ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I think I have one of the most disruptive injuries I've ever had.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Oh.

00:00:05 ◼   ► I have a cut on my support pinky right where the phone rests.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Oh, that is not desirable.

00:00:14 ◼   ► What was the load-bearing pinky?

00:00:16 ◼   ► That was the name of the episode, right?

00:00:18 ◼   ► Yeah, so basically I can't hold my phone the way I have held my phone forever.

00:00:22 ◼   ► Because, like, you know, it hurts a lot.

00:00:24 ◼   ► You know, it's one of those, like, you know, deep paper cut kind of things.

00:00:26 ◼   ► It'll be gone in probably maybe four or five days,

00:00:29 ◼   ► but man, it's really disruptive right now.

00:00:33 ◼   ► - That is not desirable.

00:00:34 ◼   ► - Aren't you one of those weird people

00:00:36 ◼   ► who holds their phone in their non-dominant hand?

00:00:38 ◼   ► - Yes, because I had a wallet before I carried a phone.

00:00:42 ◼   ► So the wallet and keys went in the right pocket

00:00:44 ◼   ► with my dominant hand.

00:00:45 ◼   ► - Every time, this kills me, every time.

00:00:48 ◼   ► - Eventually, I added a phone to my pocket setup,

00:00:51 ◼   ► and so it had to go in the left pocket,

00:00:52 ◼   ► because that was the free pocket.

00:00:54 ◼   ► So I am a left-hand phone user,

00:00:55 ◼   ► even though I am right-handed.

00:00:57 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:00:58 ◼   ► - All right, well, so now,

00:00:59 ◼   ► now that your left hand is injured,

00:01:02 ◼   ► you can use your dominant hand to hold your phone

00:01:03 ◼   ► with your non-injured pinky, right?

00:01:05 ◼   ► - Oh God, it's all wrong.

00:01:06 ◼   ► I'm trying, it's all, it feels all wrong.

00:01:08 ◼   ► - I mean, it's the hand that you're good with.

00:01:10 ◼   ► Like it should be no problem, but that pinky under there.

00:01:12 ◼   ► - Oh God, this is, I can't even,

00:01:13 ◼   ► now I can't reach all my icons.

00:01:15 ◼   ► It's the wrong thumb.

00:01:17 ◼   ► - I'm so firmly in the phone in the right hand pockets thing

00:01:21 ◼   ► is that when I walk the dog,

00:01:23 ◼   ► my phone is in my right hand pocket,

00:01:24 ◼   ► but I also hold the dog leash with my right hand

00:01:26 ◼   ► because I don't have control of the dog.

00:01:29 ◼   ► And so I've gotten really, really good

00:01:31 ◼   ► at taking my phone out of my right hand pocket

00:01:33 ◼   ► with my left hand and putting it back.

00:01:35 ◼   ► - Yep, yep.

00:01:36 ◼   ► - I just go, "Fwoop, fwoop."

00:01:38 ◼   ► It's like, why don't you just put the phone

00:01:39 ◼   ► in the left pocket?

00:01:40 ◼   ► It's just because that's not how the pocket setup goes.

00:01:42 ◼   ► - See, the pocket setup,

00:01:43 ◼   ► even though you have it set up wrong,

00:01:45 ◼   ► the pocket setup is king.

00:01:47 ◼   ► Once you've established a pocket setup,

00:01:50 ◼   ► you can't mess with it.

00:01:51 ◼   ► - But you see how I'm adapting?

00:01:53 ◼   ► The pocket setup I'm not changing,

00:01:55 ◼   ► but I'm saying okay, when the normal hand is occupied,

00:01:57 ◼   ► in my case with a leash, in your case with a paper cut,

00:02:00 ◼   ► use the other hand.

00:02:02 ◼   ► - By the way, I also am a left dog leash, left phone person.

00:02:05 ◼   ► So I have the same problem.

00:02:07 ◼   ► - Your dog is the size of a Chihuahua,

00:02:09 ◼   ► so you have no problem using left hand to control your dog.

00:02:12 ◼   ► But if you had a dog that was a little bit bigger

00:02:15 ◼   ► and a little bit more eager.

00:02:16 ◼   ► - A dog-sized dog.

00:02:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, a little bit more eager to kill varmints,

00:02:20 ◼   ► you maybe would want to use your dominant hand.

00:02:22 ◼   ► - No, meanwhile, we like, you know,

00:02:24 ◼   ► because of where we live, there's deer everywhere.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Like we have just walking all along the sidewalks,

00:02:29 ◼   ► they walk right up to people,

00:02:31 ◼   ► 'cause some people feed them,

00:02:31 ◼   ► even though you're not supposed to do, but some people do.

00:02:33 ◼   ► - They want Lyme disease, they love it.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - Right, and they'll walk up and like lick your hand.

00:02:38 ◼   ► Like how many, like I've touched a deer nose,

00:02:41 ◼   ► not because I really wanted to,

00:02:42 ◼   ► but because it was in front of my hand,

00:02:43 ◼   ► I'm like, well, let's see what this feels like.

00:02:45 ◼   ► Turns out it feels like a giant dog nose.

00:02:47 ◼   ► But anyway, yeah, like there's like,

00:02:49 ◼   ► we can walk right past a family of three deer

00:02:53 ◼   ► within five feet of us and Hopps won't even notice.

00:02:56 ◼   ► He just keeps going.

00:02:58 ◼   ► 'Cause as far as he knows, his food comes from cans.

00:03:01 ◼   ► He doesn't know that it comes from animals.

00:03:03 ◼   ► - I don't think he's gonna be taking that

00:03:04 ◼   ► to deer no matter what.

00:03:06 ◼   ► - No, but if he sees a can on the ground, who knows?

00:03:09 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, yeah.

00:03:10 ◼   ► Well, I'm assuming Hopps has some kind of

00:03:12 ◼   ► flea and tick treatment, but you probably don't,

00:03:14 ◼   ► so maybe don't get so close to the deer

00:03:17 ◼   ► because the deer ticks are not your friend.

00:03:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, these are all brand new little fluffy ones

00:03:21 ◼   ► that don't have, they aren't covered in ticks yet.

00:03:23 ◼   ► - No, you don't think so?

00:03:24 ◼   ► - Give them a few months.

00:03:26 ◼   ► That comes later in the summer.

00:03:27 ◼   ► But no, I don't, I try not to get that close.

00:03:30 ◼   ► The problem is they're like taking up the whole road.

00:03:32 ◼   ► I gotta like squeeze past them.

00:03:34 ◼   ► - For the record, John and I have the correct pocket setup.

00:03:36 ◼   ► It is phone in the front right pocket,

00:03:38 ◼   ► keys in the front left pocket and other randomness.

00:03:42 ◼   ► I am a back pocket wallet kind of person.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I don't understand how people use the front wallet.

00:03:46 ◼   ► - Of course you are.

00:03:46 ◼   ► - What is that supposed to mean?

00:03:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:03:50 ◼   ► I mean, what kind of monster puts their wallet in the front

00:03:52 ◼   ► unless you're walking through like a genuinely

00:03:54 ◼   ► pickpocket heavy city, which is something I do

00:03:56 ◼   ► extremely rarely.

00:03:58 ◼   ► The wallet goes in the back, that's why you have

00:03:59 ◼   ► a little thin wallet, not a John Siracusa/Castanza wallet.

00:04:03 ◼   ► - No, thin or thick, I don't want a Castanza back injury.

00:04:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's no thickness of wallet

00:04:08 ◼   ► that makes it comfortable to sit on.

00:04:09 ◼   ► - No.

00:04:10 ◼   ► - I don't feel like I sit on my, I'm in my PJs,

00:04:12 ◼   ► as we've talked about many times before.

00:04:14 ◼   ► I don't think I sit on my wallet, maybe I do

00:04:16 ◼   ► and I don't realize it, but my wallet is thin.

00:04:18 ◼   ► - No, back pockets are decorative.

00:04:21 ◼   ► I mean like that's, I feel like, you know,

00:04:23 ◼   ► well there's a class of storage, of pants storage,

00:04:28 ◼   ► where it is standing storage only.

00:04:30 ◼   ► - It's only if you have a max phone.

00:04:34 ◼   ► - Yeah right, like you know, many people,

00:04:36 ◼   ► they will have something in their pocket,

00:04:37 ◼   ► but then when they go to sit down,

00:04:39 ◼   ► their routine is to remove that thing from their pocket

00:04:42 ◼   ► and like put it on the table or something.

00:04:43 ◼   ► I don't like doing that.

00:04:44 ◼   ► So I am not, I don't use standing storage only.

00:04:47 ◼   ► I just have front pockets that I can keep things in

00:04:50 ◼   ► all the time and I'm not a phone on the table kind of person

00:04:53 ◼   ► and I'm very happy living that way.

00:04:55 ◼   ► - Or you could be a teenager and apparently

00:04:57 ◼   ► they put their phones in their back pockets

00:04:58 ◼   ► and just sit with them and they don't care.

00:04:59 ◼   ► I feel like that's half the reason why the iPhone 6

00:05:02 ◼   ► bend stuff happens is because teenagers just do not care.

00:05:05 ◼   ► They'll just sit on their phones

00:05:06 ◼   ► and just expect everything to be fine.

00:05:07 ◼   ► (beeping)

00:05:09 ◼   ► - We haven't talked about this in a while

00:05:11 ◼   ► I wanted to take a moment and just, I don't know, remind isn't really the word I'm looking for,

00:05:16 ◼   ► but I guess just to say that I know I speak for all three of us in saying that we support trans

00:05:23 ◼   ► youth, we support trans people. It's been really gross here in America for six, seven years now,

00:05:30 ◼   ► but even longer than that too. And lately, there have been a bunch of bills that have been

00:05:37 ◼   ► introduced here in the States, and I don't think it's unique to the United States, both

00:05:41 ◼   ► fortunately and unfortunately, I guess mostly unfortunately, there's been a bunch of bills

00:05:45 ◼   ► introduced that are really, really gross and sick and awful. And this is becoming kind

00:05:51 ◼   ► of a thing, or shouldn't even say becoming, it is a thing here. And it's the responsibility

00:05:56 ◼   ► of people like the three of us, and probably like a lot of the people listening to the

00:05:59 ◼   ► show, to stand up and say, this is not okay. And so I would like to say on behalf of the

00:06:05 ◼   ► the three of us, this is not okay. I wanted to read to you from fivecalls.org, which we'll

00:06:10 ◼   ► talk about here in a second, but on there it reads, "Over the past two years, state

00:06:14 ◼   ► lawmakers introduced well over 300 bills targeting trans people, more than in any previous period.

00:06:19 ◼   ► More than 85% of this legislation focuses on trans youth. In addition to bills banning

00:06:23 ◼   ► necessary medical care, legislation continues to be introduced that restrict what can be

00:06:26 ◼   ► taught in schools and exclude trans people from participation in sports as well as restricting

00:06:30 ◼   ► their access to bathrooms." I heard about this most recently from a dear friend of the

00:06:35 ◼   ► and host of Two-Headed Girl with their spouse Matt.

00:06:39 ◼   ► I'm talking about Alex Cox, who you would also know as one of the hosts of Dubai Friday.

00:06:44 ◼   ► Alex wrote a lovely blog post/recorded an episode of Two-Headed Girl.

00:06:49 ◼   ► We will link to both the text and audio versions, where Alex is basically saying in a very kind

00:06:54 ◼   ► way, "Hey, people that look like the host of ATP, you should do something.

00:07:00 ◼   ► We need you to do something."

00:07:02 ◼   ► So this happened at around the same time that I saw John Molt's tweet about FiveCalls.org,

00:07:09 ◼   ► which I briefly mentioned a moment ago.

00:07:11 ◼   ► FiveCalls is a really cool tool that I was not familiar with before that lets you put

00:07:16 ◼   ► in where you live, and actually it uses geolocation, whatever, and it'll figure out exactly what

00:07:22 ◼   ► district you're in and say, "Okay, if you want to make a difference, here is the phone

00:07:26 ◼   ► number to call with a telephone link. It's in a huge font and it has a little script

00:07:32 ◼   ► that you can read and say exactly what you need to say. And they even, if you want to

00:07:37 ◼   ► go for double bonus points, have a link where you can look at the transfer related legislation

00:07:41 ◼   ► for your area. So you can say, I am calling on behalf of bill one, two, three, four, five,

00:07:46 ◼   ► and it's gross and I don't like it. And so I am, I am going to do this tomorrow. I didn't

00:07:52 ◼   ► have a chance to do it today, but I am putting it on out here for the public. You can, you

00:07:56 ◼   ► and ask me if I've done it and keep me honest here.

00:07:58 ◼   ► My intention is to do it first thing tomorrow morning,

00:08:00 ◼   ► but to call my legislators and say this is gross

00:08:03 ◼   ► because you know what, it is gross.

00:08:05 ◼   ► And it is up to people that look like us

00:08:07 ◼   ► to be there for the people that don't look like us.

00:08:10 ◼   ► And it's the least we can do for goodness sakes.

00:08:13 ◼   ► And so I just wanted to call that out.

00:08:14 ◼   ► I don't know if you two have anything

00:08:16 ◼   ► you wanna add about that, please feel free.

00:08:17 ◼   ► But seriously, fivecalls.org,

00:08:20 ◼   ► we'll put the full link in the show notes

00:08:22 ◼   ► and listen to Alex's episode and or read their blog post

00:08:26 ◼   ► because it's incredible.

00:08:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, the thing I'll add is on a periodic basis,

00:08:30 ◼   ► we also get the opportunity to vote for people

00:08:32 ◼   ► who will be in the lawmaking bodies in our country.

00:08:35 ◼   ► Don't vote for anybody who supports any of these bills.

00:08:39 ◼   ► Like I know you have other issues.

00:08:41 ◼   ► It's the reason this comes up

00:08:42 ◼   ► because the Republicans use it as a wedge issue

00:08:44 ◼   ► to scare people into voting for them

00:08:45 ◼   ► so they can get lower taxes for rich people.

00:08:47 ◼   ► It's a perverse system, I understand, right?

00:08:49 ◼   ► But you may be like,

00:08:50 ◼   ► "Well, I don't like that this person supports

00:08:52 ◼   ► "the trans bill, but I do like X, Y, and Z."

00:08:55 ◼   ► It's kind of, the reason they use it as a wedge issue

00:08:58 ◼   ► is because people are scared of it

00:08:59 ◼   ► and it scares them into voting for them.

00:09:01 ◼   ► But on the other side of it, it's kind of a disqualifier.

00:09:04 ◼   ► It's like, well, I like everything about their policy

00:09:06 ◼   ► except how they have classified this whole set of humans

00:09:09 ◼   ► as non-human.

00:09:10 ◼   ► That's kind of hard to overlook.

00:09:11 ◼   ► I feel like it should be kind of hard to overlook.

00:09:13 ◼   ► Anybody who supports any of these things

00:09:15 ◼   ► that take away rights from people, do not vote for them.

00:09:18 ◼   ► Vote for whoever is running against them

00:09:20 ◼   ► that has the best chance of winning

00:09:21 ◼   ► because of our stupid two-party system here, whatever.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Yes, make the calls, all that, but like, a lot of times you feel like you're making the

00:09:29 ◼   ► calls and it doesn't matter if you have some stupid Republican lawmaker you know is not

00:09:33 ◼   ► going to change their mind, vote them out next time.

00:09:36 ◼   ► Yeah, yep.

00:09:37 ◼   ► I mean, you know, if you look throughout American history, we have a long history of trying

00:09:47 ◼   ► to suppress people's rights, trying to cause a certain type of person not to exist in various

00:09:55 ◼   ► ways, many of them hostile or violent. Lots of different, you know, attempts at society

00:10:01 ◼   ► to meddle in people's sexuality or gender identities or, you know, other, you know,

00:10:09 ◼   ► romantic or gender-based behaviors that they really have no business meddling in. And over

00:10:15 ◼   ► the arc of history, those have all been proven wrong. And we've moved past a lot of them.

00:10:23 ◼   ► Every one of those battles was fought hard and eventually won.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And the people who were on the other side of it, who were trying to cause violence to

00:10:34 ◼   ► or restrict the rights of people of certain characteristics that they didn't like or

00:10:39 ◼   ► whatever, those people always lose.

00:10:42 ◼   ► And those people oftentimes come to regret the positions they've had on the other side

00:10:47 ◼   ► when they were trying to restrict people's rights.

00:10:50 ◼   ► If you are maybe on the fence on issues like this or if you are on the other side where

00:10:54 ◼   ► you want these rights to be restricted, I urge you to look at the course of history

00:10:58 ◼   ► and see how that's gone for those people and maybe realize, you know, this whatever

00:11:04 ◼   ► reasons you have in your head for thinking this is different, I assure you it's not.

00:11:08 ◼   ► You can look back at our history and say like, you know, well, you know, the rights of women,

00:11:14 ◼   ► the rights of black people, the rights of gay people. Over time, those of all, we've

00:11:21 ◼   ► had to work really hard to advance those and to work for equality and we're still not done,

00:11:28 ◼   ► honestly, in all those areas. But this is the latest battlefront in that area where,

00:11:33 ◼   ► you know, we have lots of efforts across our country to restrict the rights of trans people,

00:11:40 ◼   ► to try to deny trans people exist or to try to stop them from existing. Those are just

00:11:46 ◼   ► as barbaric and just horrendous as our past treatment of all those other groups. I urge

00:11:54 ◼   ► you to fight this good fight. This is our generation's latest challenge in this area.

00:12:01 ◼   ► Anything that restricts somebody's rights or ability to be themselves or their right

00:12:08 ◼   ► to simply exist without being harassed or threatened by our society. We need to fight

00:12:13 ◼   ► for that. We need to fight for everyone's rights. It is no business of the state what

00:12:19 ◼   ► gender identity people want to have. It is no more their business as it was to ban interracial

00:12:25 ◼   ► marriage or to ban gay marriage or to have laws against certain people making love to

00:12:30 ◼   ► each other. All of those things are, well, for the most part, relics of history that

00:12:36 ◼   ► that we've fought very hard to get rid of,

00:12:38 ◼   ► this is the latest battle.

00:12:39 ◼   ► And so, all people who care about rights

00:12:43 ◼   ► and liberty for all, you should care about this.

00:12:46 ◼   ► - Yep, couldn't agree more.

00:12:48 ◼   ► So please, fivecalls.org, particularly if you're American,

00:12:50 ◼   ► I'm sure there's equivalents for wherever you live,

00:12:53 ◼   ► because unfortunately, this is not a uniquely American thing

00:12:55 ◼   ► although perhaps we are being more aggressive about it

00:12:58 ◼   ► than most other places, hooray.

00:13:00 ◼   ► And then just to put a little bit of a smile

00:13:04 ◼   ► on the beginning of the show here,

00:13:05 ◼   ► It's officially, officially, officially the last time I can say ATP is 10 years old because

00:13:09 ◼   ► on the 11th of March 2013, we've had like 7.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Occasion inflation, right?

00:13:15 ◼   ► We have had like 17 10th anniversaries so far.

00:13:18 ◼   ► But for real this time, this is the last one on my list, it was 6/21 in the evening on

00:13:24 ◼   ► March 11th 2013 that I had tweeted about the Accidental Tech podcast.

00:13:28 ◼   ► So for real, for real this time, 10 years, and I will just very briefly say, first of

00:13:34 ◼   ► all, thank you to anyone who has ever listened to the show, even if you have stopped listening

00:13:38 ◼   ► and thus are not hearing my words right now. I appreciate it immensely. We appreciate it

00:13:43 ◼   ► immensely. Anyone who's even looked at a sponsor, much less patronized one of the sponsors, anyone

00:13:47 ◼   ► who's become a member at atp.fm/join. Normally this is where I would say if you really enjoy the show,

00:13:53 ◼   ► go to that URL, but instead I will say go to fivecalls.org and make some phone calls,

00:13:57 ◼   ► and we'll appreciate that for this one. But nevertheless, it is because of all of you that

00:14:01 ◼   ► that have stuck around for 10 years.

00:14:04 ◼   ► 10 years!

00:14:05 ◼   ► It's bananas.

00:14:06 ◼   ► I mean, Adam was a baby.

00:14:08 ◼   ► Wasn't even a year old when this show started.

00:14:10 ◼   ► I didn't have babies when this show started.

00:14:13 ◼   ► It's nuts to me that we have been going for 10 years.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And speaking only for myself for a moment,

00:14:19 ◼   ► it is a genuine pleasure that I get to speak

00:14:21 ◼   ► to you two gentlemen every single week

00:14:23 ◼   ► come hell or high water.

00:14:25 ◼   ► And for me, I hope this continues until one of us

00:14:28 ◼   ► or all of us can't talk anymore.

00:14:30 ◼   ► So thank you to you two.

00:14:31 ◼   ► Thank you especially to the listeners.

00:14:33 ◼   ► And you can thank us by going to fivecalls.org

00:14:35 ◼   ► and making some phone calls.

00:14:36 ◼   ► - I agree with all that, but you're not allowed

00:14:38 ◼   ► to do any more anniversaries, Casey.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Moratorium.

00:14:41 ◼   ► - So in my family, we have a tradition

00:14:43 ◼   ► that birthdays are just the week,

00:14:45 ◼   ► so it's like your birthday week.

00:14:47 ◼   ► Our birthdays have grown over time

00:14:48 ◼   ► into just full week experiences.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And I feel like this is like our show here,

00:14:53 ◼   ► our anniversary has lasted like two months.

00:14:55 ◼   ► Like how long has it been?

00:14:57 ◼   ► - It's too much, it's too much, you've overdone it.

00:14:58 ◼   ► - Oh, it's all right.

00:14:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, there's a long cooling off period you need now.

00:15:02 ◼   ► - I got at least like five more years

00:15:03 ◼   ► until I need to start worrying about an anniversary.

00:15:05 ◼   ► If we can make it to 15, which I sure hope we do.

00:15:08 ◼   ► - I think you gotta hold off until 20 now.

00:15:09 ◼   ► You've overdone it so much.

00:15:10 ◼   ► - Oh, but Dad.

00:15:12 ◼   ► - You're banned until 20.

00:15:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, but 20 is gonna be six months long.

00:15:15 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's possible.

00:15:17 ◼   ► - We're gonna start celebrating the 20th anniversary

00:15:20 ◼   ► in 2031, do I have that right?

00:15:23 ◼   ► Yeah, 2031, it's just gonna be a year long.

00:15:25 ◼   ► - The future.

00:15:26 ◼   ► - We'll see.

00:15:28 ◼   ► All right, well, thank you for indulging us

00:15:30 ◼   ► for all of the pre-show.

00:15:31 ◼   ► I really do appreciate it.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And let's do some follow-up,

00:15:34 ◼   ► 'cause I know that's what you're here for.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Ted points out, with regard to turning off the,

00:15:38 ◼   ► what's the term, John, for the sensitivity in the remote?

00:15:41 ◼   ► What's the formal term for it?

00:15:42 ◼   ► - It was like touch, or touch, or click only,

00:15:44 ◼   ► or touch and click.

00:15:45 ◼   ► I don't remember what the setting is.

00:15:46 ◼   ► - Okay.

00:15:47 ◼   ► Well, if you turn that off,

00:15:48 ◼   ► Ted has found out that if you press up

00:15:51 ◼   ► when you're looking at an Apple TV screensaver,

00:15:53 ◼   ► it will show the location.

00:15:55 ◼   ► And then instead of swiping,

00:15:56 ◼   ► you can press left and right to cycle through the screensavers, which is cool.

00:15:59 ◼   ► Yeah, this is the never ending follow up of like,

00:16:01 ◼   ► I turned off touch of my Apple TV remote, but now I can't do whatever. Uh,

00:16:04 ◼   ► and I think this was the last one we had in the queue was someone said,

00:16:07 ◼   ► I can't figure out how to get the location on the screensaver.

00:16:09 ◼   ► Apparently you can press up.

00:16:10 ◼   ► In deed. Then Eric de Reuter writes,

00:16:14 ◼   ► it seems that the no passcode iPhone can't plan can be defeated by a thief

00:16:19 ◼   ► adding a passcode and then using the new passcode to reset your Apple ID

00:16:23 ◼   ► password. Whoopsie doopsie.

00:16:25 ◼   ► So amazing.

00:16:26 ◼   ► I have not tested this.

00:16:28 ◼   ► And here's the thing.

00:16:29 ◼   ► This is going to be a theme with that we have a bunch

00:16:30 ◼   ► of follow-up related to this.

00:16:32 ◼   ► Lots of people post things like this,

00:16:34 ◼   ► and it's not clear to me that they have actually tested it,

00:16:36 ◼   ► or they're just surmising this would be the case.

00:16:38 ◼   ► And the reason I haven't been testing a lot of these

00:16:41 ◼   ► is because basically I'm afraid of screwing something up

00:16:43 ◼   ► and locking myself out of my Apple ID.

00:16:44 ◼   ► Because a lot of this testing is like,

00:16:46 ◼   ► remove a passcode, then remove this,

00:16:47 ◼   ► then remove your Apple ID, then add your Apple ID,

00:16:49 ◼   ► and do this.

00:16:50 ◼   ► It's just like, there's no way I'm going to do that.

00:16:51 ◼   ► So I'm cautioning people not to just go hog wild

00:16:56 ◼   ► trying all these things that you're hearing.

00:16:58 ◼   ► I'm including him in the show just because I'd like to hear,

00:17:01 ◼   ► I think it's interesting to know that

00:17:03 ◼   ► that there may be ways around,

00:17:05 ◼   ► even that silliest thing of the person who's on the farm

00:17:08 ◼   ► and didn't have a passcode,

00:17:09 ◼   ► it's a fun little bit of feedback,

00:17:11 ◼   ► but if you think that's a great plan, maybe thinking it,

00:17:14 ◼   ► because setting aside all the social engineering things,

00:17:17 ◼   ► just practically speaking,

00:17:19 ◼   ► it's apparently not clear to anyone,

00:17:21 ◼   ► anyone anywhere exactly how the security is intertwined

00:17:26 ◼   ► with Apple IDs and resetting and trusting devices.

00:17:28 ◼   ► It's just so complicated.

00:17:29 ◼   ► Like we all kind of know the default way things work,

00:17:32 ◼   ► but this type of thing of like, okay,

00:17:34 ◼   ► well, we'll get through it in a little bit,

00:17:35 ◼   ► but like, but what if I wanna have an Apple ID

00:17:37 ◼   ► and I wanna have a passcode,

00:17:38 ◼   ► but I don't want the passcode

00:17:40 ◼   ► to be able to reset the Apple ID, is that possible?

00:17:41 ◼   ► And what if I don't have a passcode?

00:17:42 ◼   ► If they add the passcode,

00:17:43 ◼   ► suddenly can the added passcode now reset my Apple ID?

00:17:46 ◼   ► It's very confusing and very fraught.

00:17:48 ◼   ► And I feel like Apple should eventually address this,

00:17:50 ◼   ► as we've discussed in past shows.

00:17:51 ◼   ► But here's just one more permutation to make you doubt

00:17:54 ◼   ► that you really know exactly what's going on

00:17:56 ◼   ► with respect to passcodes and Apple IDs.

00:17:58 ◼   ► I mean, the bottom line is what we said before.

00:18:00 ◼   ► If you had a really long alphanumeric one,

00:18:01 ◼   ► it's harder to shoulder surf,

00:18:02 ◼   ► and that's probably the best defense,

00:18:04 ◼   ► but it's also super annoying.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - Tangentially related with regard to doing a screen

00:18:10 ◼   ► recording while your parent is entering

00:18:13 ◼   ► the screen time passcode, so you can then reverse engineer

00:18:16 ◼   ► the screen time passcode, Guy Rambo told me that

00:18:19 ◼   ► in the iOS 16.4 beta, the screen time passcode entry

00:18:23 ◼   ► does not show up in screen recordings, Guy writes.

00:18:25 ◼   ► I believe that that's been the case

00:18:26 ◼   ► for any secure data entry for quite a while

00:18:28 ◼   ► if the app configures the keyboard appropriately.

00:18:30 ◼   ► I just thought that was very funny,

00:18:31 ◼   ► that apparently that hole is already being filled in.

00:18:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, but not the hole of your children

00:18:36 ◼   ► shoulder surfing you.

00:18:37 ◼   ► And we keep saying that phrase

00:18:38 ◼   ► as everyone knows what it means.

00:18:40 ◼   ► I mean, can we do the etymology on shoulder surfing?

00:18:43 ◼   ► I think it actually is difficult to find out.

00:18:45 ◼   ► What we mean is someone looking over your shoulder and seeing what you're doing, right?

00:18:47 ◼   ► But why is it called shoulder surfing?

00:18:50 ◼   ► I think it's like, what's the, what's the derivation of that?

00:18:52 ◼   ► I think it's like, I don't know.

00:18:55 ◼   ► Surfing is, I don't know.

00:18:56 ◼   ► You can look it up.

00:18:57 ◼   ► It's not, this is not the first use of surfing to mean sort of like being poised on the edge

00:19:02 ◼   ► of something peering over or whatever.

00:19:04 ◼   ► But anyway, that's what we mean by shoulder surfing.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Someone looking over your shoulder and seeing what you're doing.

00:19:08 ◼   ► And kids are really good at that because they're small and sneaky.

00:19:11 ◼   ► Mm hmm.

00:19:12 ◼   ► All right.

00:19:13 ◼   ► apparently you can make unlimited guesses for the screen time passcode in

00:19:19 ◼   ► a particular context. So Melly writes, "You can do an unlimited screen time passcode

00:19:23 ◼   ► attempts in the screen time passcode, whatever, within hours." So you can go to

00:19:28 ◼   ► iOS settings, general, transfer, or reset iPhone. You tap on erase all content and

00:19:32 ◼   ► settings, tap on continue. You might have to enter the iPhone passcode, then you're

00:19:35 ◼   ► asked to enter the screen time passcode, and you can enter the wrong

00:19:38 ◼   ► passcode as often as you like. There's no forced pause after six wrong passcodes,

00:19:41 ◼   ► which is kind of funny.

00:19:43 ◼   ► I mean, I don't think that's that big a deal,

00:19:45 ◼   ► but it's pretty funny nonetheless.

00:19:47 ◼   ► - Well, but no, that's exactly,

00:19:48 ◼   ► this is an ultimate hole for a child.

00:19:50 ◼   ► So first of all, it's a scary thing to do.

00:19:51 ◼   ► Like they're going to their own device,

00:19:53 ◼   ► they're on their own iPad, right?

00:19:54 ◼   ► And they're going like, you know,

00:19:56 ◼   ► erase all content and settings,

00:19:58 ◼   ► which is a terrifying flow to start going through, right?

00:20:00 ◼   ► But they're just going through,

00:20:01 ◼   ► and you know, you have to enter the passcode.

00:20:02 ◼   ► They probably know the passcode to their own iPad.

00:20:04 ◼   ► It's how they get into their iPad, right?

00:20:06 ◼   ► So they're able to do this.

00:20:07 ◼   ► They are able to go this.

00:20:08 ◼   ► They just have to make sure they don't go

00:20:10 ◼   ► all the way through with the procedure

00:20:11 ◼   ► because at a certain point in the erase all content

00:20:14 ◼   ► and settings flow on their own device,

00:20:16 ◼   ► they will be asked, oh, you're not allowed to erase this

00:20:19 ◼   ► because it's locked with screen time,

00:20:20 ◼   ► so please enter the screen time passcode.

00:20:22 ◼   ► And in this particular flow, at that point,

00:20:24 ◼   ► you can guess as many times as you want.

00:20:26 ◼   ► And the screen time passcode, I believe,

00:20:27 ◼   ► is limited to four digits.

00:20:29 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:20:29 ◼   ► - It's only 10,000 combos and kids have a lot of time.

00:20:32 ◼   ► - Yep, and fast fingers.

00:20:34 ◼   ► Like, God, I cannot believe, like when I see my kid

00:20:37 ◼   ► operating the iPad or his computer,

00:20:40 ◼   ► He's so fast.

00:20:43 ◼   ► Like, you know, I'm a nerd, I'm pretty fast at things.

00:20:45 ◼   ► My God, I got nothing on my kid.

00:20:48 ◼   ► He is, like, the speed at which he taps things

00:20:51 ◼   ► and goes through things and goes through screens

00:20:52 ◼   ► and everything, flies through menus, like, amazing.

00:20:55 ◼   ► And so yeah, a kid who discovers this loophole

00:20:58 ◼   ► and is devoted to getting the passcode

00:21:00 ◼   ► can probably do it within like a half hour.

00:21:02 ◼   ► - It would take longer, you can do it with time,

00:21:04 ◼   ► I have as long as it takes to type in 10,000 four digit

00:21:06 ◼   ► codes, you can split it over multiple days,

00:21:07 ◼   ► like, but the point is, you think, oh, no,

00:21:10 ◼   ► will ever have the patience to root for it, this a kid would.

00:21:13 ◼   ► Especially because the reward for knowing your iPad's screen time passcode is quite

00:21:19 ◼   ► encouraging for a kid.

00:21:20 ◼   ► Yeah, they are highly motivated.

00:21:22 ◼   ► Yes!

00:21:23 ◼   ► And then there's a feedback number we'll put in the show notes, which would potentially

00:21:27 ◼   ► be useful to Apple people if feedback actually did anything other than go to Dev Null, which

00:21:31 ◼   ► we're going to talk about in a future episode, because I have thoughts.

00:21:34 ◼   ► Well, yeah, this person says they filed the feedback, and Apple responded that it is "not

00:21:38 ◼   ► a security issue."

00:21:39 ◼   ► How is it not a security issue?

00:21:41 ◼   ► Well, that, but how did Apple respond to a feedback?

00:21:43 ◼   ► I think that's even more stunning.

00:21:45 ◼   ► - I mean, we don't, it's not a direct quote.

00:21:46 ◼   ► We're quoting the person who wrote this,

00:21:49 ◼   ► I think, what was it, Mastodon post?

00:21:51 ◼   ► So anyway, it feels wrong to me.

00:21:54 ◼   ► It feels like if there's any place

00:21:55 ◼   ► where you're asked for the passcode,

00:21:56 ◼   ► there should be at least like a slowdown,

00:21:58 ◼   ► sort of a back off slowdown type thing.

00:22:00 ◼   ► You can't just guess forever.

00:22:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's definitely a security issue.

00:22:03 ◼   ► They just might not care about this area of security enough,

00:22:06 ◼   ► which I think is their problem that they should fix,

00:22:08 ◼   ► if that's true.

00:22:09 ◼   ► It's also possible that this got to a bug screener

00:22:13 ◼   ► who wasn't very good.

00:22:15 ◼   ► I mean, a big problem I think with the impression

00:22:20 ◼   ► that we have of the bug filing process from the outside

00:22:24 ◼   ► is that it is very, very clear that the level

00:22:28 ◼   ► of bug screeners that often interact with our bugs,

00:22:31 ◼   ► they are not paying attention.

00:22:32 ◼   ► They are not going through actually reading what you wrote,

00:22:36 ◼   ► they're not actually looking to see what you included

00:22:39 ◼   ► or attached, they're looking to plow through

00:22:41 ◼   ► as many as possible, find any reason

00:22:43 ◼   ► to kick it back to you or close it.

00:22:45 ◼   ► That's it.

00:22:46 ◼   ► It isn't like Apple, the one brain,

00:22:49 ◼   ► has decided this is not worth fixing.

00:22:51 ◼   ► No, it's Apple has a really crappy bug screening process

00:22:54 ◼   ► that incentivizes and encourages

00:22:57 ◼   ► mass disregard of what we say.

00:23:00 ◼   ► And so that person who saw that bug report

00:23:03 ◼   ► had a very, very strong incentive

00:23:05 ◼   ► and probable inertia towards disregarding it

00:23:08 ◼   ► in some reason.

00:23:09 ◼   ► So if you say, "Hey, this is a security problem,"

00:23:11 ◼   ► they're looking for any possible reason to say,

00:23:13 ◼   ► "No, it's not," because they wanna plow through

00:23:15 ◼   ► as many bugs as possible that day.

00:23:17 ◼   ► And that's terrible and dysfunctional,

00:23:18 ◼   ► and that causes Apple to miss tons of stuff

00:23:20 ◼   ► they really shouldn't miss, but that is Apple's process,

00:23:23 ◼   ► and that it falls squarely on their management to fix.

00:23:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, we'll save it for the show,

00:23:28 ◼   ► 'cause we're gonna talk about it,

00:23:29 ◼   ► not this week, but probably soon.

00:23:30 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:23:31 ◼   ► Jenny Oskarsen writes, "It is possible to have a passcode

00:23:34 ◼   ► "on an iPhone be logged into iCloud

00:23:36 ◼   ► "and not have that passcode allow you

00:23:38 ◼   ► to change your Apple ID password.

00:23:40 ◼   ► So the way you do this is you change your passcode.

00:23:41 ◼   ► Once the passcode has been entered twice,

00:23:43 ◼   ► it will ask for your Apple ID password.

00:23:45 ◼   ► At that point, just hit cancel.

00:23:47 ◼   ► The passcode has been changed even though you've canceled.

00:23:50 ◼   ► And if you attempt to change the Apple ID password

00:23:52 ◼   ► from the Settings app,

00:23:53 ◼   ► it will ask you for your current Apple ID password.

00:23:55 ◼   ► I haven't verified if this is true, but it sounds good.

00:23:58 ◼   ► - I tried this and it did not work.

00:24:00 ◼   ► Like I was not offered that choice and it just never,

00:24:03 ◼   ► so whatever, yeah, for whatever it's worth,

00:24:05 ◼   ► this didn't work for me.

00:24:06 ◼   ► I feel like there is, with this type of thing,

00:24:09 ◼   ► there's stuff that we can't see.

00:24:11 ◼   ► And the stuff that we can't see, I feel like,

00:24:13 ◼   ► is behind the scenes, once you link up your trusted device

00:24:17 ◼   ► and your Apple ID, even if you follow this procedure,

00:24:21 ◼   ► it still says, oh, well, this device and this Apple ID,

00:24:24 ◼   ► like, this is a trusted device for this Apple ID.

00:24:26 ◼   ► So of course, I will prompt,

00:24:27 ◼   ► and this device does have a passcode,

00:24:29 ◼   ► so I'll prompt you for the passcode,

00:24:30 ◼   ► and that's why you reset it.

00:24:31 ◼   ► Like, I feel like once they get associated

00:24:33 ◼   ► on Apple server side, that this phone and that Apple ID

00:24:36 ◼   ► are connected, that this won't work.

00:24:38 ◼   ► But if maybe you never link them in this way,

00:24:41 ◼   ► or maybe you did this the first time,

00:24:43 ◼   ► I feel like there's unseen stuff that we're,

00:24:45 ◼   ► something in some database table or some record somewhere

00:24:48 ◼   ► on Apple's side is thwarting this.

00:24:51 ◼   ► And I had the same experience, that it didn't work for me,

00:24:53 ◼   ► but it worked for Jenny, so there's obviously something

00:24:56 ◼   ► we're not seeing that's beyond just looking

00:24:58 ◼   ► at the settings on your phone.

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00:26:12 ◼   ► - There's been a little bit of talk over the last week

00:26:19 ◼   ► about how Tim Cook's a jerk and he just wants to ship

00:26:22 ◼   ► 'cause he wants to be remembered, man.

00:26:24 ◼   ► That's what it's all about.

00:26:25 ◼   ► This is a report in the Financial Times,

00:26:28 ◼   ► which was then summarized possibly not extremely accurately

00:26:32 ◼   ► depending on how you read it.

00:26:34 ◼   ► It was summarized by MacRumors.

00:26:36 ◼   ► That summary says that Apple CEO Tim Cook sided

00:26:39 ◼   ► with the operations chief, Jeff Williams,

00:26:41 ◼   ► in pushing to launch a first-generation mixed reality

00:26:44 ◼   ► headset device this year, against the wishes

00:26:47 ◼   ► of the company's design team, the Financial Times reports.

00:26:49 ◼   ► The company's industrial design team

00:26:51 ◼   ► cautioned that devices in the category

00:26:53 ◼   ► were not yet ready for launch and wanted

00:26:54 ◼   ► to delay until a lightweight AR glass product had

00:26:57 ◼   ► matured several years later.

00:26:59 ◼   ► On the other hand, Apple's ops team

00:27:00 ◼   ► wanted to ship an early version of the product

00:27:02 ◼   ► in the form of a VR-focused ski-goggle-like headset that allows users to watch 3D videos,

00:27:06 ◼   ► perform interactive workouts, or make FaceTime calls with virtual avatars.

00:27:10 ◼   ► Tim Cook reportedly sided with Jeff Williams, overruling objections from Apple's designers

00:27:13 ◼   ► and pressing for an early launch with a more limited product.

00:27:16 ◼   ► Speaking to the Financial Times, former Apple engineers who worked on the device described

00:27:20 ◼   ► the "huge pressure to ship."

00:27:23 ◼   ► Apple's headset has reportedly been in active development for seven years, twice as long

00:27:27 ◼   ► as the original iPhone prior to its launch.

00:27:30 ◼   ► The device is seen as being tied directly to Tim Cook's legacy as Apple's first new

00:27:34 ◼   ► computing platform developed entirely under his leadership.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Well, what do we think, fellas?

00:27:40 ◼   ► Well, Gruber had a good follow-up sort of punching holes in all the theorizing about

00:27:44 ◼   ► the internal intrigue about this and how nonsensical this theory is.

00:27:49 ◼   ► It's nonsensical on many, many fronts.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Factually inaccurate about this being the first item tied to Tim Cook's legacy.

00:27:54 ◼   ► It doesn't really make much sense that Tim Cook would care about this to secure his legacy,

00:27:58 ◼   ► which is already secured.

00:27:59 ◼   ► fact this could screw it up like we'll link to the group article you can see

00:28:02 ◼   ► all that I'm not so much interested in whether you know about all of those

00:28:07 ◼   ► details I'm more interested in basically the idea of do we think Apple should

00:28:11 ◼   ► ship a ski goggles thing or do we think that they should wait until head they

00:28:15 ◼   ► have AR glasses it seems like the company has decided that they're going

00:28:19 ◼   ► to ship a thing I mean we fuck those for ages like the thing we've been talking

00:28:23 ◼   ► about oh it's gonna come any time now is not a pair of glasses it is a goggly

00:28:27 ◼   ► thing, maybe a slim, goggly thing, smaller than other people's, but it's a AR/VR headset

00:28:32 ◼   ► thing of the type that we already see on the market, not a pair of Clark Kent glasses that

00:28:39 ◼   ► magically show you something because nobody has the technology to do that yet.

00:28:43 ◼   ► I think the interesting part of this story is just putting a pin on the idea that Apple

00:28:47 ◼   ► has decided they're going to ship that rather than waiting.

00:28:51 ◼   ► That much is clear.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And the other little tidbit is that there is a portion of the company that thinks this

00:28:56 ◼   ► this is the wrong move.

00:28:57 ◼   ► I don't think there's anything that Apple does

00:28:59 ◼   ► that there's not a portion of the company

00:29:01 ◼   ► that thinks it's the wrong move.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Like it's a big company with a lot of opinionated people.

00:29:05 ◼   ► Like literally name anything, any product,

00:29:08 ◼   ► any decision they've ever made somewhere,

00:29:10 ◼   ► some department thinks that that was the wrong thing to do.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Some software division, some hardware division,

00:29:15 ◼   ► some supplier manager, people like someone thinks

00:29:18 ◼   ► they should have either not shipped that

00:29:20 ◼   ► or shipped it earlier or shipped it later

00:29:21 ◼   ► or shipped a different thing.

00:29:22 ◼   ► That is true in any company.

00:29:24 ◼   ► So a story that says, well, you know, the operations department

00:29:28 ◼   ► thought they should have done x, and the supplier management

00:29:30 ◼   ► people thought they should have done y.

00:29:32 ◼   ► Of course, that's inevitable.

00:29:35 ◼   ► They try to make it into a more interesting story,

00:29:37 ◼   ► it's like, oh, it's Tim Cook in operations

00:29:40 ◼   ► versus industrial design.

00:29:41 ◼   ► He runs the company.

00:29:43 ◼   ► It's not versus anything.

00:29:44 ◼   ► It's a hierarchy.

00:29:46 ◼   ► Again, Tim Cook doesn't need approval from everyone

00:29:48 ◼   ► below him to do things.

00:29:50 ◼   ► There's nothing, literally nothing,

00:29:52 ◼   ► that gets done that doesn't have someone disagreeing

00:29:54 ◼   ► with it or whatever, like the butterfly keyboard, right?

00:29:55 ◼   ► They shipped that for years and years.

00:29:57 ◼   ► You think there weren't people inside Apple

00:29:59 ◼   ► that thought, whole departments that thought

00:30:00 ◼   ► this butterfly keyboard thing is a terrible mistake.

00:30:02 ◼   ► They just weren't the ones who got to make

00:30:03 ◼   ► the decision for that, right?

00:30:05 ◼   ► Anyway, so setting that aside, it is interesting to think,

00:30:08 ◼   ► kind of like, kind of comparing to the car project,

00:30:11 ◼   ► should Apple continue, have continued to,

00:30:14 ◼   ► you know, they haven't shipped anything yet,

00:30:15 ◼   ► but should Apple continue to just work on this problem

00:30:17 ◼   ► until they have something that looks like a pair of glasses,

00:30:21 ◼   ► Or should they basically ship what they have,

00:30:24 ◼   ► which presumably is incrementally better

00:30:27 ◼   ► than other ski goggles type things,

00:30:28 ◼   ► but is not a pair of glasses?

00:30:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, there's so many weird holes in this article

00:30:34 ◼   ► and the aforementioned Gruber article,

00:30:37 ◼   ► I think, pokes most of the holes very well,

00:30:39 ◼   ► so I'll leave that to him, including the whole thing

00:30:42 ◼   ► with this being Tim Cook's legacy.

00:30:44 ◼   ► No, the Apple Watch was a Tim Cook product.

00:30:47 ◼   ► They claimed that Steve Jobs conceived the Apple Watch,

00:30:50 ◼   ► but the watch came out like four years after Jobs died.

00:30:54 ◼   ► It's a Tim Cook product.

00:30:57 ◼   ► Whatever Jobs would have conceived there

00:31:00 ◼   ► would have been such an early preliminary thing.

00:31:03 ◼   ► It was pretty much 100% executed under Tim Cook.

00:31:07 ◼   ► So the watch is a Tim Cook product and it's very successful.

00:31:11 ◼   ► Gruber mentioned AirPods is another great example.

00:31:14 ◼   ► These are not small deals.

00:31:15 ◼   ► So Tim Cook's legacy is fine.

00:31:17 ◼   ► If you wanna poke holes in his legacy,

00:31:20 ◼   ► look at other things like his China strategy for instance,

00:31:22 ◼   ► maybe that's gonna be a problem.

00:31:24 ◼   ► But for the products, they've been fine.

00:31:27 ◼   ► They've had ups and downs,

00:31:28 ◼   ► they also had ups and downs under Steve.

00:31:30 ◼   ► So we're fine there.

00:31:33 ◼   ► So as for the particulars of this thing,

00:31:35 ◼   ► I think it's interesting,

00:31:36 ◼   ► reading between the lines here,

00:31:38 ◼   ► whenever you have an article like this,

00:31:40 ◼   ► or you see something from Mark Gurman or from Meng Shiquo,

00:31:46 ◼   ► you're seeing bits and pieces.

00:31:48 ◼   ► What happens is somebody has a source somewhere

00:31:51 ◼   ► and they get some information,

00:31:53 ◼   ► bits and pieces of information,

00:31:54 ◼   ► possibly from multiple different sources,

00:31:57 ◼   ► and then they try to put together the narrative

00:31:59 ◼   ► that they think this means.

00:32:01 ◼   ► But you often have to separate that out.

00:32:03 ◼   ► So often the rumor mill gets good information

00:32:07 ◼   ► and the individual facts of it might end up being correct,

00:32:11 ◼   ► but the narrative they spin ends up being totally wrong.

00:32:15 ◼   ► So I think it's worth parsing some of that out

00:32:17 ◼   ► and trying to figure out like okay,

00:32:19 ◼   ► what's the actual information

00:32:22 ◼   ► that this seems to be reporting?

00:32:24 ◼   ► Not necessarily the story of why the reporter

00:32:28 ◼   ► thinks this is the way it is,

00:32:30 ◼   ► or the overarching story that this might be saying,

00:32:32 ◼   ► but what's the actual information here?

00:32:35 ◼   ► And I don't think there's much new here,

00:32:38 ◼   ► except for maybe that the industrial design team

00:32:41 ◼   ► did not want to ship this product at all,

00:32:43 ◼   ► or yet at least,

00:32:45 ◼   ► and that operations said, sure,

00:32:48 ◼   ► but we're gonna ship it anyway.

00:32:50 ◼   ► And I don't think that, and operations here,

00:32:53 ◼   ► under Tim Cook, that's basically become product design.

00:32:56 ◼   ► Like as far as we can tell from vague statements

00:33:00 ◼   ► and tips here and there, it does seem like Jeff Williams

00:33:04 ◼   ► is kind of the head of product direction now,

00:33:07 ◼   ► in some ways at least, or for some products at least.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - Well, why do you think that?

00:33:12 ◼   ► Just because he's sort of in charge of that project

00:33:15 ◼   ► that he's, it's difficult to tell from the outside,

00:33:17 ◼   ► but I think Gruber made the point that,

00:33:19 ◼   ► Gruber made the point that in Apple world,

00:33:22 ◼   ► product marketing is what is also known as product

00:33:27 ◼   ► or product management in other companies,

00:33:28 ◼   ► like emphasis on the product.

00:33:30 ◼   ► If you think product marketing is just how to design

00:33:32 ◼   ► the ads for the product, that's not it.

00:33:34 ◼   ► And product marketing still exists

00:33:36 ◼   ► and still has powerful people in it.

00:33:38 ◼   ► So it's never been entirely clear to me how this works,

00:33:40 ◼   ► and I think it is informal.

00:33:42 ◼   ► When we say product, what we're talking about is

00:33:45 ◼   ► What should we make?

00:33:46 ◼   ► Should we make a laptop computer

00:33:48 ◼   ► with a giant flashlight built into it?

00:33:51 ◼   ► Should we make a giant desktop with 8,000 slots?

00:33:55 ◼   ► Should we make a car?

00:33:57 ◼   ► Product in most companies is like, what should we make?

00:34:01 ◼   ► We're a company that makes, I don't know, grills.

00:34:04 ◼   ► Should we make gas grills?

00:34:05 ◼   ► Should we make charcoal grills?

00:34:07 ◼   ► Should we make grills that we plug in that are electric?

00:34:08 ◼   ► What should we make?

00:34:10 ◼   ► What kind of electric?

00:34:11 ◼   ► Someone has to decide what should we make.

00:34:12 ◼   ► That's a product decision.

00:34:13 ◼   ► Very often traditional companies have focus groups

00:34:16 ◼   ► and they do market research and say,

00:34:17 ◼   ► what part of the market can we make an impact in?

00:34:20 ◼   ► What are we good at making?

00:34:21 ◼   ► All sorts of stuff like, what should we make?

00:34:23 ◼   ► And then engineering is like,

00:34:24 ◼   ► how do we make the thing that we should make?

00:34:26 ◼   ► And industrial design and user interfaces,

00:34:27 ◼   ► how should the thing that we made work?

00:34:28 ◼   ► And blah, blah, blah.

00:34:29 ◼   ► And you can see how it all kind of blends together.

00:34:30 ◼   ► But in every company, there has to kind of be

00:34:32 ◼   ► the person in charge of what should we make.

00:34:35 ◼   ► And in Apple, it's not entirely clear who does that job

00:34:39 ◼   ► because ideas for products have historically come

00:34:41 ◼   ► from all over the place.

00:34:43 ◼   ► You know, in the jobs era, jobs may have an idea,

00:34:46 ◼   ► but also I think ideas would come from all over the place,

00:34:48 ◼   ► bounce off of Jobs's head and come back down the org chart

00:34:50 ◼   ► and they would say, we're gonna make this,

00:34:52 ◼   ► we're gonna make that.

00:34:53 ◼   ► Whose idea was it to make a watch?

00:34:54 ◼   ► That could have been Johnny Ive's idea.

00:34:55 ◼   ► He was big enough in the org that he could bounce that off,

00:34:58 ◼   ► but who decides, yes, we are going to make a watch?

00:34:59 ◼   ► Like, it bounces all over the place.

00:35:01 ◼   ► It's not entirely clear.

00:35:03 ◼   ► Within the realm of individual departments,

00:35:05 ◼   ► who's deciding what kind of Macs get made?

00:35:07 ◼   ► Should we continue to make iMacs or not?

00:35:10 ◼   ► Should we make a Mac Pro?

00:35:12 ◼   ► Should we have SD cards in our laptops?

00:35:15 ◼   ► Should we have an HDMI port?

00:35:17 ◼   ► You can see the decisions that influence that

00:35:19 ◼   ► all over the place.

00:35:20 ◼   ► Should we make a convertible laptop

00:35:21 ◼   ► that folds back and has a touchscreen?

00:35:22 ◼   ► Should we make touchscreen Macs?

00:35:23 ◼   ► Who makes that call?

00:35:25 ◼   ► In Apple's org chart, it is not entirely clear

00:35:28 ◼   ► where that comes from, and it often comes down

00:35:29 ◼   ► to individual personalities,

00:35:32 ◼   ► or people with particular power structures in the org

00:35:35 ◼   ► because of historical reasons,

00:35:37 ◼   ► and sometimes just as simple as someone,

00:35:39 ◼   ► some random part in the org chart has a conversation

00:35:41 ◼   ► someone that has a conversation with someone higher up that comes back down.

00:35:46 ◼   ► It's not as regimented.

00:35:48 ◼   ► That's part of what makes Apple and any sort of good company, like you can't have a regimented

00:35:52 ◼   ► structure where it's like, this is where all the decisions about product get made, and

00:35:55 ◼   ► this is where no one wants to work at that company, and that kind of company is sort

00:35:59 ◼   ► of ossified and just not particularly, I'll use buzzwords, agile or reactive to the market.

00:36:06 ◼   ► But the bottom line is those decisions do get made.

00:36:08 ◼   ► said we're gonna do some kind of car thing and that kind of car thing has

00:36:11 ◼   ► changed someone's making that decision right so in this scenario I don't think

00:36:16 ◼   ► industrial design has ever really been in the business of saying we should make

00:36:22 ◼   ► a watch we should make a car we should make a laptop we should make a laptop

00:36:26 ◼   ► with HDMI ports and an SD card right but Johnny I was certainly in the business

00:36:30 ◼   ► of potentially saying we should make a watch and Johnny I've is different than

00:36:33 ◼   ► saying the current industrial design team they're both the same part of the

00:36:36 ◼   ► org chart, but Johnny Ive is Johnny Ive, right?

00:36:39 ◼   ► And so that's why from the outside it's difficult to tell

00:36:42 ◼   ► who is deciding what kind of things Apple should make.

00:36:45 ◼   ► If you ask anybody in a particular org structure,

00:36:47 ◼   ► like ask Colleen, what's her name, Colleen Novotelli?

00:36:51 ◼   ► - Novielli. - I'm sorry.

00:36:51 ◼   ► - Novielli. - Novielli.

00:36:53 ◼   ► Like who decided that we were gonna make

00:36:55 ◼   ► a really, really skinny 20,

00:36:57 ◼   ► who decided we were gonna make a 24-inch iMac at all,

00:36:59 ◼   ► let alone the fact that it was skinny?

00:37:00 ◼   ► And they'd probably say, well, it was collaborative.

00:37:02 ◼   ► We knew we were gonna continue to make the iMac.

00:37:04 ◼   ► It's like, well, wait a second, how did you know that?

00:37:05 ◼   ► Was there ever a conversation of,

00:37:06 ◼   ► should we make IMAX anymore?

00:37:08 ◼   ► Oh no, you know, like,

00:37:09 ◼   ► and then who decided it was gonna be really skinny?

00:37:10 ◼   ► Well that was industrial design.

00:37:12 ◼   ► Like, it's just, it's a lot of give and take.

00:37:14 ◼   ► That's the way these products get made.

00:37:16 ◼   ► With the headset type thing,

00:37:17 ◼   ► someone decided years and years ago,

00:37:19 ◼   ► we should be looking into this AR/VR thing.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And I feel like it doesn't matter who said that.

00:37:24 ◼   ► Any, like, if it was operations, industrial design,

00:37:27 ◼   ► engineering, Tim Cook, you know,

00:37:31 ◼   ► someone's sister's brother's uncle's cousin,

00:37:33 ◼   ► Like, it doesn't matter where that idea came from.

00:37:36 ◼   ► The bottom line is,

00:37:37 ◼   ► as that idea somehow finds its way into executives,

00:37:40 ◼   ► and they all go, yeah, this is a thing we should look into.

00:37:42 ◼   ► We're Apple, this is right up our alley.

00:37:45 ◼   ► Other people are looking into it.

00:37:47 ◼   ► We can't ignore AR/VR.

00:37:49 ◼   ► We should look into this technology,

00:37:51 ◼   ► and we should probably have some kind of

00:37:53 ◼   ► Skunk Works project to do this.

00:37:55 ◼   ► That's probably needed as a decision,

00:37:56 ◼   ► and it's hard to trace back to any single person, maybe.

00:37:59 ◼   ► But then at this point, where you're like,

00:38:00 ◼   ► okay, we've been doing this,

00:38:01 ◼   ► we've been working on products,

00:38:03 ◼   ► Industrial design, we said on the past show,

00:38:04 ◼   ► there was the rumor that industrial design said,

00:38:06 ◼   ► it should be a stand, or Johnny Ive specifically said,

00:38:09 ◼   ► it shouldn't have a thing that you click on to your belt,

00:38:11 ◼   ► it should be stand alone, right?

00:38:13 ◼   ► You shouldn't have to connect it to your phone,

00:38:15 ◼   ► you shouldn't have to connect it to your Mac,

00:38:16 ◼   ► it should be a stand alone device.

00:38:18 ◼   ► Why does industrial design get to make that decision?

00:38:20 ◼   ► Is it just because, oh, that's part of the hardware design

00:38:22 ◼   ► in terms of like having a wire going from your head

00:38:24 ◼   ► down to the thing, or is it because

00:38:25 ◼   ► Johnny Ive is Johnny Ive?

00:38:27 ◼   ► Or is it some combination of those two things, right?

00:38:30 ◼   ► But that's the type of decision

00:38:31 ◼   ► you can imagine being influenced in here,

00:38:33 ◼   ► industrial design may think,

00:38:35 ◼   ► boy, having a ski goggles thing on your face is clunky.

00:38:38 ◼   ► And I kind of agree with them,

00:38:40 ◼   ► but then you could say, but industrial design,

00:38:42 ◼   ► like what do you want us to do?

00:38:44 ◼   ► Never ship anything until it's the fantasy version

00:38:46 ◼   ► in your head, because that's not technically possible

00:38:47 ◼   ► right now, and we're not entirely sure

00:38:49 ◼   ► when it will be technically possible.

00:38:51 ◼   ► So industrial design saying,

00:38:53 ◼   ► we should just continue to work on this

00:38:54 ◼   ► for another eight years and not ship anything,

00:38:56 ◼   ► I can imagine that falling on deaf ears

00:38:58 ◼   ► within the organization.

00:38:59 ◼   ► Especially since, as Gruber pointed out,

00:39:00 ◼   ► the team that is working on these goggles is like,

00:39:03 ◼   ► hundreds or thousands of people,

00:39:05 ◼   ► and gesture design is way smaller number of people.

00:39:07 ◼   ► And yeah, maybe they think Apple

00:39:08 ◼   ► shouldn't ship anything this clunky,

00:39:10 ◼   ► and that gets back to the long running discussion

00:39:11 ◼   ► we've had about,

00:39:12 ◼   ► should, is this, what are you gonna do with this product?

00:39:16 ◼   ► Is it gonna be flop or whatever?

00:39:17 ◼   ► But my personal opinion is that

00:39:19 ◼   ► they've been working on it so long,

00:39:22 ◼   ► they need to ship something

00:39:24 ◼   ► to get good at shipping this type of thing.

00:39:26 ◼   ► It's foolish to think that they could stay

00:39:29 ◼   ► in sort of stealth mode for 16 to 20 years,

00:39:32 ◼   ► and then pop out one day with the glasses, right?

00:39:35 ◼   ► Even though they've been doing all the groundwork

00:39:36 ◼   ► with all their frameworks, with AR/VR frameworks

00:39:38 ◼   ► and all that stuff, like they've been doing

00:39:40 ◼   ► the software side of it, you do need to get a product out

00:39:44 ◼   ► to people to learn from your mistakes,

00:39:46 ◼   ► which is tough for Apple to be in,

00:39:48 ◼   ► because anything they put out,

00:39:48 ◼   ► everyone's gonna have scrutiny on it

00:39:50 ◼   ► like they did with the watch.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Oh, if it's not the biggest hit product overnight,

00:39:52 ◼   ► Apple sucks, right?

00:39:54 ◼   ► It's the end of Apple, blah, blah, blah.

00:39:55 ◼   ► That's going to happen with this product.

00:39:57 ◼   ► I don't think it's going to be a smash hit.

00:39:59 ◼   ► But I think they need to, I agree with Tim Cook,

00:40:02 ◼   ► they need to ship this.

00:40:04 ◼   ► If they have something they think is plausibly useful

00:40:06 ◼   ► for some function and is a pretty good,

00:40:09 ◼   ► better version of what's out there now,

00:40:11 ◼   ► they need to ship it to get good

00:40:14 ◼   ► at shipping this type of thing,

00:40:16 ◼   ► kind of in case this type of thing

00:40:18 ◼   ► ends up being important in the future.

00:40:20 ◼   ► And we all kind of think that eventually

00:40:21 ◼   ► when this technology gets way, way better,

00:40:23 ◼   ► it will absolutely be important.

00:40:25 ◼   ► So don't sit on the sidelines, don't wait until everybody else gets all the experience

00:40:30 ◼   ► doing this.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I agree with Tim Cook, according to the story, that they should ship this.

00:40:37 ◼   ► I say this despite the fact that I still have no idea what this thing will be useful for

00:40:40 ◼   ► and I'm very pessimistic about the product, but sometimes that's just what you have to

00:40:46 ◼   ► do.

00:40:47 ◼   ► It's not an Apple-type thing to do, but in the realm of the technology, I believe so

00:40:52 ◼   ► so strongly that if and when technology arrives to have this not be a giant goggle on your

00:40:57 ◼   ► face that it will be transformative and incredibly useful, they need to get good at it.

00:41:02 ◼   ► So as painful as it's going to be for the whole org, they need to ship something that

00:41:08 ◼   ► they think is of Apple quality and learn from it.

00:41:10 ◼   ► Well, not only do they need to ship so they can get good at it, if there's going to be

00:41:15 ◼   ► a third-party developer story, then we need to get good at it too.

00:41:18 ◼   ► And most of the developers that I know, which is complete anecdotal, but of the developers

00:41:23 ◼   ► I know, I think only James Thompson has really fiddled that much with AR stuff.

00:41:27 ◼   ► I mean, maybe others have, maybe you guys have for all I know, but as far as I'm aware,

00:41:33 ◼   ► it's basically just James Thompson amongst our peer group.

00:41:36 ◼   ► And I don't have any empty tables in my house to play with.

00:41:39 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:41:40 ◼   ► And so if this is going to be a thing and if third party developers care about it, even

00:41:46 ◼   ► and just rank and file third-party developers like us,

00:41:48 ◼   ► then we need to start figuring all this out.

00:41:50 ◼   ► And I can tell you, I did really badly

00:41:52 ◼   ► in matrix mathematics when I was in college,

00:41:54 ◼   ► and I'm pretty sure that there's a lot of that involved

00:41:56 ◼   ► in AR stuff, so I'm fighting an uphill battle.

00:41:59 ◼   ► - Any 3D graphics stuff is gonna use matrices,

00:42:01 ◼   ► but you don't have to deal with it in modern code.

00:42:03 ◼   ► - Oh, fair, fair, fair.

00:42:04 ◼   ► - It's all below the surface that you're dealing with here.

00:42:07 ◼   ► No, but am I gonna have to buy a new blank desk to test?

00:42:10 ◼   ► Somewhere in my office, I need an empty table.

00:42:13 ◼   ► - It must be made of wood, and it must be, you know,

00:42:15 ◼   ► feet by three feet. Well that's the AR stuff, but the VR stuff is like, you know, gaming

00:42:20 ◼   ► is the obvious application, but if there's any kind of like thing you want to do, people

00:42:24 ◼   ► want to listen to podcasts where they see a 3D projection of the chapter art, people

00:42:27 ◼   ► don't even know podcasts have chapter art. I don't know. So, no, I mean, but people,

00:42:32 ◼   ► I mean, look, people probably will want to listen to podcasts in this thing and that's

00:42:35 ◼   ► what like, like I'm not, look, I'll tell you like, as a developer, I could not be less

00:42:41 ◼   ► excited about this, that's for the moment, just because like, I'm right in the middle

00:42:44 ◼   ► of this giant rewrite, the last thing I wanna do

00:42:47 ◼   ► is get a new platform dropped on me

00:42:48 ◼   ► that I have to support right now.

00:42:50 ◼   ► Maybe next year would be a little bit better.

00:42:52 ◼   ► But no, I mean, I think if you,

00:42:54 ◼   ► going back to this article just for a minute here,

00:42:56 ◼   ► I think, even though I just told you,

00:43:00 ◼   ► be careful what narratives people weave from rumors,

00:43:03 ◼   ► and meanwhile I'm about to weave one.

00:43:05 ◼   ► But I think what the story here might be,

00:43:09 ◼   ► because when you look at a leak or a rumor,

00:43:12 ◼   ► you gotta figure like why did the leaker

00:43:15 ◼   ► share this information with a journalist?

00:43:17 ◼   ► And oftentimes, they have an ax to grind.

00:43:21 ◼   ► Or they're trying to get something changed

00:43:23 ◼   ► or they're upset about or something.

00:43:24 ◼   ► Trying to get some decision reversed or made or whatever.

00:43:27 ◼   ► And if you look at this story,

00:43:28 ◼   ► you can pick up bits and pieces from other recent changes

00:43:32 ◼   ► and things at Apple, some of which have been good.

00:43:35 ◼   ► It seems like the industrial design department

00:43:39 ◼   ► is losing its authority a little bit in Apple.

00:43:43 ◼   ► And it's coming from a pretty high place.

00:43:45 ◼   ► Like the Steve Jobs and Johnny Ive,

00:43:48 ◼   ► and then later Tim Cook and Johnny Ive era

00:43:51 ◼   ► really had industrial design having tons of influence

00:43:55 ◼   ► and control over the products to the point where,

00:43:57 ◼   ► we've heard stories from people about how industrial design

00:44:02 ◼   ► wouldn't let them ship something until they centered a screw

00:44:05 ◼   ► or they would force them to fit the internals

00:44:09 ◼   ► of this product into this little skinny enclosure

00:44:12 ◼   ► even if it really could have been a lot better

00:44:14 ◼   ► with a few more millimeters, but they would be like,

00:44:16 ◼   ► no, you have to fit it in these dimensions,

00:44:18 ◼   ► this is our design, period.

00:44:20 ◼   ► It seems like Industrial Design had a huge amount

00:44:22 ◼   ► of influence that could basically dictate what they wanted

00:44:25 ◼   ► and the rest of the company would have to fall in line.

00:44:28 ◼   ► And in the last few years after Johnny's departure,

00:44:31 ◼   ► or maybe as part of Johnny's departure,

00:44:33 ◼   ► but in the last few years,

00:44:35 ◼   ► they seem to have lost some of that influence.

00:44:37 ◼   ► - I think it's not just his departure,

00:44:39 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's not just his departure,

00:44:41 ◼   ► it's the things that were done

00:44:43 ◼   ► that could conceivably be laid at the feet

00:44:46 ◼   ► of industrial design.

00:44:47 ◼   ► - Right, like the butterfly keyboard.

00:44:50 ◼   ► - Well, that's maybe not necessarily industrial,

00:44:53 ◼   ► it's hard to tell from the outside.

00:44:54 ◼   ► - But look, you can look at things like

00:44:56 ◼   ► the 2013 trash can Mac Pro, the butterfly keyboard,

00:44:59 ◼   ► the whole series of 2016 to 2020 MacBook Pros

00:45:03 ◼   ► that people really had a lot of practical problems with

00:45:07 ◼   ► or features that were removed.

00:45:09 ◼   ► That gets into what I was saying before about who decided that the laptops wouldn't have

00:45:13 ◼   ► ports anymore and they would just have USB-C shaped holes.

00:45:16 ◼   ► That is a product decision, but it seems like, again from the outside, it seems like it might

00:45:20 ◼   ► have been heavily influenced by industrial design.

00:45:22 ◼   ► I think the keyboard thing is not necessarily clear that that was laid at the feet of industrial

00:45:28 ◼   ► design.

00:45:29 ◼   ► Maybe the fact that they had to make that keyboard to begin with could be laid at the

00:45:31 ◼   ► feet of industrial design, but shipping it for six years I think was not industrial design.

00:45:36 ◼   ► Anyway, that's why it's so hard from the outside.

00:45:38 ◼   ► But I have to say that the influence

00:45:40 ◼   ► is not just because of Johnny Laffa,

00:45:41 ◼   ► because whatever the organization as a whole was doing,

00:45:44 ◼   ► the outside world and the market has decided

00:45:47 ◼   ► this is not what we want from Apple products.

00:45:49 ◼   ► Like the laptops we complained about for ages,

00:45:51 ◼   ► that they were too thin and had too few ports

00:45:53 ◼   ► and had too little utility

00:45:54 ◼   ► and people didn't really like the touch bar.

00:45:56 ◼   ► Whoever's decision that was in Apple,

00:45:59 ◼   ► if any of that can be laid at the feet

00:46:01 ◼   ► of industrial design, industrial design

00:46:03 ◼   ► should have some of their power taken away

00:46:05 ◼   ► because they made a lot of bad calls.

00:46:07 ◼   ► Maybe that wasn't industrial design.

00:46:08 ◼   ► Whoever's fault it was, some part of the Apple organization

00:46:11 ◼   ► made some bad calls about product decisions, right?

00:46:15 ◼   ► What features should this product have?

00:46:17 ◼   ► Should it have an SD card slot or not?

00:46:19 ◼   ► Should it have HDMI port?

00:46:20 ◼   ► Should it, you know, how thin should it be?

00:46:23 ◼   ► How important is battery life?

00:46:24 ◼   ► Even the iPhones, you could say,

00:46:25 ◼   ► with the iPhone 6 when it was getting thinner and thinner

00:46:27 ◼   ► and they were bendy and the battery life was bad,

00:46:29 ◼   ► at some point, Apple as an organization changed course

00:46:32 ◼   ► and said we're gonna make the phones thicker

00:46:33 ◼   ► and make the batteries bigger.

00:46:35 ◼   ► that's a better product decision.

00:46:36 ◼   ► And even though we can't attribute blame

00:46:40 ◼   ► for any individual one thing,

00:46:41 ◼   ► 'cause we don't know what's going on,

00:46:43 ◼   ► it is reasonable to conclude that industrial design

00:46:45 ◼   ► had a lot of influence over,

00:46:47 ◼   ► because we know kind of their ethos,

00:46:48 ◼   ► and the Johnny I. have ethos of minimal,

00:46:51 ◼   ► not a lot of external features, very small, thin, simple.

00:46:55 ◼   ► We can see that, and we attribute that to industrial design,

00:46:58 ◼   ► and we think, at least on this podcast,

00:46:59 ◼   ► that a lot of the decisions were not the right ones.

00:47:01 ◼   ► And so yes, Johnny I. have left as the big personality,

00:47:04 ◼   ► but also industrial design, there should be a give and take

00:47:08 ◼   ► between engineering and industrial design.

00:47:09 ◼   ► Like what you said before, like industrial design says,

00:47:11 ◼   ► no, here's how much space you have,

00:47:12 ◼   ► we're not gonna change our design.

00:47:13 ◼   ► Engineering shouldn't be 100% overruled

00:47:16 ◼   ► by industrial design all the time.

00:47:18 ◼   ► It has to be a give and take.

00:47:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I think what we've seen in the products

00:47:23 ◼   ► over the last few years is more of a give and take

00:47:26 ◼   ► between what is good engineering,

00:47:29 ◼   ► what your customers want and what serves them best,

00:47:32 ◼   ► and what industrial design wants to make

00:47:35 ◼   ► visually and form-wise.

00:47:36 ◼   ► We've seen that be better balanced

00:47:38 ◼   ► in the last few years in the product.

00:47:40 ◼   ► That's why we're all so happy with all the recent products

00:47:42 ◼   ► because they've done such a good job of rebalancing that

00:47:46 ◼   ► 'cause it had gone too far in one direction

00:47:49 ◼   ► and now it has become more of a give and take.

00:47:51 ◼   ► And if you look at this article,

00:47:53 ◼   ► it kinda just sounds like there was somebody

00:47:55 ◼   ► on the design team who leaked all this

00:47:58 ◼   ► who maybe was just resentful

00:48:01 ◼   ► that they didn't have ultimate authority anymore

00:48:03 ◼   ► or they didn't have as much authority as they used to.

00:48:05 ◼   ► - But in this case, it's not like they had,

00:48:06 ◼   ► in this case if you said,

00:48:07 ◼   ► okay, fine industrial design person,

00:48:10 ◼   ► what do you wanna do?

00:48:10 ◼   ► Because we can't ship the thing

00:48:12 ◼   ► that the industrial design thing is wanting here.

00:48:15 ◼   ► We should ship glasses.

00:48:16 ◼   ► Well, we don't have glasses, nobody has that.

00:48:18 ◼   ► It's like saying, well, we should ship a self-driving car.

00:48:20 ◼   ► Well, great, but nobody has that.

00:48:21 ◼   ► So what they're saying instead is,

00:48:24 ◼   ► we should just not ship anything.

00:48:25 ◼   ► - Well, I hear Tesla's gonna release that

00:48:27 ◼   ► like just like right around the corner, right?

00:48:28 ◼   ► - Any minute now.

00:48:30 ◼   ► But that's their position is we should just not ship anything.

00:48:34 ◼   ► And that is a position to have, but after however many years,

00:48:38 ◼   ► was it seven years in development or whatever,

00:48:40 ◼   ► someone somewhere has decided that they think

00:48:42 ◼   ► that there's some use of this product that has reached

00:48:45 ◼   ► a point where presumably it is like one of the best headsets

00:48:49 ◼   ► on the market given its price.

00:48:51 ◼   ► Because you would expect that from Apple, right?

00:48:52 ◼   ► They're good at this type of thing, okay?

00:48:54 ◼   ► And the question is should we ship that or not?

00:48:57 ◼   ► An industrial design person might think,

00:48:59 ◼   ► "I hate this product.

00:49:01 ◼   ► "I would never use it.

00:49:02 ◼   ► "I don't think it's particularly useful, blah, blah, blah."

00:49:05 ◼   ► - It's me.

00:49:06 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, we've all kind of said the same thing,

00:49:08 ◼   ► but I feel like from Tim Cook's perspective,

00:49:10 ◼   ► if you believe that this type of product

00:49:13 ◼   ► will eventually be important

00:49:14 ◼   ► when the hardware catches up with it,

00:49:16 ◼   ► it is somewhat important for Apple to get good.

00:49:19 ◼   ► And you could say the same things about the iPhone.

00:49:20 ◼   ► It's like, "Well, Apple didn't ship a phone

00:49:22 ◼   ► "until they had totally nailed it."

00:49:23 ◼   ► Yeah, but they did make the Newton, right?

00:49:26 ◼   ► It's not that I'm saying this headset is gonna be

00:49:28 ◼   ► the Newton of AR/VR stuff.

00:49:30 ◼   ► You have to kind of get good about making

00:49:31 ◼   ► small electronic objects with screens

00:49:33 ◼   ► and touch screens and pens.

00:49:35 ◼   ► Apple, before the iPhone, Apple,

00:49:37 ◼   ► it's not like Apple had never shipped

00:49:38 ◼   ► anything like it before, right?

00:49:40 ◼   ► And it's the same thing with everything Apple has done.

00:49:44 ◼   ► The iPhone came from stuff they were doing internally

00:49:46 ◼   ► with tablet type stuff.

00:49:47 ◼   ► And even though the iPad came later,

00:49:48 ◼   ► they repurposed that technological experience

00:49:51 ◼   ► to a shipping product and eventually got good enough

00:49:53 ◼   ► to ship the tablet, blah, blah, blah.

00:49:56 ◼   ► I agree with most people that this type of technology will eventually become important

00:50:00 ◼   ► when the tech catches up.

00:50:01 ◼   ► So I think it is important for Apple to get this experience.

00:50:05 ◼   ► It's just awkward for everybody involved to kind of agree, I mean maybe they don't internally,

00:50:09 ◼   ► but from the outside we feel like they're going to ship a product and it's not really

00:50:13 ◼   ► going to be, we're going to be doing the show being like, "Oh, I don't think I'm going to

00:50:16 ◼   ► buy one of these.

00:50:17 ◼   ► I have no use for it.

00:50:18 ◼   ► It's not for me.

00:50:19 ◼   ► Marker's going to be like, 'It doesn't really apply to my application.'"

00:50:20 ◼   ► We're going to say all these things, but from Apple's perspective, if they think they have

00:50:25 ◼   ► a product that somebody might want to use, you can't just develop this internally for

00:50:29 ◼   ► 16 years and just arrive on days.

00:50:32 ◼   ► It's like if Apple had never made a laptop computer and never made a Newton, they would

00:50:36 ◼   ► not have been able to make that.

00:50:37 ◼   ► Or the iPod.

00:50:38 ◼   ► The iPod is a great example.

00:50:40 ◼   ► The experience they got building tiny electronics with the iPod, and I would say the Newton

00:50:44 ◼   ► even though it wasn't that tiny, were important contributors to the institutional knowledge,

00:50:48 ◼   ► even if it's just the knowledge of how to get suppliers and assemble things and blah,

00:50:51 ◼   ► that made them more able to make the iPhone.

00:50:55 ◼   ► I think this type of, in the best case scenario,

00:50:58 ◼   ► this headset is that type of product

00:50:59 ◼   ► where it will give the organization

00:51:02 ◼   ► some important experience of getting this thing

00:51:04 ◼   ► into actual users' hands and finding out

00:51:06 ◼   ► what they did wrong, because internal testing,

00:51:09 ◼   ► especially their super secretive internal testing

00:51:11 ◼   ► where like such a small number of people ever see this,

00:51:14 ◼   ► is never going to be sufficient for them to figure out

00:51:17 ◼   ► if they've really got this right,

00:51:18 ◼   ► if they've really made it comfortable,

00:51:20 ◼   ► understood the problems,

00:51:21 ◼   ► have they solved the motion sickness thing?

00:51:24 ◼   ► Are people gonna use it for what they think they're gonna use?

00:51:26 ◼   ► Look at the Apple Watch.

00:51:27 ◼   ► They had all sorts of ideas about people

00:51:28 ◼   ► that might be interested in using it for,

00:51:30 ◼   ► but they needed to put it out on the market

00:51:31 ◼   ► and find out what people actually did wanna use it for,

00:51:34 ◼   ► and then they corrected course,

00:51:35 ◼   ► and I hope that's what happens here.

00:51:37 ◼   ► - I think also, you know,

00:51:38 ◼   ► hardware does not just come out of nowhere.

00:51:42 ◼   ► Hardware does not develop out of nowhere.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Hardware develops out of a process over time

00:51:46 ◼   ► that is funded by a market that's buying it.

00:51:48 ◼   ► And so if we want to get to the AR glasses future,

00:51:53 ◼   ► there needs to be a market that leads us there,

00:51:58 ◼   ► that funds all of the hardware development

00:52:00 ◼   ► along the way to get there.

00:52:01 ◼   ► We need to start buying components now

00:52:04 ◼   ► that are kind of in the ballpark of the stuff we want,

00:52:07 ◼   ► and shipping them in products to create that big market

00:52:11 ◼   ► so that more suppliers put more time and money

00:52:13 ◼   ► and research into those areas to develop the smaller

00:52:15 ◼   ► and smaller and better and better version of those things.

00:52:17 ◼   ► these things don't develop on their own.

00:52:19 ◼   ► Look at the world of tiny camera sensors

00:52:22 ◼   ► that used to be basically nonexistent or terrible.

00:52:25 ◼   ► Once the smartphone came out, that market exploded.

00:52:29 ◼   ► And now, people poured tons and tons of money and research

00:52:34 ◼   ► into making awesome tiny optics and tiny cameras

00:52:37 ◼   ► and tiny camera processing things

00:52:38 ◼   ► because there was a huge market of phones

00:52:41 ◼   ► that had crappy cameras that wanted better cameras.

00:52:44 ◼   ► And that market is now massive.

00:52:45 ◼   ► it developed because the market was supporting it

00:52:49 ◼   ► along the way and having a huge amount of demand

00:52:51 ◼   ► and basically rewarding people who would invest

00:52:55 ◼   ► into making those components better.

00:52:57 ◼   ► But we're not gonna get from VR headsets

00:53:01 ◼   ► nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing

00:53:03 ◼   ► and then 10 years from now, AR goggles or AR glasses.

00:53:06 ◼   ► There has to be a market along the way

00:53:09 ◼   ► to cause those components to be

00:53:11 ◼   ► iteratively developed over time.

00:53:13 ◼   ► So you do have to kind of release this thing

00:53:17 ◼   ► in the sooner term rather than the later term.

00:53:19 ◼   ► You can't just sit back and wait and say,

00:53:21 ◼   ► all right, in 10 years, we'll take advantage

00:53:23 ◼   ► of the components that exist then

00:53:25 ◼   ► without having done anything in the meantime

00:53:27 ◼   ► to make those components exist.

00:53:29 ◼   ► - And because Apple's competitors,

00:53:30 ◼   ► it's not like, oh, if Apple doesn't make the market,

00:53:32 ◼   ► nobody will, no, somebody else might do make that market

00:53:34 ◼   ► and be iterating and be selling.

00:53:36 ◼   ► And then when you arrive with the AR glasses,

00:53:37 ◼   ► everyone is locked into Facebook meta, headset,

00:53:42 ◼   ► whatever thing.

00:53:42 ◼   ► the competitors are also moving in this direction,

00:53:45 ◼   ► so it behooves you to not sit it out,

00:53:47 ◼   ► because if someone else gets momentum

00:53:50 ◼   ► and is actually selling hundreds and thousands

00:53:53 ◼   ► and millions of these things a year,

00:53:54 ◼   ► and then you arrive 10 years later with your thing,

00:53:56 ◼   ► it's gotta be so much better than theirs.

00:53:58 ◼   ► So anyway, this market is still a big question mark,

00:54:01 ◼   ► but it's like, unlike the car,

00:54:03 ◼   ► it is so straightforwardly aligned

00:54:06 ◼   ► with everything else that Apple does,

00:54:07 ◼   ► that if this becomes a thing, Apple needs to do this.

00:54:10 ◼   ► And there are synergies with everything else that it does.

00:54:11 ◼   ► screen technology, wireless technology, SOCs,

00:54:15 ◼   ► all the silicon stuff like 3D, GPUs,

00:54:20 ◼   ► it's not completely out of left field.

00:54:23 ◼   ► So even if they never shipped a product,

00:54:25 ◼   ► they would be getting some benefit.

00:54:26 ◼   ► And it's interesting to compare it to the car

00:54:28 ◼   ► where it seems like the car program,

00:54:31 ◼   ► they have never been at a point where they had something

00:54:33 ◼   ► that was even plausibly shippable.

00:54:34 ◼   ► They didn't have a car they wanted to ship,

00:54:36 ◼   ► they didn't have self-driving that they wanted to ship,

00:54:38 ◼   ► they didn't have a thing they were gonna sell

00:54:39 ◼   ► to other car makers.

00:54:41 ◼   ► I don't think they've ever even been at a decision point like this, which is like, "Conceivably,

00:54:44 ◼   ► we could ship this as an Apple product, but should we or not?"

00:54:48 ◼   ► The car stuff is like, "What are we even making here?"

00:54:51 ◼   ► Too many shovels, too many reboots, and kind of like the VR thing, like you were saying,

00:54:56 ◼   ► Margaux, Apple does have a lot of money, and they could just pile money into things for

00:54:59 ◼   ► years and years, and they have huge amounts of money hiring huge amounts of people, resets,

00:55:03 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:55:04 ◼   ► Apple has the luxury of doing that, but it's not the ideal scenario.

00:55:10 ◼   ► I remember the story about how much money it cost to develop the original iPhone.

00:55:13 ◼   ► It was like $150 million or something absurd, absurdly low in case that's not clear.

00:55:20 ◼   ► And the number of people and the amount of money and the time they spent to develop the

00:55:23 ◼   ► first iPhone, compare that to the number of people, amount of money and time they spent

00:55:26 ◼   ► on either the AR/VR headset or the car and what do they have to show for it.

00:55:32 ◼   ► It's not looking good for those projects.

00:55:33 ◼   ► Like it's not saying that Apple should do this.

00:55:36 ◼   ► They should sink money in many years into this type of stuff, but it would be much better

00:55:41 ◼   ► if they could get to a point where they have a product that people might want to buy to

00:55:44 ◼   ► help fund this, to help start the iteration loop, because your internal iteration is not

00:55:52 ◼   ► as interesting as external.

00:55:53 ◼   ► So, which one of us is going to take the fall and get this if it comes down to it?

00:55:56 ◼   ► Yeah, I was thinking about that.

00:55:57 ◼   ► I mean, I'm assuming it has to be Marco.

00:55:59 ◼   ► I mean, I have to get it if there's a developer story.

00:56:01 ◼   ► Yeah, exactly.

00:56:02 ◼   ► I feel like Marco for sure.

00:56:05 ◼   ► I feel like I'm the least likely just because I'm sure that if I'm any kind of ARV-er thing

00:56:10 ◼   ► is going to make me motion sick.

00:56:11 ◼   ► And that's true.

00:56:13 ◼   ► Like no matter what.

00:56:14 ◼   ► Well I'm a little afraid of that too because the Oculus thing that we have makes me a little

00:56:17 ◼   ► motion sick and also I can't see it very sharply.

00:56:21 ◼   ► And whatever like reading glasses thing I need to make it work doesn't like I even I

00:56:25 ◼   ► didn't talk about this in the show but I actually briefly got a FPV drone a couple months back.

00:56:31 ◼   ► What?!

00:56:32 ◼   ► And I ended up returning it because I really...

00:56:35 ◼   ► - Which one?

00:56:36 ◼   ► - The DJI, the little one with the guards around the things.

00:56:40 ◼   ► - You have to explain to people what that is

00:56:42 ◼   ► 'cause they don't know that FUD is first person view.

00:56:44 ◼   ► - It's, yeah, so it's a type of drone,

00:56:46 ◼   ► I mean it's a camera drone like any other

00:56:48 ◼   ► but it's optimized for using like with goggles

00:56:52 ◼   ► and kind of flying it in first person view like that.

00:56:55 ◼   ► So it's more of an immersive thing

00:56:57 ◼   ► 'cause like I love, like my favorite thing to do

00:56:59 ◼   ► with my drone is just like fly around and look at stuff.

00:57:01 ◼   ► Like I don't really need the footage for much of anything.

00:57:03 ◼   ► I just like flying around and looking at my town

00:57:05 ◼   ► and the ocean and you know, I like that.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And so I thought, you know, here's a new kind of drone

00:57:11 ◼   ► with a new kind of screen situation.

00:57:12 ◼   ► You know, I also wanted to get away,

00:57:14 ◼   ► like my old drone was the kind that uses the phone

00:57:17 ◼   ► as the screen and controlling app

00:57:19 ◼   ► and you like stick it in the controller dock

00:57:22 ◼   ► and that's always been such a pain in the butt

00:57:23 ◼   ► and so I never wanna do it.

00:57:24 ◼   ► So I'm like, all right, this is a whole standalone thing.

00:57:26 ◼   ► First of all, guess what?

00:57:28 ◼   ► Yet again, this is a brand new product from DJI,

00:57:31 ◼   ► a brand new product from a high-end hardware maker,

00:57:34 ◼   ► and you have to charge three things to get it to work.

00:57:37 ◼   ► You have to charge the drone battery itself,

00:57:40 ◼   ► this special battery pack for the goggles

00:57:43 ◼   ► that goes in your pocket, sound familiar?

00:57:45 ◼   ► Battery goes in your pocket,

00:57:46 ◼   ► runs a cable up to your goggles around your head.

00:57:49 ◼   ► By the way, that sucks,

00:57:50 ◼   ► like having that cable in your pocket.

00:57:53 ◼   ► Like this is why, if this is what's rumored

00:57:55 ◼   ► for the Apple headset of having a big battery pack

00:57:58 ◼   ► that you put in your pocket and have a cable that runs up,

00:58:00 ◼   ► - Oh man, I can't wait to not need that anymore.

00:58:03 ◼   ► - No, it'll just be wireless power delivery.

00:58:04 ◼   ► It'll slowly bake your internal organs.

00:58:06 ◼   ► - Yes, that'll be great, yes.

00:58:08 ◼   ► Yes, but anyway, so first of all,

00:58:10 ◼   ► the little hand controller,

00:58:11 ◼   ► that's the third thing you have to keep charged,

00:58:13 ◼   ► has a USB-C hole, but does not accept USB-C power.

00:58:17 ◼   ► You gotta use a USB-A cable for that and only that,

00:58:20 ◼   ► and the other two things support USB-C.

00:58:23 ◼   ► That's a brand new device from DJI.

00:58:25 ◼   ► It doesn't support USB power,

00:58:26 ◼   ► 'cause they didn't do that one resistor

00:58:28 ◼   ► in the stupid hand controller.

00:58:30 ◼   ► Anyway, I ended up returning it for a few reasons,

00:58:32 ◼   ► but chief of which was that I just couldn't see

00:58:36 ◼   ► very sharply in the thing.

00:58:37 ◼   ► Like it was very hard to use because they have adjustments

00:58:40 ◼   ► and you can like adjust it.

00:58:41 ◼   ► I tried wearing glasses in it.

00:58:43 ◼   ► I tried adjusting all the diopter stuff and everything.

00:58:45 ◼   ► I just could not get it to a point.

00:58:46 ◼   ► And I had the same problem with the Oculus.

00:58:50 ◼   ► Like I can see the middle sharply, but not the edges.

00:58:53 ◼   ► And it's a little bit motion sicknessy for me.

00:58:56 ◼   ► And so I can only spend like a minute or two in it

00:58:59 ◼   ► and I don't feel good afterwards.

00:59:01 ◼   ► And I have that worry with the Apple thing, for sure.

00:59:04 ◼   ► As we are going into the VR world here,

00:59:08 ◼   ► it's worth considering that this is not

00:59:11 ◼   ► as universally accessible a technology as the phone,

00:59:14 ◼   ► and I think we should have much lower expectations

00:59:16 ◼   ► for its eventual adoption as a result.

00:59:18 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, it's not as accessible yet,

00:59:22 ◼   ► because the problems of motion sickness,

00:59:24 ◼   ► they've been working on that for years,

00:59:25 ◼   ► and they've been getting way better than they used to be.

00:59:27 ◼   ► And a lot of it actually has to do with technological limitations.

00:59:31 ◼   ► We can't get the frame rate up this high.

00:59:32 ◼   ► We can't get a screen that is this responsive.

00:59:34 ◼   ► There's a lot of things we know would work better, like the lag.

00:59:38 ◼   ► Lag is really bad.

00:59:40 ◼   ► We can't make the lag any lower than it is now.

00:59:44 ◼   ► Those are things that we know will help, we just can't do them yet.

00:59:47 ◼   ► And then there are the things we don't even know will help yet that people haven't developed.

00:59:51 ◼   ► There's a story I linked to ages ago, I don't know if I'll be able to find it again, about

00:59:55 ◼   ► the developers of Destiny did to fight motion sickness in their game and they

00:59:59 ◼   ► thought about it a lot and they did a lot of stuff and this is just a plain

01:00:02 ◼   ► old first-person game where you're looking at a screen but you can get sick

01:00:05 ◼   ► from those as well and the things they're doing nobody who's playing the

01:00:08 ◼   ► game even notices because it's the type of thing you wouldn't wouldn't even

01:00:12 ◼   ► occur to you unless you were a game developer working on this those type of

01:00:15 ◼   ► things we don't even know what all those are yet for AR VR headsets setting aside

01:00:19 ◼   ► technological stuff that we just can't do I'm sure there's stuff that we we

01:00:23 ◼   ► we haven't even realized, like things about the UI,

01:00:26 ◼   ► 'cause a lot of the stuff in Destiny is like,

01:00:27 ◼   ► you know, what does it look like when you throw a grenade

01:00:30 ◼   ► or shoot things or whatever, or if your character jumps,

01:00:33 ◼   ► what do we do with the camera to not make you motion sick?

01:00:37 ◼   ► And with these goggles, it's like, okay,

01:00:39 ◼   ► how do we present an interface,

01:00:42 ◼   ► whether it's an AR interface

01:00:43 ◼   ► where you're decorating the world,

01:00:45 ◼   ► or whether it's a VR interface,

01:00:46 ◼   ► how do we present that interface

01:00:47 ◼   ► in a way that does not make people sick?

01:00:50 ◼   ► Setting aside just the glasses themselves,

01:00:52 ◼   ► like how do we present something?

01:00:53 ◼   ► How do we let them look at a virtual screen?

01:00:55 ◼   ► How do we present a UI?

01:00:56 ◼   ► We don't even know the answers to those questions yet.

01:00:59 ◼   ► They need to put this out in the real world

01:01:00 ◼   ► and figure that out.

01:01:02 ◼   ► Kind of like, you know, you can make your guess

01:01:04 ◼   ► about what's gonna be a good UI

01:01:06 ◼   ► for the phone or the iPad or whatever.

01:01:07 ◼   ► When you get out in front of people and people try it,

01:01:10 ◼   ► you learn things and you try again.

01:01:11 ◼   ► I feel like motion sickness is gonna take that same thing.

01:01:14 ◼   ► But unlike a clunky UI for notifications or something,

01:01:17 ◼   ► or lack of copy and paste,

01:01:19 ◼   ► this one actually makes people sick to their stomach.

01:01:21 ◼   ► So it's gonna be a harder sell, to your point, Marco,

01:01:24 ◼   ► that if someone has a negative experience

01:01:26 ◼   ► to convince them, oh no, it's better now,

01:01:27 ◼   ► and convince them to try again,

01:01:29 ◼   ► versus, oh, notifications are better

01:01:31 ◼   ► in the new version of iOS.

01:01:32 ◼   ► - Right, and there's gonna be people,

01:01:35 ◼   ► like maybe like me, who, like hey,

01:01:37 ◼   ► this thing just doesn't fit me in some way.

01:01:39 ◼   ► Like for some reason, this is not comfortable

01:01:41 ◼   ► or usable for me.

01:01:43 ◼   ► And there's gonna be a lot of people like that

01:01:44 ◼   ► for anything that goes in the eye.

01:01:45 ◼   ► I mean, look at, I mean look, Casey, you have weird eyes.

01:01:48 ◼   ► We all have weird eyes in different ways.

01:01:50 ◼   ► - Some weird than others, I think Casey is the king

01:01:52 ◼   ► of the weirdness here, but like, you know.

01:01:53 ◼   ► - Well, yes and no, actually.

01:01:55 ◼   ► I don't take offense to what you're saying, not a bit,

01:01:57 ◼   ► but in a way, my eyes are not that weird

01:02:00 ◼   ► as long as I have my contacts in.

01:02:02 ◼   ► I'm not like John.

01:02:03 ◼   ► In this case, I think John has weirder eyes,

01:02:05 ◼   ► only because he's contending. - That's how older eyes.

01:02:07 ◼   ► - Well, that's true, but you're contending with--

01:02:10 ◼   ► - You'll have older eyes.

01:02:11 ◼   ► - I turned 41, just a couple days, it's getting bad.

01:02:14 ◼   ► But no, I don't need anything on my face

01:02:18 ◼   ► in order to see, I was going to say well,

01:02:20 ◼   ► but I'll just say as well as I possibly can.

01:02:23 ◼   ► Whereas John is going to have to figure out

01:02:25 ◼   ► what to do with his glasses.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Can he keep them on?

01:02:27 ◼   ► Is there special bespoke lenses?

01:02:29 ◼   ► - One of the rumors of the Apple thing is they have,

01:02:31 ◼   ► and a lot of these ARV era headsets have,

01:02:33 ◼   ► like Margot was talking about the diopter adjustment,

01:02:35 ◼   ► which is just a lens in there,

01:02:37 ◼   ► cameras have that in there,

01:02:38 ◼   ► and their viewfinders and stuff, right?

01:02:40 ◼   ► But the rumor of the Apple ones is they have

01:02:42 ◼   ► a particular accommodation for prescription type lenses.

01:02:45 ◼   ► And again, in theory, Apple is the company

01:02:47 ◼   ► that could do that well.

01:02:48 ◼   ► Doing it well is expensive.

01:02:50 ◼   ► If you want to adjust for your astigmatism and everything,

01:02:53 ◼   ► you'd have to get very expensive, fancy custom lenses

01:02:56 ◼   ► to slot into your headset.

01:02:57 ◼   ► And if headsets become really popular, people will do that.

01:03:00 ◼   ► It will be worthwhile.

01:03:01 ◼   ► Same way people get glasses for their computer.

01:03:03 ◼   ► I'm wearing my quote unquote computer glasses right now,

01:03:05 ◼   ► which is a prescription custom tailored by my eye doctor

01:03:08 ◼   ► to be most relaxing for my old man eyesight

01:03:11 ◼   ► looking at computer screens.

01:03:13 ◼   ► But I have different glasses for driving.

01:03:15 ◼   ► If AR/VR becomes popular, or VR headsets become popular,

01:03:19 ◼   ► and Apple will eventually have to accommodate

01:03:22 ◼   ► prescription lenses of a fancy, expensive kind

01:03:26 ◼   ► that is custom to people so they can comfortably spend

01:03:30 ◼   ► X number of hours per day in their VR meetings or whatever,

01:03:32 ◼   ► if that market ever emerges.

01:03:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, and so, you know,

01:03:36 ◼   ► stepping aside from our weird eye contest,

01:03:38 ◼   ► this is an area that I think is significant.

01:03:44 ◼   ► it's a significant challenge in the goggles kind of space

01:03:47 ◼   ► because there is such a wide array of different eyesight

01:03:52 ◼   ► needs that people have that's,

01:03:55 ◼   ► I think that's a major challenge to any product.

01:03:59 ◼   ► Eyesight is just one part of it, as you know,

01:04:01 ◼   ► as I mentioned, motion sickness and motion perception,

01:04:04 ◼   ► there's all sorts of different other possible challenges

01:04:07 ◼   ► that a phone is, phones aren't universally accessible,

01:04:13 ◼   ► but I think they are significantly more accessible

01:04:16 ◼   ► than goggles will be, and that's gonna be something

01:04:20 ◼   ► that we have to contend with.

01:04:21 ◼   ► And maybe version one doesn't fit very well

01:04:24 ◼   ► for a lot of people.

01:04:25 ◼   ► Like, you know, AirPods were like that.

01:04:26 ◼   ► I mean, AirPods version one, like,

01:04:28 ◼   ► a lot of people liked it.

01:04:30 ◼   ► I couldn't wear 'em.

01:04:30 ◼   ► A lot of people couldn't wear 'em.

01:04:32 ◼   ► And they came up with the AirPods Pros,

01:04:34 ◼   ► and then a different set of people could wear them.

01:04:35 ◼   ► I happened to fit into that set.

01:04:36 ◼   ► I was very happy, but some people then couldn't wear those.

01:04:40 ◼   ► And the closest, most recent product to this

01:04:45 ◼   ► for fit and comfort reasons might be the AirPods Max,

01:04:48 ◼   ► which are another thing that's kinda heavy

01:04:51 ◼   ► and goes on your head,

01:04:52 ◼   ► but they're not super comfortable in my opinion either.

01:04:55 ◼   ► And so these are hard problems to solve

01:04:59 ◼   ► in product development, and it might take a while

01:05:02 ◼   ► before this product line is even able to be mass market,

01:05:07 ◼   ► even setting aside the price and desirability aspects of it.

01:05:10 ◼   ► Like maybe physically it can't be mass market

01:05:12 ◼   ► for a long time.

01:05:13 ◼   ► - And not only that, but if this is as expensive

01:05:16 ◼   ► as people are saying it will be,

01:05:18 ◼   ► and I mean we heard this about the iPad, right?

01:05:19 ◼   ► Like everyone thought it was gonna be

01:05:20 ◼   ► a thousand plus dollars for the first iPad

01:05:22 ◼   ► and it was like 500 bucks,

01:05:23 ◼   ► which is still, I mean, a lot of money,

01:05:25 ◼   ► but nevertheless, if this is like a multi-thousand dollar,

01:05:28 ◼   ► like for funsies thing, I don't know a lot of people

01:05:32 ◼   ► that have a couple of grand, including me for the record,

01:05:35 ◼   ► that have a couple of grand just burning a hole

01:05:37 ◼   ► their pockets that they just really want to throw in the direction of their

01:05:40 ◼   ► nearest Apple Store. It's not the sort of thing like a phone which has

01:05:44 ◼   ► become like a critical part of everyone's everyday life. It's not even

01:05:50 ◼   ► like an Apple Watch which I would argue is not at all critical but something

01:05:53 ◼   ► that many people including me feel like is something you want to have on you

01:05:57 ◼   ► pretty much always. This is just a toy right now or I mean unless they have

01:06:01 ◼   ► some compelling use for it that I'm not thinking of but this is a appears to be

01:06:05 ◼   ► just a toy and a couple thousand dollars for just a toy that's a lot of money

01:06:11 ◼   ► that I don't think all that many people like in this economy you know I don't

01:06:14 ◼   ► know that all that many people have a couple thousand dollars just looking to

01:06:18 ◼   ► be spent on something that is very unproven and may or may not even work

01:06:22 ◼   ► for their bodies like you were saying like it's a big ask I mean really the

01:06:26 ◼   ► best time to release it would have been right at the beginning of kovat when

01:06:29 ◼   ► everybody was like trying to figure out you know more interesting stuff they

01:06:31 ◼   ► could do without going anywhere like that that would have been perfect you

01:06:35 ◼   ► they missed that opportunity, but it wasn't ready yet.

01:06:38 ◼   ► But if they make a compelling case for this,

01:06:42 ◼   ► and that's a huge if, and we'll talk about that,

01:06:45 ◼   ► I'm sure, for many months,

01:06:46 ◼   ► but if they make a compelling case for this,

01:06:48 ◼   ► I think there is a market for it.

01:06:50 ◼   ► It's not gonna start out as a very big market.

01:06:52 ◼   ► It doesn't need to, but there is a market.

01:06:56 ◼   ► It's not gonna be easy to make a compelling product

01:07:00 ◼   ► of this type, and that's why I think

01:07:03 ◼   ► it has taken them so long and they still haven't shipped.

01:07:06 ◼   ► I don't think it's about necessarily

01:07:09 ◼   ► the industrial design aesthetics or anything.

01:07:12 ◼   ► I think it's more likely that the product

01:07:15 ◼   ► just really hasn't been compelling enough yet

01:07:17 ◼   ► and that maybe they have internal disagreements about

01:07:20 ◼   ► is it good enough to ship yet or not.

01:07:22 ◼   ► Not necessarily should we even bother

01:07:25 ◼   ► with this category of XR headset at all,

01:07:29 ◼   ► but do we have enough here to make it worth

01:07:31 ◼   ► shipping version one, or have we not even reached that yet?

01:07:34 ◼   ► That's probably the actual debate,

01:07:36 ◼   ► and or does the industrial design team

01:07:38 ◼   ► object to being overruled in certain ways,

01:07:42 ◼   ► or object to having to be a little more collaborative

01:07:45 ◼   ► and a little more give and take in other ways,

01:07:46 ◼   ► but for this product by itself,

01:07:49 ◼   ► it wouldn't surprise me if it's kind of on shaky ground

01:07:53 ◼   ► until very, very recently as to whether they even have

01:07:55 ◼   ► something worth shipping at all,

01:07:56 ◼   ► and if they think they finally have it

01:07:59 ◼   ► and we're about to get it,

01:08:01 ◼   ► - Well, I'm damn curious to see what they have deemed

01:08:04 ◼   ► worth shipping because, again,

01:08:06 ◼   ► I don't have the imagination or the foresight

01:08:08 ◼   ► to be able to see for myself,

01:08:10 ◼   ► oh, this is gonna be amazing.

01:08:11 ◼   ► I haven't seen that yet, but I'm wrong a lot,

01:08:14 ◼   ► so maybe they have something amazing,

01:08:16 ◼   ► and we just don't know it yet.

01:08:17 ◼   ► - The long pole in this project has gotta be software

01:08:19 ◼   ► at this point, that's what the rumors have been.

01:08:21 ◼   ► So I feel like I'm willing to take at face value

01:08:24 ◼   ► the industrial design objection outlined here,

01:08:26 ◼   ► which is basically we shouldn't ship a goggly product.

01:08:29 ◼   ► Right, it's not that this goggly product

01:08:30 ◼   ► isn't good enough or not ready, because I think the thing that is not ready about this

01:08:33 ◼   ► and the thing that has been delaying it is the software side of it.

01:08:35 ◼   ► And that's very often the case, because the software side of it is difficult and really

01:08:40 ◼   ► defines the experience.

01:08:41 ◼   ► The hardware part of it you can make as good as you can make, and the hardware part of

01:08:43 ◼   ► it is mostly a trade-off between price and technology, and you have to kind of do that

01:08:50 ◼   ► balance.

01:08:51 ◼   ► And I feel like that's where industrial design and engineering are bouncing off each other,

01:08:54 ◼   ► trying to come up with the best goggle they can get and iterating it over year after year.

01:08:57 ◼   ► Industrial Design might agree, still disagree that they've got something shippable, but

01:09:01 ◼   ► the objection to this article is like, we shouldn't even do this until we can make Clark

01:09:04 ◼   ► Kent glasses, right?

01:09:05 ◼   ► And that's, I mean, I feel like that's a position to have, but I think it's the wrong position,

01:09:11 ◼   ► and I think it's kind of tantrum-y, it's like, we should wait until we have flying cars.

01:09:14 ◼   ► Can we make just a regular car first?

01:09:16 ◼   ► Not that I'm saying Apple should make a regular car, but it's an analogy.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I wish it wasn't so, I wish it could be just an analogy, but alas, Apple is rumored to

01:09:24 ◼   ► be investigating that as well.

01:09:25 ◼   ► So anyway, we'll see, but like, I think,

01:09:29 ◼   ► we'll find out when they ship something,

01:09:33 ◼   ► because if they ship something and we're like,

01:09:34 ◼   ► oh, you know what, you just said, Marco,

01:09:35 ◼   ► like, even if you agree that Apple should be

01:09:38 ◼   ► in the goggles market, these are bad goggles.

01:09:41 ◼   ► We'll say that when they come out,

01:09:42 ◼   ► and then we'll retroactively say,

01:09:43 ◼   ► that must have been the debate or whatever,

01:09:45 ◼   ► but this story is very straightforward in trying to say,

01:09:47 ◼   ► we shouldn't ship a thing like this.

01:09:49 ◼   ► We should wait until we make glasses.

01:09:51 ◼   ► It's like, okay, whoever has that opinion,

01:09:53 ◼   ► that is an opinion to have,

01:09:55 ◼   ► but I think it would be the wrong move for Apple

01:09:57 ◼   ► and apparently the company is going to ship something.

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01:11:43 ◼   ► - So there's been a bit of a brouhaha

01:11:45 ◼   ► over the last week or so.

01:11:47 ◼   ► It was not about Apple, it was instead about Samsung.

01:11:50 ◼   ► and their space zoom photos, which may or may not be enhanced, quote unquote, by AI.

01:11:56 ◼   ► So what the heck am I talking about? So in the Samsung S20 Ultra, which has one of these

01:12:03 ◼   ► periscope style lenses that we've heard for years the iPhone is getting this year, this is the year.

01:12:08 ◼   ► Well, they actually have one and it does a 100x zoom. And I think some of that is digital. Some

01:12:13 ◼   ► of that is optical. I'm not entirely sure. And honestly, it doesn't really matter for the purposes

01:12:17 ◼   ► of this conversation, but people have noticed that they take these phones take just absolutely

01:12:24 ◼   ► stunning images of the moon. And somebody on Reddit started looking into this and they

01:12:29 ◼   ► wrote, "Many of us have witnessed the breathtaking moon photos taken with this latest zoom lens,

01:12:33 ◼   ► starting with the Samsung S20 Ultra. I've always had doubts about their authenticity

01:12:37 ◼   ► as they appear almost too perfect. While these images are not necessarily outright fabrications,

01:12:42 ◼   ► neither are they entirely genuine. Many people believe the moon photos are real. Even MKBHD

01:12:46 ◼   ► claimed this in a popular YouTube short that the moon is not an overlay like Huawei or

01:12:51 ◼   ► how do you pronounce that? Is it Huawei? Yeah. Okay, sure. Huawei has been accused of in

01:12:56 ◼   ► the past, but he's not correct. And eventually he, by the way, put up a full on correction

01:13:01 ◼   ► video, which we're going to talk about here in a second. But what this person did was

01:13:05 ◼   ► absolutely fascinating. And I'm probably going to get the terminology wrong, but the gist

01:13:08 ◼   ► of it is they took a picture of the moon and they blurred the snot out of it. So you could

01:13:13 ◼   ► barely recognize it as a moon. They put it on their computer screen, turned all the lights off,

01:13:17 ◼   ► went across the room or whatever, and zoomed in on this moon that has been blurred. So it is a

01:13:25 ◼   ► picture of the moon, but the source material is blurry because the only thing being shown on the

01:13:30 ◼   ► screen is a blurry image. And the image that came out from the camera was this very crisp image of

01:13:37 ◼   ► the moon where there were details that did not exist on the computer screen. Again, the source

01:13:42 ◼   ► was blurred. It's not like it was hard to see. It literally was blurred. There was no

01:13:47 ◼   ► more detail to be had because the original was blurred. Well, somehow that blurry original

01:13:53 ◼   ► got "sharpened" with mega air quotes into a very accurate picture of the moon. Which

01:13:59 ◼   ► seems then that what's going on is the phone is just filling in a picture of the moon and

01:14:06 ◼   ► calling it good. And so what MKBHD's follow-up video starts asking, and I thought it was

01:14:13 ◼   ► a really, really, really good question, and maybe I should turn it over to Jon and we

01:14:18 ◼   ► can channel a little robot or not, but MKBHD asked, "What is a photo?" You know, in short,

01:14:25 ◼   ► and he does a very, very good job of explaining it, but in short, is this a photo? Like, if

01:14:30 ◼   ► they really, if you are taking a picture of the moon and the phone figures out, okay,

01:14:34 ◼   ► What should the Moon look like from where you're standing at this phase of the Moon,

01:14:38 ◼   ► at this time, and so on and so forth?

01:14:40 ◼   ► And it becomes effectively a picture of what you would see if you had better equipment.

01:14:46 ◼   ► Is that still a photo?

01:14:47 ◼   ► Is that cheating?

01:14:48 ◼   ► Is that okay?

01:14:49 ◼   ► And it was a really interesting question.

01:14:52 ◼   ► So Jon, is it a photo?

01:14:54 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this question is less complicated than people make it sound, which is the main

01:14:58 ◼   ► reason I wanted to put this in here.

01:14:59 ◼   ► But a few notes before that, which I haven't seen brought up in many places.

01:15:03 ◼   ► One is that we do have, and have for many years, various techniques to take a blurry

01:15:09 ◼   ► image and quote-unquote "retrieve detail."

01:15:12 ◼   ► So a lot of people on the Reddit thread are like, "But it's blurry!

01:15:14 ◼   ► You can't get detail that's not there!"

01:15:17 ◼   ► We do actually have ways to do that, especially if you have some knowledge of some constraints.

01:15:22 ◼   ► So for example, we've seen the thing where if like, "Oh, be careful when you blur text

01:15:26 ◼   ► on a screenshot or something you post because you can take the blurred text and reverse

01:15:31 ◼   ► that blur to get out the original images, mostly because we know what letterforms look

01:15:35 ◼   ► like and we, you know, like it is a more constrained problem, but that is not outside the realm

01:15:39 ◼   ► of reason and that is not any kind of like, it's not like, you know, when you're in your

01:15:43 ◼   ► unblurring text, it's not quite the same thing as we're talking about here.

01:15:47 ◼   ► So I think this, you know, look, it's proof.

01:15:49 ◼   ► They must be just taking a picture of the moon and slapping on it because there's no

01:15:52 ◼   ► way you can get this detail back.

01:15:53 ◼   ► I think we could using preexisting pre-quote unquote AI algorithms.

01:15:58 ◼   ► I hate that phrase because it has nothing to do with AI really.

01:16:01 ◼   ► In the past, and technologies that existed in years past, I think it is actually possible

01:16:06 ◼   ► to unblur a picture of the moon and get something reasonable.

01:16:09 ◼   ► But setting that aside, that doesn't appear to be what they're doing here.

01:16:12 ◼   ► The other interesting thing is that this whole thing about Samsung messing things with the

01:16:16 ◼   ► moon has come up, even just on Reddit, several times in the past years.

01:16:19 ◼   ► There's an older one that was, I think, from several years ago, where this person's experiment

01:16:22 ◼   ► was they took a picture of the moon and they drew a smiley face on it in gray paint, in

01:16:26 ◼   ► a paint program and then they took a picture with their Samsung camera and the Samsung

01:16:30 ◼   ► camera dutifully made the smiley face look like a crater-y smiley face.

01:16:34 ◼   ► Because the Samsung camera knows moon is supposed to be crater-y and it knows that that's a

01:16:40 ◼   ► moon, and so I will crater-ify it.

01:16:43 ◼   ► And Samsung has an explanation of this.

01:16:44 ◼   ► I originally had a link to their Korean forum post about it, but they have an English one.

01:16:48 ◼   ► There's a Verge story here where it says Samsung responds to fake moon controversy and Samsung

01:16:52 ◼   ► explains.

01:16:53 ◼   ► to say, "Hey, we use AI image processing,

01:16:55 ◼   ► and we do this, and here's our pipeline, and blah, blah."

01:16:57 ◼   ► What they basically say is,

01:16:59 ◼   ► "Our camera recognizes that you're taking

01:17:00 ◼   ► a picture of the moon.

01:17:01 ◼   ► It knows it's a moon, and it uses quote, unquote AI

01:17:04 ◼   ► to quote, unquote enhance the image,"

01:17:05 ◼   ► which is what everybody is saying.

01:17:07 ◼   ► So getting back to Casey's and MKBHD's question,

01:17:11 ◼   ► what is a photo?

01:17:12 ◼   ► When I see this, there's definitely a camp

01:17:16 ◼   ► that I see reacting to these stories,

01:17:19 ◼   ► where you say, "Okay, well,

01:17:22 ◼   ► Anytime there's a new technology, people complain about it and think it's unnatural and shouldn't

01:17:27 ◼   ► be used and unholy and old ways are best and it's an abomination, but eventually those

01:17:33 ◼   ► people die and we just get used to it and it becomes the new normal.

01:17:36 ◼   ► And I'm here to tell you that in this specific case, this question of photos versus enhanced

01:17:44 ◼   ► photo or augmented photos is not the type of thing that is going to wipe away the old

01:17:52 ◼   ► thing. It is a new thing that will be in our arsenal and become very important for the

01:17:56 ◼   ► future, but we will never get to a point where nobody has any interest in taking an "old"

01:18:02 ◼   ► style photo, and I'll explain why. So this is a related story that was in the New Yorker,

01:18:06 ◼   ► believe it or not. It was talking about ChatGBT, trying to explain to people how it works and

01:18:10 ◼   ► what it is and what it isn't. And it is actually very relevant to this moon thing in an interesting

01:18:14 ◼   ► way. So I'm going to try to summarize this rather than read it because it's kind of long.

01:18:17 ◼   ► But the bottom line is, someone was using a Xerox photocopier, and they were photocopying

01:18:21 ◼   ► floor plans and they photocopied it but the photocopy had the wrong measurements

01:18:26 ◼   ► like they have measurements on the wall like this wall is five this wall is ten

01:18:28 ◼   ► this wall whatever and then when they would photocopy it the photocopy would

01:18:31 ◼   ► have the wrong measurements it made all the walls the same length as one of the

01:18:35 ◼   ► walls and it like it wasn't supposed to be a square it was like they were

01:18:38 ◼   ► different lengths right which is like the weirdest bug you can ever imagine

01:18:41 ◼   ► you're like is someone playing a practical joke on me not only is it a

01:18:45 ◼   ► weird bug but it's also like potentially super dangerous what if you're making

01:18:48 ◼   ► like plans for like an airplane or something a space thing or some safety

01:18:51 ◼   ► like a bridge or like when you make a Xerox,

01:18:54 ◼   ► you know, using the proprietary eponym,

01:18:55 ◼   ► when you make a photocopy, you kind of expect the paper

01:18:58 ◼   ► to come out to be a copy of the one you put in.

01:19:00 ◼   ► And if the one you put in says this is five feet,

01:19:01 ◼   ► this is 10 feet, this is 12 feet,

01:19:03 ◼   ► and it comes back and they're all five feet,

01:19:04 ◼   ► you might not notice that,

01:19:06 ◼   ► because why would you even check that, right?

01:19:08 ◼   ► And so the explanation, and I'll read this

01:19:10 ◼   ► because it is slightly detailed, right?

01:19:12 ◼   ► Here's the explanation of what was going on.

01:19:14 ◼   ► Xerox photocopiers use lossy compression format

01:19:16 ◼   ► known as JBig2, designed for use of black and white images.

01:19:19 ◼   ► To save space, the copier identifies similar looking regions in the image and stores a

01:19:23 ◼   ► single copy for all of them. When the file is decompressed, it uses that copy repeatedly

01:19:27 ◼   ► to reconstruct the image. It turned out that the photocopier had judged the labels specifying

01:19:32 ◼   ► the area of the rooms to be similar enough that it needed to only store one of them

01:19:35 ◼   ► (the one with the value 14.13) and it reused that one for all three rooms when printing the floor plan.

01:19:41 ◼   ► The fact that ChatGPT rephrases material from the web instead of quoting it word for word makes it

01:19:46 ◼   ► it seems like a student expressing their ideas in their own words rather than simply regurgitating

01:19:49 ◼   ► what she reads.

01:19:50 ◼   ► It creates the illusion that ChatGPT understands the material.

01:19:53 ◼   ► So this saying that ChatGPT does a similar thing.

01:19:55 ◼   ► It finds an occurrence of this, seems like it's a good stand-in and repeats it.

01:19:58 ◼   ► The moon, same deal.

01:19:59 ◼   ► I recognize that's the moon.

01:20:01 ◼   ► I know what the moon looks like.

01:20:03 ◼   ► I don't have to pay any attention to what your camera took a picture of, and honestly,

01:20:10 ◼   ► the Samsung camera is just a blurry white ball at that point.

01:20:13 ◼   ► Like it has no way to resolve anything.

01:20:15 ◼   ► 100x zoom is not making any sense out of the moon.

01:20:17 ◼   ► But I know that it's a moon, and so I will take the one copy that I have of the moon

01:20:21 ◼   ► and apply it using AI technology to your image.

01:20:25 ◼   ► The reason this is not going to become the accepted norm and wipe out "old style" photos

01:20:31 ◼   ► is the same reason this photocopier is never going to be acceptable.

01:20:35 ◼   ► By the way, Xerox fixed the bug.

01:20:38 ◼   ► When you take a photo or when you make a photocopy, very often you're doing it, you have a job

01:20:43 ◼   ► that you wanted to do.

01:20:44 ◼   ► In the case of the copier, you want it to make an exact duplicate of the paper that

01:20:48 ◼   ► you put on it.

01:20:49 ◼   ► You don't want it to change the measurements.

01:20:51 ◼   ► That's very bad, because your whole point is, "I want it to be an exact copy."

01:20:56 ◼   ► Sometimes when you take a picture of the moon, you just want a pretty picture of the moon,

01:20:59 ◼   ► and that's fine.

01:21:00 ◼   ► But sometimes when you take a picture of the thing, you want a picture of the thing that

01:21:04 ◼   ► is in front of you.

01:21:06 ◼   ► You don't care what some computer thinks that thing in front of you probably looks like

01:21:10 ◼   ► or has looked like in the past or will look like in the future or would look better as.

01:21:14 ◼   ► You want to know what that thing looks like now.

01:21:17 ◼   ► Sometimes not all the time, but sometimes that is the job of a photograph.

01:21:21 ◼   ► So I think there is no future in which we accept cameras routinely replacing things

01:21:29 ◼   ► that are in front of them with things that think they are.

01:21:32 ◼   ► Because sometimes that's not the job we want a camera to do.

01:21:36 ◼   ► And that's why I think, and you know, this thing with the moon who cares, it's not particularly

01:21:40 ◼   ► important, but like say you're taking a picture of a bunch of people and you're on vacation

01:21:43 ◼   ► and take a picture of your family,

01:21:44 ◼   ► and it knows that you've taken 1,000 pictures of your family

01:21:47 ◼   ► and it says, well, little Timmy's head is blurred,

01:21:49 ◼   ► so I'm gonna take Timmy's head from another photo

01:21:51 ◼   ► and AI map it onto there.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I don't think that will be acceptable to people in general,

01:21:56 ◼   ► because what they want is Timmy's actual expression

01:21:59 ◼   ► at this point, not an AI warped version

01:22:02 ◼   ► of composite of all Timmy's faces from past photos

01:22:05 ◼   ► mapped onto his face in this photo, right?

01:22:09 ◼   ► Or whatever the threshold is,

01:22:10 ◼   ► maybe the little Timmy people will want that,

01:22:12 ◼   ► But at a certain point, the job of a camera

01:22:14 ◼   ► and the job of a photo is to document

01:22:16 ◼   ► what is actually there.

01:22:17 ◼   ► And I'm setting this aside from like,

01:22:18 ◼   ► okay, but what about image enhancing

01:22:20 ◼   ► and sharpening and blurring and saturating colors?

01:22:24 ◼   ► Like there is a line between I'm taking

01:22:27 ◼   ► the information that's there

01:22:29 ◼   ► and trying to make it a little bit clearer

01:22:30 ◼   ► versus I'm basically doing an image map,

01:22:33 ◼   ► and not an image map, but you know,

01:22:34 ◼   ► like the AI avatar things we thought of before,

01:22:38 ◼   ► where it recognizes what it is and knows what you want

01:22:41 ◼   ► and takes all of its knowledge of that thing

01:22:43 ◼   ► and sort of, you know, I don't wanna say map,

01:22:46 ◼   ► 'cause it's not like it's texture mapping.

01:22:47 ◼   ► It is doing AI image processing, it's doing stable diffusion,

01:22:50 ◼   ► all this, like it is, that's not what we want it to do

01:22:53 ◼   ► in most cases.

01:22:55 ◼   ► And so I'm not sure whether this technology

01:22:58 ◼   ► is appropriate for cell phones or whatever,

01:23:00 ◼   ► and by the way, on this Amazon phone,

01:23:01 ◼   ► you can turn this off and on,

01:23:03 ◼   ► so it's not like you're stuck with this,

01:23:04 ◼   ► but I feel like at least some of the time

01:23:09 ◼   ► the job we want a camera or a photograph to do

01:23:13 ◼   ► is to record what's there in the best way possible,

01:23:16 ◼   ► not to make up something.

01:23:18 ◼   ► And the photocopier is the most extreme example,

01:23:20 ◼   ► and ChatGPT is a similar type of thing where it's like,

01:23:22 ◼   ► well, I've seen stuff like this before,

01:23:24 ◼   ► and I know you actually want to know the answer,

01:23:26 ◼   ► but I've seen enough similar things

01:23:28 ◼   ► that are plausibly the answer that I'll just show you those.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And sometimes that's fun and interesting and useful,

01:23:33 ◼   ► as long as you understand what it's doing,

01:23:34 ◼   ► but sometimes you actually want to know the real answer,

01:23:36 ◼   ► and it's kind of super important.

01:23:37 ◼   ► So I wouldn't want NASA asking ChatGBT about how far away is the moon.

01:23:41 ◼   ► Because you probably get an answer, and it might be right, but really you need to delve

01:23:45 ◼   ► farther into that.

01:23:46 ◼   ► Similarly, I wouldn't want someone taking photos and, for example, submitting them as

01:23:51 ◼   ► evidence in a criminal trial when half the stuff in the image has been AI replaced by

01:23:56 ◼   ► some computer's idea of what it probably should have looked like.

01:23:59 ◼   ► It's a complicated topic because we are so accustomed to cameras capturing what we're

01:24:07 ◼   ► pretty sure they should be capturing based on what they are seeing.

01:24:11 ◼   ► When Apple does its deep fusion process, which is literally AI detail generation for pictures

01:24:18 ◼   ► that they've been doing for years, it's this exact same kind of thing, just done in

01:24:24 ◼   ► a little bit more subtle ways with a little bit more finesse.

01:24:27 ◼   ► It's the same technique, roughly.

01:24:29 ◼   ► It's like they see like, oh, this looks kind of like a hair.

01:24:33 ◼   ► I'm gonna sharpen it to make it look more

01:24:34 ◼   ► like a higher resolution hair or sweater fiber,

01:24:37 ◼   ► than what the sensor actually captured.

01:24:41 ◼   ► And that might be wrong.

01:24:43 ◼   ► - But they don't have like,

01:24:44 ◼   ► they didn't train it on a huge database

01:24:46 ◼   ► of a million pictures of hair and saying,

01:24:47 ◼   ► hey, when you see something that's a hair,

01:24:48 ◼   ► rather than trying to sharpen it,

01:24:50 ◼   ► because hairs, we applied this sharpening algorithm

01:24:52 ◼   ► to things that we think are hair,

01:24:53 ◼   ► instead, take all your knowledge

01:24:55 ◼   ► in this giant trained image set

01:24:57 ◼   ► of all pictures of hair you've seen,

01:24:59 ◼   ► and just synthesize a picture of hair

01:25:01 ◼   ► that is more or less the same shape as that picture.

01:25:03 ◼   ► In the same way that you can take like,

01:25:05 ◼   ► steal artwork from somebody where they draw you

01:25:07 ◼   ► as a superhero and synthesize Marco's face

01:25:09 ◼   ► plus this superhero drawing that somebody did

01:25:11 ◼   ► and end up with a superhero drawing of Marco.

01:25:13 ◼   ► I think nothing has Apple has done at that point,

01:25:16 ◼   ► up to this point has been trained on other images

01:25:19 ◼   ► and uses that to synthesize.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Instead it's maybe perhaps been trained on other images

01:25:23 ◼   ► to recognize this is hair, this is not hair,

01:25:25 ◼   ► but hasn't gone the extra step or like this is sweater,

01:25:27 ◼   ► this is not sweater, hasn't gone the extra step to say,

01:25:30 ◼   ► okay, in addition to that, take your giant database

01:25:33 ◼   ► of knowledge of what sweaters look like

01:25:35 ◼   ► and synthesize an image of a purple sweater

01:25:36 ◼   ► that matches this purple and more or less

01:25:38 ◼   ► looks like a sweater.

01:25:39 ◼   ► And that's where I feel like the line is drawn,

01:25:40 ◼   ► where it is creating based on other images

01:25:43 ◼   ► versus just taking what you have there,

01:25:45 ◼   ► recognizing it and then applying,

01:25:46 ◼   ► essentially, image processing algorithms

01:25:48 ◼   ► to sharpen, blur, enhance, saturate, so on.

01:25:51 ◼   ► - I believe that's correct, that their approaches

01:25:54 ◼   ► have not seemingly been like synthesis driven

01:25:57 ◼   ► from a trained, you know, large model kind of thing.

01:25:59 ◼   ► I think it has been more just like, you know,

01:26:01 ◼   ► smarter versions of, you know, sharpening

01:26:04 ◼   ► and stuff like that, and interpolation.

01:26:06 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that's right,