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ATP

620: Mostly Cookies

 

00:00:00   We've been out of town for I think about 12 days. Just got back last night. Everything in my life

00:00:08   is a mess as a result of this. Like obviously, first of all, like my schedule is a mess. Like

00:00:14   that's a given. Like when you take 12 days away from town, when you get back, everything has to be

00:00:20   crammed before and after that. So hence why we're recording in a weird time. Sorry, my fault. My

00:00:26   house is a mess. Like there's boxes everywhere because this was our big like Christmas and New

00:00:31   Year's trip and there was a bunch of family events that we went to while we were gone for different

00:00:35   reasons and so we had all sorts of prep, you know, to prepare for this trip plus Christmas stuff.

00:00:41   There's boxes everywhere. There's a couple of returns stacked up. There's a ton of like unpacking

00:00:46   and laundry. We just got back last night. My car, a mess also. Like covered in dirt and mud and you

00:00:53   know the windshield washer fluid's empty. Like everything, you know, that's a mess. I personally,

00:00:57   like my body is a mess. Like not only have I eaten mostly cookies for the last two weeks,

00:01:01   but like it's the point where like I don't know if either of you have a smart scale, but you know,

00:01:07   one of the great things about a smart scale is that it records, you know, all your entries over,

00:01:11   you can see them over time. One of the bad things about a smart scale is that it records all your

00:01:15   entries and you can see them over time. And so this creates an incentive where if you've just had

00:01:20   a really indulgent week and you get home and you step on the scale for the first time, it can cross

00:01:26   a certain point where you're like, "Whoa!" and you jump off because it only records it once the data

00:01:32   like settles after like a second. So you have a window of time that if the reading is going to be

00:01:37   something you would rather not be in your permanent record, you can jump off the scale and just

00:01:41   revisit in a few days. And so that was, that was this morning's move. You know, like my face also

00:01:48   a mess. Like I'm covered in pimples because I don't have my usual products for the last 12 days.

00:01:52   I'm sitting here at my desk is a disaster. Like there's mail I have to deal with like all over

00:01:57   the place, different projects all over my desk. My computer, like the virtual environment of my

00:02:02   computer, also a mess. Like there's browser tabs open from before Christmas that I'm like, "Well,

00:02:08   if I order this thing, it's going to arrive while I'm gone. So let me wait till after Christmas to

00:02:12   do that." Or, "This thing has to wait till the new year or whatever." So browser tabs everywhere,

00:02:16   files all over my desktop I got to deal with. I can't even find my MacBook Air. I have, for the

00:02:21   first time ever, I have lost a computer. Like I'm sure I'll find it in the next day or two, but like

00:02:26   I currently cannot, it's so thin and light I lost it. Like I- - They should have the thing where it

00:02:29   makes a noise like with your phone where you make the beeping noise. I don't think they have that

00:02:32   for Macs, but they should. - Yeah, I can't even find it in my, find my list. I'm like, "Oh boy."

00:02:37   - Oh, that's alarming. - Yeah, so I'm sure, I'm sure it'll turn up, but I've never lost a computer

00:02:42   or electronics device before ever. And I currently have lost a MacBook Air, but it's fine.

00:02:46   I haven't had that much time to look yet. - Who is it who had the story about the original MacBook

00:02:50   Air was like in a stack of papers and got thrown in the garbage? Was that Merlin? - Well, I hope

00:02:54   that didn't happen to mine. Although I guess they're being replaced soon, but I don't want

00:02:58   that to be the reason I replaced it. - Real-time follow-up, allegedly it was Steven Levy who told

00:03:02   that story. - That's right, yes. Anyway, so every, even like Overcast is a mess. Like right, I decided

00:03:09   right before the Christmas traveling for our family, I decided this would be a good time to

00:03:15   start rewriting the watch app to use the new sync engine. So it's like, you know, there's like parts

00:03:20   all over the floor and then I get up and leave for two weeks. Like that's, so I'm coming back to that.

00:03:24   Everything around me is a mess right now, including me. And oh my God, this, I cannot wait to, you know,

00:03:33   slowly work through all of this and get all this processed and put away and recycled and

00:03:40   hopefully locate my MacBook Air. And this hopefully will all be behind me by next week's show.

00:03:46   - Vacation, all you ever wanted. - How are you? - I would like to hear John's Christmas and birthday

00:03:53   results, but I'd also like to throw in just very briefly, as I sit here, it is what, Friday

00:03:59   afternoon and they are calling, the weather people are calling for as much as 10 inches of snow in

00:04:06   Richmond on Monday. Let me assure you gentlemen, that we can have another argument about whether or

00:04:12   not I'm in the South. And I would argue that getting 10 inches of snow would indicate I'm not in

00:04:15   the South, but that's either here nor there. Let me just tell you that we definitely do not have

00:04:20   the equipment to handle 10 inches of snow. This will be the cluster of all clusters if we actually

00:04:25   get 10 inches of snow dropped on us. Richmond will be shut down for at least a week, probably more. So

00:04:30   I am not currently in a mess Marco, but I am potentially going to be in a very messy mess

00:04:36   sometime in the next couple of days. - Yeah, like places that get regular snow are equipped to

00:04:40   handle it and the people don't treat it as like the apocalypse. Whereas like a place like where

00:04:45   you are, you probably have a lot less salt and plows and stuff and you probably, and the people

00:04:51   I'm sure have like cleared out the grocery store shelves and are treating it like the apocalypse.

00:04:55   - That is 100% true. I actually went out this morning, I've been running around all day myself

00:04:59   and they already put the like stripes of salt on the road. It's currently Friday, snow isn't due

00:05:04   until Sunday at the earliest. They're already striping all the roads with salt to get ready

00:05:08   for it, which is good. But yeah, we will all quote unquote die for the next week if we end up

00:05:16   with 10 inches of snow. Although the way it usually works is it'll cross the mountains west

00:05:20   of Charlottesville, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and then it'll kind of peter out not too long after

00:05:23   that. So it is unlikely that we'll have an additional week of winter break, but it's a

00:05:28   possibility. So I think happy thoughts and I'll let you decide if that means think snow thoughts

00:05:32   or think no snow thoughts. That being said, Jon, how are your holiday results and birthday results?

00:05:38   Because happy 50th birthday, you are now 50 in three days. So happy birthday. How are your

00:05:44   results? - 50 and three days, not 50 in three days, just to clarify. - That's what I said.

00:05:48   - I know it just sounds similar for people who are listening. I just want people to know that

00:05:52   my birthday has already passed. I am now the big five-o, really enjoying those retirement catch-up

00:06:00   savings contributions. - Wait, you're talking about the tomato condiment or is this like a...

00:06:07   - It's not catch-up. - Ah, thank you. It was that Boston accent that got... - To certain

00:06:14   retirement accounts, the IRS says you can put in a little extra if you're 50 if you're trying to

00:06:18   catch up for lost time. I actually did that last year because I was 50 last year as well

00:06:22   for one day. But yeah, no, it was fine. Birthday was good. Christmas was good. Everything here is

00:06:30   fine. - All right, let's do some follow-up. We mentioned, was it overtime, I believe, last week

00:06:38   or last episode that we were talking about how Aaron's car is? And Marco was given the hard sell,

00:06:44   understandably, on full battery electric vehicles. And I was saying how I'm really enjoying the

00:06:49   plug-in hybrid. And I think Marco, maybe it was John, brought up a really funny post. That's what

00:06:56   I thought. Every time I think it's you, though, it ends up being John. So this was the one time

00:06:59   I was actually right. - Just do the opposite of what you think. - That's true. - George

00:07:03   Costanza technique. - That's exactly right. - Tune us out on rye. - So Marco brought up this very

00:07:08   funny post of what it would be like if you grew up on electric cars and went and test drove a

00:07:15   gasoline or petrol-powered one for the first time. A friend of the show, Spencer, was able to dig it

00:07:19   up for me. And I will put it in the show notes for this episode. I will say I skimmed it real quick

00:07:26   again. And I remembered really liking this post when I first read it several years ago.

00:07:30   Skimming it now, maybe it's my own priors, as Merlin would say, that I'm bringing to the table

00:07:34   here. But it reads really obnoxious, so maybe it wasn't as good as I thought. - Well, and I actually

00:07:39   am not sure this is it. So I went searching for it with every tool I have. I even tried like ChatGPT,

00:07:46   like what did ATP talk about? Like I tried, I could not find, because the version that I remember

00:07:51   was a blog post on somebody's website. Now I found this version, and I'm not actually sure

00:07:57   it's the same one. I actually don't think it is. But in this version, like if you search for a few

00:08:03   of the phrases in it, like in quotes in Google or whatever, you can find this version is all over

00:08:08   the internet. Like this has been copied from forums and everything else, like it's all over the place.

00:08:12   So this is obviously out there, and this is, you know, there are parts of this that are funny, but

00:08:17   the one I remember was not as long, and I think a little bit, you know,

00:08:23   softer written for people like you. But yeah, anyway, I don't think this was it. And

00:08:31   if this is it, it was also copied onto somebody's private blog. And I remember it having like a,

00:08:35   I don't know, like a brownish background or something, I don't know. I cannot find it

00:08:38   for the life of me. - Life streams, I look forward to and couldn't find it.

00:08:42   - Yeah. Anyway, but you know, as some minor follow up to your EV-ness, I did want to tell you that

00:08:50   I did just take, you know, all this, my 12 days of travel here was probably a combination of 500

00:08:59   miles maybe, 600 miles. And I actually never had to use a fast charger once because at my in-laws

00:09:06   place, they have like a circular saw 220 volt outlet in their barn. And so whenever I'm there,

00:09:11   I just plug into that. It's about, I can get about 30 amps out of it. So I just plug into that and

00:09:15   my car is full overnight and that's it. And then, so I charged up at my house. I went up there,

00:09:20   I charged there, drove around a lot and then drove home. And I got home with like, you know, 20%

00:09:27   or so. - Nice. - Just to give you some idea of like, you know, all of your range anxiety,

00:09:33   what I'm trying to do is, I mean, look, nothing's going to cure your range anxiety about a full

00:09:39   battery EV until you actually own one. But what I'm trying to do is kind of just give you, you know,

00:09:43   examples of like how much you don't really need to think about it as much as you think you will.

00:09:48   And even like, I am the kind of person that I don't, you kind of have to define like,

00:09:55   what's the lowest percentage charge I'm comfortable with getting it down to, you know,

00:10:00   before I need to plug in or want to be at a place where I can plug in. And for different people,

00:10:06   this is different. Like I'm the kind of person where like, I don't even let my phone battery

00:10:10   ever go all the way to zero. I have, like when people say like, my phone died, that kind of

00:10:15   irritates me. That's like saying my kid starved. It's like, that implies some, you know, some like

00:10:21   nothing, this action just happened. It's like, well, you didn't charge it and you used it down

00:10:26   to zero. Anyway, I am, I'm a person who like, my phone has never died. I have, like my, I literally

00:10:32   have never drained a phone battery to zero because I manage it. If it's getting down low, I'll stop

00:10:38   using the phone or I'll put it, you know, in obviously low power mode or if I'm really desperate,

00:10:43   like airplane mode, but I don't think I've ever, outside of like a hike, I don't think I've ever

00:10:46   had to do that. Like a week long hike I'm saying. So where my phone still didn't reach zero. Anyway,

00:10:51   so the point is, so you know, with the car, I'm willing to get it down to, you know, 15% if I'm

00:10:58   arriving somewhere that I know I can definitely charge, like, you know, a known fast charger or

00:11:03   my house or my in-laws house, like I'm willing to let it go that low. And if you are willing to let

00:11:08   it go that low, you can get a lot of places. Cause the thing is like, even after, you know, suppose

00:11:13   you get it down to 15%, well, if your car has like 300 miles of range, that's still plenty of rings

00:11:20   that you could use to drive to the next charger if you really had to, like the next one, you know,

00:11:24   the next closest one. So the reality of owning an EV is you think it's going to be so much worse

00:11:31   and you think you have to like plan every single bit and really the margin of error is pretty big

00:11:37   and the capacities you have are pretty big and this is, and it's getting better all the time as

00:11:41   more stations open up. So like, even if you pull up to a charger and it's broken or full or whatever,

00:11:47   you can probably just go to the next one with the range you have left, or you can probably make it

00:11:52   your entire trip without even using the fast chargers. So this is a problem that is understandable

00:11:58   for you to be all tense about, but again, I think once you get an EV for the first time, which I

00:12:04   think should be soon, I think you're going to be very surprised how little of a problem it really is.

00:12:10   Yeah, and I mean, during the, the way I remember that conversation is, and as we've established

00:12:15   already this episode and many times before, my memory is trash, but the way I remember the

00:12:19   conversation was that during the course of the conversation, I pretty much convinced myself that

00:12:25   there are almost no trips I ever go on that would even necessitate a charging stop. So as an example,

00:12:30   you know, when we go to the beach every summer, the place that we consistently go to, Cape Charles,

00:12:34   on the Eastern shore, 140 miles away and damn near any EV worth its salt, is going to be able to go,

00:12:41   you know, 200 plus miles. So that shouldn't be an issue. Now, I did bring up that we're going to,

00:12:46   we're actually having a second vacation this summer that's like four or five hours away. I forget how

00:12:50   many miles that is off hand, but I think it was far enough that it wouldn't necessitate a stop.

00:12:53   But in the entire lifetime of Erin's Volvo, her prior Volvo, may it rest in peace, we took like

00:13:00   one trip, I think that was more than like two or 300 miles away. So I don't debate that

00:13:07   intellectually you're a hundred percent correct that I would probably almost never need to worry

00:13:12   about stopping at a charger. And even if I did, it would be so infrequent. It would almost,

00:13:16   it would be near as makes no difference to zero, but it's still scary. And for, for the needs that

00:13:22   we have today and easing our toe in the water, I really stand by our choice for PHEV. But we'll see

00:13:27   what happens in the future. And I was actually talking to my father this morning. We just saw

00:13:30   them just a couple hours ago and I was talking to my dad about it. And I was saying to him that,

00:13:34   you know, in, in a way I'm getting a little bit of the itch. You know, I've had my, my Volkswagen

00:13:39   for six years now and actually almost six and a half. And I'm kind of getting the itch to get

00:13:45   something new. And if I do that, I think I would get a battery electric, which is what I said last

00:13:50   episode. Um, but I have a couple of problems. First of all, there's none that I really,

00:13:55   really love right now. There's no BEVs. There's no battery electric vehicles that I really,

00:13:59   really love right now. Um, and even if, even if I went for one of the ones that I really,

00:14:04   that I think I really like, it's like 150% of the cost of my car. You know, my car, when I bought it

00:14:10   six and a half years ago was $40,000 out the door, which is a lot of money, don't get me wrong,

00:14:15   but it's affordable for, for the person that does the sorts of things that I do. It's affordable.

00:14:20   Whereas to get a approximate equivalent, but full electric is like 60, 65, $70,000. And that,

00:14:28   and then you start, if I wanted to go to like the Rivians or the world or the model S's of the

00:14:32   world, now you're talking like 80, 90, 100, 110. And that's just, it's too rich for my blood. Now,

00:14:36   I feel like John, all of a sudden where I, where I'm refusing to spend, you know, any more money

00:14:41   on a car. Um, unlike John, I'll, I'll buy cars from different makes, but that's neither here

00:14:45   nor there. Um, but I just, I, it's so much money. And so not only do I not want to have my left leg

00:14:51   atrophy, but I just don't want to spend that kind of money right now, especially if there's not one

00:14:55   car that I can look at and go, that's the one, that's it. I want to, you know, QRSTUV from such

00:15:01   and such manufacturer. That's the one, it's the only one for me. And, and so because of the

00:15:06   combination of those two things, well, and my car is perfectly fine as I sit here today, I don't

00:15:10   think it's happening anytime soon, but I'm starting to get the edge. Yeah. I think, I mean, first of

00:15:14   all, like I don't, I don't think it's quite fair to compare what you paid six years ago to what

00:15:18   prices are today because I think prices of everything will be higher today. But, but you know,

00:15:23   even setting that aside, of course, yeah, EVs tend to be more expensive because batteries are still

00:15:27   very expensive. So of course that, that is a factor to consider. And of course you can do like,

00:15:31   you know, the Tesla configurator style math where you're like, well, I'm going to actually be saving

00:15:35   this amount of money here and this amount of money, you know, you can, you can BS your way into it,

00:15:39   however you want to do it. But, you know, and again, like if your car is working perfectly fine,

00:15:44   you probably shouldn't replace it. But you know, next time a car ending event occurs,

00:15:51   you know, whatever that is for you whether it's like, you know, a big expensive repair,

00:15:56   you know, or whatever, like, you know, next time a motivating event happens that has you,

00:16:01   you know, has you looking, I would say, look at EVs first. And because, you know, there is,

00:16:07   you know, you're going to have some degree of hesitation of like the fear of the range thing,

00:16:13   I think is going to keep, it's going to keep you wanting to stay in your comfort zone. And of

00:16:19   course, you know, you have made a large part of your identity about things like driving stick

00:16:22   shift. Like, so that's, that's a hard thing to change. And I get that. And I'm not saying you

00:16:26   need to change it, but I think you, you will benefit from really examining hard when the time

00:16:32   comes. Am I talking myself out of an EV for good reasons? Or am I talking myself out of an EV for

00:16:37   like, you know, kind of defensive reasons that that might not hold up to scrutiny with my own

00:16:43   standards down the road? And, you know, even like, you know, even, you know, things like the,

00:16:47   you know, the range question of like, the way you were talking about it last episode,

00:16:51   you were talking about it very much as like a, like a prepper dad mentality, which was like,

00:16:57   yeah, because, you know, we, I mean, look, we all do this sometimes. But like, it's like, okay,

00:17:01   I charge up my house. And then when I get to where I'm going, I'll be able to plug in to their,

00:17:06   to their, you know, regular 110 outlet. And like, when I, when I got my first Tesla in the trunk,

00:17:11   I, or in the front, I think I carried around like a 50 foot extension cord and all these different

00:17:17   adapters. And I'm like, some time, someday I'm going to be somewhere where I'm going to need to

00:17:22   plug in. So, and what if the outlet is more than 10 feet away? Well, I'm going to need this. I'm

00:17:26   going to need that. And I was, I carried around all this, all these wires and things for the whole

00:17:31   lease, the next car carried it over, carried them again for another three years. And I never used

00:17:38   any of it. I never had to. So now I just carry like the mobile charger, which has, you know, the,

00:17:45   the, the, the 220 plug and the 110 plug. I use it only at my in-laws house in their circular saw

00:17:51   outlet. I've never used it anywhere else because there are, you know, there are charges everywhere.

00:17:56   But when, again, before you know this world, you're thinking like, how can I have everything

00:18:02   I need with me at all times? So it will, so I will always be prepared for every eventuality.

00:18:07   And like, yes, some people need to think that way in some conditions. There are people who like,

00:18:13   if you're going off-roading somewhere on the motorness in a gas vehicle, you bring cans of

00:18:18   gas with you. There are needs for that kind of thing. We don't have those needs. Like the vast

00:18:26   majority of the time when we're living in the suburbs, driving our EVs around, whatever we need

00:18:30   to do, like if you don't have the need to carry around a giant extra tank of gas, we're with you

00:18:37   all the time. You probably don't need to think that much about your EV charging either. You

00:18:41   probably don't need to carry around a 110 volt core because you'll never use it. Cause it's too

00:18:45   slow. Like when you, when you get somewhere that you, that you don't have like a place that's yours

00:18:51   or your family's, like if you're on, you're going on a road trip, when you get somewhere, you know,

00:18:54   what you're going to do? You're going to go to the nearest fast charger, charge for 20 minutes,

00:18:57   then keep going. Like that's what you'll be fine the whole trip. Like all your local driving,

00:19:01   it'll be fine. And then on your way out of the town you were visiting for a few days,

00:19:05   maybe you're down to like 40%, you'll stop again at a fast charger next time you pass one. And

00:19:11   you'll sit there for 20 minutes, get, you know, get a cup of coffee or you won't, you'll get a

00:19:15   cup of water or spill it onto your laptop and then you'll get back in the car and you'll go and it'll

00:19:20   be fine. Like you'll never use all the gear that you think you will need. You will never use that

00:19:24   extension cord. You will never use anybody's 110 volt outlet, including your own. Like you will

00:19:29   just never do that. And it's fine. But again, like until you experience that, like your first EV,

00:19:36   I guarantee you, you will have those giant extension cords somewhere hidden in the front

00:19:40   or whatever. Cause you won't know that yet. And that's fine. We all go through that. But trust me,

00:19:44   you will go through that. You will realize you don't need any of that stuff. And then on the

00:19:47   other side, you'd be like, Oh yeah, it's fine. And this is just better in every other way.

00:19:51   David Erickson To further give you fuel for the fire that you're,

00:19:54   you know, igniting right now, the earlier long trip, the second beach trip that we're taking

00:19:59   this coming summer, the one that I'm presenting as this insurmountably far away trip, because it is

00:20:04   in my defense further away than we have typically traveled by car recently, 320 miles. And I'm

00:20:11   guessing that your BMW could probably either get there on one tank or charge if you will,

00:20:17   or just about if not all the way. Jared Ranerec Right. And it probably could.

00:20:21   And I wouldn't because what I would do is again, like I would look at the map and like, all right,

00:20:25   what, what's the fast charger that's closest to the destination? And on the way there,

00:20:29   I would stop at that fast charger, you know, 80% or whatever. Then I'd have my vacation again,

00:20:34   I could drive around freely because I did plenty of range to drive around for local errands. And

00:20:38   then on the way home, I would just go and stop at whatever charger I could hit when the car was near

00:20:44   20%. Yeah, like, because there's probably multiple ones on the route. Or if there's like, if there's

00:20:50   one that is like, one of my favorites where I know, for instance, like, if I know that, oh,

00:20:54   this one's in the parking lot of a Target, and I can go in there and shop for a while or whatever,

00:20:58   like, you know, there are certainly you get to know the chargers that are that are in your region.

00:21:01   So you know, you'll know like, oh, this one has like a good restaurant next to it, or this one

00:21:04   has a convenient, you know, comedian store, I can pick up some drinks and go to the bathroom. This

00:21:09   one has clean bathrooms, like you learn that stuff. But it's like, it's so much less of a thing

00:21:14   than you think. And it's so much less of a burden than you think. And you net like, if I have to go

00:21:18   on a long trip, it almost doesn't matter at all how far away it is. It just makes it in the same

00:21:24   way like what you know, in a gas car, you don't think in multiples of 350 miles for that's how

00:21:28   much your gas tank holds or whatever, like you don't think that way. You just go and you look

00:21:32   and if you need gas, you look around, say, oh, where's the nearest gas station? Even if you do

00:21:35   the same thing, just like it's a little bit longer to fuel up. And there's fewer of them. But it's

00:21:40   the same kind of mechanic. Like you just go on the trip that you want to go on and you accommodate

00:21:45   what the car needs every so often and it's not that big of a deal. - Yeah, I hear you. I know,

00:21:51   we'll see what happens. Again, I don't plan on buying anything soon, but I have maintained since

00:21:55   before we started talking about it in overtime last week that I do think my next car for sure

00:22:00   will be a full electric. And we'll see with Aaron's. The EX90, I think we talked about this, the EX90

00:22:06   is supposed to be good but not great and that is obviously the most analogous to her current car.

00:22:11   So we'll see what happens. - Also, other thing to point out too on that topic too. Something that

00:22:16   John said a thousand years ago, when you first get your very first EV, it doesn't even have to be a

00:22:21   very good car. EVs are just so good, like when you first experienced them, like just the feeling of

00:22:27   the electric drive. - The SSDs of the car world, I think I called them. - Yeah, like so like, and

00:22:32   that's, I know a lot of people who, mostly for price reasons but also maybe just for like testing

00:22:37   the waters reasons, a lot of people I know, their first EV was something relatively small and

00:22:42   relatively inexpensive. Something like, there's that Kia little box thing, like those are fun.

00:22:48   Even just base model Model 3s are actually fairly inexpensive. And there's all sorts of smallish

00:22:55   EVs that a lot of the brands have that seem pretty fun. Like the IONIQ series from Hyundai.

00:23:02   Like those, honestly I think you should look at an IONIQ 5, I think 'cause it's very

00:23:06   golfy in a lot of ways. But like, there are lots of EVs that are like, you know,

00:23:12   relatively like smaller, less expensive cars compared to like the flagship that you're talking

00:23:17   about. You're talking about these big flagship SUVs and big flagship sedans. Like that's not

00:23:21   what most people buy. Most people are buying like the smaller, more affordable ones, just like the

00:23:27   rest of the car market. It doesn't have to be a really impressive car in other ways for an EV to

00:23:33   be awesome. Because EVs are awesome. So like you can get like a reasonably inexpensive, you know,

00:23:39   relatively inexpensive one and it's still gonna be amazing. You know, I see so many like the Hondys,

00:23:45   the Mach-Es, like I see so many around that are just like, you know, not super high-end cars.

00:23:50   Just kind of mid-range cars that maybe have a little bit high-end features but are not like

00:23:54   the luxury cars. And they're all good. So you know, don't be thinking you have to get

00:23:59   the biggest Rivian SUV out there or like the Model S. Like don't be like, you're looking at like,

00:24:06   would you get a Mercedes S-Class? Like would you get like a Range Rover? Like probably not.

00:24:12   That's what you're comparing these purchases to. Like, you know, look in the mid-range and even the

00:24:18   low-end of the EV world and you'll find a lot of good value there. And you can even, I mean,

00:24:22   I don't know if you'd ever go this route, you can consider the used route as well. Used EVs can be

00:24:27   had for very little compared to I think what they're worth. And you know, you lose some range by the

00:24:34   battery being a few years old but not as much as you think. I mean, again, like I know a lot of

00:24:38   people like our friends at Jason's know, a lot of people like their first EV was something that had

00:24:42   way less range. Like, you know, under a hundred miles a lot of times. And those are still amazing

00:24:48   cars and for your, literally your express priorities and needs would probably fit just

00:24:53   fine. Oh absolutely. And even then, like it's just like driving around a cool futuristic golf cart.

00:25:00   Like it's so fun. I think you'd have a lot of enjoyment out of that even if it was not a,

00:25:06   like an extremely high-powered one. Yeah, I mean, because on me I would go for the extremely high

00:25:11   powered one. And if I were to buy one today, I think I would buy an IONIQ 5N or an EV6 GT,

00:25:18   which are many ways the same car and in many ways not. But I mean, I'm looking at the MSRPs for each

00:25:24   of them and it's $62,000 for the EV6 GT, which is the one I was leaning toward and $66,000 for the

00:25:30   IONIQ 5N, which is a lot of money. I'm not saying it's unreasonable money. It's just a lot of money.

00:25:35   You don't need the 5N. I guarantee you the regular IONIQ 5 is faster than your car. I don't even

00:25:41   I haven't even looked at the specs. I bet it's faster. I don't know. You might be right. I don't

00:25:44   know. I'm curious now. I don't know if I'll be able to find it while we're recording. Go test

00:25:47   drive one. I'm sure it'll feel faster. Whether or not it is faster is different. By the way,

00:25:52   the regular IONIQ 5, 300 miles of range, 41K. I see that is a lot more affordable. I don't

00:25:58   love the look of the IONIQ 5. I think it looks cool. I don't know. It's a little too quirky,

00:26:03   but then I mean, honestly, the EV6 is also quirky in just very different ways. Yeah. I don't know

00:26:07   how to figure out how quick this is without doing some deep dives. So I'll have to save that for

00:26:11   another time. And also like, you know, certain metrics don't reflect things like, well, when you

00:26:17   step on the pedal, it goes instantly. There is no delay. So like there are different attributes too

00:26:22   of performance where like, you know, maybe it might, you know, if you can find something that

00:26:25   beats it in like the quarter mile, like, well, that might be different from how it actually

00:26:29   feels to you to use it in regular driving. Oh, you're exactly right. By the way, also the Mach-E

00:26:35   320 miles, $40,000. Just, just put it out there. Some very close friends have a Mach-E. And despite

00:26:41   them choosing a Marco style color from everything I can tell, it's very nice. I haven't been in it

00:26:45   yet, but I've seen it many times and it seems very nice. All right, moving on. Michael Stark,

00:26:49   with regard to recents and finder sidebar, Michael is confirming what I thought. See,

00:26:53   here's the thing. We were already talking earlier in this very episode about how my memory is trash

00:26:58   and that is true, but there are occasions where I'm right. And I convinced myself that I'm wrong

00:27:03   because I know my memory is trash. I knew that recents was not new, despite what we talked about

00:27:08   last week. I could swear it, but I didn't believe myself. Well, Michael Stark, Stark writes, the

00:27:12   recents item has been there for many, many years and it's even visible in the default installation

00:27:16   of Mac OS. That's what I thought. Additionally, Odin writes, not only is it not new, but unless

00:27:21   I'm misremembering, for years now when setting up a new Mac or new user, it's the default folder

00:27:26   that the finder opens to. I believe that's correct. And then Joe Lyon writes, yes, recents is the

00:27:31   default finder view and icon mode and it's infuriating to me. I'm sure Apple has all of the

00:27:35   market research in the world to show that relatively no one knows how to use the finder, navigate the

00:27:39   file structure, create hierarchies, etc. And I'm sure that they've discovered that most people

00:27:44   don't know and don't care where their files are, like on iOS. So they just gave in and said, fine,

00:27:48   here's a recents list. Change the default view if you want, but we know 90% of you won't.

00:27:52   Eric Juergens writes, with regard to vision pro displays, Samsung in conjunction with Stanford

00:27:58   University has developed a 10,000 DPI screen, or nearly three times the display density of the

00:28:04   current vision pro, which is about 3,300 or almost 3,400 points per inch. For comparison, the earliest

00:28:10   reference I could find of the Sony micro display used in vision pro seems to be an article from

00:28:13   2022, which notes the display was made in 2021 or about two to three years before the vision pro was

00:28:19   announced. And we'll put a link to that article in the show notes. Given this, perhaps the more

00:28:23   pixel dense vision pro could be released in 2027 or 2028. Yeah, maybe add a year or two

00:28:28   to that. Cause if you look at the article about the Samsung and Stanford screen, this is less a

00:28:32   commercial product, more and more of a research effort, but Hey, if they can figure out how to

00:28:36   manufacture it affordably, maybe this will be the next technology. And so to give a reasonable

00:28:42   timeline for a vision pro with three times the display density, hopefully for the same low, low

00:28:48   price of $3,500 2028, 2029, maybe those are the years, but keep an eye on it. But it's good to see

00:28:54   some story out there about displays that could substantially increase the pixel density of a high

00:29:00   end device. And then here's a PSA for you. This is from a while ago, actually. Here's why you

00:29:07   shouldn't use iPhone mirroring on a corporate Mac writes Mac rumors. According to a blog post by

00:29:11   security firm, SEVCO, the core issue lies in how iPhone mirroring interacts with Mac OS's file

00:29:16   system and metadata. When activated, the feature creates app stubs for iOS applications in a

00:29:21   specific directory on the Mac users, your username, library, daemon containers, data, library caches.

00:29:27   These app stubs contain metadata about the iOS apps, including icons, application names, dates,

00:29:32   versions, and file descriptions. While they don't include the full executable code, they provide

00:29:36   enough information for Mac OS to treat them as installed applications. The problem arises because

00:29:40   many enterprise security and it management tools routinely scan Macs for installed software.

00:29:45   These tools often use Mac OS's built-in metadata system, which now includes these iOS app stubs.

00:29:50   As a result, personal iPhone apps can inadvertently appear in corporate software inventories.

00:29:55   Yeah, it's another one of the great advantages of corporate malware that is constantly scanning

00:30:00   your computer. When something like this comes out, it's not like the people who make this corporate

00:30:04   scanning software are on top of the latest advances in Mac OS. And so when iPhone mirroring

00:30:10   comes out, they're not like, "We've got a new version that accounts for that." They probably

00:30:13   never even tested it. But users are going to find out when they, "Oh, I'd like to use iPhone mirroring

00:30:18   on my work Mac." And they do that, and then suddenly they have essentially revealed every app

00:30:22   that's installed on their iPhone to the corporate scanning thing, which maybe is not what they wanted

00:30:27   to do. Setting aside that even if there's nothing on there that you wanted to hide, now the scanner

00:30:32   is going to say, "Well, look at all these new apps that this person has installed." And maybe

00:30:34   someone comes and pays you a visit and says you shouldn't be installing personal apps on your work

00:30:39   computer and yada, yada. Although I do find it interesting that this is secretly how this is

00:30:43   implementing, these little sort of empty app stubs that are enough of an app to be recognized as an

00:30:49   app and to have an icon and a creator or whatever, but they have no actual executable code in them.

00:30:53   And that's how they implemented the thing where Mac OS is aware of the apps on your phone. Instead

00:30:57   of just communicating over the network, they spray a bunch of files into the file system and say,

00:31:02   "Here's a bunch of apps that are on your phone." Interesting implementation, but be aware of that.

00:31:07   Yeah, this is a little bit older story, but I thought it was worth noting. If you haven't

00:31:10   discovered this already, maybe don't use iPhone mirroring on your corporate Mac.

00:31:14   (upbeat music)

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00:33:15   iOS 18. It's been out for a while now, and I haven't heard any complaints here in the house

00:33:27   ever since when it first dropped. But a friend of the show, Quinn Nelson, writes, "I don't know of

00:33:31   any iOS update more hated by normal people than the iOS 18 Photos app redesign." I don't love it,

00:33:38   but I also don't hate it. I have a very kind of milquetoasty opinion about this, to be honest

00:33:43   with you. It's fine. I don't love it, but I've gotten used to it, and it's fine. The one thing

00:33:49   I will say is I really genuinely enjoy the trips feature, where it tries to figure out when you've

00:33:54   gone on a trip and it has its own bespoke section for that. That, A plus. Everything else, it's fine.

00:34:00   Quinn's read here. This is a thing. This is the first thing that I heard from normal people in my

00:34:06   life when iOS 18 came out way back when, because I was trying to get people to update on day one,

00:34:11   instead of waiting for that time when Apple pushes the update on everybody. If you look at the sort

00:34:17   of non-tech enthusiast world, what do people know or think about iOS 18? The answer is,

00:34:24   the Photos app is bad. Don't update the iOS 18 because the Photos app is bad. Here's all the

00:34:28   reasons that the Photo app is bad. I put this item in here because I think we in the tech nerd sphere

00:34:34   are not talking too much about that. There was a little bit of news about that back in the betas,

00:34:39   when Apple was changing it in response to negative feedback during the betas.

00:34:42   But now that it's been released, I don't hear a lot of people in our circles complaining about it.

00:34:46   My personal opinion is also that it is not, I don't think it's better than the one that came

00:34:51   before, but I don't think it's that much worse. But let me tell you, if you just go to like,

00:34:55   go to TikTok, go to Instagram on someone else's account, like just get out of your

00:34:59   world of recommendations and look at what regular people are saying. First of all,

00:35:03   the fact that regular people are saying anything about iOS 18 is probably bad for Apple.

00:35:07   Because what Apple wants is just like, oh, my iPhone got better and they shouldn't know the

00:35:13   number 18. They shouldn't care that there's an iOS update. Maybe they care about the new emoji,

00:35:17   which is a big driver for people actually updating their phone or whatever. Regular people fear OS

00:35:23   updates because they think it's going to break stuff or whatever. So as far as regular people

00:35:28   are concerned, no news is good news for Apple, but that's not what's happening. iOS 18, people know

00:35:33   the number 18 and they know it because everyone seems to hate the Photos app. And I wanted to talk

00:35:38   about here, first of all, to hear what you all think of the Photos app. It sounds like Casey's

00:35:41   kind of where I am, where it's like, I don't hate it, but I don't think it's a big upgrade either.

00:35:46   But second, to figure out what it is that regular people hate so much about the Photos app. I have

00:35:53   some ideas, but anyway, Marco, before we get into what other people think, what do you personally

00:35:57   think about the iOS 18 Photos app, if anything? - I don't really use any of the new customizable,

00:36:05   swipey, exploring rows or anything. So I don't really have a strong opinion. I'm a kind of

00:36:11   Photos app light user. I skim through and I usually am looking at my most recent photos.

00:36:17   Occasionally I'll go back and say, "Oh, what was that thing I did last week? Let me pull up that

00:36:20   picture, my New Year's suit," or whatever. It's usually short timescale. I'm never going into the

00:36:26   Photos app and saying, "Make me a memory for last year." I love they have those features for people

00:36:30   who do that. I'm not one of those people. So all that stuff, it mostly just kind of gets in my way

00:36:35   if it's in the way. But I find for my very light use, it's fine. I don't think it's an improvement

00:36:42   for me, but it's also not a downgrade. So it's fine. - Yeah, yeah. - So what I think

00:36:47   most people dislike, and people in my life, my daughter refused to update iOS 18 for ages

00:36:53   because she had heard that the Photos app was bad. She hadn't even experienced it herself. But by the

00:36:57   time I even mentioned it to her already, and this is two days after it's released already, she'd

00:37:00   heard from her friend Circle, "Don't update iOS 18. The Photos app is bad." I think she's since

00:37:06   updated, and she still maintains that it's bad. She hasn't articulated specifically what it is

00:37:10   about it that she doesn't like it, but I have a few ideas. So first of all, one of the subgenres

00:37:14   you will find in the world of Instagram, TikTok, whatever, or in the teen circles or regular people

00:37:21   circles about, "Here's how you can fix photos on iOS 18 so it's not so bad." And what they're

00:37:27   basically telling you to do with a super secret hack is, "Did you know things are configurable?"

00:37:32   All right? So in iOS 18 Photos, you can configure... I forget where it is probably in settings. You

00:37:36   can configure lots of the stuff to remove things that you don't care about, to change the order

00:37:42   of things, to pin certain collections to the top. If the default setup is not to your liking and

00:37:48   it's showing you things you're not interested in, you can change that. So this is a super secret

00:37:52   hack that there's a million videos about telling you, "Here's how you can fix it," which makes me

00:37:56   think that one of the things about the iOS 18 Photos app that people don't like is they launch

00:38:00   the Photos app, not to do as Margaret was suggesting, to use memories or whatever,

00:38:04   but they just want to launch it to look at some photos they've taken. I think that's what most

00:38:07   people do with the Photos app is, "I took some photos. Let me look at them. Let me show them

00:38:12   to someone else. Let me open it up and grab that one photo." They just want to open the app and get

00:38:17   a photo that they're thinking of from today, from last week or whatever. That's what they're doing.

00:38:21   But the iOS 18 Photos app has other plans. It's like, "You know what? Here's a bunch of carousels

00:38:25   with memories and trips and whatever." And they're like, "What is all this? I just want to get my

00:38:29   photo." And the fact that the iOS 18 Photos app got rid of the bottom tab bar and replaced it with

00:38:34   this half of the screen is this other stuff that's not your photos. Yes, you can see a grid of your

00:38:39   photos, but also, have you considered albums and shared albums and media types and people and pets

00:38:45   and recent days and memories and all that stuff? They're like, "That's not what I want. Why is it

00:38:49   taking up half of my screen?" And then the UI is like, "Well, if you just scroll the grid of photos,

00:38:54   eventually we make that bottom thing disappear and it becomes a floating tab bar at the bottom.

00:39:00   So look, it's just like your old photos." This is one of the things they didn't beta was they said,

00:39:03   "Okay, we're not going to take up half your screen with the stuff that you don't care about.

00:39:06   If you just ignore it and scroll, then you just have a grid of icons like it used to be

00:39:11   and you have this tab bar with years, months, or whatever." But the fact that that big thing is

00:39:16   there annoys people. The fact that they have to scroll and it behaves unlike any other kind of

00:39:23   app. People are kind of used to an app where there's either a top bar and a bottom bar,

00:39:26   like a phone app, and there's a middle region that you scroll. And this whole thing of like, "Well,

00:39:30   the bottom half of the screen is a bunch of stuff and the top half of the screen is some other stuff."

00:39:34   And then if you scroll, the bottom half of the screen resists you, it's like, "I can't push it

00:39:40   down." But if you push down a little bit more, then it's like it surrenders and becomes a floating

00:39:44   toolbar. That's not a paradigm that exists, like is common idiom in the iPhone world. It's something

00:39:51   that Apple made up for iOS, the 18 photos. It's not familiar to people. It's weird that the app

00:39:57   resists you hiding that bottom part. Like you push down, it doesn't go away. You have to push

00:40:03   down a second time. Like try it, go ahead, open up photos now and see the whole bottom white section

00:40:07   below your grid of icons? Push it down with your thumb in a single motion. No matter how far you

00:40:11   push in that single swipe, it will never go away. Like push, push, push, push, push. Your thumb will

00:40:15   go off the end of the phone and it will never go away. Ah, but push a second time and now it

00:40:20   disappears. And so like it's fighting you, right? So I think a whole bunch of the resentments about

00:40:25   iOS 18 photos is there's this white bottom section that is not my photos that I don't want to see

00:40:32   that fights me every time I try to get rid of it. So I think there's a lesson in that for Apple.

00:40:37   And then the second thing of course is what's in that white section? A whole bunch of crap. And the

00:40:41   fact that you can configure it is one of the figures I actually like about the new photos.

00:40:45   You can configure to put the things you're actually interested in near the top.

00:40:48   Which by the way, just very quickly to interrupt the real time follow up on that is if you scroll

00:40:52   all the way down, scroll, scroll, scroll all the way down, there's a customized reorder button,

00:40:55   which is what lets you do the, you know, what do you want and what order do you want it in

00:41:00   on this bottom section? Yeah, that's a super secret tip that you can learn from all these

00:41:04   TikTok. Anyway, the, like the, with the feedback said about the recent item, most people will never

00:41:08   change the defaults. Like they won't even discover that or whatever. That's why this is a super cool

00:41:12   tip. Obviously anyone listening to the show probably knows that's there and they've already

00:41:14   configured it, but still that just lets you sort of minimize the damage of like, well,

00:41:18   if I have to endure this white bottom section in the photo screen, at least I'll put the stuff

00:41:23   that I care about on the top and delete the stuff that I don't care about. But that's why I say for

00:41:29   me personally, the iOS 18 photos app, it hasn't, it's not better than the previous one because I'm

00:41:36   like most people going in there just to find photos. The thing I wish my personal wish for

00:41:40   the photos app is first of all, I would get rid of that whole like, Hey, you can't get rid of this

00:41:44   bottom part until you try a second time. Ask me a second time. And then I'll turn into a toolbar.

00:41:47   Like there's nothing wrong with just having a tool bar, just have a tool bar, right? I would love it

00:41:51   if that toolbar is customizable because the main, my main complaint with dealing with photos on my

00:41:56   phone is whenever I'm doing anything with photos, if I am picking photos, like in a photo picker,

00:42:02   like the whatever, the system photo picker, when you're in some other app and it says here,

00:42:05   pick a photo to put here. If I'm picking a photo or if I'm trying to file a photo away,

00:42:09   like put this photo into an album in both of those cases, I am always, almost always pulling from,

00:42:17   or putting into like three albums and in the little white region thing, you can pin them.

00:42:22   So I have pin collections, favorites, recently saved destiny, profile photos, contact photos,

00:42:27   and memes. Those are the ones that I use most frequently. That's where I'm pulling from or

00:42:31   putting into. And that's great for pin collections on the screen, but in the system photo picker,

00:42:35   it's like, here's all your albums, have fun scrolling through them. It's like 500 albums

00:42:40   and they're alphabetical sort of, and there's some at the top if you've used recently. And it's just

00:42:43   like, I wish you could just say, look, these five just always have them be in the top, like kind of

00:42:48   like the, you know, open, save dialog box before you expand everything. It's like, just you always

00:42:52   pick from these, these ones, just these, these will always be at the top. You will never have

00:42:56   to scroll through the list of albums looking for memes or looking for the M section, trying to

00:43:00   remember where the icons, where is my destiny folder, scroll, scroll, scroll D's, I don't pass

00:43:03   the D's, scroll back, just always put them at the top. Photos and iOS 18 does not give me that

00:43:08   experience. I still frequently in other apps find myself scrolling through my gigantic list of

00:43:12   albums, trying to find the destiny album because it's somewhere in the D's and I scroll past it

00:43:16   and it annoys me. So it's not enough. That was same before and it's the same after. So it's not

00:43:20   a change. I do like having pin collections, but I hate the fact that the little white region,

00:43:25   I have trouble getting rid of. But anyway, I don't think most people are like into the

00:43:29   nuances of user interface. They're just like, somebody moved my stuff. I used to know where

00:43:35   things were in the photos app. And now I don't, the tab bar that was at the bottom, isn't there

00:43:38   anymore. This is other thing that I don't understand that turns into a tab bar. Even things

00:43:43   like, I mean, they changed this in the beta. How do I change from showing my personal library or

00:43:47   the shared library? That's a more esoteric feature, but they have that buried before too,

00:43:51   when they fix it in the beta. Still, do you two know where it is? It's pretty well hidden.

00:43:55   If you don't know where to find that you have to get to it. You have to push the white bottom

00:44:01   region away because you don't want that anymore. So one push, no, you didn't make it right. Second

00:44:05   push, you push it away. And then the up and down arrow keys to the left of the years,

00:44:09   months and all thing hit the up and down arrow keys thing. And then you can pick,

00:44:13   and what does that mean? Like sorting or something. Then you can pick personal library,

00:44:16   shared library, or both libraries. And it used to be in the upper right and now it's in the lower

00:44:20   left. So anyway, everything is moved. And I think the app is fighting people from the main thing

00:44:26   that they want to do, which is just show me all my photos. Now it could help people there. I think

00:44:31   it's trying to say, you have too many photos. If we show you all your photos and never be able to

00:44:35   find anything. What if we put them into a grid where everything, whether we just pick like the

00:44:39   ones that we think are important photos, instead of showing you them all like the grid where they're

00:44:43   all different sizes and stuff. What if we do that? What if we show you collections with what we think

00:44:46   are the good photos and people are like, just get that out of my face. Just the people just want to

00:44:50   scroll their photos, scroll, scroll, scroll. Maybe they want to go to months and years,

00:44:54   and that should still be there, but they just want to do that. Everything else in the app is getting

00:44:57   in their way. And it kind of amazes me that the backlash about iOS 18 is essentially you change

00:45:05   the interface to the photos app. It's not like my photos are gone or there's something worse about

00:45:11   the photos. It's just like when I go to find my photos, I'm now frustrated with my phone. I do

00:45:15   wonder if by the time iOS 20 comes along and they change it again, people are going to be like,

00:45:20   why did they change it? The photos app was fine. They didn't need to change it. Like a new generation

00:45:23   of people get used to the iOS 18 photos and they change it again and it annoys them. But really,

00:45:28   I was really surprised by the backlash against this, the continuing backlash against this,

00:45:33   because it's not like a high profile thing. It's not like controversial or salacious or whatever.

00:45:38   It is just like you change my user interface and it shows how much people treat their phones like

00:45:43   cameras because the things that people use all the time are the messages app and I guess also

00:45:48   the photos app. They take pictures with their phone, they go and look at them, they send them

00:45:51   to people in messages and any change to that app is a problem. So I find this fascinating. And I

00:45:58   think iOS 18 photos, I don't give it a failing grade because I don't think it got much worse

00:46:05   than before. It does some things better to some things worse. I'm going to say it's a wash,

00:46:09   but it is an example of like if you're going to change, fundamentally change how a heavily

00:46:15   used app on iOS works, it better be either way better or it better look and work like the old

00:46:22   one unless you do something. An example would be the messages app when they added the pin things

00:46:25   to the top. If you didn't pin anything, it just looked like the old messages app. And if you did

00:46:30   pin things like I did and you wanted to pin them, it is an improvement. So I think messages app has

00:46:36   improved over time getting more capabilities, but also not ruining it for everybody else. But

00:46:40   iOS 18 photos not doing well. Again, Apple would hope that they would never hear the word iOS 18

00:46:47   on TikTok, but they will. I should have put this in the regular show because we're gonna get feedback

00:46:53   about it. I don't know if you two tried it. And the iOS 18 photos app, that thing where you can't

00:46:58   push the white area down on the first try only happens if after you launch the app, you swipe up

00:47:05   by two millimeters before you swipe down. If you launch it, don't touch the screen at all and

00:47:08   immediately swipe down. You can do it in a single swipe, but if you launch the app, like force quit,

00:47:12   launch the app, pull up two millimeters, let release the screen and then try to pull down.

00:47:18   It will fight you. And we're gonna get feedback about that, but that's my own fault for waiting

00:47:21   too long. I thought you were crazy, but I figured I was just misunderstanding what you were trying

00:47:25   to say. Try what I said now. Say that one more time. So, okay, I've just force quit. I've launched

00:47:30   the app. Scroll, push your finger upward on the screen for two seconds, lift it off. So you see

00:47:35   more of the white area. Now put your finger on the screen and try to push down. You will not be able

00:47:39   to do it in a single swipe. I see. Yep. You're right. No, you're right. But that is not,

00:47:42   I was listening, but that is not what I got from what you were saying earlier. I thought I did it

00:47:47   all the time because I guess when like, if you have the app like running and you're looking at

00:47:50   that white area, I was just like filling around with it. If you've, if you mess with the white

00:47:54   area at all, you're in that mode. But if on a fresh launch before you've done that, if the

00:47:58   first thing you do is swipe down, you can do it in a single swipe. So now we have to endure a week

00:48:02   of that feedback. Thanks, Jon. All right. We have a handful of rumors from Mark Gurman, of course,

00:48:12   and they all kind of interrelate a little bit, but we'll start with Apple's new chip for Wi-Fi and

00:48:18   Bluetooth. Mark writes code named Proxima will replace some components currently supplied by

00:48:23   Broadcom Inc. This wireless chip will launch in some products next year, including this,

00:48:28   I guess that means 2025, including a new Apple TV HomePod mini and the iPhone 17. The component will

00:48:33   then come to other products during 2026. And this is interesting. This is not surprising,

00:48:40   but this is not the cellular modem chip that they've been fighting against for years now,

00:48:45   right? This is something different. Yeah. The cellular modem chip is also coming. And we've

00:48:48   talked about it before, but this is, yeah, this is the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, which

00:48:52   is a little bit different. So one interesting aspect is how much of both of those things can

00:48:58   they potentially build into the package of the SOC? Like, can you move like the Wi-Fi,

00:49:04   Bluetooth or cell modem stuff into the SOC? Can you put some of it on die most of the time for

00:49:09   radio frequency reasons or whatever you can't, but could it be in the same package? Like basically,

00:49:13   can you get lower power and smaller footprint by Apple doing this themselves because they can

00:49:18   build into the package? That's a separate question. I'm putting it aside for now. The reason I'm

00:49:23   interested in this particular thing is like Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Like no one's super excited about

00:49:27   the chips for that. Like you just want it to work or whatever, but Apple doing it themselves,

00:49:33   maybe they save money. You don't have to pay Broadcom for those chips because they have

00:49:39   their own profit margins. So if you do it yourself, you get them cheaper. You can make exactly the

00:49:43   Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip that you need for your devices that only has the features that you need.

00:49:47   And cons to that already, Apple doesn't put the latest and greatest Wi-Fi standard in all

00:49:51   their devices. I think the phones have Wi-Fi 7, but the Macs don't, for example, right?

00:49:55   If I'm getting that right. And Apple tends to not be a super early adopter and all these things,

00:50:00   although they're usually on time with it for the phones. But the real question is,

00:50:05   we talked just talking about software, but this is a hardware thing. When Apple decides

00:50:11   that they're going to stop buying some hardware component from somebody else

00:50:16   and do it themselves, how do we feel about that in terms of, are we excited and optimistic about it?

00:50:25   Are we fearful? Because I think that's changed over the years. And especially with hardware,

00:50:32   it's a tough call. I think I was talking about something on Macedon with somebody and they were

00:50:36   like, "Apple's never going to do XYZ because they get all their stuff from this other third party

00:50:43   manufacturer and they're the best." And one of the things I replied was, "Well, Apple used to buy its

00:50:48   CPUs from a third party manufacturer too." And they were the best for a while.

00:50:53   Right. But sometimes when Apple decides to do a hardware thing itself, it knocks it out of the

00:50:57   park. Apple Silicon, home run, right? They decided we're going to do the chips ourselves for our

00:51:04   phones, for iPads, and eventually for our Macs. Previously, the phone did not use an Apple chip.

00:51:10   And I think maybe the first iPad probably had Apple Silicon. I forget. What was the first iPad?

00:51:14   Yeah, the A4.

00:51:15   All right. Anyway, they used to buy the chips from other people for all their products and they

00:51:21   slowly but surely said, "No, we're going to do that in-house." And they just destroyed it. Amazing

00:51:26   job. So you would think that any time you hear, "Apple's going to stop buying some piece of

00:51:31   hardware, some hardware component from a third party, and they're going to do it themselves,"

00:51:34   you'd be like, "You're an Apple fan. You must be excited about that because Apple's so good

00:51:37   at hardware." And yet, if I would heard, for example, Apple is going to start making its own...

00:51:45   Well, I was going to say SSDs, but that's a complicated issue. We're discussing the best

00:51:49   shows. But for this one, they're going to make their own cellular modem. They're going to make

00:51:52   their own Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips. My first thought is, "I don't know if I'm optimistic

00:52:01   about that because unlike the CPU and stuff where there's lots of room for innovation and excitement,

00:52:07   you basically just want Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to work and work with the latest standards."

00:52:10   And I worry that the potential for harm is high and the potential for good is low. Because even

00:52:19   if they knock this one out of the park, they saved a few watts of energy and they saved a little bit

00:52:26   of space in their phones. But if they do anything wrong, oh, that's the iPhone 17, that's the one

00:52:34   that can't do Wi-Fi right. That's the one that has even more Bluetooth problems than usual.

00:52:38   The cell modem, they did use Intel cell modems instead of Qualcomm for a while. And it was like,

00:52:43   "Did you get the iPhone with the Intel modem or did yours come with the Qualcomm modem?" Because

00:52:47   the Qualcomm ones were better. That wasn't even Apple. That was just two third parties. And

00:52:51   everybody knew in the nerd circle, you want the one with the Qualcomm modem because it's better

00:52:55   than the one with the Intel modem. And then Apple bought that Intel modem business and is

00:52:59   trying to build that to do their own thing. So I'm looking at this Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip and I'm

00:53:03   like, "It could be okay, I guess. I see the potential upsides." It's not like they're going

00:53:08   to pass the savings on to us. So don't forget about that. It's just going to increase their

00:53:11   margins. It could be a little bit smaller and lower power. But the downside is that Broadcom

00:53:17   has been making Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chips forever. They're probably really good at it. And the bottom

00:53:23   line is their chips work with everything because everyone knows that Broadcom chips are in

00:53:27   everything. And so if you use a Broadcom Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip, it's going to work with all

00:53:30   the Blythe, you know what I mean? Whereas Apple does their own thing, there's a potential

00:53:34   interoperability issue there. So I am really nervous about the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip.

00:53:42   The cell modem, they said that we're going to debut in the iPhone SE or whatever. They're going

00:53:46   to roll it out and not the flagship products in case it's a disaster, which makes sense to me.

00:53:51   But the fact that they're mentioning this one with the iPhone 17 would have this chip in it,

00:53:56   potentially. That's the show. You put a Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip in the iPhone 17,

00:54:02   it better be perfect. It better be perfect or better than the Broadcom chips. And I'm not sure

00:54:07   this one will. How do you guys feel about the prospect of Apple doing this? I think it's changed

00:54:12   over time. We were all there for the bad iPhone 7 with the Intel modem instead of the Qualcomm modem.

00:54:20   We were there for that. I had the bad one. I had the Intel one because it was most of the,

00:54:24   most or all, I think, of the AT&T iPhone 7s. And so we see how this can go wrong. We don't want

00:54:32   there to be a bad one. And we don't want the Apple version of something that is as basic and required

00:54:41   and taken for granted as Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. We don't want that to be bad or buggy. Already today,

00:54:49   I hit a lot of Bluetooth bugs with my iPhone. Now, I don't know whose fault that is. I don't

00:54:55   know if it's hardware or software. It's part of the Bluetooth spec, I believe. There's a special

00:54:59   section of the spec that says, "On flaky problems that customers will never be able to solve." It

00:55:03   tells you what you have to implement. Right. So I don't know if that's the Bluetooth chip,

00:55:09   if it's the iOS software, if it's the stuff between the two. I don't know. On one hand,

00:55:16   you can say, "Well, maybe Apple taking it in-house would give them more control over the process."

00:55:24   And maybe that would allow them to build a more reliable one. On the other hand, you can look at

00:55:30   that and say, "Apple can't even get the software right for someone else's Bluetooth chip. How are

00:55:33   they going to get the software right for their own?" So it can go both ways. But when you look

00:55:38   at Apple's recent efforts, the iPhone 7 was, what, over a decade ago? It was a while ago.

00:55:44   When you look at their recent efforts, their silicon is solid. When they transitioned the Mac

00:55:51   to Apple Silicon, that whole M1 generation, you would think if you would have said,

00:55:56   "Five years earlier, they're going to do this. Would you buy the very first one?"

00:56:02   Most people would say, "No. That sounds like a terrible idea. Why would I buy the very first

00:56:07   version of them doing this massive change? It's going to have problems. It's going to be

00:56:11   unreliable. It's going to be buggy." Well, what happened? They switched the entire Mac over to

00:56:16   their own chips, and I was there, and I had the very first one, and it was solid. I don't think

00:56:24   there were any major problems. There were certainly fewer problems than the outbound mature

00:56:28   Intel ones. So they knocked that one out of the park. So I think their current standards and their

00:56:38   recent performance in areas like this, in terms of the Apple Silicon transition, shows a pretty good

00:56:44   track record. Well, you're forgetting their most recent effort in this area because it hasn't

00:56:49   shipped. Their most recent effort is their many years-long effort to make their own cell modems.

00:56:54   They bought Intel's cell modem business, the business that made the cell modem that nobody

00:56:58   wanted on the iPhone 7. They bought that business, and they had plans to make their own cellular chip

00:57:02   that they're going to put in their phones, and they are behind schedule, and presumably that means

00:57:08   because they're not able to do it well. And even though that hasn't shipped, it's unfair to judge

00:57:14   them on that. Like, "Well, when they ship it, it'll be good." But this is very relevant to Wi-Fi and

00:57:18   Bluetooth. It's like they have been trying for years and years to do something very similar,

00:57:23   and they've essentially been internally failing, not shipping what they had, aiming to get a cell

00:57:29   modem with these standards. "Oh, now we can't do it, so now the target is moved. Now we need to

00:57:32   make sure we have 5G, but we're not going to be able to do a millimeter wave," because they're

00:57:36   having trouble with it. Maybe we don't see this internally. Maybe they were working on Apple

00:57:41   Silicon for the max for years and years and kept delaying it or whatever because it was more secret,

00:57:44   but the fact they're doing the cell modem is not secret. Everybody knows they've been doing it,

00:57:48   and everyone knows that they are behind what seemed to be their earlier schedule. So

00:57:54   that's good in that they're not shipping something bad. They're like, "We're going to keep buying

00:57:59   this." They renewed their contract with Qualcomm for several more years just to say, "Look,

00:58:05   we need to cover our bases. We're obviously not ready with our cell modem. Qualcomm still makes

00:58:09   the best one even though we hate each other and have sued each other. Let's sign a deal

00:58:12   and say, 'Okay, we'll keep buying stuff from Qualcomm.'" But everybody knows Apple wants to

00:58:18   stop doing business with Qualcomm. They just can't. They've been failing to get out of that

00:58:21   relationship because their own efforts have been not going well. So that gives me a lot of pause

00:58:27   here. So yes, part of their recent experience is the Mac transition, and they've done that

00:58:32   transition multiple times, 68K to PowerPC, PowerPC to Intel, Intel to Apple Silicon,

00:58:36   and they've just done amazingly every time. So they have lots of institutional experience. But

00:58:40   their institutional experience swapping out wireless communication chips I think is far

00:58:50   spottier, and the little information we do have is that they're having trouble. So that is another

00:58:56   reason I'm feeling nervous about it. Well, I think you can frame it two different ways.

00:59:00   Is it that they can't do this well enough yet or that they haven't done this well enough yet?

00:59:08   Look, Apple knows the iPhone is the show. They know. And you can look at how many iPhones have

00:59:17   there been. It's a pretty high number, especially when you include all the non-flagship models.

00:59:23   When you include all the different sub-models and two different sizes of everything a lot of times,

00:59:28   there have been a lot of iPhones. How many of them have had significant hardware flaws?

00:59:34   It's a very short list, and they haven't been that significant. They know how to make really

00:59:41   reliable iPhones. They have shown an incredible... Like, when you consider how complicated iPhones

00:59:47   are, the scale that they are produced, it's remarkable how few hardware problems iPhones

00:59:55   have had. One of them was specifically from the cell modem when they did the Intel one,

00:59:59   and they shipped that. But even that, I still used that phone for a year, and it was still

01:00:03   mostly fine. That wasn't that big of a... They have had little minor things. Yeah, the Intel

01:00:09   cell modem in the iPhone 7 wasn't that good. Yeah, they had the slightly more bendable than usual

01:00:15   iPhone 6 series. There were a couple... The antenna gate forever ago, which was also a minor issue.

01:00:20   They're pretty good at making sure they're not going to ship something really bad, but part of

01:00:25   my nervousness about this is I don't want them to do it and just have it be pretty much the same,

01:00:31   maybe with a few problems. As a consumer, that doesn't benefit me at all. It gives Apple a few

01:00:36   more cents per iPhone, but I don't care. Again, they're not passing that savings on to me.

01:00:39   When I'm looking at this with little side-eye, it's like, "Why are you doing this? What's the

01:00:44   upside versus the potential downside?" The upside seemed like they're all for Apple, and the downside

01:00:48   seemed like they're all... We're exposed to them. I agree with you that they're not like... With the

01:00:53   cell modem that they haven't shipped. If anything that goes into the phone, especially like the

01:00:57   flagship iPhone, they're going to make sure it is at least okay. They're not going to ship something

01:01:01   terrible, we hope, which is why they've not been able to ship anything. But they are doing things

01:01:07   like the rumors for the cell modem of like, "They're going to make one without millimeter

01:01:10   wave support, and they'll only ship it in the lesser phones." That doesn't excite me.

01:01:14   Why would I be excited about a cost savings for Apple that exposes the need to potential risk,

01:01:21   and that they're not even willing to do on their flagship phone because they haven't been able to

01:01:24   do that? With WiFi and Bluetooth, I'm still kind of neutral on that. What's the upside?

01:01:27   One of the things I fear is that it's not going to make it more likely that the Macs have the latest

01:01:34   WiFi standard than the current one. Because, again, someone can confirm this, but I believe

01:01:38   the M4 Macs don't have WiFi 7, but the phones do. If Apple made its own chips, would that make it

01:01:46   a higher chance that when WiFi 8 comes out that it's across all the lines? I don't think it does.

01:01:50   I don't think it increases anything. I'm looking for the silver lining. I'm looking for like,

01:01:54   "What is the upside for me as the consumer?" And I don't see it, and I just see some minor risks.

01:02:00   And I agree with you that the risk of the phone is probably low, but other devices mentioned in

01:02:04   this room are Apple TV HomePod Mini. I don't want my Apple TV to have crappy Bluetooth.

01:02:12   I put this in here because it's notable to myself that I'm not enthused about the potential for

01:02:22   Apple taping over a piece of hardware when, in some respects, I should be because of Apple

01:02:27   Silicon and their recent advances, but when it comes to this specific subgenre, I'm a little iffy.

01:02:33   First of all, there will probably be certain upsides in just things like power efficiency,

01:02:40   small size. So we will see probably some minor advances there. WiFi chips and cell modems are

01:02:48   big. They take up space on the board. If they can make their own and/or integrate it into the

01:02:53   package of the SoC, which I think is more likely, or at least integrate parts of it into that.

01:02:57   Or they can use their TSMC deal to fab it at the good fab size because most of these wireless chips

01:03:03   are fabbed at two-generation old things to be cheaper or whatever. Apple can spend a little

01:03:07   bit more because of their massive deals with TSMC. Right, and given the amount of power,

01:03:11   especially a cell chip uses, that could be substantial savings there. But there's obviously

01:03:17   the physical benefits. If they could integrate it in, put it in package, or at least make it on

01:03:22   their process, yes, there's lots of advantages they could potentially do there. But even if you

01:03:27   think about it too, Apple does a lot of their own custom bolting on of functionality onto existing

01:03:34   open standards like WiFi and Bluetooth. Look at how AirPods pair and work. Look at all the WiFi

01:03:40   stuff they do for peer-to-peer WiFi networks that are temporarily made for things like AirDrop and

01:03:45   stuff like that. There's all sorts of features that Apple builds on top of these standards.

01:03:49   Well, if they controlled the hardware, I bet they could do more and better features like that. Now,

01:03:55   that's kind of a double-edged sword. You know, because you think about, well, is it a good thing

01:04:01   for Apple to have even more proprietary protocols and standards that can even maybe go with the

01:04:07   hardware and radio level? - Don't worry, the EU will make them open up to all third-party developers,

01:04:11   so it'll be fine. - Well, yeah, I'm sure that'll be fine with everybody. So, you know, it could be

01:04:17   a double-edged sword in the sense that they could use it for further extents of lock-in and unfair

01:04:24   competition. So, you know, there will be downsides to this path if they go on it. - Although you're

01:04:30   mentioning like optimistic, like, oh, here's a problem that I currently have and they might be

01:04:33   able to solve it. And like, I see where you're going with that, especially like the H1 chip.

01:04:36   Like, in general, I would say that the AirPods connecting is better than Bluetooth pairing,

01:04:41   like, because Apple added their proprietary thing instead. And I have the same problem,

01:04:46   one of the problems you're describing is like, I try to do AirDrop. I'm in a room with like,

01:04:49   I've got my phone in my hand, I've got a computer in front of me, I got a computer over there,

01:04:52   and sometimes I want to AirDrop something with my phone to the computer over there.

01:04:56   And I would love to know what it is that determines whether I can see that computer

01:05:01   on my phone. Yes, I have it set to like a contacts only or everybody, like I have,

01:05:05   everyone's in our contacts, I'm doing it among family members. I've even done it in the situation

01:05:09   where I've logged into my account on that computer and I'm on my same Apple ID on my phone,

01:05:13   I'm trying to AirDrop it to the computer I'm sitting in front of, and it just doesn't see it.

01:05:16   It sees the other computer across the room, but not that one. And all sorts of like AirDrop issues

01:05:20   that aren't solved by like banging the phones together with the iOS 18 thing or whatever.

01:05:24   Is that a problem that Apple will be able to solve by doing its own Wi-Fi chip?

01:05:29   You're thinking like, oh, stuff like AirDrop, they could make that better. I'm thinking,

01:05:34   is that a software issue or is that a hardware issue? Like you can pin a lot of dreams on like,

01:05:38   well, if Apple made the Wi-Fi chip, I wouldn't have that AirDrop problem. But I'm thinking that

01:05:43   AirDrop problem is a software thing, not a hardware thing. And I don't know, like it's

01:05:46   hard to know where the blame lies, but like when there's new hardware, the optimistic take is any

01:05:51   problem I'm currently having that involves that hardware could be improved because Apple will have

01:05:55   complete control over it. And I kind of feel, especially when there's software in the mix,

01:05:58   that's like 50/50, whether that's going to get better or worse.

01:06:02   I mean, you're right. Like obviously in most cases, that is kind of a blend of hardware and

01:06:07   software. And those lines are very squishy these days with a lot of these very complex protocols.

01:06:12   But I think you are looking at it from the perspective of like Touch Bar, butterfly,

01:06:18   keyboard era Apple. And that's not the Apple we have anymore, thank God. Modern Apple, I think,

01:06:24   is showing like they really don't ship bad hardware anymore. They used to ship a decent

01:06:31   amount of it. They really, like the hardware across the board is excellent these days.

01:06:38   They really do not have major hardware problems that ship to customers, and especially in the

01:06:43   iPhone. So I think I am optimistic that probably the reason we haven't seen these things yet,

01:06:50   we'll occasionally see a report that, oh, the cell modem is delayed. I think part of the reason

01:06:53   we haven't seen them yet is because Apple is probably holding them to very, very high standards

01:06:59   and won't release them until they know they're solid. So I'm pretty optimistic. I think this

01:07:05   will go well if and when it ever happens. And I think if it doesn't happen or doesn't happen yet,

01:07:11   it's probably for those reasons. It's probably that they just haven't reached the bar that Apple

01:07:16   knows they need to reach to be good enough to ship in their flagship products. And so I actually

01:07:20   think this, because like if you think too, like how else could this benefit us? Well, how else could

01:07:25   it benefit us if cell modems get smaller and/or more efficient or cheaper for Apple? Huh, maybe

01:07:33   the Mac will finally get cell modems. Stop teasing me. Stop teasing me. That's part of the rumor,

01:07:38   and it's not about cost. It's just about like that Apple will finally do it because part of them

01:07:42   making their own hardware is like, well, let's make it so it works in all our products. And now

01:07:46   Apple will use it as an excuse to be like, we couldn't put cellular in our Macs because

01:07:50   reason's X, Y, but now that we make our own chip, we totally can. It's like, you could have before,

01:07:53   too. But anyway, whatever it takes. Yeah, whatever reasons they give, who cares? We just want it

01:07:57   there. All right. I agree with that, but we're talking about the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth chip,

01:08:01   and they already have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Yeah, the cell modem chip, if it actually ships,

01:08:05   and it makes them put it into Mac, I will count that as a huge win. And if it doesn't hose the

01:08:09   iPhone, that's good, too. But Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, Macs already have that. I'm a little nervous.

01:08:13   Well, and what about the Apple Watch? The Apple Watch has optional cellular. All of them have

01:08:20   Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It is a very tight power situation in the Apple Watch. If you can make

01:08:26   those chips, and it's also a tight space situation, if you can make Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and cellular

01:08:32   smaller and more power efficient, the Apple Watch will benefit substantially from that,

01:08:39   because it's where those are most desperate resources. So think about, for instance,

01:08:44   not only can the Watch possibly get slimmer, lighter, whatever, bigger battery, whatever.

01:08:48   Also, maybe if they can make bigger strides in those areas, maybe the Watch can start using its

01:08:54   networking more. Oh my god, what a concept! Maybe our apps wouldn't be incredibly aggressively

01:09:01   throttled with every single thing they try to do on the Watch. Maybe the cell connection on the

01:09:05   Watch could get reliable, because it wouldn't constantly put itself to sleep. Or it could all

01:09:09   just get so much flakier. No, trust me, the cell connection on the Watch cannot be flakier than

01:09:13   it already is. But maybe the Watch can start using Wi-Fi for more data transfer instead of relying on

01:09:19   slow Bluetooth for as much as possible. Maybe the Watch can do more frequent updates. Definitely

01:09:24   more upsides for the Watch. Yeah, so you can see there's very clear opportunities for if they can

01:09:30   make Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular smaller and more power efficient and cheaper to them,

01:09:35   that does benefit us in a lot of potential ways. So I'm rooting for this, and I am confident at the

01:09:42   moment that their hardware standards are so high, especially because these things would be going in

01:09:48   the iPhone. And the iPhone standards are so high that I think they're not going to do it until and

01:09:55   unless it's solid. Yeah, I think that's really the key is if it ends up in the iPhone, then I'm

01:10:01   confident. Anywhere else? Maybe? Yeah, like if they put it like only in the Mac, I might be a little bit worried.

01:10:08   Only in the Apple TV. Yeah, only in the HomePod. That's the worst. I mean, that's... Yeah, well, speaking

01:10:14   of your confidence in Apple making hardware, this next item will test your faith. Oh no. Well, so

01:10:20   Mark Gurman writes that Apple's Magic Mouse, which was introduced more than 15 years ago, one five,

01:10:27   15 years ago, well, they've made some tweaks to it, but only minor ones. It moved from AA batteries

01:10:32   to a rechargeable system, swapped in a lighter case with a smoother glide, and just a month or

01:10:38   two ago switched from a lightning connector to a USB-C port. The good news is there's a new Magic

01:10:43   Mouse in the works. Hooray! I'm told that Apple's design team has been prototyping versions of the

01:10:48   accessory in recent months, aiming to devise something that better fits the modern era. Apple's

01:10:52   looking to create something that's more relevant while also fixing long-standing complaints. Yes,

01:10:56   including the charge and import issue. As for when the mouse will arrive, I wouldn't expect anything

01:11:00   in the next 12 to 18 months. Are you kidding me? What are you doing? It's been 15 years. What's another year or

01:11:07   two? What are you doing, Apple? Here's what I can tell you exactly what they're doing. Do you remember

01:11:12   when the butterfly keyboard finally died? About a year before, a year and a half before that,

01:11:19   there was some rumor that, like, Bono personally called Tim Cook and complained about it,

01:11:25   and then it happened. I do remember that now. You know what I think happened here? The MKBHD question.

01:11:31   Yes, I think, I honestly think that MKBHD asking Tim Cook about the Magic Mouse, I think Tim Cook

01:11:38   went back after that and told somebody, "Hey, fix this." And said, "Did we make a mouse?" Yeah, because

01:11:43   I honestly, I bet that's what happened, because like 12 to 18 months, that's how long it takes to make

01:11:49   a new mouse, like for a new, for Apple, you know, that's how long it takes. So I guarantee you it was

01:11:53   the MKBHD question that, and Tim Cook went to somebody and just said, "Yeah, take care of this," like,

01:11:59   and before that he never thought about it at all. We'll try to find that interview. I think it was

01:12:02   at W3C, but just to be clear, I think he just asked something like, "What do you think of the Magic

01:12:08   Mouse?" or whatever. He didn't say anything bad about it. He didn't say, "Well, it was pointed."

01:12:12   Yeah, Tim Cook, the Magic Mouse sucks. Why? He didn't say it. It wasn't like a, like, it was just merely

01:12:17   like, it was using this example of a product that maybe people don't care about too much, like,

01:12:21   how much do you really think about the Magic Mouse? It's just kind of like an aside, an ulcer in it,

01:12:26   and if I was, you know, if it was not Tim Cook, but if I was in Tim Cook's position, but not Tim Cook,

01:12:30   you can usually say, "Of all the products we make, the Magic Mouse is not one of the most important,

01:12:35   like, it's low on the list, right? It's good that we make it, find whatever, but obviously,

01:12:40   you know, with the iPhone at the top, you gotta go way down that list before you get to the Magic

01:12:43   Mouse, right?" That's the reality. Like, that's why it's been around for 15 years. Nobody really

01:12:47   cares. It's not a big deal. It's not a bad mouse. Some people don't like it because it's low profile.

01:12:51   Some people love it because it's low profile. Marco loves it because you can swipe on it. Like,

01:12:55   I don't have any hatred for the Magic Mouse. I don't think, there's no, like, iOS 18 photos

01:12:59   hatred for the Magic Mouse out there. It's just like, it's not for everybody, but it's fine,

01:13:04   right? And it's been around 15 years, so it's probably due for a redesign. The fact that it

01:13:08   was mentioned at all in such a public forum maybe made him say, "Hey, Magic Mouse, we should update

01:13:15   that once every few decades, right?" And they said, "Oh yeah, no, I guess," or whatever. But

01:13:19   here's the thing. This is why this is like the Wi-Fi chip. I read that very differently, but go

01:13:23   ahead. Right. Well, anyway, like the Wi-Fi chip thing. Okay. How do you feel, confidence-wise,

01:13:31   about today's Apple designing a new mouse? Setting aside the fact that you love the current one,

01:13:36   Marco, just in general, like, do you think they'll do a good job on a mouse? Because I think human

01:13:42   interface devices that are fit in your hand is not one of Apple's strengths currently. Let me,

01:13:48   I'll get to that in a moment, but my interpretation of the MKBHD question of Tim Cook over the Magic

01:13:54   Mouse is that Marquez stated the question, I forget exactly what he said. It was like something like,

01:14:00   you know, what about the Magic Mouse? He stated the question with an implication that it's not

01:14:06   well liked and something is wrong with it. And Tim Cook was caught off guard by that. You could tell,

01:14:11   you can see in his face that he not only was caught off guard, but he didn't know what Marquez

01:14:16   was talking about. Do people hate the Magic Mouse? That's what Tim is thinking to himself. Exactly.

01:14:22   Marquez probably doesn't like the Magic Mouse, but I don't, again, I don't think there's this

01:14:25   iOS 18 photos type hatred out there. There's just, for computer nerds, a lot of people don't like it,

01:14:31   but then you just ignore it and buy a third party mouse and so it's not that big of a deal. No,

01:14:34   but you could, you could see in Tim Cook's face, it dawned on him in that moment that A,

01:14:38   there is something that a lot of people don't like about this and B, I don't know what it is.

01:14:44   And I bet Tim Cook does not like being surprised, especially in public like that. So I bet he went

01:14:50   back after that and that was a like, fix this situation. Here's the thing though, there's not,

01:14:56   there's not a giant movement out there to hate the Magic Mouse. There's just baseline level of

01:15:00   dislike that's been there since they introduced that mouse 15 years ago, mostly only among computer

01:15:05   nerds and other people are like, take it or leave it. And the fact that Tim Cook would be unaware of

01:15:09   that, like, I don't think it's a thing that he needs to be aware of. What he should be aware of

01:15:12   is like, which products have we not updated in a decade and a half? Maybe put them on a list.

01:15:16   But I don't think there's like, can you believe Tim Cook didn't know that everyone hates the Magic

01:15:20   Mouse? I don't think everyone does hate the Magic Mouse. Like, I don't think it's actually,

01:15:23   you know, even if it was incredibly hated, how many Macs even come with the Magic Mouse,

01:15:29   percentage wise of the Mac sold? Like they come with track pads, whose people buy laptops, like,

01:15:34   it is so far beneath a thing that he should be concerned about. But in the same token,

01:15:38   he should update it because it's 15 years old. What Marques was talking about is what all sort

01:15:42   of like tech nerd people know is like, oh, well, that mouse is not, a lot of enthusiasts don't like

01:15:47   that mouse. They like it more of a logic style, more buttons, higher profile, more, more quote

01:15:51   unquote ergonomic, depending on you. Like it's not well loved in tech nerd circles, but in regular

01:15:55   people circles, they don't know it exists because they all buy laptops. Like that's, that's the

01:15:59   story. Right? So I think the mouse, to be clear, I think the mouse should be updated. It's been

01:16:03   around for a long time. I personally don't like it. I think it should be updated. It's time to,

01:16:08   15 years is long enough to say, do you have a new idea about how Apple could make a mouse? Because

01:16:14   Apple has done a not too big number of mice in the history of all their computers from the Apple twos

01:16:20   to the max. There haven't been that many Apple mice. There's been some good ones and bad ones.

01:16:25   And there's the hockey puck one. There was the mouse with the little ball that got clogged all

01:16:28   the time on the top, right? The mighty mouse or whatever, but there haven't been that many mouse

01:16:33   shapes. So Apple is not hasty about that, but I think it's time for them to reconsider. And so

01:16:38   again, we're back to today's Apple making a new mouse. How do you feel that's going to go?

01:16:45   All right. So as the magic mouse lover in the, in the group here, what I like about it is the

01:16:52   scrolling swiping. Like that is everything. That's why I switched to it in the first place from my

01:16:58   previous Logitech, you know, good mice. And you know, before this, I was using that Logitech

01:17:02   mouse that one of the first ones, I think it was the MX master that had like the wheel that you

01:17:06   could like flick hard and it would unlock and spin freely for a little while and then latch back in,

01:17:10   you know, and now the whole bunch of them do it now. But you know, scrolling is everything.

01:17:15   It turns out scrolling the way you scroll on touch pads is way better for me and the way I

01:17:21   use computers than the way you scroll with a mouse wheel. The magic mouse gives you touch pad

01:17:27   scrolling on top of a mouse. So that is the good thing about it. Everything else about it, I, you

01:17:32   know, I tolerate or it's fine or whatever. But that's what I like about it. Now, when you look

01:17:38   at the magic mouse, like this was designed in a previous era of Apple and of their hardware

01:17:43   design. Probably almost nobody or nobody who is designed, who was involved in the design of the

01:17:50   magic mouse is likely to still be at Apple today or still be in the design group. Because, you

01:17:54   know, especially the design group has had a lot of turnover in the meantime. But so, you know,

01:17:59   keep in mind, like what we're comparing this to is really a past era of Apple. Like the magic mouse

01:18:06   design, especially if you include the AA version is very old, as you said, like what, 15 years?

01:18:11   So I think today's Apple would do a pretty different version of it merely, even if no

01:18:18   other reason, then none of their products are this style anymore. Like this is just a totally

01:18:23   different version of what they make today. So I'm interested to see what that would mean.

01:18:30   I do think that they wouldn't go through the trouble of redesigning it because mice are so

01:18:35   unimportant to Apple, unless they were going to actually do a more substantial change than just

01:18:42   changing the port. So, you know, so obviously I think they're going to try to fix the complaints.

01:18:47   And sometimes Apple does that. Like when we got the Apology MacBook Pro,

01:18:51   everything was so much better in that one. They gave us back the SD card slot. They gave us back

01:18:58   the HDMI port. You know, they put the headphone jack back on the right side of the computer.

01:19:02   They gave us back, yeah, MagSafe. Like they are capable of going in a less minimal, less

01:19:09   stripped down industrial design direction when customers demand it enough and when it's enough

01:19:13   of a gain. We've seen that now with the MacBook Pro. So we know they can do that. I think the

01:19:20   mouse has a decent chance, not a guarantee, but has a decent chance of going in that same direction.

01:19:26   Because not only have we seen that happen with the MacBook Pro, but also like who uses mice now?

01:19:31   As John said, like it's different than it was 15 years ago. 15 years ago, yeah, laptops were still

01:19:37   dominant then, but I think they're way more dominant now. So the people who actually buy

01:19:42   and use the Magic Mouse, maybe it's a more professional set than it used to be. Maybe

01:19:48   Apple realized now, you know what, most people have figured out right click, so maybe we can do

01:19:53   something a little bit better there. Another thing to consider, by the way, is that this weird

01:19:57   phenomenon, so obviously all the laptops don't come with mice. They just have the trackpads, right?

01:20:01   But at this stage, I think, was it most of Apple's desktops also don't come with the mouse? The

01:20:07   the the mini doesn't come with one. I guess the iMac comes with one. Oh, that's right. The Mac Pro

01:20:11   does. I forget because I don't use it. Yeah, the iMac and the Mac Pro both come with one and you

01:20:15   can configure them to come with a trackpad instead. Sometimes in addition, but I think usually it's

01:20:21   just instead now. But they don't come in the box. Like the Mac Pro, I had forgotten that the Mac Pro

01:20:25   does come with one in the box. Like of all the computers to not come with a mouse, you would

01:20:28   think of it with the Mac Pro, but it does actually come with a mouse in the actual box, which again,

01:20:32   maybe you can configure to the trackpad. But like the iMac does too. It's in the box.

01:20:35   iMac makes the most sense because it's color matched and like it's all, it's an all, the whole

01:20:39   point is it's all in one. You get everything you need. But Mac Mini and Mac Studio, no mouse, right?

01:20:43   Correct. It's a separate, I mean, you can attach it. You can, during checkout, it will ask you to

01:20:47   buy one, but the Mac Mini and the Mac Studio box do not have a place for a mouse or a trackpad

01:20:52   inside them. So that's, that's half of Apple's laptops. They didn't even put it, put a mouse in

01:20:58   the box because it's bring your own. And arguably the Mac Pro should also be like that. Although,

01:21:02   I guess the box is so big that they have plenty of room to put a mouse or a trackpad inside.

01:21:06   Put it inside the Mac Pro, like in a bay somewhere. But you know, but anyway, it is odd

01:21:12   that like back in the day, if you bought a Mac, you know, that wasn't in a laptop, it came with

01:21:17   a mouse and today 50/50. Yeah. If that, I mean, that's obviously, you know, which one you buy

01:21:21   and which ones sell them more volumes. Obviously when you go into percentages of people who buy

01:21:24   the things, but yeah, it is like, it is interesting. And again, with the option, I don't even know what

01:21:28   the default is, if there is one, but I bet a lot of people do choose the trackpad just because like

01:21:33   Casey, like they like that better. Sure. But you know, I think if they're going to go through the

01:21:38   trouble of designing a mouse now, I do think there is a non-zero chance they will aim it a little bit

01:21:44   more towards like people who actually care about mice and use mice for like, and are experts in

01:21:50   using mice because it is now so often that is like people are choosing to do this who like, who, who

01:21:55   are actually power users now. So, you know, I'm not expecting this to look like the latest MX Logitech

01:22:02   master or whatever with 17 buttons and like, and I'm also not expecting it to be super ergonomic

01:22:07   because one thing I also can't imagine Apple doing is making a left or right sided mouse. Like I think

01:22:13   they're going to make one mouse that is symmetric. So I would not expect the curvature that you get

01:22:18   on like modern ergonomic gaming mice and stuff where it's like made for only a right hand or

01:22:24   only a left hand. So what I can guess is probably going to be largely similar to what we see,

01:22:31   but maybe they'll make it a little bit taller and a little bit boxier to be able to accommodate a

01:22:37   charging port somewhere like on the front. Hopefully that's what I'm guessing they're most

01:22:42   likely to do. So if you really hate the current one for reasons other than the charge port location,

01:22:48   I wouldn't hold your breath that they're going to make a mouse that you like. But if you use the

01:22:54   current one and are inconvenienced by its design in a couple of ways, maybe they'll make that

01:22:59   better. I think there was another rumor report from Korea that actually did make a somewhat

01:23:04   direct comparison to the Logitech mouse saying that Apple's new mouse would be more ergonomic,

01:23:08   more like the Logitech mice. But using the example of the laptops, here's the thing. The fixing what

01:23:14   was wrong with the laptops, yes, it kind of sort of required them to make the laptops a little bit

01:23:21   boxier. They got rid of the, I think, more attractive Johnny Ive design case that had the

01:23:26   shallow curve towards the edges and everything because they just needed a little bit more room.

01:23:30   And that was the change we wanted them to make. But practically speaking, if you show these

01:23:35   laptops to just an average person who doesn't know the minutia of Apple stuff, they're not going to

01:23:41   think they look radically different. They had to change the MacBook Pros in such a subtle way that

01:23:47   is maybe obvious to us because we're obsessed with the fine details of them, but it still basically

01:23:51   looks like a laptop. It's not that much thicker. It's not that much more slab sided. It does have

01:23:56   more holes in the side of it. But other than that, they didn't have to change it a lot.

01:23:59   They can't make a change that fine to the Magic Mouse and make any substantial difference.

01:24:06   Even if they just do what you said is like make it a little bit taller,

01:24:09   they have to make it taller enough that it's going to be uglier, right? And look a little bit more

01:24:18   like I think the problem with the mouse is they want to look like a beautiful object when no one

01:24:22   is using it. The current one does. If you can't just do a change of a few millimeters like they

01:24:29   did in the MacBook Pro and say, "See, we solved it." If they do that, I guess they fix the charging

01:24:34   port location and people stop complaining. But if they do that, they haven't really changed the Magic

01:24:38   Mouse. And the rumors seem to be that they're trying to make it "more ergonomic." So they can't

01:24:44   add one millimeter to it. They have to add substantially. And I think once you start adding

01:24:47   substantially, you're into that situation, you highlighted it very well, you come to this question

01:24:52   real fast, which is symmetrical or not symmetrical. Because once you start making it bigger, you're

01:24:56   making it bigger so it can fit into the negative space of someone's hand. And then you have to ask,

01:25:01   "Which hand?" You could always make a right and a left model. That's a thing Apple could do.

01:25:04   It's not a popular thing that people do, but it's a thing they could do it, right? But once you start

01:25:09   making it bigger, you're like, "What am I raising this mouse up into?" You're raising it up into a

01:25:14   hand and hands are not symmetrical. And so if you make a larger symmetrical mouse, which Apple did,

01:25:20   the original Mac mouse was much larger and also symmetrical, you have a problem there.

01:25:26   When they did the ADB mice, they were lower profile. Both the original ADB mouse that was

01:25:31   like two flat surfaces and the rounded one, they were starting to get low because a tall mouse

01:25:38   should fit into the space of a single hand, which means it's going to be... Even if you do like my

01:25:43   Microsoft mouse that I have now, it's mostly symmetrical, but it's got that thing on the

01:25:47   side for your thumb, your right thumb to be on, right? And your fingers of your right hand go...

01:25:53   Like it's not symmetrical. It's very difficult to make a mouse that is both ergonomic and also

01:25:58   symmetrical. So I don't... I feel like they won't have the... They won't be willing to make their

01:26:05   mouse unattractive to make it ergonomically good. And merely making a tall mouse that's symmetrical

01:26:12   will not satisfy anybody because the people who wanted a more ergonomic mouse are going to say,

01:26:17   "Well, this isn't it," because it doesn't even recognize the fact that my hand is not symmetrical.

01:26:20   It's just as big. It's like the original Mac mouse, a big box in my hand. How is this better?

01:26:26   Might as well just go back to the low one because at least when I lay my hand flat and use it,

01:26:30   my hand becomes more symmetrical than when it's gripping. So this is an interesting test of their

01:26:35   industrial design. How ugly will they be willing to make this mouse as an object to make it better

01:26:42   as an actual input device? And I think with the MacBook Pros, they were able to

01:26:46   make it like a tiny bit less attractive for a massive functional benefit. And I don't think

01:26:53   they'll be able to make that trade because if you make it a tiny bit less attractive,

01:26:58   you're not getting a massive, massive functional benefit. So my current theory is it'll be almost...

01:27:04   It'll still be low profile because to make something that is symmetrical, it has to be

01:27:08   low profile. Otherwise it just becomes unsatisfying to everybody. It'll still be low profile. They'll

01:27:12   just find a better solution to the charging port. My main hope for it, mostly for Marco,

01:27:16   is because I don't even use this mouse, is the things underneath the surface that you swipe

01:27:21   are very low resolution and crude. 15 years later, they can essentially increase the DPI

01:27:26   and sensitivity of the swipey area on top. And I think that will result, especially with like

01:27:31   120 Hertz screens, I think the improving that resolution will make the mouse better for people

01:27:36   like Marco who like this mouse. And if Apple refuses to give up on this being a beautiful

01:27:42   object as it sits on the table, then the best design continues to be the current low profile

01:27:48   mouse, just with higher DPI of the tracking. Cause that's another thing that Apple is like

01:27:52   decades behind on in terms of like how well it tracks surfaces and how, you know, the granularity

01:27:57   of the updates and how fast it can handle things. You don't have to make it a gaming mouse, but it's

01:28:00   been 15 years. Right. And then the, uh, the sensitivity and resolution of the swiping thing

01:28:06   on top. I don't think they're going to do a second right button, but who knows that? I mean, the magic

01:28:11   mouse has a right button. It's just a weird one. That's like capacitive. And you have to not touch

01:28:14   the left side when you're touching the right side, but that's another thing. Can they bring themselves

01:28:18   to make it to a button mouse as in like a hairline, a hairline split in the top surface making,

01:28:24   you know what I mean? Like, can they do that or will they continue to do make sure your fingers

01:28:27   not touching the left side of the mouse when you push down the right side. Otherwise we're

01:28:30   going to register it as a left click. Are they going to still be doing that? So this is something

01:28:34   I definitely have my eye on. Not because I really care that much, because I have basically zero hope

01:28:39   that they're going to make a mouse that I like, which is fine. I have this third party mouse that

01:28:42   Microsoft no longer makes that I should really have bought eight of, but didn't. And that fails

01:28:46   all the time. And I've already had like three of them die on me. Um, but I'm just interested. It's

01:28:50   like a good test of Apple's industrial design. How do they solve this problem? How, and it's low

01:28:54   stakes because who cares? Like if they mess up their mouse, like nobody cares. Like, you know,

01:28:59   the headline for this item in the notes is save the turtles, save the harpooning the turtle.

01:29:04   Everyone wants to flip that mouse onto his back and harpoon it. And yeah, the turtles,

01:29:08   the turtles will no longer be harpooned. Surely they will fix that. It wouldn't be amazing if

01:29:12   they have a totally new completely redesigned mouse, but the charging port is still dead center

01:29:16   on the bottom. That'll be an amazing troll. But anyway, this is the thing I'm keeping my eye on.

01:29:20   It is less low, much lower stakes than the wifi and Bluetooth chip. Uh, but it is, uh,

01:29:26   a good bellwether for, uh, the, the Apple of today. I was going to make the same point about how the,

01:29:32   uh, the laptops have gotten a lot better. You can make an argument since Johnny left,

01:29:36   maybe that's related. Maybe it's not. Uh, but I don't know. You're, you're convincing me with it,

01:29:42   not with being symmetrical, being bad, even if it's taller like that, the argument you made a

01:29:46   moment ago really has convinced me. Maybe this isn't, maybe this isn't so great after all. I

01:29:51   don't know. I was really looking forward to it just in principle because, you know, again,

01:29:55   the magic mouse is not well liked from ergonomic standpoint from a general standpoint because

01:30:00   people aren't using mouse using mice anymore. But now, now you really got me worried about the whole,

01:30:04   uh, them not being willing to make it ugly enough to be useful. So, uh, I don't know.

01:30:10   I've got a lot of these mice in my attic. If Margot wants to, uh, he needs replacements.

01:30:14   If the new one is not to his liking, although you're probably gonna have to get my, uh,

01:30:17   black Mac pro one because that's still sealed in the box. I think it will probably be fine,

01:30:23   but mostly I think if anything, the, they will err on the side of not changing enough.

01:30:30   I don't think they're going to change too much. Um, especially, you know, like you were saying,

01:30:33   like to make it taller, you know, to make it better. Look at Apple's keyboards.

01:30:37   Their keyboards are all super flat, which is not good ergonomically. It's actually better than

01:30:42   them being tilted up though. Well, they are actually slightly tilted up by like one millimeter.

01:30:46   Yeah. But like their Apple's keyboards are also not very good ergonomically,

01:30:52   but tons of people use them happily and they're fine. They could be better. Apple has said,

01:30:56   okay, this is as far as we will go for ergonomics and no further. Um, I, and that's currently

01:31:01   designed at the mouse. That's why I'm thinking like if they do change the mouse, again,

01:31:06   I think it's probably going to be in relatively subtle ways. I'm not expecting a major redesign.

01:31:12   I'm expecting minor tweaks to lift up the front edge just enough that they can put a USB C port

01:31:18   under there and call it a day. And I think that's probably going to be what they do. And honestly,

01:31:23   that would be fine. It would be exactly as ergonomic as their keyboards are and it would

01:31:28   fix an annoyance. And I think that's, that's, that's by far the most likely outcome. Well,

01:31:34   you don't know if you guys remember this, but Apple did actually ship actual Apple mice with

01:31:38   side buttons. Do you remember those? No. The Apology mouse was a mouse with side buttons.

01:31:41   They were terrible side buttons, but they existed like actual physical buttons. Yeah.

01:31:44   You squeezed it for something. What was that? What was the squeeze gesture? Yeah. There were

01:31:48   buttons on the essential buttons on the side. Every sort of third party mouse, even my Microsoft

01:31:51   mouse has three side buttons has like a, uh, uh, a forward, middle and back type thing. I don't

01:31:56   even know what I have the map to because I never use them, but side buttons on my serve. Definitely

01:32:00   a thing. And Apple did ship a mouse with physical side, multiple mice. I think the Apology mouse had

01:32:05   it. Didn't the one with a little tiny track ball on the top. Didn't that one have a squeeze gesture?

01:32:08   The Mighty mouse. I don't remember if that had it. The Apology mouse definitely did. It was the one

01:32:12   that was a clear thick clear case that they gave to everyone as an apology for the iMac Puck mouse

01:32:16   that had side buttons. They were bad, but I'm saying is Apple his, you know, long ago, Apple

01:32:23   was not above shipping a mouse that had more than one physical button, including a side button,

01:32:28   which is like side button is so kind of like outside the mainstream of what Apple wants to do.

01:32:34   Like they still didn't, that mouse still didn't have a right button on it, like a physical right

01:32:38   button, but it did have side buttons. So I don't know. Maybe there'll be, maybe they'll surprise us

01:32:43   and ship a mouse that has two top buttons and a side button or one top button and two side buttons.

01:32:48   Two turntables and a microphone. They could call it an action button. Yeah, exactly. There you go.

01:32:53   With the innovation. Oh, they should have, they're gonna put the stupid digital crown on it.

01:32:55   They put it on the vision pro for crying out now. Oh my God. Who knows what they'll do. Yeah.

01:33:01   Keep an eye on it. Pretty fluent. Like, you know, hit the button on the side of your mouse,

01:33:06   turn the flashlight on. That'd be awesome. It's the best change I've made was making the action

01:33:11   button, flashlight button. I told you it's great. It's so good. I still use it for the Whole Foods

01:33:16   app. Oh gosh, Jon. All right. Thank you to our sponsor this week, Squarespace. And thank you to

01:33:23   our members who support us directly. You can join us at atp.fm/join. One of the perks of membership

01:33:29   is ATP Overtime, our weekly bonus topic. This week on ATP Overtime, we're talking about,

01:33:34   well, Jon is talking about fast directory sizing and APFS. This is an interesting tidbit of how

01:33:41   APFS, how one of its features works and how it might influence Jon's app that he's building.

01:33:47   So you can hear that and many other benefits of joining by joining at atp.fm/join.

01:33:54   Thank you everybody. And we'll talk to you next week.

01:33:56   [music]

01:33:59   Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin.

01:34:04   Cause it was accidental. Accidental. Oh, it was accidental. Accidental. Jon didn't do any

01:34:11   research. Marco and Casey wouldn't let him. Cause it was accidental. Accidental. Oh, it was

01:34:18   accidental. Accidental. And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon,

01:34:28   you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S. So that's Casey, Liz, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M.

01:34:39   A-N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-E-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A. It's accidental. Accidental. They didn't mean to.

01:34:52   Accidental. Accidental. Tech podcast. So long.

01:35:00   Jon, I've joined the cult. Uh oh. I've joined the Yolink cult. That's a good cult.

01:35:08   So, uh, I don't remember if I said this to you at all, be that privately or on air, but I heard you

01:35:15   talking about your Yolink. Well, how did you describe it? They're like low, long, long range,

01:35:21   maybe low voltage, uh, transmitter. LoRa is the standard. I forget what it stands for. I'll have

01:35:26   to look it up in the show notes for an old rectum. But it's like low frequency radio communication.

01:35:31   It's not Bluetooth. It's not wifi. And so I had asked Aaron for a starter pack from Yolink that

01:35:40   included one of their hubs. This one does not have ethernet, which I don't love. And I think there is

01:35:45   another one that does, but that's neither here nor there. And it has a couple of, I'll call them

01:35:49   contact sensors. I'm sure there's a better name for it, but basically when you have two magnets

01:35:53   that when they're next to each other, the sensors registers is closed. And when you separate the

01:35:58   magnets, it registers as open. These are the same content sensors that I have in the garage door for

01:36:02   my Rube Goldberg garage door alert system. And so I got, I asked for that from Aaron for Christmas.

01:36:08   She got it for me. And since the last time we spoke, I have put one contact sensor on the

01:36:14   stationary port portion of my mailbox, the other contact sensor on the door of the mailbox. And now

01:36:19   I am getting alerted whenever my mail is delivered and it makes me so happy. Aaron has made so much

01:36:26   fun of me for this. She doesn't understand why I need to know this. And honestly, I don't need to

01:36:31   know this, but it makes me happy that I do know exactly when the mail was delivered. Do I need to

01:36:36   go check the mail? Let me look. No, I don't. But you know, 20 minutes later, do I look, I can go

01:36:41   look. Yes, I do need to check the mail. There's no checking actually. I know it's there. It's magical.

01:36:46   Now, the other thing that Aaron has pointed out numerous times, and she is 100% correct,

01:36:50   is that it is a miracle we're still getting our mail. Because if you look at my setup,

01:36:55   it's not only homely, but 100% looks like I've installed a bomb on my mailbox.

01:37:00   I should take a picture. I haven't taken a picture. I will. I will. I will take a picture and I will

01:37:08   send it to the boys and we'll put it in the show notes. But imagine, so the contact sensor, the

01:37:13   actual magnet on the part of the sensor that is on the door of the mailbox, the magnet portion

01:37:22   is approximately the same width as the mailbox door itself. However, there's also a little bit

01:37:29   of extra plastic with a couple of screw holes so you can mount it on things, right? Well, the screw

01:37:35   hole section is totally poking out past the end of the mailbox door. And then if you look at the

01:37:42   portion of the mailbox that the mail carrier generally doesn't see because it's after they've

01:37:46   passed, there's definitely the other contact sensor with wires that are going into the place

01:37:52   that the mailbox is mounted on. It's not wood that our mailbox is mounted on. We just so happen to

01:37:58   have like a plastic one and you can take off a little cover and there's just a hole there. And

01:38:03   that's where I stuck the transmitter. It looks shady as hell, gentlemen. It looks so shady.

01:38:08   But the good news is it has been working very well. And for those real nerds, even though I'm

01:38:14   sure I could do this with the Yolink app directly, what I've done is I've added an integration for

01:38:20   Yolink to Home Assistant. And then I have an automation on Home Assistant that will then use

01:38:25   pushover to send me a push notification when the mail arrives with the exact time the mail has

01:38:30   arrived. It makes me so happy. It's so stupid, so unnecessary. And it makes me so happy. And I'm so

01:38:35   glad I'm in the Yolink cult. And now as with all things, when I find something new and exciting,

01:38:39   see also Raspberry Pi, now it's like I'm smacking my arm trying to figure out, okay, what else can

01:38:44   I do? What else do I need a sensor for? Maybe I do care about the fridge. I didn't think I cared

01:38:48   about the fridge. Maybe I cared about the fridge. Maybe I should get a sensor for that. I am already

01:38:51   losing control and it's no good. So John, it's all your fault. Yeah, the refrigerator one is just

01:38:56   going to let you learn how often people stand in front of the refrigerator with the door open and

01:39:00   causing the temperature to go above the safe area. That's me all the time. Yeah. Well, once you have

01:39:05   the sensor, you'll suddenly know that and it's a little bit troubling. In fact, I've had to raise

01:39:09   the threshold of my refrigerator one just to try to say, look, I'm just going to have to accept

01:39:14   that it's going to be 41 degrees in there when people open the door. So maybe I'll set the thing

01:39:18   at 42 or 43. Basically what I want to know is, hey, did someone leave the door open? Like they

01:39:23   went to bed and they left the fridge door open a crack? That's what I want to know. Not did another

01:39:28   person spend 10 minutes in front of the open fridge door on a hot summer day and make the

01:39:31   temperature go up? So I wouldn't necessarily recommend that one unless you have a problem

01:39:35   with it. Well, maybe you as your kids get older, start leaving the fridge open by crack and

01:39:38   destroying everything in your fridge more often or your freezer. Freezer is a little bit easier

01:39:42   because it maintains temperature a little bit better and you just put it at the freezing point

01:39:45   and you probably won't get any bad alerts. But the one thing I will tell you that you might want to

01:39:49   do, well, maybe not, but the water leak detectors. If there's any place in your house that you think

01:39:54   there could ever be a leak that you want to know about it, you won't get any false alarms from that

01:39:58   one. They're like 17 bucks. The batteries last for like three years. I was going to say put it

01:40:02   next to your water heater, but that's in your garage. So if it floods, who cares? Put it like

01:40:06   between every toilet and the wall or under every sink. Like anywhere that you have a trailer. I

01:40:12   don't have any of this stuff, but for insurance reasons, I had to get myself a home alarm system

01:40:19   from SimpliSafe recently, not a sponsorship. It's like pick whatever of these sensors you want. And

01:40:26   they have water leak sensors for some relatively tiny amount of money. So I'm like, all right,

01:40:31   I'll get six of them. I put them everywhere, under each sink and in every bathroom. And also,

01:40:39   of course, the water heater. How do they communicate? Are they like the YOLN things

01:40:43   where it says low frequency RF thing? Yeah, I believe it's custom because there's like a

01:40:47   SimpliSafe home base thing that all their stuff talks to. Yeah, that's how the YOLN things work

01:40:52   too, by the way. You get a quote unquote smart hub, which gets on your wifi network, but then

01:40:56   also communicates over the proprietary RF thing to the sensors. And that's why the sensors can be so

01:41:01   cheap and last so long because they don't talk wifi. They're not on your wifi. They have no idea

01:41:05   wifi exists. They just talk to the hub from like a quarter mile away or so they claim. And then the

01:41:12   hub talks to your wifi. So you can just put the hub right next to your wifi thing and put the sensors

01:41:16   anywhere in your house. And I'm assuming in three years, they'll start notifying me on the app that

01:41:20   their battery's getting low, but the battery is supposed to last a long time. Yep. So I'm,

01:41:24   I'm digging this. I, like I said, I'm looking for reasons to install this in all the places, but

01:41:30   so far so good. I'm really pleased with this. I had no idea that this was a thing, not only

01:41:35   yelling specifically, but this whole low raw thing, uh, who raw, uh, no, the low raw thing that you

01:41:40   were talking about. Uh, this has made me very happy and is giving me an outlet for evermore

01:41:45   nervous energy, which I'm good with. So, uh, thank you. And also, no, thank you. Cause now I'm gonna

01:41:49   spend a bunch of money on damn water sent water leak sensors too. They're cheap. You can buy it.

01:41:53   They can get another 17 bucks for a water leak detector. Just buy a couple of them. Chuck more

01:41:56   on your house. That's yeah. That's the thing. Like it's like, it's like once you, once you are in the

01:41:59   system, like, you know, once you have their hub and you have their app set up and you have their

01:42:04   alerts set up, you might as well like, you know, cause you're, you're not like, you know, paying a

01:42:07   monthly fee per sensor or anything. So like you might as well spend an extra 17 bucks to get a few

01:42:12   more of them and Chuck them around the house. Like anywhere that that could be useful anywhere that

01:42:16   like, yeah, a water leak or something like that's, that's useful information to know. And it's part

01:42:20   of the advantage of like, I think one of the lessons we've learned with smart home gear so far

01:42:26   is wifi is bad. Home smart home gear can be very useful. The less that's on wifi, the better,

01:42:36   the most reliable and most useful smart home things tend to be ones that have some other

01:42:41   kind of protocol. They speak that is not wifi. And that usually requires a hub somewhere in your,

01:42:48   you know, and, and, and this is part of the promise that thread is trying or purporting to solve

01:42:54   or to unify all these standards into one new standard XKCD style. That's what every single

01:42:59   stupid Apple device comes with a thread radio. We don't even talk about it anymore,

01:43:02   but every act is introduced every home, but everything that comes with a thread radio.

01:43:06   What good is that doing us someday? Right. So this, this may at some point be a good thing.

01:43:11   It seems like it's pretty lightly used now. Although I actually, I have some,

01:43:15   some Eve sensors that I, that have thread support. I'm not sure if they're using it,

01:43:20   but they have it. So I don't know. But anyway, everything that is not wifi smart home is almost

01:43:28   always better. It is usually like, usually the devices themselves are cheaper per device.

01:43:34   Usually they are more reliable. They usually have better battery lives. If they are battery powered,

01:43:39   they usually have longer ranges or, you know, in the case of these things, like if you're not

01:43:44   speaking wifi and going on wifi frequencies, you can probably use lower frequency radio waves,

01:43:50   which penetrate walls better have longer range. So basically getting off of wifi is better in

01:43:56   almost every way for smart home devices that are not cameras. Cameras unfortunately need the

01:44:00   bandwidth of wifi, but everything else usually doesn't. And that's why wifi is bad for home

01:44:05   things. It's not like wifi itself is a bad protocol or anything. It's just designed for

01:44:10   higher and higher data rates for things like computers, but a home device that's telling you

01:44:13   the temperature and humidity has such low bandwidth requirements that using a sophisticated,

01:44:19   complicated high frequency protocol like wifi is just a waste. It's a waste of battery energy.

01:44:24   It's like the standard is not made for that. These other standards that have incredibly low bandwidth,

01:44:29   but can, you know, penetrate walls and go from a quarter mile away on a single double A battery.

01:44:34   Like that's, it's a better fit for the application. So we're not saying like, why did they make wifi

01:44:38   if it's so bad? Wifi is good for what it does. It gives you like wireless data to your phone and

01:44:43   your laptop. And even maybe your Apple TV, it's bad for a thing that's telling you whether there's

01:44:48   been a leak or not. That literally communicates almost nothing. Yeah. It's like, I need to send

01:44:52   this one, it's like, you know, one bite of transfer basically to my home. Has there been a leak since

01:44:58   the last minute I asked yes or no? No. Good. Done. Exactly. Bammoth over. Problem solved.

01:45:03   Anyway. So thank you, but no, thank you because I'm going to go broke putting sensors in a thousand

01:45:08   different places that I don't need them. Yeah. The reason I mentioned the water heater, by the way,

01:45:12   is I already had, before I got the YOLING things, I already had a wifi sensor on my water heater

01:45:17   because twice now living in this house for 20 something years, twice, my water heater has gotten

01:45:23   old enough that it's sprung a leak. Luckily not a catastrophic leak because water heaters, just

01:45:28   hot water tank heater, whatever they eventually corrosion eats away at the inside of them. There's

01:45:31   a big sacrificial anode. See the rectives episode where I talk about this. That gets eaten away.

01:45:36   Once that gets eaten away, guess what? The tank gets eaten away. And if you're not on top of

01:45:40   replacing it exactly when the warranty expires, cause they put the anode in there. That's big

01:45:43   enough. They think as soon as the warranty runs out, the anode will be gone and then it will fail.

01:45:48   They're really good. They really can't, they could just put a bigger anode in. Like I think when they

01:45:52   sell you like a 15 year old one versus a 10 year, the only difference is bigger anode in the 15 one

01:45:57   and they charge you 300 bucks. But anyway, um, when they leak, if they catastrophically leak,

01:46:02   your basement fills water and it's terrible. But usually what happens is corrosion makes a little

01:46:06   tiny hole that starts spraying out or dribbling out water. And it's still an emergency. They'll

01:46:10   be like, Oh, turn off the water and plumber come or whatever. But, uh, it's something you want to

01:46:14   know about ASAP. I've been lucky enough both times to be home. And we go down to the basement enough

01:46:20   because the laundry machines are down there to notice it and say, you know, and that's why I

01:46:24   bought the sensor. Like I don't want to be away from home when that happens because even a small

01:46:29   leak could flood my basement. I should really just replace my water heater more often, but you know,

01:46:33   you do what you can. I, my current one is still, uh, uh, less than 10 years into it's supposed to

01:46:38   drift in your lifetime. So I'll keep an eye on it.

01:46:42   (beep)