00:00:13 ◼ ► A debate that Erin and I had, which I reached a conclusion to, but I don't think she was paying any attention because she could not possibly care less, was...
00:00:29 ◼ ► Yeah, I feel like that, when it comes to air conditioning season, I feel like that catches everybody.
00:00:43 ◼ ► And I feel like it's one of those situations, like Settlers of Catan trades, where you just have to add more words to clarify what you mean.
00:00:59 ◼ ► God, I haven't played that game, possibly since you and I and Tiff and Aaron played it 84 years ago, but...
00:01:36 ◼ ► I gotta say, like, I'm, so I'm actually, like, I was planning a, a big overcast server upgrade,
00:01:46 ◼ ► Just, just only, not to, like, unlock any new functionality, really, just, like, you know,
00:01:51 ◼ ► I run a certain distribution of Linux that is a few years old now, and it's, it's, you know,
00:01:55 ◼ ► it's starting to leave its supported time range for certain patches of certain packages and
00:02:01 ◼ ► stuff like that, and I'm on, like, I'm on the other side of the big OpenSSL upgrade as well,
00:02:06 ◼ ► so I'm like, oh boy, there's no way to really upgrade that in place without breaking everything,
00:02:10 ◼ ► so I'm, I'm gonna, you know, slowly migrate to new servers, but, like, now I'm like, oh,
00:02:15 ◼ ► maybe I should do that a little more quickly than, than before, um, I don't know, you, are
00:02:23 ◼ ► Uh, Mythos is just a marketing BS, but the idea that LLMs can find security flaws is 100% real,
00:02:29 ◼ ► and Mythos or not, yeah, you shouldn't upgrade your software to versions that you hope have less
00:02:35 ◼ ► security flaws in them, because LLMs may get a lot easier for lay people to find those,
00:02:40 ◼ ► flaws, so, yeah, I agree with the upgrade process, I just think the whole Mythos thing is silly
00:02:44 ◼ ► overblown marketing is done. Yeah, I, I think, and again, like, I think whether, whether or not
00:02:50 ◼ ► Mythos specifically is, okay, so just to explain, anybody who, who missed the story quickly, um,
00:02:55 ◼ ► Anthropics, uh, latest model Mythos, they've only released in a very limited way to, like,
00:03:01 ◼ ► approved people, because what they say is, it's incredibly good at finding security vulnerabilities
00:03:08 ◼ ► in source code, and they, it's already found, like, hundreds of vulnerabilities in old packages,
00:03:14 ◼ ► like, you know, like, OpenBSD and FFMPEG, like, you know, like, old software that's been around
00:03:19 ◼ ► forever, that's, like, run on servers and stuff, um, and so the concern is, if this gets into the
00:03:25 ◼ ► mass market, lots of people can find security vulnerabilities and exploit them, um, and so
00:03:30 ◼ ► what they are doing is having, like, a preview program where they're allowing certain software
00:03:35 ◼ ► vendors to have access to it so they can run it against their code, patch their code, and, you know,
00:03:41 ◼ ► get those patches released before, um, this is available to the public. Now, this is not a perfect
00:03:46 ◼ ► system, you know, Anthropic, as, as with most AI companies, has a history of overhyping, um,
00:03:52 ◼ ► the capabilities of their models, and kind of, you know, calling Wolf, so to speak, and, and, you
00:03:56 ◼ ► know, as... It's a good marketing, right? It is, and, you know, and as Ben Thompson points out, like,
00:04:00 ◼ ► the, the story of the Boy Who Cried Wolf does end in an actual Wolf. Yeah, although it's obvious that,
00:04:05 ◼ ► uh, that they didn't run, uh, Mythos on their own software, because, uh... Yes. People exploited
00:04:10 ◼ ► flaws, and, and, like, it got, it got, it got, a whole Discord got access to Mythos and has had it for
00:04:15 ◼ ► months, uh, so, yeah, you're not actually keeping this genie in the bottle, like, oh, we're only gonna
00:04:20 ◼ ► release it to a select group of people. That is extremely difficult to do, and they immediately
00:04:25 ◼ ► screwed it up by having security flaws in their own software that were exploited by people who just
00:04:28 ◼ ► wanted access to it. But, like, by setting this aside, like, as, as I discussed, you know, when we
00:04:32 ◼ ► were talking about things you can use LLMs for many, many episodes ago, you can just ask it to find bugs
00:04:37 ◼ ► in your, in any code, or you could ask it to find security flaws, uh, and it is a tireless searcher for
00:04:43 ◼ ► security flaws. Uh, you know, it will find things that have not been found by other people, because,
00:04:48 ◼ ► you know, it's, it's good at finding them, and it doesn't sleep. So, one thing I have found with
00:04:53 ◼ ► using LLMs to analyze, you know, documents, or, or code, or whatever it is, is, like, they are often
00:04:59 ◼ ► able to find correlations between different sections or different parts that I wouldn't have seen,
00:05:05 ◼ ► um, you know, just because they, they don't work like human brains. They work differently.
00:05:10 ◼ ► Yeah, and also, because they are tireless, like, they're finding bugs in really old code, because no one
00:05:15 ◼ ► has looked at, no human has looked at that code in 20 years. If a human did look at it and concentrate
00:05:20 ◼ ► on it, yeah, they would find the same flaws. But no one's looking at that to, like, oh, that's old,
00:05:23 ◼ ► it's debugged, it's fine, it's good. But a computer doesn't have the same, you know, like, oh, I won't
00:05:28 ◼ ► look at that code, because it's really old, and I don't need to bother looking at it. No, you just
00:05:31 ◼ ► pointed at the whole code base, and it just goes through all of it. So, it's not like it's even better
00:05:34 ◼ ► than humans at it. It is just simply, it does the things that humans don't, which is, I'll look at
00:05:39 ◼ ► everything forever, as long as you ask me to. Yeah, and yeah, and I'll never get tired, and I'll
00:05:43 ◼ ► never get bored, and I'll never zone out, and I'll never complain that it's really boring. Yeah, and
00:05:46 ◼ ► I'll never, like, skip over stuff, because, like, oh, obviously, that's fine. I won't do that, because
00:05:51 ◼ ► I don't know if it's, I just do what you tell me. Here's the code, I'll look at it. Yeah, exactly. So,
00:05:55 ◼ ► anyway, so, I think, regardless of whether, whether the hype about Mythos is real or valid or earned,
00:06:02 ◼ ► like, regardless of that, the truth is that we are in a transition point now, where, like, in the
00:06:09 ◼ ► long run, having LLMs look at a bunch of source code at the time will be great for security, because
00:06:14 ◼ ► I think fewer security vulnerabilities will get released in the first place, because the LLMs will
00:06:18 ◼ ► either be writing the code and will avoid them, or they will find them. I don't think they avoid them
00:06:22 ◼ ► when they're writing the code. I think they write plenty of themselves, because they're copying other
00:06:25 ◼ ► code that has security flaws. But yes, you can have a phase where you say, now, just keep looking for
00:06:29 ◼ ► security flaws until you think you can't find any anymore. And then the new version of the model
00:06:33 ◼ ► comes out, and you ask it to do the same thing over and over, right? But in the meantime, like,
00:06:36 ◼ ► you know, the transition between having all this sloppy human code that is full of vulnerabilities
00:06:41 ◼ ► nobody's ever found, and the future where LLM code is mostly what's out there, or LLM vetted human code,
00:06:48 ◼ ► or whatever, or LLM assisted human, you know, whatever it is. This transition period, I think it's going to be
00:06:53 ◼ ► just a tidal wave of patches coming out from lots of places. And so, like, what I told my family,
00:07:03 ◼ ► you know, when this news came out a few weeks ago, I'm like, listen, whenever you get an update on your
00:07:09 ◼ ► phone or your devices, just accept it, run it. Like, don't defer software updates for six months. But,
00:07:15 ◼ ► you know, like, this is a good time to be on the latest versions of everything that you can be on the
00:07:21 ◼ ► versions of. You know, certainly on our personal devices, that's a good idea. You know, I think we
00:07:25 ◼ ► can count on the major vendors, you know, Apple, Microsoft, you can count on them to probably
00:07:31 ◼ ► issue critical security patches for older OSs back to a point. And Apple has actually done that
00:07:39 ◼ ► recently. They've actually issued some very old OS patches recently for, like, some pretty big bugs.
00:07:44 ◼ ► But that's only to a point that they'll do that, and only for, like, the worst bugs, probably.
00:07:55 ◼ ► whether it's mythos or mythos-like things in the present or future, is just be running the latest
00:08:02 ◼ ► versions of everything you possibly can. And when patches come out, just install them as fast as you
00:08:07 ◼ ► can. This is not a good time to be running old software. And unfortunately, on servers, it's a lot
00:08:11 ◼ ► more difficult, you know. And so, that's why, like, I'm embarking on this project to do this giant
00:08:15 ◼ ► rolling upgrade, basically. It's not fun, but I feel like, you know, if Overcast got hacked because
00:08:20 ◼ ► I didn't upgrade my Linux version from one from 2024 or whatever, like, I'm going to feel pretty bad
00:08:26 ◼ ► about that. Well, the tricky part of just upgrade to the latest version whenever it comes out is you
00:08:29 ◼ ► got to hope those latest versions don't have a bunch of vibe-coded stuff that adds a bunch of
00:08:33 ◼ ► horrendous security flaws in it. So, you know, it's a double-edged sword because, yes, and to be clear,
00:08:39 ◼ ► you don't need to use Mythos to find security flaws. Any of the existing coding models, they can
00:08:44 ◼ ► and will find security flaws, right? Not just Mythos, right? But also, people will use them carelessly
00:08:49 ◼ ► to create security flaws because, you know, just because they're good at finding them doesn't mean
00:08:53 ◼ ► they won't create them themselves. And because you can create so much code so much faster these days,
00:08:57 ◼ ► like, I just saw a stat fly by today that GitHub, for all their problems, they're having a bunch of
00:09:01 ◼ ► problems related to Microsoft being Microsoft or whatever and absorbing that company. But setting that
00:09:06 ◼ ► aside, one stat that they threw out was that the number of commits going into GitHub has increased
00:09:12 ◼ ► by a literal order of magnitude since this time last year. Yeah, that's wild. So, and where do you
00:09:18 ◼ ► think all those new commits are coming from? Did we get 10 times as many programmers in the last year?
00:09:22 ◼ ► We did not. So, yeah, it's a wild time out there in the software world, you know, and we can use the
00:09:30 ◼ ► tools to help protect us, but those same tools are also kind of screwing us over. And there were some,
00:09:35 ◼ ► I don't know if any of this is true, but there's a bunch of narrative that part of GitHub stability
00:09:39 ◼ ► problems is because the people at GitHub themselves are vide coding a bunch of things and it's destroying
00:09:42 ◼ ► their stability. But other people say just being bought by Microsoft destroyed their ability because
00:09:46 ◼ ► anyway, I'm not even weighing in on that, but just simply the stat that 10 times more commits are
00:09:52 ◼ ► going to, or was it 14 times more commits are happening in GitHub versus a year ago is a fairly large
00:09:59 ◼ ► change. It's difficult for GitHub to handle. And it is indicative that more code is being produced
00:10:09 ◼ ► if I ran a giant web service and it had 14 times the traffic, uh, in, in, you know, a few months,
00:10:18 ◼ ► Yeah. We, we grew like 20%, uh, you know, like 20% at a time, basically like this, this is very
00:10:26 ◼ ► different. This is like 14 X in what is it? Four months. They said they're on pace for 14 X in a
00:10:31 ◼ ► year. If current, if current, the current curve continues, but still like that's also, they're
00:10:35 ◼ ► starting from a larger scale. So like that's, they're already pretty significant. Yeah. So like,
00:10:39 ◼ ► I, I, I don't, I don't know what the internal politics are there, but I don't, I certainly
00:10:44 ◼ ► don't blame them for having some uptime issues when they're growing at that rate. All of a sudden
00:10:53 ◼ ► the uptime issues happen coincident with the Microsoft acquisition and not coincident with
00:10:57 ◼ ► the rise of coding agents. So we're not entirely, it's not entirely sure where the cause is there,
00:11:04 ◼ ► Yeah. Anyway, this is a good time to run updated software. So I, I suggest everyone out there
00:11:09 ◼ ► keep those patches installed, like get, install them when they come out, keep current. This is a bad
00:11:17 ◼ ► Yeah. Unless you're running Mac OS 15, because Apple has been patching it. So good, good on Apple.
00:11:22 ◼ ► All right. Let's do some followup. Uh, I wanted to reiterate, even though the store is closed,
00:11:34 ◼ ► not share their name to save their dishonor, but an anonymous person wrote in and wrote the
00:11:40 ◼ ► following. I thought I would remember as I always have. I did remember on Monday, the 27th of April
00:11:45 ◼ ► at 1 34 AM Pacific time, the store was closed. I wanted to order the RIP Mac pro shirt to go with
00:11:51 ◼ ► my believe version. RIP me, I guess, pulling over next time. This is why we say to pull over the car
00:12:06 ◼ ► it happens. It happens. Uh, but there is some good news, John. Can you share the good word?
00:12:10 ◼ ► Yeah. The ATP Neo silver shirt did in fact get enough people to order it to have the shirt printed
00:12:16 ◼ ► in the end, a total of 34 people bought it. So we had the first week, one person bought it the
00:12:20 ◼ ► second week, two people. And then the third week, everyone came storming in and they passed that,
00:12:24 ◼ ► you know, threshold of a dozen orders in the end, 34 people ordered it. It will be printed.
00:12:32 ◼ ► That grew faster than GitHub. Yeah. Wow. Uh, is that the most rare piece of ATP merchandise?
00:12:43 ◼ ► Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think this might be the most rare piece of ATP merchandise.
00:12:47 ◼ ► Nah, we've sold fewer than 34 from other shirts. Normally what happens is the whole thing with
00:12:52 ◼ ► the silver is what it took so long to go over the threshold or you've had things go over the
00:12:55 ◼ ► threshold pretty quickly, but still only end up sending like 16 or 20. So I don't think it's that
00:12:59 ◼ ► No, either way. All right. Uh, we have a handful of very grumpy people from the university of
00:13:04 ◼ ► Pennsylvania who took issue with John. I'm going to say, and this is hyperbolic pooh-poohing
00:13:13 ◼ ► It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't pooh-poohing their engineering program. It was, I was saying
00:13:17 ◼ ► that we were talking about John Ternus last week, uh, for a very obvious reason. Um, and
00:13:21 ◼ ► I noted that he just had an engineering degree from the university of Pennsylvania. And I was
00:13:25 ◼ ► saying how that's a fairly unimpressive, fairly unimpressive pedigree for someone who is the
00:13:30 ◼ ► CEO of one of the biggest companies in the world. Uh, just an undergraduate degree, just
00:13:34 ◼ ► an engineering degree, and just from university of Pennsylvania and everyone in the world wrote
00:13:47 ◼ ► the school that you never remember is an Ivy league school. It really is. Um, we'll put
00:13:51 ◼ ► a link in the show notes to Ivy league schools. If you're not in the U S and don't know what
00:13:54 ◼ ► they are, you can read the Wikipedia page, but it's a bunch of supposedly prestigious schools
00:13:59 ◼ ► for reasons that are rooted in history more than anything else. Uh, Kieran Healy writes when
00:14:04 ◼ ► I was a grad student, the joke amongst obnoxious Princeton undergraduates about UPenn was that
00:14:09 ◼ ► the students there thought the full name of the school was UPenn and other Ivy's because
00:14:14 ◼ ► to see the people who were there, it's like, uh, would always remind you. And you know,
00:14:18 ◼ ► I go university of Pennsylvania, which is of course one of the Ivies. Um, and then Kieran
00:14:22 ◼ ► continues. There's also a trollish bit where people deliberately confuse university of Pennsylvania
00:14:33 ◼ ► Eppelman writes, arguably engineering in Penn state is superior to UPenn. That was my other point that
00:14:42 ◼ ► I don't think it's particularly known as like an amazing, uh, engineering school, but to our credit
00:14:47 ◼ ► and to Casey's credit, we did, Casey did look up on last episode what it's ranked. And so it's not like
00:14:53 ◼ ► we, we said, Oh, this is a terrible school. And then we didn't bother looking into it further.
00:15:00 ◼ ► that UPenn is number 16, uh, ranked in engineering and for whatever us news and world's report is
00:15:05 ◼ ► worth. And then BU and Virginia check are 32. And what is PSU? Penn state university. Yeah. Penn
00:15:11 ◼ ► state is number 28. So I'm not saying it's a bad school or anything, but my, my point stands,
00:15:14 ◼ ► which is like, he's just got an engineering bachelor's degree. What I should have, the other
00:15:18 ◼ ► point that I should have made, he doesn't even have an MBA. Like if you're going to be like
00:15:21 ◼ ► an executive, very often you'll get like an engineering degree, but, but eventually you decide
00:15:25 ◼ ► like, actually I want to be like a C level executive or something. And so you get an MBA
00:15:29 ◼ ► on top of your, uh, undergrad or you'll get an undergrad and a master's and an MBA. Like
00:15:33 ◼ ► unless you're a founder of a company, you tend not to see someone going to the C level of a
00:15:39 ◼ ► company with, uh, without more degrees. That was my only point that, and, and, and I said,
00:15:45 ◼ ► you know, it shows that you don't need to worry about getting, uh, you know, a bunch of fancy
00:15:49 ◼ ► degrees from fancy schools to become a CEO, but obviously, uh, UPenn being, uh, a, uh, an Ivy
00:15:54 ◼ ► league kind of undercuts that a bit, but still just having a bachelor's degree and not being a
00:15:58 ◼ ► founder of a company, uh, pretty good job. And then other people argued, well, he did that a long time
00:16:02 ◼ ► ago and things have changed and now you actually do need the degree. And I'm not sure that's the case,
00:16:13 ◼ ► I mean, it's, it's rare. Like I'm obviously Apple's a special case, but look at, look at the CEOs of
00:16:19 ◼ ► most other companies. You will see that like, they're either like business people or have business
00:16:23 ◼ ► degrees or have some other degree of whatever they're interested into. And then they got an MBA
00:16:27 ◼ ► because that's kind of how you get into the, like, I want to be, you know, it management, uh, in,
00:16:32 ◼ ► in the C level. Eventually you get an MBA and you tack it onto whatever your other degree was.
00:16:42 ◼ ► Tim Cook's remarks to Apple employees regarding his pending retirement or, or I don't know,
00:16:47 ◼ ► not retirement, but stepping down as CEO, stepping up to be executive chairman. I don't know. He's
00:16:52 ◼ ► stepping somewhere, stepping on the, onto the roof. Uh, so he was, he spoke to Apple employees on
00:16:57 ◼ ► Tuesday, the 21st of April, a couple of quotes that Gurman reports. I'm excited to continue my
00:17:02 ◼ ► journey at Apple as executive chairman. I am healthy. My energy is high and I plan to be in this
00:17:06 ◼ ► new role for a long time. That, that addresses the point we talked about last time when I asked,
00:17:10 ◼ ► do you think, how long do you think Tim Cook will be executive chairman at Apple? And I said,
00:17:15 ◼ ► I don't think he'll ever leave. And so what he's saying is, first of all, I'm healthy, which is a
00:17:20 ◼ ► way of his way of saying, I'm not stepping down as CEO because I'm about to die, right? Like it's not,
00:17:25 ◼ ► I don't, there's some health thing, you know, I'm healthy. My energy is high and guess what? I plan
00:17:29 ◼ ► to be here for a long time. I'm not just being executive chairman in the next year. I'm going to retire and
00:17:33 ◼ ► go fishing. That's not his plan currently. So all this checks out. It's going to be tough to get
00:17:39 ◼ ► rid of Tim Cook if he's healthy, exercising, and does not really ever feel like leaving as executive
00:17:44 ◼ ► chairman. Tim continues, I'll be there to support, excuse me, here to support John in any way he needs
00:17:50 ◼ ► and in any way I can. I'll be here to offer my knowledge and experience and be a sounding board
00:17:54 ◼ ► anytime I'm called upon. Apple will be my top priority. It's who I am at my core. That's a good
00:17:59 ◼ ► apple joke. And I can't imagine it any other way. Again, that's a, that's an apple lifer talking
00:18:04 ◼ ► right there. Cook finalized, uh, there can only be one CEO at a time, which is a good way of saying
00:18:11 ◼ ► I'm not going to be in the way. Hopefully. Yeah. I mean, certainly executive chairman of the board
00:18:14 ◼ ► should be a much easier, more relaxing job for Tim than being CEO, obviously. And so congratulations to
00:18:21 ◼ ► him to hopefully lowering his stress levels. Then with regard to Mark, Mark Ternus. Wow. Let me try
00:18:27 ◼ ► that again. Mark Gurman with regard to John Ternus. There we go. Uh, Gurman writes, Ternus was a
00:18:33 ◼ ► champion of the MacBook Neo. He urged the company to sell a cheaper laptop that could appeal to a
00:18:37 ◼ ► younger generation. Longtime colleagues described Ternus as someone willing to make clear calls in
00:18:43 ◼ ► contrast to Cook's more deliberative consensus oriented approach. Quote, Ternus will make decisions,
00:18:49 ◼ ► quote, when it comes to product developments. And one person who's worked closely with both
00:18:52 ◼ ► executives, quote, if you go into Tim with A or B, he won't pick. He'll ask a series of questions
00:18:56 ◼ ► instead if he has concerns. Ternus, on the other hand, will choose, said the person. It could be
00:19:01 ◼ ► right or wrong, but at least it's a decision. That shift could mark the end of an era in which major
00:19:06 ◼ ► product decisions were made collectively by a small group of top of top executives. Ternus is expected
00:19:11 ◼ ► to take a more centralized approach where he will be a singular decision maker. Earlier this month,
00:19:16 ◼ ► Ternus overhauled the hardware engineering organization around what he calls a new AI platform
00:19:20 ◼ ► designed to speed up product development and improve device quality. It's indicative of his plan
00:19:25 ◼ ► to deploy AI quickly throughout the company to improve its operations. The executive has told
00:19:29 ◼ ► staffers that he will remain closely involved with hardware engineering efforts aiming to shepherd
00:19:33 ◼ ► the next generation of technologies. So this characterization of Ternus as decisive in areas
00:19:38 ◼ ► where Cook wasn't sounds encouraging, but I do have to say that I have also seen reports of the exact
00:19:43 ◼ ► opposite, that he's not decisive and is afraid to make decisions. So it's really hard to tell what's
00:19:48 ◼ ► going on inside there. That's the problem I've always cited when talking about this is Ternus as he
00:19:53 ◼ ► existed in the company run by Tim Cook necessarily was subsumed under the way Tim Cook wanted to do
00:19:59 ◼ ► things. So it's very difficult to figure out how he in particular does things except for through like
00:20:04 ◼ ► these anonymous reports from people in Ternus as reporting chain who can can describe what he was
00:20:09 ◼ ► like. And that's, you know, that's presumably what this is. But what will he be like at CEO? I can tell
00:20:14 ◼ ► you, I would love him to be decisive, even if he makes mistakes. You know, again, he was supposedly a
00:20:19 ◼ ► component of the touch bar, which I don't think was a good idea. But decisively backing the touch bar
00:20:24 ◼ ► might have had a different result than throwing the touch bar out there and letting it languish until
00:20:29 ◼ ► you just give up on it and never make any changes to it. So like I'm, I'm all for decisive action,
00:20:33 ◼ ► especially if that decisive action can go in the opposite direction, which is we take decisive action,
00:20:38 ◼ ► we try it and then we decisively figure out that we screwed up and decisively stop, right? As opposed
00:20:43 ◼ ► to just kind of going, eh, I don't know, maybe try this, see how it goes, whatever. So I'm kind of
00:20:50 ◼ ► hearing what I want to hear in these stories. But until proven otherwise, I'm continued to be optimistic
00:20:57 ◼ ► Yeah, this honestly sounds, you know, having Ternus come in here with a different style and
00:21:02 ◼ ► everything, we don't know for sure this is going to be a good thing. Time will tell. But I'm pretty
00:21:10 ◼ ► optimistic. I think this is what Apple needs. Obviously, any strategy can go wrong. But whenever
00:21:16 ◼ ► we've heard stories about Tim Cook's leadership style as CEO, there's a few themes that run through.
00:21:24 ◼ ► Number one is basically what Gurman says here of like, Cook does not like to be brought problems.
00:21:30 ◼ ► I've even heard people say like, don't bring me problems is one of his things that he has always
00:21:35 ◼ ► said. It seems like, you know, Cook does a really good job of seeming like a nice, calm,
00:21:42 ◼ ► chill guy, you know, in public or in interviews. But everything we've heard about Cook's leadership
00:21:48 ◼ ► style sounds a lot less nice and chill. It sounds like Cook is ruthless and leads by sheer force of
00:21:59 ◼ ► will in a what are you doing to ask, even asking me this question kind of way. That's the story.
00:22:04 ◼ ► The kind of theme of what we hear is that's more what he is, a ruthless bean counter and decision
00:22:11 ◼ ► avoider and very cold. Like all the descriptions of Cook in this leadership style. It's like a cold,
00:22:17 ◼ ► ruthless numbers guy. Nothing we've heard about Ternus sounds anything like that. And that's why I'm
00:22:26 ◼ ► optimistic. Like it's not that, you know, it's not that Cook is without benefit to the company.
00:22:32 ◼ ► Obviously, you know, he did very well in lots of ways. But like, I think the way to get great
00:22:37 ◼ ► products more consistently is more the kind of style we're hearing about Ternus, not the kind
00:22:45 ◼ ► of style we've heard about about Cook. Yeah. And like, I think one of the aspects that doesn't get
00:22:49 ◼ ► talked about much these days is the ability to inspire the organization behind whatever it is that
00:22:53 ◼ ► you think is your vision or whatever. And for all Tim Cook's, you know, good sides, I don't feel like
00:23:00 ◼ ► he was ever an inspiration to the people who reported to him or to parts of the organization in terms of a
00:23:05 ◼ ► vision of where we're going. Whereas I have again, I have no friggin idea how Ternus actually was within
00:23:11 ◼ ► the company under Tim Cook. But it seems like the hardware division did a good job in a way that I can
00:23:17 ◼ ► only imagine happening if Ternus was inspiring them to do their best work. Maybe that's not true. I don't know.
00:23:23 ◼ ► But like, when you have an organization, organization excelling, you always imagine that the leadership is
00:23:28 ◼ ► not just like making the right decisions and getting people to do things on the right track. But they're
00:23:32 ◼ ► also inspiring those people to do to, you know, to go the extra mile to do to be enthusiastic about
00:23:39 ◼ ► something cool that they're doing. And it's hard to imagine Apple's recent hardware run without there
00:23:44 ◼ ► being some kind of inspiration in that organization, because it's not just like, oh, we're afraid of the
00:23:48 ◼ ► boss and we'll just try to do a really good job. And it's not just like, oh, we're really smart,
00:23:51 ◼ ► because there's tons of really smart people at Apple. And there's tons of people want to do a
00:23:54 ◼ ► good job. But having leadership that inspires, and that's one thing Steve Jobs did, he had
00:23:58 ◼ ► enthusiasm for certain things. And if the thing he was enthusiastic about, he would inspire people do
00:24:04 ◼ ► it. He was obviously Steve Jobs was enthusiastic about what he considered to be good user interface
00:24:09 ◼ ► design. Very often, he had weird ideas. But it's so clear that the people who were also inspired by
00:24:14 ◼ ► were on the same way make the same like, yeah, I do want to make the best looking button that you want to
00:24:18 ◼ ► lick. Was that a good idea? But I can tell you, he sure as hell inspired that team to make Aqua
00:24:24 ◼ ► to his taste. And that team was enthusiastic to do it because they could see the vision like, yes,
00:24:28 ◼ ► we're going to do this. Again, you can quibble with the ideas, but it was so clearly not just like,
00:24:35 ◼ ► How could you not help but be inspired by Steve Jobs' obvious enthusiasm for what would become the
00:24:42 ◼ ► Aqua interface? And you know, and so that's what I hope Ternus will provide that Cook didn't,
00:24:46 ◼ ► which is whatever Ternus is excited about, whether it's the touch bar or cheap laptops or whatever,
00:24:51 ◼ ► whatever things that he's excited about, I want him to inspire the Apple organization to get behind
00:24:57 ◼ ► his vision because they want them to see that he's super jazzed and into it. And like, what the hell
00:25:02 ◼ ► was Tim Cook super jazzed and into, you know, product wise, I guess, maybe the car and maybe also like
00:25:15 ◼ ► Even, yeah, I mean, he felt like, but that's, I think also, you know, kind of another aspect of
00:25:20 ◼ ► these styles is, you know, one of the things we've always heard about Cook is, again, like,
00:25:25 ◼ ► they don't bring me problems. What that meant is that it kind of pushed problems down in the
00:25:31 ◼ ► organization. The idea, I believe, that I think the goal of a, of a, of a site of a, you know,
00:25:36 ◼ ► philosophy like that is to make the people under you figure things out and deal with things
00:25:43 ◼ ► themselves and deal with conflict, resolve conflicts themselves. Don't bring it to you.
00:25:46 ◼ ► That's kind of the, the idea. But one of the downsides of that approach is that many problems
00:25:54 ◼ ► in the organization can result, or many problems in the products can result from like weird personality
00:26:00 ◼ ► problems, like in like some mid-level of, of leadership. And so if like some VP doesn't
00:26:06 ◼ ► get along with some other VP or there's friction between two different divisions or whatever,
00:26:10 ◼ ► that can like hold back a product or that can cause certain dysfunctions or that can, you know,
00:26:15 ◼ ► create the wrong incentives. Ideally, the leader through both inspiration, as John was just saying,
00:26:22 ◼ ► and I think through being a little more involved in, in, in product development in a company like
00:26:27 ◼ ► Apple should ideally bring those, bring those conflicts better to resolutions that are directed
00:26:34 ◼ ► from the philosophy at the top, rather than Cook saying, figure it out yourself. Don't come to me with
00:26:40 ◼ ► your BS. That just pushes down. That's like, you know, that's like, you know, deal with, deal with
00:26:46 ◼ ► your problems by suppressing them. Like that doesn't really work. Um, and, and we've heard
00:26:52 ◼ ► over the years, we've heard so many stories of like, why is this thing this way? Oh, it's because
00:26:56 ◼ ► this one leader of this one group like refuses to do it any other way. And there's some conflict
00:27:01 ◼ ► between them and some other group, but like we've heard these stories enough of them that it's probably,
00:27:06 ◼ ► there's probably some, some truth to this general dynamic. So the turn of style, if it's more like
00:27:12 ◼ ► the job style, you know, jobs would get in there and like, you know, command things to happen and
00:27:18 ◼ ► they would happen. It's a harder process to scale. Like the jobs, the job style is harder to scale as
00:27:24 ◼ ► a company gets really big. Uh, but that does result in certain frictions being removed. Now it's also
00:27:31 ◼ ► bottleneck certain things. If, if more things are going through the CEO, you, you do have to, you know,
00:27:36 ◼ ► deal with bottlenecks here and there, but like, like the Apple under the jobs to our, you could kind of
00:27:41 ◼ ► tell what they were concentrating on and other things suffered during that time because of that
00:27:45 ◼ ► bottleneck. Right. Um, and so, you know, there are, you know, the, the approaches are not without their,
00:27:50 ◼ ► their downsides, but the, the jobs approach and what it sounds like, hopefully the turn of this
00:27:55 ◼ ► approach is closer to, I think that's better for Apple's product quality overall. Um, you know,
00:28:02 ◼ ► they, you can, we can argue about finances and operations and everything. And there's, you know,
00:28:07 ◼ ► there's ways to delegate those things. You know, you don't have to, the CEO is not the one going to
00:28:11 ◼ ► every factory or whatever, you know, you, you can delegate, but the general leadership style of
00:28:23 ◼ ► Yeah, I think you're right. And I'm really hopeful that once things get settled, we're going to see
00:28:32 ◼ ► Also, can I, this is just pure speculation here. Do you think it's worth noting that we have a chief
00:28:39 ◼ ► hardware officer now, but Craig Federighi did not get elevated to chief software officer?
00:28:44 ◼ ► I mean, he wasn't, he wasn't the one who was threatening to leave and he's not as indispensable
00:28:49 ◼ ► as Surugi. So that's what that boils down to. I mean, look, I don't, I don't want to start any
00:28:53 ◼ ► crap or anything, but like that to me kind of stood out as like, maybe Federighi is not going to be with
00:28:59 ◼ ► us that much longer in this role. I mean, that's up to him, right? Like that's another thing that I
00:29:04 ◼ ► haven't seen mentioned as much. It got mentioned a couple of times in the CEO transition, but like,
00:29:07 ◼ ► and we've been talking about it for months leading up to this, uh, like, Oh, you know, when, when
00:29:11 ◼ ► there's a CEO transition, obviously there's a lot of turnover. Cause like now's the time to re re-examine
00:29:15 ◼ ► what you're doing and maybe you're old as well, blah, blah, blah. But that, that turnover does not
00:29:20 ◼ ► necessarily end when the CEO transition is announced. So don't be surprised if you see more executive
00:29:25 ◼ ► turnover surrounding the CEO transition, not just only before it. So I agree with you. Like,
00:29:31 ◼ ► I don't think Federighi is going anywhere, but like, don't be shocked if you see some more people
00:29:34 ◼ ► leave and it's like, well, why didn't they leave before the transition? Surely they knew it was
00:29:37 ◼ ► coming. It's like, sometimes it happens before, sometimes it happens after. But I mean, just the
00:29:41 ◼ ► Federighi situation, him not becoming chief software officer or whatever, um, from an outside perspective,
00:29:47 ◼ ► because I have no idea what's going on in there. Apple's hardware is amazing. Apple's chips are
00:29:52 ◼ ► amazing. Apple software is less amazing. I mean, it's as simple as that. The hardware guy becomes
00:29:57 ◼ ► CEO, the chip guy becomes chief hardware officer and the software guy stay where you are. You got
00:30:01 ◼ ► some work to do. Well, and I think like, you know, if we, maybe, you know, whenever Federighi does
00:30:07 ◼ ► actually retire or leave, I'm sure we'll do a whole thing about like what we feel about his era. But I do
00:30:11 ◼ ► think the, the Federighi era has been defined by some things being pretty good and some things being a
00:30:19 ◼ ► rough. And also I have to say, I mean, this is one of the things that I would say in the defense
00:30:23 ◼ ► of Federighi is at various times, including currently, he hasn't actually been in charge of
00:30:30 ◼ ► all software to the detriment of like, I mean, for example, Siri has been passed around like a hot
00:30:34 ◼ ► potato, not spending too much time under Federighi. How can he be expected to pass around more like
00:30:41 ◼ ► nuclear waste? Right. But like, and I believe Siri was under Federighi for some period of time,
00:30:50 ◼ ► Federighi, if you had given that to Federighi 10 years ago, and it had always been his, I think it
00:30:54 ◼ ► would have done better than if it had been passed around the org and you would hire the Google guy
00:30:57 ◼ ► from the outside and let him run it and then given it to Rockwell. And like, it's been all over the
00:31:01 ◼ ► place. And like, I just feel like it's unfair to say, well, Federighi, you're, you're the big,
00:31:06 ◼ ► you're the highest level software guy. So anything involving software with Apple is your fault.
00:31:10 ◼ ► Some things are, but not everything. And in particular, not Siri, which has been one of
00:31:14 ◼ ► the most glaring weaknesses that has only become more glaring with the advent of LLM. So I give
00:31:19 ◼ ► Federighi some cover for like, I mean, Suruji has been in charge of Apple Silicon, right? There's no,
00:31:24 ◼ ► it hasn't been passed around. It hasn't been divided up between him and some outside hires and stuff.
00:31:27 ◼ ► It's just him. So it lizardized based on him, but Federighi has been gaining responsibility,
00:31:32 ◼ ► but at various times has not been given responsibility over all the things. So I don't know. Yeah,
00:31:42 ◼ ► like some of its, I think some of its shortcomings are around like, like product or design decisions
00:31:50 ◼ ► about the software that he probably was not the one making those decisions, or at least not exclusively.
00:31:58 ◼ ► If you look at like the, the challenges of the Federighi software, even let's leave out Siri. Cause
00:32:03 ◼ ► yeah, we know that's been nuclear waste, but like the, I think the main challenges of the,
00:32:07 ◼ ► of the Federighi era have, have been software design, which isn't really him software quality,
00:32:12 ◼ ► which is him. And you know, that's we, that we can talk about. Um, and I would say the features
00:32:20 ◼ ► that are developed with Federighi, there's like, there's immense engineering sophistication
00:32:27 ◼ ► and an immense care for privacy. But then you have the user facing features are like really kind of
00:32:37 ◼ ► like finicky and complicated configuration stuff, like focus modes and like the, like the home screen
00:32:44 ◼ ► configuration stuff. And like, there's, there's a lot of stuff there that's like, I see where this
00:32:50 ◼ ► came from, but it is delivered as a very kind of complicated story that I think could have used
00:32:58 ◼ ► better product direction. So like, and again, I don't know the way things work between software
00:33:02 ◼ ► design and marketing and like how the, how the, how the product decisions are made. I don't know how
00:33:07 ◼ ► much of that was Federighi's call, but the software quality is under him for sure. And, and I do think
00:33:13 ◼ ► like regardless of whatever, whatever, um, other inputs there are on design and product decisions,
00:33:21 ◼ ► software quality itself is a hundred percent on Federighi's leadership and his organization.
00:33:28 ◼ ► Like that, that is definitely him. And I do think that story with software has been spotty,
00:33:36 ◼ ► you know, and, and, and I, and I like Federighi like as, as a leader, as a presenter, as a character.
00:33:41 ◼ ► And, and I like, I like that he, you know, I've, I've had the chance to meet him a few times
00:33:46 ◼ ► and he is very clearly a very good engineer. The technical sophistication of the things that he
00:33:54 ◼ ► for, you know, both understands and, and has implemented in the past and has led the implementation
00:34:00 ◼ ► of more recently. Like he really knows his stuff at a technical engineering level and everything they
00:34:07 ◼ ► say about like privacy and everything. He embodies that he values that he enforces that. So I give him
00:34:15 ◼ ► a hundred percent credit for being a real nerds, nerd, a really good engineer and having, having the right
00:34:21 ◼ ► principles about things like quality, uh, or, and, and privacy. But, but the quality part is had the
00:34:27 ◼ ► execution on the quality part has been spotty. And, but I do wonder like with this new elevation
00:34:34 ◼ ► of Ternus, I, we don't know how Ternus and Federighi get along. Probably I'm sure that's fine. But like
00:34:38 ◼ ► with that elevation, Federighi, I don't think Federighi wanted to be CEO. So I don't think there's
00:34:44 ◼ ► that kind of weird friction, but like that's gotta maybe like put an end date in his mind of when he
00:34:51 ◼ ► wants to leave. Um, and I, I, it would not surprise me if the Federighi era ends sooner than, than people
00:34:59 ◼ ► think. I, I would be, I would be shocked if he's still there in say certainly five years, maybe even
00:35:05 ◼ ► three years. Um, and then finally my, my one really crazy wild card, which I know is, this is ridiculous,
00:35:15 ◼ ► They won't. I mean, this is not a serious, I don't, I don't think he wants to come back.
00:35:21 ◼ ► Honestly, I don't, I don't want him to come back, but, but you know, like that's the type of thing
00:35:28 ◼ ► that a new CEO can make happen. Cause honestly, as much as Tim Cook was responsible for, uh, for
00:35:32 ◼ ► Forstall being booted out or leaving or whatever, Tim Cook wouldn't stop Ternus from bringing Forstall
00:35:38 ◼ ► back. If you wanted, I, it doesn't seem like a thing that is going to happen. And I think I don't
00:35:42 ◼ ► agree with a lot of things that Forstall did, but to give an example, Forstall definitely inspired the
00:35:46 ◼ ► people under him. And the same way I feel like Federighi and his, Federighi's obvious enthusiasm
00:35:50 ◼ ► for the technical aspects of his work inspires the people who work under him, who are also enthusiastic
00:35:55 ◼ ► about those things. So there's a positive effect of the positive effect of enthusiasm is what I'm
00:36:01 ◼ ► endorsing in this episode that like, if you're excited about a job related thing, you can't be excited
00:36:05 ◼ ► about every job related thing, but Federighi, when we see him speak, he's clearly animated
00:36:09 ◼ ► enthusiastic about specific aspects of his work. And it's infectious, right? If you are also on that
00:36:16 ◼ ► same wavelength, like, yes, my boss's boss's boss is also super into this thing that I also think is
00:36:21 ◼ ► cool. And we're going to do some awesome stuff together. And they do. And then there's the parts
00:36:24 ◼ ► that he seems less enthusiastic about or has bad taste with, right? So, you know, nobody's perfect,
00:36:28 ◼ ► but yeah. Forstall coming back. Ternus could do that if he felt like it was the right thing to do.
00:36:33 ◼ ► And Forstall was willing to do it, which it seems like Forstall's happy out there doing whatever he
00:36:37 ◼ ► wants. But, you know, stranger things have happened. Yeah. To be clear, like, I don't, I don't think
00:36:41 ◼ ► that that's a realistic outcome for lots of reasons, but it is, it is an interesting thing I think to
00:36:47 ◼ ► think about as fans, just like a wild fantasy to think about. Especially if Federighi leaves and
00:36:52 ◼ ► there's a gap and it's like, who can we get to fill this gap? It's like, well, we have one guy who kind
00:36:55 ◼ ► of has already been in that seat. And if he suddenly has a change of heart and is like,
00:37:00 ◼ ► you know what? Yeah. You know, there's a gap, there's a power vacuum and you're going to bring
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00:38:52 ◼ ► All right. I think about an hour ago we were in follow-up. So let's continue. The ability to be
00:39:05 ◼ ► This is Apple making computers that can cool CPUs that have more transistors and that dissipate more
00:39:12 ◼ ► energy in exchange for doing more computation. They're, you know, as of now, their biggest computer is the
00:39:18 ◼ ► Mac Studio. It can only dissipate, you know, under 300 watts of power, or it is only dissipating under
00:39:24 ◼ ► 300 watts of power with the current most power-hungry chip. What if you could dissipate twice that heat?
00:39:28 ◼ ► Could you put a chip that had twice as many transistors and was maybe 1.5 times as fast? I think you could,
00:39:33 ◼ ► but Apple hasn't done it. So on that topic of the ability for Macs to be hotter in exchange for doing
00:39:40 ◼ ► Yeah. So, uh, Rachel Neuer in Scientific American writes, as reported in science, a metallic material
00:39:45 ◼ ► called theta phase tantalum nitrate, that too, tantalum nitrate, uh, achieved a thermal conductivity
00:39:53 ◼ ► of about 1110 watts per meter Kelvin, about three times higher than copper's 400 watts per meter Kelvin.
00:40:01 ◼ ► And it works in a way scientists have never seen before. Quote, our result breaks the historic
00:40:06 ◼ ► ceiling for heat transport metallic materials, says senior author Yongji Hu, uh, physicist and
00:40:11 ◼ ► engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Given this conductor's superior performance,
00:40:19 ◼ ► So Apple, even if you want to keep the Mac studio the same size, boy, do I have a way you can get
00:40:24 ◼ ► more heat out of it? Maybe three times as much heat. Uh, I don't know how much this, this alloy costs
00:40:28 ◼ ► or how difficult it is to manufacture, but, and it's probably actually much more relevant for things
00:40:32 ◼ ► like phones where a tiny amount of this exotic material could dissipate heat even better, but
00:40:37 ◼ ► I'm excited about material advances. So Apple just make the bigger Mac case to dissipate more heat,
00:40:45 ◼ ► Yeah. For it literally sounds cool, John. Yeah. Wow. All right. Let's do some topics. And we've had,
00:40:51 ◼ ► this is one of those topics that we've had on the docket for a couple of weeks, but we had just
00:40:55 ◼ ► haven't had a chance to talk about it. Um, we're going to talk about Backblaze and how they're no
00:41:01 ◼ ► longer backing up everything that we thought they were. Uh, before I go any further, I wanted to
00:41:05 ◼ ► remind everyone, uh, Backblaze is a former sponsor. They are not currently a future sponsor. In fact,
00:41:10 ◼ ► they last sponsored us, I believe the summer of 2023, as far as my records indicated, but
00:41:15 ◼ ► I just want to make that plain for everyone. Uh, with that in mind, uh, Robert Anton, Anton
00:41:20 ◼ ► Reese wrote, uh, sometimes semi-recently, despite claiming to back up all of your data, Backblaze
00:41:26 ◼ ► quietly stopped backing up one drive and Dropbox folders, along with potentially many other things.
00:41:30 ◼ ► And later in the same piece, which we'll link in the show notes, of course, uh, he said the
00:41:35 ◼ ► following, which I thought was very, uh, at first I thought it was a bit dramatic. And then the more I
00:41:39 ◼ ► thought about it, I was like, no, actually I think he's onto something here. Anyway, Robert Anton,
00:41:43 ◼ ► Anton Reese wrote, by deciding not to back up everything, Backblaze has made it as if they
00:41:48 ◼ ► are backing up nothing. His point here is that if it always used to be that you could just assume
00:41:56 ◼ ► that Backblaze was backing up everything. And over the years, they seem to be chipping away at that
00:42:02 ◼ ► in bits and pieces and fits and spurts. And so now there's some amount of question. Are they backing
00:42:10 ◼ ► up X? Are they backing up Y? Are they backing up Z? And at that point it's like, well, what am I even
00:42:15 ◼ ► doing here in the first place? Now, to be fair, I am a Backblaze person. I still like it. I still use it.
00:42:21 ◼ ► I am unaware of a better solution for my needs. We're going to talk about other options toward the end of
00:42:27 ◼ ► this topic. But that's where I stand. And maybe once you guys start chiming in, you can tell me
00:42:32 ◼ ► your situation. But one way or another, John, it looks like you did some spelunking and discovered
00:42:37 ◼ ► in Mac version 9.2.2.878, which was released roundabouts of the end of August 2025. There's the
00:42:46 ◼ ► following in the release notes. Recent macOS versions can mount cloud storage, for example,
00:42:51 ◼ ► Google Drive, OneDrive, and Dropbox, in local paths, causing the backup client to mistakenly back them up.
00:43:01 ◼ ► excessive data usage, and restore complications. Meanwhile, in version 9.2.2.877, and this is for
00:43:13 ◼ ► Windows now, the backup client now excludes popular cloud storage providers from backup, including both
00:43:18 ◼ ► mount points and cache directories. This prevents performance issues, excessive data usage, and
00:43:22 ◼ ► unintended uploads from services like OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, iDrive, and others. This change
00:43:33 ◼ ► People were not happy about this, and people got very unhappy about this in a lot of places,
00:43:41 ◼ ► And by the way, just to reiterate the date for those versions that I just pulled out here,
00:43:45 ◼ ► and I was guessing based on like archive.org pages and some random web page I found that listed the
00:43:50 ◼ ► date as being around end of August, early September 2025, because Backblaze does not put dates in their own
00:43:55 ◼ ► release notes on their website. That's why I had to do the spelunking to figure it out.
00:43:59 ◼ ► Anyway, that's summer 2025. When this when these releases came out that started excluding these
00:44:05 ◼ ► things. So it's taken people to Casey's earlier point, it's taken people like almost a year to go,
00:44:10 ◼ ► hey, wait a second, you mean it's not backing up my stuff in my Dropbox? And that's one of the worst
00:44:15 ◼ ► things about this is like, you just assume it's doing a thing and backing up your stuff. And if you
00:44:21 ◼ ► don't have occasion to check, you know, maybe you won't know that suddenly a thing that was being
00:44:25 ◼ ► previously backed up is not being backed up. So yes, people have discovered it almost a year later
00:44:31 ◼ ► Right. So on their subreddit, Natasha, who is an employee at Backblaze, wrote the following,
00:44:36 ◼ ► this decision was driven by a consistent set of technical issues we were seeing at scale,
00:44:41 ◼ ► most of them driven by updates created by third party sync tools, including unreliable backups and
00:44:45 ◼ ► incomplete restores when backing up files managed by third party sync providers. These cloud storage
00:44:50 ◼ ► providers now rely heavily on OS level frameworks to manage sync state on Windows, for example, files are
00:44:55 ◼ ► often represented as reparse points, which is an NTFS thing in the via the cloud files API. When they can
00:45:02 ◼ ► appear local, they are still system managed placeholders, which makes it difficult to reliably back them up
00:45:06 ◼ ► as standard on disk files. Additionally, Jim and other Backblaze employee chimed in once a reparse
00:45:13 ◼ ► point is added Backblaze is unable to back up the file, even if it physically resides on the computer.
00:45:19 ◼ ► Not great, Bob. Continuing from Natasha, we built our product in a way to not back up reparse points
00:45:25 ◼ ► for two reasons. One, we wanted the backup line to be light on the system and only backup needed user
00:45:30 ◼ ► generated files. Two, we wanted the service to be unlimited. So following reparse points would lead
00:45:35 ◼ ► us to backing up tons of data in the cloud. We've made targeted investments where we can, for example,
00:45:41 ◼ ► adding support for iCloud Drive by working within Apple's model and supporting Google Drive. But
00:45:45 ◼ ► extending that same level of support to third party providers like Dropbox or OneDrive is more
00:45:49 ◼ ► complex and not included in the current version. We are currently exploring an add-on that either
00:45:54 ◼ ► follows reparse points or backs up the tag data in another way. We also hear you clearly about the
00:46:00 ◼ ► communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more proactive in
00:46:04 ◼ ► notifying customers about a change with this level of impact. Please feel free to reach out to me
00:46:08 ◼ ► directly if you have any questions. So here's the thing. I've read into this some, and I think two things
00:46:14 ◼ ► are simultaneously true. It seems to me that by way of the OS level affordances for this stuff becoming
00:46:23 ◼ ► more of a thing and arguably somewhat more opaque for anything that isn't like Dropbox itself or,
00:46:30 ◼ ► you know, whatever your file provider is itself, it does legitimately make it harder for Backblaze to
00:46:35 ◼ ► the point that it seemed so unreliable, if you are to believe Backblaze, so unreliable that it's almost worse
00:46:42 ◼ ► for them to try to back this stuff up because then some parts will get there, some files won't get there,
00:46:47 ◼ ► some files will be in a weird state, and it's just inconsistent. And that's arguably worse. It's better off to
00:46:52 ◼ ► just say, screw it, we're not going to back any of this stuff up. I genuinely have no reason to believe,
00:46:57 ◼ ► maybe John will correct me here in a minute, but I have no reason to believe that's untrue.
00:47:00 ◼ ► However, to just kind of quietly slide this into release notes and not say anything about it,
00:47:05 ◼ ► and also to say that it's on the sync providers, let me reread what Natasha said. We also hear you
00:47:12 ◼ ► clearly on the communication gap. Both the sync providers and Backblaze should have been more
00:47:15 ◼ ► proactive in notifying customers. I don't think this is on Dropbox or whatever or whoever else to
00:47:23 ◼ ► Well, I mean, I see what they're saying. You remember when Dropbox rolled out their file
00:47:29 ◼ ► provider version, the one that works with Apple's framework for doing cloud files as opposed to
00:47:33 ◼ ► using the custom system that Dropbox did? When they rolled that out, Dropbox, first of all,
00:47:39 ◼ ► I think it was optional or opt-in, and within the little Dropbox app on macOS, there was a thing
00:47:46 ◼ ► you could click, and it would be like, what is this? What are you talking about, file provider? Which would
00:47:49 ◼ ► lead you to a web page on dropbox.com, which would say, hey, here's the deal with the file
00:47:53 ◼ ► provider version. We're doing this because Apple's making us, they basically said, which is true,
00:47:56 ◼ ► because Apple's trying to make them use their framework. And if you go to this version,
00:48:01 ◼ ► here are the limitations. And those limitations were like, other programs that were previously
00:48:07 ◼ ► accessing files in your Dropbox might have problems because of the way file provider works. And so I
00:48:12 ◼ ► feel like Dropbox actually did do a better job of saying, if you choose to go to the file provider
00:48:16 ◼ ► version of Dropbox, it won't work the same as the old one in ways that affect other apps.
00:48:22 ◼ ► Like we are changing the way our stuff in Dropbox looks to the rest of the system, and that will have
00:48:28 ◼ ► an effect on those other apps. And I think that's what Backblaze is getting at in terms of like,
00:48:31 ◼ ► you know, they would like, because like they didn't, Backblaze didn't decide to make Dropbox files
00:48:36 ◼ ► harder to back up. Dropbox decided to do that. And Dropbox, I feel like, did communicate that to the best of
00:48:49 ◼ ► I still have not opted into file provider on Dropbox. I'm still right now running the non-file
00:48:54 ◼ ► provider version of Dropbox because it's better because it just, they're just regular files and
00:49:00 ◼ ► they are backed up by Backblaze and all that. Backblaze is probably excluding it by path or
00:49:04 ◼ ► whatever, but like they could in theory be, be excluded, be backed up by Backblaze. So they're just
00:49:12 ◼ ► half of that, but I get what you're saying. And it's like, well, in the end, you're the backup
00:49:15 ◼ ► provider, regardless of the reason it is that you can no longer back up these files that's on you to
00:49:20 ◼ ► communicate. Like, so Dropbox says, Hey, we might affect other apps because we're changing the way
00:49:24 ◼ ► we're doing things and Apple's making us. And then the other people who are affected have to say, Hey,
00:49:32 ◼ ► our backup app can no longer back up your files. So seek an alternative method. And they just didn't say
00:49:37 ◼ ► anything. Like they put it in their release notes, you know, in a door in a basement behind a sign that
00:49:42 ◼ ► says beware of tiger. And then, and they did it a year ago in the summer and then didn't say anything.
00:49:47 ◼ ► And by the way, I would like to return to the, what they said in their release notes. Um, it says
00:49:53 ◼ ► like, uh, recent versions of Mac OS can mount cloud storage was the weird way of describing it in local
00:49:58 ◼ ► past, causing the backup client to mistakenly back them up. These cloud mounted folders are now detected
00:50:03 ◼ ► and excluded to avoid performance issues, excessive data usage, and restore complications. Restore
00:50:09 ◼ ► complications is the only one that is later referenced. No one references performance issues
00:50:13 ◼ ► or excessive data, excessive data uses. Like that's what we're paying you for to take our excessive
00:50:17 ◼ ► data. Like the whole using backblaze is excessive data usage. Exactly. It's like, Oh, if we backed up
00:50:23 ◼ ► those files, we would have more files in the backup. Yeah, that's the whole thing. We watch. So,
00:50:28 ◼ ► so their release notes characterize it as like, Oh, this is a bug. We shouldn't have ever been backing up
00:50:33 ◼ ► those files anyway. And we're doing it because there are performance issues and blah, blah, blah.
00:50:37 ◼ ► restore complications is the only legit one because it's like, if we can't back them up and you go to
00:50:41 ◼ ► restore them and we have like half of the files, then you're going to be mad about that. So we're
00:50:45 ◼ ► just excluding the whole thing. So they're, they're release notes, which are, you know, release notes
00:50:49 ◼ ► are not the official communication mechanism for a nuanced discussion of this thing. It's like a
00:50:53 ◼ ► paragraph, but the release notes compare the release notes to what Natasha says on Reddit.
00:50:58 ◼ ► Totally different reasoning. Now, all of a sudden it's like, Oh, well, here's why we're doing it.
00:51:02 ◼ ► And we can't back them up and restore things and blah, blah, blah. It's, it's like they weren't
00:51:07 ◼ ► speaking with one voice in this and they were definitely not trying to advertise the fact that
00:51:11 ◼ ► they were doing it, which is like, that's the communication gap. And that is the, the biggest,
00:51:15 ◼ ► easiest slam dunk against backblades is like you failed to communicate this to your customers.
00:51:20 ◼ ► And it's an important thing that your customers needed to know. And so now they're doing damage
00:51:24 ◼ ► control. Um, but for the technical aspects of it, having, having dealt with cloud files in hyperspace,
00:51:29 ◼ ► I have some experience with this. Um, I get where they're coming from because like in hyperspace,
00:51:36 ◼ ► I've got it easy. And even though I had it easy recall that version 1.0 wouldn't touch cloud files
00:51:44 ◼ ► let's not overcomplicated. But when I did tackle cloud files in whatever version that was 1.3 or
00:51:49 ◼ ► whatever, I have it easy because given the APIs in Mac OS, I can tell when the file is cloud synced.
00:51:56 ◼ ► And I can tell when like, all right, you know, there's APIs where I can say, Hey, is this file
00:52:03 ◼ ► cloud synced or not? And the OS will tell me yes or no. And most of the time it's right. Although
00:52:06 ◼ ► sometimes it's not. Um, and then I can also say, all right, so if it is cloud synced, is the file
00:52:12 ◼ ► actually on this disc or is this just like, you know, a stub for the file? And if, and if I were
00:52:17 ◼ ► to read it, I would get the file contents, but it's not actually here. And if it tells me, Oh,
00:52:21 ◼ ► that's just like a stub that the file isn't there. I don't have to touch it because my app saves disc
00:52:25 ◼ ► space. And if the file's not there, I'm done. Hey, it's not even there. Right. Because like,
00:52:32 ◼ ► what the hell am I, you know, I'm, I'm not going to force the file to be downloaded so I can see if I
00:52:36 ◼ ► can see if I can dedupe it. It's, it saves them the most space by not being on the disc. So that's,
00:52:42 ◼ ► that's, I have it easy. Uh, and even doing that, there are lots of nuances and blah, blah, blah.
00:52:46 ◼ ► Right. But a backup client can't do that. A backup client can ask those questions. And if the answer
00:52:51 ◼ ► is, yeah, that file's not even on the disc, the backup client now has a difficult choice. It's like,
00:52:55 ◼ ► well, I could skip it and be like, well, how am I going to back up a file that's not on the disc
00:53:01 ◼ ► or I could cause it to be downloaded, which takes disc space. And also, by the way, I can tell you
00:53:08 ◼ ► that asking Mac OS's file provider thing to cause a non-downloaded file to be downloaded. You might
00:53:14 ◼ ► as well put a letter in the mail. Like it's, it's like on iOS where you make a suggestion about a
00:53:20 ◼ ► thing that might happen in the future. And then you go away for a month and come back and see if it's
00:53:23 ◼ ► happened. It's not as if like, you can sit there with your arms crossed and being like, so is the file
00:53:28 ◼ ► going to be downloaded? Is that going to, is it going to happen? It's like, well, there's a whole
00:53:32 ◼ ► other demon that does that. And it's busy right now. And it's a low priority thread and you're like
00:53:35 ◼ ► tapping your fingers. And it's like, okay. And how many of those can you wait on at the same time?
00:53:39 ◼ ► And then how long do your backups take? And then what if you just, what if hours pass and that one
00:53:43 ◼ ► file doesn't download? Is there a big button you can push to make that one file downloaded? Hell no.
00:53:48 ◼ ► Otherwise there'd be that button in photos too, where you could say, just download the photos now.
00:53:53 ◼ ► Think now, now you don't do low priority threads, do everything. There's no do it now. Like you're at
00:53:58 ◼ ► the mercy of the system. And so if you're a backup app, you're like, I can't tell you that I will
00:54:03 ◼ ► successfully ever reliably get all these files to the point where they download. And by the way,
00:54:08 ◼ ► what you'd want to do is get them to download, back them with the backblades, but then evict them
00:54:12 ◼ ► again, because you don't want to take up the disk base. The whole point is like the cloud storage.
00:54:16 ◼ ► It's like, oh, they're not even all on your disk. Maybe they don't even all fit on your disk.
00:54:19 ◼ ► So you can't ask them all to be downloaded because you'll fill the disk. So you got to ask a small
00:54:23 ◼ ► number to be downloaded, then wait for them to be downloaded, then upload them, then re-evict them.
00:54:35 ◼ ► like, even if we tried to do this, we will not be able to give you a coherent, internally consistent
00:54:42 ◼ ► backup of this because they can't even use things like, like APFS snapshots, right? Because
00:54:47 ◼ ► you snapshot a directory filled with a bunch of stub files. That doesn't, like, you have a point
00:54:52 ◼ ► in time image of a directory with half the files that aren't there, right? If the files were all
00:54:57 ◼ ► there, you could snapshot it and then read the snapshot and backup like time machine. But if
00:55:00 ◼ ► they're stub files that are in cloud storage, what the hell are you going to do? You can't
00:55:03 ◼ ► cause them to be downloaded into the snapshot. So I am totally on board with Backblaze saying,
00:55:12 ◼ ► I know everyone in all the threads is like, but what if they're all downloaded? Backblaze can't
00:55:17 ◼ ► know that they're all downloaded. Do you want it to iterate over the whole thing, confirm that they're
00:55:21 ◼ ► all downloaded, then start backing them up? Guess what? In between the time that it confirmed they're
00:55:24 ◼ ► all downloaded and started backing them up, some of them got evicted. Now what do you do? Like,
00:55:27 ◼ ► there's no, there's no 100% solution to this. And it's just the nature of the, like, the pros of
00:55:33 ◼ ► the system is, oh, so you can have a Dropbox that's, that's four terabytes, and you can mount that on
00:55:39 ◼ ► your one terabyte Mac. How does that work? Well, half the files aren't there. They're just stubs.
00:55:42 ◼ ► And it's all transparent to you. And if you just double click them, they all work as long as you're
00:55:45 ◼ ► internet connected and blah, blah, blah. Like, that's the benefit. The downside is you can't
00:55:50 ◼ ► back it up in a reasonable manner. It's just not possible. So I think this is a case where
00:55:56 ◼ ► Backblaze did a really poor job communicating a real technical issue. And they continued, by the way,
00:56:03 ◼ ► I think, to do a really poor job of communicating both the technical issue and what they're going to do
00:56:10 ◼ ► to save money. Like, I don't actually think there's an easy way for them to do this successfully. And as
00:56:16 ◼ ► they noted, like, we're looking into this, that and the other thing. And we've worked with Apple
00:56:19 ◼ ► directly to do iCloud Drive backups. Like, how are they doing iCloud Drive backups? Well,
00:56:23 ◼ ► if you can work directly with Apple, they can figure something out. Like, I'm sure this has taken a long
00:56:27 ◼ ► time where, you know, they're talking to Apple, Apple does actually control the, you know,
00:56:32 ◼ ► whatever it is, the, I forget what it's called, Cloud D or the ubiquitous storage back. Like, there's demons
00:56:40 ◼ ► they can work something out with Backblaze. Here's how you can actually back up iCloud files
00:57:04 ◼ ► But apparently there are additional complications that I do not understand there. So I can't,
00:57:11 ◼ ► yeah, I'm kind of the same situation as Casey. I again, again, Backblaze has been a past sponsor.
00:57:16 ◼ ► I would gladly have them as a future sponsor, because I think Backblaze is the best cloud based
00:57:22 ◼ ► backup product for the Mac. It's just that in this world we live in, the number of limitations on that
00:57:27 ◼ ► product are just increasing with the use of the file provider and various cloud storage things.
00:57:32 ◼ ► There are other alternatives that we'll talk about in a little bit, but I still use and pay for
00:57:36 ◼ ► Backblaze. And I think it is the best software that does what it does. But I think they did a terrible
00:57:41 ◼ ► job communicating this limitation, communicating this limitation. And you know, like any backup
00:57:45 ◼ ► strategy, you got to have multiple ones, right? So even if Backblaze is totally ignoring my Dropbox,
00:57:50 ◼ ► I have other things that are like my super duper clone that are ignoring Dropbox because super duper
00:57:54 ◼ ► doesn't care about Dropbox. And because I don't use the file provider version of Dropbox,
00:57:59 ◼ ► all my Dropbox files are plain normal files on my disk and super duper backs them up fine. And by the
00:58:04 ◼ ► way, so does Time Machine. So, you know, backing up is difficult and the price of good backups is
00:58:11 ◼ ► eternal vigilance. And in this case, our vigilance was someone thwarted. Our vigilance was thwarted by
00:58:19 ◼ ► We'll put a couple other links in the show notes. There's a blog post from Backblaze that's kind of
00:58:24 ◼ ► we're victims too, which again, like I think there's truth to that, but I just don't love the way in which
00:58:30 ◼ ► it was communicated. There's also some other reports and roundup from MJ Psy as always.
00:58:35 ◼ ► And then there's some alternatives here that we can at least have you look at. I don't know if we
00:58:43 ◼ ► necessarily recommend them, but we can point them and point them or point you in their directions.
00:58:47 ◼ ► Yeah, this first one is not a piece of software, but it is a strategy that I saw mentioned many,
00:58:51 ◼ ► many times. And I do want to address it because it it can work, but only in certain circumstances.
00:58:57 ◼ ► So here's the suggestion. Number one, if you're a Dropbox user, don't use the file provider version
00:59:03 ◼ ► in Dropbox that there is an option for that buried in the app. You can even opt out of it once
00:59:07 ◼ ► you've opted back in. It's the same piece of software for a while. I thought it was like a different
00:59:10 ◼ ► version, but like right now it's like the same. It's just the Dropbox client for the Mac and the
00:59:14 ◼ ► same piece of software can run in two different modes. Apparently if you can find your way to the
00:59:18 ◼ ► option, you can disable it. I don't know what the limitations on that on. I maybe, maybe some people
00:59:22 ◼ ► were opted in permanently, but anyway, I have the option turned on and off. And I know this because
00:59:26 ◼ ► to test hyperspace with both the non-file provider, non-file provider version, I have the non-file
00:59:31 ◼ ► provider version on this Mac and on the other Mac, I have the file provider version so I can, you know,
00:59:35 ◼ ► see the different behaviors. And it's the same account and it's the same client software.
00:59:39 ◼ ► So the idea is don't use the file provider version. So then every file in your Dropbox is on your
00:59:45 ◼ ► disk taking up space. There's no weird file stubs. There's no ubiquitous files. They're just plain
00:59:50 ◼ ► boring files that are just a hundred percent there once they're synced. Okay. But Backblaze will probably
00:59:57 ◼ ► still skip them because they're in a folder called Dropbox and, you know, a well-known location.
01:00:01 ◼ ► They'll just say, Oh, well, I'm not going to check whether these are cloud backed. I'm just going
01:00:04 ◼ ► to say anything in a folder called Dropbox, anything under there where you won't back up or whatever
01:00:08 ◼ ► heuristics they use to figure out, is this a Dropbox folder? Maybe there's even a way they can just look
01:00:12 ◼ ► it up in Dropbox prefs where your Dropbox folder is. They might still be skipped. Right? So, and people
01:00:17 ◼ ► complain about that. Like, look, Backblaze, don't skip it based on the path. I'm telling you,
01:00:21 ◼ ► I'm not using the file provider version. Just back them up. It's pissing me off. So the solution,
01:00:25 ◼ ► the suggestion very much in the hyperspace style is how about you do an APFS clone of the entire
01:00:31 ◼ ► Dropbox tree, which will take up essentially zero extra space. Not really zero because it's a tiny
01:00:36 ◼ ► directory entry for every single file, right? So, but effectively zero space in the grand scheme of
01:00:41 ◼ ► things. Do a complete, complete clone of your Dropbox tree to a location that does not have Dropbox
01:00:46 ◼ ► in the path. And then Backblaze will back that up because Backblaze has no idea where those files came
01:00:50 ◼ ► from, but it also won't take up any additional space on your disk. The problem is doing a giant
01:00:55 ◼ ► recursive clone of your Dropbox tree. A, it's the painting the Golden Gate Bridge thing where when
01:01:00 ◼ ► you start that recursive clone, things could have changed by the time it finishes. So it's not really
01:01:03 ◼ ► a point in time snapshot, although you could do it. You could do it from a time machine snapshot if you
01:01:07 ◼ ► wanted. But B, that's time consuming. Like just creating that directory trees and all the directory
01:01:12 ◼ ► entries and entering all the metadata and all that stuff. That is time consuming. And if you have like
01:01:18 ◼ ► a terabyte of Dropbox stuff, just doing that operation on a periodic basis, like, and what tool you,
01:01:23 ◼ ► if you use our sync, our sync won't, won't copy all the metadata. If you use our clone, you might get
01:01:27 ◼ ► more data. If you use Apple's like ditto tool, you'll get even more. Like you're starting to become
01:01:31 ◼ ► like, you're starting to deal with like file system APIs and stuff that you don't want to deal with
01:01:36 ◼ ► because like, uh, faithfully reproducing every aspect of files is difficult. And setting aside
01:01:46 ◼ ► terrifyingly complicated these days, as I've had to find out with, uh, with hyperspace. And so doing
01:01:52 ◼ ► something as simple as, Oh, I'm just going to make a copy of the directory. I'm sure, you know, it will
01:01:56 ◼ ► take up effectively zero space, but will the metadata and every one of those files be identical to the
01:02:01 ◼ ► source files? No, it absolutely won't. Uh, it'll differ in ways that probably don't matter, but it will
01:02:06 ◼ ► differ. And so there's now you have that in the mix. So it's another complication, but I just want to
01:02:10 ◼ ► throw that out there. If you do this, you have to have the non-file provider version and you have to find
01:02:14 ◼ ► some way to carefully and efficiently periodically make a full APFS clone. And by the way, don't just make a
01:02:19 ◼ ► plain copy. You got to make sure those copies are clones, which they probably will be, but depending
01:02:22 ◼ ► on the tool you use, they might not be. And anyway, back point, point Blackblaze is that, you know,
01:02:27 ◼ ► Blackblaze will back up that directory because it's not excluded because it has no idea this came from
01:02:30 ◼ ► Dropbox. So that is the zero cost. As long as your time has no value solution to this problem.
01:02:38 ◼ ► There are also some not free solutions to the problem. Uh, this is software. First is arc A R Q. Uh,
01:02:45 ◼ ► is it Marco that's used this? I feel like one of you sees this. Yeah, I use it a long time. Years ago,
01:02:49 ◼ ► I used it. Oh, do you have anything you'd like to add about that or just going to? No, I mean,
01:02:53 ◼ ► it's been a long time. So anything I say would be very outdated. This is, this is, I think just an
01:02:58 ◼ ► independent developer making a piece of software that backs up files. And the person obviously has a
01:03:04 ◼ ► passion for it and has developed this program over years and it is tries to be very careful and
01:03:08 ◼ ► reliable. Um, it is not big corporate bloatware, uh, but it is also very clearly an idiosyncratic
01:03:16 ◼ ► indie style app that does one very specific thing. And a lot of people like it and have success with it
01:03:20 ◼ ► and it doesn't have the same limitations. Now, how does it handle the, the difficulties that I just
01:03:26 ◼ ► described with Dropbox? I don't know. Uh, one thing I can imagine is that if you have the non-file
01:03:31 ◼ ► provider version that it will, it will just back them up because it's like, well, they're just
01:03:34 ◼ ► plain files. I don't, I don't, I'm not going to exclude them based on the directory name containing
01:03:37 ◼ ► Dropbox. It's not going to do any of that. So thumbs up for ARC in that respect. But if you use the file
01:03:42 ◼ ► provider version of OneDrive or, you know, the Dropbox or any of these other things that Backblaze is
01:03:47 ◼ ► skipping, I'm not sure how ARC will handle that. You could ask the ARC developer, but that is a third
01:03:51 ◼ ► party alternative to a piece of software, like an app that you run that will periodically back
01:04:00 ◼ ► Yeah. And to be clear, my limited, very limited understanding of this is that it's mostly a
01:04:07 ◼ ► bring your own backup destination kind of thing where you use ARC to manage sending data somewhere
01:04:13 ◼ ► else, but the somewhere else is also your problem. Uh, I also just realized as I'm loading
01:04:19 ◼ ► arcbackup.com again, A-R-Q, uh, there's some quotes on here, quote, I honestly love this app,
01:04:24 ◼ ► quote, Marco Arment, which is funny. Uh, but anyways, I did say that, uh, but the, the, I think
01:04:31 ◼ ► they do, it appears they do dabble in providing the, the destination as well. But the, I think the
01:04:37 ◼ ► bread and butter of ARC from my limited understanding is you have a place like a Synology or, you know,
01:04:42 ◼ ► is one of like Backblaze B2 or, or, um, the AWS equivalent. What is that that I'm thinking
01:04:47 ◼ ► of the drawing the blank? S3. S3. S3. Thank you. Something along those lines that you are using
01:04:52 ◼ ► ARC to manage backing up and restoring from there. Yeah. It's very funny. Like you look on their page,
01:04:56 ◼ ► like here's, here's the storage locations, Amazon drive, AWS, B2, Dropbox, file-based, Google cloud,
01:05:01 ◼ ► Google drive, one drive, poly cloud, SharePoint, SFTP, Wasabi, attach disc or network share S3
01:05:07 ◼ ► compatible server. Like it is backend, not backend agnostic, but it's pluggable backend. So if you just
01:05:13 ◼ ► want to copy things from one hard drive to another, ARC will do it. If you want to copy things from a
01:05:16 ◼ ► hard drive, S3, ARC will do it. If you want to copy things from a hard drive to, you know, Wasabi,
01:05:20 ◼ ► which is another like S3 type server, like it, that's, that's what this app does. And so people
01:05:25 ◼ ► like the flexibility of like, I just want to copy things from A to B and let me pick what A is and
01:05:30 ◼ ► let me pick what B is. And let me use an app that is, you know, uh, seemingly, uh, been developed over
01:05:36 ◼ ► many, many years by a development team or an individual that are really enthusiastic about this
01:05:41 ◼ ► problem space. And so there you have it. ARC is that comes up a lot on these discussions.
01:05:45 ◼ ► And then there's a, I don't remember if this is a newcomer, which is what I was about to say,
01:05:50 ◼ ► or if it's just been, um, purchased by another group, but the same folks that do kaleidoscope,
01:05:55 ◼ ► which is my, uh, diffing tool of choice, they now own or run or whatever a parachute backup,
01:06:01 ◼ ► which is again, just software. But what this is about is specifically with regard to iCloud. So iCloud
01:06:06 ◼ ► photos and iCloud drive, this is a way to slurp up the stuff that's in iCloud and put it somewhere
01:06:11 ◼ ► else as a backup. So if you're, if you're limited, if your use is limited to iCloud stuff, you might
01:06:17 ◼ ► want to check out parachute as well. We'll put a link in the show notes. Yeah. This is another one
01:06:20 ◼ ► of the problems. So I talk about this a lot with my photos backup thing, you know, um, Apple's photos
01:06:25 ◼ ► app on the Mac has options in its settings. It says, Hey, do you want me to download what they call
01:06:31 ◼ ► like download originals to this Mac, which is, uh, I'm going to get the original full resolution
01:06:35 ◼ ► version of all your images and I will download them on this Mac. Or do you want me to quote
01:06:39 ◼ ► optimize storage, which basically means some of these photos aren't going to be on your Mac.
01:06:43 ◼ ► We'll put the thumbnails on your Mac or whatever, so you can scroll through them. But like when you,
01:06:46 ◼ ► when you double click on one to see the big version, we might not have downloaded that.
01:06:50 ◼ ► So we'll download it. And that's to save disk space because if your photo library is terabyte
01:06:53 ◼ ► and you have a 500 gig laptop, how can you ever have your whole photo library in there? Well,
01:06:58 ◼ ► if you do optimize storage, it will make it look like your whole photo library is on there,
01:07:05 ◼ ► the full resolution photos periodically. So what if you're trying to back up your Mac? You're like,
01:07:10 ◼ ► Oh, I'm backing up my Mac. So I have my Mac has my whole photo drive library on it and I'm backing
01:07:14 ◼ ► up my Mac. Therefore I have a backup of my photo library. It's like, well, if you have optimized
01:07:17 ◼ ► storage on and your iCloud photo library and you make a backup, you're not backing up your whole photo
01:07:22 ◼ ► library. You're backing up whatever portion of your photo library is on your Mac at that moment.
01:07:26 ◼ ► Um, and so I always advocate having at least one Mac that you say download originals on,
01:07:31 ◼ ► right? But what if you don't have any Mac that has enough space to download all your originals
01:07:36 ◼ ► on because your photo library is huge or your Mac SSDs are small parachute. What it will do is
01:07:42 ◼ ► it will essentially go through your photo library and say, is this photo on the Mac? If it is,
01:07:48 ◼ ► they'll back it up. If it's not on the Mac, it will say, okay, photo thing, download it,
01:07:52 ◼ ► wait for it to download, back it up and then evict it again. That's my impression of what
01:07:57 ◼ ► parachute is doing for you. It will laboriously piecemeal download your whole photo library,
01:08:04 ◼ ► a few photos at a time. So it can back them up to wherever you're backing them up to. And then it
01:08:08 ◼ ► will chuck them back off again. And obviously if, if your whole photo library is on your Mac,
01:08:12 ◼ ► you could use arc to back it up or parachute backup will have less work to do. It was like,
01:08:15 ◼ ► Hey, look, all the files were there. I backed them all up. Um, but that's, it's trying to capture
01:08:21 ◼ ► a niche, which is like, well, lots of things in the Apple ecosystem won't even bother backing up
01:08:26 ◼ ► your, your photos library is like, Hey, it's in the cloud. And the cloud is the backup. And that's
01:08:31 ◼ ► something that we should mention here. Like people think, uh, all my files are in Google drive.
01:08:34 ◼ ► So they're backed up. All my files in Dropbox, so they're backed up. A backup is not the same as
01:08:39 ◼ ► having your files on a server somewhere in the cloud. Having your files on a server somewhere
01:08:43 ◼ ► in the cloud is great. If your laptop falls into the ocean, but if you accidentally delete all your
01:08:47 ◼ ► files or accidentally delete a file and don't notice until it's 30 days later and it's been removed from
01:08:51 ◼ ► the trash, that's where backups come in handy because backup is not the main location where your file is.
01:08:57 ◼ ► It's a second location that is not affected by changes to the origin. So if you have a backup of a file
01:09:05 ◼ ► and you delete that file, you can get it from the backup. If you have your file in Google drive and you delete
01:09:11 ◼ ► it from Google drive, you can't get it anymore because you deleted it. Again, setting aside, it'll be in the
01:09:16 ◼ ► trash of 30 days, yada, yada. The whole point is like, if it's really gone from where it was, it should still be in
01:09:23 ◼ ► your backup. But if something is really gone from your photo library, you don't have any backups, it's really gone.
01:09:28 ◼ ► So that's why apps like parachute help for people who, uh, you know, are paranoid about this type of
01:09:34 ◼ ► thing. I mean, I, I'm paranoid about photos to the point where I have my photos library upgrade uploading
01:09:40 ◼ ► to Google photos. So my originals are also in Google photos and Google photos. There's no connection to
01:09:47 ◼ ► Apple photos. Like if Apple burns down and my whole iPhone photo library dies and I lose all my time
01:09:52 ◼ ► machine backups and I lose all my M disc optical discs and you're like this, like my, my fifth level
01:09:56 ◼ ► backup. It's like in the end, Google photos also has all the originals from my photo library. And it
01:10:02 ◼ ► doesn't know they came from my photo library. It just knows it has a bunch of images in it. And so
01:10:06 ◼ ► yeah, the more, uh, more diverse your backup environment can be, the more protected you are.
01:10:12 ◼ ► And that's what apps like parachute and arc are. Therefore they're not made by Apple. They're not
01:10:16 ◼ ► made by backwards. They're not made by Google. They're made by another company. And so you're trying
01:10:20 ◼ ► to like Marco's point earlier about security bugs and stuff like that. Try to spread the risk
01:10:25 ◼ ► around across multiple companies, multiple things. Some of them are, uh, you know, in your house.
01:10:30 ◼ ► Some of them are offsite. Some of them are clouds. Some of them are big companies. Some of them are
01:10:33 ◼ ► small companies. I know it seems like it seems to me often that the main job of me and my computer
01:10:38 ◼ ► is to back up my computer. Like it seems like what does your computer do other than back itself up.
01:10:43 ◼ ► But if you want, if you have digital data that you care about to the degree that I care about my photos,
01:10:48 ◼ ► for example, it is a considerable amount of effort to make sure that that data is protected in some
01:10:55 ◼ ► way. Or you, otherwise you're just rolling the dice and hoping a disaster never strikes. And,
01:11:00 ◼ ► and even I am not fully protected. I am absolutely sure there are many failure modes in which I will
01:11:04 ◼ ► lose all my data, but I'm just trying to minimize them to the best of my ability. And diversity in
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01:13:10 ◼ ► Hey, John, what year or generation is your Honda? Any plans on when you'll replace it? If you don't
01:13:16 ◼ ► have plans, but if you had to replace it, what would you get? Brian, John does not believe in
01:13:24 ◼ ► We did a whole member special on this hypothetical. How are you saying? I don't believe in it.
01:13:29 ◼ ► I looked at Honda's website, writes Brian Ash, and unless I missed it, it looks like they don't
01:13:34 ◼ ► offer anything with a manual anymore. Are you driving less now that you're independent and
01:13:37 ◼ ► or because of what your kids are doing now? All right. So let's take this, uh, one piece
01:13:41 ◼ ► of time here. What year generation is my Honda? It's 2014. So I hope it's, uh, over a decade old
01:13:46 ◼ ► now. It's hanging in there. Uh, any plans on when you replace it? My current plan is to replace
01:13:51 ◼ ► it when it dies. What does dies mean? Well, you know, it's a certain point. Cars get so old that
01:13:56 ◼ ► repairing them is no longer worth money. I will say that I'm probably willing to put, uh, a surprising
01:14:02 ◼ ► amount of money into this to keep it on the road. But at a certain point, you know, it becomes
01:14:06 ◼ ► untenable. The car gets sold or whatever. So I'll tell you what that point is. But right now I have
01:14:09 ◼ ► no plans to replace it because I like it and it fulfills my needs and it's paid for. Uh, so yeah,
01:14:16 ◼ ► it's hanging in there. It's low mileage. It's very low mileage. About how many miles are on it
01:14:20 ◼ ► just off the top of your head? 45, less than 45, I think 43. So 2014 car with 43,000 miles on it.
01:14:26 ◼ ► So this is a low mileage, low mileage example, as they would say. My, uh, my, what is it? A 2018.
01:14:32 ◼ ► I'm pretty sure I had that right. My 2018 Golf R, uh, has like 32, 33,000 miles on it. So similar
01:14:39 ◼ ► situation, you know, when you don't drive, if you don't have a commute and you're not driving long
01:14:43 ◼ ► distance to offset that commute on a regular basis, you know, for whatever reason, uh, you end up putting
01:14:48 ◼ ► not too many miles. And for, for probably, I don't know, almost a decade when it like my last job that
01:14:54 ◼ ► I had for like 12 or 13 years, I commuted to it, but the commute was not long. Like having a short
01:14:59 ◼ ► commute, like my commute was like three miles or so or something like that. I mean, it took forever
01:15:02 ◼ ► because traffic, but you know, it was distance wise. It wasn't long time wise. It was very often long.
01:15:07 ◼ ► And so even when I was commuting, I wasn't racking up the miles. I know some people commute, you know,
01:15:11 ◼ ► 10, 15, 20, 50, a hundred miles to their job and that will really rack up the mileage. So that's another
01:15:17 ◼ ► reason this is low mileage. And then obviously, uh, quitting my job and working from home is just reduce
01:15:21 ◼ ► it further. Um, if I did have to replace it, what would I get it? Like with, like with big TVs, I'm always,
01:15:27 ◼ ► always looking for what would I get? That's, that's my main activity. Right. And in the car space,
01:15:32 ◼ ► um, like I, can you, did you find the number special that we did about that? No, I'm looking
01:15:37 ◼ ► as we speak. I haven't gotten there yet. Yeah. And the, in the car space, it's tricky because I want my next
01:15:41 ◼ ► car to be electric, but I don't like any of the electric cars that are available. Right. Like I, I like
01:15:46 ◼ ► them, but like, you know, when I ranked, I don't like any of them better than my current car. You know
01:15:49 ◼ ► what I mean? Like they all have something that annoys me about them. Makes me think I'll, I'll just wait
01:15:52 ◼ ► until they figure that out and fix it. And they just keep always messing up one, even my beloved
01:15:55 ◼ ► lucid air. Like I hate that interior. I don't like what they did with the controls. And I'm like, I'll, they'll fix it
01:16:01 ◼ ► with the next revision of the air. It's like, no, we're never revising that car. All right. So I,
01:16:06 ◼ ► I don't know. There are other cars that I like. If I, I think the member special hypothetical was more
01:16:11 ◼ ► like if you had to, like if your car broke, you know, you got totaled or whatever, and you had to
01:16:15 ◼ ► get a new car, what would you get this right now? The answer would be, I would get a stick shift Honda
01:16:19 ◼ ► civic without a sunroof on it. Um, because my wife has that car with the sunroof. Um, and I really like
01:16:25 ◼ ► her car, except the stupid sunroof hits my head. So she insisted on the one with the sunroof is I think
01:16:30 ◼ ► we talked about before, cause she wants the heated seats and all the blah, blah, blah. And you can't
01:16:33 ◼ ► get that car without a sunroof with the trim oval she wants. And it's her car and she's way shorter
01:16:36 ◼ ► than me. So it's fine for her. And she likes it. She likes her car. I like her car too. I just don't
01:16:41 ◼ ► like the sunroof. I would get a stick shift Honda civic without a sunroof. Uh, I like the current
01:16:46 ◼ ► generation. I like the current generation. It's a really nice car. I recommend it to anybody.
01:16:49 ◼ ► It's excellent. Uh, even the hybrid is excellent, which I wouldn't buy because it doesn't come
01:16:53 ◼ ► with a stick shift, but the hybrid is also excellent in the current model year, uh, current generation of
01:16:58 ◼ ► Honda civic. Um, and then are you driving less now that you're independent? Um, yes. Cause I don't
01:17:03 ◼ ► have to commute to work. Um, so even though it was only three miles, it was three miles there and
01:17:08 ◼ ► three miles back every single day. Whereas now, you know, run errands a couple of times a week,
01:17:12 ◼ ► but it's not every single day. Um, and because of what my kids are doing, it's probably more because
01:17:17 ◼ ► of what my kids are doing. Cause my kids are doing is going to schools that are far away and I'm
01:17:19 ◼ ► driving back and forth to either pick them up or drop them off or bring them stuff or whatever.
01:17:23 ◼ ► So my, my son was like 45 minutes to an hour away, depending on traffic. And my daughter is
01:17:27 ◼ ► like an hour and a half to two hours away. And I've gone back and forth to the, both of those
01:17:35 ◼ ► Fair enough. Uh, ATP neutral car shopping from the 14th of May, 2024. We will put a link in the show
01:17:43 ◼ ► notes. Jason writes, Mac hardware represents just under 8% of Apple's revenue. It will probably be
01:17:50 ◼ ► overtaken by AirPods soon. Woof. Uh, my question is this, which Apple CEO will remove the Mac from
01:17:56 ◼ ► their lineup? Will it be John turn? I don't think I want to keep reading this. Even I don't want to
01:18:00 ◼ ► keep reading reading. I think this is the answer to this one. Will it be John turnus? He could be CEO
01:18:04 ◼ ► until 2040. Do we think the Mac will exist in hardware form then? Will it be the next CEO after
01:18:10 ◼ ► turnus? If, if the best selling Mac of all time is basically an iPhone and a bigger chassis, why not
01:18:15 ◼ ► sell Mac OS as an app for iPhone users and save on manufacturing costs? Everybody wants everything to
01:18:21 ◼ ► be in their iPhone. My whole computer could be in my iPhone. Then I would just connect my phone to a
01:18:26 ◼ ► keyboard and a mouse and a big monitor and it would become a Mac. The files are in the computer. You
01:18:31 ◼ ► just described a Mac mini with a screen on it. Yeah, that's just a Mac. Yeah, exactly. So the easy answer
01:18:36 ◼ ► to this and the one that everybody says, because it is the easy answer is as long as the Mac is the
01:18:42 ◼ ► platform you use to develop for all of Apple's other platforms. You can't get rid of the Mac
01:18:46 ◼ ► because then there would be no apps for the phone. There would be no apps for the iPad.
01:18:50 ◼ ► There would be no apps for Apple TV. There would be no apps for Vision Pro. Well, anyway,
01:18:53 ◼ ► like it and that's app that's on Apple. Apple did make, you know, a way to develop iPad apps on the
01:19:00 ◼ ► iPad, but it's extremely limited. But like they never went whole hog and said, here's Xcode for the
01:19:05 ◼ ► iPad. Here's Xcode for Vision Pro. Here's Xcode for the phone for crying out a lot. Full fledged,
01:19:09 ◼ ► 100% can do everything. Xcode like an Apple could have done that. There's nothing stopping them
01:19:15 ◼ ► from porting Xcode to the iPad and getting rid of the Mac. And, you know, like like like that's but
01:19:19 ◼ ► until they do that, they can they can't they literally can't get rid of the Mac. Now, setting
01:19:25 ◼ ► that aside, say they aside to that. Oh, the new CEO comes in and says, we want to get rid of the Mac.
01:19:32 ◼ ► I think especially in the current age of excitement over AILM stuff, where is all that action happening
01:19:40 ◼ ► on Apple's platforms? It's not happening on the phone. It's not happening on the iPad. It's not
01:19:43 ◼ ► happening to the Vision Pro. It's happening on the Mac because the Mac is the more technically capable
01:19:49 ◼ ► and more open platform. And whether Apple recognizes it or not, I would encourage them to recognize
01:19:55 ◼ ► the openness and power of the Mac is what is allowing Apple to participate in this stuff at all.
01:20:01 ◼ ► Because if Apple didn't have the Mac, nobody would be doing trying to do this stuff on the phone or on
01:20:08 ◼ ► the iPad because they're just too closed and make it too difficult. Whereas you can let command line
01:20:12 ◼ ► stuff run wild on your Mac and screw everything up. And that's what people are currently excited about
01:20:16 ◼ ► and doing. And so I think Apple should not get rid of the Mac. I think Apple should not close down
01:20:22 ◼ ► the Mac any further. And I think they won't. I don't think Ternus is going to do that. He seems
01:20:27 ◼ ► like he's a big Mac guy and he's a nerdy person and those people tend to like it. So don't look at
01:20:32 ◼ ► the percentage revenue. Look at how important this platform is to the company. It is immensely important
01:20:37 ◼ ► and like necessary for the company to continue to exist now. And if Apple removes that necessity by
01:20:42 ◼ ► allowing you to develop software for their other platforms, not on the Mac, it would still be dumb
01:20:48 ◼ ► because the openness of the Mac is super important to Apple being even in the conversation for future
01:20:55 ◼ ► Yeah, I would I would go a little further and like, first of all, like what is a Mac? It's a
01:21:01 ◼ ► computer running Mac OS. And that that has shifted a little bit over time. And you know, all the different
01:21:07 ◼ ► form factors and technical implementation details of what exactly that means. But for the most part,
01:21:12 ◼ ► it's, you know, in broad strokes, a Mac is a computer that runs Mac OS. If you have an iPhone
01:21:19 ◼ ► and you can plug it into other hardware and it becomes a keyboard pointing device and a screen
01:21:26 ◼ ► running Mac OS, that's a Mac. And, you know, maybe it's an iPhone when you remove it from all that
01:21:35 ◼ ► And as we've discussed in the past, putting two OSs on the SSD on the iPhone and having to deal with
01:21:40 ◼ ► this, but like it's a probably a bad compromised Mac and a bad compromised phone. But if it is truly
01:21:47 ◼ ► a Mac, it will be running Mac OS and you don't want your phone to be running Mac OS. So it's also
01:21:51 ◼ ► got to be running iOS. And now you've got a device that's running two OSs and virtualization and blah,
01:21:54 ◼ ► blah, blah. And there's so many compromises that have to do with that, which is why Apple has never
01:21:58 ◼ ► actually shipped that product. Could you do it? Absolutely. A hundred percent. You could do it.
01:22:01 ◼ ► But I don't think anyone would want that product. It's just easier to make phones and Mac
01:22:04 ◼ ► separately. And so Apple does. Yeah. And and as as for like, you know, the the software
01:22:09 ◼ ► differences between them. I don't think it's possible to open up enough pathways in the iOS
01:22:20 ◼ ► software architecture for apps to make it able to do the kinds of apps people love the Mac for
01:22:27 ◼ ► people love the Mac. You know, software development is is a big one. But what is it about software
01:22:33 ◼ ► software development that makes people want to and be able to do it on a Mac and either not want to or
01:22:39 ◼ ► literally not be able to do it on iOS? It's a bunch of characteristics of what tools software
01:22:44 ◼ ► developers use. Part of it is, yeah, command line stuff is often involved or scripting. A lot of it
01:22:50 ◼ ► is multiple applications operating on the same data, different tools integrating with other tools and
01:22:56 ◼ ► lots of different things, fast switching, multitasking, like a lot of that stuff either is impossible on
01:23:03 ◼ ► iOS or is just such a pain in the butt that nobody wants to do it when a Mac is available.
01:23:08 ◼ ► And to actually change that about iOS, you're just making a Mac at that. Like if if you have all
01:23:17 ◼ ► those. Yeah, like they wouldn't the way they would do that on iOS, like it's totally technically possible.
01:23:21 ◼ ► You know how you run a virtual machine that essentially has Mac OS inside it and everything
01:23:25 ◼ ► that runs in that environment is running in a big shared Mac inside your phone. But like
01:23:28 ◼ ► you can't break the sandboxing and security of the iPhone because like, why would you? You destroy the
01:23:34 ◼ ► security model of the iPhone. But hey, I want to do all this stuff where everybody can see everybody
01:23:37 ◼ ► else's data. I want to run full flight X code. No problem. Or run you in a little VM inside the phone.
01:23:41 ◼ ► Now you've got a little tiny world that's kind of like a Mac inside there where everything can see each
01:23:46 ◼ ► other and you can run command line stuff. It's like it's like the Linux virtual environment and
01:23:49 ◼ ► Windows or whatever. Totally technically possible by essentially creating a new separate little world
01:23:55 ◼ ► inside your phone where that stuff is allowed to happen. So even though you have technically
01:23:59 ◼ ► modified iOS to do all the stuff that X code needs to do, you've done it by basically boring a little
01:24:06 ◼ ► hole in iOS and saying, here's this little playpen where X code gets to live. And it's essentially a
01:24:14 ◼ ► Yeah. And it isn't just software development that works this way. There's lots of tools and
01:24:19 ◼ ► applications and needs that people have on computers that just don't fit well with the iOS like super
01:24:28 ◼ ► isolated software model. And I don't think iOS will ever get there because that's not what makes iOS
01:24:35 ◼ ► good. Like if anything, what we've seen, you know, in recent years with trying to make the iPad more
01:24:41 ◼ ► Mac like in some of its windowing and multitasking features, what we've seen is that it often is kind
01:24:46 ◼ ► of a sidestep. And a lot of iPad users actually don't like it and want to disable it or switch it
01:24:50 ◼ ► back because it's a little clunkier or it's a little bit different. And it's kind of a mixed back. It's
01:24:54 ◼ ► hard. It's very difficult to advance iOS, especially like once you're at the iPad scale, you're trying to
01:25:00 ◼ ► make it closer to Mac. It's very hard to advance iOS towards the Mac in a way that doesn't make it worse
01:25:09 ◼ ► at being what people loved about iOS before or what has worked very well for iOS before. So I don't
01:25:16 ◼ ► think I think the whole idea of iPhones and iPads replacing Macs, that idea is probably not going to
01:25:24 ◼ ► happen. You know, what happens in computing usually when we have a new platform come out, usually or a
01:25:31 ◼ ► new form factor, usually it doesn't replace anything. It just adds people. People might choose to have
01:25:37 ◼ ► multiple ones or, you know, like when the watch came out, the watch didn't replace the phone. Some people
01:25:41 ◼ ► said it would. It didn't and it won't. And I don't think it's an inevitability that our phones or iPads
01:25:49 ◼ ► are going to replace Macs or PCs. What we've seen in the computing industry is that there are certain
01:25:56 ◼ ► form factors and ways of interacting and ways that the devices work that just hit a real sweet spot for
01:26:03 ◼ ► people. And they tend to last, even though all the people who love talking about tech in the future
01:26:08 ◼ ► are saying, oh, this thing is going to die. Like certain things never die. I think the most obvious
01:26:13 ◼ ► thing in what we know today that probably has the longest lifespan is the smartphone. The phone is
01:26:19 ◼ ► just so ideal for people in so many ways, in so many like like basic physical ways. The phone is great
01:26:28 ◼ ► and very compelling and such a great balance of lots of things. I think the phone is going to be with us
01:26:32 ◼ ► for the rest of our lives and probably significantly after that and not just existing. I think being like
01:26:38 ◼ ► the central computing device for most people, I think it's the phone for a long time. But also
01:26:43 ◼ ► the computer, the way we know it as like the Mac and Windows PC today, like that style of computer,
01:26:50 ◼ ► I think is another one of those sweet spots. People have tried over the years to replace it and to make
01:26:58 ◼ ► it obsolete and or to phase it out. And it doesn't work because people love it and it keeps working
01:27:03 ◼ ► really well. And lots of other things like, and look, you can part of what you can say against the
01:27:08 ◼ ► Tim Cook era at Apple is that Tim Cook clearly had the idea for whatever reason that the iPad was going
01:27:15 ◼ ► to replace the Mac and that, you know, the iPad was the modern platform and the Mac was the legacy
01:27:20 ◼ ► platform. And eventually he seems to have changed his mind on that. But for the first, I don't know,
01:27:24 ◼ ► five to five to ten years maybe of his leadership at Apple, that seemed like that was the plan.
01:27:30 ◼ ► And customers didn't go for it. The iPad was not the future of all computing. It was the future of
01:27:36 ◼ ► the iPad. And it has a market. It has uses. But it didn't replace the Mac or the PC for that many
01:27:43 ◼ ► people. And Apple sure did try. They tried really hard to make to push it that direction. And it just
01:27:49 ◼ ► didn't go that way. I think people have shown over and over again, they love their phones and they love
01:27:55 ◼ ► their laptops and they don't necessarily want those things to merge. And no one's asking for those
01:28:00 ◼ ► things to merge. And finally, one other thing to consider is that the the computing industry for a
01:28:07 ◼ ► long time has kind of been it keeps pushing this this this command and this assumption and this goal
01:28:14 ◼ ► of like computers are too hard to use. We need to make computers easier for everyone, everyone else,
01:28:21 ◼ ► all the non nerds easier to use. And there's a lot of truth in that. There's also a lot of like
01:28:29 ◼ ► kind of, you know, false like advocating for for groups that don't exist anymore or that exist a lot
01:28:34 ◼ ► smaller than you think or speaking for people or making decisions for like theoretical people that
01:28:39 ◼ ► you're not really talking to real people. And I think what's also happening is all the people who
01:28:44 ◼ ► don't know how to use computers are aging out. Most people today are fine operating a computer to the
01:28:53 ◼ ► degree they need to operate it. And so the the whole push of like, let's get rid of the Mac. It's too
01:28:59 ◼ ► complicated. We're gonna make everything simple. Not only is has that failed over the years, and not
01:29:05 ◼ ► only is ios getting more and more complicated over the years to basically match the complexity of of a
01:29:11 ◼ ► Mac or PC in many ways. But also, the demand for that the need for that is just a lot lower than it
01:29:18 ◼ ► used to be. Because way more people are when more people have basic proficiency at using computers now.
01:29:26 ◼ ► I don't think that's why the demand has gotten lower. I think the demand has gotten lower because
01:29:29 ◼ ► Macs have actually gotten less intimidating, like the Apple has done a lot of work on the Mac over
01:29:36 ◼ ► many, many years to take those things that were the most difficult and confusing and make them less.
01:29:42 ◼ ► So there's still a gap. Obviously, a Mac is easier to screw up than a phone by a million miles or whatever.
01:29:46 ◼ ► But compare how difficult it is to wrangle a Mac today, like compare like a MacBook Neo to like a
01:29:53 ◼ ► a powerbook running classic macOS night and day level of expertise required. So I think people
01:29:58 ◼ ► haven't changed. I think Apple has successfully over many decades made the Mac easier to use,
01:30:05 ◼ ► not as easy as an iPad, not as easy as an iPhone. But like to your point, I think they're reaching a
01:30:10 ◼ ► point where they're they're getting to a threshold where it's like you can no longer argue for the
01:30:15 ◼ ► elimination of this platform due for it due to its intractable difficulty, because now we've made it
01:30:20 ◼ ► it reliable and easy enough that to the average person, it is not impossibly difficult. And that
01:30:26 ◼ ► wasn't true. In the early days of the PC, the PC was essentially impossibly difficult to wait for way
01:30:31 ◼ ► too many people. If you weren't a computer nerd today, you don't have to be a computer nerd. You can throw
01:30:35 ◼ ► a MacBook Neo at anybody. It's more complicated than a phone. It's more complicated than an iPad. They can
01:30:41 ◼ ► screw it up more easily, but they will be successful in using it to a degree that you could not say for
01:30:48 ◼ ► a Mac or any PC 20 or 30 years ago. Yeah, but but I think, you know, both things have happened like the Mac
01:30:54 ◼ ► is easier to use today, but also people like way more of the population is proficient at using Mac and PC
01:31:01 ◼ ► style computers today as they used to be. But and also no, they they get they can I think you're
01:31:06 ◼ ► right. When it was your case, you said they can do what they need to do with them. But it's the it's the
01:31:11 ◼ ► joke about Gen X being the only generation that knows how to use computers because we have to we had to help
01:31:15 ◼ ► our parents with it when we were kids. And now I have to help my kids with it when I'm an old person.
01:31:19 ◼ ► Yeah, but but it's because proficiency does not mean power user. It means you you're able to use the
01:31:23 ◼ ► computer to do what you need to do with it. I know. But even that like still, it's like I can't print. I mean,
01:31:28 ◼ ► the eternal one. I can't why can't I printing is not a power user feature. It's a thing that you have to do every once
01:31:33 ◼ ► in a while. Why can't I print? My kids can't figure out why they can't print. My parents can't figure out why they
01:31:38 ◼ ► can't print. I can figure out why we can't print. And my son has it now has a computer science degree. So like, what's his
01:31:43 ◼ ► excuse? Right. Well, but also and keep in mind also like having the smartphone take over the world has also affected
01:31:51 ◼ ► this greatly. So like, first of all, way more people are able to use smartphones because they are simpler and in a lot of
01:31:58 ◼ ► ways. And so many people's needs are perfectly satisfied with their smartphones. They many
01:32:02 ◼ ► people. Yeah, they don't they don't even have a Mac or PC because they don't need one. Right. Like many
01:32:06 ◼ ► people who don't who don't want a computer or can't use a computer get their needs solved with a phone
01:32:12 ◼ ► just fine. Because having it and for that point, having a personal computer or a Mac is not a requirement
01:32:18 ◼ ► to live in today's society. Having a smartphone essentially is. And that also like, I feel like,
01:32:25 ◼ ► you know, many people who never learned how to use Mac and PC computers, they didn't need to like
01:32:32 ◼ ► they weren't really ever forced to whereas today, phones are pretty important for lots of society. And
01:32:38 ◼ ► also, because people tend to like them more than they used to like old computers. People are people who
01:32:44 ◼ ► are who are not into computers are are more motivated to use their phones more often and therefore actually
01:32:49 ◼ ► become more proficient just by experience with them. Whereas that motivation like wasn't there for
01:32:54 ◼ ► them for computer necessarily. So the need to wedge all the all this simplicity into Mac OS and ruin what
01:33:03 ◼ ► the Mac is or get rid of the Mac over time. That need is gone. Meanwhile, the MacBook Neo just came out.
01:33:11 ◼ ► It's an it's a Mac for the price of an iPad. And everyone is loving this people are like, people are so much
01:33:18 ◼ ► more excited about the MacBook Neo than I have heard about the about any iPad model released in probably the
01:33:26 ◼ ► last eight years. Like I can't I can't imagine I can't remember the last time anybody was this excited
01:33:31 ◼ ► about an iPad. The MacBook Neo is a hit. Why? Because people who want an iPad mostly that's like, you know,
01:33:38 ◼ ► more basic needs like watching TV and stuff like that. And and that needs been solved for a long time by the iPad.
01:33:42 ◼ ► That's nothing new. But people love having the Mac in a lower price point. And it doesn't need to be a super
01:33:52 ◼ ► powerful MacBook Pro. It like it wasn't about computing power. It's a and that's how we like you take an iPhone chip
01:33:58 ◼ ► and you put it in a Mac and you have, you know, a pretty limited Mac in terms of like sheer hardware capability.
01:34:05 ◼ ► But people love working that way. They love using a computer like that. The great reception of the
01:34:13 ◼ ► MacBook Neo, I think, proves this point. What people have wanted all this time that Apple was trying to
01:34:18 ◼ ► make the iPad the future of computing. What most people want for their computing is a computer. And
01:34:24 ◼ ► what most people like about the Mac is not replaced by an iPad with a keyboard that ends up costing
01:34:30 ◼ ► $1,300, you know, for the combo or whatever. Like people like a Mac and making just a cheaper Mac with
01:34:37 ◼ ► lower hardware specs. People love that. You know, meanwhile, the idea of making the iPad the future
01:34:43 ◼ ► computing, it seems like that is increasingly not the case. The iPad is another platform that many
01:34:53 ◼ ► All right. And then finally, Paul Franz writes, a recent Mac OS bug report suggests that Mac OS will
01:35:00 ◼ ► crash after reaching 49 days of uptime. John Gruber in his article about it says that 91 days of uptime
01:35:05 ◼ ► is remarkable. Both of these numbers seem really small to me. I run Linux at work. Some new desktop
01:35:09 ◼ ► software has been causing me problems and our desktop support team pointed out my uptime was over a month
01:35:14 ◼ ► and could use a reboot. Is my experience with Linux servers giving me unreasonable expectations for
01:35:18 ◼ ► desktops. Unless I'm out of the loop, I don't hear this brought up with other devices running a Linux or
01:35:22 ◼ ► Mac OS kernel like phones, watches, TV, or cars. To be fair, I looked at my Mac OS uptime going back to
01:35:28 ◼ ► November on my laptop and the longest uptime was 40 days. My Linux server's longest uptime was seven
01:35:32 ◼ ► months. It's W temp goes back to 2022. I believe in all these cases, there were OS updates or needing to
01:35:40 ◼ ► physically move my server. Rebooting for updates seems less annoying than things breaking and requiring an
01:35:45 ◼ ► immediate restart. I don't think the expectations are out of whack. But as was kind of alluded to here, if you don't
01:35:52 ◼ ► shut down your Mac every day, like Jason Snell, because you're a weirdo, if you have a Mac, and you're
01:35:58 ◼ ► conscientious, as Marco suggested at the beginning of the show, your uptime is going to be determined by Apple's OS
01:36:04 ◼ ► release cycle, because you have to reboot when they update when they do a point release. So 15.7.7 comes out, you do the
01:36:10 ◼ ► update, you reboot. That is for me, for someone who leaves my Mac on all the time, and you know, I just put it to sleep when
01:36:16 ◼ ► I'm not using it. And then I wake it up when I'm using it, but I never ever ever shut down. My uptime is 100% determined by when
01:36:23 ◼ ► Apple releases software updates. I tend not to do a software update right before I record a podcast. So maybe it'll be delayed by a couple
01:36:29 ◼ ► days. But that's it. But if I didn't do that, how long would my uptime be? I mean, essentially forever. Like I, you know, my I have had
01:36:37 ◼ ► kernel panics on this Mac at various times, especially with all my video card swapping and stuff. But
01:36:41 ◼ ► it doesn't happen very frequently. So I I'm sure I could have had like multiple years where I just had
01:36:47 ◼ ► an uptime of multiple years. But like, well, here's the problem is the other problem. You reboot for all
01:36:52 ◼ ► sorts of reasons. If when I go on a long vacation, I like to shut down and unplug my computer when I
01:36:57 ◼ ► reboot into Windows, there goes my uptime. But like, theoretically, if you have a stable system running
01:37:04 ◼ ► Mac OS 10 or Mac OS or whatever, there's no reason why you should ever need to reboot a
01:37:08 ◼ ► short of software bugs. And software bugs requiring a reboot are very rare. Even bugs that require like
01:37:14 ◼ ► everything is frozen and dead. If you just kill login window for SSH and kill login window, your uptime
01:37:20 ◼ ► will be maintained, even though you just you just booted yourself back to the login screen. But that
01:37:24 ◼ ► doesn't affect your uptime because, hey, the machine is still up. So now obviously Linux servers that are
01:37:29 ◼ ► just doing one thing over and over again and don't have any software updates that are running on them,
01:37:33 ◼ ► although I think that is also rare and it should be rare because you should be patching your you
01:37:37 ◼ ► should be updating. So again, to Marco's point, you should update everything, even your servers every
01:37:41 ◼ ► once in a while. But in theory, people have these Linux servers. They never update them. They run the
01:37:45 ◼ ► same software year. Like the only thing that's going to take them down is a hardware problem or
01:37:49 ◼ ► whatever. And I think that is also true of any modern device like an Apple TV or a phone or a Mac or
01:37:55 ◼ ► whatever. But the world we live in is a world where there are software updates and you should apply them a lot of the
01:38:02 ◼ ► times because a lot of times they are security related. And also software does have bugs.
01:38:06 ◼ ► So, yeah, I don't think it's that if someone just says, hey, your Mac has been up for a long time and
01:38:11 ◼ ► you should reboot. That's maybe not great advice. But the the one of the things that I tell my kids
01:38:18 ◼ ► every time they tell me their computer is doing something flaky, like, you know, it's the whole turn
01:38:23 ◼ ► off and turn on again. Rebooting is one of the first best easiest diagnostic steps. Did you have
01:38:29 ◼ ► to reboot? It's like, no, but like it takes two seconds. Max boot really fast these days. And if
01:38:33 ◼ ► it solves the problem, like then try that first before you come to me, like X isn't working,
01:38:39 ◼ ► Y isn't working. And very often it's like some app isn't working. It's like, I don't know, log out and
01:38:43 ◼ ► back in, which is the software should never reboot, which is like maybe that app has a bug and it's
01:38:48 ◼ ► screwed up in some way. And if you log out and back in, it will fix it. But if nothing fixes it,
01:38:52 ◼ ► you can reboot. But if there's nothing wrong with your computer and you're like, oh, you have up
01:38:56 ◼ ► time of a month, you should just reboot just to be safe. No, if it's working fine, you don't need to
01:39:01 ◼ ► reboot. I remember when I was first on my own, I ran some flavor, if I want to say Ubuntu, on like a
01:39:10 ◼ ► ThinkPad or something like that. This was 20 years ago, so I can barely remember now. But I remember
01:39:15 ◼ ► being very impressed by the uptime of that machine. And I remember being so impressed by
01:39:19 ◼ ► that when I at one point needed to either shut it down or reboot it or whatever the case may be,
01:39:23 ◼ ► I actually captured a PDF of a little like diagnostic page that I'd written and the record server uptime,
01:39:30 ◼ ► which was recorded actually a month after me being married to Aaron. So this was 27, it's 2007,
01:39:37 ◼ ► excuse me, server uptime, 299 days, six hours, 28 minutes. And I was very proud of that at the time.
01:39:42 ◼ ► Yeah, if you search the internet, you'll find people with like this Linux server has been running
01:39:46 ◼ ► for 37 years, not joking 37 years, like literally, I don't know if that fits with Linux, but there are
01:39:52 ◼ ► Unix servers, they're like, I'm sure there are some of those like, you know, very fancy mainframes with
01:39:57 ◼ ► redundant CPU and power supplies that are doing like visa transactions for all of our lives. Like,
01:40:01 ◼ ► that's a little bit fudge where it's like, well, it has the same thing been up because they swapped
01:40:05 ◼ ► out the CPU a few times. But anyway, yeah, there are lots of long running things out there. And
01:40:10 ◼ ► Linux, Linux is one of the first ones you start to see people brag about it, because like,
01:40:14 ◼ ► regular tech nerds would just like set up a Linux server in their house somewhere. And then they'd
01:40:20 ◼ ► wake up 25 years later, and they realized they'd never rebooted it. And they'd post a cool screenshot
01:40:24 ◼ ► or whatever. But yeah, as with all things, again, I always find it hilarious when people post
01:40:31 ◼ ► screenshots as proof of anything. It's like, you know, you can make any pixel in any arrangement and
01:40:35 ◼ ► a bitmap. You know, you can just like, like, I can turn on and off any pixel, and I can make any pixel,
01:40:42 ◼ ► any color screenshots are not proof of anything. But yeah, you can just edit WTEP directly. And then,
01:40:50 ◼ ► and then type uptime and be like, wow, uptime of five millennia. But now I'm assuming people are being
01:40:56 ◼ ► honest, because yeah, computer systems can be made reliable in the right circumstances.
01:41:02 ◼ ► All right, thanks to our sponsors this episode, Aura Frames and Delete Me. And thanks to our members
01:41:08 ◼ ► who support us directly. You can join us at atp.fm slash join. One of the many perks of membership
01:41:13 ◼ ► is ATP Overtime. This is our weekly bonus topic. Every single episode, there is more content that
01:41:20 ◼ ► non-members, sorry, you're missing out. Members, you get it. It's great. This week on Overtime,
01:41:24 ◼ ► we're going to be talking about, basically, should Apple make Neo versions of more products,
01:41:29 ◼ ► more affordable iPhones, Macs, etc. We're going to talk about that in Overtime this week. You can
01:41:34 ◼ ► join to listen at atp.fm slash join. Thanks, everyone. And we'll talk to you next week.
01:41:43 ◼ ► And you can find the show notes at atp.fm. And if you're into Mastodon, you can follow them.
01:42:13 ◼ ► At C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S. So that's Casey Liss. M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-N-G. Marco Armin. S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-U-S-A.
01:42:29 ◼ ► It's accidental. Accidental. They didn't mean to. Accidental. Accidental. Tech podcast so long.
01:42:42 ◼ ► I did want to call out the update to Pedometer Plus Plus. This is our friend David Smith,
01:42:47 ◼ ► underscore David Smith's app, Pedometer Plus Plus. I've mentioned a little bit here and there as I
01:42:52 ◼ ► prepare for my giant walk around Manhattan, which is actually this weekend, my big 32-mile walk.
01:42:58 ◼ ► It's in a couple of days. As I've been testing out different watch options for that, the app I've
01:43:05 ◼ ► been using on the Apple Watch Ultra has been the beta of Pedometer Plus Plus 8. And that just came out,
01:43:12 ◼ ► I think, yesterday or the day before. It's brand new. And underscore has a couple of great blog posts
01:43:17 ◼ ► about it. Our friend Stephen Hackett over at 512 Pixels also did a great post about it.
01:43:21 ◼ ► It is such an amazing app because what I love about Pedometer Plus Plus is, and I made a little
01:43:34 ◼ ► In the app store, you know, in the kind of Apple developer ecosystem, sometimes you get an app that
01:43:41 ◼ ► somebody has just poured so much love into, even if there might not necessarily be like an ROI that
01:43:49 ◼ ► justifies that level of investment. This is something that like, this is what people love about the Apple
01:43:58 ◼ ► indie developer scene. This is what made a lot of us fall in love with the Mac and certainly the
01:44:04 ◼ ► software scene around it. That, you know, just people who put in a huge amount of care and whether
01:44:12 ◼ ► that's design, engineering, polish, you know, some combination of all three, like a huge amount of
01:44:18 ◼ ► care going into a fairly specialized app. More care than that, than that app necessarily like quote
01:44:28 ◼ ► But mostly because that person or company just cares so much about making something great in that
01:44:34 ◼ ► area. Usually it's like, it's something they personally love and they just want it to be great.
01:44:38 ◼ ► You want to hear the great phrase from the gaming industry for the phenomenon you're describing?
01:44:46 ◼ ► It's said in a pejorative way in various contexts, but yeah, over delivery, you are delivering too much.
01:44:52 ◼ ► Right. And, and we hear, you know, I think another term for this is a labor of love, which is also
01:44:56 ◼ ► sometimes used pejoratively. I think there, there is a lot of truth to that. Like, like there are certain
01:45:00 ◼ ► apps that you, you look at and you're like, oh, this was a labor of love. And I, and I personally
01:45:05 ◼ ► take that as a compliment when somebody calls something that I've made, you know, something like
01:45:08 ◼ ► that. The way to use it pejoratively is like, wow, this, this idiot wasted their time doing this thing
01:45:13 ◼ ► that's not worth it. But the way I see it is, is much more generous. It's more like, wow, like this,
01:45:19 ◼ ► this person put so much love into a thing, not because they needed to, but because they wanted
01:45:24 ◼ ► to. And that's, you know, as long as, you know, the bills are getting paid, it's fine. Right. And so
01:45:29 ◼ ► pedometer plus plus, you know, underscore makes widgets myth. And by all accounts, widgets myth is
01:45:35 ◼ ► so ridiculously popular that numbers wise, he probably shouldn't spend any time ever working on anything
01:45:43 ◼ ► else. Like if you just calculate, like, you know, what, where does it make sense to devote your time?
01:45:48 ◼ ► Like you have this one massive mega hit product, like it doesn't make a lot of sense. You know,
01:45:53 ◼ ► like Tim Cook wasn't having like a side gig, you know, making, making little apps for himself. Like
01:45:57 ◼ ► he had enough to deal with, you know. And, you know, so underscore doesn't need to make pedometer plus
01:46:03 ◼ ► plus. He makes it because he loves it and he makes it for himself. And this update to this app,
01:46:07 ◼ ► like you think it's just a step counter and it is a pretty good step counter, but then behind the step
01:46:13 ◼ ► counter is this like world-class hiking and walking tracker, especially in the Apple watch.
01:46:21 ◼ ► Like if you are walking or hiking and it actually supports other types too, but those, I think those
01:46:25 ◼ ► are the big ones, walking, hiking, anything where you, where you could use a map on your wrist or
01:46:31 ◼ ► distance measurements on your wrist or step counts or whatever. Um, it actually probably would be good
01:46:35 ◼ ► for cycling too. Um, but anyway, um, if you are doing like, you know, walking, hiking, running, cycling,
01:46:42 ◼ ► things where you are outside following trails or maps or whatever, the experience of using pedometer
01:46:48 ◼ ► plus plus on the watch, it was always good, but now it is even better. He brought in a designer to
01:46:54 ◼ ► help him make these amazing, he brought in a cartographer to help him make the maps look better.
01:47:00 ◼ ► How many people do you know who, who have hired a cartographer for anything? Um, but that's,
01:47:05 ◼ ► he brought in a cartographer, he brought in a designer. It looks incredible. It works great.
01:47:10 ◼ ► The engineering behind it is great. It destroys the like, you know, in terms of like how nice it looks,
01:47:17 ◼ ► it destroys all the other fitness watches and Apple's built-in apps and any other app I've ever seen,
01:47:23 ◼ ► uh, third party or first party, um, in terms of niceness of these, of this experience. Uh, and
01:47:28 ◼ ► my, one of my favorite things too, is that it has this, um, this expedition mode where to extend the
01:47:35 ◼ ► Apple watch battery life, there's a few tricks you can do, but he, if you want your Apple watch to last
01:47:41 ◼ ► like multiple days of a hike, you can turn an expedition mode and that's a special workout mode
01:47:46 ◼ ► that doesn't use the heart rate at all. Like if, you know, if you're just walking, if you're hiking,
01:47:50 ◼ ► the heart rate might not, might not be that relevant to you. Um, so you can turn that off the heart rate
01:47:55 ◼ ► and get 40% more battery life, which is massive. So all this is to say like, this is an amount of
01:48:03 ◼ ► coolness and niceness and, and, and effort into an app that this one guy has, I think embarrassed the
01:48:12 ◼ ► rest of the industry with how good his app is for these purposes compared to the built-in Apple
01:48:19 ◼ ► workouts app, the, the Suunto, the Garmin's, like all those watches of the world. Like this app is
01:48:24 ◼ ► awesome. So if you go outside and walk or run or bike or hike, which is just walking, I think, but
01:48:30 ◼ ► in the woods or something like if you do those things, check out Pedometer plus plus, especially
01:48:35 ◼ ► on the watch where it really shines. It's a great phone app as well, but the watch and like
01:48:40 ◼ ► no one else is doing Apple watch development worth a damn except underscore. Like he, he blows
01:48:46 ◼ ► everyone else away in the term, in terms of like how much he, how much effort he puts into the Apple
01:48:50 ◼ ► watch as a platform because it, the platform fights you at every turn. It's very developer hostile for
01:48:56 ◼ ► lots of, lots of good reasons and some bad reasons. Um, and he gets through it and he does great work on
01:49:02 ◼ ► the watch. And so it has made me like re fall in love with the Apple watch as a fitness device for that
01:49:08 ◼ ► particular purpose for the walks. And even though I also like the Suunto for other reasons, um, man's
01:49:16 ◼ ► Yeah. When we, uh, went on spring break a couple of weeks back or a month back, uh, we did some hikes,
01:49:22 ◼ ► including one that was, I think I described it on the show, two miles out, two miles back.
01:49:26 ◼ ► And what I did was I found on like all trails or something like that. I found a GPX, which is,
01:49:30 ◼ ► you know, a series of waypoints. Uh, I think it's XML, but it doesn't really matter. It's really ugly.
01:49:34 ◼ ► Yeah, there you go. Um, I found that and sent it to Pedometer plus plus, and then it could,
01:49:40 ◼ ► it would show me, am I on or off the track that was provided via the website, the all trails website,
01:49:45 ◼ ► which was really, really slick. It's really good stuff. Um, and that was the old version.
01:49:53 ◼ ► good stuff. Uh, underscores put in a, an astonishing amount of engineering work. And like Marco said,
01:50:05 ◼ ► Right. Like how do you find your friendly neighborhood cartographer? I mean, just ridiculous.
01:50:12 ◼ ► I've said many times throughout the course of the show. The reason, one of the main reasons I
01:50:17 ◼ ► think that we're, we're successful, the three of us at doing this show is, is really two actually.
01:50:22 ◼ ► Number one, you know, I think the three of us have a pretty good chemistry. And even though
01:50:26 ◼ ► sometimes we want to murder each other, by and large, we're really dear close friends. And I
01:50:29 ◼ ► think that comes through and shows, but number two, and what's relevant here is that we really
01:50:34 ◼ ► and truly give a crap. We don't always succeed and execute perfectly, but we really and truly
01:50:39 ◼ ► give a crap. And that is something that is extremely true of underscore broadly and of Pedometer
01:50:45 ◼ ► plus plus specifically. And like Marco said, I mean, I don't know anything about underscores,
01:50:51 ◼ ► you know, uh, business finances or anything like that, but I have to assume that just an
01:50:57 ◼ ► astonishing, overwhelming share of the money that his business earns is from widget Smith,
01:51:02 ◼ ► which he also gives a crap about. But nevertheless, because this is a labor of love complimentary,
01:51:09 ◼ ► uh, because this is something that is scratching an itch that, that underscore very much has,
01:51:14 ◼ ► uh, he still spends a lot of time on Pedometer plus plus and it shows, and I haven't had yet had the
01:51:19 ◼ ► chance to read. Um, he also put up a blog post about how he spent, this is literally the title of his
01:51:26 ◼ ► blog post, six years, perfecting maps on watchOS. And that's both a testament to underscores,
01:51:33 ◼ ► tenacity and, and perseverance, and also how shitty watchOS development is. But anyway, you get the
01:51:43 ◼ ► I have one, uh, more unrelated tidbit on this. Um, back in the classic Mac OS days, uh, when it was the
01:51:50 ◼ ► wild west and there was no memory protection and there was cool little system extensions to change
01:51:54 ◼ ► the way everything looked in the operating system. Um, there were various engines that could do cool
01:51:59 ◼ ► things like, uh, make it look like your windows are transparent. It's, uh, you know, something that
01:52:05 ◼ ► is trivial now, everything has it, but before the age of compositing window managers, when your app
01:52:11 ◼ ► drew a window, it didn't know what was like, like the, the system when you're dragging a window around
01:52:18 ◼ ► didn't know what was behind it. It was just like telling the things to draw the new dirty areas of
01:52:21 ◼ ► the screen. There was no compositing window manager, which meant that like in a compositing window
01:52:25 ◼ ► manager, some part of the operating system says, okay, give me all your windows. You want a white
01:52:30 ◼ ► window here. You want a yellow window here. You want this window here. And by the way, the windows
01:52:33 ◼ ► can also have transparency values. Like I got all the windows. I know where they all are. You've told
01:52:37 ◼ ► me what's in the bitmaps for them. And you've also told me for every single pixel, how transparent it
01:52:41 ◼ ► should be. Now I will combine all those windows into a final image that you will see on the screen by
01:52:47 ◼ ► compositing them together. I'll take the back thing and then I'll put the next layer over it. Then I'll put the
01:52:51 ◼ ► next layer. Then I'll put the next layer. And as I'm layering them on, Hey, if I'm layering a window
01:52:55 ◼ ► on top of some other stuff and that window has some pixels that have some transparency, I will blend
01:52:59 ◼ ► them with the stuff that I know is behind them. That's what a compositing window manager does. That
01:53:03 ◼ ► was introduced with Mac OS 10 before that, that was not how it worked before that application is drew
01:53:08 ◼ ► directly into like a backing buffer for the entire screen. And they just drew opaque pixels. Um, but if you
01:53:14 ◼ ► were clever, you could say, Hey, I'm about to draw my window onto the screen and there is stuff already
01:53:19 ◼ ► on the screen. So before I draw what's on the screen, I'll look to see what's in the area that
01:53:24 ◼ ► I'm about to draw the window. And I will blend those pixels with my pixels in a transparent kind of way.
01:53:30 ◼ ► And so what they were doing is drawing an opaque window that contains contents that look like it's
01:53:36 ◼ ► showing what's behind it. Now, the tricky part of that is if you then move something, if something
01:53:40 ◼ ► behind it changed, your app had no idea that it happened. You know, it's not like Mac OS 10 with the
01:53:45 ◼ ► operating system. I'd be like, I'm constant, every frame I'm compositing, compositing, compositing.
01:53:49 ◼ ► This would be like, well, when I drew this window, like if you, if you have like a clock behind you,
01:53:54 ◼ ► when I drew this window, here's what was behind me. But then a second passes and the clock ticks over
01:53:57 ◼ ► and your window has no idea that that happened because it has no awareness of what's going on
01:54:01 ◼ ► behind it. Right? So what I'm saying is you could get fake transparency, which only became apparent
01:54:06 ◼ ► when like you either move something in the background or something changed in the background.
01:54:09 ◼ ► And you're like, oh, I see. You're not really compositing. And like, you could fudge it by
01:54:14 ◼ ► saying, okay, every, every few seconds, you know, look at what's behind you and then redraw it
01:54:19 ◼ ► yourself. And every window could do that. Like that fake transparency. Here's why this is relevant to
01:54:23 ◼ ► your underscore discussion. Uh, I feel like Casey with this long, long way to, to, all right.
01:54:28 ◼ ► And speaking to like, you know, underscore cares about this app and everything. And Casey said,
01:54:33 ◼ ► and Widdersmith too, he cares about, I recall seeing a thread go by, I think on Mastodon where
01:54:38 ◼ ► underscore was describing what he wanted to do was make essentially transparent widgets,
01:54:43 ◼ ► but there was no good way to do that. So he's like, well, if I just know what's behind them
01:54:47 ◼ ► and I draw them exactly how they would be appear, if they were transparent, they'll look transparent,
01:54:54 ◼ ► but Oh, to do that, I have to know down to the, not just down to the pixel, but down to the,
01:55:06 ◼ ► but down to the screen pixel where everything is on the screen, because I have to draw my widgets
01:55:11 ◼ ► as if you can see through them. So I need to know where every single other element is on the screen.
01:55:17 ◼ ► So the illusion is perfect, but Oh, there are so many different sizes of iPhones. And also, by the way,
01:55:24 ◼ ► people can have that magnifying mode on the iPhone. So he wrote this program. I forget it was vibe
01:55:29 ◼ ► coded or not that would automate the process of figuring out every single Apple device,
01:55:34 ◼ ► every possible set of display settings, every possible widget arrangement on every possible screen.
01:55:38 ◼ ► So he would know, so he could exactly fake with widget Smith widgets that appeared in a way that
01:55:44 ◼ ► seemed impossible because he's faking it down to the pixel for any iPhone and any display resolution
01:55:50 ◼ ► and any zoom factor. And like, he cares a lot about everything he does, not just phenomenal plus plus.
01:55:56 ◼ ► And that's for a feature, which I think, by the way, is stupid, but he didn't think it was stupid.
01:56:01 ◼ ► He thought it was cool. And so he went like, talk about going the extra mile. It's like anybody would have
01:56:06 ◼ ► looked at that and said, yeah, you can do it. But I mean, it would be ridiculous. And underscore is like,
01:56:10 ◼ ► but you can do it, right? And he did it. He, I believe this is shipping. So all this is to say