ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have a happy thing and a annoying thing.

00:00:02 ◼   ► Okay.

00:00:03 ◼   ► I'm going to start with the annoying thing.

00:00:04 ◼   ► Yes, please.

00:00:05 ◼   ► I have been waiting 12 days for launching my new app.

00:00:09 ◼   ► I've been waiting for app review.

00:00:11 ◼   ► Two turtle doves.

00:00:12 ◼   ► And a partridge and a pear tree.

00:00:14 ◼   ► I wanted to launch it today.

00:00:16 ◼   ► I wanted today's show to be all about my new app and promoting it.

00:00:20 ◼   ► And I even set a pre-order date from today, thinking like obviously in 12

00:00:24 ◼   ► days, because I submitted on August 1st.

00:00:26 ◼   ► Today's August 12th.

00:00:36 ◼   ► Obviously, I'll be able to just push that day back and you know do

00:00:40 ◼   ► the whole thing again.

00:00:41 ◼   ► And the Mac app was approved after six days, which is a lot.

00:00:45 ◼   ► Um and the iOS app is just sitting there waiting.

00:00:48 ◼   ► I filed a ticket today, no response.

00:00:50 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:00:51 ◼   ► App review is really having problems.

00:00:55 ◼   ► Only in the last month or so, it seems like review times have spiked

00:00:58 ◼   ► up to like six days for most apps.

00:01:01 ◼   ► I can't imagine why.

00:01:03 ◼   ► But okay, so everyone's like, yeah, it's vibe coding.

00:01:05 ◼   ► Yeah, but vibe coding didn't just start last month.

00:01:07 ◼   ► I know, but it's like when do people, you know, when do the people

00:01:10 ◼   ► start doing it, playing with it, figuring they're gonna put it up on the

00:01:12 ◼   ► store.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Like it's kind of like, you know, a thing that builds like a snowball.

00:01:15 ◼   ► And as this as you frequently point out, when people are stuck in traffic,

00:01:19 ◼   ► you are traffic.

00:01:20 ◼   ► You're submitting a vibe coded app, you're one of the traffic people.

00:01:23 ◼   ► Well, it's part it's partly AI coded.

00:01:26 ◼   ► It's uh I didn't vibe code the whole thing, but um in fact I've

00:01:29 ◼   ► wrote most of the code in it.

00:01:30 ◼   ► But anyway, it's Apple's job to get their review times under control, regardless of

00:01:34 ◼   ► the spikes in traffic.

00:01:35 ◼   ► They just want to be stingy about it, and it gets harder when there's

00:01:38 ◼   ► bursts, but it's like, look, you chose to be the uh as the E

00:01:41 ◼   ► would say, gatekeeper, so uh figure out how to get it done.

00:01:45 ◼   ► That's the thing.

00:01:45 ◼   ► Like, you know, I I feel like in times like this, I think Apple

00:01:48 ◼   ► often sees itself as the victim of external forces.

00:01:51 ◼   ► Um that it that is certainly the impression they give off.

00:01:54 ◼   ► Um and when you talk to people inside, they they definitely have a victim

00:01:58 ◼   ► complex about a lot of things.

00:01:59 ◼   ► And and app review, it seems like they've always kind of seen themselves as

00:02:03 ◼   ► like, well, when when times explode, it's obviously because the external world is forcing

00:02:09 ◼   ► upon them some factor.

00:02:11 ◼   ► Oh, all these people are submitting updates all at once, or oh, AI coding

00:02:14 ◼   ► is making things or spam attempts, whatever.

00:02:16 ◼   ► But like they created this whole system.

00:02:18 ◼   ► They put themselves in this position and they control everything about it.

00:02:23 ◼   ► So it's a problem of their own making, and it's going to require a

00:02:25 ◼   ► solution of their own making.

00:02:27 ◼   ► And the direction the world is going where a lot more people can now

00:02:30 ◼   ► make apps didn't just start last month.

00:02:33 ◼   ► So they've had a lot of time to observe this and to try to

00:02:38 ◼   ► make changes to scale it.

00:02:39 ◼   ► But maybe they have scaled up, but obviously they haven't scaled up enough.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And the system is breaking.

00:02:44 ◼   ► Well, the you use a lot of different they's in that in the subscription.

00:02:47 ◼   ► There's the they that are complaining of victimization, there's the they that shows the

00:02:50 ◼   ► app review system, there's many they's and they're not entirely overlapping.

00:02:54 ◼   ► Obviously, if you work in app review and you're overwhelmed, you're not the one

00:02:58 ◼   ► setting the policy for the app store.

00:02:59 ◼   ► But then there is the larger they, which is Apple leadership, which did set

00:03:03 ◼   ► the policy for the app store and is ultimately responsible for crappy review times.

00:03:06 ◼   ► And yeah, there's many overlapping they's.

00:03:08 ◼   ► But from the outside, it's just Apple and they're not performing well in their

00:03:13 ◼   ► self-appointed duty to be the sole app store for the phone.

00:03:16 ◼   ► Right, and and we have no other choice.

00:03:18 ◼   ► Like the the reality is like my development has screeched to a halt because

00:03:22 ◼   ► I can't ship this software.

00:03:24 ◼   ► Like I I have the Mac app, which is approved and waiting, but I

00:03:28 ◼   ► can't release it because the in-app purchase that it needs is submitted with the

00:03:32 ◼   ► iOS app.

00:03:33 ◼   ► Because there's no way to make one submission that covers when you submit a

00:03:36 ◼   ► new app to the app store that requires an app purchase, you have to

00:03:38 ◼   ► submit the in-app purchase itself for review as part of the submission of the

00:03:43 ◼   ► app.

00:03:44 ◼   ► And they both have to be approved for the app to work.

00:03:47 ◼   ► But a Mac app that shares that same in-app purchase with the iOS app,

00:03:53 ◼   ► you can't bundle the in-app purchase for review with both.

00:03:57 ◼   ► You have to bundle it with one or the other.

00:03:58 ◼   ► So I bundled it with the iOS app, figuring I've always heard stories about

00:04:02 ◼   ► the Mac App Store taking forever for approval, so I figured the iOS app

00:04:04 ◼   ► is likely to be approved first.

00:04:06 ◼   ► So I so the Mac app is sitting there waiting.

00:04:10 ◼   ► It's approved after six days, and the iOS app is now on day 12,

00:04:14 ◼   ► still not approved, but with the in-app purchase bundled with it, so I can't

00:04:17 ◼   ► release either one of them if I wanted to.

00:04:19 ◼   ► It's a mess.

00:04:20 ◼   ► And I also can't release any new test flight builds.

00:04:23 ◼   ► So I can't be working on like version 101 really, you know, with any

00:04:28 ◼   ► testers, because I can't create version 101 yet in App Store Connect because version

00:04:33 ◼   ► 1.0 is still awaiting approval.

00:04:36 ◼   ► And if I cancel the 1.0 submission and re- and you know, developer reject

00:04:40 ◼   ► it for iOS, that'll start that'll start the whole countdown over.

00:04:45 ◼   ► And also, what the heck happens to the Mac app, which is approved and

00:04:48 ◼   ► pending release.

00:04:49 ◼   ► I have to release it before I can submit a new version.

00:04:51 ◼   ► So it's everything is tied up in Apple's own system that they built that

00:04:58 ◼   ► honestly is crumbling.

00:05:00 ◼   ► Like this system, this system relies on fast app review.

00:05:05 ◼   ► We had a time back in the day when App Review frequently took six

00:05:10 ◼   ► to eight days.

00:05:11 ◼   ► Um there was you know, a person who was allegedly in charge of it

00:05:15 ◼   ► that was replaced when Phil Schiller kind of took it over, and magically things

00:05:20 ◼   ► got a lot faster after that.

00:05:22 ◼   ► And that's when App Review, this was in about about 2015, that app review

00:05:26 ◼   ► times dropped from you know up to a week to usually one to two

00:05:29 ◼   ► days, where it has mostly stayed for most of the last 11 years.

00:05:36 ◼   ► And just in the last month, that one to two days or two to

00:05:40 ◼   ► three days time has become six to eight days, and now uh here I

00:05:45 ◼   ► am with 12.

00:05:47 ◼   ► Something is something has seriously broken, and it reveals quite how broken the rest

00:05:53 ◼   ► of the system becomes if app review takes a long time.

00:05:57 ◼   ► Because what they want you to do, they want you to like set up

00:06:00 ◼   ► promotion.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I had a pre-order date set, because that's what you're supposed to do now

00:06:02 ◼   ► to promote an app, set it set up an app store pre-order.

00:06:04 ◼   ► So I set that up.

00:06:05 ◼   ► You're supposed to like you know, email app review uh or the app store

00:06:09 ◼   ► uh editorial people some number of days or weeks in advance so you can

00:06:13 ◼   ► like plan a launch and you can try to market it and co-market it.

00:06:16 ◼   ► I can't do any of that right now because I have no clue whether

00:06:20 ◼   ► this almost two-week old submission will ever be approved, let alone when.

00:06:25 ◼   ► Am I gonna be able to launch this app by September?

00:06:28 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:06:29 ◼   ► If this build doesn't get through, if if they have some you know nitpick

00:06:33 ◼   ► with it and they reject it, is the next build gonna take two weeks

00:06:36 ◼   ► also?

00:06:37 ◼   ► There's just no end in sight when like when you're when you're looking at

00:06:41 ◼   ► the situation, it's like you have no idea what to do.

00:06:43 ◼   ► You're stuck.

00:06:44 ◼   ► I hope Apple realizes how severe of a problem this is.

00:06:49 ◼   ► I hope someone over there is running around with their head on fire because

00:06:52 ◼   ► this is so broken, you know, they're never gonna show, like they're not you're

00:06:55 ◼   ► not you're never gonna see any external signs how much they care.

00:06:58 ◼   ► From the outside, it just looks like they just don't care at all.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And I'm sure that's I'm sure someone in there cares.

00:07:03 ◼   ► How high up is that person?

00:07:04 ◼   ► Does Phil Schiller care?

00:07:05 ◼   ► I hope so.

00:07:06 ◼   ► Maybe he listens still.

00:07:07 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:07:08 ◼   ► Phil, hey, this is broken.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Please.

00:07:09 ◼   ► Please, for the love of God, fix it.

00:07:11 ◼   ► All right.

00:07:11 ◼   ► Uh the good thing, that was that was my bad thing.

00:07:14 ◼   ► The good thing is I have achieved a homeowner uh milestone.

00:07:20 ◼   ► What did you repair?

00:07:21 ◼   ► I replaced the stupid ceiling fan that I've complained about for years here and

00:07:27 ◼   ► there, to you, Casey, at least.

00:07:29 ◼   ► I don't know if it's if if anybody's really made the edited show.

00:07:32 ◼   ► Um, but I had a ceiling fan in my office here.

00:07:34 ◼   ► The only way to control it was its own like proprietary wall controller, like

00:07:40 ◼   ► that goes in the light switch box.

00:07:42 ◼   ► And it was it's like a proprietary DC signaling system, and you can't just

00:07:46 ◼   ► wire it to an AC fan switch.

00:07:48 ◼   ► Because if you can wire a fan to an AC fan switch, then you

00:07:51 ◼   ► can put in like a Lutron Casato switch, which I love.

00:07:54 ◼   ► Yep.

00:07:54 ◼   ► And then you can control it with the Pico remotes from anywhere.

00:07:57 ◼   ► So at the other place, I have a Lutron fan and or a Lutron

00:08:02 ◼   ► controlled fan, and then on my desk, I have Pico switch.

00:08:05 ◼   ► So when you're a podcaster wanting to adjust your ceiling fan, you don't have

00:08:09 ◼   ► to stretch across the whole room with your big quoted headphone cable to try

00:08:11 ◼   ► not to knock over your drinks onto your laptop.

00:08:13 ◼   ► So who would do that?

00:08:14 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:08:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I don't know.

00:08:16 ◼   ► But um here I had there is this like proprietary custom uh crappy fan

00:08:22 ◼   ► from a brand I won't name to do them a favor.

00:08:24 ◼   ► Um I always hated this fan.

00:08:27 ◼   ► But I you know what a fan is just a piece of permanent architecture

00:08:30 ◼   ► in a house.

00:08:31 ◼   ► I can't change a fan.

00:08:32 ◼   ► I changed a fan.

00:08:34 ◼   ► And let me tell you, changing a ceiling fan is so much harder than

00:08:38 ◼   ► I thought it would be.

00:08:40 ◼   ► Well, Marco, you're gifted in many ways.

00:08:43 ◼   ► You're gifted in so many ways.

00:08:45 ◼   ► Height is not one of those ways.

00:08:48 ◼   ► I mean, there are things like ladders and step step tools that are.

00:08:51 ◼   ► But I'm just being a jerk.

00:08:52 ◼   ► I couldn't help myself.

00:08:52 ◼   ► No.

00:08:53 ◼   ► Getting the old fan off from the crappy brand.

00:08:55 ◼   ► Oh, that sounds terrible.

00:08:56 ◼   ► You know, there's a million, like, you know, hooks and brackets and cables and

00:08:59 ◼   ► everything else, and like the old fan was a a piece of crap in

00:09:03 ◼   ► a number of ways.

00:09:04 ◼   ► And one of them was the way it mounted was just horrendous.

00:09:07 ◼   ► And it was like it's and fans are heavy.

00:09:10 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:09:10 ◼   ► They they weigh like 25, 30 pounds, and you have to hold this thing

00:09:13 ◼   ► that's 2430 pounds, like uh way above your head for a while as you're

00:09:18 ◼   ► like unscrewing things or unhooking things.

00:09:20 ◼   ► So it's it's a significant workout, honestly.

00:09:22 ◼   ► Like afterwards, you know, your shoulders are gonna be sore.

00:09:25 ◼   ► Uh absolutely.

00:09:26 ◼   ► And the new fan was a fanimation fan, and it it's their the last

00:09:30 ◼   ► AC one they make, so that's controllable by these switches.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Um, but it was so much nicer.

00:09:35 ◼   ► It's like night and day difference of like the good brand versus the crappy

00:09:38 ◼   ► brands.

00:09:39 ◼   ► Like, it's it was so much easier to install it.

00:09:41 ◼   ► Getting the old fan off was so much harder.

00:09:43 ◼   ► Uh but anyway, now I have a fan control on my desk and I

00:09:46 ◼   ► am happy.

00:09:47 ◼   ► But please, Apple approve my app already.

00:09:49 ◼   ► Come on.

00:09:50 ◼   ► No.

00:09:51 ◼   ► No, I uh I'm giving you a hard time because I'm I'm a turd

00:09:54 ◼   ► and we're such close friends and I can get away with it.

00:09:56 ◼   ► But no, uh doing uh doing a fan replacement.

00:09:59 ◼   ► I feel like I'm capable of doing that.

00:10:01 ◼   ► I've done like ceiling light fixtures, which is considerably lighter and considerably easier, but

00:10:06 ◼   ► spiritually in the same ballpark.

00:10:08 ◼   ► Uh, but I am petrified of the idea of replacing a fan.

00:10:12 ◼   ► So as much as I'm giving you a hard time, much respect from me,

00:10:15 ◼   ► that that sounds extremely scary.

00:10:18 ◼   ► Yeah, it's I mean it's a it's not scary in the sense that like

00:10:21 ◼   ► it's not you know, as as long as you're not an idiot about it,

00:10:24 ◼   ► you're not gonna be exposed to any more safety risks than like you know,

00:10:28 ◼   ► changing a light switch.

00:10:29 ◼   ► Um, but it is just like it's a it's a very like logistically and

00:10:33 ◼   ► physically challenging task.

00:10:34 ◼   ► Like one of the one of the challenges of putting up the new fan

00:10:37 ◼   ► was like, all right, the the blades all have to like rest in the

00:10:41 ◼   ► like on this bracket, and you have to lift it up and screw it

00:10:44 ◼   ► in.

00:10:45 ◼   ► Well, if you lift it up, the blades will fall out.

00:10:44 ◼   ► So you need like five hands.

00:10:51 ◼   ► Now I'm doing this, and like Tip was like at the restaurant working.

00:10:53 ◼   ► I'm like, I don't want to you know call her back here.

00:10:55 ◼   ► Just let me see if I can do it myself.

00:10:56 ◼   ► I ended up having to like make basically like a support structure out of

00:11:01 ◼   ► blue painter's tape to like hold the fan blades all together so they wouldn't

00:11:06 ◼   ► droop as I lifted it up and screwed them in with only my my

00:11:09 ◼   ► you know minuscule amount of hands.

00:11:11 ◼   ► It was ridiculous.

00:11:12 ◼   ► Like the my process of doing this, rather than like waiting until someone to

00:11:15 ◼   ► get home to help me, uh it was ridiculous, but I'm so glad it's

00:11:18 ◼   ► done.

00:11:19 ◼   ► No, like I said, much respect.

00:11:21 ◼   ► Uh, was this the chat room is asking, and I concur.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Was this brought on by um our friend?

00:11:25 ◼   ► He doesn't know he's our friend because none of us have met him, but

00:11:28 ◼   ► our friend Alec over at Technology Connections.

00:11:30 ◼   ► Uh, is this brought on by his incredible almost one inner or almost one

00:11:34 ◼   ► hour, 20 minute video about fans?

00:11:35 ◼   ► That was an incredible video.

00:11:37 ◼   ► However, no, it was not.

00:11:38 ◼   ► I've had this fan sitting in my office for like two months um waiting

00:11:41 ◼   ► to be installed.

00:11:42 ◼   ► I knew installing it was gonna be a job, and I've been procrastinating for

00:11:45 ◼   ► this entire time.

00:11:47 ◼   ► If only your app was released and could remind you.

00:11:49 ◼   ► I know, I know, but it wasn't.

00:11:52 ◼   ► So I anyway.

00:11:54 ◼   ► That one did feel good to check off though.

00:11:58 ◼   ► I dread admitting this in front of you too.

00:12:00 ◼   ► But uh Marco, you brought up your favorite piece of analog uh feedback, excuse

00:12:05 ◼   ► me, from um connected, you had said last week.

00:12:08 ◼   ► Uh you had said that somebody had corrected Mike, you know, Mike Hurley on

00:12:13 ◼   ► the day of his birth on his birthday, and Alex Chan wrote in to

00:12:17 ◼   ► say, uh, Marco mentioned some podcast follow-up from Connected in which Mike was corrected

00:12:21 ◼   ► on his own birthday.

00:12:22 ◼   ► The clip was actually on analog number 10 with Casey starting at two minutes

00:12:27 ◼   ► and 48 seconds.

00:12:29 ◼   ► I remembered this being a thing.

00:12:31 ◼   ► If if you would say, well, you did say that it was on connected,

00:12:34 ◼   ► and I was like, yeah, totally.

00:12:29 ◼   ► I'm sure that's where it was.

00:12:37 ◼   ► I feel bad.

00:12:38 ◼   ► But uh I mean not in episode 10, so you that was a long

00:12:41 ◼   ► time ago.

00:12:42 ◼   ► Well, thank you.

00:12:42 ◼   ► I appreciate that, and you are right.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Uh and then John in our internal show notes noted the correction wasn't actually

00:12:48 ◼   ► Mike's age, or excuse me, was Mike's age.

00:12:50 ◼   ► It was not his birthday, uh, which uh is an important correction as well.

00:12:54 ◼   ► And I thought the birthday was plausible because you misspeak on shows.

00:12:57 ◼   ► Like I listen back to a podcast that I'm on, and I hear myself

00:12:59 ◼   ► say something that's not what I thought I was saying at the time.

00:13:02 ◼   ► So I'm like, oh, maybe he just misspoke and said the wrong date of

00:13:04 ◼   ► his birthday, but no, he was just wrong about his age, which let me

00:13:07 ◼   ► tell you for youngsters.

00:13:08 ◼   ► If you have not already experienced the uh notion of not knowing how old

00:13:13 ◼   ► you are, you will.

00:13:14 ◼   ► Yep.

00:13:15 ◼   ► Yeah, once you get past like, I don't know, 25, it's all kind of

00:13:18 ◼   ► like, uh, what how old am I again?

00:13:20 ◼   ► I don't even know.

00:13:20 ◼   ► Oh, I have to do the math every time.

00:13:22 ◼   ► Like when like when somebody how old am I?

00:13:23 ◼   ► Like, oh, 1982, subtract it's every literally every time.

00:13:28 ◼   ► Yep.

00:13:29 ◼   ► Uh also uh this is not follow-up, this is nominally follow out, but uh

00:13:34 ◼   ► the same Alex actually uh works at Tailscale.

00:13:37 ◼   ► And Alex wrote an incredible write up about a uh SQL Light bug um

00:13:42 ◼   ► that uh that that Tailscale had to struggle to find.

00:13:46 ◼   ► Um this is really, really cool.

00:13:48 ◼   ► I am familiar with SQLite, but I've never had the I don't think I've

00:13:51 ◼   ► ever used it professionally or personally or anything like that.

00:13:54 ◼   ► Uh but I'm familiar with it, but I don't know SQLite, like certainly Marco

00:13:58 ◼   ► does, and I would presume John does.

00:13:59 ◼   ► And I found this post freaking fascinating.

00:14:02 ◼   ► So if you are at all interested in like forensics and like figuring out

00:14:06 ◼   ► what a weird and wild bug could be caused by, uh, we'll put a

00:14:10 ◼   ► link in the show notes.

00:14:10 ◼   ► This write-up is really great.

00:14:12 ◼   ► Yeah, and by the way, you're missing out.

00:14:13 ◼   ► SQLite is amazing.

00:14:14 ◼   ► Oh, no, yeah, I'm not trying to slag on it.

00:14:16 ◼   ► Like, I know it's great.

00:14:14 ◼   ► It's just I've never really had the occasion to use it.

00:14:19 ◼   ► I almost kind of want to invent a reason to be honest with you.

00:14:22 ◼   ► I mean, it's it's almost like it's one of the most important pieces of

00:14:26 ◼   ► software in the modern world.

00:14:28 ◼   ► Because it's everywhere.

00:14:29 ◼   ► Oh, I agree.

00:14:30 ◼   ► It's like that in FFmpeg.

00:14:32 ◼   ► And that's it.

00:14:32 ◼   ► But it's it goes even more places.

00:14:34 ◼   ► Like, yeah, you're right.

00:14:35 ◼   ► SQLite, first of all, it's all over Mac OS and iOS.

00:14:37 ◼   ► Like it's just, it's everywhere.

00:14:39 ◼   ► Um, it's it's the foundation, I believe it's a foundational data store of core

00:14:42 ◼   ► data also.

00:14:43 ◼   ► Um, I could be wrong about that, but I think that I think it's

00:14:45 ◼   ► that.

00:14:45 ◼   ► I use it, of course, with my Blackboard library, like Overcast uses it, my

00:14:49 ◼   ► my new app uses it.

00:14:50 ◼   ► And SQLite, it's so bulletproof.

00:14:53 ◼   ► The fact that they could find a bug in SQLite at all is pretty

00:14:56 ◼   ► impressive because it's not buggy generally, like it's a very rock solid piece of

00:15:02 ◼   ► software.

00:15:03 ◼   ► So that's also like I'm you know, part of the story is would be

00:15:07 ◼   ► impressive because even just finding a bug in it that hasn't been found yet

00:15:10 ◼   ► is is pretty remarkable.

00:15:12 ◼   ► Um, but it's it's amazing software.

00:15:14 ◼   ► The TLDR is that they are using SQLite in a reasonable way, but a

00:15:19 ◼   ► slightly off the beaten pathway, and that's what it boiled down to is they

00:15:23 ◼   ► exercised a code path that is certainly valid.

00:15:26 ◼   ► It's not that they were you know holding it wrong or anything, but it's

00:15:29 ◼   ► not the the happy path that 99.9% of people run through.

00:15:32 ◼   ► And so that's how it ended up happening.

00:15:35 ◼   ► Anyways, all right, we're gonna do a quick uh follow-up with regard to our

00:15:38 ◼   ► post show neutral from last week.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Uh, if you missed out, I'd like to buy myself a used uh preferably

00:15:44 ◼   ► CPO uh BMW I4 uh M50 because I'm a child.

00:15:48 ◼   ► And uh one of the things that I lamented was hey, you know, it'd

00:15:52 ◼   ► be really nice if like car headhunters existed, and I couldn't think of the

00:15:56 ◼   ► right term for it.

00:15:58 ◼   ► Um, but a bunch of people wrote in with a bunch of different options,

00:15:59 ◼   ► and I will run through these super fast.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Oh, before before you do, I just want to say that when you asked

00:16:04 ◼   ► for this, you were saying, hey, I'm looking for this particular model of car,

00:16:07 ◼   ► I want these options, blah, blah, blah, maybe this extension, all that stuff.

00:16:10 ◼   ► The reason I didn't mention any of this is because I thought that you

00:16:14 ◼   ► were specifically asking for someone find me a used version of this car with

00:16:19 ◼   ► these options and these things.

00:16:21 ◼   ► That's why you said headhunter.

00:16:22 ◼   ► It's like there's a car out there that is exactly spec the way I

00:16:24 ◼   ► want it.

00:16:25 ◼   ► I need one that that they'll sell to me because they can't be in

00:16:27 ◼   ► the Midwest and like not sell to me, and you'll have more of that

00:16:29 ◼   ► in a second.

00:16:30 ◼   ► Like, find the car.

00:16:32 ◼   ► That's as opposed to what you're about to describe, which is mostly go through

00:16:36 ◼   ► the laborious car buying process with me.

00:16:38 ◼   ► You know, and then that does involve finding the car, of course, when you

00:16:40 ◼   ► tell them what you want.

00:16:41 ◼   ► But I feel like the main value proposition of these people is we will

00:16:45 ◼   ► do the thing that you have described as a terrible experience, and it is

00:16:48 ◼   ► a terrible experience.

00:16:49 ◼   ► And also, presumably these people are better at it than you because they do

00:16:52 ◼   ► it for a living.

00:16:53 ◼   ► So you pay them and they get you a good price.

00:16:55 ◼   ► And I've always felt that that was their main value, not oh, I'll find

00:16:59 ◼   ► you the one yellow version of this car with ventilated seats and blah, blah,

00:17:04 ◼   ► blah, blah, blah.

00:17:04 ◼   ► Anyway, continue.

00:17:05 ◼   ► Yes, no, you're exactly right.

00:17:06 ◼   ► And and honestly, I think both are valuable, and it turns out both exist.

00:17:09 ◼   ► So Roger Coxson writes uh that professional car negotiation is very much a thing.

00:17:15 ◼   ► And they included an article about delivered, that's D-E-L-I-V-R-D.

00:17:20 ◼   ► Um, that is a Wall Street Journal article.

00:17:22 ◼   ► So we'll put an Apple News link next to it if you're a News

00:17:24 ◼   ► Plus subscriber.

00:17:25 ◼   ► Um the long and the short of it is that delivered, I believe, if

00:17:28 ◼   ► I remember this right, was founded by a former um car salesperson, and then

00:17:31 ◼   ► they realized, well, wait, I could just charge people, and I think the I

00:17:34 ◼   ► think it's a thousand bucks.

00:17:35 ◼   ► They, you know, they they would bill me a thousand bucks and they will

00:17:38 ◼   ► go out and source the car and then negotiate on it.

00:17:40 ◼   ► And basically all I have to do is show up and sign on the

00:17:42 ◼   ► dotted line.

00:17:43 ◼   ► Car Edge does the same thing, by the way, also founded by uh ex

00:17:46 ◼   ► car dealer.

00:17:44 ◼   ► Okay, so uh additionally, uh I've been using visor.

00:17:51 ◼   ► The the the website is visor.vin, uh, which I think was recommended by Matt

00:17:55 ◼   ► Howie, if I'm not mistaken.

00:17:56 ◼   ► But anyways, visor's very good.

00:17:58 ◼   ► Um, and on the results, probably when you're looking at like a detail for

00:18:02 ◼   ► a car, the details page for a car, they actually offered a link to

00:18:05 ◼   ► delivered, but I just assumed it was like some sort of scammy awful thing.

00:18:08 ◼   ► And it wasn't until a lot of people reached out and were like, no,

00:18:10 ◼   ► no, no.

00:18:11 ◼   ► This person apparently like does a bunch of YouTube videos and like, you know,

00:18:14 ◼   ► films themselves negotiating these cars and so on and so forth.

00:18:18 ◼   ► So apparently delivered is the real thing.

00:18:20 ◼   ► Uh Juan Boyce contributed the carchick.com, which in and of itself sounded funny to

00:18:26 ◼   ► me, like good in a good way.

00:18:27 ◼   ► Like, oh, that's kind of funny.

00:18:28 ◼   ► But my favorite part about the car chick is if you look at their

00:18:30 ◼   ► website, they they self-proclaimed they are the number one trusted automotive expert for women

00:18:34 ◼   ► and smart men, which I thought was very good.

00:18:37 ◼   ► So uh points for the uh little slogan there.

00:18:40 ◼   ► Uh Ian McCullough suggested your carbuying advocate.com, Colin McDonald suggested automatic consulting.com and insight

00:18:47 ◼   ► autoconsulting.com.

00:18:48 ◼   ► All these links will be in the show notes.

00:18:50 ◼   ► Uh I was not aware that there were so many options, but I am

00:18:52 ◼   ► not surprised there are so many options.

00:18:54 ◼   ► So uh your mileage may vary, but uh all of these people seem to

00:18:58 ◼   ► be able to source, but more importantly to your point, John, negotiate all these

00:19:02 ◼   ► cars.

00:19:03 ◼   ► Now, with regard to why the Midwest dealers were turd, the one Midwest dealer

00:19:08 ◼   ► was a turd.

00:19:09 ◼   ► Um, I can't tell you how I came about this information, but the information

00:19:13 ◼   ► I was eventually told, and this is from a reliable source, is that in

00:19:18 ◼   ► summary, the reason they don't want to sell out of state is twofold.

00:19:21 ◼   ► There's the obvious reason, which is that the surrounding states they have relationships with

00:19:26 ◼   ► and understand how to title a car and register a car and so on

00:19:28 ◼   ► and so forth, which fine.

00:19:30 ◼   ► Like as we talked about ad nauseum last week, I was perfectly capable to

00:19:34 ◼   ► uh of making them not have to worry about any of those things, but

00:19:38 ◼   ► nevertheless, that's reason one.

00:19:40 ◼   ► The bigger reason though, and and I quizzed you two on this, and you

00:19:44 ◼   ► didn't come up with this answer in the same way that I didn't come

00:19:46 ◼   ► up with this answer, but this is a reliable answer.

00:19:49 ◼   ► The biggest reason is I'm not coming back to service the car with them,

00:19:53 ◼   ► so they're not interested, which is super gross, but I do understand.

00:19:59 ◼   ► I'm not happy about it, and it's gross, and it's so flippant stupid to

00:20:04 ◼   ► be worried about that with a battery electric vehicle.

00:20:07 ◼   ► Why is it gross, first of all?

00:20:09 ◼   ► I don't also it's not stupid to think about.

00:20:10 ◼   ► Why do you think it's gross?

00:20:11 ◼   ► That's how they make money.

00:20:12 ◼   ► That's how dealers make money.

00:20:13 ◼   ► Well, if if that's how they made money, I would have signed uh on

00:20:15 ◼   ► the dotted line on a car I'm bickering with a dealer about right now.

00:20:19 ◼   ► But anyways, no, I I hear what you say.

00:20:20 ◼   ► It's just it feels icky to me that they're uninterested in selling the car

00:20:25 ◼   ► if they can't service it forever more.

00:20:27 ◼   ► It's like Apple services is what it is.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's just I don't know, it just feels icky to me.

00:20:31 ◼   ► I mean, I guess.

00:20:32 ◼   ► Maybe they'll make more they'll make more money long term if they sell it

00:20:35 ◼   ► to someone who has at least a chance.

00:20:36 ◼   ► It's not like they're guaranteed that the person's gonna service them, but at least

00:20:39 ◼   ► there's a chance they'll serve it with them if they don't live on the

00:20:41 ◼   ► East Coast.

00:20:42 ◼   ► So you're saying there's a chance.

00:20:43 ◼   ► That's yeah, that's a reference.

00:20:44 ◼   ► That's just play playing the odds and makes sense.

00:20:46 ◼   ► And as you're complaining about in the Slack, like, well, electric vehicles don't even

00:20:49 ◼   ► need maintenance.

00:20:49 ◼   ► You know, accidents happen, things break, there's recalls, there's warranty repairs, dealers get to

00:20:53 ◼   ► get a profit margin on those.

00:20:54 ◼   ► It's not a great profit margin, but it's non-zero.

00:20:57 ◼   ► So yeah.

00:20:58 ◼   ► Um, and uh that probably hurts them even more.

00:21:00 ◼   ► It's like, oh, now we sell these electric vehicles and they don't come in

00:21:02 ◼   ► for the same kind of regular maintenance, so it's even more important that what

00:21:05 ◼   ► little maintenance we do get.

00:21:06 ◼   ► Yeah, we need them to come back here.

00:21:08 ◼   ► We just gotta hope they back out of their driveway and shear off a

00:21:10 ◼   ► side view mirror.

00:21:12 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, like the maintenance that most EVs need is comically half uh

00:21:14 ◼   ► butted.

00:21:19 ◼   ► Like they because they try to make it they're like, oh, you should come

00:21:23 ◼   ► in like you know once a year for your annual service or whatever.

00:21:25 ◼   ► And like most EVs, there's not much they even can service about them.

00:21:31 ◼   ► Like, you know, the batteries usually are factory sealed.

00:21:34 ◼   ► There's rarely anything that you can check about anything.

00:21:37 ◼   ► You know, you can try to find one or two fluids here or there.

00:21:40 ◼   ► There's not many of them.

00:21:41 ◼   ► And so they're like, all right, well, we'll change your wiper blade inserts and

00:21:44 ◼   ► your cabin air filter, and that's about it.

00:21:47 ◼   ► Like this is to repair your wonky non-working door handle.

00:21:51 ◼   ► Well, yeah, that's true.

00:21:52 ◼   ► Uh it's so true.

00:21:53 ◼   ► So yeah, that that's the answer.

00:21:55 ◼   ► I find it deeply dissatisfying, but I do understand what you're saying, John.

00:21:58 ◼   ► And annoyingly, you're as usual very right about it.

00:22:01 ◼   ► Um, also, over the last week, uh, I've made some discoveries.

00:22:06 ◼   ► And this is the hashtag casey was wrong section of follow-up.

00:22:10 ◼   ► Uh, first of all, I was fussing and moaning about how I absolutely my

00:22:13 ◼   ► my extremely uh uh fragile buttocks apparently needed a ventilated seat in order to

00:22:19 ◼   ► cool them down.

00:22:20 ◼   ► Uh, and as it turns out, I don't think I do anymore.

00:22:23 ◼   ► And there's a few reasons.

00:22:24 ◼   ► That's what we hashtag John was right instead of hashtag casey was wrong, but

00:22:27 ◼   ► continue.

00:22:28 ◼   ► I'll allow it either way.

00:22:29 ◼   ► But uh the the extremely short version is BMW ventilated seats apparently suck, uh

00:22:34 ◼   ► both literally and figuratively.

00:22:36 ◼   ► But the long version is is that first of all, it just moves the

00:22:40 ◼   ► cabin air, it doesn't move, it doesn't pipe like air-conditioned air, you know, straight

00:22:45 ◼   ► from the source.

00:22:46 ◼   ► It just pushes cabin air allegedly into the seat.

00:22:49 ◼   ► Or I guess actually that's not true because I've also heard I've heard that

00:22:52 ◼   ► a little bit, and I've also heard that allegedly it pulls air, which would

00:22:56 ◼   ► actually be cabinet air.

00:22:57 ◼   ► Oh, it's a sporty car, they want to suck you to the seat.

00:22:59 ◼   ► Right, exactly.

00:23:00 ◼   ► Yeah, there you go.

00:23:00 ◼   ► You gotta hold you in on those tight corners.

00:23:02 ◼   ► It pulls well that we're gonna get to that.

00:23:04 ◼   ► Uh that it pulls you into this, or it pulls the air in into

00:23:08 ◼   ► the seat rather than pushing it out of the seat.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Why would anybody want that?

00:23:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:23:12 ◼   ► Uh, and additionally, it's allegedly very loud, like like annoyingly loud, and also the

00:23:19 ◼   ► vibration is very, very tangible.

00:23:21 ◼   ► That's the massaging feature.

00:23:22 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:23:23 ◼   ► Especially when it's at its highest setting.

00:23:24 ◼   ► So there exist excellent ventilated seats.

00:23:27 ◼   ► I would say Aaron's uh mobile house, I'm sorry, XC90 is has excellent ventilated

00:23:31 ◼   ► seats.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Um somebody wrote with some flavor of Porsche, I don't recall which one it

00:23:35 ◼   ► was, that said their ventilated seats are excellent, but allegedly the BMW ones are

00:23:40 ◼   ► kind of trash.

00:23:41 ◼   ► The other thing that's difficult about this is that if we rewind to my

00:23:45 ◼   ► 2011 uh 335, that had I don't I don't think they were particularly special

00:23:50 ◼   ► seats, but the seats in that car had adjustable side bolsters.

00:23:54 ◼   ► So if you imagine sitting in the car seat and right around the bottom

00:23:57 ◼   ► of your rib cage, or you know, kind of the sides of your tummy

00:24:01 ◼   ► area, the seat could adjustably squeeze in on that.

00:24:05 ◼   ► Not to the point of like pain, of course.

00:24:06 ◼   ► You would adjust it just so that it would be firmly against your side.

00:24:09 ◼   ► And this is what you were joking about earlier, John, except it's really true.

00:24:12 ◼   ► As you're going around turns, that keeps you squared up laterally, right?

00:24:16 ◼   ► You can't slide to the left or right because these side bolsters are keeping

00:24:20 ◼   ► you in place.

00:24:21 ◼   ► I loved that feature of my old car, and I don't want to give

00:24:25 ◼   ► up on it.

00:24:26 ◼   ► And so not only was I not willing to give up on it before

00:24:28 ◼   ► I realized that the ventilated seats suck in every way, but additionally, uh the

00:24:33 ◼   ► ventilated seats stink.

00:24:34 ◼   ► So apparently don't need that.

00:24:37 ◼   ► Furthermore, I had told myself, you know, it would be really nice to have,

00:24:40 ◼   ► and I could probably find a car that has BMW's laser lights.

00:24:44 ◼   ► Uh, I forget exactly the mechanism by which these work, but it's like shining

00:24:44 ◼   ► a laser at like some sort of phosphor phosphor, I believe, and then like

00:24:50 ◼   ► reflecting it a zillion ways or something like that.

00:24:53 ◼   ► Um, but I found I I found some people say, eh, well, it's not

00:24:56 ◼   ► as good as you think it is, blah, blah, blah.

00:24:57 ◼   ► And then I found a post about it, which we'll put in the show

00:24:59 ◼   ► notes.

00:25:00 ◼   ► Let me read you a quick section of that post.

00:25:01 ◼   ► The problem with laser lighting is simpler, they're just too bright.

00:25:04 ◼   ► Compliance systems in the US state a maximum of 150,000 candela, whereas Europe, which

00:25:10 ◼   ► uses the the UN ECE vehicle regulations, allows up to 430,000.

00:25:15 ◼   ► So that's what, like two and a half, three times.

00:25:17 ◼   ► Uh, these restrictions leave laser lights in the dark, limited to performing only as

00:25:22 ◼   ► well as well, basically any other high-end lighting system made in the last 10

00:25:26 ◼   ► years.

00:25:26 ◼   ► Additionally, since laser lights aren't allowed to offer their enhanced range, it's hard to

00:25:31 ◼   ► find an argument that validates them.

00:25:33 ◼   ► They're certainly more expensive, and I don't mean expensive, but it's a BMW.

00:25:36 ◼   ► I mean carbon ceramic brakes expensive.

00:25:38 ◼   ► Mind you, this is I believe from a BMW like blog or whatever.

00:25:42 ◼   ► Anyway, continuing.

00:25:42 ◼   ► While I was still working at a BMW dealership, an M8 on the lot

00:25:46 ◼   ► was damaged, and the cost with shop time to replace one laser headlight was

00:25:51 ◼   ► eight thousand dollars.

00:25:54 ◼   ► So no thanks on that.

00:25:55 ◼   ► I will pass.

00:25:56 ◼   ► Thank you very much.

00:25:58 ◼   ► Additionally, I have read that they only work at like highway speeds.

00:26:02 ◼   ► And to be honest with you, I drive in the nighttime so rarely, and

00:26:05 ◼   ► even more rarely am I on the interstate at night.

00:26:08 ◼   ► So it's no, it's a no for me, dog.

00:26:10 ◼   ► Well, going back to uh your ventilated seats for a minute, I I will

00:26:13 ◼   ► also confirm like I've I think I've had them, I think the M5 might

00:26:18 ◼   ► have had them.

00:26:18 ◼   ► Um I don't think I've had them since then.

00:26:21 ◼   ► Um but TIFF used to have um this little uh Lexus IS 250 sedan

00:26:25 ◼   ► way back in the day.

00:26:26 ◼   ► I remember it.

00:26:27 ◼   ► It had a ma like it was like sitting on an air hockey table

00:26:31 ◼   ► made of ice.

00:26:33 ◼   ► It was so satisfying.

00:26:34 ◼   ► And like, and that's what you want.

00:26:36 ◼   ► If you're gonna have air conditioned seats, you want it like you almost want

00:26:40 ◼   ► it to be so cold that for a minute you're like, oh my god,

00:26:43 ◼   ► am I sitting in something wet?

00:26:44 ◼   ► You know, it's like that's what you want.

00:26:45 ◼   ► Like you want that that feeling of like, oh, ooh, what's that?

00:26:48 ◼   ► Oh.

00:26:49 ◼   ► That's so true.

00:26:51 ◼   ► And and yeah, for whatever reason, like it does vary a lot between brands.

00:26:55 ◼   ► And yeah, as you say, like it must be like, you know, I'm sure

00:26:57 ◼   ► the Lexus with the good seats was probably like piping in a direct air

00:27:00 ◼   ► vent from the air conditioning source directly to the seat.

00:27:04 ◼   ► However, you would route all those things.

00:27:05 ◼   ► It sounds like a nightmare.

00:27:06 ◼   ► So I'm I'm sure most cars don't do that.

00:27:08 ◼   ► But for whatever reason, um, yeah, it's it's a pretty rare feature to see

00:27:12 ◼   ► on cars.

00:27:13 ◼   ► Um, more rare than I would expect.

00:27:15 ◼   ► Uh, but I I wish that were more common because it is really nice

00:27:18 ◼   ► when you get a good one.

00:27:19 ◼   ► That's just not common.

00:27:21 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the thing.

00:27:22 ◼   ► And like I said last week, you know, Aaron's XC90 seats have ruined me

00:27:26 ◼   ► because they're excellent.

00:27:27 ◼   ► And and unfortunately, it's just not gonna be the case in this car.

00:27:30 ◼   ► I will say one more thing before we leave the topic of your search

00:27:33 ◼   ► for a BMW I4.

00:27:35 ◼   ► Oh, I forgot about this follow-up.

00:27:36 ◼   ► I forgot to put it in the show notes.

00:27:37 ◼   ► This is excellent follow-up.

00:27:39 ◼   ► I'm so sorry.

00:27:39 ◼   ► Um the other day I uh had not much to do for an afternoon

00:27:43 ◼   ► on the mainland.

00:27:45 ◼   ► John.

00:27:45 ◼   ► I I'm not doing the New Jersey thing anymore.

00:27:47 ◼   ► I told you, I can't do it.

00:27:48 ◼   ► It's too much.

00:27:48 ◼   ► Oh, it's over?

00:27:49 ◼   ► All right.

00:27:49 ◼   ► You just continue to you just continue to say the wrong word for it

00:27:52 ◼   ► and and look foolish.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Feel free.

00:27:53 ◼   ► Uh well, I think it would be sound foolish.

00:27:55 ◼   ► Anyway, um, so anyway, I was on I was on the mainland, John, for

00:27:59 ◼   ► uh, you know, for a day, and and I was like, oh, let me

00:28:02 ◼   ► let me finally go like actually see and drive one of these.

00:28:05 ◼   ► Because I I've also been thinking about the i4 for my next car, and

00:28:08 ◼   ► they're about to go out of production, or they I think they already have

00:28:10 ◼   ► gone out of production.

00:28:11 ◼   ► So I kind of wanted to be like, all right, well, is it worth

00:28:14 ◼   ► you know waiting for it or you know, getting maybe getting getting one early

00:28:17 ◼   ► if I have to end my lease early or try to try to get

00:28:20 ◼   ► a used one next year or whatever.

00:28:22 ◼   ► So I'm like, let me let me just I want to just see what

00:28:24 ◼   ► it what it's like.

00:28:26 ◼   ► So I went and found one and drove it.

00:28:28 ◼   ► It's really fun.

00:28:30 ◼   ► Right?

00:28:30 ◼   ► You were right, slash I was right.

00:28:32 ◼   ► We were both right.

00:28:34 ◼   ► I'm not sure.

00:28:34 ◼   ► I'm not sure I should be taking credit for this one.

00:28:36 ◼   ► Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm the one who told you you should probably look

00:28:38 ◼   ► at the i4, but uh it was really super fun.

00:28:43 ◼   ► Um I do think though, I think I'm gonna wait for the the upcoming

00:28:48 ◼   ► new i3.

00:28:50 ◼   ► Yeah, the Neya Klassa or whatever it's called.

00:28:52 ◼   ► Yeah, because like it it has substantially more range.

00:28:55 ◼   ► Uh, and that's you know, for for my uses, that's actually pretty pretty useful.

00:28:59 ◼   ► Um, and I think I want like some of the like some of the

00:29:02 ◼   ► new stuff about it.

00:29:04 ◼   ► But what I was mainly what I mean I mainly wanted to see was

00:29:06 ◼   ► like, all right, should I first of all look at the iX3?

00:29:09 ◼   ► Because the iX3 also looks amazing, or should I go back to a sedan?

00:29:14 ◼   ► And like I I looked at all the sedans and they all look amazing.

00:29:18 ◼   ► They have a million different models now.

00:29:20 ◼   ► They have like you know, a two series, you know, all these different things.

00:29:22 ◼   ► They all they all looked great, and I was like, oh yeah, I would

00:29:24 ◼   ► love to you know have that as my car.

00:29:26 ◼   ► And then I saw on the lot an X3, uh, which is not the

00:29:30 ◼   ► iX3, but the iX3 is gonna be very similar in size and proportions to

00:29:34 ◼   ► the current X3.

00:29:36 ◼   ► Um, and I saw that and I'm like, I don't feel anything for that.

00:29:39 ◼   ► Yep.

00:29:40 ◼   ► And then I drove the i4, and it was so much fun.

00:29:44 ◼   ► I'm like, this car, it's I am I feel like I'm I'm more nimble,

00:29:50 ◼   ► it's a smaller footprint, it it steers better, it moves better, and like I'm

00:29:54 ◼   ► like, this, this is it.

00:29:56 ◼   ► I have to go back to a sedan next time.

00:29:58 ◼   ► So I decided I'm I am probably gonna go with the new i3.

00:30:01 ◼   ► I I gotta see, you know, once once it actually comes out, um, you

00:30:05 ◼   ► know, maybe see reviews of it and if I can get my hands on

00:30:07 ◼   ► one to drive, try to test drive it.

00:30:09 ◼   ► Um, but that's probably how I'm gonna go.

00:30:12 ◼   ► But the i4 was a ton of fun.

00:30:16 ◼   ► It would be if I was shopping today, it would be very tempting to

00:30:19 ◼   ► get that instead, instead of waiting.

00:30:21 ◼   ► You can throw in a jamas right there with the sedans being better than

00:30:23 ◼   ► SUVs, because I honestly I do feel like having you've coming off so many

00:30:27 ◼   ► of like big trucks and SUVs going back down to a regular car is

00:30:30 ◼   ► always gonna feel uh exciting.

00:30:32 ◼   ► I know that the reduction in cargo space and the shrinking of the size

00:30:37 ◼   ► of the cargo window that you can get the cargo into it through regular

00:30:39 ◼   ► trunk.

00:30:40 ◼   ► Like, I know there's gonna be times when I'm like, oh, this is this

00:30:43 ◼   ► is unfortunate.

00:30:44 ◼   ► You know, like I I'm sure it's gonna be inconvenient at times, but I'm

00:30:48 ◼   ► gonna like my car again.

00:30:50 ◼   ► And I haven't really liked my car that much for a while.

00:30:53 ◼   ► Um, because I've been optimizing for maximum function and hauling and you know, beach

00:30:58 ◼   ► traction and stuff, and like I now that I don't need that anymore, like

00:31:01 ◼   ► I'm pretty sure I can just carry less stuff and uh and be happier

00:31:05 ◼   ► all the time.

00:31:05 ◼   ► So I that's the that's the direction I want to go.

00:31:08 ◼   ► And I'm hoping it doesn't give me you know weird back and sciatic problems

00:31:12 ◼   ► to go back to a lower seating vehicle.

00:31:14 ◼   ► That remains to be seen, but uh here here's here's hoping.

00:31:18 ◼   ► Yeah, no, they're really fun.

00:31:19 ◼   ► Now, to be clear, you did not drive the M50, though.

00:31:21 ◼   ► You drove like uh whatever the next run down is, I believe.

00:31:24 ◼   ► The 40, yeah.

00:31:26 ◼   ► I mean, those are allegedly also extremely fun, but not like break your neck

00:31:29 ◼   ► fast in because I'm a child, I would like to break your neck fast.

00:31:32 ◼   ► With my current IX, I have like the middle speed one.

00:31:35 ◼   ► Um, I don't even know what it is, but it's not, it's it's not

00:31:38 ◼   ► the one with the M in front of the name.

00:31:39 ◼   ► It's like the regular trim right below that.

00:31:42 ◼   ► And it is so ridiculously fast.

00:31:44 ◼   ► It's fast enough for me.

00:31:45 ◼   ► When I had back when I had like the Tesla Model S, I didn't

00:31:44 ◼   ► have the P line with like the super ridiculous acceleration.

00:31:52 ◼   ► I had the middle one that maximized range, and that was real that was

00:31:56 ◼   ► as fast as the M5.

00:31:58 ◼   ► I am perfectly happy getting like these middle grade performance EVs because they are

00:32:04 ◼   ► as fast as you know the supercars of 10 years ago were.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Oh god, yes.

00:32:08 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:09 ◼   ► The reason you're happy with that is because you're an adult.

00:32:12 ◼   ► Uh however, I am a child.

00:32:13 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:32:13 ◼   ► So um we'll we'll see what happens.

00:32:15 ◼   ► I mean, uh, as it turns out, I'm not gonna get into it much,

00:32:17 ◼   ► but as it turns out, I'm in the midst of negotiating on one car

00:32:20 ◼   ► that's like I was saying to the boys before we went live, like it's

00:32:23 ◼   ► maybe 95% perfect, but we haven't quite reached a middle ground, me and this

00:32:27 ◼   ► dealer, and I think we're at a stalemate, so I'm probably gonna have to

00:32:30 ◼   ► walk.

00:32:30 ◼   ► Um, but I mean we'll see what happens.

00:32:32 ◼   ► But I am looking forward to ditching gasoline.

00:32:36 ◼   ► And you made a mention a minute ago, which I think makes a lot

00:32:39 ◼   ► of sense that for your needs, you have a higher priority on range than

00:32:43 ◼   ► I think I do.

00:32:44 ◼   ► And I think both of us are right that for your needs, you should

00:32:47 ◼   ► worry about range and less speed.

00:32:49 ◼   ► For my needs, I don't need to worry about range, and thus I am

00:32:52 ◼   ► a child and will get speed instead.

00:32:54 ◼   ► But but I I I don't I I I think it's important to recognize

00:32:57 ◼   ► that you are 100% right about that from my personal opinion.

00:33:00 ◼   ► And I think it maybe if I had different needs, I would feel differently

00:33:03 ◼   ► about what trim level and what speed you know car to get.

00:33:06 ◼   ► Yeah.

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00:35:06 ◼   ► St.

00:35:07 ◼   ► Chris wrote with regard to Codex Micro, the uh silly little keyboard dingus.

00:35:12 ◼   ► The Codex Micro is an open AI branded version of the Work Louder Creator

00:35:14 ◼   ► Micro 2 keypad with a special set of chat GPT themed icon keys.

00:35:20 ◼   ► And so we'll put a link in the show notes to the thing that

00:35:23 ◼   ► Chris as St.

00:35:23 ◼   ► Chris is talking about.

00:35:25 ◼   ► Uh additionally, Ian pointed out that the uh keyboard little keyboard dingus does not

00:35:30 ◼   ► have a microphone.

00:35:30 ◼   ► The demos that we were talking about were presumably just using the computer's mic.

00:35:34 ◼   ► Yeah, this is in the context of uh overtime on a past episode we

00:35:37 ◼   ► were talking about this thing, and I was complaining I can't believe they're doing

00:35:39 ◼   ► this.

00:35:40 ◼   ► OpenAI is making hardware and they're spending time on this silly keyboard thing because

00:35:43 ◼   ► any amount of hardware takes such an investment.

00:35:45 ◼   ► And I actually feel better knowing that all they did was take an existing

00:35:48 ◼   ► product that someone had already developed and just essentially dress it up with some

00:35:52 ◼   ► open AI stuff.

00:35:53 ◼   ► So that is less of a distraction than I thought it was, so good

00:35:56 ◼   ► for open AI, but still it is a non-zero distraction, and I think the

00:36:00 ◼   ► product is silly.

00:36:02 ◼   ► Uh John, you know, generally speaking, it obviously I would prefer to record this

00:36:07 ◼   ► in person.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I wish we were all closer together and we saw each other more often.

00:36:11 ◼   ► This moment, though, for you and me, John, I wish we were together so

00:36:15 ◼   ► we could give each other a supportive hug.

00:36:17 ◼   ► Because at about the same moment, you and I each received a truly terrible

00:36:21 ◼   ► text message.

00:36:22 ◼   ► Verizon sent to each of us individually.

00:36:25 ◼   ► This is an urgent message from Verizon regarding your files TV equipment.

00:36:29 ◼   ► Our records indicate you have either a digital adapter and or cable card that

00:36:32 ◼   ► is scheduled for deactivation on November 5th.

00:36:35 ◼   ► To avoid service interruption, please take action now.

00:36:38 ◼   ► Please disregard this message if you've already upgraded your equipment.

00:36:41 ◼   ► So, what this means, John, we have until November 5th.

00:36:44 ◼   ► Yeah, we knew this day was coming, but they never gave a date.

00:36:47 ◼   ► They would send us these scary, threatening emails.

00:36:49 ◼   ► Oh, we're not going to support cable card anymore.

00:36:50 ◼   ► You're gonna have to upgrade XYZ, but no date.

00:36:53 ◼   ► They wouldn't mention anything.

00:36:54 ◼   ► So see past episodes for when that was.

00:36:57 ◼   ► But now we all have a date.

00:36:58 ◼   ► And the thing about those emails, they seem to trickle up, but this text

00:37:00 ◼   ► message seemed to go to everybody I know at the same instant because we're

00:37:03 ◼   ► all messaging each other.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I have other friends who are in the same boat.

00:37:06 ◼   ► People with cable cards, people with your uh what is it called?

00:37:09 ◼   ► Uh HD home run.

00:37:10 ◼   ► Yeah, HD home run, all sorts of other cable cards enabled this whole ecosystem

00:37:14 ◼   ► advice as they were supposed to, which is like, hey, if we forced cable

00:37:17 ◼   ► companies to support this, then third parties can make hardware that can get cable

00:37:20 ◼   ► TV and do interesting things.

00:37:21 ◼   ► And that stuff is obviously really old and essentially obsolete by now, and cable

00:37:25 ◼   ► card is gone, which is why they're dropping the support for it.

00:37:27 ◼   ► But cable card, we salute you.

00:37:29 ◼   ► You did actually do what you were supposed to do, which is make an

00:37:32 ◼   ► ecosystem for third-party stuff.

00:37:34 ◼   ► It's just that the will to do something good in the realm of television

00:37:38 ◼   ► uh only lasted for about a moment and then disappeared, and then the cable

00:37:43 ◼   ► card expired, or they passed a law that said you don't need it or

00:37:46 ◼   ► whatever, anyway, and now it's all going right, which is fine, like we'll be

00:37:49 ◼   ► fine.

00:37:50 ◼   ► I am still putting off uh calling Verizon to try to get my bill

00:37:54 ◼   ► lower.

00:37:54 ◼   ► I did check the website a couple months ago, and when I went through

00:37:57 ◼   ► the website to try to like remove or reduce my television service, my bill

00:38:02 ◼   ► went up instead of down, so yeah, I'm gonna have to call them on

00:38:05 ◼   ► the phone.

00:38:05 ◼   ► Uh obviously their website is probably just broken or whatever, but when do I

00:38:08 ◼   ► call them on the phone?

00:38:09 ◼   ► Not uh not when we all got this text message because I bet a

00:38:12 ◼   ► bunch of people were calling then, and not close to November.

00:38:14 ◼   ► So sometime kind of in the middle between now and November, I will spend

00:38:19 ◼   ► probably an entire day on the phone with Verizon trying to get my bill

00:38:23 ◼   ► to be lower in exchange for not having TV anymore.

00:38:26 ◼   ► So you said a bunch of people probably called them.

00:38:28 ◼   ► How many people do you think are still using a cable card today and

00:38:33 ◼   ► know it?

00:38:34 ◼   ► I mean, uh uh more that more than like just think of what their

00:38:38 ◼   ► normal support load is.

00:38:39 ◼   ► There's a bunch of people who were absolutely not going to call Verizon, suddenly

00:38:43 ◼   ► are going to call them, and also nerdy people, especially if they haven't been

00:38:44 ◼   ► paying attention or missed the previous email, are gonna be mad.

00:38:50 ◼   ► So they're gonna call and they're gonna be mad and say, what?

00:38:53 ◼   ► I've had my TVO for blah blah blah.

00:38:55 ◼   ► So yeah, uh enjoy that Verizon support people.

00:38:59 ◼   ► This is the bed they made for themselves, no sympathy.

00:39:01 ◼   ► So your plan is to just ditch any sort of cable and and you're

00:39:05 ◼   ► not and you're just gonna stream everything.

00:39:07 ◼   ► I'm not sure if they'll let me.

00:39:08 ◼   ► They might say, no, it's part of your triple play, blah, blah, blah, blah,

00:39:10 ◼   ► blah.

00:39:11 ◼   ► Like, I don't know what the deal is.

00:39:12 ◼   ► But basically, uh, if I could get them to remove my television service, I

00:39:15 ◼   ► would.

00:39:15 ◼   ► I suspect that the best I'll be able to do is to switch to

00:39:18 ◼   ► the cheapest possible television service because they're probably saying, Well, if you removed your

00:39:22 ◼   ► television service, your bill would actually go up because of X, Y, and Z.

00:39:24 ◼   ► Anyway, my goal is reduce bill, not care about television.

00:39:28 ◼   ► Do you still you still have a landline phone through them?

00:39:30 ◼   ► Yeah, and that's the same.

00:39:31 ◼   ► I do actually want to keep the landline phone.

00:39:32 ◼   ► I could ditch that, but I actually want that number.

00:39:35 ◼   ► It's convenient to have the landline that's separate from our cell phones.

00:39:37 ◼   ► Really?

00:39:37 ◼   ► Because I was gonna say, like, if you if you just get a like

00:39:41 ◼   ► the FIOS internet service without TV and a phone, that's gotta be lower.

00:39:45 ◼   ► Yeah, we'll see what we can do.

00:39:46 ◼   ► And the other the other bad thing, and this is so stupid, but it's

00:39:48 ◼   ► like how much I fear Verizon.

00:39:50 ◼   ► Um, our cell phone service is through uh an account that my wife made,

00:39:56 ◼   ► and our internet and television and telephone is through an account that I made.

00:40:00 ◼   ► And you do get a discount if you get all the stuff through them,

00:40:03 ◼   ► but because it's two separate accounts, the fear of like, hey, can you combine

00:40:07 ◼   ► two accounts technically to two different people?

00:40:09 ◼   ► Although trust me, we're married and we live in the same house, the chaos

00:40:12 ◼   ► that could ensue from that, I've just been avoiding that entirely.

00:40:15 ◼   ► So we'll see how it works out.

00:40:16 ◼   ► But yeah, I'm gonna spend some quality time with Verizon and hopefully I'll do

00:40:20 ◼   ► it in such a way that I'm still able to podcast because my internet

00:40:24 ◼   ► connection still functions.

00:40:26 ◼   ► Not fun.

00:40:27 ◼   ► All right, uh, let's talk backups.

00:40:29 ◼   ► And Jonathan Dechko writes, I disagree that the baseline backup should be time machine.

00:40:32 ◼   ► I bought my son a MacBook Air for college along with an external drive

00:40:29 ◼   ► for time machine.

00:40:36 ◼   ► I set it up and told him to connect the drive weekly.

00:40:38 ◼   ► I was helping him with something last month and saw a notification of the

00:40:41 ◼   ► time machine and not backed up for 340 something days.

00:40:44 ◼   ► He had never plugged in the drive.

00:40:46 ◼   ► But I also installed bacblaze on the computer and added it to my account.

00:40:49 ◼   ► It dutifully backed up his computer every day, considering that quote unquote all Macs

00:40:53 ◼   ► or laptops, if you own or have access to a parent, spouse, or child,

00:40:57 ◼   ► um the can or their computer on a limited basis, online backup is probably

00:41:01 ◼   ► the best starting point.

00:41:02 ◼   ► As I said in the SKTP section where we were talking about this and

00:41:05 ◼   ► we were uh uh categorizing people as like cat more casual computer users and

00:41:09 ◼   ► more like nerdy computer users.

00:41:11 ◼   ► The challenge with casual people is getting them to do literally anything.

00:41:14 ◼   ► Uh and this is an example of that.

00:41:15 ◼   ► If they're not going to ever connect the drive, that option is off the

00:41:18 ◼   ► table for you, and you have to like literally anything, whatever you can do.

00:41:22 ◼   ► Now, my first choice would still be time machine because the function of backups,

00:41:26 ◼   ► especially for somebody who's like, oh, they never connected the drive because I didn't

00:41:29 ◼   ► notice until I revisited them.

00:41:30 ◼   ► That means you're not like living with them all the time.

00:41:33 ◼   ► That means they're on their own.

00:41:34 ◼   ► And so that means if they do something stupid and screw something up, they

00:41:38 ◼   ► have to be able to do something useful with the backups.

00:41:41 ◼   ► And time machine is the easiest thing to restore from because it's built into

00:41:45 ◼   ► Mac OS, it will prompt you for it.

00:41:47 ◼   ► Like you could walk someone through sort of, you know, getting to the point

00:41:51 ◼   ► where you can do a time machine restoration.

00:41:52 ◼   ► You can walk someone through that on the phone.

00:41:54 ◼   ► Whereas Backblaze, great, you don't have to do it, it'll backup for them.

00:41:57 ◼   ► They don't have to remember to do it, blah, blah, blah.

00:41:59 ◼   ► Restoring from Backblaze is not part of the macOS recovery process and it would

00:42:04 ◼   ► be substantially more complicated for a non-technical person to do on their own.

00:42:08 ◼   ► So yeah, the challenge is with people who are just not going to do

00:42:10 ◼   ► backups, get them to do anything.

00:42:12 ◼   ► In the end, it's more important that their data is saved than the ease

00:42:14 ◼   ► of restoration.

00:42:16 ◼   ► So if Backblaze is all they're gonna do if they've proven they will never

00:42:18 ◼   ► plug the drive in, yeah, cloud backup is the only option, but it's a

00:42:22 ◼   ► struggle.

00:42:23 ◼   ► Yeah, I I honestly I disagree.

00:42:25 ◼   ► I think backblaze should be the first step.

00:42:27 ◼   ► And you know, i ideally you would have both.

00:42:30 ◼   ► And the good thing is like, I mean, right now is maybe a bad

00:42:33 ◼   ► example, because right now hard drives are expensive.

00:42:35 ◼   ► Um, but hard drives usually are not expensive.

00:42:37 ◼   ► And in in most times, you know, you buy the hard drive once for

00:42:42 ◼   ► maybe you know, $150, you know, for whatever is big enough to store your

00:42:45 ◼   ► computer plus a little bit extra, maybe.

00:42:47 ◼   ► You you buy the hard drive once and there's no ongoing fee for time

00:42:51 ◼   ► machine that can last years and years and years.

00:42:53 ◼   ► Yeah, that's the barrier to backblaze because people are like, I gotta pay another

00:42:56 ◼   ► monthly fee, and even though it's only like five bucks or eight bucks or

00:42:59 ◼   ► whatever, just the idea of another monthly bill makes people's heads explode.

00:43:03 ◼   ► Yeah, but I think like in a case like this where you're kind of

00:43:06 ◼   ► you know being a caretaker for somebody, whether it's you know you know your

00:43:09 ◼   ► kid going after college in this case, or like maybe like your elderly parents

00:43:12 ◼   ► or whatever, like you know, whatever it is, if you are kind of being

00:43:15 ◼   ► like the computer caretaker for somebody, if you can just eat that eight bucks

00:43:19 ◼   ► a month yourself for it for Backblaze, I think that's that is the the

00:43:22 ◼   ► best way to go.

00:43:23 ◼   ► That's the the most reliable way that because like they don't have to then

00:43:27 ◼   ► plug in the drive and do anything.

00:43:28 ◼   ► Now, what John said is correct.

00:43:30 ◼   ► If you have to do like a full system restore, like if you you

00:43:32 ◼   ► know, if your disk totally dies, you have to do a full system restore.

00:43:36 ◼   ► Backblaze is much more optimized for like we're gonna give you all the files,

00:43:40 ◼   ► but you're gonna have to like put all the apps back yourself and everything

00:43:43 ◼   ► like that.

00:43:43 ◼   ► Um and Time Machine is way better at that.

00:43:45 ◼   ► You can r you can directly restore from a time machine backup when setting

00:43:48 ◼   ► up a new Mac direct with the immigration assistant.

00:43:50 ◼   ► So like that is a bit a better, easier setup, but if no one's

00:43:54 ◼   ► gonna do it, a time machine backup that's 300 days old is is not

00:43:58 ◼   ► a very very useful system restore.

00:43:59 ◼   ► Yeah, you just gotta know who what it is you're dealing with.

00:44:02 ◼   ► And obviously, if you're willing to pay the bills for them, that really makes

00:43:59 ◼   ► uh backblaze a lot easier.

00:44:06 ◼   ► Although I will say backblaze has been chucking up some dialogue boxes lately, complaining

00:44:09 ◼   ► about permissions, and uh as far as I can tell, everything's fine.

00:44:12 ◼   ► But if that was someone else's computer that I was supporting, they're saying Backblaze

00:44:15 ◼   ► keeps throwing up a dialogue.

00:44:16 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, is there actually a problem?

00:44:18 ◼   ► Are they being backed up?

00:44:19 ◼   ► You know, every little bit of third party software is one more place that

00:44:22 ◼   ► things can go wrong, or if they automatically do a Mac OS update or

00:44:26 ◼   ► something.

00:44:26 ◼   ► So yeah, there's no perfect solution to this.

00:44:28 ◼   ► It's still more difficult than it should be.

00:44:29 ◼   ► But again, for people who are not who are probably gonna not do any

00:44:33 ◼   ► backup, getting them to do literally anything is the first barrier.

00:44:36 ◼   ► And you just have to sort of negotiate with what's their situation, how far

00:44:39 ◼   ► are they uh far away from me?

00:44:41 ◼   ► Are they?

00:44:42 ◼   ► What do I want to deal with?

00:44:43 ◼   ► Do I want to pay a monthly bill for them?

00:44:45 ◼   ► Do I not want to?

00:44:46 ◼   ► Are they not gonna ever buy a hard drive?

00:44:48 ◼   ► Like it's complicated, but yeah.

00:44:50 ◼   ► Um Backblaze is a is a good uh alternate choice if there's no way

00:44:53 ◼   ► that they're going to either pay for a hard drive or use one.

00:44:56 ◼   ► And ideally, like I I would love for Apple to someday, I mean, this

00:45:00 ◼   ► is probably not the time, again, with like resource pricing and everything.

00:45:03 ◼   ► I would love for Apple to someday offer effectively iCloud backup for Macs.

00:45:09 ◼   ► You know, it what you you see the way they do it on iOS

00:45:11 ◼   ► devices is very clever.

00:45:13 ◼   ► You know, what they do with iOS devices is iCloud Backup backs up not

00:45:18 ◼   ► like your entire photos library, because that's separate.

00:45:21 ◼   ► That's already in your iCloud store.

00:45:22 ◼   ► So they don't need to make a copy of the files of your photos

00:45:26 ◼   ► from your phone to iCloud.

00:45:27 ◼   ► They don't back up that.

00:45:28 ◼   ► They don't back up your your music, your downloaded MP3s and stuff.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Because again, that's already included in Apple Music or whatever.

00:45:34 ◼   ► Like, so they're able to exclude things.

00:45:36 ◼   ► They don't back up your apps themselves, like the the actual app binaries and

00:45:40 ◼   ► the you know, the app bundles like that are now you know, these days

00:45:43 ◼   ► apps are like hundreds of megabytes or maybe even gigabytes each, they don't back

00:45:46 ◼   ► those up either because they know you can just reinstall them on an iOS

00:45:49 ◼   ► device.

00:45:49 ◼   ► You can download down re-download them from the app store and reinstall them.

00:45:52 ◼   ► So iCloud backups on iOS devices are able to be pretty pretty slim down

00:45:58 ◼   ► from like the total storage on the device.

00:46:00 ◼   ► Like my you know, my 250 gig iPhone does not need to back up

00:46:05 ◼   ► you know 250 gigs of data to to iCloud.

00:46:07 ◼   ► It backs up probably something like 50 gigs of data because so much of

00:46:11 ◼   ► that is re-downloadable through Apple's other means.

00:46:14 ◼   ► And apps also apps can mark any file they create or write to, they

00:46:20 ◼   ► can mark it as exclude this from backup because I can regenerate it or

00:46:24 ◼   ► re-download it.

00:46:24 ◼   ► So for instance, Overcast does that with its local SQLite casey database file.

00:46:29 ◼   ► Um, because the SQLite file from Overcast is just generated from your sync, like

00:46:34 ◼   ► back and forth with the servers, and as soon as you log in on

00:46:37 ◼   ► a new phone, it just regenerates that whole database.

00:46:39 ◼   ► So there's no reason for that to take up space in your iCloud backups.

00:46:42 ◼   ► So it's so I mark that as excluded.

00:46:44 ◼   ► And apps can do that for you know anything they can re-download.

00:46:47 ◼   ► So, like, you know, on suppose you have like YouTube offline files downloaded, uh,

00:46:52 ◼   ► you know, for YouTube, they probably mark those that same way.

00:46:55 ◼   ► That way, all those offline copies of YouTube videos don't sit there taking up

00:46:58 ◼   ► your iCloud storage space when if you set up a new phone, you can

00:47:02 ◼   ► just re-download those directly you know back to the app again.

00:47:05 ◼   ► If Apple were to ever bring that kind of system to the Mac, obviously

00:47:10 ◼   ► there's very different storage needs on the Mac, you know, and there's the entire

00:47:14 ◼   ► file system to have to worry about that that you know that apps have

00:47:16 ◼   ► more access to where they can put data, what kind of data they can

00:47:19 ◼   ► put different places.

00:47:20 ◼   ► So it would it would probably need to be like a a little bit

00:47:23 ◼   ► different of a situation.

00:47:24 ◼   ► But if they take some of those ideas from iOS from the way it

00:47:27 ◼   ► does iCloud backups, I think they could do a reasonable job on the Mac

00:47:31 ◼   ► of offering something pretty compelling, especially for the common cases like it's just a

00:47:36 ◼   ► person with a MacBook Air who wants to just back up like most of

00:47:40 ◼   ► their stuff.

00:47:41 ◼   ► So I hope someday that gets on their radar.

00:47:43 ◼   ► Um again, I don't think this is a good time for Apple to take

00:47:46 ◼   ► on a significant large storage burden in the on the server side right now.

00:47:51 ◼   ► Uh, but you know, in probably a few years, uh, that might be a

00:47:54 ◼   ► very good time to do it.

00:47:55 ◼   ► So I I hope they consider that.

00:47:57 ◼   ► Yeah, like I said last week, iCloud Backup for Mac is long overdue.

00:48:00 ◼   ► But you can't get people to pay for the iCloud storage for their phone

00:48:04 ◼   ► backups.

00:48:05 ◼   ► And the Mac on top, it's just some people are just so resistant.

00:48:08 ◼   ► I already own a phone, whatever, I have to pay Apple for something.

00:48:11 ◼   ► And so this is just another front for that same war, and let's not

00:48:14 ◼   ► talk about the five gigabytes of free space that we've gotten for 18 years

00:48:17 ◼   ► or whatever the hell it's been.

00:48:19 ◼   ► Yeah, actually, that's the the main problem with the system is with this idea

00:48:22 ◼   ► is like they would have to lower the price of iCloud storage because it's

00:48:28 ◼   ► so ridiculous.

00:48:29 ◼   ► Like to try to back up a whole Mac to iCloud, it would be

00:48:31 ◼   ► like a thousand dollars a month.

00:48:32 ◼   ► Right, you're gonna buy eight terabyte Mac.

00:48:34 ◼   ► You can't even you can't even back that up for any amount in iCloud

00:48:36 ◼   ► now.

00:48:37 ◼   ► I think what is the maximum?

00:48:37 ◼   ► Uh maybe eight is the maximum.

00:48:39 ◼   ► I forget if you do like the double thing where you do the expensive

00:48:41 ◼   ► planning add-ons.

00:48:42 ◼   ► Anyway, it's again, maybe not the time to consider this.

00:48:45 ◼   ► Eric Jacobson adds MacBook Pros have a slot for a second internal SSD.

00:48:50 ◼   ► These little jet drive, SD cards that fit flush in the MacBook chassis.

00:48:54 ◼   ► You can use it for additional storage, or like me, time machine backups everywhere

00:48:57 ◼   ► all the time.

00:48:58 ◼   ► There's also a newer solution, a similarly designed micro SD card adapter.

00:49:03 ◼   ► It should be significantly faster.

00:49:04 ◼   ► The jet drive uses a very old SD standard and costs about the same,

00:49:08 ◼   ► which is incidentally double what they were roughly a year ago, because of course.

00:49:12 ◼   ► Uh Eric provided a couple links in the show notes.

00:49:14 ◼   ► This reminded me that uh in like 2014, I backed, I forget the name

00:49:18 ◼   ► of it.

00:49:19 ◼   ► It's like Tiny Drive or Nifty Disk.

00:49:14 ◼   ► Nifty disk, I think that's it.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Uh, which was, as far as I knew, the originator of this whole idea,

00:49:25 ◼   ► and it was great.

00:49:26 ◼   ► Um, but I haven't thought about this in a long time.

00:49:29 ◼   ► But Eric's right, you could get a little thing, it sits flush, so from

00:49:32 ◼   ► the outside you can't really tell it's there, just you don't have an SD

00:49:35 ◼   ► card slot.

00:49:36 ◼   ► And you can get astonishingly large micro SD cards these days.

00:49:40 ◼   ► So this is a very feasible answer, despite being a fortune.

00:49:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I mean, uh the main problem with this one is that it only

00:49:46 ◼   ► works on laptops that have an SD card slot, which are only the pros.

00:49:50 ◼   ► So, you know, for the more casual user who's gonna have a MacBook Air

00:49:53 ◼   ► or MacBook Neo, this doesn't help them, even though the MacBook Air should totally

00:49:56 ◼   ► have an SD card slot.

00:49:58 ◼   ► Also, SD cards, they're slow, but who cares for Time Machine?

00:50:01 ◼   ► But also reliability under heavy constant tiny writes like Time Machine does.

00:50:06 ◼   ► But still, this is a possible solution to oh, they're never gonna plug in

00:50:09 ◼   ► the drive.

00:50:10 ◼   ► Just shove this thing in there and tell them, see this, don't ever take

00:50:13 ◼   ► it out.

00:50:14 ◼   ► Yeah, I feel like Time Machine was a lot easier to set up for

00:50:17 ◼   ► somebody else in the age of desktops.

00:50:18 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:50:19 ◼   ► And laptops create this problem of like, well, you're they're never gonna plug in

00:50:22 ◼   ► the drive.

00:50:23 ◼   ► But this is a very elegant solution to that problem.

00:50:26 ◼   ► Um, again, maybe not so much on current pricing, but it's it's better than

00:50:30 ◼   ► nothing.

00:50:30 ◼   ► Although it is fairly cheap because SD cards are cheap for the size.

00:50:33 ◼   ► You know, it's just it's just such a shame that the the have you

00:50:35 ◼   ► looked recently at how much SD cards cost?

00:50:37 ◼   ► I know.

00:50:38 ◼   ► Well, but the smaller, cheaper computers should totally have SD card slots.

00:50:41 ◼   ► The Neo should have an SD card slot there.

00:50:42 ◼   ► Like it's so cheap just to add one of those slots, but those are

00:50:45 ◼   ► the computers that need it the most, not the MacBook Pro, because someone who's

00:50:48 ◼   ► got a MacBook Pro, you can probably convince to buy a drive.

00:50:50 ◼   ► But anyway, it's it's out there if you want to try it.

00:50:52 ◼   ► Yep.

00:50:53 ◼   ► And then Mustafa Hemoy writes, You guys just love to talk about backup this

00:50:57 ◼   ► and backup that and backup software.

00:50:59 ◼   ► But I find the idea of backup hilariously obsolete.

00:51:01 ◼   ► My code is in GitHub, my photos are in Apple Photos and Google Photos,

00:50:59 ◼   ► and my music is streaming, my documents are in OneDrive.

00:51:07 ◼   ► My house can burn down right now, and I won't lose any data.

00:51:09 ◼   ► All these services are infinitely better at backing up than I will ever be

00:51:12 ◼   ► doing your own backup and using backup software should be sent to wherever typewriters

00:51:17 ◼   ► and other horse carriages went.

00:51:18 ◼   ► I get that for a lot of people, but certainly not for me, because

00:51:23 ◼   ► I've got like 17 terabytes of stuff on my Synology that I don't want

00:51:29 ◼   ► to lose.

00:51:29 ◼   ► A lot of that I could recreate, but certainly not all of it.

00:51:33 ◼   ► So while I don't think Mustafa is wrong broadly, I I absolutely completely reject

00:51:40 ◼   ► their point when it comes to nerds like me.

00:51:43 ◼   ► Well, so uh he's right that like things are very different than they used

00:51:47 ◼   ► to be.

00:51:48 ◼   ► The the advent of cloud storage and the ubiquity of cloud storage, so many

00:51:51 ◼   ► people have things in the cloud, so many services put stuff in the cloud,

00:51:55 ◼   ► has made the situation so much better than it used to be.

00:51:58 ◼   ► Because you know, rewind far enough, and people just had stuff on their computers,

00:52:03 ◼   ► and that was literally the only place it was.

00:52:05 ◼   ► And it was a terrible situation, and people lost stuff all the time.

00:52:07 ◼   ► The the advent of cloud storage and cloud back services has allowed people to

00:52:12 ◼   ► use computers more fully than they could before, because it was always so fraught

00:52:16 ◼   ► before.

00:52:16 ◼   ► So that point is absolutely true.

00:52:18 ◼   ► But as we say all the time, cloud storage is not a backup.

00:52:22 ◼   ► The closest you can get, and this is pretty close and probably good enough

00:52:25 ◼   ► for a lot of people, are cloud storage services that support versioning, which I

00:52:29 ◼   ► as I believe Dropbox does.

00:52:31 ◼   ► Because that does start to become like a backup.

00:52:34 ◼   ► It doesn't function like a backup in all the ways.

00:52:36 ◼   ► I'm not sure if like you can do a point in time recovery of

00:52:38 ◼   ► your entire Dropbox, but maybe you can.

00:52:40 ◼   ► But the point is versioning is like you need to have that to be

00:52:43 ◼   ► a backup at all.

00:52:44 ◼   ► Because if you don't have versioning and you delete a file and it's gone

00:52:49 ◼   ► from both your computer and your cloud storage, and you want it back, you

00:52:53 ◼   ► can't get it.

00:52:54 ◼   ► That's when you need a backup.

00:52:55 ◼   ► That's the point of backups, right?

00:52:57 ◼   ► And you may say, well, but it's it's on my other computer that's turned

00:53:00 ◼   ► off right now, so I'll just unplug it from Ethernet and unplug my Wi-Fi

00:53:03 ◼   ► router and turn it on, and just like that's not that's not a recovery

00:53:06 ◼   ► strategy, right?

00:53:07 ◼   ► Cloud storage is not a backup.

00:53:09 ◼   ► It is great that it has your data in multiple places, but the point

00:53:13 ◼   ► is it doesn't save you from yourself when you screw things up.

00:53:16 ◼   ► Second thing I'll point out is cloud storage service companies are not your friend.

00:53:22 ◼   ► All my photos are in Apple Photos.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Oh, now your Apple ID is banned or got taken over by hackers.

00:53:27 ◼   ► Everything's on GitHub.

00:53:29 ◼   ► GitHub has banned you now.

00:53:30 ◼   ► Do you have do you have all your Git repos synced somewhere locally?

00:53:33 ◼   ► Or are some of them only on GitHub?

00:53:35 ◼   ► Like, if you have, you know, it's true that they're better, they're gonna do

00:53:38 ◼   ► better at backups than they do.

00:53:39 ◼   ► You're not gonna lose your data, probably because they screw something up and like,

00:53:42 ◼   ► oh, we did we we lost your data and we didn't have a backup.

00:53:45 ◼   ► What's gonna happen is your account's gonna get banned or you're gonna get hacked

00:53:48 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:53:49 ◼   ► That's what happens to regular people.

00:53:51 ◼   ► And when your only place where the data is, is on that one cloud

00:53:54 ◼   ► storage service that you trusted, and suddenly your Google account gets banned for some

00:53:57 ◼   ► reason that you don't understand and can never find out because of this coffee-ass

00:54:01 ◼   ► world that we live in, and no human will ever talk to you, it's

00:54:04 ◼   ► a problem.

00:54:05 ◼   ► That's the point of backups.

00:54:07 ◼   ► It's a backstop against more bad things happening than just your house burning down.

00:54:11 ◼   ► And I hope this never happens to people.

00:54:12 ◼   ► And I agree that having cloud storage is so much better than not having

00:54:16 ◼   ► it and covers almost everybody's needs almost all the time, but not entirely.

00:54:20 ◼   ► That is the point of backups.

00:54:22 ◼   ► You don't get insurance because you expect to be struck by lightning.

00:54:25 ◼   ► You get it because it's a possible thing that could happen, and you want

00:54:28 ◼   ► triple damages if it does or whatever.

00:54:31 ◼   ► So, yeah, I disagree that backups are obsolete and uh hysterically uh you know

00:54:37 ◼   ► out of date.

00:54:38 ◼   ► They're less necessary than they were, but they are still necessary if you want

00:54:43 ◼   ► to be protected.

00:54:43 ◼   ► Like, look, if you don't want the protection, you want to live dangerously, it's

00:54:46 ◼   ► fine.

00:54:46 ◼   ► Go for it, but uh I don't recommend it.

00:54:50 ◼   ► We are sponsored this episode by Claude.

00:54:53 ◼   ► Literally, right now, as I record this in the background, Claude Code is working

00:54:58 ◼   ► for me trying to fix a bug.

00:55:00 ◼   ► And I found it earlier.

00:55:01 ◼   ► I'm like, oh, why is this behaving this way?

00:55:03 ◼   ► And I told Claude, hey, go work on this.

00:55:05 ◼   ► And I'm pretty sure how it's gonna end, because probably before I'm done even

00:55:08 ◼   ► reading this ad message, this is a two-minute ad, and within that time I

00:55:11 ◼   ► bet it will have found and fixed the bug.

00:55:14 ◼   ► And then I'll ask it, make a bunch of tests to find similar bugs

00:55:18 ◼   ► and make sure there's no other ones in the app.

00:55:20 ◼   ► Claude can do all of that.

00:55:22 ◼   ► It's the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough.

00:55:25 ◼   ► It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and your code base, and

00:55:29 ◼   ► it thinks with you.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Whether you're debugging code or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking

00:55:35 ◼   ► to tackle the problems that matter.

00:55:37 ◼   ► If you're a developer like me, you're spending a whole bunch of days and

00:55:39 ◼   ► you know hours on tasks that you wish you could just hand off.

00:55:42 ◼   ► Claude code is your new best friend.

00:55:45 ◼   ► Any really hairy bug or really tedious like testing task that I don't want

00:55:49 ◼   ► to do, I just ask Claude to do it, and it does it, and

00:55:52 ◼   ► then it's off my plate.

00:55:53 ◼   ► It's amazing at finding and fixing bugs.

00:55:55 ◼   ► And there's all sorts of things like writing tests, refactoring that it can do

00:55:59 ◼   ► without you handholding it through every step.

00:56:01 ◼   ► You just tell it like the problem you're trying to solve.

00:56:03 ◼   ► You can paste in images, you can say a user report of this behavior,

00:56:06 ◼   ► audit the code, define this.

00:56:07 ◼   ► I cannot tell you how much time Claude has saved me.

00:56:10 ◼   ► And it goes way beyond code.

00:56:11 ◼   ► If you're not a programmer, don't worry, it does all the other AI stuff

00:56:14 ◼   ► too.

00:56:14 ◼   ► You can ask it questions, you can have it work on documents, you can

00:56:17 ◼   ► do all sorts of stuff.

00:56:18 ◼   ► Read Excel files and make presentations.

00:56:20 ◼   ► Claude can do so much.

00:56:22 ◼   ► I can't even enumerate it all in one ad, but trust me.

00:56:24 ◼   ► It's oh look, it's done.

00:56:26 ◼   ► It fixed the problem.

00:56:27 ◼   ► That's amazing.

00:56:28 ◼   ► All right.

00:56:29 ◼   ► For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash ATP.

00:56:35 ◼   ► That's Claude.ai slash ATP.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features that I talked

00:56:41 ◼   ► about today.

00:56:41 ◼   ► Claude.ai slash ATP.

00:56:44 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Claude for fixing my stuff and sponsoring our show.

00:56:52 ◼   ► All right, let's talk Apple upgrade.

00:56:54 ◼   ► Uh Patch writes, my company is a broker for IT leasing to schools in

00:56:59 ◼   ► the UK.

00:56:59 ◼   ► The deal between Apple and Klarna may be different, but leases are typically an

00:57:02 ◼   ► agreement between the customer and the finance company, not the retailer or broker.

00:57:07 ◼   ► So you would enter a deal with Klarna, Klarna would purchase the device from

00:57:10 ◼   ► Apple, and it would belong to them, not Apple.

00:57:11 ◼   ► When you return it, you would be returning it to Klarna, not Apple.

00:57:15 ◼   ► Andrew Hagland writes, I know it's US only, but I have also always excuse

00:57:19 ◼   ► me, enjoyed the Apple card 12-month interest free free thing when I buy big

00:57:23 ◼   ► stuff from Apple.

00:57:24 ◼   ► The payment automatically happens every month, easy to manage, and you're spreading it out

00:57:27 ◼   ► over 12 months.

00:57:28 ◼   ► Simple.

00:57:28 ◼   ► The advantage over the lease is that I'm in control if I want to

00:57:32 ◼   ► upgrade every one, two, or three years.

00:57:34 ◼   ► Paying $5,000 uh for a Mac over three years, now that's appealing, especially for

00:57:38 ◼   ► a desktop where it's unlikely to get damaged.

00:57:41 ◼   ► Lastly, the concern over battery health with trade-ins, I don't think they care because

00:57:44 ◼   ► I think all refurbished iPhones get brand new batteries, says Andrew.

00:57:48 ◼   ► Question mark?

00:57:48 ◼   ► Yeah, I believe when when Apple refurbishes any device, I believe that the battery

00:57:54 ◼   ► gets it is always new, and also all of the external surfaces.

00:57:58 ◼   ► So anything that like a customer can touch and that that you will touch,

00:57:59 ◼   ► like it like the case, everything, I believe those are always new with refurbs.

00:58:06 ◼   ► Uh to Patch's point about who uh actually owns the laptop or the device,

00:58:11 ◼   ► and when you return it with the Apple upgrade program, uh maybe they're never

00:58:15 ◼   ► going to tell us what those terms are.

00:58:16 ◼   ► That would actually be interesting to know because whichever company gets the returned item

00:58:22 ◼   ► potentially has some upside for selling a device.

00:58:25 ◼   ► You know, again, if they paid 50% of the price of it and now

00:58:27 ◼   ► it's worth uh it's still worth 60% of its original price.

00:58:31 ◼   ► That's another area of Robit margin.

00:58:32 ◼   ► But on the other hand, if Klarna is the one who owns the device

00:58:36 ◼   ► and buys it from Apple, as soon as the like transaction goes through, Apple's

00:58:40 ◼   ► done.

00:58:40 ◼   ► Like they're like Klarna bought it from us, as far as we're concerned.

00:58:43 ◼   ► This is a sold device that was sold and we don't care about it

00:58:45 ◼   ► anymore.

00:58:45 ◼   ► Klarna bought it, and we get our 40% margin or whatever we're gonna get,

00:58:49 ◼   ► and we don't have to think about that device again unless it re-enters our

00:58:51 ◼   ► ecosystem.

00:58:52 ◼   ► And then it's Klarna's problem to deal with all of the other stuff.

00:58:55 ◼   ► But I don't know.

00:58:56 ◼   ► I don't I you know, again, this is apparently the way it is uh

00:58:58 ◼   ► in the UK very often, and that may be the way it is in

00:59:01 ◼   ► this deal, but as far as I'm aware, they did not announce who who

00:59:05 ◼   ► actually uh gets the device when you returned it.

00:59:08 ◼   ► All right, let's talk about RAM pocalypse.

00:59:10 ◼   ► Uh, first of all, uh Hartley Charlton over at Mac Rumors writes Apple's attempt

00:59:15 ◼   ► to use Chinese memory maker CXMT as leverage against Samsung Samsung Electronics, and SK

00:59:20 ◼   ► Heinex has backfired with the two Korean chipmakers ending up with more pricing power

00:59:25 ◼   ► rather than less, Digitimes reports, citing South Korean and Chinese trade press.

00:59:30 ◼   ► Uh Apple has explored CXMT and fellow Chinese chipmaker YMTC as potential DRAM suppliers.

00:59:37 ◼   ► Apple hoped a credible Chinese alternative would pressure Samsung and SK Heinex into cutting

00:59:41 ◼   ► their own prices, a tactic that it had used before with OLED suppliers and

00:59:45 ◼   ► contract manufacturers.

00:59:44 ◼   ► CXMT is barred from EUV lithography tools under U.S.

00:59:50 ◼   ► export controls, so it has to rely on older DUV equipment that requires around

00:59:55 ◼   ► 30% more wafer starts to produce the same output.

00:59:58 ◼   ► That extra cost means matching Samsung and SK Heinex's prices is CM CXMT's floor,

01:00:04 ◼   ► not a discount it's able to offer.

01:00:06 ◼   ► So when Apple pushed for lower LPP LP DDR5X quote, CXMT turned it down

01:00:12 ◼   ► and held pricing at or above the Korean supplier's own rates.

01:00:15 ◼   ► With that threat neutralized, Apple seemingly lost its main point of leverage.

01:00:18 ◼   ► Digital Daily reports that Chinese device makers Huawei and Xiaomi have already locked up

01:00:23 ◼   ► most of CXMT's output through long-term high-priced contracts, so the company doesn't need Apple's

01:00:28 ◼   ► business badly enough to negotiate.

01:00:30 ◼   ► The result is the opposite of what Apple wanted.

01:00:32 ◼   ► Without a credible cheaper alternative to point to, Samsung and SK Heinex face less

01:00:36 ◼   ► pressure to lower their own prices.

01:00:44 ◼   ► Yeah, I think we're going to be in this memory crunch for a lot

01:00:49 ◼   ► longer than people think.

01:00:50 ◼   ► This is not going to be fixed this year.

01:00:52 ◼   ► It's probably not going to be fixed next year.

01:00:55 ◼   ► And we'll see after that.

01:00:57 ◼   ► Yeah, it's not looking good.

01:00:59 ◼   ► Also from Hartley Charlton, but slightly different topic.

01:01:02 ◼   ► The A20 Pro will be Apple's first built, its first chip built using TSMC's

01:01:06 ◼   ► N2 process.

01:01:07 ◼   ► Production is reportedly progressing well, but completed wafers are piling up because the DRAM

01:01:12 ◼   ► needed to package them has not arrived.

01:01:14 ◼   ► Because packaging cannot be completed without the corresponding DRAM, semi-conductor semiconductor analyst Tim Kulpan

01:01:21 ◼   ► estimate estimates that TSMC is currently sitting on roughly one billion dollars worth of

01:01:27 ◼   ► Apple processors that cannot move to the next stage of production.

01:01:30 ◼   ► Holy crap.

01:01:32 ◼   ► You thought App Review was backed up.

01:01:34 ◼   ► Right?

01:01:35 ◼   ► Cheesy peasy.

01:01:29 ◼   ► Hartley continues.

01:01:37 ◼   ► The bottleneck apparently threatens to ripple into the final stages of iPhone production.

01:01:41 ◼   ► Main logic board assembly and final assembly are handled primarily by Foxconn and BYD

01:01:45 ◼   ► in China, and delays in package processor deliveries could compress their production schedules, even

01:01:50 ◼   ► if Apple ultimately secures enough memory for launch.

01:01:53 ◼   ► Oh dear.

01:01:54 ◼   ► It's not great.

01:01:56 ◼   ► Kevin Beaumont writes all memory on track to be manufactured in 2027 by Samsung,

01:02:02 ◼   ► XK Henix, and Micron is now sold out with no additional supply planned.

01:02:07 ◼   ► We are currently, as I sit here tonight, it is August 12th of 2026.

01:02:12 ◼   ► All of 2027 is allegedly sold out.

01:02:26 ◼   ► Presumably Apple is among those companies that pre-book their supply, but uh yeah.

01:02:30 ◼   ► What's rough?

01:02:31 ◼   ► Not good.

01:02:32 ◼   ► All right, let's do some topics and let's start with uh John.

01:02:35 ◼   ► I think you want to talk to us about Mac OS and iOS 27

01:02:38 ◼   ► beta 5 icons.

01:02:40 ◼   ► It's one of the few interesting things that's happening uh late in the beta

01:02:43 ◼   ► cycle.

01:02:43 ◼   ► They keep changing icons.

01:02:44 ◼   ► Let's start with our friend Siri, which had the weird uh Pepsi logo thing

01:02:49 ◼   ► that Joanna Stern uh used as the weird looking head of the Siri guy

01:02:53 ◼   ► in her video about it.

01:02:55 ◼   ► Uh apparently we're not the only ones who thought that icon was bad and

01:02:58 ◼   ► silly because it has been replaced with something that looks kind of like uh

01:03:02 ◼   ► I don't know, a cat's eye marble or something.

01:03:04 ◼   ► It's kind of like a 3D sphere with a wavy white line through it.

01:03:08 ◼   ► Gone is the monochrome converted Pepsi symbol slash weird guy head.

01:03:13 ◼   ► Yeah, this is a significant improvement.

01:03:15 ◼   ► I still don't love it, but this is way, way better than the old

01:03:14 ◼   ► one.

01:03:19 ◼   ► I'm not sure if it reads a Siri to me, but the old one

01:03:21 ◼   ► was just ugly and this one is not.

01:03:22 ◼   ► So thumbs up there.

01:03:24 ◼   ► Uh the next one is more interesting.

01:03:25 ◼   ► They were looking at the chess icon.

01:03:27 ◼   ► Yes, the Mac macOS still comes with the chess app, uh, which is updated

01:03:30 ◼   ► recently, I believe.

01:03:31 ◼   ► Anyway, the icon was very bad and just typical, like like liquid glassy, it

01:03:36 ◼   ► was like a you know, a four-square uh checkerboard, like it's a chess board,

01:03:39 ◼   ► and then like a thin uh liquid glass material side view of a night

01:03:44 ◼   ► piece.

01:03:44 ◼   ► It was one of the it was one of the best examples when everybody

01:03:47 ◼   ► was complaining about the liquid glass icons last year.

01:03:50 ◼   ► It was like it was almost always used as an example of how tragic

01:03:54 ◼   ► the redesign was, because it was such like a a tragic loss of what

01:03:59 ◼   ► what was a high personality icon before liquid glass, and then it just got

01:04:03 ◼   ► this horrendous half-assed rendering.

01:04:07 ◼   ► Yeah, and then in in the uh in uh I think I then we

01:04:10 ◼   ► don't see the macOS 26 one in the pictures we're looking at.

01:04:12 ◼   ► We'll link all these pictures in the show notes, they're from various people's social

01:04:15 ◼   ► media posts.

01:04:15 ◼   ► But the Mac OS 27 beta one and two had kind of a translucent

01:04:18 ◼   ► horse head and three and four head a more opaque horse head.

01:04:21 ◼   ► But in beta five, it's basically an entirely new icon.

01:04:24 ◼   ► First of all, the checkerboard pattern is kind of like black and dark gray

01:04:27 ◼   ► and goes to edge to edge, but most importantly, the horsey head in the

01:04:30 ◼   ► middle, the night chess piece, has nothing to do with liquid glass, but is

01:04:35 ◼   ► actually as as uh Keir discovered, it's just playing up a uh like an

01:04:40 ◼   ► image.

01:04:40 ◼   ► Like they did the old thing they did is they made a bitmapped image.

01:04:43 ◼   ► So maybe it's a 3D render, maybe it's an illustration, but the point is

01:04:46 ◼   ► they just did a bit mapped image of a night piece that looks cool

01:04:49 ◼   ► and shiny.

01:04:49 ◼   ► And it's made of glass.

01:04:51 ◼   ► Yeah, there's no there's no liquid glass to it whatsoever.

01:04:53 ◼   ► It is just a bitmap.

01:04:54 ◼   ► But it it is a 3D rendering of what looks like glass.

01:04:58 ◼   ► It looks like a glass night piece.

01:05:00 ◼   ► I think it looks metal.

01:05:01 ◼   ► Really?

01:05:02 ◼   ► No.

01:05:02 ◼   ► Oh no, this is glass.

01:04:59 ◼   ► No, but you you can't see the background through it at all.

01:05:05 ◼   ► That's you're seeing like the refraction of the gray and black tile behind it.

01:05:09 ◼   ► Yeah, well.

01:05:10 ◼   ► Anyway, it's obviously glass.

01:05:11 ◼   ► Yes, John.

01:05:12 ◼   ► This is 100%.

01:05:13 ◼   ► The point is it is not it is not the liquid glass effects where

01:05:16 ◼   ► they have like a bunch of layers and recipes and effects on them.

01:05:18 ◼   ► Nope.

01:05:19 ◼   ► It's just a bitmap.

01:05:20 ◼   ► And then i i I see what you're saying that it looks like it's

01:05:22 ◼   ► reflecting the background, but if you look at it in the because they broke

01:05:24 ◼   ► open the dot icon file, and you can see there is a checkerboard background,

01:05:28 ◼   ► which looks like a bitmap, but maybe it's vectors, I can't tell.

01:05:31 ◼   ► And then there is a bitmap of the of the thing.

01:05:35 ◼   ► So yeah, I mean, maybe they rendered it in a 3D program with the

01:05:38 ◼   ► background and got the thing, but the point is the liquid glass effects and

01:05:40 ◼   ► their very specular high dates and refractions are not used in this icon.

01:05:45 ◼   ► They just plain drew an icon and they did it in two pieces.

01:05:48 ◼   ► And when you see that, you're like, if you're gonna do that, you can

01:05:51 ◼   ► just draw it in one piece, and now you're back to having a bitmap

01:05:53 ◼   ► icon because look at the pieces.

01:05:54 ◼   ► If you take those two pieces and composite them together in an image editor

01:05:58 ◼   ► and then just make it one image, it's the same icon.

01:06:02 ◼   ► Like so that is uh I mean, I agree that it's the icon is

01:06:06 ◼   ► way better, like it looks much nicer, it looks amateurish before, it looks less

01:06:09 ◼   ► amateurish now, but it is uh only it's mostly interesting because who cares about

01:06:13 ◼   ► the chess app, right?

01:06:14 ◼   ► It's mostly interesting in that it is basically a rejection of the new dot

01:06:18 ◼   ► icon system, or it's a degenerate use of the new icons.icon systems like you

01:06:21 ◼   ► can do this with the new dot icon system, you can just put a

01:06:24 ◼   ► bitmap there that takes up the whole icon.

01:06:26 ◼   ► Um, I didn't look at how this changes when you go to like dark

01:06:29 ◼   ► mode and light mode and clear and stuff.

01:06:31 ◼   ► If they have but but looking at the groups and in the icon composer

01:06:34 ◼   ► sidebar and this uh post bike here, it looks like this is it.

01:06:37 ◼   ► There's not like a dark mode and a light mode version of that, so

01:06:39 ◼   ► it's just gonna end up like tinting them and stuff.

01:06:41 ◼   ► So yeah, so much for the uh the uh vaunted.icon format.

01:06:46 ◼   ► I continue to lobby for in a future macOS release.

01:06:44 ◼   ► Forget about the whole clear thing, nobody likes it, that's stupid.

01:06:52 ◼   ► Uh, and just like give us a good way to do icons of any

01:06:57 ◼   ► kind that we want, obviously get rid of Squirrel Gel, blah blah blah.

01:06:59 ◼   ► But we'll see.

01:06:59 ◼   ► Apple seems to be leaning in that direction.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Now, if you look at the Siri icon that we were just talking about

01:07:03 ◼   ► that looks like a sphere and look at that dot icon file, that is

01:07:06 ◼   ► a lot more complicated.

01:07:07 ◼   ► You can see it's broken up into many pieces of like the top half,

01:07:10 ◼   ► the bottom half, this glow, that glow.

01:07:12 ◼   ► Maybe those are all just straightforwardly composited together, but the point is there are

01:07:16 ◼   ► individual components, and I think if you look at the dark mode version of

01:07:19 ◼   ► the series icon, they are doing interesting things with icon composer to assemble the

01:07:23 ◼   ► pieces with a recipe in an interesting way.

01:07:25 ◼   ► It is not just we gave you a bitmap of that Siri marble and

01:07:29 ◼   ► and then it's just shoved onto a white background.

01:07:31 ◼   ► So two different approaches to make icons that suck less in beta 5.

01:07:35 ◼   ► I kind of like it because it like what they basically did with with

01:07:39 ◼   ► chess here, a little maybe a little less so with Siri, but similar.

01:07:43 ◼   ► But I I think what they're going for is like, okay, instead of having

01:07:46 ◼   ► every single icon have to be layers of glass that are exactly in the

01:07:52 ◼   ► template style and form that icon composer can support, rendered exactly the way icon

01:07:56 ◼   ► composer renders them.

01:07:57 ◼   ► They're saying, no, no, no, no, no.

01:07:59 ◼   ► The theme of of modern icons is glass, and you can render that glass

01:08:05 ◼   ► in different ways if you want to.

01:08:07 ◼   ► We're gonna give you this easy way to do it with icon composer.

01:08:09 ◼   ► If you just make a bunch of you know vector shapes, and you can

01:08:12 ◼   ► s you can stick them in there, and this will render as glass.

01:08:16 ◼   ► And for most icons that'll be okay.

01:08:18 ◼   ► But if you want to render your own version of glass, it will still

01:08:22 ◼   ► look like part of the cohesive icon and design system as long as it

01:08:26 ◼   ► is glassy in some way.

01:08:28 ◼   ► So I I think that's that is even though it's again it's just a

01:08:32 ◼   ► chess app, who cares?

01:08:29 ◼   ► But I think it's it's a good omen.

01:08:36 ◼   ► It shows kind of where their heads are at.

01:08:39 ◼   ► Just just as last year the crappy chess icon showed where their heads were

01:08:43 ◼   ► at then.

01:08:44 ◼   ► And again, even though this one particular icon doesn't matter that much, it's I

01:08:50 ◼   ► I think it bodes well.

01:08:52 ◼   ► So let me go to the Safari icon where they're always messing with the

01:08:55 ◼   ► Safari icon.

01:08:56 ◼   ► And you'll see pictures in the links in the notes where they show the

01:08:58 ◼   ► Tahoe version, the Golden Gate beta one version, and the Golden Gate Beta 5

01:09:02 ◼   ► version.

01:09:02 ◼   ► And the main visual difference in the Golden Gate Beta 5 version is there

01:09:05 ◼   ► are fewer little tick marks around the outside of the compass that defines the

01:09:09 ◼   ► Safari icon, and they put a little circle in the center of the compass,

01:09:13 ◼   ► and they made like the red the red hand of the compass have a

01:09:16 ◼   ► little rounded thing.

01:09:17 ◼   ► And that circle is a little bit glassy.

01:09:19 ◼   ► I think that little round circle is literally the only remotely glassy thing in

01:09:23 ◼   ► the entire Safari icon.

01:09:24 ◼   ► But anyway, here they are out here out there taking an icon that really

01:09:29 ◼   ► uh did not get you know run over by Tahoe too much.

01:09:33 ◼   ► It's like they just made it look a little bit more pale and low

01:09:36 ◼   ► contrast like everything in Tahoe.

01:09:37 ◼   ► Uh, but they're still tweaking it, they're still out there saying, how many tick

01:09:40 ◼   ► marks should there be on the safari icon?

01:09:43 ◼   ► And those hands, could they be a little tiny bit different?

01:09:46 ◼   ► And apparently the answer is yes.

01:09:48 ◼   ► So someone's out there changing icon.

01:09:50 ◼   ► Like I would have put a safari pretty low down the list of icons

01:09:53 ◼   ► that need some attention, but they're they're doing things to it.

01:09:56 ◼   ► I honestly I love seeing this because I have never liked the Safari icons

01:10:01 ◼   ► since iOS 7.

01:10:01 ◼   ► I'd always thought it had too many tick marks, it always looked ridiculous.

01:10:05 ◼   ► And I think this is like a nice little tweak.

01:10:07 ◼   ► It makes it a little bit less visually weird to me.

01:10:11 ◼   ► So uh thumbs up from me.

01:10:13 ◼   ► Yeah, and then they're over in preview, which nobody liked the old uh 27

01:10:14 ◼   ► preview icon with just had like the little loop.

01:10:19 ◼   ► Uh and I believe the loop, I didn't look at the inside of this

01:10:22 ◼   ► one, but there were some icons in in uh in 26, uh in the

01:10:25 ◼   ► various 26 OSs that again tried to look glassy but were essentially bitmaps.

01:10:31 ◼   ► Um one of the things that annoys me, by the way, about icon composer

01:10:35 ◼   ► is that for whatever reason they decided that the the squirkle background cannot have

01:10:41 ◼   ► any transparency.

01:10:42 ◼   ► Which I mean, I don't really understand that much because I don't think that

01:10:46 ◼   ► would have prevented them from doing anything, and the whole theme is liquid glass.

01:10:49 ◼   ► So why can the squirkle itself not have transparency?

01:10:51 ◼   ► Like, nope, squirkle is opaque, which really anyway, whatever.

01:10:55 ◼   ► So there was the little loop icon of the the 26 and 27 beta

01:11:00 ◼   ► one through four preview icon, and it looks kind of dowdy, it's just the

01:11:05 ◼   ► loop by itself.

01:11:05 ◼   ► It's looping into nothing, like you're not looking at anything.

01:11:08 ◼   ► By loop we mean a little thing with a magnifier on one end and

01:11:10 ◼   ► a little glass cone on the other, and you put it down an image

01:11:12 ◼   ► and you put your eye to the little magnifier and you can see it

01:11:15 ◼   ► bigger for looking at prints of images up close.

01:11:17 ◼   ► Um, it was used in the old preview icon in a different way.

01:11:20 ◼   ► Anyway, in an iOS 27 beta, preview has a new icon on iOS.

01:11:25 ◼   ► I believe the Mac version has not changed.

01:11:28 ◼   ► Um it is again the it looks like the old preview icon where there's

01:11:33 ◼   ► kind of like a top view of the loop.

01:11:35 ◼   ► But what is it looking at?

01:11:37 ◼   ► Not a photograph, not even, I think an abstract representation of a photograph, but

01:11:42 ◼   ► what looks to me like a bunch of swirly colors in a squirkle, and

01:11:45 ◼   ► that squirkle is inset from the larger squirkle for some reason.

01:11:49 ◼   ► And this is gonna be a great representation from all my photos of colored

01:11:53 ◼   ► swirling gases that I take.

01:11:54 ◼   ► It doesn't even look like a sunset or a sky.

01:11:57 ◼   ► Like, I don't know what it's supposed to be.

01:11:58 ◼   ► So, you know, E for effort, but I just they're missing the mark here.

01:12:03 ◼   ► Like that, I maybe they're trying, like, we don't want to go back to

01:11:59 ◼   ► the old icon.

01:12:07 ◼   ► I was like, well, the old icon made it pretty clear that you're talking

01:12:10 ◼   ► about photos, and the loop makes it pretty clear that you're like looking at

01:12:13 ◼   ► photos at least, and it has some tradition behind it.

01:12:16 ◼   ► Anyway, I think it's an improvement.

01:12:17 ◼   ► It does look glassier, but uh they need to reconsider that weird color blob

01:12:23 ◼   ► there, because I don't think you know this.

01:12:26 ◼   ► This is what this is the thing about the icons.

01:12:27 ◼   ► There's the execution and there's the concept.

01:12:30 ◼   ► Execution on this is okay.

01:12:31 ◼   ► Concept is semi-okay, but they they blew half of it, which is what is

01:12:36 ◼   ► it that the loop is looking at that will indicate to me that this

01:12:39 ◼   ► is the app I use to look at pictures, and they decide we're not

01:12:41 ◼   ► gonna have a look at a picture.

01:12:43 ◼   ► Yeah, and you can uh they they changed the settings icon as well.

01:12:46 ◼   ► We'll link to uh a post by beta profiles that shows preview series, safari,

01:12:50 ◼   ► and settings all from the the two betas of beta four and beta five,

01:12:54 ◼   ► and settings they made the little gears a little bit more translucent.

01:12:57 ◼   ► So they're just they're out there tweaking things, which I you know, and having

01:13:00 ◼   ► spent a lot of time with uh macOS 27 doing some stuff, I do

01:13:04 ◼   ► like the icons so much better than they were in 26.

01:13:06 ◼   ► And I encourage them to continue tweaking, but the choices of the ones they're

01:13:10 ◼   ► tweaking is strange.

01:13:11 ◼   ► Like, did settings need the very subtle adjustments that it got between beta four

01:13:15 ◼   ► and beta five?

01:13:16 ◼   ► I don't know, but it got them.

01:13:17 ◼   ► It's nicer.

01:13:18 ◼   ► I mean, this is a weird beta cycle.

01:13:21 ◼   ► Beta four lasted a very long time.

01:13:25 ◼   ► Beta 5 seems like it's changing things like this weirdly late in the in

01:13:30 ◼   ► the beta season.

01:13:31 ◼   ► Uh and a lot about beta five seems like it was actually a step

01:13:35 ◼   ► backwards, uh, which again, like it's it seems late in the beta cycle to

01:13:39 ◼   ► be having both that kind of change and that kind of regression that we've

01:13:43 ◼   ► that we've seen so far in five.

01:13:45 ◼   ► So I What have you seen regressing five?

01:13:47 ◼   ► Um on the Mac, it's kind of a mess with um with control layouts,

01:13:51 ◼   ► especially in search boxes.

01:13:53 ◼   ► Uh there's a few weirdnesses there.

01:13:56 ◼   ► It's it's a bit of a weird step to be doing this kind of

01:13:59 ◼   ► change now.

01:14:00 ◼   ► Um, but that being said, overall, this has been a very good beta cycle

01:14:05 ◼   ► for me.

01:14:05 ◼   ► But it does kind of it it doesn't really give a good indication of

01:14:09 ◼   ► how close we are to this being shippable or done.

01:14:12 ◼   ► You would think by this, normally by this time of this of the summer,

01:14:15 ◼   ► you know, by by mid-August, you know, usually we're about three to five weeks

01:14:19 ◼   ► from release and things don't change that much.

01:14:23 ◼   ► And so to be to see changes like this happening now is is weird.

01:14:28 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Quince.

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01:15:01 ◼   ► money over there uh from time to time.

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01:16:22 ◼   ► Apple Watch Overhaul rumors.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Mark German writes, Apple is considering an overhaul to its smartwatch lineup in light

01:16:28 ◼   ► of the industry's transition to screen-free devices and other new form factors.

01:16:32 ◼   ► The upcoming Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 slated to get some under

01:16:36 ◼   ► the hood improvements, including the first real boost in performance in years.

01:16:39 ◼   ► Apple has also been plotting the return of a ceramic case option, Marco, earlier

01:16:44 ◼   ► this year or next.

01:16:45 ◼   ► Yes.

01:16:45 ◼   ► There will also be new colors and bands and a series of new health

01:16:48 ◼   ► and fitness related upgrades.

01:16:49 ◼   ► But bigger moves are coming.

01:16:51 ◼   ► Apple's industrial design team has been exploring a broader rethink of its smartwatches over

01:16:55 ◼   ► the past year or so and is evaluating several different directions.

01:16:58 ◼   ► Apple's considering new devices with no displays, as well as different types of screens

01:17:03 ◼   ► in various sizes.

01:17:04 ◼   ► While unlikely to hit the market, round screens have even been considered.

01:17:09 ◼   ► I'm told the work also includes potentially adding premium models beyond the ultra and

01:17:09 ◼   ► airmaise variants.

01:17:15 ◼   ► On the lower end, Apple's considering more affordable concepts besides the current SE model.

01:17:20 ◼   ► The company hasn't settled on a single direction yet, but it is determined to

01:17:22 ◼   ► reinvent the lineup in response to growing competition.

01:17:26 ◼   ► Thank goodness.

01:17:27 ◼   ► I think the biggest slam dunk here is screenless device.

01:17:30 ◼   ► I'm honestly surprising to me that Apple hasn't made it.

01:17:33 ◼   ► And I don't even think they need to call it Apple Watch.

01:17:35 ◼   ► Whatever you need to do, Apple to make it okay, so you feel like

01:17:37 ◼   ► you're not cannibalizing something.

01:17:38 ◼   ► They've done the Apple Watch has leaned so heavily into fitness that I believe

01:17:43 ◼   ► there is a screenless fitness-based Apple ecosystem device that would sell well and be

01:17:48 ◼   ► useful to people and shouldn't cannibalize Apple Watch sales too much.

01:17:53 ◼   ► And that like solves a lot of problems in that it frees up the

01:17:57 ◼   ► Apple Watch to be what it already is.

01:17:59 ◼   ► It it it you know, there's there's a pricing umbrella under the Apple Watch

01:18:02 ◼   ► where it's like, well, we're not we don't even sell things that are this

01:18:05 ◼   ► cheap.

01:18:05 ◼   ► The screenless one could be way cheaper than any possible Apple Watch.

01:18:09 ◼   ► A lot of possibilities there.

01:18:10 ◼   ► I would even say, I know this is not part of the rumor, but

01:18:13 ◼   ► and I know the whole thing is oh, the point is it's screenless.

01:18:16 ◼   ► A tiny circular screen on essentially screenless device that is not an Apple Watch

01:18:21 ◼   ► and does not run Watch OS apps and blah blah blah.

01:18:23 ◼   ► But a tiny circular screen, like you see this on a lot of devices

01:18:26 ◼   ► these days.

01:18:26 ◼   ► I was just reading a rumor today of like the the next Xbox uh

01:18:30 ◼   ► elite controller having a tiny little screen on it, and we've already talked about

01:18:33 ◼   ► screens coming up and everything.

01:18:34 ◼   ► Don't think of it as a screen that's going to display software that you're

01:18:37 ◼   ► running.

01:18:37 ◼   ► Think of it as just a more configurable part of a dedicated hardware device.

01:18:41 ◼   ► I can even see that working.

01:18:43 ◼   ► A very tiny and fine, maybe put a tiny little clock on it if

01:18:46 ◼   ► you want.

01:18:46 ◼   ► But like, it's not an Apple Watch, it doesn't run Watch OS, it doesn't

01:18:49 ◼   ► run watch apps, it is a screenless device with a tiny screen.

01:18:53 ◼   ► I think that would be a great idea.

01:18:55 ◼   ► But yeah, that's that one makes perfect sense to me, and I really hope

01:18:58 ◼   ► they do it.

01:18:58 ◼   ► Everything else in this rumor, I just throw up my hands and say, how

01:19:02 ◼   ► many years have we heard about Apple Watch overhauls?

01:19:05 ◼   ► I agree that it's needed, but they just seem unable to do it.

01:19:09 ◼   ► I th so, first of all, there has been a lot of you know

01:19:12 ◼   ► executive change over the last year or two.

01:19:16 ◼   ► So I think hopefully they can actually do it this time.

01:19:19 ◼   ► But I also think this is very exciting to me.

01:19:22 ◼   ► When the Apple Watch was, you know, first designed and conceived and released, they

01:19:29 ◼   ► didn't know what it was for.

01:19:31 ◼   ► They didn't know what would hit, what wouldn't.

01:19:33 ◼   ► They had a bunch of weird directions that they tried to go at first,

01:19:36 ◼   ► and some of them hit and most of them didn't.

01:19:39 ◼   ► And now we have really just continuing evolutions of that same original Apple Watch

01:19:45 ◼   ► concept.

01:19:46 ◼   ► The concept has not changed since then.

01:19:48 ◼   ► But the entire market around it has grown up, evolved, shifted.

01:19:53 ◼   ► When I look around now, like I was in the city last night, I

01:19:57 ◼   ► was looking around at just people I see on the subway and people I

01:20:00 ◼   ► see walking around outside.

01:20:02 ◼   ► And I look, I'm like, how many Apple Watches do I see?

01:20:05 ◼   ► It seems maybe this is just anecdotal, but it seems like not only is

01:20:09 ◼   ► it seemingly going down over time, but especially when I look at how many

01:20:14 ◼   ► young people have Apple Watches on.

01:20:17 ◼   ► It's almost none.

01:20:19 ◼   ► Young people don't seem to be wearing smartwatches at all.

01:20:22 ◼   ► The most common watch I see on young people, it which they don't seem

01:20:28 ◼   ► to be wearing that many watches in general, but the ones I see almost

01:20:30 ◼   ► always are vintage themed Casio watches that cost $25.

01:20:35 ◼   ► Those are like super in right, like they're super in fashion with all the

01:20:39 ◼   ► like young men right now.

01:20:40 ◼   ► They're all wearing the exact same $25 Casio.

01:20:43 ◼   ► I'll link to it in the show notes.

01:20:44 ◼   ► You can it's it's very popular.

01:20:45 ◼   ► It's a perfectly fine watch.

01:20:47 ◼   ► Um that's what everyone's wearing.

01:20:49 ◼   ► That's what's in right now is you know.

01:20:51 ◼   ► Are the calculator watch gonna come back?

01:20:53 ◼   ► Who knows?

01:20:53 ◼   ► At this point, uh you know, the mullet came back, so I at this

01:20:56 ◼   ► point everything's on the table.

01:20:57 ◼   ► They're up to the kids are up to CDs as we discussed before, like

01:21:00 ◼   ► the retro thing.

01:21:01 ◼   ► Calculator watch has got to be coming in our future sometime.

01:21:03 ◼   ► You can cheat on your math test with it, kids.

01:21:05 ◼   ► Right.

01:21:05 ◼   ► But right now, so they're all wearing like 70s and 80s digital watches.

01:21:09 ◼   ► But how do you get people to wear the Apple Watch?

01:21:12 ◼   ► Now, I think Apple has been shipping this basically the same thing for so

01:21:17 ◼   ► long now that I think it's passe.

01:21:19 ◼   ► I I think it is I think it needs a significant overhaul to be

01:21:25 ◼   ► remotely cool or fashionable again.

01:21:27 ◼   ► How many years has it been by the way?

01:21:29 ◼   ► Is it 2011?

01:21:30 ◼   ► No, 2014, I think.

01:21:33 ◼   ► I'm not 100% sure, but I think so.

01:21:34 ◼   ► So over a decade.

01:21:36 ◼   ► Over a decade with essentially the same design.

01:21:38 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:21:38 ◼   ► And you know, because I yes, they have evolved the design a little bit.

01:21:41 ◼   ► It it's certainly improved, but if you look at an Apple Watch from a

01:21:45 ◼   ► distance today, most non-super Apple nerds wouldn't be able to tell if you were

01:21:50 ◼   ► wearing an Apple Watch Series Zero from 2014 or whatever, or the newest one

01:21:55 ◼   ► that's series 11, 12 from you know last fall.

01:21:58 ◼   ► They look basically the same.

01:22:00 ◼   ► Again, it's much better.

01:22:01 ◼   ► You know, we have the always on screen, we have cellular, like we have

01:22:03 ◼   ► all these different things now that that weren't in that very first version.

01:22:06 ◼   ► But if it if it worked for you then, it still works for you

01:22:09 ◼   ► now.

01:22:10 ◼   ► If it didn't work for you then, it probably still doesn't work for you

01:22:12 ◼   ► now.

01:22:12 ◼   ► And it just looks old.

01:22:14 ◼   ► And the ultra is the first time they diverge from that.

01:22:16 ◼   ► And I do think the ultra does look distinctive and with a purpose, but

01:22:19 ◼   ► that is a narrow section of the Apple Watch uh product space.

01:22:22 ◼   ► Yeah, and the and I think one of the biggest reasons the Ultra succeeded

01:22:26 ◼   ► was just because it was a fresh new look for the Apple Watch.

01:22:29 ◼   ► That it it finally was something else, some other style.

01:22:29 ◼   ► Now it also did cover a few more markets and things like that.

01:22:36 ◼   ► The ultra was a great watch, but ultimately what what I mostly see when

01:22:40 ◼   ► people wearing the ultra, most of them are not on the side of mountains,

01:22:42 ◼   ► they're just wearing it because it was it looked cool and it was different.

01:22:45 ◼   ► And and that's fine.

01:22:46 ◼   ► That that's what wearables and fashionable, fashion relevant devices need.

01:22:51 ◼   ► They need to change over time to stay relevant.

01:22:53 ◼   ► Meanwhile, so all that's been happening, like you know, that they've been shipping basically

01:22:57 ◼   ► the same watch for whatever 12 years.

01:22:59 ◼   ► Also, the entire market of like fitness bands and Fitbits and now there's rings

01:23:07 ◼   ► and there's all these different things, these are all growing like crazy, and people

01:23:11 ◼   ► like them a lot.

01:23:12 ◼   ► They're not maybe as popular as the Apple Watch, but they're getting somewhere.

01:23:16 ◼   ► And for a lot of people, like if you if you don't want to

01:23:21 ◼   ► wear a watch, maybe you'll wear a ring, maybe you'll wear a whoop band

01:23:25 ◼   ► around your bicep or your ankle or something.

01:23:27 ◼   ► Like people like these.

01:23:29 ◼   ► They're they sell.

01:23:30 ◼   ► And also, Apple has not really ever served the very low price market well

01:23:36 ◼   ► with the Apple Watch.

01:23:37 ◼   ► Part of this rumor is they're considering more affordable concepts besides the current SE

01:23:42 ◼   ► model.

01:23:42 ◼   ► Neo that watch.

01:23:44 ◼   ► Yeah.

01:23:44 ◼   ► And and what would a watch Neo be?

01:23:46 ◼   ► Probably not a full blown watch OS computer as we know it today, because

01:23:51 ◼   ► that's kind of what the SE already is, is like what's the cheapest one

01:23:53 ◼   ► of those we can make?

01:23:54 ◼   ► It would probably have to be competing with things like Fitbit bands that are

01:23:58 ◼   ► like a hundred or eighty bucks.

01:23:59 ◼   ► Like that's that's that market.

01:24:00 ◼   ► In the same way, like when, you know, in the iPod era, they had

01:24:03 ◼   ► to eventually make the shuffle just to compete with more of that lower priced

01:24:07 ◼   ► end.

01:24:07 ◼   ► And they had to cut off a bunch of features and things like that,

01:24:09 ◼   ► but they got there and it was a hit.

01:24:12 ◼   ► It worked.

01:24:13 ◼   ► I think we need that for the Apple Watch.

01:24:16 ◼   ► And I think they did, they wouldn't have originally conceived it that way because

01:24:14 ◼   ► they saw the Apple Watch as make a tiny phone.

01:24:22 ◼   ► Like software-wise, hardware-wise, kind of architecturally conceptually, navigationally, it's a tiny phone.

01:24:28 ◼   ► And I think what we've learned over the years is that very few native

01:24:33 ◼   ► apps make sense and are good on the watch.

01:24:36 ◼   ► Most people who use the Apple Watch probably use no third-party apps and very

01:24:41 ◼   ► few Apple apps.

01:24:42 ◼   ► Most people use the watch for notifications and fitness tracking.

01:24:46 ◼   ► And that's about it.

01:24:48 ◼   ► There's like, yeah, you know, I have a f I have some people who

01:24:50 ◼   ► use Overcast on the watch.

01:24:51 ◼   ► Not a lot of them.

01:24:52 ◼   ► It's I can tell you, like, and I have with Overcast, I have analytics

01:24:56 ◼   ► of how many people have a watch paired.

01:25:00 ◼   ► Because you can tell that from watch the watch connectivity framework.

01:25:03 ◼   ► So it's I so I actually log in my analytics.

01:25:05 ◼   ► How many people have a watch paired to their phone at all?

01:25:08 ◼   ► How many of those have the overcast app installed on the watch?

01:25:13 ◼   ► And then how many of those actually use the app?

01:25:16 ◼   ► And every one of those is a pretty big step down when as you

01:25:20 ◼   ► go down that list.

01:25:21 ◼   ► Most people who have a watch paired who have overcast on their phone don't

01:25:26 ◼   ► even put the app on their watch.

01:25:28 ◼   ► And the ones who do put the app on their watch almost never use

01:25:31 ◼   ► it.

01:25:31 ◼   ► And then the ones who do put it on their watch and use it

01:25:35 ◼   ► almost never download files to the Apple Watch for local playback, like when I

01:25:39 ◼   ► run around or something.

01:25:40 ◼   ► Like most people who use the Apple Watch are using it for notifications and

01:25:44 ◼   ► the built-in fitness tracking.

01:25:47 ◼   ► So I think there is a huge market for Apple to make something like

01:25:53 ◼   ► the Apple Watch that serves those needs.

01:25:55 ◼   ► Notifications and fitness tracking, and maybe not even notifications, depending, you know, serves those

01:25:59 ◼   ► needs without being a full-blown app platform, a full-blown watch OS computer.

01:26:05 ◼   ► Like, I think a lot of people would buy things like that, and they

01:26:08 ◼   ► can be lower end.

01:26:09 ◼   ► They can be mechanically and computationally simpler.

01:26:13 ◼   ► They don't need to be these whole computers.

01:26:15 ◼   ► They can be smaller.

01:26:16 ◼   ► Maybe they can make something like the like the Aura Ring.

01:26:19 ◼   ► Like the Aura Rings is like I I'm I'm shocked the Aura Ring exists,

01:26:23 ◼   ► but it actually is pretty good.

01:26:25 ◼   ► And the whoop band, like people love their whoop bands.

01:26:29 ◼   ► Part of that is the physical thing, part of it is their whole app

01:26:31 ◼   ► and software ecosystem.

01:26:32 ◼   ► But there's this whole world out there of all these different devices that have

01:26:35 ◼   ► seen huge success.

01:26:37 ◼   ► And Apple currently, with their current watch strategy, can't even compete in that world

01:26:42 ◼   ► because their current watch strategy requires all of their wearables to be, you know,

01:26:46 ◼   ► basically full-blown computer watches.

01:26:49 ◼   ► And you can see kind of like they tried to kind of attack the

01:26:51 ◼   ► hot that the kind of upper end of the body, so to speak, with

01:26:55 ◼   ► the AirPods with their heart sensors, and like there aren't there some beats uh

01:26:58 ◼   ► things that also have heart sensors in the in the headphones.

01:27:01 ◼   ► I believe so.

01:27:01 ◼   ► I don't but those don't work that well, and not a lot of people

01:27:04 ◼   ► use or want that or are constantly wearing earbuds anyway.

01:27:07 ◼   ► So I think getting their watch strategy away from the idea that everything has

01:27:12 ◼   ► to be a computer with an app store on it and focus on the

01:27:16 ◼   ► things people actually want and and make a broader product line, I think that's

01:27:21 ◼   ► very wise, just as it worked with the iPod line.

01:27:23 ◼   ► You know, not every iPod could play video, not every iPod could, you know,

01:27:28 ◼   ► had like you know, all the different media functions and everything, but they all

01:27:32 ◼   ► kind of serve like okay, music players, but much more broadly.

01:27:36 ◼   ► Here we're gonna we're gonna satisfy all these different needs of all these different

01:27:38 ◼   ► models at all these different price points and physical sizes.

01:27:41 ◼   ► The watch is a perfect place to do that.

01:27:43 ◼   ► Yeah, I do wonder if they'll go as far as to the shuffle end

01:27:44 ◼   ► of things.

01:27:46 ◼   ► I think they should, but I wonder if there are like because the thing

01:27:49 ◼   ► things you can do with screenless stuff that are health related, surely they will

01:27:54 ◼   ► not go below the level of like whatever they sell, it will have fault

01:27:57 ◼   ► detection.

01:27:57 ◼   ► Because that's the thing you can do, it doesn't require a screen, doesn't require

01:28:00 ◼   ► complicated centers, just basically accelerometers.

01:28:02 ◼   ► Fall detection is important.

01:28:04 ◼   ► Uh a lot of older people who are at risk for falls don't want

01:28:07 ◼   ► to wear a computer watch, but maybe you can get them to wear something

01:28:10 ◼   ► that just looks like a nice wristband that does that, blah blah blah.

01:28:12 ◼   ► But then you go to okay, what about uh pulse detection, blood oxygen, all

01:28:17 ◼   ► those really expensive sensors that are the bottom of the watch to take up

01:28:19 ◼   ► a bunch of room.

01:28:20 ◼   ► Will Apple be able to resist putting them on a screenless device?

01:28:24 ◼   ► And I hope they do because just with fall detection and like maybe some,

01:28:29 ◼   ► you know, like whatever the simple sort of uh pulse heart rate things you

01:28:33 ◼   ► can do without trying to get their blood oxygenation by shining light through their

01:28:37 ◼   ► blood vessels and stuff, like just back it off because prices like like the

01:28:41 ◼   ► Neo price is really important.

01:28:42 ◼   ► The real most important aspect of this thing.

01:28:44 ◼   ► So go all the way shuffle.

01:28:46 ◼   ► The thing about the shuffles is they were dirt cheap, like from Apple, they

01:28:49 ◼   ► were dirt cheap.

01:28:49 ◼   ► This they had nothing in them, they were just this tiny, especially as time

01:28:52 ◼   ► went on.

01:28:53 ◼   ► Like the shuffle, I mean, like the white shuffle was like mostly air, and

01:28:56 ◼   ► they eventually got it down to like the trident stick of gum with no

01:28:58 ◼   ► buttons, which was too far, but boy, was that cheap, right?

01:29:01 ◼   ► Apple can go that far down.

01:29:03 ◼   ► Um, and by the way, there are rumors about Apple investigating rings.

01:29:06 ◼   ► It's not part of this rumor thing, but there have been various reports about

01:29:08 ◼   ► Apple investigating rings, and I kind of understand why Apple's a little bit wary

01:29:12 ◼   ► of that, because rings on fingers have a lot of uh issues uh in

01:29:17 ◼   ► terms of fit and uh dangerous situations that maybe they don't want to get

01:29:21 ◼   ► into at this point, and then maybe they feel like they have they've got

01:29:24 ◼   ► the wrist and they should continue to concentrate on the wrist.

01:29:26 ◼   ► And I kind of agree with them because as you were saying, Marco, they

01:29:28 ◼   ► haven't even fully exploited the wrist, like they've just done the one thing, which

01:29:29 ◼   ► is a good thing, and they dominate the smartwatch market.

01:29:29 ◼   ► But things that go on your wrist is bigger than the smartwatch market.

01:29:37 ◼   ► It's you know, there are many things that can go on your wrist that

01:29:39 ◼   ► don't have to be a computer watch, and just just you know, there's a

01:29:43 ◼   ► room for at least two other products there.

01:29:44 ◼   ► And then, you know, again, what the story is about is what about the

01:29:48 ◼   ► actual Apple Watch?

01:29:49 ◼   ► Just a plain old Apple Watch, it's good, people like it, it dominates the

01:29:52 ◼   ► market.

01:29:52 ◼   ► They're finally going to make it faster for the first time in years, which

01:29:55 ◼   ► is great.

01:29:55 ◼   ► We'll get a new SOC, maybe it'll be lower power, maybe the battery like

01:29:59 ◼   ► that.

01:29:59 ◼   ► Product category is not exhausted.

01:30:01 ◼   ► The watch battery still doesn't last long enough.

01:30:04 ◼   ► All right, the watches are still too big, too bulky, and too heavy, right?

01:30:08 ◼   ► In the grand scheme of things, there's a lot of room for improvement there.

01:30:11 ◼   ► If you could make a watch and a plain old Apple computer watch that

01:30:14 ◼   ► lasts twice as long and weighed half as much and was twice as thin,

01:30:19 ◼   ► people would go gaga.

01:30:20 ◼   ► So keep pursuing that, right?

01:30:21 ◼   ► Just the years of sort of stasis of just being like, well, it's about

01:30:25 ◼   ► the same size.

01:30:26 ◼   ► You know, they they've really been iterating on the screen.

01:30:28 ◼   ► It's about the same size, about the same weight.

01:30:29 ◼   ► We change the materials, we change the bands, but it's not getting super duper

01:30:33 ◼   ► thinner.

01:30:34 ◼   ► So it fluctuates in thickness, and mainly where we're what we're doing is we're

01:30:38 ◼   ► making the screen better and better and better and better, edge to edge on

01:30:40 ◼   ► all the time, better colors, brighter, brighter.

01:30:42 ◼   ► That was all great and everything.

01:30:44 ◼   ► Let's iterate on some other aspect.

01:30:46 ◼   ► And obviously, yes, also after a decade, after more than a decade, it's time

01:30:50 ◼   ► for a new physical design.

01:30:51 ◼   ► Not that the current design is bad, but a decade is a long time

01:30:54 ◼   ► in a fashion conscious segment, and you there's only so far you can coast

01:30:57 ◼   ► on the bands because that's really where Apple is concentrated with like, oh, it's

01:31:00 ◼   ► a fashion product.

01:31:01 ◼   ► You can't sell the same thing every year.

01:31:02 ◼   ► Well, we don't.