◼   ► the way Apple did it.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Right?

00:53:17 ◼   ► That just goes around and around in circles, a snake eating its tail and people love it.

00:53:20 ◼   ► They just cannot resist the notion that it is absolutely positively impossible to make

00:53:25 ◼   ► this machine with two USB-C ports without some massive compromise that would destroy

00:53:29 ◼   ► the machine either spiritually, physically or both.

00:53:32 ◼   ► Right?

00:53:33 ◼   ► One idea was related to the taper that if you made it, and Mark even said this in the

00:53:39 ◼   ► If you made this machine either untapered or less tapered that there would not be distinguishable from the 13 inch MacBook Pro

00:53:45 ◼   ► And even though I directly addressed that on the past show

00:53:47 ◼   ► At least I gave my opinion on it people actually like they didn't hear me or at least acting like they disagree

00:53:52 ◼   ► I actually sent someone a mock-up of like the side view of the thing and saying I

00:53:56 ◼   ► Just drew a straight line where there was a taper and I call it

00:53:59 ◼   ► I colored in the triangle and it was like put computer here like this this black triangle that I have drawn

00:54:05 ◼   ► That's the place that does not currently have computer put computer there

00:54:08 ◼   ► And I think that machine if you put it next to a side view of the 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:54:13 ◼   ► It is still clearly distinguishable. Even if you would tirely eliminate the table. Oh, yeah

00:54:19 ◼   ► No, I mean, I don't think I wasn't saying it was it was gonna be exactly the same

00:54:22 ◼   ► But you know the difference would be a lot smaller

00:54:25 ◼   ► It would still be noticeably smaller because even smaller screen, right?

00:54:29 ◼   ► And you could just taper it less like what I was getting at is like even if you just tapered a little bit less

00:54:34 ◼   ► You'd like the battery savings are tremendous because there is so little battery in there that even just a couple of degrees of you

00:54:41 ◼   ► Know a fraction of a degree of untapering gives you potentially a large percentage more battery

00:54:46 ◼   ► Yeah, but then that would push it over the magical two pound mark too

00:54:49 ◼   ► Even if it was only a little bit even it was 2.1 pounds, you know

00:54:52 ◼   ► That's still nothing magical about two pounds 2.01 pounds 2.02 2.03 again. You have to quantify it

00:54:58 ◼   ► How much more does it weight could a person given these two things be able to tell the difference in weight?

00:55:03 ◼   ► Blindfolded between 2.01 to and 2 point, you know, like it's nice for marketing materials

00:55:07 ◼   ► It is exactly 2 on the nose who knows if it even is it's like a displacement in engines, you know

00:55:11 ◼   ► Well, I'll just you know, it's close enough, right? I don't even know if it is exactly 2 pounds on the nose

00:55:16 ◼   ► It's

00:55:18 ◼   ► Like again, you have to quantify because people are willing to say like if you make this thing one gram heavier

00:55:24 ◼   ► The whole machine is ruined. If you can make it one millimeter longer in any dimension. That's it

00:55:29 ◼   ► It's just it's Johnny Ive will cry because he wanted that particular case and now you've ruined it because it is perfect

00:55:35 ◼   ► and if you make and the best thing about it is like in the whole parallel mirror universe thing where you have a

00:55:39 ◼   ► million different universes where they make a million different decisions and you actually do introduce this machine with

00:55:44 ◼   ► variations of fractions of a pound and fractions of a millimeter everyone in those universes would be like

00:55:48 ◼   ► This is the only way it could have possibly been and if I saw a machine that was different in any dimension or in any

00:55:53 ◼   ► Weight measured by a tiny amount I would know that it is different when you wouldn't you would just accept whatever machine they put

00:55:58 ◼   ► out and you would say, "That's the machine." Anyway, I get frustrated.

00:56:06 ◼   ► So a lot of people, the people who are quote-unquote "on my side" kept coming in with these

00:56:11 ◼   ► examples of existing PC machines that supposedly demonstrate everything that I'm frustrated

00:56:17 ◼   ► about. There's a whole bunch of stories about this. There's one on The Verge about

00:56:21 ◼   ► the Asus Zenbooks, beautifully named,

00:56:24 ◼   ► capital U, capital X, three zero five,

00:56:27 ◼   ► great product name there, Asus.

00:56:29 ◼   ► - I believe it's pronounced asses.

00:56:31 ◼   ► - I believe it's not.

00:56:32 ◼   ► That is thinner than the new MacBook,

00:56:37 ◼   ► and of course has multiple ports, as everything else does.

00:56:39 ◼   ► This is what it says, it says an SD card reader,

00:56:42 ◼   ► headphone jack, three USB ports, not type C, full size,

00:56:47 ◼   ► three full size USB ports, micro HDMI,

00:56:50 ◼   ► and it's thinner than this new one.

00:56:51 ◼   ► And people are like, "Oh, see that shows

00:56:53 ◼   ► "Apple could have made it smaller."

00:56:54 ◼   ► But those people weren't paying attention to the specs

00:56:56 ◼   ► because this machine is an inch wider,

00:56:59 ◼   ► an inch deeper and a half a pound heavier.

00:57:01 ◼   ► And those are quantifiable.

00:57:02 ◼   ► An inch is not a couple of millimeters.

00:57:04 ◼   ► An inch wider, an inch deeper,

00:57:05 ◼   ► I don't know how to talk about these dimensions

00:57:07 ◼   ► when I say that people think it's like an inch thick,

00:57:08 ◼   ► I guess, you know what I mean, right?

00:57:10 ◼   ► It is thinner when you lay it down than the MacBook,

00:57:14 ◼   ► but it is much bigger in the other dimensions

00:57:15 ◼   ► and it's half a pound heavier.

00:57:16 ◼   ► And I think a half a pound, you could probably tell that.

00:57:20 ◼   ► It's not just like 2.0 versus 2.1 pounds, right?

00:57:22 ◼   ► It's also, by the way, half the price of the MacBook.

00:57:25 ◼   ► So all this is showing is that another machine

00:57:27 ◼   ► was made with different trade-offs.

00:57:29 ◼   ► If the new MacBook was the same dimensions

00:57:34 ◼   ► and weight as this in that mirror universe,

00:57:37 ◼   ► I think people would be fine with it.

00:57:39 ◼   ► But now that you can see them side by side,

00:57:41 ◼   ► clearly the Apple One is giving you a trade-off

00:57:44 ◼   ► that I think people would find more attractive

00:57:47 ◼   ► for double the price, I guess.

00:57:48 ◼   ► Then there's Lenovo Yoga Pro 3.

00:57:51 ◼   ► I guess it's better because it doesn't have a bunch

00:57:53 ◼   ► of alphanumerics in the name, but Yoga?

00:57:55 ◼   ► You name your computer Yoga?

00:57:56 ◼   ► I don't like that, I don't like that.

00:57:58 ◼   ► - This is the one that had the misleading ad, right?

00:58:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, so we should put a link to this show.

00:58:03 ◼   ► First of all, they are--

00:58:03 ◼   ► - That was really bad.

00:58:05 ◼   ► - They are touting the fact that they're thinner

00:58:07 ◼   ► and they put the side view of the computers

00:58:09 ◼   ► next to each other and just use different scales for them.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - Like wildly different scales.

00:58:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, they are a few millimeters thinner,

00:58:16 ◼   ► But again, because humans can't perceive a few millimeters,

00:58:18 ◼   ► like if you drew an accurate picture,

00:58:20 ◼   ► people would be like,

00:58:21 ◼   ► "Those look like the same thickness."

00:58:22 ◼   ► Because nobody can tell when it's a few millimeters off,

00:58:24 ◼   ► except for of course the people who think

00:58:25 ◼   ► that the entire MacBook would be ruined

00:58:26 ◼   ► if it was a few millimeters different in any dimension.

00:58:29 ◼   ► Anyway, yeah, they totally cheated on the ad.

00:58:32 ◼   ► But it is thinner, slightly.

00:58:33 ◼   ► It's bigger in the other two dimensions.

00:58:36 ◼   ► It has full size USB.

00:58:38 ◼   ► It's a half pound heavier, blah, blah, blah.

00:58:39 ◼   ► Noticing a trend here, right?

00:58:40 ◼   ► And so all this goes to say

00:58:43 ◼   ► that all the people finding the other machines

00:58:45 ◼   ► that seem to be better than the MacBook and all things,

00:58:49 ◼   ► they're just shifting around the internal components.

00:58:52 ◼   ► This doesn't say anything one way or the other

00:58:53 ◼   ► about whether Apple could have within the same case

00:58:56 ◼   ► or within a case that is imperceptibly different

00:58:59 ◼   ► done to USB ports.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I remain convinced that Apple could have put two USB ports

00:59:02 ◼   ► on this without a perceptible loss of anything to anybody,

00:59:05 ◼   ► but these computers don't say anything pro or con

00:59:09 ◼   ► to that argument, I think.

00:59:09 ◼   ► They are interesting though to see what other people

00:59:11 ◼   ► are doing with similar chipsets,

00:59:12 ◼   ► both in terms of price, battery life,

00:59:15 ◼   ► and the other type of limitations.

00:59:17 ◼   ► The most fun one is, what is this one here?

00:59:20 ◼   ► Who sent this in?

00:59:22 ◼   ► Someone named Ken sent in a Microsoft Windows 8.1 PC

00:59:26 ◼   ► the size of a dongle.

00:59:27 ◼   ► So it's something about,

00:59:28 ◼   ► they show a little lipstick container next to it.

00:59:30 ◼   ► It's about the size of one of those streaming sticks, right?

00:59:33 ◼   ► And it has more ports than the Mac Pro.

00:59:36 ◼   ► It's about the size of a lipstick.

00:59:37 ◼   ► And what does it have on it?

00:59:38 ◼   ► It looks like it has full-size USB, microSD port, HDMI and USB.

00:59:50 ◼   ► That is probably the most embarrassing.

00:59:51 ◼   ► But again, that's not a full-fledged computer, it doesn't have a keyboard, blah blah blah

00:59:54 ◼   ► blah blah.

00:59:55 ◼   ► It's just funny.

00:59:57 ◼   ► The other limit that we...

00:59:58 ◼   ► Did we talk about the 8 gig RAM limit?

01:00:00 ◼   ► I think briefly.

01:00:01 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

01:00:02 ◼   ► That you can't get it with 16.

01:00:04 ◼   ► But I'm actually more willing to...

01:00:08 ◼   ► So RAM chips take up room.

01:00:10 ◼   ► You can't put more RAM on there.

01:00:13 ◼   ► You can't say, "Well, I'll just shrink the other RAM."

01:00:14 ◼   ► I mean, I'm assuming they're fabbing the RAM at the same size as everybody else, and that

01:00:19 ◼   ► it would not be economical to try to press the processor.

01:00:22 ◼   ► And usually RAM is one of the best processor sizes anyway, because it's really easy to

01:00:25 ◼   ► make because it's very regular.

01:00:27 ◼   ► So you wouldn't need more space for the RAM.

01:00:29 ◼   ► Also battery power?

01:00:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and a little bit of battery power.

01:00:32 ◼   ► I think we're all well aware of the trade-offs of more RAM on portable devices, which is,

01:00:36 ◼   ► you know, we're always complaining about it with iOS devices.

01:00:40 ◼   ► But the tricky bit here is, like, we're not saying that they should all have 16.

01:00:44 ◼   ► Merely that 16 should be an option somewhere.

01:00:47 ◼   ► And historically, once Apple started soldering the RAM to the boards, it has not been good

01:00:51 ◼   ► about giving out--has it ever given a BTO option for a laptop with RAM soldered to the

01:00:56 ◼   ► board?

01:00:57 ◼   ► Yeah, the whole 15-inch line.

01:00:58 ◼   ► I thought they all came with 16 now, and that's it.

01:01:01 ◼   ► I bought mine, the first gen, it was an option. I got eight, I got the base model, but 16

01:01:09 ◼   ► was available.

01:01:10 ◼   ► Yeah, and for Aaron's MacBook Air that I'm talking to you on right now, the only thing

01:01:15 ◼   ► that made it a BTO was that I made it have 8 gigs of RAM instead of 4.

01:01:20 ◼   ► Yeah, so it's always nice to have that other one. And in practice, even though only nerds

01:01:25 ◼   ► know that more RAM needs more power and everything like that, A, a lot of people are willing

01:01:29 ◼   ► to take that trade-off, and b) if you asked anybody to measure that trade-off, it's actually

01:01:33 ◼   ► probably pretty hard to measure. You would have to come up with some sort of, you know,

01:01:37 ◼   ► I don't know, like, measuring energy usage is a pain, which I know from my extensive

01:01:42 ◼   ► attempts to try to test Maverick's battery usage. There's just so many variables, like,

01:01:47 ◼   ► what is representative usage for you? How can you prove that the 8 versus the 16, how

01:01:52 ◼   ► could you show a measurable difference, or is it just within the margin of error of your

01:01:56 ◼   ► your Android testing thing, like would you notice it

01:01:57 ◼   ► in real life, but regardless, it's nice to have choices,

01:02:00 ◼   ► but it's better for Apple to have one SKU,

01:02:03 ◼   ► although then they made it in colors, but anyway,

01:02:05 ◼   ► to have one board, right, to have one board

01:02:07 ◼   ► inside all these machines, it's a nice simplification.

01:02:10 ◼   ► Eight is a little bit, you know, we were talking

01:02:13 ◼   ► about the limitations of the machine,

01:02:14 ◼   ► the RAM limit is the one you can,

01:02:15 ◼   ► that can't get around as easily.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I mean, if you really pressed,

01:02:18 ◼   ► you can attach external storage, and for CPU stuff,

01:02:21 ◼   ► you can just wait longer, but RAM is just this unfixable,

01:02:24 ◼   ► like and it's fine for most people,

01:02:26 ◼   ► but if you know you need more RAM than that

01:02:27 ◼   ► and you'd really love to use this machine

01:02:29 ◼   ► then you'd be willing to say, charge me more money,

01:02:32 ◼   ► use more of my battery, it's more important for me

01:02:34 ◼   ► to have 16 gigs of RAM so I can do task X on the road

01:02:37 ◼   ► with a super light MacBook, this is not the product for you.

01:02:39 ◼   ► I think it's not the worst RAM choice they've made.

01:02:43 ◼   ► I think keeping one gig in the iOS devices for so long

01:02:48 ◼   ► was more painful than this just because of all

01:02:50 ◼   ► the Safari tabs going away every time

01:02:51 ◼   ► you switch to another app.

01:02:53 ◼   ► It also burned me, my RAM Star machine burned me playing Alto,

01:02:56 ◼   ► which by the way is a great game,

01:02:58 ◼   ► we should link in the show notes,

01:02:59 ◼   ► because I would leave the game paused,

01:03:02 ◼   ► and then like, I don't know if I would just close the lid,

01:03:05 ◼   ► and then I would open back up again and the game is gone.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Sometimes I forget that like,

01:03:09 ◼   ► if I switch away for a second to read Twitter,

01:03:12 ◼   ► Alto is out of memory,

01:03:13 ◼   ► and if I was in the middle of a run, I'm screwed now.

01:03:16 ◼   ► So I think the iOS devices

01:03:17 ◼   ► have been more RAM Star than Max lately,

01:03:19 ◼   ► Max have been getting better in particular

01:03:20 ◼   ► when they went to 16 across the board,

01:03:22 ◼   ► on the MacBook Pro line, it was like, thank God,

01:03:24 ◼   ► reflect the fact that it's a Pro.

01:03:26 ◼   ► So I think 8 gig is the right choice

01:03:27 ◼   ► for the bottom of the line here,

01:03:28 ◼   ► it's just a shame that it doesn't go up higher.

01:03:30 ◼   ► - Well, for whatever it's worth,

01:03:31 ◼   ► to be fair to this computer,

01:03:33 ◼   ► I just verified all of the MacBook Airs currently

01:03:36 ◼   ► ship with four stock and max out at eight.

01:03:40 ◼   ► Like you can BTO all of them, they max out at eight.

01:03:43 ◼   ► So this thing as a replacement to the MacBook Air

01:03:47 ◼   ► to come stock with eight is pretty good, first of all.

01:03:49 ◼   ► - But it's not very forward looking though,

01:03:50 ◼   ► like that's an old machine,

01:03:51 ◼   ► It's like at the end of its life.

01:03:52 ◼   ► It's like when the last model year of a car

01:03:55 ◼   ► before it goes through the generational revision.

01:03:56 ◼   ► Like I give the MacBook Air as a pass

01:04:00 ◼   ► because they're the older machine.

01:04:01 ◼   ► This is the new one, it should be built for the future.

01:04:02 ◼   ► - Well they were just updated though.

01:04:04 ◼   ► You know they all just got a minor update.

01:04:06 ◼   ► So anyway, so as this thing basically sitting

01:04:10 ◼   ► pretty close to the bottom of the lineup,

01:04:12 ◼   ► I don't think it's that unreasonable

01:04:13 ◼   ► for it to have eight gigs of RAM stock,

01:04:16 ◼   ► I mean eight gigs of RAM stock at this price

01:04:18 ◼   ► I think is good.

01:04:19 ◼   ► and maxing out at eight just matches it up

01:04:23 ◼   ► to the other MacBook Airs.

01:04:23 ◼   ► And so I think the goal here was probably

01:04:27 ◼   ► to minimize SKUs and board space.

01:04:30 ◼   ► And so I'm sure they'll switch to 16 gigs

01:04:33 ◼   ► once whatever mainstream RAM process,

01:04:37 ◼   ► basically once the DRAM chips double in size

01:04:39 ◼   ► that they're using.

01:04:40 ◼   ► (laughs)

01:04:41 ◼   ► Once that becomes reasonably available for a good price,

01:04:44 ◼   ► I bet that's when they'll do it.

01:04:45 ◼   ► I wouldn't be too concerned about that.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And I think, you know, seeing the rest of the lineup,

01:04:50 ◼   ► I'm actually very pleasantly surprised

01:04:52 ◼   ► that they all come with a minimum of eight gigs.

01:04:54 ◼   ► I think that's great.

01:04:55 ◼   ► - What does the Mac, the big tube Mac Pro come with?

01:04:58 ◼   ► Isn't it some ridiculous minimum, like 12 or something?

01:05:01 ◼   ► - 12, yeah, you're right, that is weird.

01:05:03 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:05:04 ◼   ► - It was three DIMMs.

01:05:05 ◼   ► - Apple's always been really weird, right?

01:05:06 ◼   ► But yeah, this is fine.

01:05:07 ◼   ► Like far more people would find a practical use

01:05:10 ◼   ► for a second USB port than care about having more RAM.

01:05:13 ◼   ► So it's just something to note.

01:05:15 ◼   ► Mostly because the other comparable machines,

01:05:17 ◼   ► all this when it's thinner and it goes up to 16,

01:05:19 ◼   ► and all that other business, whatever.

01:05:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, again, on this machine though,

01:05:24 ◼   ► we're all looking at it as geeks,

01:05:26 ◼   ► because we all want this to be good for us,

01:05:30 ◼   ► because it's new and shiny and really impressive

01:05:32 ◼   ► in a few physical ways.

01:05:34 ◼   ► So we're all looking at this like getting mad at it,

01:05:37 ◼   ► almost like getting mad at the Apple Watch Edition

01:05:39 ◼   ► for not being made for us and not being priced for us.

01:05:43 ◼   ► We're looking at this MacBook and saying,

01:05:44 ◼   ► "Man, why do they only have one port, our big rage?

01:05:47 ◼   ► "Why is there only eight gigs of RAM here, big rage?"

01:05:50 ◼   ► But the fact is, it's a low spec laptop

01:05:54 ◼   ► made for other priorities, and it's really tiny.

01:05:58 ◼   ► Like, I can't think of anything I would do on this machine

01:06:02 ◼   ► that would need more than eight gigs of RAM,

01:06:04 ◼   ► because if I'm doing stuff like that,

01:06:05 ◼   ► I need more screen space, by a lot, not by a little.

01:06:08 ◼   ► I need a lot more screen space.

01:06:10 ◼   ► - Yeah, but some people get by with that much screen space.

01:06:12 ◼   ► We all have the things that annoy us.

01:06:14 ◼   ► The port is the most annoying one to me because I don't see the reasoning behind it.

01:06:17 ◼   ► The 816, the economics and the power draw and the placement of this machine is a low

01:06:24 ◼   ► end machine, but I don't think a second USB port is a high end feature.

01:06:29 ◼   ► That's the one that I think is the most needless, the most sort of arbitrary as far as we know.

01:06:35 ◼   ► There's no good reason to support it, it's just what they want to do.

01:06:38 ◼   ► Whereas the 8 gigs of RAM we can all think of lots of good reasons for it.

01:06:41 ◼   ► And the screen size, like, that may annoy you because you have trouble working in a

01:06:44 ◼   ► small, but you see why the screen is small because that's how big the laptop is.

01:06:47 ◼   ► Like that, there's a direct correlation there.

01:06:49 ◼   ► So this is low on my list, it's just, I thought it was worth discussing in the context of

01:06:56 ◼   ► Apple's history of RAM limits.

01:06:58 ◼   ► And bringing up the four gigs on the air is great because that shows how far they've come.

01:07:02 ◼   ► This thing had come up with four, we would be screaming about it way more than the port

01:07:05 ◼   ► situation, I think.

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01:09:58 ◼   ► All right.

01:10:00 ◼   ► We're getting there.

01:10:02 ◼   ► sponsor Stone Follow-Up. Yeah, MagSafe and USB-C and tripability. We talked about this

01:10:08 ◼   ► before the machine came out, but not so much afterwards. And luckily we don't have to do

01:10:13 ◼   ► the hard work because—was this Glenn Fleischman, I think? In Macworld? Yep. Tried to figure

01:10:18 ◼   ► out—again, in the grand tradition of all of us commenting on things we've never seen

01:10:23 ◼   ► or touched—tried to figure out how this new MacBook will behave if you trip over the

01:10:29 ◼   ► cord versus how MagSafe behaves.

01:10:32 ◼   ► With all sorts of perhaps questionable physics, he did involve Dr. Drang in this discussion,

01:10:38 ◼   ► but predictably Dr. Drang had complaints about how the information was conveyed after the

01:10:42 ◼   ► fact.

01:10:43 ◼   ► Anyway, we'll put the link in the show notes.

01:10:44 ◼   ► He tried to use coefficients of friction and physics and forces to figure out what will

01:10:49 ◼   ► happen when you trip over the cord of your USB-C connected new MacBook.

01:10:54 ◼   ► I don't know what will happen.

01:10:55 ◼   ► I remember when we first discussed this, I was totally willing to believe that because

01:10:59 ◼   ► the connector is so tiny, it might have similar performance characteristics to MagSafe depending

01:11:06 ◼   ► on the angle that the thing is pulled in.

01:11:10 ◼   ► Apparently the thing that matters the most is how quickly the force is applied, not so

01:11:14 ◼   ► much the direction.

01:11:15 ◼   ► Anyway, read the story.

01:11:18 ◼   ► We'll all find out once we get these things and our kids and significant others start

01:11:23 ◼   ► tripping over them.

01:11:24 ◼   ► >> BRIAN KARDELL Yeah, I mean, the problem is, you know, if

01:11:26 ◼   ► you look at both Glenn and Dr. Drank's analyses of this, they have to make some estimations

01:11:32 ◼   ► here and there and some ballparks here and there because we just don't have certain

01:11:35 ◼   ► information but it basically looks like there's a very very good chance of it being able to

01:11:43 ◼   ► be pulled off a table with enough force or enough speed of tripping over that cable with

01:11:48 ◼   ► so much leeway that it's pretty clear that even if their assumptions are not that accurate,

01:11:56 ◼   ► there's so much leeway in the number that like,

01:11:58 ◼   ► yeah, pretty much like, you don't wanna have this thing

01:12:01 ◼   ► plugged in with the cable draped across something

01:12:03 ◼   ► where people are gonna be walking.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Like again, if this is, this is yet another thing.

01:12:07 ◼   ► If that's important to you,

01:12:09 ◼   ► this machine is not right for you.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Or you need to get some kind of extension cord.

01:12:12 ◼   ► - MagSafe could go away entirely and Apple could just,

01:12:15 ◼   ► again, like I was saying, they didn't make a big deal

01:12:17 ◼   ► out of this by saying, we thought MagSafe was a good idea

01:12:19 ◼   ► but it turns out it's not a big deal.

01:12:20 ◼   ► They just didn't mention it.

01:12:21 ◼   ► And if this turns out not to be a problem,

01:12:24 ◼   ► I can see them ditching MagSafe and all their other machines too, just because they're gonna

01:12:27 ◼   ► get thinner too, and MagSafe is pretty big, and MagSafe 2 was worse than MagSafe 1, partially,

01:12:32 ◼   ► we assume, because it got smaller and didn't, you know what I mean?

01:12:34 ◼   ► Like it didn't quite work as well.

01:12:36 ◼   ► People complain about MagSafe not staying connected enough.

01:12:42 ◼   ► Like they use it on their couch and they switch to MagSafe 2 and it was always coming disconnected

01:12:45 ◼   ► and it was annoying them.

01:12:47 ◼   ► It seems like the problem is in the other direction, so now maybe this is a solution

01:12:50 ◼   ► for those people to say, "Well, you were annoyed by MagSafe 2 constantly coming disconnected

01:12:54 ◼   ► when you didn't want it to, when no one's tripping over it, well this will solve that problem for you.

01:12:58 ◼   ► And yeah, I think an interesting thing about their analysis was they were taking force numbers from the USB spec,

01:13:06 ◼   ► because the USB spec says how much what the min and max force is for plugging and unplugging.

01:13:10 ◼   ► There's a pretty wide range there, but it's interesting that, you know,

01:13:13 ◼   ► they could get as far as they could with the analysis without actually having machines to trip over.

01:13:17 ◼   ► And Peter Wagenet or Wagonet or something like that

01:13:21 ◼   ► tweeted

01:13:23 ◼   ► that

01:13:25 ◼   ► No mag safe on the new MacBooks means Apple doesn't expect to use it use it plugged in no one complains about no mag safe

01:13:30 ◼   ► On the iPad this is the idea that with this all-day battery life and so on and so forth you don't use it plugged in

01:13:36 ◼   ► When you're using it, it's not plugged in and like your iPad when you're or your phone when you're not using it you plug it in

01:13:41 ◼   ► Unfortunately I have seen a lot of people including my children much to my chagrin use iOS devices while plugged in

01:13:49 ◼   ► This is a no-no in terms of cable life

01:13:51 ◼   ► Although I still maintain my unbroken record of never having destroyed a lightning cable or never having I broke mine this week or last week

01:13:58 ◼   ► I lost my first one. I'm so upset you lost it as in damaged it to the point. It doesn't work

01:14:03 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean it to me it was the one I'm using in an elevation dock

01:14:06 ◼   ► So it has like this bracket that like it like turns it on a right angle

01:14:09 ◼   ► So like I'm not surprised it's that one, but I'm still annoyed

01:14:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, so, but I do see people, have you seen this?

01:14:17 ◼   ► Have you done it yourself,

01:14:18 ◼   ► used an iOS device while plugged in?

01:14:21 ◼   ► - I do.

01:14:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, my kid's iPad, which is also the first iOS device

01:14:25 ◼   ► I've ever had that has a cracked screen,

01:14:28 ◼   ► that is frequently being used while plugged in

01:14:30 ◼   ► because a lot of times kids,

01:14:34 ◼   ► especially when they're not even three,

01:14:36 ◼   ► don't remember to plug their iPads in all the time

01:14:38 ◼   ► when they need to.

01:14:40 ◼   ► So sometimes it's desired to be used

01:14:43 ◼   ► at a time when it's not fully charged.

01:14:45 ◼   ► - My son has Marco's range anxiety for his iPad

01:14:50 ◼   ► because he watches YouTube videos,

01:14:52 ◼   ► he used to play Minecraft on it,

01:14:53 ◼   ► but then he watches YouTube videos.

01:14:54 ◼   ► And he's never really in danger of running out of battery,

01:14:58 ◼   ► even on this, it's an original iPad 2, right?

01:15:01 ◼   ► But if the battery looks a little bit low,

01:15:04 ◼   ► it just makes him feel safer

01:15:06 ◼   ► to just use it plugged in all the time,

01:15:07 ◼   ► which is terrible because he's constantly kinking the cord

01:15:09 ◼   ► and moving around and I'm like, you're at 100%,

01:15:11 ◼   ► You've been at 100% for 20 minutes.

01:15:13 ◼   ► Unplug the thing.

01:15:14 ◼   ► You can go to another place.

01:15:15 ◼   ► You don't have to be sitting next to the court.

01:15:17 ◼   ► Anyway, the idea that the new MacBook,

01:15:19 ◼   ► that that's the model they're going with there,

01:15:21 ◼   ► is like you don't use it when it's plugged in.

01:15:23 ◼   ► And then Serenity Colwell replied to that same thread.

01:15:26 ◼   ► She says, "Well, if the MacBook had 12 to 15 hours

01:15:29 ◼   ► of battery, maybe, but nine is right on the edge for me."

01:15:32 ◼   ► So, you know, can you use it like an iPad?

01:15:35 ◼   ► iPad has a comfortable 10,

01:15:37 ◼   ► and I think people are less likely

01:15:39 ◼   ► to just sit in front of an iPad for an entire working day

01:15:42 ◼   ► and do not go accept it, I guess.

01:15:44 ◼   ► Anyway, we'll see.

01:15:45 ◼   ► If that is the new use case,

01:15:47 ◼   ► and if they can stretch out the battery

01:15:48 ◼   ► to the point where people stop feeling

01:15:50 ◼   ► like they need to have it plugged in while they're using it,

01:15:52 ◼   ► they just use it and it's not plugged in

01:15:54 ◼   ► and then close it up, put it someplace else,

01:15:55 ◼   ► plug it in when you're not using it,

01:15:57 ◼   ► that could make the MagSafe issue moot as well.

01:16:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, but that's, I totally agree with Serenity

01:16:03 ◼   ► that all these new Apple laptops,

01:16:06 ◼   ► you can tell, like Jason Snell had that post

01:16:07 ◼   ► a couple months back that Apple was like solving for a certain battery life with the iPads

01:16:13 ◼   ► and with the iPhones and you could see like especially with the iPads like it's very clear

01:16:16 ◼   ► that Apple takes whatever gains they get with advancements in battery technology or more

01:16:22 ◼   ► efficient components any gains they get that in battery life that could be used to make

01:16:26 ◼   ► something with much longer battery life they usually apply instead to keep the same battery

01:16:31 ◼   ► life but with less physical battery and then you can make the whole thing thinner and lighter.

01:16:35 ◼   ► - Could you just attribute that to Jason Snell?

01:16:38 ◼   ► - He wrote the article about it, right?

01:16:40 ◼   ► - We talked about it like a year ago.

01:16:42 ◼   ► - Well, yeah, but he wrote an article about it,

01:16:44 ◼   ► and he had pretty graphs, come on.

01:16:46 ◼   ► - I know, just because he wrote it down,

01:16:48 ◼   ► you attribute your own idea to Jason

01:16:51 ◼   ► because he wrote about it.

01:16:52 ◼   ► Not that I'm saying, Jason's right, we agree with him,

01:16:54 ◼   ► but I think it was you or us, we talked about this

01:16:57 ◼   ► like a year before he wrote that,

01:16:58 ◼   ► but because he wrote it down in a blog post,

01:17:00 ◼   ► our podcast discussions don't count,

01:17:02 ◼   ► and now this is Jason's idea.

01:17:03 ◼   ► - I'm sure if we said it a year ago,

01:17:06 ◼   ► I'm sure we weren't the first people to say it even then.

01:17:07 ◼   ► - I know, but of all the people to attribute to,

01:17:10 ◼   ► attribute to yourself, you, oh nevermind.

01:17:13 ◼   ► - Doesn't matter who said it, but,

01:17:15 ◼   ► you know, I think if you look across Apple's lineup,

01:17:17 ◼   ► like this is one of those areas where like,

01:17:19 ◼   ► I think they have calculated that a little bit wrong.

01:17:22 ◼   ► I, like I would love to have 25% more battery life

01:17:26 ◼   ► across the line, 30%, like 40%,

01:17:27 ◼   ► something like the six plus kind of does that,

01:17:30 ◼   ► but I think it does that almost accidentally.

01:17:33 ◼   ► In the laptops, they're all within the same pretty narrow range, or lower, like the 11

01:17:39 ◼   ► inch is actually lower, but they're all within this like, you know, 9 to 11 hour range

01:17:45 ◼   ► that's all like pretty close.

01:17:48 ◼   ► And the problem is those numbers are wildly variable based on what you're doing with

01:17:53 ◼   ► it.

01:17:54 ◼   ► If you're doing something that stresses the CPU more than average, that number could

01:17:58 ◼   ► drop by half.

01:18:00 ◼   ► You know, there isn't necessarily enough leeway

01:18:03 ◼   ► for a lot of people in these numbers

01:18:05 ◼   ► to be running untethered to things all day.

01:18:07 ◼   ► And if that was how you're intended

01:18:10 ◼   ► to use this laptop all the time,

01:18:12 ◼   ► personally, I would want a longer battery life on it.

01:18:14 ◼   ► I would want, you know, more like 15 hours.

01:18:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, and Marco, you have just recently done the thing

01:18:20 ◼   ► that I've seen done many other places,

01:18:23 ◼   ► which is somehow arranged to have a Apple power connector

01:18:27 ◼   ► snaking out of the cushions in your couch.

01:18:29 ◼   ► - Yes.

01:18:30 ◼   ► would you do that? Because you find yourself using Apple devices and you have range anxiety

01:18:36 ◼   ► as well, you would just feel more comfortable being able to plug them in. Have it on your

01:18:39 ◼   ► lap and to plug them in, sit on your couch and do it. And really that's the kind of usage

01:18:43 ◼   ► where MagSafe comes in handy. Because in the office, if people are sitting at their desk

01:18:48 ◼   ► with their laptop plugged in, the cords are down behind, they're not in a trippable location,

01:18:53 ◼   ► but in people's houses, when they're using them on their couches, that's when things

01:18:56 ◼   ► get tripped over. And it's like, why are you having it plugged in when you use it on your

01:18:59 ◼   ► couch. Well, you feel like I just always keep it next to the couch and it's a pain to plug

01:19:03 ◼   ► in and unplug it and sometimes I'm near the end of the battery but I don't want to stop

01:19:06 ◼   ► what I'm doing whether it's watching a movie or playing a game or even just web browsing.

01:19:10 ◼   ► So it's nice to have it on your lap and have it plugged in, right? And so then eventually

01:19:13 ◼   ► you end up snaking the little Apple power cord up between the cushions in your couch

01:19:17 ◼   ► and it's convenient, right? And I think it's going to be very difficult. You're going to

01:19:21 ◼   ► have to have a hell of a battery to stop people from doing that and nine hours is comfortably

01:19:25 ◼   ► below that limit where I think you feel like you have to go to like 24 hours or something

01:19:29 ◼   ► And even then, the problem is if people don't pay attention,

01:19:32 ◼   ► like if they forget to charge it overnight,

01:19:33 ◼   ► they come in the next morning, they're like,

01:19:34 ◼   ► "Oh, well, it's not like I'm not gonna use my computer.

01:19:36 ◼   ► "Let me just plug it in while I use it."

01:19:38 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

01:19:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, we definitely have one of those cords

01:19:41 ◼   ► snaked between our couch as well.

01:19:43 ◼   ► - It's a good idea.

01:19:44 ◼   ► It's a thing.

01:19:46 ◼   ► No, I've seen it over many years.

01:19:48 ◼   ► I've resisted doing it mostly because I stick to iOS devices

01:19:51 ◼   ► on the couch and so far I've been able to keep that policy.

01:19:54 ◼   ► But if someone, like we have--

01:19:55 ◼   ► - Oh no, our cord is an iOS cord, it's a lightning cable.

01:19:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, same here.

01:19:58 ◼   ► So you're using like iPads plugged in? Usually iPhones, but sometimes iPads.

01:20:03 ◼   ► Same here. iPhones! See, you're using the iPhones plugged in. Like I said, I have my

01:20:07 ◼   ► battery life on my 6, I mean it's a new phone, and so far I have not ever had to use it plugged

01:20:13 ◼   ► in. Occasionally, my iPad upstairs, I'm in a big Alto session and I notice I'm getting

01:20:17 ◼   ► a little low on battery, I get nervous, but I don't like using it plugged in.

01:20:22 ◼   ► Speaking of plugging things in, one or the other, this should have been the Naysayer

01:20:25 ◼   ► section, the idea that like, well if they had two USB-C ports, what are you going to

01:20:29 ◼   ► do? Have one that you can charge through and one that you can't? That's confusing. There's

01:20:32 ◼   ► people who have two minds in this. Some people said having one port that you can charge from

01:20:35 ◼   ► and one that you can't is too confusing, it's a non-starter. And other people said you can't

01:20:38 ◼   ► have two ports that you can charge from because it's confusing. I'm not sure what would be

01:20:40 ◼   ► confusing that people wouldn't know which port they're, like if it works in both, they

01:20:44 ◼   ► don't have to know, but somehow they'd be concerned that they were plugging in the wrong

01:20:47 ◼   ► one. And a lot of people said it's just impossible, you can't have something that charges from

01:20:50 ◼   ► both ports because it's electrically impossible or because whatever. so the

01:20:56 ◼   ► Chromebook pixel actually has two USB C ports and it can charge from both of

01:21:01 ◼   ► them so it is not electrically impossible if you thought that was

01:21:04 ◼   ► the case. here's a product that shows that it's not. I assume this machine does

01:21:08 ◼   ► not immediately burst into flames if you plug in the charger into both sides. we

01:21:11 ◼   ► have this amazing technology that can sense when things are plugged in. we have

01:21:15 ◼   ► the technology we can make something with two USB C charging ports. can you

01:21:19 ◼   ► make it with four, six, I believe we can. We sent a man to the moon, I believe we can

01:21:23 ◼   ► make a computer with six USB charging ports. Whether or not that becomes more complicated

01:21:29 ◼   ► to some degree that precludes it, I don't know. But anyway, there is one that charges

01:21:32 ◼   ► from two. If you think charging from two is more confusing than charging from only one,

01:21:38 ◼   ► I don't know. I don't know what the right call is. I think either one would probably

01:21:42 ◼   ► be fine, but if you're going to have two identical looking ports, and you're not going to make

01:21:46 ◼   ► one clearly the charging port you should just be it make it charge from either

01:21:49 ◼   ► port and I think we can do that well I don't think we have time for anything

01:21:53 ◼   ► else this week except for all this follow-up. We're almost there, we're almost there, there's like two more items we're gonna do it.

01:21:58 ◼   ► Okay go for it. Mirrored display only. I put a question mark because I didn't

01:22:02 ◼   ► check that is that the case you can't do extended display you can only mirror the

01:22:05 ◼   ► display. Doesn't sound right. I was thinking about a desk at work if I'm

01:22:10 ◼   ► forced to get a laptop to replace my current Mac Pro at work I would actually

01:22:13 ◼   ► choose to do it mirrored just so my windows wouldn't move every time I plug

01:22:16 ◼   ► and unplug. You are the only human who would ever say that. Because I only like one

01:22:21 ◼   ► screen I would only ever look at like the main screen right and what I would

01:22:24 ◼   ► do is get a 15 inch and set it to the max like Faco resolution and just have

01:22:29 ◼   ► it be the same on my 24 inch monitor anyway. You are insane sir. I don't know

01:22:35 ◼   ► if that's the case we'll leave a question mark. FaceTime camera downgraded

01:22:38 ◼   ► from 720p to 480p I put a question mark after that but I think it's true right?

01:22:41 ◼   ► - Right, two things.

01:22:43 ◼   ► First of all, the real-time follow-up,

01:22:44 ◼   ► nobody_ in the chat room is quoting the MacBook specs page,

01:22:48 ◼   ► and it's right there on the specs page,

01:22:50 ◼   ► just does support display spanning and mirroring.

01:22:53 ◼   ► So that's not a problem.

01:22:54 ◼   ► And then secondly, who cares about the resolution

01:22:57 ◼   ► of the front camera?

01:22:59 ◼   ► This is one of those like megapixel race things

01:23:00 ◼   ► where the resolution has never mattered.

01:23:03 ◼   ► - Well, 480 is pushing it, don't you think?

01:23:05 ◼   ► - No, it goes from a crappy camera with more pixels

01:23:08 ◼   ► to a crappy camera with less pixels.

01:23:11 ◼   ► Either way, you're getting crappy images.

01:23:13 ◼   ► It's not made for quality.

01:23:14 ◼   ► It's made for like just barely being good enough

01:23:16 ◼   ► to do FaceTime.

01:23:17 ◼   ► That's all it's for.

01:23:18 ◼   ► - Casey needs to say he's beautiful baby's face in HD.

01:23:21 ◼   ► - Sure.

01:23:22 ◼   ► - And so do I for that matter.

01:23:23 ◼   ► Everybody does.

01:23:24 ◼   ► But Marco said it's probably true

01:23:25 ◼   ► about the light gathering ability of those pixels.

01:23:27 ◼   ► I don't think it's a big deal.

01:23:28 ◼   ► I think, I assume it was kind of mostly there

01:23:31 ◼   ► for cost savings, but I don't think any,

01:23:33 ◼   ► I don't know, 480 I think is the type of thing

01:23:35 ◼   ► I would notice.

01:23:36 ◼   ► 480 versus 720, I think I would notice that.

01:23:38 ◼   ► but it's just kind of a shame.

01:23:41 ◼   ► Like you know it's gonna be 720 in like a revision or two.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Like I'm gonna pull a Marcus Brown leader

01:23:46 ◼   ► and say guaranteed two or three revisions from now,

01:23:49 ◼   ► that camera will not be 480.

01:23:51 ◼   ► - Quote me.

01:23:51 ◼   ► - Oh, it's very possible.

01:23:52 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm just saying it probably isn't that big of a deal.

01:23:55 ◼   ► - So this will be just like the one year

01:23:57 ◼   ► that it came with a 480.

01:23:58 ◼   ► Anyway, not a big deal, but something to keep in mind

01:24:00 ◼   ► if you really care about having HD pictures

01:24:02 ◼   ► while you, whatever, like just use your phone,

01:24:04 ◼   ► it's got a higher definition camera to do FaceTime stuff.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Uh, I'm gonna skip the three finger drag thing.

01:24:11 ◼   ► Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week.

01:24:13 ◼   ► Uh, I can't even read that.

01:24:15 ◼   ► Hold on.

01:24:16 ◼   ► Yeah, I can fit one more item in while you search.

01:24:18 ◼   ► Damn it!

01:24:19 ◼   ► Ah!

01:24:20 ◼   ► Fracture, Igloo, and Squarespace, and we will see you next week.

01:24:21 ◼   ► Haha, I beat you.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin.

01:24:29 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental.

01:24:31 ◼   ► Oh, it was accidental.

01:24:33 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

01:24:36 ◼   ► If you didn't do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn't let him

01:24:40 ◼   ► 'Cause it was accidental (it was accidental)

01:24:43 ◼   ► It was accidental (it was accidental)

01:24:46 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm

01:24:51 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them

01:24:56 ◼   ► @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:25:00 ◼   ► So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:25:04 ◼   ► Anti-Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C, USA, Syracuse, it's accidental.

01:25:13 ◼   ► It's accidental.

01:25:15 ◼   ► They didn't mean to.

01:25:17 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:25:18 ◼   ► Accidental.

01:25:19 ◼   ► Tech broadcast so long.

01:25:24 ◼   ► Dude, we have got to put a time limit on follow up.

01:25:26 ◼   ► Yeah, like, this is ridiculous.

01:25:29 ◼   ► Alright, so let's save it by talking Nintendo, but we-

01:25:31 ◼   ► But we this is a topic too. I mean like I I think just because we talked about it on the previous show

01:25:38 ◼   ► Which makes it follow up on this show doesn't make it any less of a topic than it was last week

01:25:43 ◼   ► You know what? I mean? It's still the same subject. Yeah

01:25:45 ◼   ► Yeah

01:25:46 ◼   ► And I also blame Marco for going to England and delaying the show because we would not have had this much follow-up if we had

01:25:51 ◼   ► Recorded on Wednesday. We would have had two days less believe me. It would have been pretty similar. Yeah. Yeah

01:25:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't know, I think it's an interesting machine

01:26:00 ◼   ► with a lot of interesting compromises

01:26:02 ◼   ► and it's worth talking about.

01:26:03 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:26:04 ◼   ► - I agree, so now let's talk about something

01:26:06 ◼   ► potentially uplifting and let's get our Nintendo chat

01:26:09 ◼   ► out of the way real quick, because that'll totally be quick.

01:26:12 ◼   ► - Are you serious?

01:26:13 ◼   ► - Oh actually, no, no, no, what about the six plus?

01:26:15 ◼   ► You wanna talk about that?

01:26:16 ◼   ► That'll be a topic and it'll be quickish.

01:26:18 ◼   ► - So I went on this trip and I brought with me a six plus

01:26:21 ◼   ► to do the local SIM card thing,

01:26:23 ◼   ► 'cause my six plus is unlocked,

01:26:25 ◼   ► I bought it for developer testing.

01:26:27 ◼   ► - Let me stop you there.

01:26:28 ◼   ► Where did you get your local SIM?

01:26:29 ◼   ► 'Cause I've never done this

01:26:30 ◼   ► and I'm very intrigued by the whole process.

01:26:32 ◼   ► - I had never done it either,

01:26:33 ◼   ► but I was tipped off in advance by our friend Daniel Jaka.

01:26:36 ◼   ► This was like really easy in England.

01:26:37 ◼   ► And it varies by country.

01:26:39 ◼   ► Some places it's easier than others.

01:26:41 ◼   ► But in England, you can just go,

01:26:44 ◼   ► like there's a store in the airport.

01:26:46 ◼   ► Like I walked out of customs

01:26:48 ◼   ► and while waiting for my ride,

01:26:50 ◼   ► there was a store right there that sold SIMs.

01:26:52 ◼   ► So I walked in and they did it right there.

01:26:55 ◼   ► like I paid 30 pounds for a sim on the Carrier 3

01:26:59 ◼   ► and it supports, 30 pounds got me 30 days

01:27:04 ◼   ► of unlimited data, some number of local UK minutes

01:27:09 ◼   ► that I would never use, and even tethering with all that.

01:27:12 ◼   ► And I asked the guy, I'm like, well,

01:27:13 ◼   ► I'm going to Ireland in two weeks.

01:27:15 ◼   ► So no, not every sim in England will work in Ireland.

01:27:17 ◼   ► Three is one of the only ones that does.

01:27:19 ◼   ► And I asked the guy, oh, does it work there?

01:27:21 ◼   ► He said, yeah, but there's a limit on the tethering there.

01:27:24 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, 25 gigs.

01:27:26 ◼   ► - Well, my God, that's amazing.

01:27:28 ◼   ► - Oh, okay, so don't worry, that won't be a problem.

01:27:32 ◼   ► So yeah, 30 pounds got me all that,

01:27:33 ◼   ► and some people were saying they got a very similar plan

01:27:36 ◼   ► for 15 pounds somewhere else,

01:27:38 ◼   ► so that might have even been overpriced.

01:27:39 ◼   ► - I would absolutely pay 30 pounds for that,

01:27:41 ◼   ► are you kidding me?

01:27:42 ◼   ► That's amazing. - Yeah, and that's like,

01:27:44 ◼   ► even after the exchange rate,

01:27:45 ◼   ► that is cheaper than what I pay per month for AT&T

01:27:50 ◼   ► in my home plan, and it comes with unlimited data.

01:27:52 ◼   ► I mean, that's a better plan than I have at home,

01:27:54 ◼   ► for less money.

01:27:56 ◼   ► So I did that, and the guy, I brought my phone,

01:27:59 ◼   ► the guy popped it in right there,

01:28:00 ◼   ► and even though I did bring my own SIM removal tool,

01:28:04 ◼   ► which is a paperclip, 'cause I don't have the official one.

01:28:06 ◼   ► - Do they not have paperclips in England,

01:28:07 ◼   ► along with no top sheets?

01:28:09 ◼   ► - I didn't want to presume that they would have paperclips,

01:28:11 ◼   ► so I brought my own paperclip in my carry-on bag.

01:28:14 ◼   ► So, yeah, so I brought the 6 Plus as my unlocked phone,

01:28:16 ◼   ► and normally I just pay AT&T the 30 bucks

01:28:20 ◼   ► for the 120 megs of data and then I'm just afraid

01:28:24 ◼   ► to use it ever for the whole trip.

01:28:27 ◼   ► So it ends up I pay 30 bucks to not have data

01:28:29 ◼   ► for the whole trip or I accidentally use it

01:28:32 ◼   ► and launch Instagram once and then I've blown the cap

01:28:35 ◼   ► and pay another 30 bucks every 100 megs.

01:28:39 ◼   ► It's annoying.

01:28:40 ◼   ► So anyway, this is the first trip where I did this

01:28:41 ◼   ► and it was great.

01:28:43 ◼   ► It was fantastic to just not have to think about it.

01:28:45 ◼   ► Just, you know, I have an iPhone,

01:28:48 ◼   ► like I always have an iPhone.

01:28:50 ◼   ► I can just use it whenever I want and it's fine.

01:28:52 ◼   ► I'll fit within whatever limit there is.

01:28:54 ◼   ► It's just by my normal usage

01:28:55 ◼   ► and I can download stuff if I want to.

01:28:57 ◼   ► I can tether if I want to.

01:28:58 ◼   ► It's great.

01:28:59 ◼   ► So definitely recommend doing this

01:29:01 ◼   ► if you have any unlocked phones.

01:29:04 ◼   ► I also, in advance, just in case,

01:29:06 ◼   ► I unlocked my old AT&T 5S,

01:29:08 ◼   ► which you can do,

01:29:10 ◼   ► AT&T now has a thing you can do it online.

01:29:12 ◼   ► It takes like five minutes.

01:29:13 ◼   ► You can just fill, you fill out a form online

01:29:14 ◼   ► and it sends it to them to review

01:29:16 ◼   ► and then like two minutes later,

01:29:17 ◼   ► They approve it and that's it.

01:29:20 ◼   ► So that was great.

01:29:22 ◼   ► And I spent the whole week using the 6 Plus.

01:29:26 ◼   ► - Did you download season five of Mad Men

01:29:28 ◼   ► while you were asleep?

01:29:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:29:30 ◼   ► You could have done that with 25 gigs,

01:29:31 ◼   ► it would have been, well, it would have been close.

01:29:33 ◼   ► - No, no, it was unlimited in the UK.

01:29:35 ◼   ► I'm limited for two weeks from now when I go back.

01:29:38 ◼   ► So tethering was great, using it as data was great,

01:29:42 ◼   ► and using the 6 Plus, it felt really, really weird

01:29:46 ◼   ► and huge for about the first half a day.

01:29:49 ◼   ► And then I just forgot about it and it just felt normal.

01:29:54 ◼   ► And there were times where it felt large in my pocket

01:29:56 ◼   ► here and there, but for the most part,

01:29:59 ◼   ► like when I first got the 6 Plus for my testing

01:30:02 ◼   ► and everything when it came out,

01:30:04 ◼   ► that was when we were all coming from the five line

01:30:07 ◼   ► of phones and so the 6 and the 6 Plus both felt really big.

01:30:12 ◼   ► And I was barely able to really hold onto the 6,

01:30:15 ◼   ► let alone the 6 Plus, which just looked ridiculous.

01:30:18 ◼   ► But now, having now used the 6 for so long,

01:30:22 ◼   ► going to the 6 Plus from the 6 was not a huge jump.

01:30:24 ◼   ► It didn't feel that ridiculous,

01:30:26 ◼   ► now that I'm used to the 6.

01:30:28 ◼   ► And once I was using the 6 Plus for half a day,

01:30:31 ◼   ► it felt fine, it felt good.

01:30:34 ◼   ► And then, and I was able to enjoy it,

01:30:35 ◼   ► to just really, you know, just enjoy all the screen space.

01:30:39 ◼   ► As a travel device, I mean, as an everyday device,

01:30:42 ◼   ► I'm not sure if I would prefer that,

01:30:43 ◼   ► just because it is pretty big in the pocket,

01:30:45 ◼   ► but as a travel device, I loved it

01:30:48 ◼   ► because it has way better battery life.

01:30:50 ◼   ► Mine happens to be unlocked,

01:30:51 ◼   ► so that helps a lot with international stuff.

01:30:54 ◼   ► And it's nice to, like, so, and on this trip,

01:30:57 ◼   ► I didn't bring an iPad at all.

01:30:58 ◼   ► - It's a phablet, you had a phablet, you didn't use it.

01:31:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, there was no reason to bring an iPad.

01:31:02 ◼   ► And so I had this little phone, and like, hey, you know,

01:31:04 ◼   ► this is how I cut down the weight of my laptop in my bag.

01:31:09 ◼   ► I stopped bringing an iPad.

01:31:11 ◼   ► saved a pound and a half right there.

01:31:13 ◼   ► So now I have a 15 inch laptop and no iPad

01:31:16 ◼   ► and then I'm carrying around the same size bag

01:31:19 ◼   ► as all these people with their MacBook Airs

01:31:21 ◼   ► and their 10 different devices.

01:31:23 ◼   ► So I think the 6 Plus is great.

01:31:25 ◼   ► So I came home yesterday and switched back to my 6

01:31:31 ◼   ► on AT&T now and now the 6 feels tiny.

01:31:35 ◼   ► Like it actually feels like noticeably small

01:31:38 ◼   ► and I miss the screen space.

01:31:41 ◼   ► and I might actually switch back at some point.

01:31:43 ◼   ► I'm not sure yet.

01:31:44 ◼   ► Certainly I'll switch back when I go to Ireland

01:31:46 ◼   ► in two weeks, but I get the six plus now.

01:31:49 ◼   ► Like I gave it the chance, now I understand it.

01:31:53 ◼   ► I get it, I get why people like it.

01:31:55 ◼   ► I like it, I'm not sure if I like it enough

01:31:57 ◼   ► to use it full time or to get another one next year.

01:32:01 ◼   ► I don't know about that, but I get it now.

01:32:04 ◼   ► And I think all of us who were saying

01:32:06 ◼   ► that it was completely ridiculous

01:32:08 ◼   ► and couldn't understand who would buy it,