ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► For spring break last week, we went on a tour of Southwest Virginia, which was a lot of fun, despite there being very little in Southwest Virginia, but we found what there was to do and did it.

00:00:10 ◼   ► Now we're going to hear from all four people who live there.

00:00:12 ◼   ► Yeah, right. And I say that as someone who went to school in Southwest Virginia. And actually, I wasn't planning on talking about this, but it occurred to me in the hotel in Blacksburg, the hotel room had the unthinkable within it, and it made me exceedingly happy. What do you think was in that hotel room?

00:00:29 ◼   ► Ethernet port.

00:00:29 ◼   ► Correct. Nailed it. Not only was there an Ethernet jack, but it was connected and worked, which was incredible. So I was very, very happy using my little Unified travel router to connect to the Ethernet. But anyways, that's not actually why I'm bringing this up. I'm bringing this up because there's a trail, like a hike, about half an hour outside of Blacksburg, which I had heard about so many times when I was in school that, oh, you know, we're going to go hike the Cascades. We're going to go do the Cascades, the Cascades, Cascades, Cascades.

00:00:58 ◼   ► I'd never actually done it when I was down there. But the kids and Aaron and me, we all did some hikes a couple of spring breaks ago in the Shenandoah National Park. Really enjoyed that. And so during this three-night vacation slash tour, we did a trio of hikes as well.

00:01:13 ◼   ► And the biggest one was this first one at the Cascades Trail. And you basically drive from nowhere to further nowhere and then drive through a neighborhood and spontaneously just come out at like a parking situation and like a little hut with a bathroom.

00:01:30 ◼   ► And then you start on this hike that goes to these really beautiful waterfalls. And the waterfalls, you know, have the water cascading down them. I presume that's the genesis of the name, right? Well, anyways, on the way out of the hike, you know, we did the two miles out, two miles back.

00:01:46 ◼   ► Kids were absolute troopers, you know, did a great job. And then I was going to get in the car and I was wearing my beloved workout shorts and one of my ATP exercise T-shirts, which we're sort of not really going to talk about in a second.

00:02:00 ◼   ► And what do I hear as I'm getting an Aaron's Volvo for the second time in the last, whatever it is, seven months? I hear a clunk, clunk, clunk, crash.

00:02:07 ◼   ► I just want to pause here for a second and ask the longtime ATP listeners, how long into that story did you figure out that Casey was going to tell us that he dropped his phone again?

00:02:17 ◼   ► That is a great, a great measure. Obviously, Marco and I are cheating because we see the show notes and we know where he's going with this. But just, I'm just curious for the people listening, how you're listening. Casey's winding up. He's got a big wind up on his pitches. He's going along.

00:02:29 ◼   ► When did you figure out, oh, Casey dropped his phone again, didn't he?

00:02:33 ◼   ► I think as soon as I said hike is probably when that happened.

00:02:36 ◼   ► Was it hike? Was it just like going on vacation? Was it middle of nowhere?

00:02:41 ◼   ► Oh, it's so true. I want to be so mad at you, but you're absolutely correct. But yes, so at the end of the hike, I'm getting back in the car and I hear thunk, thunk, crash.

00:02:49 ◼   ► And sure enough, my phone had fallen out of my workout shorts, which has happened from these same shorts once before. You'd think I would have learned, but no, no, I didn't.

00:02:58 ◼   ► Get some new shorts with bigger pockets. Get pockets with zippers, something, anything.

00:03:02 ◼   ► These shorts actually do have zippers, but the zipper broke, unfortunately. And so here we are. Again, this is a problem of my own creation.

00:03:09 ◼   ► But anyways, I looked down and sure enough, the pop socket had yeeted itself halfway across the parking lot.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Are we allowed to say yeet? We're not too old to say that?

00:03:20 ◼   ► Oh, no, we are, but we don't know.

00:03:21 ◼   ► No, I think that's actually your generation.

00:03:23 ◼   ► No.

00:03:24 ◼   ► No, it's, it's, no.

00:03:25 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's, isn't that a millennial thing? Yeet? I think it is.

00:03:28 ◼   ► No, it's absolutely much younger than us.

00:03:30 ◼   ► All right. Well, anyway, I, I, I say you can say it. I declare that you can say it.

00:03:34 ◼   ► Oh, thanks, Dad.

00:03:35 ◼   ► Because it, because it's, because it's out of, it's out of style now. So it's a suitably unfashionable.

00:03:38 ◼   ► Exactly.

00:03:39 ◼   ► Well, and definitely, I mean, it's definitely out of style now that we're using it.

00:03:42 ◼   ► Precisely right.

00:03:43 ◼   ► That's how you can tell. Yeah.

00:03:44 ◼   ► Yep. So the, the pop socket had launched itself across the parking lot. And sure enough, my phone was face down and it was on blacktop cement, whatever it was. And I think to myself, Oh, all right. It's been about six months. That's probably about due for me to shatter the phone. And I picked it up and it was pristine. It was perfectly fine.

00:04:05 ◼   ► This is the second time this has fallen from a Volvo XC90 out of my pocket onto the pavement, face down both times. It has been pristine.

00:04:15 ◼   ► Is there a case on it or no?

00:04:16 ◼   ► No case.

00:04:17 ◼   ► Okay.

00:04:18 ◼   ► I, I think now I'm going to absolutely jinx myself. So let me do a little Foley work and knock on wood. Uh, I think I can declare ceramic shield to the real deal. And so I went back to the keynote from September to see who was introducing it, what they said.

00:04:35 ◼   ► And it was cayenne drance. And she said very little about it, but she did say there's three times better scratch resistance and that they like infused, uh, ceramic in a different way and different like molecular chemical bonds or whatever. But the only real like marketing phrase was three times better scratch resistance. I got to tell you so far, I might, I think I might've noticed like a little baby scratch maybe, which by now, every prior phone I've had has been freaking ruined. That's why I went to the, the screen protectors for the last phone, which I didn't know.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I was going through like water, uh, because I was constantly scratching out my phones, my, my, the face of my phones, the screen of my phones. There's maybe, maybe one itty bitty scratch and it has fallen from like waist height onto pavement face down twice. Hasn't shattered yet. I have to say, I'm very impressed as much as I've been pissing and moaning about the fragility of the screens up until now in the 17 pro it's good. It's good. It's good stuff. I'm very impressed.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Well, I would strongly recommend Casey that you'd not get the foldable iPhone.

00:05:35 ◼   ► I've actually, I, I, I don't want to belabor this pre-show, but I've thought a lot about what I'm going to do with that. And I think this is classic Casey. I don't think I want a foldable phone because I think that's too much. And I don't think I, I acknowledge, I fully acknowledge this classic Casey. A hundred percent.

00:05:53 ◼   ► What do you think, John? One week after it's released? No, no, no. Hold on. I'm just saying that the screen on that one is not going to be as durable as, as this one. I guess it's good that he can close it. So when it's closed, like the screen won't be, there'll be the outer screen. Anyway, I, it doesn't seem like it's the product for you is what I'm saying.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Yeah. You can break three screens at once. New frontiers in screen breaking.

00:06:13 ◼   ► No, but I've been thinking about, like, I think for me, I'm not in love with spending $2,000 on a phone or whatever it'll end up being. I'm not in love with, I don't think I want or need a foldable in my life, which again, classic Casey. I recognize that.

00:06:27 ◼   ► But most importantly, I don't think I want to drop any of the three camera situations on my current phone. And everyone seems to think it'll be one or two lenses on the foldable phone. And so I've been wondering, what do I do? And I think what I do is, assuming they all come out at the same time, which is also under debate.

00:06:44 ◼   ► I think I do try a foldable phone because if nothing else, I should do it for the show. And then maybe on that jerk that returns it within two weeks or the returns it on day 13 after having tried it, because I decide, you know, it's really not for me. But I think I got to try it.

00:06:58 ◼   ► Two cameras, by the way, Casey.

00:07:00 ◼   ► What's your position on having test devices for your life as an iOS developer?

00:07:07 ◼   ► I mean, Marco, with the ready reason to buy a new thing.

00:07:11 ◼   ► I was going to say, I see the loophole building as we speak.

00:07:14 ◼   ► I mean, that is fair.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And maybe that is the rightest answer is I use a carry phone that is, you know, the 18 Pro or what have you.

00:07:20 ◼   ► And I have the foldable as the test device.

00:07:22 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:07:23 ◼   ► That's an interesting point.

00:07:24 ◼   ► The reason I ask is that one of the excuses I've always used over the years is that when there is a, like, reasonably new and different form factor of a device, I feel like I should probably have one as an iOS developer.

00:07:38 ◼   ► Not only, you know, just to have, like, extra devices to, like, put betas on and stuff, but also, like, if it's a different form factor, I should know how that handles.

00:07:48 ◼   ► I should know how it feels in the hand.

00:07:50 ◼   ► Where should controls be?

00:07:52 ◼   ► How big should controls be?

00:07:53 ◼   ► How should things be laid out?

00:07:56 ◼   ► And, you know, and sometimes you can just guess.

00:07:58 ◼   ► Like, when the phone gets a little bit bigger, if things are generally the same other than a small size difference, that doesn't usually require, like, I don't have every single iPhone model.

00:08:08 ◼   ► I just, I have a few, but when something is as different as, like, going from iPhone to iPad, you should probably have an iPad if your app runs an iPad.

00:08:19 ◼   ► I think going from regular iPhones to the folding iPhone, that's pretty different physically, and there might also be very different software features.

00:08:29 ◼   ► And, yes, we will have a simulator that you can see how your app is laid out in the simulator.

00:08:34 ◼   ► You can, you know, deal with probably, you know, whatever the multitasking system ends up being.

00:08:37 ◼   ► Like, I'm sure you can simulate all that.

00:08:39 ◼   ► But I don't think that's going to replace the experience of actually handling it in terms of, like, knowing how to, how your app should look and work on that device.

00:08:49 ◼   ► I think any iOS developer responsible for design and layout and controls who has any, you know, budget ability to do this is probably going to want to have an iPhone fold of their own.

00:09:05 ◼   ► Even if it's not their daily carry phone, it's probably a good idea to have it and maybe live with it for, like, a week or two or something just so you can figure out how it handles and design your app accordingly.

00:09:16 ◼   ► Because that is going to be a pretty different experience for apps if the rumors are at all true.

00:09:21 ◼   ► All right.

00:09:23 ◼   ► We have some important breaking news.

00:09:26 ◼   ► The ATP store is back, baby.

00:09:29 ◼   ► You can go to ATP.fm slash store where John will proceed to take us on a nickel tour of all the different things that he has in store for you.

00:09:37 ◼   ► Yes, this is, in fact, the WWDC 2026 store.

00:09:40 ◼   ► Seems like the WWDC store comes earlier every year, but really it's always around this time.

00:09:45 ◼   ► We try to get people their items in time to attend WWDC, which is a thing that is rare these days because it doesn't hold a lot of people and most people don't get to go.

00:09:53 ◼   ► But, you know, that's the theory.

00:09:55 ◼   ► So that's why it's so early, FYI.

00:09:57 ◼   ► So get your orders in now.

00:09:58 ◼   ► Here's what we've got.

00:09:59 ◼   ► The first product is actually four products.

00:10:03 ◼   ► It's the opposite of the iPhone intro.

00:10:06 ◼   ► And I'll explain why.

00:10:07 ◼   ► So this is, it's a t-shirt and it's ATP Neo.

00:10:10 ◼   ► And these are shirts inspired by the MacBook Neo because they come in the color combinations that the MacBook Neo comes in.

00:10:19 ◼   ► They're called ATP Neo Indigo, Blush, Citrus, and Silver.

00:10:22 ◼   ► Here's the concept.

00:10:24 ◼   ► The shirt should be more or less the color of, like, the body of the Neo.

00:10:29 ◼   ► And the logo, it's just the monochrome ATP logo, should be the color of the keyboard.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And as you know, the keyboards on all the MacBook Neos are color matched to the device.

00:10:41 ◼   ► So even though when you look at, like, the pink one and, like, the yellowy citrus one, you're like, oh, they both have white keyboards.

00:10:46 ◼   ► They don't.

00:10:46 ◼   ► The pink one has, like, a lightly pinkish keyboard and the citrus one has, like, a lightly yellow keyboard.

00:10:52 ◼   ► And it's the same for all of them.

00:10:53 ◼   ► The keyboards are not the same color on these devices.

00:10:56 ◼   ► So the logo is not the same color on these shirts.

00:10:59 ◼   ► And that's why they have to be four separate shirts because the way Cotton Bureau does it, if you have a different ink color, that's a different shirt because, you know, you're printing a different thing on it.

00:11:07 ◼   ► So, and the other thing is to get shirts that are colored like the MacBook Neo, we unfortunately don't have the clout to say,

00:11:14 ◼   ► make me a shirt that matches this color.

00:11:16 ◼   ► No, we just have to look at every shirt that's available for us to, you know, order blanks of and then find a company that makes a shirt in a color that's close to the laptop color.

00:11:26 ◼   ► And that's what we've done.

00:11:27 ◼   ► And we've picked out four shirt colors here.

00:11:29 ◼   ► I think the silver one is the farthest off because it's a little bit too dark.

00:11:32 ◼   ► But we did the best we could because we got all four shirts from the same company, the same, like, shirt model or whatever.

00:11:38 ◼   ► And that means that there's only T-shirts.

00:11:42 ◼   ► So, even though we've been rolling at all sorts of varieties or whatever, we can only get these colors from this one specific brand in T-shirt.

00:11:49 ◼   ► So, it's just T-shirts, indigo, blush, citrus, and silver with an ATP logo on a color match to the thing.

00:11:56 ◼   ► The pictures don't really do it justice.

00:11:57 ◼   ► We're trying to make it look subtle like the keyboards do on the MacBook Neo.

00:12:01 ◼   ► But anyway, that's, there's four shirts.

00:12:02 ◼   ► And unfortunately, because there's four, there's like a minimum threshold before they'll print each one.

00:12:06 ◼   ► So, I hope enough people will buy each one of the colors that they actually get printed.

00:12:09 ◼   ► If they don't, oh, well, lesson learned.

00:12:11 ◼   ► That's ATP Neo, our tribute to the MacBook Neo, a great new Mac that everybody loves.

00:12:18 ◼   ► And moving on to a very old Mac that nobody loves except for me, we have the Mac Pro Memorial shirt.

00:12:25 ◼   ► We had the products for the store all set to go before they killed the Mac Pro.

00:12:30 ◼   ► And so, we kind of had to scramble on this one.

00:12:32 ◼   ► And what you get is exactly what you would expect.

00:12:34 ◼   ► In hindsight, it is, I don't know, foreshadowing that the Mac Pro Believe shirt also looked a little bit like a tombstone.

00:12:44 ◼   ► Because now what we've done is take the Mac Pro Believe shirt and instead of saying believe underneath that picture of the Mac Pro,

00:12:50 ◼   ► now we've just got birth year to death year, 2019 to 2026.

00:12:54 ◼   ► Shout out to, I forget the listener's name, who made a mock-up that said bereave.

00:12:58 ◼   ► Yep.

00:12:59 ◼   ► Yeah, that's a good one too, but it requires you to know the other shirt.

00:13:03 ◼   ► And honestly, it's not really bereaving because it really needed to be canned.

00:13:06 ◼   ► But anyway, it's just, you know, the year range.

00:13:09 ◼   ► And some people thought it should have the year like of the original Mac Pro.

00:13:12 ◼   ► But no, it's the thing that's pictured on the shirt.

00:13:14 ◼   ► The thing that's pictured on the shirt was introduced in 2019 and killed in 2026.

00:13:18 ◼   ► And yes, I have already ordered one of these to go to John Ternus.

00:13:22 ◼   ► That's incredible.

00:13:24 ◼   ► And we are under the impression that he did receive the original Believe shirt, right?

00:13:29 ◼   ► He sure did.

00:13:29 ◼   ► I know for sure that he did.

00:13:31 ◼   ► All right.

00:13:31 ◼   ► And that one, again, that's two shirts because like the darker colored shirts have light ink and vice versa.

00:13:35 ◼   ► So it's Mac Pro Memorial.

00:13:37 ◼   ► Mac Pro Memorial dark again, ink color thing.

00:13:40 ◼   ► Then we have two shirts that probably should have been in the last sale, but I don't know.

00:13:44 ◼   ► Maybe it would have been too much.

00:13:45 ◼   ► But anyway, last sale, we did ATP T568A and T568B, our Ethernet wiring standard shirts, where we replaced the Apple six color stripes in the ATP logo with the colors of the conductors in an Ethernet cable, according to the T568A and B standards.

00:14:04 ◼   ► Well, this time we have two more shirts, T568A and B, but they're crossover cables.

00:14:10 ◼   ► You can put links on the store page.

00:14:13 ◼   ► You can go to like the Wikipedia page.

00:14:14 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I got these right.

00:14:15 ◼   ► I quadruple checked like a million times and did so many Google searches.

00:14:18 ◼   ► Here's what Wikipedia says.

00:14:19 ◼   ► Here's what these things say.

00:14:20 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure that these are the correct wiring arrangements for a gigabit, not 100 or 10, a gigabit crossover cable, which isn't really a thing I think you need anymore because on all the ports, AutoSense and switch or whatever.

00:14:31 ◼   ► But anyway, crossover cables are still a thing that exists.

00:14:34 ◼   ► And so now the colored stripes, the top half has like what one end of the connector cable should be, pins one through eight, and the bottom half has what the other half should be.

00:14:42 ◼   ► And yes, there are different crossover cables for T568A and B.

00:14:47 ◼   ► So we have the two crossover shirts.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And they're really pushing the limits.

00:14:51 ◼   ► Like last time we have like ugly shirts, like because the Ethernet wiring colors are not particularly attractive.

00:14:55 ◼   ► And now they're even less attractive because the colors are all mixed up.

00:14:58 ◼   ► But you nerds love it.

00:14:59 ◼   ► You love those networking nerds want to have the most obscure shirt that someone is sure to ask you about.

00:15:05 ◼   ► And then you get to explain about Ethernet wiring standards.

00:15:07 ◼   ► Then we have the M5 Pro and Mac shirts, because since our last sale, those two chips came out.

00:15:15 ◼   ► Those chips are good.

00:15:16 ◼   ► They deserve shirts.

00:15:17 ◼   ► There are no chip designs in the back because we haven't done that in a while.

00:15:20 ◼   ► But we've got M5 Pro and M5 Max in all the usual shapes and sizes.

00:15:24 ◼   ► We do like to bring back one old shirt in every sale.

00:15:29 ◼   ► And this time we're bringing back a shirt that we sold a couple of times that has been very popular.

00:15:34 ◼   ► ATP Pixels is back.

00:15:36 ◼   ► This is the one with the six color ATP logo on it.

00:15:39 ◼   ► But it's drawn in pixels, which is quite a printing challenge.

00:15:42 ◼   ► I guess people who bought this shirt a while ago know how well it held up.

00:15:45 ◼   ► But I have one as well.

00:15:46 ◼   ► I think it came out really good.

00:15:47 ◼   ► It looks really good.

00:15:48 ◼   ► It's chunky.

00:15:49 ◼   ► As the description said, it's non-retina.

00:15:52 ◼   ► You can see the pixels.

00:15:52 ◼   ► It's chunky pixels.

00:15:53 ◼   ► It's the ATP logo in a bunch of chunky pixels.

00:15:56 ◼   ► Extremely difficult to manufacture.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Seemed to come out good last time.

00:16:00 ◼   ► Fingers crossed for this time.

00:16:01 ◼   ► And then, of course, we have our traditional ATP shirt.

00:16:03 ◼   ► Our traditional ATP zip hoodie.

00:16:05 ◼   ► We get the ATP polo because it's short sleeve weather.

00:16:08 ◼   ► And we have the ATP hat.

00:16:09 ◼   ► That is our WWDC 2026 sale.

00:16:12 ◼   ► If anybody orders a Mac Pro Memorial shirt and happens to go to WWDC and gets it in time and can wear it there, make sure you stare Apple executives straight in the eye and look as sad as you possibly can.

00:16:24 ◼   ► And then just point to your shirt.

00:16:25 ◼   ► That's what we want.

00:16:27 ◼   ► We want them to just feel terrible.

00:16:29 ◼   ► Oh, my word.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Now, if you wanted to save a little bit of money on your order, John, how do you go about doing that?

00:16:35 ◼   ► ATP members get 15% off everything in the store.

00:16:38 ◼   ► If you go to your member page, which is linked at the top of the store page, you'll get a code.

00:16:42 ◼   ► Remember that if you are logged in to ATP.fm just by logging in through your account and you are an ATP member, then all the links that you click on should automatically autofill your discount code.

00:16:54 ◼   ► But if it doesn't do that, you can always go to your member page and copy and paste it the old fashioned way.

00:16:58 ◼   ► And based on how much these shirts cost.

00:17:02 ◼   ► And yes, I know they're tremendously expensive, especially if you're in Europe.

00:17:05 ◼   ► We apologize for that.

00:17:07 ◼   ► It behooves you to become a member, at least just for one month, just to get the discount on the shirt or two or whatever you buy, because it's worth it to you.

00:17:16 ◼   ► You'll end up coming out ahead in terms of how much the membership costs.

00:17:19 ◼   ► And again, we apologize for how expensive these things are.

00:17:21 ◼   ► This is not like, you know, I'll buy a shirt to support the show.

00:17:25 ◼   ► You want to support the show by membership.

00:17:26 ◼   ► Membership supports the show.

00:17:28 ◼   ► Shirts are a fun thing we do together.

00:17:29 ◼   ► So we have cool, nerdy podcast shirts.

00:17:31 ◼   ► That's what it's for.

00:17:32 ◼   ► They're not economical.

00:17:33 ◼   ► They're not a big way to support the show, but they are fun.

00:17:37 ◼   ► And we do it for the people.

00:17:38 ◼   ► And we try to come up with good shirt ideas every year.

00:17:40 ◼   ► So yeah, if you want a discount, become a member, atp.fm slash join.

00:17:44 ◼   ► There are links to that on the store page as well.

00:17:47 ◼   ► Excellent.

00:17:47 ◼   ► And I will do my normal pitch.

00:17:49 ◼   ► If you are driving, perhaps signal and then pull over.

00:17:53 ◼   ► If you're walking, pull over to the degree one can pull over while walking.

00:17:56 ◼   ► But do yourself a favor and write yourself a reminder.

00:18:00 ◼   ► Send yourself an email.

00:18:01 ◼   ► Do whatever you need to do.

00:18:02 ◼   ► Use the DUE app.

00:18:03 ◼   ► Use Marco's not yet released reminders app.

00:18:06 ◼   ► Do something to remind yourself to make this order.

00:18:08 ◼   ► Because the sale ends on Sunday, April 26th.

00:18:12 ◼   ► And every single time somebody writes, usually me, saying, oh no, I missed it.

00:18:18 ◼   ► Don't care.

00:18:19 ◼   ► Do it now.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Or leave yourself a reminder.

00:18:22 ◼   ► atp.fm slash store.

00:18:23 ◼   ► I've almost missed it several times to buy a show.

00:18:26 ◼   ► I remember to do the John Ternus thing now because I had to look up my old order to find

00:18:30 ◼   ► his address because apparently whatever I sent it last time worked.

00:18:32 ◼   ► So I did that again.

00:18:33 ◼   ► But yeah, set yourself a reminder because you will forget.

00:18:35 ◼   ► And obviously, we picked the date so we can promote this on three separate shows.

00:18:39 ◼   ► But by the time the third show comes around, maybe you don't download that show immediately

00:18:43 ◼   ► or maybe you don't listen to it immediately.

00:18:44 ◼   ► And by the time you hear the third one, maybe the sale is over.

00:18:46 ◼   ► So yeah, Sunday, April 26th, it ends.

00:18:49 ◼   ► Don't put it off.

00:18:49 ◼   ► If you want something, get it now.

00:18:52 ◼   ► All right, let's do some follow-up.

00:18:53 ◼   ► There was something that was very startling, and perhaps it wasn't new, but they really

00:18:59 ◼   ► kind of chapped my behind about the Studio Display XDR.

00:19:03 ◼   ► And when I was looking at it when it was first announced, I noticed that the Visa mount version

00:19:10 ◼   ► of it was the same price as the version with the stand, which seems a bit egregious to me.

00:19:19 ◼   ► And I popped off about it on Mastodon.

00:19:21 ◼   ► I don't know if I'll remember to dig up my particular toot about it.

00:19:24 ◼   ► But it was big, like, what are you going to do about it, Energies, I think what I said.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And that really made me upset.

00:19:30 ◼   ► But I mean, I haven't ordered an XDR.

00:19:31 ◼   ► I don't think I'm going to.

00:19:34 ◼   ► Again, famous last words.

00:19:36 ◼   ► But there's good news.

00:19:37 ◼   ► We'll see what happens.

00:19:38 ◼   ► There's good news.

00:19:39 ◼   ► The pricing has changed for the Visa mount version.

00:19:43 ◼   ► The version with the stand is still $3,200, but the Visa mount version is $2,800.

00:19:49 ◼   ► So that's now $400 cheaper.

00:19:50 ◼   ► And a friend of the show, Stephen Robles, got wind of this.

00:19:54 ◼   ► In fact, I believe it was him that I heard it from originally and apparently reached out

00:19:58 ◼   ► to Apple via the business chat thing that I always forget exists, you know, in iMessage

00:20:02 ◼   ► or whatever, and said, hey, am I going to get a refund here?

00:20:06 ◼   ► And the Apple person said yes.

00:20:07 ◼   ► And he was kind of like, oh, okay, sure.

00:20:08 ◼   ► And then sure enough, a little while later, he got a refund for $400 plus tax.

00:20:14 ◼   ► So it turns out it's the real deal.

00:20:16 ◼   ► Yeah, that person in the chat said basically everybody who purchased it, quote unquote, recently

00:20:20 ◼   ► will get a refund.

00:20:21 ◼   ► So that's nice.

00:20:22 ◼   ► Obviously, you had to have purchased the Visa mount version to get a refund.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Right, right, right, right.

00:20:26 ◼   ► But this is so weird because Apple doesn't really drop prices as evidenced by the Pro Display

00:20:34 ◼   ► XDR, the earlier XDR, never changing price for the entire life of the product, despite

00:20:40 ◼   ► being, what, five or six years old, you know, or the trash can or anything like that.

00:20:44 ◼   ► But this is so weird because this product just came out.

00:20:46 ◼   ► And it was weird that the Visa mount version was the same price as the one with the stand.

00:20:50 ◼   ► But, you know, not that weird because Casey was like, what are you going to do?

00:20:52 ◼   ► Apple's going to Apple.

00:20:53 ◼   ► But no, maybe they just forgot.

00:20:55 ◼   ► Maybe they somewhat entered it wrong or something like it's so weird.

00:20:58 ◼   ► It's not like there was big public outcry from people buying $3,200 monitors that we demand

00:21:03 ◼   ► the Visa mount version be cheaper.

00:21:04 ◼   ► Like, it just seems like someone made a mistake or something so weird.

00:21:08 ◼   ► Yeah, it was very unusual.

00:21:09 ◼   ► But I'm glad that Apple is doing the right thing and fixing the issue.

00:21:14 ◼   ► Very out of character.

00:21:15 ◼   ► And then the same week that happened, I got an email from Google telling me that they were

00:21:20 ◼   ► doing a price drop on my Google One subscription, saving me $50.

00:21:23 ◼   ► When does that ever happen?

00:21:25 ◼   ► Normally, you get emails from like whatever thing you subscribe to and say, as Marco puts,

00:21:29 ◼   ► it's always like, what, pricing update?

00:21:30 ◼   ► Whatever the subject says.

00:21:32 ◼   ► Update on your subscription.

00:21:33 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:21:34 ◼   ► It's not, it's ambiguous, but you always know this just means you're going to charge more

00:21:38 ◼   ► money.

00:21:38 ◼   ► But no, they sent an email and said, I forget what the subject was.

00:21:41 ◼   ► It was something like an update to your subscription.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Like, oh, here we go.

00:21:43 ◼   ► Ah, it's $50 cheaper per year.

00:21:46 ◼   ► So I don't know what's in the water.

00:21:47 ◼   ► But whatever it is, keep drinking it.

00:21:49 ◼   ► All right.

00:21:54 ◼   ► Ryan Himmelwright has a question for John.

00:21:57 ◼   ► With the long-anticipated death of the Mac Pro finally here, John has made it clear that

00:22:01 ◼   ► he intends to become a Mac Studio user.

00:22:02 ◼   ► However, I'm curious to know what he expects his typical upgrade cycle to be once he makes

00:22:06 ◼   ► the switch.

00:22:06 ◼   ► He has an every-other-year cycle for his iPhone, and I think his iPad criteria tends

00:22:11 ◼   ► to be, will this make my bedtime media consumption better?

00:22:14 ◼   ► While the Mac Studio is far from Apple's most frequently updated Mac, it's still updated more

00:22:18 ◼   ► than Apple's recent proper Tower Macs.

00:22:21 ◼   ► As such, John's previous criteria of whatever decade Apple decides to release a new Tower

00:22:26 ◼   ► Mac will likely need to be revisited.

00:22:27 ◼   ► Thoughts?

00:22:28 ◼   ► Also, before you answer that, it just occurred to me an ancillary question.

00:22:31 ◼   ► Did you ever use, I'm sure we talked about this, and it's slipping my mind.

00:22:34 ◼   ► Did you ever use the Vision Pro in bed, and was that enjoyable, or did you not bother?

00:22:39 ◼   ► You're just going for the double entendres this episode.

00:22:41 ◼   ► Yes, I did.

00:22:42 ◼   ► I talked about it on the show.

00:22:43 ◼   ► Okay, good.

00:22:44 ◼   ► I watch movies in bed with it a couple times.

00:22:46 ◼   ► I prefer the iPad.

00:22:48 ◼   ► That's what it boils down to.

00:22:50 ◼   ► And Ryan basically got it right.

00:22:51 ◼   ► Like, the iPad I am looking like is just going to make my bedtime watching better, because

00:22:54 ◼   ► that's really all I care about.

00:22:55 ◼   ► That's why I got the OLED one.

00:22:56 ◼   ► I love it.

00:22:57 ◼   ► I still love it.

00:22:57 ◼   ► For the Mac Studio, though, my cadence is probably going to be not actually as, you know, more

00:23:08 ◼   ► frequent as you would expect it to be.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Because, yeah, the Mac Studio is updated frequently.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Like, I think they basically do it.

00:23:13 ◼   ► I mean, the M3 Ultra 1, setting aside, I could get, like, a new one every year, every year

00:23:18 ◼   ► and a half if I wanted.

00:23:19 ◼   ► But the problem is, the one I buy is going to be so expensive, especially with all the

00:23:25 ◼   ► RAM and SSD price increases, because of the stupid 8TB SSD.

00:23:28 ◼   ► And once I put all that money in, I'm not going to want to buy another one for a long time.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Like, that just tends to be my inclination anyway.

00:23:34 ◼   ► I've used all my Macs for a really long time, because I tend to buy them stuff to the gills.

00:23:39 ◼   ► And back in the day, I would buy ones that I could upgrade.

00:23:41 ◼   ► So I'd use them for a very long time.

00:23:42 ◼   ► Like, my Macs was like, my line of Macs is not that well populated.

00:23:48 ◼   ► It was the original Macintosh, motherboard updated to a plus, then the SE30.

00:23:55 ◼   ► Then I went from the SE30 to the Power Mac 615, the 6100 series Power Mac.

00:24:04 ◼   ► And then from that to a G3 Tower, and then from the G3 Tower to the original Cheese Grader,

00:24:09 ◼   ► the G5 Cheese Grader.

00:24:10 ◼   ► And then from that to the Intel Mac Pro, and then to the 2019 Mac Pro.

00:24:14 ◼   ► That's all the Macs I've ever owned for the life of the Mac.

00:24:17 ◼   ► So there's huge gaps in there.

00:24:18 ◼   ► Like going, I mean, I basically went from the SE30 to the Blue and White G3, because the 6100

00:24:22 ◼   ► was really my parents' computer.

00:24:24 ◼   ► That's a long time.

00:24:25 ◼   ► But by the time I switched over, like my SE30 was maxed out on RAM, had a bunch of external

00:24:30 ◼   ► hard drives, had a 24-bit color card, and an external Trinitron color monitor.

00:24:34 ◼   ► Like, I used them for a long time as I stuff them to the gills.

00:24:36 ◼   ► So with the Mac Studio, assuming I can even afford a stupid 8-terabyte Mac Studio with a

00:24:41 ◼   ► reasonable amount of RAM, that's going to be it for me for a long time as my bank account

00:24:46 ◼   ► recovers, because that's going to be so, I'm just dreading how expensive it is.

00:24:50 ◼   ► Every day there's a story that's like, oh, SSD prices are growing up.

00:24:52 ◼   ► I was like, I know, I know.

00:24:54 ◼   ► And Apple's prices are always terrible.

00:24:56 ◼   ► So it's not the update frequency of the Mac Studio or the Mac Pro or whatever that's stopping

00:25:03 ◼   ► me.

00:25:04 ◼   ► It's just how much it costs.

00:25:05 ◼   ► And so, you know, it's kind of like, as I always say to people, like, maybe wait another

00:25:11 ◼   ► year and save up a little more money.

00:25:12 ◼   ► That's my mode for everything.

00:25:14 ◼   ► It's like, just keep putting a little money aside every year so that seven years from now

00:25:20 ◼   ► you can get the new Mac that you want to get.

00:25:22 ◼   ► I don't think that will change much.

00:25:23 ◼   ► We'll revisit this when we find out exactly how expensive the Mac Studio I want will be.

00:25:28 ◼   ► Do you want to place a bet as to how much that's going to be?

00:25:31 ◼   ► I don't even want to think about it.

00:25:32 ◼   ► This is how much college will cost for Maggie's situation.

00:25:35 ◼   ► I don't want to.

00:25:37 ◼   ► The only thing I have going for me is like, well, at least I don't need another monitor.

00:25:40 ◼   ► You hear that?

00:25:41 ◼   ► You hear that?

00:25:41 ◼   ► Do not break.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Do not break.

00:25:43 ◼   ► Right.

00:25:44 ◼   ► Because I'm reusing the monitor.

00:25:45 ◼   ► I'm still using, I'm going to use this monitor for a long time, especially since Apple doesn't

00:25:48 ◼   ► make one this big anymore.

00:25:49 ◼   ► I just need the little box.

00:25:51 ◼   ► I don't need a keyboard.

00:25:52 ◼   ► I don't need a mouse.

00:25:52 ◼   ► I don't just, it's going to be rough.

00:25:55 ◼   ► Are the keyboard and mouse USB-A?

00:25:57 ◼   ► For what?

00:25:57 ◼   ► The studio?

00:25:58 ◼   ► No, no.

00:25:59 ◼   ► The one that you're currently, the ones that you're currently using.

00:26:01 ◼   ► No, I'm using the one that came with my Mac Pro.

00:26:03 ◼   ► It connects via lightning.

00:26:04 ◼   ► To what degree do you think you would max it out?

00:26:09 ◼   ► Like, would you get the highest RAM amount offered, which is currently?

00:26:14 ◼   ► Well, let's make predictions.

00:26:16 ◼   ► What will be the highest RAM amount when this thing comes out?

00:26:18 ◼   ► Because that's not a given.

00:26:20 ◼   ► I'm going to feel bad getting a computer with less RAM than my current one.

00:26:24 ◼   ► And my current one has 96.

00:26:25 ◼   ► But, you know, I don't know what configs they're going to make.

00:26:27 ◼   ► Honestly, I don't need 96.

00:26:29 ◼   ► As I said, when I got my 2019 Mac Pro, 96 gigs made me just not have to think about it.

00:26:33 ◼   ► think about RAM.

00:26:34 ◼   ► I haven't thought about RAM since I bought it.

00:26:35 ◼   ► 96 is enough that I never, never, never have to think about RAM.

00:26:39 ◼   ► I don't need a full 96.

00:26:40 ◼   ► I would be sad, though, to get a 64 because, you know, it's a downgrade after six years.

00:26:45 ◼   ► So we'll see.

00:26:45 ◼   ► And then 8 terabyte is my only choice that's bigger than 4, and I need bigger than 4.

00:26:49 ◼   ► So, bleh.

00:26:49 ◼   ► Right.

00:26:50 ◼   ► So if you want above 128, you have to get the Ultra chip in the current configuration.

00:26:57 ◼   ► I don't want above 128.

00:26:59 ◼   ► Like, I don't need any more than 9.

00:27:00 ◼   ► I'd be happy to get 96 again if they offered it.

00:27:02 ◼   ► Well, they do offer 96 with the Ultra.

00:27:04 ◼   ► Or if you get just the max, just the max chip.

00:27:07 ◼   ► You're looking at the M3 models, though.

00:27:09 ◼   ► Who knows what the configs will be like for the M5 ones.

00:27:11 ◼   ► Right.

00:27:12 ◼   ► You can do a 128 with the regular max chip in the current configuration.

00:27:16 ◼   ► And that would get you with 8 terabytes, 128, max chip with all the cores.

00:27:22 ◼   ► That gets you about six grand.

00:27:23 ◼   ► It's a bargain.

00:27:24 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm going to say you're probably going to end up between six and seven grand for what you want.

00:27:30 ◼   ► Yeah, that's probably about right.

00:27:32 ◼   ► Although, again, I'm going to go for all the discounts I could possibly get through Apple Connections.

00:27:36 ◼   ► So hopefully I'll save a lot of money.

00:27:37 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, I think that if this RAM and SSD stuff continues to go on, there is a distinct possibility you will spend more on the studio than you did on your $95,000 Mac Pro.

00:27:49 ◼   ► When you combine the monitor, that's not going to happen.

00:27:51 ◼   ► Well, that's true.

00:27:52 ◼   ► I forgot.

00:27:52 ◼   ► That's true.

00:27:53 ◼   ► That's true.

00:27:53 ◼   ► All right.

00:27:55 ◼   ► Let's talk about the Mac Pro and the Mac Studio in a different way.

00:27:58 ◼   ► We were talking last week about how much thermal and power headroom there is in the Mac Studio.

00:28:06 ◼   ► And, John, it looks like you've done a little bit of science about this.

00:28:09 ◼   ► Yeah, this came up because we were having conversations with our friends and fellow podcast hosts about the discussion of the Mac Pro.

00:28:16 ◼   ► And the title of the episode, which I believe was something that Casey said, was the ability to get hotter, which is a thing that I think Apple could use in its desktop line because the Mac Studio is still pretty small.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Like, it's a plus-size Mac Mini, but in the grand scheme of things, it's not very big.

00:28:35 ◼   ► It doesn't have a lot of air moving through it.

00:28:36 ◼   ► It's mostly entirely filled with heat sink.

00:28:38 ◼   ► But as I think someone pointed out, like, the Ultra model of that, if you get the studio with the Ultra, it comes with a different and better heat sink than the Mac's version.

00:28:47 ◼   ► Like, I believe the Ultra comes with, like, a full copper heat sink inside it, which is another reason it costs more money.

00:28:52 ◼   ► And that's because, like, within those space constraints, yeah, it can handle an Ultra, but you have to upgrade from what I assume is, like, an aluminum heat sink to a copper one.

00:29:02 ◼   ► Because you're really at the limit of what that case can dissipate.

00:29:05 ◼   ► And I was going to look up at the numbers and, like, oh, this is going to be a pain.

00:29:08 ◼   ► I've got to find someone's review where they've hooked it up to, like, a power meter.

00:29:11 ◼   ► But no, Apple has official support articles where they will tell you, according to their specs, what the Mac's power dissipation of their computers are.

00:29:19 ◼   ► And it's pretty comprehensive.

00:29:20 ◼   ► So, on this page, we'll link in the show notes, the Mac Studio from 2025 with an M3 Ultra, 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU, 512 gigs RAM, 16-terabyte SSD.

00:29:30 ◼   ► Like, this, they give you the exact specs.

00:29:32 ◼   ► So, this is, like, the current Mac Studio with everything maxed out.

00:29:37 ◼   ► I mean, 16-terabyte SSD.

00:29:39 ◼   ► How much does that cost?

00:29:39 ◼   ► Anyway, that has the max power dissipation or max power draw or whatever they're calling it here of 270 watts.

00:29:47 ◼   ► To compare to my computer, the 2019 Mac Pro, if you got it maxed out, which I did not, with a 2.5 gigahertz, 28-core Intel Xeon W, two Radeon Pro Vega 2 Duo MPX modules.

00:29:59 ◼   ► So, that's four GPUs inside there, 1.5 terabytes of RAM, of course, and also the afterburner card and a 4-terabyte SSD.

00:30:06 ◼   ► That thing does 902 watts.

00:30:08 ◼   ► So, 270 versus 902.

00:30:12 ◼   ► That's how much more headroom Apple has.

00:30:15 ◼   ► If Apple had some kind of case that could dissipate more than 270 watts, and I feel like that's probably about the limit of the studio case,

00:30:23 ◼   ► considering they went to a full copper heatsink in there and it has fans already, there is a lot of room.

00:30:29 ◼   ► That's almost three times the heat they could be dissipating.

00:30:31 ◼   ► So, hey, Apple, if you want to use your new chip technology to make a chip with more transistors that dissipates more than 270 watts

00:30:39 ◼   ► for the CPU and GPU combined and everything else inside the Mac Studio, you're going to need a bigger case with better cooling.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And I think that's something they should pursue.

00:30:47 ◼   ► But Apple seems to disagree.

00:30:48 ◼   ► But anyway, how much hotter?

00:30:50 ◼   ► The ability to get hotter?

00:30:51 ◼   ► Three times hotter is how much hotter they could get.

00:30:53 ◼   ► And for the record, I looked up, there's also on these spec sheets, how many BTUs per hour?

00:30:59 ◼   ► 1,007 for the studio, 3,076 for the Mac Pro.

00:31:03 ◼   ► Yeah, three times the power.

00:31:05 ◼   ► They had a case that could dissipate three times the power, but they did not want it anymore.

00:31:09 ◼   ► And yeah, the slots are a whole other issue.

00:31:11 ◼   ► But yeah, just maybe just like, you know, make the studio a little bit bigger, give it better airflow,

00:31:15 ◼   ► and maybe crank it up to, let's say, 400 watts.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Can you imagine?

00:31:20 ◼   ► I mean, gaming PCs, like 400 watts is like a mid-range GPU on its own, not even including the whole rest of the computer.

00:31:26 ◼   ► So, yeah.

00:31:27 ◼   ► All right.

00:31:29 ◼   ► Ben Frearson writes, in episode 684, John mentioned that websites will let you pick if you have multiple passkeys.

00:31:36 ◼   ► I found this true everywhere except Apple's own websites, which unsurprisingly don't seem to recognize the concept of having multiple Apple IDs.

00:31:41 ◼   ► I can speak.

00:31:43 ◼   ► It's called Apple accounts now, Ben.

00:31:45 ◼   ► Oh, that's true.

00:31:46 ◼   ► I know this.

00:31:47 ◼   ► See, that's why I stumbled.

00:31:48 ◼   ► I know this because every time I visit developer.apple.com and try to sign in with my works developer account using the normal 2FA process,

00:31:54 ◼   ► excuse me, I get interrupted by a prompt to use my primary Apple IDs passkey.

00:31:58 ◼   ► This is true, but it's pretty easy to say, I would like to use a different Apple account, please.

00:32:03 ◼   ► I don't think I am as upset by this as Ben is.

00:32:06 ◼   ► Well, as far as I know, this gets me every time, because as far as I know, I don't think it's possible to use passkeys for more than one Apple account on a computer.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Oh.

00:32:20 ◼   ► That's what it is.

00:32:21 ◼   ► This was discussed when passkeys first rolled out, and I experience this every single freaking day when I have to re-log into App Store Connect for the 8,000th time that I always have to do it with password, and it always makes me do the two-factor thing that Apple thinks.

00:32:37 ◼   ► So here's the deal.

00:32:38 ◼   ► What I was told back when this first rolled out is that Apple is aware this is an issue, but this is not an issue that the passkey team can solve.

00:32:45 ◼   ► It is basically whoever controls, like, the developer websites, because Apple's Apple ID login, as should be obvious to anyone who has ever used it, first of all, it predates passkeys.

00:32:58 ◼   ► And second of all, it doesn't work like normal web things do.

00:33:04 ◼   ► Like, you can have a two-factor code.

00:33:06 ◼   ► You could have had it in Google Authenticator or any of those other apps, and now Apple has first-party two-factor codes, or you enter the six digits.

00:33:12 ◼   ► You know the whole deal with that.

00:33:13 ◼   ► That's not how Apple IDs work.

00:33:15 ◼   ► What happens with Apple IDs is you get a whole separate, different, special, custom thing that brings up the map and shows you another thing with six digits on it.

00:33:23 ◼   ► That's different.

00:33:25 ◼   ► It has been its own thing, its own login process for, you know, presumably for added security, for ages.

00:33:31 ◼   ► And it seems like now that we have a solution that could, like, you know, modernize, like, you know, stop using that old thing that you were using and start using this new thing, they haven't gotten around to it.

00:33:42 ◼   ► And so when you log into your Apple ID on Apple's developer websites, you have to use the Apple ID that you are logged into the Mac as if you want to use passkeys.

00:33:52 ◼   ► There is no way, and this has been true from the day Apple rolled out passkeys, there is no way to log into, let's say, App Store Connect with a different Apple ID than when you're logged into.

00:34:01 ◼   ► You can try the passkey login, and it will prompt you, but it will always try to make you use the passkey for the Apple ID that you're logged into.

00:34:09 ◼   ► And that's because Apple does its weird own thing with Apple IDs.

00:34:12 ◼   ► And every year, I hope, this will be the year they'll fix their stuff.

00:34:16 ◼   ► And it's been, I don't know, two, three years now, and they still haven't.

00:34:19 ◼   ► So, yeah, Ben, you're right.

00:34:21 ◼   ► That's Apple's fault.

00:34:22 ◼   ► It is not the passkey team's fault.

00:34:24 ◼   ► It is the team who controls Apple ID login and or the developer websites that is making all our lives miserable.

00:34:31 ◼   ► And it's also them that's making me get logged out of App Store Connect every 10 minutes.

00:34:34 ◼   ► All right.

00:34:35 ◼   ► So, with regard to Russian sanctions and things of that nature, this is a post from Hartley Charlton at MacRumors.

00:34:42 ◼   ► The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation said that Apple Distribution International Limited, or ADI, which is the Republic of Ireland-based entity Apple uses to pay App Store developers,

00:34:53 ◼   ► made two payments totaling £635,000 to a Russian video streaming platform in June and July of 2022,

00:34:59 ◼   ► at a time when they were subject to UK sanctions following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

00:35:04 ◼   ► ADI voluntarily disclosed the payments to OFSI, and the agency confirmed that no breach had been attributed to Apple Inc. itself, only the subsidiary.

00:35:12 ◼   ► OFSI said Apple had relied on corporate affiliates to handle payment processing, sanction screening, and due diligence,

00:35:18 ◼   ► but that companies are ultimately responsible for ensuring their own compliance with financial sanctions rules.

00:35:22 ◼   ► This came out because we talked about ubiquity and things getting to Russians, and we said, like, it doesn't really matter whether, you know, it wasn't us.

00:35:28 ◼   ► It was, like, our subsidiary or a third party or whatever.

00:35:31 ◼   ► Ultimately, you are responsible.

00:35:32 ◼   ► And as soon as that episode, the story came out about Apple getting fined for exactly the same thing.

00:35:37 ◼   ► And, yes, they voluntarily disclosed it because if they didn't voluntarily disclose it, they would be fined even more.

00:35:41 ◼   ► But that's the law.

00:35:43 ◼   ► The law is, you know, as Marco would say, it may not be your fault, but it is, in fact, your problem.

00:35:47 ◼   ► Pay $500,000.

00:35:49 ◼   ► Indeed.

00:35:51 ◼   ► All right.

00:35:52 ◼   ► I wanted to quickly point out, listener, Naaman Goel, I'm so sorry if I pronounced that wrong, has created retinadisplays.com,

00:35:58 ◼   ► which is a very useful resource to figure out what your options are if you want a retina-style display.

00:36:05 ◼   ► And there are a lot of displays on here.

00:36:07 ◼   ► I haven't, like, personally vetted any of these or anything like that.

00:36:11 ◼   ► But in principle, the couple that I looked at sounded right and seemed reasonable to me.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So this, as Merlin would say, gets my official okie-dokie.

00:36:20 ◼   ► So good stuff.

00:36:21 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:36:22 ◼   ► We still haven't – all the monitors that were announced at CES still aren't out yet because it basically takes the entire year for that to happen or for you to give up on the ones that really aren't going to ship.

00:36:30 ◼   ► But this website, in the meantime, is great.

00:36:31 ◼   ► You can filter based on size, technology if you care about that, whether or not it is shipping, whether or not it is discontinued.

00:36:38 ◼   ► It keeps getting better all the time.

00:36:40 ◼   ► So kudos to Naaman about this website.

00:36:43 ◼   ► It's very handy.

00:36:43 ◼   ► Yep.

00:36:45 ◼   ► All right.

00:36:45 ◼   ► Let's talk about color spaces and CIE 1931 and Apple's 2026 CMFs.

00:36:50 ◼   ► We talked about this, I don't know, like a month, month and a half ago.

00:36:52 ◼   ► And I think I had theorized that 1931 was the time in which the CIE spec was created.

00:36:59 ◼   ► And I think there was some dubiousness amongst us about that, including from me.

00:37:02 ◼   ► But many people wrote in to say, yo, that's right.

00:37:05 ◼   ► It was in 1931 that the CIE 1931 color space was created.

00:37:09 ◼   ► And then Eric Portis had a lot of really, really great feedback.

00:37:14 ◼   ► Eric writes, the CIE 1931 color matching functions are not just a monitor calibration standard.

00:37:18 ◼   ► They are the foundation of the modern science of human color perception.

00:37:22 ◼   ► There are three functions.

00:37:23 ◼   ► And I wrote about the three-dimensional color space they create.

00:37:26 ◼   ► As an aside, hi, this is Casey.

00:37:28 ◼   ► I have never freaking understood color spaces.

00:37:31 ◼   ► Maybe that makes me a terrible developer or an idiot or maybe both.

00:37:34 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:37:34 ◼   ► But I've never understood it.

00:37:36 ◼   ► And Eric's post about it is very, very good.

00:37:39 ◼   ► And we're going to talk about another post here in a second.

00:37:42 ◼   ► But I really liked Eric's post.

00:37:44 ◼   ► And if you have any interest in this or want to learn more, I really suggest it.

00:37:48 ◼   ► So that's Eric's post, which we'll link in the show notes.

00:37:51 ◼   ► And then Bartosz Szywanowski.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I hope I got that somewhat close to right.

00:37:56 ◼   ► Probably Bartosz.

00:37:57 ◼   ► Bartosz.

00:37:57 ◼   ► I think you're right.

00:37:58 ◼   ► Bartosz Czykianowski, probably.

00:38:00 ◼   ► All right.

00:38:00 ◼   ► We'll go with that.

00:38:01 ◼   ► Thank you, Marco, for saving me on that one.

00:38:02 ◼   ► Anyway, this person has done some phenomenal websites about or pages about different things.

00:38:11 ◼   ► Like the mechanical watch one, I still think that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen on the web.

00:38:15 ◼   ► Like these are just incredible.

00:38:17 ◼   ► And I didn't realize this was before I started following him that he did one on color spaces.

00:38:21 ◼   ► And I didn't have the chance to read the whole thing before recording.

00:38:23 ◼   ► It's quite a bit longer than Eric's.

00:38:25 ◼   ► So you need to like properly have a sit down and read it.

00:38:29 ◼   ► But it's also very, very good.

00:38:30 ◼   ► And Eric had pointed to that and said that he also wrote a great article with many cool interactive examples about the CIE 1931 XYZ color space and how it relates to familiar concepts like sRGB and the spectral locus, a.k.a. the XY chromaticity diagram that you've probably seen a thousand times.

00:38:49 ◼   ► Eric then continues, the whole deal with Apple's 2026 CMFs, as far as I can tell, is over time, the R, G, and B light sources that drive color displays have gotten narrower in the range of wavelengths they produce.

00:39:01 ◼   ► The red, green, and blue light sources used 100 years ago in the experiments that supplied the data for CIE 1931 CMFs emitted broader distributions of wavelengths in modern OLEDs and LCDs.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Narrower sources stress, in quotes, color matching functions, more revealing problems.

00:39:16 ◼   ► And by the way, this is a thing that television reviews have really gotten into in the past few years as well, because they would measure the spectral color output of the R, the G, and the B and whatever is, you know, producing the RGB light.

00:39:27 ◼   ► And if you look at what the diagrams look like, what you want to see is big spikes at R, G, and B.

00:39:34 ◼   ► But if you look at TV from not too many years ago, even just like a W OLED from LG for like five or six years ago, it didn't look like spikes at all.

00:39:43 ◼   ► You get like one pointy spike for the R maybe, and then like the G and the B would just be this big plateau, like a mound, like you could barely see any humps in it.

00:39:50 ◼   ► You're like, really?

00:39:51 ◼   ► That's the light that's putting out?

00:39:52 ◼   ► Because what you want is pure red at a specific wavelength that you decided is the reddest red, pure green and pure blue.

00:40:00 ◼   ► And then you can combine those in a predictable way.

00:40:02 ◼   ► You don't want your green to have a bunch of red and blue and mixed in with it and everything.

00:40:05 ◼   ► You want those spikes.

00:40:06 ◼   ► That's been one of the advancements of quantum dot OLED TVs.

00:40:11 ◼   ► They would show, look how much pointier the spikes are when we went from regular OLED to QD OLED.

00:40:16 ◼   ► It's like, wow, that's so much better.

00:40:17 ◼   ► But apparently as these spikes have been getting narrower and narrower, it has been messing with the functions in the CIE standard because they were built at a time when the R, the G, and the B were much more smeared and spread out.

00:40:32 ◼   ► And I'm not sure what he means by stressing them, but maybe it just reveals more problems with the functions and equations that do the math on color stuff.

00:40:40 ◼   ► By the way, just before we leave the Bartosz-Czykhanowski area here, I know we kind of already did, but I was too slow.

00:40:46 ◼   ► I cannot recommend enough.

00:40:49 ◼   ► You know, Casey promoted his stuff.

00:40:50 ◼   ► I cannot recommend enough that you go and read any of his blog posts.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Yep.

00:40:55 ◼   ► Because the amount of work that he puts into these, every blog post is like some kind of explainer about usually some kind of science-y thing.

00:41:04 ◼   ► And not only is his knowledge incredibly deep, but you end up learning so much.

00:41:09 ◼   ► And they're all filled with these interactive demos and diagrams and like models.

00:41:15 ◼   ► And it is incredible.

00:41:17 ◼   ► It's more like an application than a post.

00:41:20 ◼   ► If you're thinking, oh, it's a bunch of text and pictures, that's not it.

00:41:22 ◼   ► These are basically applications.

00:41:24 ◼   ► Yeah, and you end up learning so much.

00:41:27 ◼   ► Like one of my favorite ones was the bicycle one.

00:41:29 ◼   ► It's all about like basically like the physics of how bikes hold up and work.

00:41:33 ◼   ► And I love Bartosz's stuff.

00:41:35 ◼   ► I strongly recommend like it's the kind of thing.

00:41:37 ◼   ► This is the kind of thing that used to exist on the Internet.

00:41:40 ◼   ► Just something that somebody put a lot of work into and is just putting out there for free.

00:41:45 ◼   ► And it's delightful and mind-blowing and amazing.

00:41:48 ◼   ► And there's not that much of that on the Internet today.

00:41:51 ◼   ► At least if there is, it's very hard to find.

00:41:54 ◼   ► Bartosz's posts are that.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Like it's exactly what nerds like us love about the Internet.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Like we can't believe that he put all this effort into it.

00:42:02 ◼   ► And it's amazing.

00:42:03 ◼   ► And it just makes you smile from end to end as you as you play with it.

00:42:07 ◼   ► So definitely check them out.

00:42:09 ◼   ► And if you want to compare it, like speaking of the mechanical watch one, just try, you know, a straight Google search or like look on YouTube.

00:42:16 ◼   ► You'll find a thousand YouTube videos explaining how a mechanical watch works.

00:42:21 ◼   ► 90% of them will be AI generated garbage.

00:42:23 ◼   ► But I guarantee you none of those videos is as good as his blog post.

00:42:28 ◼   ► It's so good.

00:42:29 ◼   ► Like sometimes a video is not the right format for a thing.

00:42:32 ◼   ► You could make a really good video about how mechanical watches works.

00:42:35 ◼   ► But man, it would be hard to beat his.

00:42:38 ◼   ► Again, I don't want to call them blog posts because like you get to do stuff in them.

00:42:42 ◼   ► You get to like you read and then it's like and this is how it works.

00:42:45 ◼   ► And you get to like interact with the page until you understand it, until you get it, until you see how it works.

00:42:49 ◼   ► A bunch of people have done it.

00:42:50 ◼   ► He's not the only one.

00:42:51 ◼   ► I think I saw one recently about what the heck was it?

00:42:54 ◼   ► It was something having to do with like pixel art or like anti-aliasing patterns or something.

00:42:58 ◼   ► Oh, yes, I saw that too.

00:42:59 ◼   ► But now I don't think I can put my finger on it.

00:43:01 ◼   ► But yes, yes, yes, yes.

00:43:02 ◼   ► But like this, but this particular format of like text images, but also interactive like application-y things that you can use.

00:43:10 ◼   ► It aids understanding in a way that even a video can't match.

00:43:13 ◼   ► I mean, for God's sakes, the top of the mechanical watch post, there is an explosion, extrusion.

00:43:19 ◼   ► What is the word I'm looking for?

00:43:20 ◼   ► One of those things where you can see all the layers.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Exploded diagram.

00:43:22 ◼   ► Okay, exploded diagram of a mechanical watch.

00:43:25 ◼   ► That's interactive.

00:43:26 ◼   ► This watch has got to be rendered in JavaScript or whatever.

00:43:29 ◼   ► And you can explode out the watch.

00:43:32 ◼   ► It just blows my mind.

00:43:33 ◼   ► I cannot believe this is done with web tech.

00:43:35 ◼   ► It's so freaking cool.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Yeah, whenever there's a new Bartosz post in my RSS reader, I'll save it for like weeks until I have time to like really sit and like experience it.

00:43:43 ◼   ► It's like saving up when like there's like a, you know, like a new movie that you want to watch or like saving up for like the finale of your TV shows.

00:43:51 ◼   ► You can really watch it.

00:43:52 ◼   ► Like that's how I treat his blog posts because they're just so good and so delightful.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:43:58 ◼   ► And he doesn't post often, but they're all incredible.

00:44:00 ◼   ► But he has a Patreon, which if you're not going to go to ATP.fm slash join, that's the next best place to go.

00:44:06 ◼   ► So you should check that out.

00:44:07 ◼   ► I've been a patron for a while now.

00:44:08 ◼   ► So you should definitely check it out.

00:44:09 ◼   ► Going back to Eric Portis.

00:44:12 ◼   ► Sorry, we got sidetracked there.

00:44:13 ◼   ► Sorry, Eric.

00:44:13 ◼   ► It's really hard to follow that.

00:44:15 ◼   ► It really is.

00:44:17 ◼   ► Problems with the 1931 functions have been known for a while.

00:44:20 ◼   ► And the CIE itself updated its color matching functions in 2015.

00:44:23 ◼   ► And Eric has provided a link, which we'll put in the show notes.

00:44:26 ◼   ► It's impossible to convert from three-dimensional values, RGB or XYZ or XYY or whatever, derived from one set of CMFs to three-dimensional values derived from another set of CMFs.

00:44:37 ◼   ► Because reducing actual spectral area, a continuous distribution of light across a range of wavelengths, to three values that represent the quote-unquote same color is a lossy operation.

00:44:46 ◼   ► Approximately all digital imaging, cameras, displays, content is based on the CIE 1931 CMFs, and approximately nobody uses CIE 2015 CMFs because there's just no way to convert the 1931-based values to the 2015-based values.

00:44:59 ◼   ► Apple had the bright idea to scope their 2026 CMF to be, quote, white point only, quote.

00:45:04 ◼   ► And there's another link that we'll put in the show notes.

00:45:06 ◼   ► This means that the Apple 2026 CMF calibrated displays can render content encoded with the 1931 functions and shift every pixel's color value by the measured error between 1931 white and the Apple 2026 white, as measured using the actual spectral distributions output by the display.

00:45:24 ◼   ► I'm so curious, writes Eric, how Apple's 2026 CMFs differ from the 2015 CIE CMFs and what experiments or data they use to create them.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Yeah, I think this is such a great explanation, and it ties into the fact that CIE 1931 is literally from 1931.

00:45:41 ◼   ► If there are problems with the standard and it's not keeping up with modern technology as our screens get better and everything, why don't we change it?

00:45:48 ◼   ► Well, I think that Eric has explained here, like, there's no way to convert from one to the other.

00:45:53 ◼   ► So it's kind of like, look, everyone has to kind of agree to move to some new color measurement standard.

00:45:58 ◼   ► And even though they made a 2015 one, people couldn't even move to that.

00:46:01 ◼   ► So Apple's kind of like, look, we can't just make a new standard and everyone's going to use it.

00:46:05 ◼   ► We need to make something that we can convert from the CIE 1931 into this.

00:46:09 ◼   ► So they're saying, we'll just pin the white point and move everything else.

00:46:11 ◼   ► Like, we're in a bind here because we're using technology and math made in 1931 that is outdated and inadequate for the current problem space of modern monitors.

00:46:24 ◼   ► And yet we can't get everybody to just lift up and say, all right, everybody, we're going to start driving on the other side of the road now or like whatever analogy you want to make.

00:46:30 ◼   ► And so that's why we're using a standard from 1931, because apparently getting off of it will require a degree of cooperation across many industries that is seemingly not possible.

00:46:40 ◼   ► So, yeah, 1931, that's the year.

00:46:43 ◼   ► All right.

00:46:44 ◼   ► We had a bunch of follow up with regard to Long Island and the mainland.

00:46:48 ◼   ► Craig Bowers writes, while for all visible purposes, it would appear Long Island is an island, the U.S. Supreme Court has legally classified it as a peninsula and thus an extension of the mainland.

00:46:59 ◼   ► Because, of course, the United States Supreme Court did.

00:47:02 ◼   ► Yeah, it's something I learned about in my Long Island studies class.

00:47:04 ◼   ► Oh, my God.

00:47:05 ◼   ► I love this so much because, yeah, apparently the East River kind of kind of sucks.

00:47:10 ◼   ► When it was when it was filled with poop, it was more like a land bridge.

00:47:14 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:47:14 ◼   ► So the East River apparently does not really qualify geologically as a river.

00:47:20 ◼   ► It's more I believe it was a tidal inlet or something.

00:47:22 ◼   ► So, therefore, Long Island is not an island, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, based on some debate about, you know, how the states control different parts of it.

00:47:33 ◼   ► So, therefore, John, I believe I am correct.

00:47:37 ◼   ► Well, it's kind of like when the government declares pizza to be a vegetable for the purposes of school lunches.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Like, the government says lots of things.

00:47:44 ◼   ► Fair.

00:47:45 ◼   ► Or, like, I think they did, like, tomato as a vegetable, not a fruit kind of stuff.

00:47:48 ◼   ► It's like, okay, but, like, yeah, there is, in fact, water surrounding it, but not the right kind of water.

00:47:54 ◼   ► I do wonder, like, you know, we always just look at our current Supreme Court cases and we can transparently see whatever is motivating the decisions.

00:48:01 ◼   ► But, like, whatever was in U.S. versus Maine, like, whoever was lobbying who to say, no, it's not an island.

00:48:07 ◼   ► It's a peninsula for the purposes of this thing.

00:48:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:48:11 ◼   ► Peninsula.

00:48:11 ◼   ► Sure.

00:48:12 ◼   ► Well, I think it's pretty clear.

00:48:14 ◼   ► I think there's a pretty good history of New York kind of getting what it wants from the Supreme Court.

00:48:20 ◼   ► You know, especially versus Maine.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Right.

00:48:22 ◼   ► Or, you know, look at, like, the Statue of Liberty debates with New Jersey.

00:48:26 ◼   ► Like, you know, there's been a lot over time of, like, New York kind of just taking what it wants and...

00:48:32 ◼   ► Problem solved.

00:48:33 ◼   ► We will legally declare this not...

00:48:35 ◼   ► We will legally declare this not to be reality.

00:48:37 ◼   ► Done and done.

00:48:38 ◼   ► Fair enough.

00:48:39 ◼   ► I think it's the same thing with the pizza as a vegetable.

00:48:41 ◼   ► That solves a lot of school lunch problems.

00:48:43 ◼   ► Gracious.

00:48:44 ◼   ► And then Joel writes, on the discussion in episode 685 about Long Island's location, John and Marco were both right and wrong.

00:48:51 ◼   ► Section 11.2 of the New York State Coastal Management Program describes Long Island as distinct from the mainland and from Manhattan, which is geographically an island, but geologically part of the continental U.S.

00:49:04 ◼   ► Quote, Long Island is a detached segment of the Atlantic coastal plain separated from the mainland on the north by Long Island Sound and from Manhattan on the west by the narrow East River and the New York Harbor.

00:49:14 ◼   ► The Atlantic Ocean completes the island's saltwater encirclement.

00:49:17 ◼   ► Quote, then back to Joel.

00:49:19 ◼   ► Interestingly, section 2-5 of the CMP also references the mainland of Long Island in a few places, too, which are here.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Quote, the most extensive beaches in the state's coastal area are found on the barrier islands and mainland of Long Island, particularly along its south shore.

00:49:34 ◼   ► And then the second instance, barrier islands earn their name in this way by protecting the waters of the inland bays and the shoreline of the mainland.

00:49:41 ◼   ► Hmm, so it seems like mainland is used in lots of official government documents to refer to Long Island.

00:49:47 ◼   ► Well, again, the government says lots of things, but I will point out that, Casey, did you copy and paste these things from the email, like their direct quotes, the little passages here?

00:49:54 ◼   ► I sure thought I did, yeah.

00:49:55 ◼   ► Yeah, so the part with the saying, you know, that Long Island is a detached segment, blah, blah, blah, separated from the mainland of North of Long Island, right?

00:50:03 ◼   ► If you notice in that passage, it says, separated from the mainland on the north by Long Island Sound, blah, blah, blah.

00:50:08 ◼   ► But then in the other two passages where it says, found on the barrier islands and the mainland of Long Island, mainland has scare quotes around it in both instances.

00:50:19 ◼   ► Separated from the mainland of Long Island, kind of like when you see, like, fresh vegetables and the freshest in quotes, you're like, hmm.

00:50:27 ◼   ► So one instance of this requires no scare quotes because it is accurate and direct.

00:50:32 ◼   ► And the other one is like, well, you know, kind of like the mainland of Long Island, quote unquote.

00:50:36 ◼   ► Anyway, the government doesn't know anything about this.

00:50:39 ◼   ► Well, it does seem – so this usage reinforces the overwhelming opinion that we got from feedback and that most, you know, like dictionaries and things seem to define, which is that mainland is a relative term.

00:50:53 ◼   ► That's not what the dictionaries say.

00:50:55 ◼   ► That's what people want the dictionaries to say, but that's not what they actually say.

00:50:57 ◼   ► It depends on which dictionary.

00:50:58 ◼   ► It seems as though mainland refers to basically the larger body of land compared to where you are on a small body of land.

00:51:09 ◼   ► You're making up your own definition now, but none of the definitions said that.

00:51:11 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:51:13 ◼   ► I can't say that that is an actual definition, but I think it is a pretty universally agreed –

00:51:17 ◼   ► People want it to be.

00:51:18 ◼   ► Marco was right that people want it to be completely relative, but then they get angry when I say,

00:51:23 ◼   ► they describe Fire Island as the mainland from a smaller piece of land.

00:51:26 ◼   ► They're like, no, not that.

00:51:27 ◼   ► Not the thing that I don't want to be mainland.

00:51:30 ◼   ► Only the things that I do want to be.

00:51:31 ◼   ► And then there was like an island that's actually called mainland with a capital M as a proper noun.

00:51:35 ◼   ► Yes, there's a few things like that.

00:51:37 ◼   ► And we did hear from a few people in Hawaii and New Zealand about how the term is used there.

00:51:42 ◼   ► But – and yeah, spoiler alert.

00:51:45 ◼   ► Hawaii uses mainland to refer to the continental U.S.

00:51:47 ◼   ► New Zealand is delightful, and I forget what they said.

00:51:50 ◼   ► New Zealand has a thing.

00:51:52 ◼   ► New Zealand actually gets in under the definition, which a lot of people didn't know until I sent the definition back to them.

00:51:56 ◼   ► Because New Zealand has, you know, as people said, 700 islands.

00:51:59 ◼   ► But anyway, it's two big ones.

00:52:00 ◼   ► Two big things that make up New Zealand.

00:52:02 ◼   ► One is bigger than the other.

00:52:04 ◼   ► And that one is referred to as the mainland because according to – I don't have the text in front of me.

00:52:09 ◼   ► But most of the definitions say like the larger part of a continent or country.

00:52:15 ◼   ► New Zealand gets in on a technicality because the larger part of New Zealand is the South Island.

00:52:20 ◼   ► And therefore, it is the mainland.

00:52:22 ◼   ► But unfortunately, that is not the case for Long Island because it is not the larger part of the United States of America.

00:52:29 ◼   ► Well, in conclusion, John, you are still wrong.

00:52:31 ◼   ► However, I will offer one more additional side note to the listeners.

00:52:36 ◼   ► If you are trying to make an argument to us, sending us the output of an LLM does not make the argument.

00:52:45 ◼   ► I wanted to say this as well, but I didn't want to be a turd about it.

00:52:49 ◼   ► But yes, we have gotten so much people sending us just a transcript or perhaps a link to like a long-running conversation with a chatbot.

00:52:59 ◼   ► Let me tell you, I do not want to do – there's very little that I want to do less than reading someone else's conversation with a f***ing chatbot.

00:53:07 ◼   ► No, thank you.

00:53:08 ◼   ► I mean, it's kind of like reading their diary.

00:53:09 ◼   ► It's like – I mean, like I appreciate the sentiment, but like it just feels weird reading – it's like reading someone else's Google searches.

00:53:17 ◼   ► Like it just – it seems too personal.

00:53:19 ◼   ► Yeah, I think it's – for me, it's like it's somewhere between Google searches and somebody telling us about their dream.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Like the thing is, you'll never find somebody on this podcast who likes chatbot LLM results more than me.

00:53:32 ◼   ► I use them all the time.

00:53:33 ◼   ► But that's not a source.

00:53:36 ◼   ► It isn't an argument winner.

00:53:37 ◼   ► It's a summary and sometimes fever dream of facts that may or may not be real and may or may not be helpful.

00:53:45 ◼   ► That's something that you keep to yourself and you use for your own personal uses, but the output of an LLM is not information to win an argument.

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00:55:59 ◼   ► I'd like to do a little bit of, I guess, actually follow out, sorry, upgrade.

00:56:03 ◼   ► There was a podcast episode that came out, I want to say sometime last week, and it is entitled, I believe it's knob feel, the greatest podcast ad campaign of all time.

00:56:13 ◼   ► So this is Rob McGinley Myers and Britta Green, and they did this podcast episode from their podcast phonograph, where they basically talk about the genesis of and kind of the contents of the ATP Cards Against Humanity toaster ads.

00:56:29 ◼   ► And John, talk to these folks, I talk to these folks, our good friend Lex Friedman, the good one, not the bad one, talk to these folks.

00:56:36 ◼   ► And this podcast episode is really, really good, and I highly suggest you listen to it.

00:56:41 ◼   ► I suspect, John, you have some more thoughts, though.

00:56:43 ◼   ► Yeah, when I tweeted about it, I said, like, I don't know if this episode is better if you already know the story of this stuff or if you don't know.

00:56:50 ◼   ► But it is very much like, I don't know how to describe it, like, not This American Life, but that type of, like, or 99% Invisible, or, you know, like a well-produced, scripted, interestingly put-together exploration of a particular weird topic.

00:57:07 ◼   ► Only it's about us.

00:57:08 ◼   ► It's just so weird to hear a podcast like that about something that you did.

00:57:12 ◼   ► Marco's in it as well.

00:57:13 ◼   ► You'll hear his voice.

00:57:14 ◼   ► So, like, all three of us are in this podcast.

00:57:16 ◼   ► So, yeah, I feel like if you know everything that they're going to say, it's still just fun to hear.

00:57:22 ◼   ► Because, like, isn't it weird that they're talking about this, you know, our weird little podcast on this other really, like, fancy, well-produced podcast?

00:57:28 ◼   ► But if you don't know it, it's fun to see where the story is going.

00:57:32 ◼   ► I almost wish that Casey hadn't spoiled what the ad campaign is about.

00:57:35 ◼   ► Oh, sorry.

00:57:37 ◼   ► And check it out.

00:57:37 ◼   ► Like, it's fine.

00:57:38 ◼   ► But, you know, it's not a super secret for anyone who's listening to this.

00:57:40 ◼   ► Well, our listeners would know from the title.

00:57:42 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah.

00:57:43 ◼   ► But, like, it's a little overblown, like the greatest podcast ad campaign of all time.

00:57:47 ◼   ► But it was certainly one of the weirdest, that's for sure.

00:57:49 ◼   ► I mean, there have been weirder.

00:57:50 ◼   ► And some of the weirder ones are pointed out in the show.

00:57:52 ◼   ► I won't spoil what those are as well.

00:57:53 ◼   ► But, yeah, it is very, very focused on our tiny little circle of the world.

00:57:57 ◼   ► And it was a delight to hear.

00:57:59 ◼   ► And it was a delight to do.

00:58:00 ◼   ► So, check it out.

00:58:00 ◼   ► We will put many links in the show notes because, like, I don't even know how to link to a podcast anymore.

00:58:04 ◼   ► Obviously, we have the Overcast link, but that's not, like, the real site.

00:58:07 ◼   ► That's just Marco's thing for it.

00:58:09 ◼   ► I've got the official link.

00:58:10 ◼   ► And that has...

00:58:11 ◼   ► You think it's the Libsyn one is the official one?

00:58:12 ◼   ► No, no.

00:58:13 ◼   ► It's phonographpodcast.com.

00:58:15 ◼   ► I've already got it in the show notes.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Right, well, okay.

00:58:17 ◼   ► Well, there's so many links.

00:58:19 ◼   ► And there's also the pod.link site, which is one of those sites that's, like, a landing page that says it has, like, every podcast player app in the entire world with little icons.

00:58:27 ◼   ► And it's, like, you know, listen in Overcast, listen in Spotify, listen in YouTube, listen in Apple Podcasts, listen.

00:58:32 ◼   ► Just going down the whole side of the page.

00:58:34 ◼   ► And those sites, I just assume, will all disappear someday.

00:58:35 ◼   ► But anyway, Casey's got you covered.

00:58:38 ◼   ► You can find this podcast.

00:58:39 ◼   ► Yep, and I also did a little write-up on my site about that, which I'll link, which is not too terribly exciting.

00:58:44 ◼   ► But, I mean, most of what I was saying was how freaking weird and flattering is it that somebody's, like, history lesson is about us three dorks.

00:58:52 ◼   ► Like, that's really freaking cool and really freaking weird.

00:58:55 ◼   ► But it's good stuff.

00:58:56 ◼   ► It was delightful.

00:58:58 ◼   ► I was...

00:58:59 ◼   ► It was incredibly, like, you know, heartwarming to listen to.

00:59:02 ◼   ► And I actually, I listened to it in the car on the way upstate with my family.

00:59:06 ◼   ► And so my son got to hear that.

00:59:09 ◼   ► And he's like, that's you.

00:59:09 ◼   ► And they're talking about you.

00:59:10 ◼   ► And, like, it was a very nice experience for all of us.

00:59:14 ◼   ► My father's voice coming back from the car player.

00:59:17 ◼   ► It's recorded.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:18 ◼   ► Who knew?

00:59:19 ◼   ► And I think I accidentally blew them off and didn't get interviewed because I blew them off.

00:59:23 ◼   ► And that was not my intention.

00:59:24 ◼   ► Sorry about that.

00:59:25 ◼   ► But thank you for making this podcast.

00:59:26 ◼   ► It was delightful.

00:59:27 ◼   ► Yeah, I think when Casey presented the idea, it was like, this person wants to talk about podcast ads.

00:59:31 ◼   ► Like, it wasn't clear that this was going to be...

00:59:34 ◼   ► Because I was just as surprised as anyone.

00:59:35 ◼   ► And, you know, and I said, hey, I'll talk to the person.

00:59:39 ◼   ► I don't know what they want to talk to me about.

00:59:40 ◼   ► But I know about podcast ads a little bit.

00:59:43 ◼   ► And it turned out it was good that I did it because I featured in it more than I thought I would.

00:59:48 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:59:48 ◼   ► And it was interesting.

00:59:49 ◼   ► I think for anybody who is interested in, like, the kind of mechanics behind podcast ads, why everything's moving to DAI now, why, you know, ads like the kind we do seem to be, you know, significantly on the decline and, you know, going extinct.

01:00:04 ◼   ► There's a lot of good info there, both from, you know, from us and from the reporters and also from Lex Friedman.

01:00:10 ◼   ► And, like, information that, like, you don't usually hear podcasters talk about.

01:00:14 ◼   ► It's just, like, how they're sold, what dynamics have gone on behind the scenes.

01:00:18 ◼   ► So if you are interested in that whole market, I think there's a lot of interesting information there as well.

01:00:22 ◼   ► But it's also just a nice story about our toaster ads.

01:00:23 ◼   ► Yep.

01:00:25 ◼   ► All right.

01:00:25 ◼   ► Marco did the unthinkable, what was it, a week ago?

01:00:29 ◼   ► And you remembered how to post to your blog.

01:00:32 ◼   ► I'm shocked that you knew how to do this.

01:00:36 ◼   ► Did he remember or did he have to figure it out again?

01:00:38 ◼   ► Did AI post to your blog, Marco?

01:00:40 ◼   ► Did you, like, give the contents of the post to some AI and say, please figure out how to get this on marco.org?

01:00:45 ◼   ► Nope.

01:00:46 ◼   ► And I also did not use any AI tools in writing this blog post.

01:00:49 ◼   ► Very well done.

01:00:50 ◼   ► All right.

01:00:50 ◼   ► So all snark aside, why don't you tell us about this, please?

01:00:53 ◼   ► You know, so everybody was celebrating Apple's 50th anniversary last week.

01:00:57 ◼   ► And I do think it's worth pointing out that we didn't do anything on this podcast to celebrate it.

01:01:01 ◼   ► That's, I mean, Casey's the one who should feel bad about that, but that is exactly appropriate for me.

01:01:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:01:07 ◼   ► He's Mr. Anniversary.

01:01:08 ◼   ► I'm Mr. No Anniversary, no nothing.

01:01:11 ◼   ► So I'm on message.

01:01:12 ◼   ► That's true.

01:01:13 ◼   ► And honestly, and, you know, I think, like, you know, the other podcasts in our kind of nearby podcast neighbor sphere, I think they did a good job covering it.

01:01:21 ◼   ► And whatever they did was more of a, like, anniversary celebration than anything we would have done.

01:01:28 ◼   ► And so I'm happy to have left that to the other podcasts.

01:01:30 ◼   ► They did a very nice job with it.

01:01:31 ◼   ► So for me, you know, I was trying to figure out, like, should I post something about Apple's 50th?

01:01:37 ◼   ► I had a little bit of a hard time deciding on an angle because, you know, my feelings about Apple these days are mixed.

01:01:45 ◼   ► They do a lot of good and they do a lot of bad.

01:01:48 ◼   ► And there's a lot about them that I still love.

01:01:52 ◼   ► There's a lot about them that I will always love.

01:01:54 ◼   ► And there's a lot about them that I wish they would improve.

01:01:58 ◼   ► And we often, on this show, push for that.

01:02:01 ◼   ► Like, you know, we – the reason we push for things to improve when we think they're in a bad spot is that we love these products so much.

01:02:12 ◼   ► But if Apple doesn't serve our needs very well or if they stop serving our needs, the industry has made it pretty clear that they're not really going to pick up the mantle and start serving our needs.

01:02:23 ◼   ► There's other things out there that are good, but the way that we love the basic computer, like the Mac, the personal computer, like the way that we love that, and even to some degree the way we love, you know, other general-purpose computing devices like iPhones and iPads, other companies are just not going to do what we like in those roles for lots of reasons.

01:02:46 ◼   ► Many of them won't.

01:02:47 ◼   ► Many of them can't.

01:02:49 ◼   ► You know, the market has moved on.

01:02:51 ◼   ► These are mature platforms and mature industries.

01:02:53 ◼   ► Things are locked down, locked out.

01:02:55 ◼   ► So if we want computers to be the kind of thing that we love, the way we've always known them, a lot of that responsibility falls on Apple.

01:03:05 ◼   ► With the 50th anniversary, there was a lot of looking backwards.

01:03:09 ◼   ► All the good things that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the older, you know, the older company and then over time, like, you know, the middle of the company's era, all the great things they did.

01:03:22 ◼   ► There wasn't a lot about the Tim Cook era in these retrospectives, except for, like, the, you know, Tim Cook scaled everything up.

01:03:32 ◼   ► Yeah, that's true.

01:03:34 ◼   ► Okay.

01:03:35 ◼   ► I don't have anything really nice to say about the Tim Cook era beyond that.

01:03:39 ◼   ► And so I decided I'm not going to address that.

01:03:42 ◼   ► But I also, I didn't want to do a retrospective about just, you know, jobs and Woz because I have thoughts about that that I'll save for another time.

01:03:53 ◼   ► And I also didn't want to just complain about everything in this blog post.

01:03:58 ◼   ► We are obviously near the end of the Tim Cook era.

01:04:01 ◼   ► And the John Ternus era seems like the most likely thing that's going to follow it.

01:04:08 ◼   ► And so I kind of wanted to leave, like, you know, a letter to John Ternus in almost the way of, like, the way that I imagine, like, CEOs and presidents leave letters to their successors.

01:04:22 ◼   ► Like, I know that that's actually a thing with presidents.

01:04:24 ◼   ► Sit down and write two letters, right, Casey?

01:04:26 ◼   ► Nope.

01:04:27 ◼   ► Yeah, come on, Marco.

01:04:29 ◼   ► For your first and last day?

01:04:30 ◼   ► I forget the rest of the reference.

01:04:32 ◼   ► I don't remember where this came from.

01:04:34 ◼   ► It's probably apocryphal, but, or maybe it's a real thing.

01:04:36 ◼   ► But anyway, the thing is, I can't even give you the context.

01:04:40 ◼   ► So basically, like, a new political leader comes into power and finds two envelopes on his desk.

01:04:47 ◼   ► And they say, if you get in trouble, open up the first envelope.

01:04:51 ◼   ► If you get into trouble again, open up the second one.

01:04:53 ◼   ► So he eventually gets into trouble.

01:04:56 ◼   ► He opens up the first envelope and inside is a piece of paper that says, blame everything on me.

01:05:00 ◼   ► Basically, blame everything on your predecessor.

01:05:02 ◼   ► And then he does that and it works.

01:05:05 ◼   ► And then time passes and he gets into trouble again.

01:05:07 ◼   ► He opens the second envelope and it says, sit down and write two letters.

01:05:10 ◼   ► It's very good.

01:05:13 ◼   ► A letter to John Ternus.

01:05:15 ◼   ► Blame everything on Tim.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Is it the first letter?

01:05:17 ◼   ► No.

01:05:18 ◼   ► And so what I wanted to do here was basically like, and in some ways, you know, I'm pretty sure Apple execs see blog posts.

01:05:29 ◼   ► They see press.

01:05:30 ◼   ► They see this kind of thing.

01:05:32 ◼   ► I don't hear podcasts.

01:05:32 ◼   ► Probably not.

01:05:33 ◼   ► But at least not all of them.

01:05:35 ◼   ► But I was pretty sure that if I wrote this this way, if it was reasonably short, if it was reasonably constructive, and if I named it a letter to John Ternus, I was pretty sure there was a good chance he'd probably see it at some point.

01:05:48 ◼   ► From his vanity Google searches?

01:05:51 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:05:52 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:05:52 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:05:52 ◼   ► But like somehow this would be sent to him by somebody that like that.

01:05:56 ◼   ► I think I think that the odds of that knowing the way Apple's execs, you know, do read a lot of stuff that is posted by our community.

01:06:04 ◼   ► I figured there's a good chance he'd see it.

01:06:06 ◼   ► And if not, enough higher ups would see it.

01:06:08 ◼   ► It would still do some good.

01:06:10 ◼   ► And what I wanted to do is basically just reinforce our principles, not just what Apple stands for, but what like we who are on what we view as the good side of personal computers, like what we believe in with computers.

01:06:25 ◼   ► And, you know, number one is we love computers.

01:06:28 ◼   ► Number two is computers like serve us and they enhance our lives.

01:06:34 ◼   ► We don't need our computers to like, you know, control us, restrict us, you know, take advantage of us and that we are the owner of the computer and we are the customer being served.

01:06:49 ◼   ► We are not the resource being harvested by a barrage of upsells and privacy invasion and tracking and all that other stuff.

01:06:57 ◼   ► I believe Apple best represents those ideals in the computing industry by a mile.

01:07:05 ◼   ► They are way ahead of everyone else in all of those ideals.

01:07:08 ◼   ► But I also firmly see and believe while they are ahead of everyone else, their own adherence to those ideals is declining and has declined significantly under the Tim Cook era.

01:07:24 ◼   ► As they've pushed into services and upsells, there are promos everywhere, there are ads everywhere.

01:07:33 ◼   ► The computer does feel like it is taking control away from its customers and owners and treating us more like resources to be harvested and annoyed.

01:07:44 ◼   ► I think Apple is they're in a they're in a dangerous place here for their their ethics, their morals, their quality and for the things that we care about.

01:07:54 ◼   ► So what I what I was hoping to do with this is keep it very short and try to advocate for this mindset to not be forgotten.

01:08:06 ◼   ► And, you know, a little bit of historical reference to Jobs and Waz, because I do think Jobs and Waz, both in their in their very different ways, both very much believed in these things and practiced them.

01:08:18 ◼   ► You know, Waz wasn't honestly there for that long.

01:08:20 ◼   ► But, you know, certainly the Jobs era, Jobs practiced this.

01:08:25 ◼   ► Jobs pushed for this.

01:08:26 ◼   ► He advocated for this.

01:08:28 ◼   ► He cared about this.

01:08:30 ◼   ► Tim Cook doesn't care about this stuff at all, doesn't even know about it, doesn't care at all.

01:08:35 ◼   ► I think I get the impression that John Ternus is a nerd like us, at least in hopefully in the good ways.

01:08:43 ◼   ► He's probably he's he seems like a generally better rounded human being than us.

01:08:47 ◼   ► But hopefully he does seem like he is the kind of person who would share these ideals, somebody who loves computers and wants to make good computers that serve their customers, not just the vendor or not third parties.

01:09:02 ◼   ► He seems like the kind of person who would believe in this.

01:09:05 ◼   ► And so I wanted this to kind of get out there and reinforce these beliefs and bring them into the discussion.

01:09:12 ◼   ► And I think it did.

01:09:13 ◼   ► I mean, I don't you know, I haven't gotten like a ton of traffic or anything, but like it achieved what I wanted to achieve.

01:09:18 ◼   ► And I and I think the way I wrote it, it is very likely to get to him somehow.

01:09:23 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:09:23 ◼   ► When I read this, I was thinking that I can in my mind is like a companion to this that I'll never write.

01:09:32 ◼   ► Like because because when I think about stuff like this and this is actually this what you said about it actually reminds me a lot of my thoughts and some of my words about the the case for a true Mac Pro successor blog post I had all those years ago, especially in terms of like bean counters and car guys type of stuff or whatever.

01:09:51 ◼   ► And it's the same type of thing of like, well, mine was more of like a story thing, whatever, just like advocating for, as you said, like our values, what we love about Apple.

01:10:01 ◼   ► You know, this is this is what we want.

01:10:03 ◼   ► This is the good stuff.

01:10:04 ◼   ► And anything you're doing that is not this is not what we want.

01:10:07 ◼   ► Right.

01:10:07 ◼   ► And I read this and I'm like, you know, having soaked in the last many years of Tim Cook's leadership, all I can think about is that I feel like what Ternus needs in addition to this is.

01:10:24 ◼   ► Help with the situation that he's going to help with the situation that he's going to find himself in, which is basically.

01:10:29 ◼   ► There will be things there'll be lots of things trying to make it seem like the stuff that Marco is advocating is not the right thing to do.

01:10:38 ◼   ► What are those forces?

01:10:40 ◼   ► What are the forces that are going to be buffeting whoever leads Apple next trying to make them not do the stuff that Marco is describing?

01:10:48 ◼   ► There are a lot of those forces.

01:10:51 ◼   ► They are powerful.

01:10:52 ◼   ► They are winning.

01:10:54 ◼   ► Like internal, external, in the world, within yourself.

01:10:57 ◼   ► There's a million reasons why things have been going the way they are at Apple.

01:11:01 ◼   ► It's not like, you know, someone is like a mustache twirling villain or whatever.

01:11:05 ◼   ► Forces are aligned to make it so that if you are in this position, you are like everything is telling you to do the opposite of what Marco is saying to do.

01:11:17 ◼   ► And I feel like these what these people need is.

01:11:20 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:11:22 ◼   ► A thought technology, something to hang on to, something to like like some kind of thing they can hang their head on that will give them enough stamina to withstand the forces that are buffeting them.

01:11:36 ◼   ► Jobs had kind of easy in that, like he never needed any additional support in that area.

01:11:40 ◼   ► First of all, he founded the company.

01:11:42 ◼   ► He just felt like he owned it.

01:11:43 ◼   ► So it's like, you're not going to tell me what to do with my freaking company.

01:11:46 ◼   ► So Ternus doesn't have that.

01:11:48 ◼   ► Tim Cook doesn't have that.

01:11:49 ◼   ► Jobs did.

01:11:49 ◼   ► He was the founder and he was attitudinal.

01:11:51 ◼   ► And so he's got that holding up.

01:11:53 ◼   ► And second of all, he was so stubborn and strong willed and had his own personal beliefs that were sometimes weird or whatever.

01:11:59 ◼   ► But in general, like he didn't have like, he didn't have a problem advocating for what he wanted.

01:12:04 ◼   ► Like he just, but that is not a common position that people who are in charge of trillion dollar companies have.

01:12:11 ◼   ► Most of them, with the possible exception of Mark Zuckerberg, who is mustache rolling evil, unfortunately.

01:12:17 ◼   ► Like you don't, like if you're, if you're not the person who feels like this is literally my company, like I found it, it is me, it is mine, you know, like if you don't have that, then all the world's forces come down on you and everybody around you and the board of directors and all the other executives and every shareholder and every, and you can convince yourself that the customers want this too.

01:12:36 ◼   ► They're all making you junk up everything and put in more ads and drive service revenue and cheap out on your products and do all this stuff.

01:12:44 ◼   ► And for years, Apple held on to, uh, you know, as much as it could, the, the, the thing that made it successful, everyone, everyone else was, you know, making netbooks or doing, you know, doing the financially expedient thing.

01:12:59 ◼   ► Apple under the jobs to era was doing the opposite of all of that.

01:13:04 ◼   ► We are going to do things that nobody else does because they seem too hard or too expensive or too stupid or too niche or too esoteric.

01:13:11 ◼   ► And it's just like, nobody cares about this.

01:13:13 ◼   ► Don't waste time on that.

01:13:14 ◼   ► Don't waste money on it.

01:13:15 ◼   ► It's not worth your time.

01:13:16 ◼   ► This is why Apple is always doomed.

01:13:18 ◼   ► This is why Apple will never succeed because you're doing stupid stuff that nobody cares about.

01:13:22 ◼   ► But if you do that hard enough, it pays off in the long run.

01:13:27 ◼   ► And that was the, I feel like has always been the story of Apple success, doing things that everyone else thinks is a terrible idea.

01:13:33 ◼   ► And that is better in ways that nobody values.

01:13:36 ◼   ► And if you do it hard enough and well enough, it turns out people do value that.

01:13:41 ◼   ► It's the argument I always make about like, I always try to use analogies of like, if you make an expensive product and it just gains a reputation for durability, that you will have customers forever.

01:13:51 ◼   ► You have like generational customers, even though everything else in your industry is telling you, don't do that.

01:13:55 ◼   ► Don't make your stuff high quality.

01:13:56 ◼   ► Don't make your luggage like indestructible.

01:13:58 ◼   ► Like, you know, making some really high quality indestructible luggage that costs five times as much as everyone else's luggage.

01:14:03 ◼   ► Like, you dummy, you should be selling your luggage at Walmart.

01:14:06 ◼   ► That's how you get rich.

01:14:07 ◼   ► Why are you doing this?

01:14:09 ◼   ► And it's like, well, if we do this for 50 years, we will have such loyal customers because we will gain reputation as the company that makes the luggage that doesn't break.

01:14:16 ◼   ► Our zippers don't break.

01:14:17 ◼   ► Our things don't break down.

01:14:18 ◼   ► Like, even though it costs more, we make it better or whatever, whatever, whatever attribute you want to be like.

01:14:23 ◼   ► And that is so hard to do because, first of all, you got to wait 50 years.

01:14:27 ◼   ► And second of all, everything in that industry is telling you, don't do it.

01:14:31 ◼   ► Make your things cheaper.

01:14:32 ◼   ► Make them reduce the cost of your materials.

01:14:35 ◼   ► Manufacture them wherever it's cheapest, no matter what everyone else says.

01:14:38 ◼   ► Make sure it's sold through Walmart.

01:14:40 ◼   ► Like, just do all this stuff.

01:14:42 ◼   ► And it's so hard.

01:14:43 ◼   ► And I know it seems like, isn't that a far cry from what Apple does today?

01:14:48 ◼   ► But, like, with every passing day, every single thing that Apple does, I look at the decisions they're making and saying, you are giving in, you know, inch by inch to the forces that are trying to tell you to do the expedient thing that everyone else is doing.

01:15:06 ◼   ► And service revenue is just a perfect example of that.

01:15:08 ◼   ► So, anyway, I look at this, I'm thinking, Ternus or the next Apple leader needs a really good understanding of the things that are going to be the forces that are already aligned against them.

01:15:20 ◼   ► Day one, they get in there.

01:15:21 ◼   ► So many forces are aligned against them inside the company and outside to make them do the wrong thing and make them think it's the right thing.

01:15:28 ◼   ► And then give them some kind of something to hold on to to let them fight that.

01:15:34 ◼   ► Again, you know, they're not going to have what Steve Jobs had is like, oh, well, this is my company and I own it and I do what I want.

01:15:39 ◼   ► And I also have really good taste, right?

01:15:40 ◼   ► They're not going to have that.

01:15:41 ◼   ► Maybe they don't even have good taste, but they need something.

01:15:44 ◼   ► They need, I don't know, someone, something to hang on to.

01:15:47 ◼   ► There's a movie I was watching recently, or I don't remember what it was.

01:15:50 ◼   ► It was saying, like, how do you get your motivation?

01:15:52 ◼   ► It's like, I don't find a reason to do this.

01:15:55 ◼   ► I find someone to do it for, like, whatever, whatever, whatever makes it work, whatever will give you the strength to make different decisions when everything in your world says that you should not.

01:16:06 ◼   ► That is the only thing that can continue to allow Apple to be what it is.

01:16:12 ◼   ► And Apple's got more of that than any other company, to Marco's point.

01:16:15 ◼   ► Like, they've got more of it than anybody else.

01:16:16 ◼   ► Like, I'm not saying, though, Apple's just the same as Dell.

01:16:18 ◼   ► They're not, okay?

01:16:19 ◼   ► But it's the trend line that we don't like.

01:16:22 ◼   ► So, from the outside, everything still seems like it's mostly okay, but the trend lines are all going in the wrong direction.

01:16:28 ◼   ► Mildly, but they're all going in the wrong direction.

01:16:31 ◼   ► Luckily, Apple started out way far above everybody and everything.

01:16:33 ◼   ► But, yeah, that's, like, this letter is one thing.

01:16:36 ◼   ► And then I feel like, and you're going to read this letter, and you're going to be like, John Turner's, like, nodding his head, going, yeah, no, I believe all that.

01:16:42 ◼   ► That's great.

01:16:43 ◼   ► Thumbs up.

01:16:43 ◼   ► I agree with you, Marco.

01:16:44 ◼   ► I'm going to do all that.

01:16:45 ◼   ► But then you're going to get into the job, and you're not.

01:16:47 ◼   ► You're not going to do it.

01:16:48 ◼   ► You're going to continue to do what Tim did, and everyone's going to tell you you're doing a great job when you do that.

01:16:53 ◼   ► And that's where things go wrong.

01:16:55 ◼   ► So, yeah.

01:16:56 ◼   ► I don't know what the solution is, but Ternus doesn't listen to the podcast, so this is not going to help him.

01:17:01 ◼   ► Well, maybe he'll get your T-shirt and then be like, you know what, I wonder about this John Syracuse fellow.

01:17:07 ◼   ► No, I just want him to feel sad for 1.5 seconds, and that's it.

01:17:10 ◼   ► No, it was a good post, Marco.

01:17:13 ◼   ► And, you know, I understand for a million different reasons why you don't really blog anymore, but I do miss the Marco that was maybe not a prolific blogger, because I know that was a lot, and it took a lot, and blah, blah, blah.

01:17:23 ◼   ► But I miss the at least periodic blogger, and I hope you consider doing it some more.

01:17:28 ◼   ► This is kind of like the – speaking of your efficiency, efficiency-minded or maybe pragmatic, it's like Marco knows he's not going to shout Apple into doing what he wants.

01:17:37 ◼   ► But he's like, maybe if I just write a sync summary of the values that I think Apple should pursue and present it pleasantly, here it is.

01:17:44 ◼   ► And I'm always thinking, that's not going to work.

01:17:47 ◼   ► They need tools.

01:17:47 ◼   ► They're going to be buffeted by forces in every direction.

01:17:50 ◼   ► They're going to agree with you tacitly, but they're just going to put more ads in things.

01:17:53 ◼   ► I mean, this is the best tool that we have.

01:17:58 ◼   ► You know, we know Apple is a gigantic company with gigantic forces acting upon them from everywhere in the world.

01:18:08 ◼   ► People like us don't have a lot of influence on that.

01:18:14 ◼   ► But we just – we have a little tiny bit.

01:18:16 ◼   ► I think over the years I have developed a pretty good sense of like how and when to exercise this little tiny bit of power that I do sometimes have.

01:18:28 ◼   ► And it doesn't – I'm not expecting to move the needle in a noticeable way.

01:18:36 ◼   ► But maybe in a very, very tiny way.

01:18:38 ◼   ► Maybe this plants or reinforces some idea in some heads and maybe it makes it 1% more likely to do the right thing sometime.

01:18:48 ◼   ► That's worth it to me.

01:18:50 ◼   ► It's almost like parenting in that regard.

01:18:52 ◼   ► Yeah, right.

01:18:54 ◼   ► You have a tiny bit of power and you have to pick and choose when you're going to use it and don't have too great expectations about how much it's actually going to do.

01:19:02 ◼   ► But if you can make a 1% change, just declare victory.

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01:21:00 ◼   ► Thanks to DeleteMe for sponsoring our show.

01:21:02 ◼   ► Let's do some Ask ATP.

01:21:07 ◼   ► We're going to do just a touch tonight.

01:21:09 ◼   ► And Johnny Decimal Noble writes,

01:21:12 ◼   ► During the recent Mac Pro discussion in episode 685, there was talk of RAM prices

01:21:16 ◼   ► and how they're affecting the availability of certain configurations of the Mac Studio.

01:21:19 ◼   ► I'm confused.

01:21:20 ◼   ► Memory is unified.

01:21:21 ◼   ► The memory in these chips is unified.

01:21:23 ◼   ► It's not like Apple's buying DRAM transistors in the open market, are they?

01:21:27 ◼   ► My mental model is that some giant machine in Taiwan has given a sheet of silicon

01:21:31 ◼   ► and out the other end pops an M5 with 128 gigs of RAM.

01:21:34 ◼   ► It's not like the RAM is bought in, cut up, and fed into the machine and soldered onto that chip, is it?

01:21:40 ◼   ► I don't understand how the global shortage of RAM affects the production of the M-series chips.

01:21:44 ◼   ► I don't understand what effect it has on Apple at all.

01:21:47 ◼   ► Nothing's changed inside those giant ASML machines in Taiwan.

01:21:51 ◼   ► It doesn't care about global DRAM pricing.

01:21:53 ◼   ► I'd love to know where my thinking is wrong.

01:21:55 ◼   ► Everywhere.

01:21:56 ◼   ► John, where did Johnny get this wrong?

01:21:59 ◼   ► I already applied on Mastodon to this, but I think this was a good topic because I do wonder how many people also have the same incorrect idea about what unified memory means.

01:22:09 ◼   ► It's another one of those terms, kind of like the Mac Pro bereave shirt, where you kind of have to know about the shirt and stuff that came before it to make sense of the bereave thing.

01:22:18 ◼   ► Unified memory is like that.

01:22:20 ◼   ► So, the quick answer to the question is, next to the SOCs, the TSMC prints in your Mac, you will see a bunch of little RAM chips that Apple buys from the same RAM vendors that everybody else buys their RAM from.

01:22:34 ◼   ► SK, Hynix, Micron, Samsung.

01:22:36 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:22:38 ◼   ► Apple buys RAM chips from the three companies in the world or whatever it is that make 90% of the world's RAM, and that's why the prices affect them.

01:22:46 ◼   ► So, that's the quick answer to the question is, yes, they do buy RAM chips.

01:22:49 ◼   ► The RAM is not, you know, printed on the SOC, which is a thing you can do.

01:22:53 ◼   ► There is SRAM on there and stuff for the caches, and there was ED RAM on, like, the GameCube, I believe.

01:22:59 ◼   ► But whatever, when you buy a Mac, there are RAM chips next to the SOC.

01:23:03 ◼   ► You can see them when you look at the pictures of, like, a logic board or whatever.

01:23:07 ◼   ► But now, why is it called unified?

01:23:09 ◼   ► What's the confusion here with the unified memory?

01:23:12 ◼   ► What is unified about it?

01:23:14 ◼   ► And it has nothing to do with where the transistors that make up the RAM are, although they are very close to the SOC.

01:23:21 ◼   ► Because, again, if you see, like, an M2, I sent a picture of an M2 chip.

01:23:24 ◼   ► It looks like a little square that says M2, but, like, three-quarters of the square is the M2 SOC, and then one-quarter of it is two RAM chips.

01:23:33 ◼   ► And they're just, they're, like, touching it.

01:23:35 ◼   ► They're so close to it.

01:23:36 ◼   ► They're right there.

01:23:37 ◼   ► And yes, they are soldered down next to it, but they're just plain old RAM chips.

01:23:40 ◼   ► But that's not what makes it unified.

01:23:41 ◼   ► What makes it unified is that in the olden days, when you made a computer, you had memory or, you know, RAM or DRAM.

01:23:49 ◼   ► It was in, you know, SIMS or DIMS or whatever, that the CPU would read, and that was your computer's memory.

01:23:55 ◼   ► You got a computer with, you know, one megabyte of memory or whatever.

01:23:58 ◼   ► But then if you had a video card in that computer, 3D, 2D, any kind of video card, sometimes the video card would have its own memory just for the video card.

01:24:09 ◼   ► And that was called VRAM for video RAM.

01:24:12 ◼   ► And the video RAM would be used, like, in a 3D card.

01:24:15 ◼   ► It would store textures and geometry.

01:24:17 ◼   ► And the video RAM, especially on fancier, you know, fancier 3D graphics cards, would have huge bandwidth to the GPU that is on the video card.

01:24:25 ◼   ► Like, just really, really wide buses.

01:24:27 ◼   ► They're optimized for moving huge amounts of data into and out of the GPU.

01:24:33 ◼   ► And how did that data get into VRAM?

01:24:35 ◼   ► Well, the computer would ship it over, probably out of its regular RAM, and it would say, here, video card, you're going to need these textures and this geometry to do your work.

01:24:43 ◼   ► It would send it over the bus, PCI bus or whatever, AGP bus, whatever bus was the bus of the day.

01:24:48 ◼   ► And it would go into VRAM, and the GPU would read and write to VRAM and do all of its stuff.

01:24:53 ◼   ► So you had these two pools of memory, regular RAM that the CPU used, and then VRAM that the GPU used.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Unified memory means not having a separate pool of VRAM and regular RAM.

01:25:08 ◼   ► Macs and the Apple Silicon age have one pool of RAM that is used by the GPU as its, quote-unquote, VRAM, and by the CPU as its regular memory.

01:25:20 ◼   ► And any part of the RAM can be used by either one.

01:25:23 ◼   ► And they both have a really fast, really high bandwidth connection to that RAM.

01:25:27 ◼   ► That's how it works, right?

01:25:28 ◼   ► If it was just like, you know, just have a GPU and a CPU and just one pool of RAM, that one pool of RAM would be too slow and too low bandwidth.

01:25:37 ◼   ► That's why they had VRAM, special VRAM with really high bandwidth to the GPU.

01:25:41 ◼   ► But what Apple did is they said, we're going to take our RAM, and we're going to make it a huge, wide, fast, low-latency bus and solder the chips right next to the SOC.

01:25:49 ◼   ► And now that pool of memory can be used by both.

01:25:51 ◼   ► And this is one of the reasons why the early days of people saying like, oh, it's okay for a Mac, Apple Silicon Mac, to have a smaller amount of RAM because it has unified memory.

01:26:01 ◼   ► And that makes it use less RAM.

01:26:03 ◼   ► The opposite is true.

01:26:04 ◼   ► Back in the day, if you had like, you know, one gigabyte of regular RAM and 512 megabytes of VRAM, you had a total of 1.5 gigabytes of RAM in that machine.

01:26:15 ◼   ► 500 gigs for the video card and one, or 500 megs of video card and one gig for the RAM, right?

01:26:21 ◼   ► If you unified that, you'd want it to be combined.

01:26:23 ◼   ► You'd say, okay, well, I'm just going to throw away the VRAM and leaving you with just the one gig.

01:26:27 ◼   ► Now you have less RAM.

01:26:28 ◼   ► So it seems like you have less memory.

01:26:31 ◼   ► It's like now I have the GPU fighting with the CPU for who's going to get to use what part of the one single pool of RAM.

01:26:38 ◼   ► And in Apple's case, that one single pool of RAM isn't any bigger.

01:26:41 ◼   ► So, yeah, it seems like you're wasting more memory unless you always have the same amount you have.

01:26:49 ◼   ► Even today, if you buy a gaming PC, you can get a gaming PC with 16 gigs of RAM and you can get a video card with like, I don't know, like 8 gigs of VRAM in it.

01:26:56 ◼   ► That's still to this day how gaming PCs work.

01:26:58 ◼   ► They have dedicated video memory on your NVIDIA card that's just for the GPU and they have dedicated RAM that's for the CPU.

01:27:04 ◼   ► But that's not how Apple things work.

01:27:05 ◼   ► And believe me, Apple does not take a 16 gig computer and then take the 8 gigs from the video card and combine them.

01:27:11 ◼   ► No, you just get the 16 or 8 in the case of the Neo.

01:27:15 ◼   ► So, yeah, the way they make this work is because the RAM is very fast.

01:27:19 ◼   ► We always talk about those memory bandwidth figures that we give very fast, very high bandwidth, very low latency.

01:27:24 ◼   ► And it is equally fast when the CPU is using it or the GPU is using it.

01:27:30 ◼   ► And the CPU and the GPU are in the same SoC, even if they're not in the same die as they are in the M5 Pro and M5 Max.

01:27:37 ◼   ► So, anyway, that's what's unified about it.

01:27:39 ◼   ► It has unified VRAM and regular RAM into a single pool of RAM.

01:27:44 ◼   ► But that single pool of RAM is on RAM chips made by the same RAM manufacturers that make everybody else's RAM chips.

01:27:51 ◼   ► And that's why I'm going to pay way too much money for my Mac Studio.

01:27:55 ◼   ► Job done.

01:27:59 ◼   ► All right.

01:28:00 ◼   ► Thank you to our sponsors this week, Squarespace and Delete Me.

01:28:03 ◼   ► And thanks to our members who support us directly.

01:28:05 ◼   ► You can join us at atp.fm slash join.

01:28:09 ◼   ► One of the many perks of membership is ATP Overtime, our weekly bonus topic.

01:28:14 ◼   ► Every single episode has about 20 minutes, maybe, of extra content.

01:28:19 ◼   ► One new topic that we couldn't fit in the main show.

01:28:22 ◼   ► That's Overtime.

01:28:23 ◼   ► This week on Overtime, we're going to be talking about the Claude code leak and how Claude actually works.

01:28:27 ◼   ► That'll be really interesting.

01:28:28 ◼   ► So, join until you hear that.

01:28:30 ◼   ► atp.fm slash join.

01:28:31 ◼   ► Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

01:28:33 ◼   ► And we'll talk to you next week.

01:28:43 ◼   ► And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them at...

01:29:13 ◼   ► A few weeks ago, I did an after show

01:29:42 ◼   ► where I tried a Garmin smartwatch or sport watch,

01:29:46 ◼   ► whatever they're called,

01:29:47 ◼   ► a Garmin watch instead of an Apple watch.

01:29:50 ◼   ► And my conclusion was basically,

01:29:53 ◼   ► I see why other people might want something like this,

01:29:57 ◼   ► but I don't want something like this.

01:29:59 ◼   ► And it seems like it is a very bad smartwatch

01:30:03 ◼   ► in order to be a pretty possibly good sport or activity watch.

01:30:09 ◼   ► And I got a lot of feedback about that.

01:30:11 ◼   ► I wasn't happy with how I tried it.

01:30:14 ◼   ► I wanted to give it a better shot

01:30:16 ◼   ► because one of the things I said in the episode was

01:30:19 ◼   ► I figured out pretty quickly

01:30:21 ◼   ► that I had not really gotten the right one.

01:30:23 ◼   ► I had gotten one of the smaller models,

01:30:26 ◼   ► like a smaller, simpler model.

01:30:28 ◼   ► And Garmin has a thousand models of their smartwatches.

01:30:32 ◼   ► And I realized pretty quickly that this is not the one that I would get if I was keeping it.

01:30:41 ◼   ► But I decided not to keep it, and I returned it.

01:30:44 ◼   ► But in response to people making very good points,

01:30:47 ◼   ► I'm like, I really should.

01:30:49 ◼   ► I should have given that another try or a better try.

01:30:54 ◼   ► So this time, I decided, you know what, I'm actually going to try again,

01:31:00 ◼   ► but I'm going to get something that I'm pretty sure I will have a better experience with.

01:31:06 ◼   ► That was not a Garmin watch.

01:31:08 ◼   ► It was a Suunto watch.

01:31:11 ◼   ► So I heard lots of good things about this brand, Suunto.

01:31:15 ◼   ► I think that's how it's pronounced.

01:31:18 ◼   ► I forgot to look it up.

01:31:19 ◼   ► Sorry.

01:31:20 ◼   ► Suunto makes, you know, similar looking watches to Garmin's,

01:31:24 ◼   ► like sport watches that are designed for super long battery life,

01:31:28 ◼   ► you know, endurance and like, you know,

01:31:30 ◼   ► really, you know,

01:31:31 ◼   ► strong conditions that maybe you wouldn't want to bring something like an Apple watch.

01:31:33 ◼   ► And they seem very well regarded.

01:31:36 ◼   ► In particular, I know our friend underscore David Smith

01:31:39 ◼   ► told me that I should probably look at them.

01:31:41 ◼   ► And it seems like they have a lot of fans.

01:31:44 ◼   ► I looked at their,

01:31:45 ◼   ► I was looking at their offerings the first time when I,

01:31:48 ◼   ► when I ended up with the Garmin.

01:31:49 ◼   ► And I didn't,

01:31:51 ◼   ► I couldn't quite decide what to get.

01:31:54 ◼   ► And I went with Garmin.

01:31:54 ◼   ► But this time I tried the Suunto Race S.

01:31:58 ◼   ► Part of what I wanted was a good offline maps situation.

01:32:02 ◼   ► And in Garmin's models,

01:32:05 ◼   ► to get offline maps,

01:32:06 ◼   ► you have to get a pretty large watch.

01:32:08 ◼   ► And in the Suunto lineup,

01:32:10 ◼   ► you don't.

01:32:11 ◼   ► And so what I went with was the Suunto Race S titanium model.

01:32:16 ◼   ► This is,

01:32:18 ◼   ► you know,

01:32:18 ◼   ► in most ways identical to the regular Race S.

01:32:20 ◼   ► It costs a hundred bucks more.

01:32:22 ◼   ► And it's a titanium case.

01:32:24 ◼   ► And one of the big advantages of that is it's,

01:32:27 ◼   ► you know,

01:32:27 ◼   ► very much lighter weight compared to the regular one.

01:32:30 ◼   ► Did you get graphite or canary?

01:32:32 ◼   ► It's gray.

01:32:34 ◼   ► I guess.

01:32:35 ◼   ► They're both gray.

01:32:36 ◼   ► Well,

01:32:36 ◼   ► they're all gray.

01:32:37 ◼   ► Dark gray or slightly less dark gray?

01:32:39 ◼   ► I believe,

01:32:39 ◼   ► yeah,

01:32:39 ◼   ► I got the dark one.

01:32:40 ◼   ► So,

01:32:40 ◼   ► but,

01:32:41 ◼   ► but I,

01:32:41 ◼   ► I ended up buying,

01:32:43 ◼   ► they have an orange strap version that I just bought the strap separately on Amazon for,

01:32:47 ◼   ► I think,

01:32:47 ◼   ► 50 bucks.

01:32:48 ◼   ► So here's my impressions of the Suunto Race S.

01:32:51 ◼   ► Now,

01:32:51 ◼   ► as for context,

01:32:52 ◼   ► I took another very long walk and I was wearing both the Suunto and the Apple Watch Ultra.

01:32:59 ◼   ► This is the underscore pose.

01:33:01 ◼   ► I was going to say the protocol,

01:33:03 ◼   ► the prototypical underscore pose.

01:33:05 ◼   ► Very well done.

01:33:05 ◼   ► Yep.

01:33:05 ◼   ► I was definitely,

01:33:06 ◼   ► you know,

01:33:07 ◼   ► doing my best underscore impression.

01:33:09 ◼   ► You didn't make his face though.

01:33:11 ◼   ► No,

01:33:11 ◼   ► I mean,

01:33:11 ◼   ► who can do it?

01:33:12 ◼   ► I can't,

01:33:13 ◼   ► I can't totally rip him off.

01:33:14 ◼   ► You know,

01:33:14 ◼   ► identity theft is not a joke,

01:33:16 ◼   ► Jim.

01:33:16 ◼   ► You should be wearing way more watches,

01:33:17 ◼   ► right?

01:33:18 ◼   ► So anyway,

01:33:18 ◼   ► I did,

01:33:19 ◼   ► I did this long walk.

01:33:20 ◼   ► I did 23 miles,

01:33:23 ◼   ► one arm with the Apple Watch Ultra and the other arm with the Suunto Race S.

01:33:27 ◼   ► How long did that take?

01:33:28 ◼   ► Just ballpark?

01:33:29 ◼   ► About eight and a half hours.

01:33:31 ◼   ► 844.

01:33:32 ◼   ► That's a long time.

01:33:34 ◼   ► Yeah,

01:33:34 ◼   ► there were a couple of breaks in the middle,

01:33:35 ◼   ► you know,

01:33:35 ◼   ► like 10,

01:33:35 ◼   ► 15 minute breaks,

01:33:36 ◼   ► but yeah,

01:33:36 ◼   ► so 844 was a total time.

01:33:38 ◼   ► I've also been using the Suunto Race S for my regular three times a week workouts.

01:33:44 ◼   ► These are kind of like,

01:33:46 ◼   ► you know,

01:33:46 ◼   ► mixed full body,

01:33:47 ◼   ► you know,

01:33:48 ◼   ► some weightlifting,

01:33:48 ◼   ► some Pilates style stuff,

01:33:50 ◼   ► some,

01:33:51 ◼   ► you know,

01:33:51 ◼   ► training kind of stuff,

01:33:52 ◼   ► just kind of mixed workouts with the trainer that we do all sorts of stuff on mats and with dumbbells and stuff like that.

01:33:56 ◼   ► This time,

01:33:58 ◼   ► again,

01:33:58 ◼   ► my,

01:33:59 ◼   ► my goal here was let me give myself the highest chance of liking this that I can.

01:34:04 ◼   ► I decided not to have it forward notifications,

01:34:08 ◼   ► from my phone.

01:34:09 ◼   ► So it is just a sport and activity watch.

01:34:13 ◼   ► It does not try to be a smart watch because what I have learned is,

01:34:19 ◼   ► you know,

01:34:19 ◼   ► I learned from the Garmin experiment and the Suunto is no different in this way.

01:34:23 ◼   ► The abilities of non-Apple watch watches with iPhones are pretty limited in terms of notifications and,

01:34:29 ◼   ► you know,

01:34:29 ◼   ► there's no Siri access and stuff like that.

01:34:31 ◼   ► And so I'm like,

01:34:31 ◼   ► you know what,

01:34:32 ◼   ► just to maximize my chance of liking this,

01:34:34 ◼   ► let me try using it for what it really is and not try to make it a smart watch that,

01:34:39 ◼   ► that it really isn't.

01:34:40 ◼   ► So first impressions,

01:34:42 ◼   ► it is so light.

01:34:45 ◼   ► Now,

01:34:46 ◼   ► and this is like,

01:34:47 ◼   ► you know,

01:34:47 ◼   ► the race S is their,

01:34:48 ◼   ► I believe their second smallest model.

01:34:50 ◼   ► this is a category of very large devices,

01:34:53 ◼   ► generally speaking.

01:34:53 ◼   ► So their second smallest model is still substantial in size.

01:34:58 ◼   ► Like I would say it is similar in overall size to kind of between the Apple watch series 46 line and the Apple watch ultra.

01:35:08 ◼   ► So it's kind of,

01:35:08 ◼   ► it's like right between those two,

01:35:10 ◼   ► I think in terms of like how big it generally looks on your wrist,

01:35:14 ◼   ► but compared to both of those,

01:35:16 ◼   ► it feels so light.

01:35:19 ◼   ► The Apple watch ultra feels like a brick by comparison.

01:35:22 ◼   ► The Suunto straps way nicer than the Garmin strap that I had.

01:35:28 ◼   ► Now,

01:35:28 ◼   ► again,

01:35:28 ◼   ► Garmin has a very big product lineup.

01:35:30 ◼   ► Maybe the one I had was,

01:35:31 ◼   ► was one of the bad ones.

01:35:33 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:35:33 ◼   ► The Suunto strap,

01:35:35 ◼   ► very nice.

01:35:37 ◼   ► Silicone,

01:35:37 ◼   ► you know,

01:35:37 ◼   ► it's nice and flexible.

01:35:38 ◼   ► It's light.

01:35:39 ◼   ► I think it looks pretty good,

01:35:40 ◼   ► you know,

01:35:41 ◼   ► for what it is much,

01:35:42 ◼   ► much nicer straps on the Suunto.

01:35:43 ◼   ► Also keep in mind,

01:35:45 ◼   ► as I'm comparing this,

01:35:47 ◼   ► I'm going to,

01:35:47 ◼   ► I'm comparing it to the Apple watch ultra,

01:35:49 ◼   ► but the Suunto is only $300 in steel,

01:35:54 ◼   ► 400 in titanium.

01:35:55 ◼   ► The Apple watch ultra is 800.

01:35:58 ◼   ► So this is half the price or less.

01:36:01 ◼   ► If you get the slightly heavier model,

01:36:03 ◼   ► but it's still offers similar battery,

01:36:06 ◼   ► battery life in terms of like,

01:36:08 ◼   ► if you're doing a long workout,

01:36:10 ◼   ► it like,

01:36:10 ◼   ► if you need like long workout time,

01:36:12 ◼   ► if you're going to be on like a 12 hour hike or whatever,

01:36:14 ◼   ► the,

01:36:15 ◼   ► the battery life between this,

01:36:16 ◼   ► between this smaller Suunto and the biggest Apple watch is in the ballpark of each other.

01:36:22 ◼   ► They're pretty similar.

01:36:23 ◼   ► And if you want even more,

01:36:24 ◼   ► you can get the bigger models,

01:36:25 ◼   ► but I didn't want to do that.

01:36:26 ◼   ► So anyway,

01:36:27 ◼   ► the screen nice and bright totally serves its purpose.

01:36:31 ◼   ► Um,

01:36:32 ◼   ► I will say the always on screen kind of sucks,

01:36:37 ◼   ► but it's mostly,

01:36:39 ◼   ► it sucks.

01:36:40 ◼   ► If you try to use it as a smartwatch,

01:36:42 ◼   ► which I was,

01:36:43 ◼   ► I was trying like when I tried the Garmin,

01:36:45 ◼   ► I was like,

01:36:45 ◼   ► let me try to make this a smartwatch with this.

01:36:47 ◼   ► I'm like,

01:36:47 ◼   ► you know what?

01:36:48 ◼   ► These suck a smartwatches.

01:36:49 ◼   ► Let me try to make it a sports watch.

01:36:50 ◼   ► So I'm not wearing it all the time.

01:36:52 ◼   ► I'm wearing my Apple watch most of the time.

01:36:54 ◼   ► And when I am doing an activity that requires a like sports tracking,

01:36:59 ◼   ► I put this on either instead of,

01:37:02 ◼   ► or in addition to the Apple watch.

01:37:03 ◼   ► And so what,

01:37:04 ◼   ► by using it that way,

01:37:06 ◼   ► a lot of the other decisions they have kind of make more sense.

01:37:09 ◼   ► So the always on screen,

01:37:11 ◼   ► when you're in an active workout,

01:37:14 ◼   ► it shows the workout data always on.

01:37:16 ◼   ► And you can turn it off to extend battery life further,

01:37:19 ◼   ► but you know,

01:37:19 ◼   ► it shows,

01:37:20 ◼   ► shows the workout data exactly as you expect.

01:37:22 ◼   ► It dims it.

01:37:22 ◼   ► You know,

01:37:23 ◼   ► if you're not,

01:37:23 ◼   ► if it's not like active,

01:37:24 ◼   ► but otherwise it's there.

01:37:25 ◼   ► When you're not in a workout,

01:37:26 ◼   ► this has a customizable watch face,

01:37:30 ◼   ► just like every other,

01:37:31 ◼   ► you know,

01:37:31 ◼   ► smart ish watch.

01:37:32 ◼   ► You can,

01:37:33 ◼   ► you can customize there.

01:37:34 ◼   ► They have complications.

01:37:35 ◼   ► They have a few different faces you can pick.

01:37:36 ◼   ► There's like a face store you can go into on their app.

01:37:39 ◼   ► By the way,

01:37:39 ◼   ► the app and the setup process way nicer than Garmin's.

01:37:43 ◼   ► Garmin's,

01:37:44 ◼   ► it's Garmin's apps,

01:37:45 ◼   ► plural and setup process are obviously like burdened by lots of legacy and

01:37:50 ◼   ► complexity and kind of just scope creep.

01:37:52 ◼   ► I think over time soon to,

01:37:54 ◼   ► I believe is a,

01:37:55 ◼   ► is a significantly younger brand.

01:37:56 ◼   ► They have a lot less crap in them.

01:37:59 ◼   ► They're much more like simple.

01:38:01 ◼   ► There's a lot,

01:38:01 ◼   ► a lot less.

01:38:02 ◼   ► That's like trying to get you to upsell to other things.

01:38:04 ◼   ► It's just like a nice,

01:38:06 ◼   ► simple,

01:38:06 ◼   ► and in my opinion,

01:38:08 ◼   ► better graphically designed platform.

01:38:11 ◼   ► everything about it.

01:38:12 ◼   ► Everything about it was way nicer than the Garmin experience for me,

01:38:15 ◼   ► including the experience of actually navigating the watch.

01:38:18 ◼   ► It may be if I had more time with the Garmin,

01:38:20 ◼   ► maybe I would have gotten faster navigating it,

01:38:22 ◼   ► but the Suunto seems like it just makes a little bit more intuitive sense.

01:38:27 ◼   ► there's a couple of buttons to learn a couple of like standards,

01:38:30 ◼   ► but for the most part,

01:38:31 ◼   ► I learned it a lot faster.

01:38:33 ◼   ► And again,

01:38:33 ◼   ► I think the,

01:38:34 ◼   ► the general graphical style of Suunto is nicer.

01:38:39 ◼   ► And frankly,

01:38:40 ◼   ► I think their hardware also looks nicer.

01:38:42 ◼   ► I mentioned already the straps look and feel and work better than the Garmin's that I had,

01:38:46 ◼   ► the Garmin that I had.

01:38:48 ◼   ► but also just like the watch case.

01:38:49 ◼   ► I think like it's a little bit more tasteful looking.

01:38:52 ◼   ► The Garmin's have like a certain look of like extreme and sport activity,

01:38:57 ◼   ► you know,

01:38:58 ◼   ► and they,

01:38:58 ◼   ► they kind of use color in weird ways.

01:39:00 ◼   ► And I think Suunto just has a better style overall.

01:39:02 ◼   ► Then it came time to charge it.

01:39:06 ◼   ► Their models have different chargers.

01:39:08 ◼   ► And so this one,

01:39:09 ◼   ► I think is one of the older ones because the race S is like a couple of years old and the race two is the newer model,

01:39:16 ◼   ► but it's only the big size so far.

01:39:18 ◼   ► This charger is USB a only.

01:39:22 ◼   ► There appear not to exist any USB C options.

01:39:26 ◼   ► And because they're not all the same,

01:39:30 ◼   ► that introduces some interesting complexities.

01:39:32 ◼   ► So for instance,

01:39:33 ◼   ► if I want more than one cable,

01:39:35 ◼   ► I'm going to have to buy more and,

01:39:38 ◼   ► you know,

01:39:38 ◼   ► keep them wherever I might be.

01:39:40 ◼   ► You know,

01:39:41 ◼   ► maybe put one in the backpack,

01:39:42 ◼   ► you know,

01:39:42 ◼   ► like if I want to have it like charge,

01:39:44 ◼   ► like on my bed stand,

01:39:46 ◼   ► my bedside table or whatever,

01:39:47 ◼   ► like you quickly realize that the Apple watch by being the dominant platform,

01:39:53 ◼   ► it has certain kind of built in advantages.

01:39:56 ◼   ► And one of them is that there's lots of accessories out there made for Apple watches because Apple sells tons of Apple watches and has for a decade.

01:40:06 ◼   ► And they've always used the same charger.

01:40:08 ◼   ► So people have had time to make third party cables,

01:40:13 ◼   ► third party docks,

01:40:14 ◼   ► third party battery packs that all can charge Apple watches directly like on them.

01:40:19 ◼   ► And in this ecosystem,

01:40:21 ◼   ► that just doesn't exist.

01:40:21 ◼   ► You know,

01:40:22 ◼   ► the soon to ecosystem is way smaller and way younger.

01:40:24 ◼   ► And because they use different chargers for different models,

01:40:28 ◼   ► like if you say,

01:40:30 ◼   ► you know,

01:40:30 ◼   ► if you brought this on a trip somewhere and if you need to charge it now,

01:40:33 ◼   ► it does have a very good battery life in standby mode of like,

01:40:38 ◼   ► if you're just using as a watch,

01:40:39 ◼   ► it'll last many,

01:40:41 ◼   ► many days.

01:40:41 ◼   ► But if you,

01:40:43 ◼   ► if you were like in a bind and needed,

01:40:44 ◼   ► needed a charger for this,

01:40:45 ◼   ► if you were wearing an Apple watch,

01:40:47 ◼   ► you could go to any drugstore,

01:40:49 ◼   ► any like airport kiosk or whatever,

01:40:52 ◼   ► and you can get an Apple watch cable to charge your,

01:40:54 ◼   ► your watch.

01:40:54 ◼   ► If you have something like this,

01:40:56 ◼   ► good luck.

01:40:57 ◼   ► You probably won't be able to find what you're looking for without like,

01:41:00 ◼   ► you know,

01:41:00 ◼   ► going to,

01:41:01 ◼   ► you know,

01:41:01 ◼   ► ordering something online and having it delivered to your hotel.

01:41:04 ◼   ► Maybe if you're lucky,

01:41:04 ◼   ► you know,

01:41:05 ◼   ► so does this charge the same way as the Apple watch does like inductive,

01:41:09 ◼   ► like a pad or a thing that like,

01:41:10 ◼   ► it's not inductive.

01:41:12 ◼   ► There's,

01:41:12 ◼   ► there's contacts on the back.

01:41:14 ◼   ► So,

01:41:14 ◼   ► but there's not a,

01:41:14 ◼   ► all right.

01:41:15 ◼   ► So there's not a port,

01:41:16 ◼   ► but it's just like,

01:41:16 ◼   ► yeah,

01:41:17 ◼   ► it's like there is a magnetically attaching disc that attacks to a USB cable.

01:41:21 ◼   ► And it is,

01:41:22 ◼   ► but it's a proprietary charging system that uses two pins on the back.

01:41:26 ◼   ► Interesting.

01:41:26 ◼   ► I wonder if you could just like buy any charger at a gas station and rip open the

01:41:30 ◼   ► wires and just take the positive and negative and hold them to the two

01:41:33 ◼   ► contacts on the bottom of the watch.

01:41:35 ◼   ► Just apply five volts across these terminals and hope for the best.

01:41:37 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:38 ◼   ► I mean,

01:41:38 ◼   ► like it's,

01:41:39 ◼   ► as I was asking whether it was inductive,

01:41:40 ◼   ► like that you needed some kind of coil that exactly matches in a line to the

01:41:43 ◼   ► thing.

01:41:43 ◼   ► But if it's two like pin contacts,

01:41:45 ◼   ► that's real old school.

01:41:46 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:41:47 ◼   ► I mean,

01:41:47 ◼   ► that's maybe that would work.

01:41:49 ◼   ► I don't know.

01:41:49 ◼   ► But anyway,

01:41:50 ◼   ► so it,

01:41:50 ◼   ► it is like,

01:41:51 ◼   ► again,

01:41:52 ◼   ► it adds to the friction.

01:41:53 ◼   ► If you want to make one of these,

01:41:54 ◼   ► your daily driver,

01:41:55 ◼   ► it just adds to the friction that it's not a standard charger.

01:42:01 ◼   ► And unlike the Apple watch,

01:42:02 ◼   ► which is also like not a standard charger,

01:42:04 ◼   ► so to speak,

01:42:05 ◼   ► but like it also is not dominant in the world and hasn't been there for long.

01:42:09 ◼   ► And so odds are you won't be able to charge it with in any other way,

01:42:13 ◼   ► other than one of its official cables or a clone from Amazon that has all the

01:42:16 ◼   ► same problems that the official ones do all the same limitations.

01:42:20 ◼   ► So the charging situation is bleak,

01:42:22 ◼   ► but the battery life is so good that like you can,

01:42:25 ◼   ► if you're just like keeping it around for doing occasional workouts while you're on a

01:42:29 ◼   ► trip,

01:42:29 ◼   ► you wouldn't really need to charge it if,

01:42:32 ◼   ► you know,

01:42:32 ◼   ► unless your trip is longer than,

01:42:33 ◼   ► you know,

01:42:33 ◼   ► a week or two,

01:42:34 ◼   ► maybe.

01:42:34 ◼   ► As for other physical characteristics,

01:42:36 ◼   ► the speaker on the watch is just like beeps,

01:42:41 ◼   ► like a cheap digital watch,

01:42:43 ◼   ► like that it can be like,

01:42:44 ◼   ► you know,

01:42:44 ◼   ► it can play different tones of beeps,

01:42:46 ◼   ► but it doesn't appear to be like a real like PCM speaker,

01:42:49 ◼   ► which is interesting.

01:42:50 ◼   ► It's like using like back,

01:42:52 ◼   ► John wouldn't know this,

01:42:53 ◼   ► but Casey,

01:42:54 ◼   ► you would.

01:42:54 ◼   ► I know about PC sound.

01:42:56 ◼   ► I used to laugh about it.

01:42:57 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:42:57 ◼   ► Like PC sound.

01:42:58 ◼   ► Like if you just had the PC speaker,

01:42:59 ◼   ► you didn't have a sound blaster and it's that,

01:43:02 ◼   ► it's that.

01:43:03 ◼   ► You could get the Atari Lynx voice,

01:43:05 ◼   ► not the Atari Lynx,

01:43:06 ◼   ► the,

01:43:06 ◼   ► the Lynx,

01:43:07 ◼   ► uh,

01:43:07 ◼   ► golf game voice.

01:43:08 ◼   ► I bet the,

01:43:13 ◼   ► uh,

01:43:13 ◼   ► soon till watch can make that noise.

01:43:14 ◼   ► Oh,

01:43:15 ◼   ► I'm,

01:43:15 ◼   ► I'm,

01:43:15 ◼   ► it can,

01:43:15 ◼   ► it can make some noises.

01:43:16 ◼   ► All right.

01:43:16 ◼   ► Um,

01:43:17 ◼   ► yeah.

01:43:17 ◼   ► So that's,

01:43:18 ◼   ► that's interesting.

01:43:18 ◼   ► But what I learned using this thing is that generally speaking,

01:43:22 ◼   ► as a computing device,

01:43:24 ◼   ► it is very primitive compared to the Apple watch.

01:43:27 ◼   ► And you see that in a few different ways.

01:43:29 ◼   ► So one of them is,

01:43:29 ◼   ► yeah,

01:43:30 ◼   ► like the PC speaker kind of speaker.

01:43:31 ◼   ► Um,

01:43:32 ◼   ► also the watch seems to have not really any concept of like multitasking,

01:43:37 ◼   ► so to speak in a practical way.

01:43:39 ◼   ► So like,

01:43:39 ◼   ► for instance,

01:43:40 ◼   ► the app,

01:43:41 ◼   ► the,

01:43:41 ◼   ► the watch will only sync to its app if the watch is on its,

01:43:45 ◼   ► home screen,

01:43:46 ◼   ► not in an app,

01:43:48 ◼   ► the soon to app on your phone will yell at you,

01:43:50 ◼   ► put the watch back on the home screen so we can sync data.

01:43:53 ◼   ► Lovely.

01:43:54 ◼   ► Um,

01:43:55 ◼   ► there was a point where during my big walk,

01:43:57 ◼   ► I wanted to change a setting.

01:43:59 ◼   ► I wanted to turn off the always on screen during the big walk to try to conserve power.

01:44:04 ◼   ► And it turned out I didn't need to do that.

01:44:06 ◼   ► It,

01:44:06 ◼   ► it,

01:44:06 ◼   ► it had plenty of power.

01:44:07 ◼   ► Um,

01:44:08 ◼   ► it,

01:44:08 ◼   ► it finished a,

01:44:09 ◼   ► uh,

01:44:09 ◼   ► you know,

01:44:10 ◼   ► an eight and a half hour walk with 66% battery left.

01:44:13 ◼   ► So it was fine.

01:44:16 ◼   ► And that's with the always on screen on heart rate tracking and GPS.

01:44:20 ◼   ► Does this have the fancy GPS that you really,

01:44:22 ◼   ► really wanted from the,

01:44:23 ◼   ► uh,

01:44:24 ◼   ► Apple watch ultra?

01:44:24 ◼   ► Yes,

01:44:25 ◼   ► it does.

01:44:25 ◼   ► It has dual band GPS L one and L five.

01:44:28 ◼   ► So,

01:44:29 ◼   ► uh,

01:44:29 ◼   ► it had,

01:44:30 ◼   ► so again,

01:44:30 ◼   ► like it's,

01:44:31 ◼   ► it's very ultra in a lot of these features.

01:44:33 ◼   ► Like it,

01:44:34 ◼   ► it competes directly with the Apple watch ultra and a lot of these features,

01:44:36 ◼   ► but again,

01:44:37 ◼   ► at half or less the price,

01:44:39 ◼   ► uh,

01:44:40 ◼   ► and much lighter weight.

01:44:41 ◼   ► And in some ways,

01:44:42 ◼   ► even better battery life,

01:44:43 ◼   ► not always,

01:44:44 ◼   ► but,

01:44:44 ◼   ► um,

01:44:45 ◼   ► in some ways.

01:44:45 ◼   ► So the always on screen when you're not in a workout only shows a dumb clock.

01:44:52 ◼   ► Like when the Apple watch is in like power save mode,

01:44:54 ◼   ► it only shows the time.

01:44:56 ◼   ► If you want to actually see your watch face,

01:44:58 ◼   ► you have to like hit a button on the watch and that will bring up the watch face.

01:45:02 ◼   ► And so the value of things like watch faces and complications,

01:45:07 ◼   ► I think it's somewhat limited by that.

01:45:10 ◼   ► Um,

01:45:11 ◼   ► the situation with watch faces and complications,

01:45:14 ◼   ► again,

01:45:15 ◼   ► they exist.

01:45:16 ◼   ► They're very limited,

01:45:17 ◼   ► very primitive.

01:45:18 ◼   ► Um,

01:45:19 ◼   ► a lot of things are missing.

01:45:20 ◼   ► So like they have built in weather widgets and stuff that you can put as complications,

01:45:23 ◼   ► but there's very few metrics you can measure.

01:45:26 ◼   ► Like they're like one of the things I was disappointed by is that there's no UV index.

01:45:29 ◼   ► And what I always have on my Apple watches is temperature,

01:45:33 ◼   ► UV index,

01:45:34 ◼   ► and timer as my bottom three complications.

01:45:35 ◼   ► All that stuff is very primitive.

01:45:37 ◼   ► And also,

01:45:38 ◼   ► so it has,

01:45:39 ◼   ► it has this feature where you can,

01:45:41 ◼   ► you can download offline maps to it,

01:45:43 ◼   ► which is great.

01:45:44 ◼   ► Um,

01:45:44 ◼   ► it's not super granular.

01:45:47 ◼   ► I had to download all of New York to have any of New York and all of New York is a gig and it takes a while to send it.

01:45:53 ◼   ► It takes like an hour to send it over to the watch.

01:45:56 ◼   ► So it's,

01:45:58 ◼   ► uh,

01:45:58 ◼   ► you know,

01:45:59 ◼   ► it's a slow process,

01:46:00 ◼   ► but it does actually work.

01:46:01 ◼   ► Once the map is on there,

01:46:03 ◼   ► map navigation works great.

01:46:05 ◼   ► You can,

01:46:05 ◼   ► you can zoom in and out.

01:46:06 ◼   ► You can,

01:46:07 ◼   ► you know,

01:46:07 ◼   ► it's,

01:46:08 ◼   ► all that stuff is great.

01:46:09 ◼   ► And,

01:46:09 ◼   ► and I needed offline maps for this because this was upstate where there's not that,

01:46:12 ◼   ► not very good coverage of any kind of any sort.

01:46:15 ◼   ► And also,

01:46:15 ◼   ► by the way,

01:46:16 ◼   ► these watches do not have a cellular option.

01:46:19 ◼   ► Uh,

01:46:20 ◼   ► Garmin does on some of their larger models.

01:46:22 ◼   ► Um,

01:46:23 ◼   ► as far as I could tell,

01:46:24 ◼   ► none of the Suunto's do.

01:46:25 ◼   ► I don't think it's certainly this one doesn't.

01:46:27 ◼   ► That's another thing.

01:46:27 ◼   ► Like if you want the,

01:46:28 ◼   ► if you want this watch to have cellular for things,

01:46:31 ◼   ► like if you wanted to maybe take a run without bringing your phone with you,

01:46:34 ◼   ► this isn't going to help you.

01:46:36 ◼   ► Um,

01:46:36 ◼   ► similarly,

01:46:37 ◼   ► most of these watches don't support like local music playback to Bluetooth headphones.

01:46:42 ◼   ► Some of the newest ones do.

01:46:44 ◼   ► Many of them don't.

01:46:45 ◼   ► So again,

01:46:47 ◼   ► like I think the Apple watch has spoiled us for how good of a computing platform,

01:46:52 ◼   ► how good of a smartwatch it is.

01:46:54 ◼   ► But again,

01:46:56 ◼   ► this is half the price and way lighter and with very good battery life.

01:47:02 ◼   ► So I think we can forgive a lot of those things.

01:47:04 ◼   ► Okay.

01:47:05 ◼   ► Um,

01:47:06 ◼   ► I'm almost done here.

01:47:06 ◼   ► At some point in the last couple of weeks,

01:47:09 ◼   ► there was a software update that just happened automatically.

01:47:12 ◼   ► I didn't,

01:47:12 ◼   ► it didn't ask me,

01:47:13 ◼   ► it just did it.

01:47:13 ◼   ► And when I woke up the next morning,

01:47:15 ◼   ► my watch face and complications were blown away,

01:47:19 ◼   ► reset to defaults,

01:47:20 ◼   ► and my offline maps were deleted.

01:47:22 ◼   ► Oh,

01:47:23 ◼   ► brutal.

01:47:23 ◼   ► Um,

01:47:25 ◼   ► before that,

01:47:26 ◼   ► the,

01:47:27 ◼   ► uh,

01:47:28 ◼   ► the complications on the watch face didn't quite fit the layout of the watch screen.

01:47:33 ◼   ► Like there were some that were like overflowing their bounds.

01:47:35 ◼   ► After that,

01:47:36 ◼   ► that was fixed.

01:47:37 ◼   ► So,

01:47:38 ◼   ► okay.

01:47:40 ◼   ► It feels like I'm using a beta.

01:47:42 ◼   ► Um,

01:47:43 ◼   ► soon to,

01:47:43 ◼   ► I guess they,

01:47:44 ◼   ► they are a younger company.

01:47:46 ◼   ► it shows,

01:47:46 ◼   ► uh,

01:47:47 ◼   ► their software is still a little,

01:47:50 ◼   ► a little rough,

01:47:52 ◼   ► uh,

01:47:52 ◼   ► in a lot of those ways.

01:47:53 ◼   ► Um,

01:47:54 ◼   ► so after that,

01:47:54 ◼   ► I reset up my watch face.

01:47:56 ◼   ► I downloaded the New York map again,

01:47:59 ◼   ► I had to send it over to the watch for over an hour again,

01:48:02 ◼   ► but I did get it to work.

01:48:06 ◼   ► Uh,

01:48:07 ◼   ► but having a software update silently wipe out my entire watch face configuration and offline maps was a little disconcerting.

01:48:13 ◼   ► Um,

01:48:13 ◼   ► all right.

01:48:14 ◼   ► As for actually using it during workouts and during the giant walk workouts first,

01:48:20 ◼   ► it's really nice during workouts actually.

01:48:23 ◼   ► So this confirmed,

01:48:24 ◼   ► first of all,

01:48:25 ◼   ► I don't need it to be any bigger.

01:48:26 ◼   ► One of the problems that I have with the Apple watch ultra in my regular workouts is a lot of times we are like on our hands on the mat or I'm lifting a big dumbbell with a workout glove.

01:48:39 ◼   ► Like weight,

01:48:39 ◼   ► like a weightlifting glove.

01:48:40 ◼   ► And a lot of times it's easy for like my wrist or the edge of the glove to accidentally push buttons on an Apple watch.

01:48:47 ◼   ► Uh,

01:48:48 ◼   ► and I don't,

01:48:49 ◼   ► I don't have the problem.

01:48:49 ◼   ► It assumes the buttons are a little harder to push.

01:48:51 ◼   ► So that's good.

01:48:52 ◼   ► Um,

01:48:52 ◼   ► and also that's also why I don't want one that's any bigger than this,

01:48:57 ◼   ► because if it becomes bigger,

01:48:58 ◼   ► then it starts getting in the way of my wrist movement.

01:49:00 ◼   ► Like if I flex my wrist up and stuff like that.

01:49:02 ◼   ► So I was very happy to have the size that I have for that.

01:49:06 ◼   ► And there's never been a moment during this trial so far that I've needed the bigger,

01:49:10 ◼   ► a bigger screen or a bigger battery or anything.

01:49:12 ◼   ► So I'm glad I have the smaller one.

01:49:14 ◼   ► Um,

01:49:15 ◼   ► cause again,

01:49:15 ◼   ► even smaller,

01:49:16 ◼   ► it's not small in absolute terms.

01:49:17 ◼   ► It's just smaller than other sports watches of this type during workouts.

01:49:21 ◼   ► I like that.

01:49:22 ◼   ► It's given me every second.

01:49:24 ◼   ► It's given me heart rate updates on the screen,

01:49:27 ◼   ► always on all the time.

01:49:28 ◼   ► So if I'm feeling like I'm really pushing myself in a workout,

01:49:32 ◼   ► I can just quickly glance at the watch and I can see it does this nice,

01:49:36 ◼   ► like ring around the outside of like heart rate zones and you can customize those zones,

01:49:43 ◼   ► which I found very nice.

01:49:44 ◼   ► So I was able to set like,

01:49:45 ◼   ► you know,

01:49:45 ◼   ► the,

01:49:46 ◼   ► of like the four or five zones that go around the face of the watch,

01:49:49 ◼   ► you know,

01:49:49 ◼   ► they're color coded,

01:49:49 ◼   ► you know,

01:49:50 ◼   ► like red,

01:49:50 ◼   ► yellow,

01:49:51 ◼   ► green.

01:49:51 ◼   ► Um,

01:49:51 ◼   ► and I was able to set like where the boundaries are to match kind of,

01:49:55 ◼   ► you know,

01:49:55 ◼   ► what I want those to mean.

01:49:56 ◼   ► So I can tell,

01:49:57 ◼   ► am I pushing myself,

01:49:58 ◼   ► you know,

01:49:59 ◼   ► as hard as I expect to be or want to be,

01:50:01 ◼   ► and I can adjust in response to that.

01:50:03 ◼   ► That was very nice.

01:50:04 ◼   ► And when doing these workouts,

01:50:06 ◼   ► that's when I realized,

01:50:07 ◼   ► Oh,

01:50:08 ◼   ► round is the right shape for fitness watches.

01:50:14 ◼   ► I get it now,