6: Live Like Other People
22 Mar 2013Buying a TV, regular people and high-DPI screens, the amazing Mac lineup that we barely care about, revisiting the Microsoft Store, and why Garageband’s support of Audiobus is so interesting.
Episode Description:
- How Marco buys a TV (unlike how John does).
- Regular people noticing and caring about high-DPI screens.
- The amazing Mac lineup that few care about.
- Which Mac would we tell people to buy?
- Marco revisits the Microsoft Store.
- The Surface Pro's uniqueness.
- Why GarageBand's adoption of Audiobus is so interesting.
- How exposed filesystems and iCloud's document model both fail users.
Sponsored by Squarespace: Use code ATP3 at checkout for 10% off.
Transcript start
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Let’s get going. Oh, we are going. Oh my God. That was so good. I’m keeping that in. Oh
⏹️ ▶️ Marco man. So I went to the mall today and I had to pick
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up a new Apple TV and a replacement remote. First of all, I do want to talk a little bit about my TV.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So we’ve had this back den slash family room
⏹️ ▶️ Marco slash playroom in our house since we bought the house and we haven’t had any furniture
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in it because we just haven’t had any need for it yet. a living room I have an office like that we have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco separate rooms for these things so this room we just we always said oh it’ll be like the kids playroom
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so we just started using this room finally now that we have the kid and so we got a couch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for it that was delivered this morning and and I got a TV for it and a second
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple TV to plug into that TV and I thought it was interesting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how you know and John of course you’re famous for your your researched television purchase
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I thought it was interesting how for this TV I literally the only research I did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was I searched Amazon for TVs and roughly this size range on my iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mini in bed one night and just ordered it
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s how the rest of the world lives Marco I fantasize about purchasing
⏹️ ▶️ John something that way but I can never actually pull the trigger
⏹️ ▶️ John well but it It would just take five more minutes, just 10 more minutes. OK, Boker, maybe just one more hour. OK, maybe three
⏹️ ▶️ John more hours. And just think, that three hours you invest now, you’re going to have this thing for years. Isn’t it foolish
⏹️ ▶️ John to just live like other people and just search for TV and find one that looks nice and click
⏹️ ▶️ John a buy? But that’s what people do.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So the reason you keep cars for seven eternities is because it takes you seven eternities to research
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m continuing. I mean, like I’m reading car magazines, at least one car magazine a month. I’m continually researching
⏹️ ▶️ John what the next car is going to be. I am always ready at a moment’s notice to
⏹️ ▶️ John sift through the existing field and say, these are the potential cars I would get. I’m even
⏹️ ▶️ John making those things of like, hmm, well, do I want the S8, or should I wait for the
⏹️ ▶️ John new S-Class? None of these cars I can afford. But
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I’m already,
⏹️ ▶️ John in case, just in case, I’m ready to go on that front.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Goodness gracious. And usually, I’m like that too, which is why I was kind of amused by my own
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lack of interest in doing that for this purchase. The main reason why, I think, in my case, this time,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was there weren’t that many choices that I actually wanted. So I wasn’t going to go to a store.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t care. Because it’s a secondary room in the house.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Selfishly, I’m not going to often be watching it. Usually either the baby’s watching it with Sesame
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Street, or my wife is watching it while hanging out with the baby. And so it is very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rare that I will be there watching it. of all, I know that, and it had to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco be smaller, the biggest we could get that would fit the spot it went in was 37 inches. I know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, by old standards that’s pretty big, but by today’s standards that’s pretty small. So, or at least medium.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it wasn’t, I’m not like buying a high-end item because, John, as you told me, it’s pretty hard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to find small high-end TV models. Yeah, all small TVs are terrible. Right.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s sad. The other thing was I didn’t really want to buy a Samsung because I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just find Samsung so distasteful as a company overall
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I’d rather not support them if I can avoid it. I mean, sure, if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they had the only good option I would have probably sucked it up and bought it. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco anyway, I went and the TV we have for our main TV, which I bought about seven
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years ago now, is a nice 42-inch Panasonic Plasma. I’m very happy with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it. It’s a great TV. 1080p, really, really nice
⏹️ ▶️ Marco color and brightness and contrast. Dark levels are awesome. It’s the plasma. I mean, it’s a fantastic TV.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ve always been very pleased with it. I basically looked on Amazon. All right, show me TVs that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are this size, roughly. Of course, that rules out all plasmas, which is unfortunate because I do like plasma
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as a technology. It just looks so good in dark detail. Okay,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can’t get a plasma that’s 37 inches. So and roulette Samsung, okay,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and roulette things that won’t ship via Amazon Prime because I don’t feel like paying some massive shipping charge for somebody
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to send me a TV, okay. And that left only like four models. And one of them was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a Panasonic. And the Panasonic was the only one that was 1080p.
⏹️ ▶️ John Amazon has terrible television selection, by the way, but I’m not surprised that you narrowed it down to very few models because
⏹️ ▶️ John they do not, they simply like they carry every possible brand of like, you know, I don’t know,
⏹️ ▶️ John pen or paper towels or whatever, but like TVs, they do not, your best buy has
⏹️ ▶️ John more selection in terms of models, which surprises me all the time. Like, how can Amazon not have this? But
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever weird math they use to figure out what they carry, it seems to exclude a lot of models of TV.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You would think it would be the opposite because it’s Amazon, you know, they don’t have a bunch of stores everywhere. Right.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know what it is.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so it was easy. It was, you know, I could choose between some like weird discontinued Sony model or some Samsung
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing or some like, you know, Kobe piece of crap or a Panasonic,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which I already like that looks very similar to my current one that had good, good customer ratings on Amazon
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and was the only one that was 1080 P. I mean, it was a no brainer. So I was, and it was like 550 bucks,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which I think is pretty cheap for, for a good TV of that size. Um, so I was like, Hey, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco done. The measurements fit perfectly done and arrived today and it’s awesome. Like I’m, I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really happy with it and I can’t believe how little research I had to do to get a satisfactory purchase
⏹️ ▶️ John I guess that’s why people buy without research, because ignorance is bliss. And if you don’t do the research, you don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know what it is you’re missing, and you just get what you want. I agonized over my small TV purchase
⏹️ ▶️ John because I had exactly the same problem. I quickly discovered that all the small TVs are terrible because there’s no
⏹️ ▶️ John market for high-end small TVs. There’s more of a market for high-end
⏹️ ▶️ John hatchbacks than there is for small TVs. And so I had to go through all of the models that all
⏹️ ▶️ John had some terrible, fatal flaw that would prevent me from ever wanting to figure out which is the least
⏹️ ▶️ John terrible one. In the end, the one I chose, I chose
⏹️ ▶️ John because it was on sale for like $200 off what you could find at
⏹️ ▶️ John a Best Buy type price. And it was on Amazon, and it was prime shippable. And I said, OK,
⏹️ ▶️ John these all have something about them that makes me not able to buy them, but this one has such a steep discount
⏹️ ▶️ John today, I have to get it. So that’s what I ended up with. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I still look at it and I still am sad, but I’m like, well, I did save a lot of money. Mine was around $500 too, but
⏹️ ▶️ John it was a nicer television probably than Marco got. Are you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have is pretty nice.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, I mean, maybe not now because I bought mine years ago. So technology marches on. But at the time, it was
⏹️ ▶️ John also the highest rated of all the ones I was looking at. I wish there was a site like DP review for televisions,
⏹️ ▶️ John but as far as I can tell, there is not. There is AVS forums, which is kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of like DP review, but exploded into a million pieces. So you have to troll through the forums to figure out what people say. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I just want a comprehensive, in-depth, technical review of things, the way DP review does cameras. Image
⏹️ ▶️ John comparisons with comparable models, like the whole nine yards, right? And I could balance that with other
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff. But the only thing I found, this is what you should have done to, well, this would have just led you to disappointment.
⏹️ ▶️ John But the way my parents wanted to get a television, I just told them to go to CNET’s television reviews because they have a nice web interface.
⏹️ ▶️ John They review most televisions. They do a reasonable job. And you can just go, show me the best TVs
⏹️ ▶️ John for under $500, under this size, with this technology. And it will just show
⏹️ ▶️ John you with the star ratings. And you get a short list of models. And then you go to Amazon and see that
⏹️ ▶️ John Amazon carries none of those models, and you’ll be sad. But that’s a good starting point
⏹️ ▶️ John of like, it’s kind of like the wire cut over TVs, but a little bit more comprehensive, because they’ll tell me, okay, I want a big TV,
⏹️ ▶️ John I want a small TV, I want LCD, I want plasma, I want LED backlight, I don’t care about the backlight. By the
⏹️ ▶️ John way, what is the backlight on yours, do you know, Marco?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, they’re all LED now, but yeah, that used to be a big distinguishing
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco And it drives me crazy when
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people call them LED TVs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Yeah, I know. Because that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John so misleading. The magic of marketing. Is yours Edge-let?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, I don’t even know that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I mean, don’t research it, just be happy with
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco your television.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John look into it. I like it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco honestly. I think it’s great. I mean, I’ve used it for an hour earlier today.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s the thing about television technology. Even though all these technologies have some horrible flaw about them,
⏹️ ▶️ John including plasma, progress does march on. I think people have been talking about the latest
⏹️ ▶️ John crop of Panasonic plasmas. Panasonic is once again making noises about getting out of the plasma business.
⏹️ ▶️ John But they’re like, OK, well, if you buy the sort of middle of the road Panasonic plasma that everybody buys,
⏹️ ▶️ John it has better picture than their super duper top of the line from the last generation. Oops. And so
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s depressing if you have a television like me. I bought the top of the line five
⏹️ ▶️ John years ago, and now their bargain basement TV probably looks better. But it’s heartening in that,
⏹️ ▶️ John oh, well, I can. It’s finally getting to the point where if you go out and buy a Panasonic Plasma
⏹️ ▶️ John today from their current crop of models, you’re probably getting a better television than I have for a lot less money. And that’s kind of the way
⏹️ ▶️ John technology is supposed to work.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think one reason why I was willing to almost impulse buy a TV
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is because they’re all so good now. I mean, yeah, within—you can,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and especially you, but you, the general population, can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco find differences and identify them and nitpick them, but in reality, whatever TV
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you buy, chances are you’ll be fine with it until it breaks, which is probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at least five years. I said on Twitter, 10 years, I know I got tons of responses
⏹️ ▶️ Marco saying that these components do not last that long, and I might expect more like five to seven. Okay, fine.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But, you know, five to seven years, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco TV’s gonna work. Like, for me, a TV is a monitor for an Apple TV and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an occasional game system. Like, I’m not asking that much from it. And so,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I knew that whatever I bought, you know, unless it had some weird thing, like it made a weird noise,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or the speakers fell out. Barring some kind of catastrophic flaw,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco almost anything would work just fine for my purposes here.
⏹️ ▶️ John I still think the distinction between LCD and plasma is significant enough that,
⏹️ ▶️ John especially if you’re into watching movies, with all the motion compensation stuff, you either leave
⏹️ ▶️ John that on and everything looks weird, or you turn it off and everything looks weird in a slightly different way. And
⏹️ ▶️ John like it used to be, I don’t know if this is still the case because I haven’t researched buying a new TV recently, but
⏹️ ▶️ John it used to be that it was difficult to find. Even among the plasmas, you had to be careful to make sure that
⏹️ ▶️ John you got one that could do like true 24 frames per second cadence from a Blu Ray player.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like there’s some standards of saying like, oh, put the TV into a movie. 24 is not a nice multiple of like 60 or 30
⏹️ ▶️ John or anything like that. And there are various Blu-ray players and TVs conspire to give you
⏹️ ▶️ John the most accurate film-like representation of movies that were shot at 24 frames per second
⏹️ ▶️ John without any weird interpolation, without any image processing delays and stuff like that. And plasmas
⏹️ ▶️ John are still the way to go for that, because the LCDs necessarily have to do some amount of that
⏹️ ▶️ John weird processing stuff, and the input lag for games and stuff like that. But for
⏹️ ▶️ John watching television shows, it’s fine. I mean, our upstairs bedroom TV is an LCD, and
⏹️ ▶️ John we watch TV shows on it, and the kids watch movies on it, and it’s not a big deal.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I will say also, I mean, I haven’t watched it at night yet, so I’ll see how good the dark
⏹️ ▶️ Marco detail is, which is one area where plasmas have always really been better than LCDs. But I will say,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just looking at the TV in regular daytime usage, you could have told me it was a plasma,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I would have believed it. It really does look that good. LCD has come a long way. And your
⏹️ ▶️ Marco eyesight may also be going But no, I mean like it really I mean and granted I guess
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m comparing this to what I’m most familiar with which is a seven-year-old plasma, but my seven-year-old plasma is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco still pretty good by most standards today and You know, so it’s not like totally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s not like one of the first generation ones that like is all
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah just turn turn on all the lights in the room bring up the beginning of movie that has a completely black screen with like the director’s
⏹️ ▶️ John name and white text in the middle and then and see what that looks like. Does it look like a giant glowing gray
⏹️ ▶️ John square with white light in the middle? Or does it look like a completely black square
⏹️ ▶️ John with white text with a giant halo around it? Or that’s where you’ll see the black levels,
⏹️ ▶️ John when all the lights go out in the room. How much light is actually emitted from your supposedly black
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know what’s funny is, ask me what kind of TV I have in our family room or living room or whatever you call it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Is it a watch TV, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I do watch TV. I have no idea what kind of TV it is. I think it’s a Toshiba. Really don’t know. It was a gift. Don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s funny. TVs are just one of those things. I don’t care enough. I really just don’t care enough. And,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and, and I’m not saying that you guys are wrong to care and I kind of wish I cared, but I just really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t care. And for the longest time we had a 32 inch TV, uh, above our fireplace, which
⏹️ ▶️ Casey everyone who comes here, it comes into our house that actually cares about this stuff says, Oh my God, how could you have the TV that high off the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey ground? You’re out of your mind. terrible blah blah blah don’t care why don’t you have a bigger TV
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t care and it’s just odd to me what you know some people care about and some people don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and and again I’m not faulting either of you in any capacity for caring
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I kind of wish I gave enough of a crap but I just don’t care
⏹️ ▶️ John people don’t care about uh retina screens either which is
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey that’s true depressing
⏹️ ▶️ John reality of having taking various family members shopping for ios devices I have to
⏹️ ▶️ John take great pains to to show them that there is actually a difference
⏹️ ▶️ John between retina and non-retina iPad screens. They cannot see it. They kinda see
⏹️ ▶️ John it when I show them, but it’s like… It’s the type of thing where if they can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John see it just by looking at the screens, what do you then do to show it? So I zoom in on text,
⏹️ ▶️ John or I try to say, do you see the jaggies around the curve of that thing? And like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John everything will be retina. Retina is better. They see that it’s better, but it’s not like, alright, but is it better
⏹️ ▶️ John enough? How much more does this one cost or whatever? I think that’s why
⏹️ ▶️ John Panasonic’s thinking of canning its plasma. This is because plasma has superior picture quality
⏹️ ▶️ John and other characteristics to LCDs, despite all the advances in LCDs. But is it better
⏹️ ▶️ John enough? And the other thing that kills me is not only is the image quality
⏹️ ▶️ John better, but they’ve been consistently cheaper as well, on the high end especially. Like if the super high
⏹️ ▶️ John end LCDs were more expensive for the same size as the plasma, but it’s just
⏹️ ▶️ John not better enough. And like plasma got like bad rep for, you know, heat and power, some
⏹️ ▶️ John of which is true and burn in also some of which is true. And it’s just like, Oh, you know, most people buy kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of the middle of the road, LCD televisions, and it’s just not enough people who care about image
⏹️ ▶️ John quality to get, I mean, pioneer got out of the business after the curro models, which were like the best looking televisions
⏹️ ▶️ John ever for years and years after they stopped making them. And some people say still had advantages over existing
⏹️ ▶️ John models. So I think it’s a little bit nostalgia. But yeah, like if you if you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John if your difference is not distinct enough to capture the hearts and minds of people, it’s very difficult to make a
⏹️ ▶️ John go of that business. So Panasonic’s like, yeah, we we are the current king of
⏹️ ▶️ John television image quality, except for like, I guess those crazy OLED things or whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ John but not enough people care about that difference. They just go and buy LCDs and we sell CDs
⏹️ ▶️ John too. and we’re just going to get out of this plasma thing because at a certain point it becomes untenable to be like the only person
⏹️ ▶️ John making plasma. Samsung makes plasma too, other people do as well. But I’ve been
⏹️ ▶️ John actually seriously considering buying whatever the very last high-end
⏹️ ▶️ John Panasonic plasma is, even though I did not plan to replace my television
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco any time soon. You just got it two years ago!
⏹️ ▶️ John It wasn’t two, it was a little bit longer than that. It was like, yeah, like I did, I planned to keep it for many many years
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s perfectly fine, But I’m like if I don’t get this now, I don’t want to be in like
⏹️ ▶️ John five years or seven years forced to buy An LCD television
⏹️ ▶️ John because I don’t think like OLEDs or you know any other technology will be superior at that point
⏹️ ▶️ John know it’s like letting the curl go like you could have bought a curl, but you didn’t and I’m pioneer Stop making
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stocking up on old keyboards Yeah, no, I have
⏹️ ▶️ John I have I’ve actually I was a big Apple extended keyboard to user and so I have
⏹️ ▶️ John a bunch of spares But then I switched, like when the RSI kicked in, I wanted a keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ John that took less effort to press the keys on, despite the fact that I love the Apple Extended 2 and I used it all
⏹️ ▶️ John the way up through college. So now I have a backlog of Apple Extended 2s and I guess I will just save them until I
⏹️ ▶️ John can sell them to Gruber for some tremendously high price. He’ll come begging
⏹️ ▶️ John one day, one day when he can’t find
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco any more. He’ll get them. Yeah, but he’s only buying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like one every 10 years.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well maybe he’ll just start, maybe they’ll start breaking at a higher rate. I’ve got some pretty good condition
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple extended 2’s up in the attic.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, that’s good to know. I’m glad you brought up the Retina thing just very quickly. My parents came down to visit
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this past weekend and my dad has a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and he was asking me a few questions about it and so I sat down in front of it and instantly I was ruined again.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have, I mentioned in the past I believe, but I have a 15-inch high-res anti-glare
⏹️ ▶️ Casey non-Retina MacBook Pro. I actually have two of them. And my eyes are actually terrible. I have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to wear hard contacts because my eyes are so bad. But I was in front of his Retina MacBook Pro for 30
⏹️ ▶️ Casey seconds before I was ruined. And I got up and I said, God, that screen’s so beautiful. My mom said, you know, I just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t see it. I don’t get it. I believe you, but I don’t get it. And so, John, you’re dead
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John that. It’s crazy. And I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ John if like, do you think that’s because like, all right, so our parents are older and your vision gets worse as you get older. Is that it?
⏹️ ▶️ John Is that just it though? Or is it something
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco else? I don’t think that’s it. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco think it’s a combination of attention to that kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco detail and also just caring about that particular type of
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, and I would like to do, you know, an A-B test where, like, there’s some sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of reward where, like, one of these is retina and one of these isn’t. Try to guess correctly. Not that you
⏹️ ▶️ John care whether it’s, you know, but literally just can you tell, right? And We can all tell,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, you know, blink tests, put them up on the screen for half a second.
⏹️ ▶️ John But maybe, like, you know, if that same half a second is insufficient for them, if they have three seconds, five seconds, 10
⏹️ ▶️ John seconds, a minute to stare at them, can they shove their nose up to them? Like, what does it take for you to see it?
⏹️ ▶️ John Because that’s separate from, oh, I see, it’s a little bit better, but it’s not worth it to me, versus I literally cannot
⏹️ ▶️ John tell the difference.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. Yeah. I think, so going back to the 13 inch Retina for a sec. So I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was in the Apple store today, getting the second Apple TV for this new television
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I had previously mentioned. And this was the first time I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco had seen in person the new 27 inch iMac and even the 13 inch Retina MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pro which is what, like five months old now or something? When?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey It’s around that much I think.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s been a while. and uh… you know i just i’ve been busy with you know family and baby in winter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff so i haven’t and i have really had any reason to go into an apple store and paying attention to what was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there uh… until now uh… i think a couple things about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the shock me one first of all the twenty seven inch iMac uh… the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen is awesome it is the first apple screen it is the first desktop apple screen
⏹️ ▶️ Marco i’ve seen in years that i would consider owning because it really is far less reflective
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than the previous generation of giant 27-inch pieces of glass they’ve shipped as cinema displays and iMacs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco before this. And they’re still shipping them as cinema displays. So they talked about this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new construction that they’ve had where they, it’s similar to the Retina MacBook Pro, this new construction where they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like gluing the glass or fusing it in a certain way, using like one fewer glass layer than before.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Something like that. There’s
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco air gap. There’s
⏹️ ▶️ John no air gap. There’s an extra basically, I don’t know, some scientific person will tell us, but like, you know, the extra barrier
⏹️ ▶️ John for refraction to take place of the angle the light changes and changes again so you get more internal reflection. So it’s a big difference.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So and like the previous generation of 15 inch MacBook Pros before the Retinas,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I always hated those glary reflective screens. They were miserable. I owned one for a month and returned it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then got the anti-glare because it had just become an option. But with the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Retina with that same kind of construction, I think it’s fine and the reflectivity of it has never really been an issue for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco me. So yeah, I can definitely confirm that the 27 inch iMac has such dramatically
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reduced reflectivity from the previous one and from the cinema displays that not only would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I buy one if I wanted an iMac, not only would I not hesitate at all about the reflectivity, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if Apple released a cinema display or, fingers crossed, a Retina display
⏹️ ▶️ Marco using that same construction, I would buy it in a heartbeat.
⏹️ ▶️ John I haven’t seen the new iMacs in person yet, but did you think that it had the same, oh Oh my God, the pixels
⏹️ ▶️ John are on the surface of the display look that the Retina MacBook Pros have?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, I didn’t really get that from it, but I was viewing it at a further distance because it’s such a bigger screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I’m not really sure that would matter as much at that distance, or at least be as noticeable. But I wasn’t looking for that,
⏹️ ▶️ John I feel like that is one of the most startling characteristics of the Retina MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John Pro screens, is not so much just the resolution, but that the color appears closer
⏹️ ▶️ John to the surface. Right. That, to me, is just as startling as the higher resolution.
⏹️ ▶️ John And fusing the glass, obviously, is going to literally make the color part closer to the surface. I’m just not sure if it,
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever, I mean, maybe the glass is just thinner on the laptops or whatever. But
⏹️ ▶️ John as they can approach that, I mean, it was kind of the same thing when they fused the glass on the iPhone 4 or whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco it was. Yeah, very similar.
⏹️ ▶️ John That brought it a little bit closer. But it’s still, like, the first Retina iPhone did not
⏹️ ▶️ John give me the startling impression that the first Retina MacBook Pro gave me of the color being on the surface of
⏹️ ▶️ John it. I was looking like some sort of mock-up that someone had made with
⏹️ ▶️ John layers of finely laid down paint on the surface of the screen, but it’s actual pixels.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, and so speaking of, so I also saw a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I’ve owned a 15-inch since last summer. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m not totally amazed easily by Retina stuff anymore because I have this awesome laptop,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but the 13-inch, I looked at it and thought, you know what, this is a fantastic computer. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I picked it up, it was light, it was small. I tried the higher resolution
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen modes because one of the problems with the 13-inch screen is that its base mode
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a doubled version of only 1280 by 800, which is a pretty terrible
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen resolution for space on the screen. You really don’t get much space with that. So I bumped it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up and it goes to a simulated 1440 and a simulated 1680. And I found both
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of them surprisingly usable. And the 1680, that’s pretty impressive. Because that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how I run the 15 most of the time.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know, I’m glad you brought that up because I did the same thing and I did it very briefly. And granted, this is based
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on a sum total of five minutes of use. But I thought to myself, geez, I wonder if the high res
⏹️ ▶️ Casey mode is livable. And again, my eyes are pretty terrible. I can see my high-res, non-retina
⏹️ ▶️ Casey MacBook Pro, my 15-inch high-res non-retina MacBook Pro pretty well, but if you get
⏹️ ▶️ Casey me more than, I don’t know, two, three feet away, things are getting blurry and I can’t read anything.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so I figured everything would be microscopic, but I had the exact same impression. And in fact, I would even go so far as to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey say that if I were to buy a computer tomorrow, after that five-minute experience,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what I would really consider doing is getting a 13-inch retina MacBook Pro and just leaving it cranked up 90% of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco certainly a very compelling option and and you know I I struck me as I was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there that here I was looking at these two models the 27 inch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iMac and a 13 retina MacBook Pro neither of which is particularly new at this point
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean the iMac is now three months old or four even when it came out December officially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco four months old the retina MacBook Pro 13 is like six months old.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, these things are not new at all and yet this was the first time I was seeing them and I was so blown away by how good both
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of them were. I really thought like, similar, you know, I’m more of a 15 inch guy but that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco unusual. Just like I’m more of a Mac Pro guy and most people like iMacs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And seeing these two computers, thinking that both of them are such awesome choices
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I think the 27 inch iMac is by By far the best
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all-in-one desktop I’ve ever seen in my life. Such a great choice. It’s so fast,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s so capable, it’s so good, especially with the Fusion Drive. It’s so good. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that screen is incredible. Everything’s great about it. The 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, very similar. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so good, it’s so fast, it’s small, it’s light. I would much rather have that than a 13-inch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco MacBook Air. And I love the 13-inch MacBook Air. And I’ve owned two of them.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, the air screens now are really looking yeah, not good. They were never good like the air screens
⏹️ ▶️ John never had good viewing angle They never had high contrast. I mean yeah, but what do you want? It’s a little skinny Mac over here But
⏹️ ▶️ John now they just look they’re just embarrassing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and and and the weight difference isn’t that big between the 13-inch models now Yeah, if you want an 11 sure then your only
⏹️ ▶️ Marco options the air and that’s a very different size But you know here. I was looking at these two awesome computers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very easily could you say that that the iMac is the best desktop ever made and the The 13-inch Retina
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is the best laptop I’ve ever made. Those are slightly arguable, but only
⏹️ ▶️ Marco slightly. These are two very awesome computers. And yet,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I never even went to see them, which to me, five years ago, would sound insane.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the press mostly glossed over them. They were news for about a day each,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then that was about it. And like here we are with these awesome amazing models of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Macs and we don’t care. We’re saying Apple isn’t innovating and what are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they, you know, what are they done for us lately? And we’re complaining about iPhones not being big enough
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or having a new enough skin on the interface and all this crap. And they’re making things that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even as recently as like three or four years ago, we would have cared so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much more about how great these new Mac models are. And now we barely care at all.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, yeah, we still care. But in the grand scheme of things, the press, the public,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco especially the tech press, which is just a disaster at this point with Apple, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re making such amazing things. It’s like the Louis C.K. Everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy, that
⏹️ ▶️ John On the MacBook Pros, people at work have… My work is finally buying Macs
⏹️ ▶️ John several years after I brought what I think is the first Mac into the company. So it’s one of the options for
⏹️ ▶️ John people to get. And some people are asking me for advice of which Macs they could buy. It’s mostly laptops, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John And it comes down to, should I get a MacBook Pro or an Air? And you would think that’s a no-brainer.
⏹️ ▶️ John But I’ve been hesitant to recommend the current generation MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John Pro Retina, because that’s what they’re all looking at. They’re not
⏹️ ▶️ John the standard res ones. Because of the two factors. One is that the
⏹️ ▶️ John GPU can barely handle that screen at the max res. And that will just take care of itself with the next
⏹️ ▶️ John CPU and chips that we all know, the integrated GPUs. So that
⏹️ ▶️ John makes me say, OK, that’s a first generation thing. You want to be the first guy on your block to have a thing? You get it, but it’s not a deal
⏹️ ▶️ John breaker. But it’s like you are at the ragged edge
⏹️ ▶️ John of what that GPU can handle, the integrated one. So that’s a reason to wait. And the second
⏹️ ▶️ John one is the guy who used to sit across from me got the 15-inch. And
⏹️ ▶️ John I saw firsthand the image retention issues that that screen had.
⏹️ ▶️ John And I also saw firsthand his frustration at, well, if you take it to the Apple Store, they put up the checkerboard pattern for 15 minutes. And
⏹️ ▶️ John if you don’t see retention, blah, blah, blah. But I saw it in daily use. You could see his mail window in the
⏹️ ▶️ John background when it was no longer there. And it would happen routinely and in a way that would make me
⏹️ ▶️ John tear my hair out. And so for those two reasons, we know that the GPU
⏹️ ▶️ John one is going to be solved next gen. So that’s a reason to wait. And I hope the next round, maybe they even solved
⏹️ ▶️ John it for the 13-inch. I don’t know. But I hope the next round of displays they get will not have this interpretation
⏹️ ▶️ John issue. Because Apple does have a policy on it. Like, they have their little checkerboard test. And if your thing fails,
⏹️ ▶️ John they’ll give you a new screen. But it’s not a manufacturing defect. It’s just the nature
⏹️ ▶️ John of this screen. And I think they’ve constructed a test that will replace the ones that exhibited the worst.
⏹️ ▶️ John But they’re all going to exhibit it to some degree.
⏹️ ▶️ John have you seen this, Marco, on your screen?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The interpretation? Back when everyone was discovering this, like last summer and fall,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I actually made my own little tester for it on a webpage anybody can go to, which I forget the URL.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco How helpful. And it’s the same thing. It shows checkerboard for like five minutes, then turns off
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and goes to gray or whatever, and you can see. And so when I run this test on it, I can see
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the artifact, the retention artifact, but I’ve never seen them in any kind of regular use.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John So I feel like I have a pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Marco minor case of it. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not worth it for me to go through the hassle of getting it repaired and going without
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it. Well, but the
⏹️ ▶️ John is, I don’t think you would end up with a better screen. In fact, you could possibly end up with a worse one. Because I don’t think it’s, like I said,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not a manufacturing defect. It’s just the way this particular crop of generation of screens is.
⏹️ ▶️ John And he had the worst where the checkerboard wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing seemed to be, I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know if it was just particular shades of gray or colors or particular windows that were on screen for a long time.
⏹️ ▶️ John Those would stick. And the checkerboards were just faintly visible. But you could clearly see the column
⏹️ ▶️ John view of some other window. Pure white and pure black may not
⏹️ ▶️ John be the thing that sets it off. I mean, you can see the checkerboard in this, too. But all of that makes
⏹️ ▶️ John me think, these are first generation models in so many respects.
⏹️ ▶️ John And if you could possibly wait, what I told everybody is, here are the pros and cons. That screen is going to look
⏹️ ▶️ John way better than the air screen. The air is going to be way lighter than that 15-inch thing that you’re considering.
⏹️ ▶️ John If you can possibly wait until the next round of pros, your decision might get
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco easier. The 15 is also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Yeah. And supports more RAM and… Right.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like, there are many advantages, but like, it’s a toss-up. Because I
⏹️ ▶️ John really do, my wife’s got the 13-inch air, I really do like the air, despite the terrible screen. I
⏹️ ▶️ John really do. All the advantages of it, like, it’s a dead heat between should I buy Retina or should
⏹️ ▶️ John I buy not. So I feel like, I rarely recommend, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John totally don’t buy the first generation, but in many cases it’s been true. If you had sworn
⏹️ ▶️ John somebody off the first generation tie book that was the right decision And I feel like warning people off
⏹️ ▶️ John the first generation at least the 15-inch I haven’t seen the 13, but the first generation 15-inch MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ John warning people off of that is the right call At this point I mean early adopters if they want they get
⏹️ ▶️ John it fine But like I feel like it’s too compromised whereas the iMac for I don’t think there’s
⏹️ ▶️ John any reason to be warned off of that I feel like it’s a it’s a next iteration of a mature tech that doesn’t have any
⏹️ ▶️ John of these drawbacks, except for that weird looking bulge in the back, and is all thumbs up. So
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m patiently waiting for the next round, because I’m sure the next round of MacBook Pros is going to be like, oh, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John the one to get. I just hope they solve the screen issue, because I’m particularly sensitive to visual screen
⏹️ ▶️ John issues. Like, I remember when I got my 22-inch Apple Cinema display, the one with the little clear feet on
⏹️ ▶️ John the side. Do you remember that one? Yep. Like, the first big one. Dead pixels were a big thing on that one. I was like,
⏹️ ▶️ John please, let me get a display that doesn’t have any dead pixels or at least let me not see the dead pixels.
⏹️ ▶️ John I hadn’t yet honed my ability to not look for them because that’s what you just I don’t want to see them just don’t tell me
⏹️ ▶️ John but I immediately saw my like two hot pixels and they were not within the range that
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple would replace it and that
⏹️ ▶️ John me sad because that monitor was really expensive.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That that would drive me crazy. I’ve been very lucky that I’ve never had a dead pixel in anything that I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco used actively so I’m very happy about that but that yeah because that That would drive me nuts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or a stuck pixel. It’s pure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But you know I think I disagree with you about about holding off on the current generation redness. I mean now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I Guess timing wise you know that these were released last June or the 15 was released
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in June That’s 13 was released. What like in October or something like that So you know now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re all we’re kind of mid cycle especially with the 15. It’s almost it’s almost a little late to be buying one now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and And I guess, is it the Haswell update this coming summer slash fall that’s probably going to be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s the next CPU. That’s probably gonna be when we see the next updates. So Haswell does
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from the tech News area, Haswell does sound like a pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major update and so it’s probably gonna be worth waiting for if you can but Besides
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just cycle timing reasons, I don’t think there are major reasons why I would recommend against
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the current generation retinas I agree with you that the GPU is really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really at its boundary and and That that can be occasionally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bad like especially if you run at the upscale resolutions if you’re on like on the 15 if you run at the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Simulated 1920 or the simulated 1680 you know you will see slow Slow
⏹️ ▶️ Marco scrolling on certain things and stuff you know you will see that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John you will know I
⏹️ ▶️ John feel like that’s inexcusable though like you’re buying Their top-of-the-line model it should scroll like butter
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco well Well at native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco resolution it is better. I mean at native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s great. It’s only when you do the upscale. So I understand, okay, that’s not ideal, but most
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people are going to run at native resolution anyway. You know, most buyers are not going to change it. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would not recommend against it solely for that. And so I don’t know. I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would still recommend the Air if you don’t care about the screen, which most people don’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because a year ago I was saying the 13-inch Air is the best computer ever made because it was at the time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And all these options are so good. I mean, they’re really… there used to be, even
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as recently as like three or four years ago, there used to be models in the lineup that you would say, oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you really, really shouldn’t buy that one. And now I feel like you can look at the lineup and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s very few of those. I would say the only ones that I would recommend people definitely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t buy would be the cheapo 13-inch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco old model, the 13-inch non-retina MacBook Pro, which from what I understand is very popular,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or at least was very popular before the retina one, but I think it still is.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, it has everything. It’s cheap, it has an optical drive, it has a firewire, it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has all the drives and ports, and it’s cheap, and it has spinning disk hard drives,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so that keeps it cheap also. It’s a way to get a bunch of stuff for really very little money.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it was like $1,200 to start, something like that. So it is very, very cheap. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s hard for a lot of people to justify the premiums or the compromises from the other models.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco However, that model has the worst screen I’ve ever seen in a laptop in the last five years.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the fact that they’re still shipping a 13-inch laptop with a 1280 by 800 screen,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which is roughly the same pixel area as the 11-inch MacBook Air. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a similar resolution, but not quite. Their 11-inch is wider and shorter, but similar.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s inexcusable to me. It’s just such a terrible resolution. Other
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than that, though, you can get pretty much any model and be fine.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Even if you get that one and you don’t care about the screen space, then you’re fine, too.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There aren’t really any models that have dramatically too little RAM stock or some major
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John lineup is pretty solid. I would
⏹️ ▶️ John say the 13-inch non-Retina CD-ROM thing, it’s a 5400 RPM spinning disk at this
⏹️ ▶️ John That model is just on the borderline of hurting Apple’s reputation. is the
⏹️ ▶️ John experience of using that and using even the cheapest air you can get is like night and day just because
⏹️ ▶️ John of the SSD. Anything with spinning disks, especially a slow, I’m assuming they’re all 5,400 RBM drives. Probably.
⏹️ ▶️ John That is not the experience that the rest of us are having with our Macs. And they
⏹️ ▶️ John feel like they’re left out of, that’s not what it’s like when we use our computers. You’re stuck with
⏹️ ▶️ John waiting a million years and seeing the beach ball and apps take a million years to launch and stuff. And maybe that’s acceptable to
⏹️ ▶️ John them, But it’s a shame. It doesn’t give people, because once you step up to that
⏹️ ▶️ John SSD experience, there’s no going back. And it really changes. If
⏹️ ▶️ John you were to go back, you’d say, what’s wrong with this computer? Why is that icon bouncing in the dock so much? Why
⏹️ ▶️ John is relaunching Safari and opening its five windows taking a year and a day? Oh, spinning disk. That’s why. They don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ John They just know it’s no good. So I really hope those things either get SSDs
⏹️ ▶️ John or leave the line ASAP.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But what would you recommend somebody buy if they want a reasonably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco priced Apple laptop where value is a priority for them and also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco storage space is a priority for them? Because that’s the problem with the SSDs is that there is no way to get
⏹️ ▶️ John I feel like the heirs have crossed that threshold. It was reinforced to me when I had a neighbor come over here
⏹️ ▶️ John and she had an old laptop. It was like one of the, what was it, the old white. Yeah, the
⏹️ ▶️ John the white Mac books. Yeah, the white Mac book And and she was looking to get a new one and I was telling
⏹️ ▶️ John her about the options and you can get an air and They have SSDs, but they’re smaller and they’re more expensive and blah blah blah blah blah
⏹️ ▶️ John blah blah And you know optical drive and the ports the whole nine yards and she’s like, oh, I don’t know You know,
⏹️ ▶️ John I check the size of all my stuff or whatever So I actually look at her machine and see how big her iPhoto library is
⏹️ ▶️ John and it was nine gigabytes Yeah, but that’s thing you can get this thing with a 256
⏹️ ▶️ John gigabyte SSD for not that much money In fact, is that what’s stock now?
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re fine. Like, I think we’ve crossed the threshold where the 13-inch Air is still
⏹️ ▶️ John my go-to Mac. And that’s another machine I warn people off. I say, don’t get the
⏹️ ▶️ John 13-inch non-retina. Get an Air. Your stuff will fit. You’ll be fine. And
⏹️ ▶️ John like, I mean, obviously, I tell them all the limits to how much stuff they actually have. I’ll check, but I’m always amazed at how little
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree. And it’s funny you bring up the SSD is worth a discussion because I remember, I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t know when it was, but Marco was one of the first people I knew that was going on
⏹️ ▶️ Casey humongous rants or happy rants and evangelizing SSDs. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey would look at these prices and think, oh my God, that can’t be worth it. It can’t be that much quicker. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so little space for so much money. I don’t want to do it. So I had and have a 15-inch
⏹️ ▶️ Casey high-res anti-glare MacBook Pro with a platter in it, and then work
⏹️ ▶️ Casey got me basically the exact same machine and then immediately put an SSD in it and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey put the platter in an external enclosure. And now that that’s happened,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I almost never use my personal machine with a platter drive because it’s unusable. It’s exactly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what you said, John. I can’t use it. It’s so slow. Nothing happens. If I’m using that computer,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really what I’m doing is waiting for the computer and occasionally getting something useful done
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the 10 seconds that the hard drive isn’t seeking for something else to do. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey unusable. So if there’s anyone listening that is as cheap as I am and doesn’t think an SSD is worth
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it, I can assure you you’re wrong and you should get one and it will change your world.
⏹️ ▶️ John People could be in my situation where I do have a lot of data, a lot of computer pack rat type things, you know, where
⏹️ ▶️ John you keep a lot of stuff, you have a lot of movies, a lot of photos, and it just doesn’t fit on an
⏹️ ▶️ John SSD. I mean, the first SSD I bought was 480 gigabytes. To tell you what my threshold was before
⏹️ ▶️ John SSDs became viable for me, because forget about 128, 256.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s pointless for me to get that. This is all before Fusion Drive. But at this point,
⏹️ ▶️ John for my next Mac, all my stuff won’t fit on an SSD. And even if Fusion Drive
⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t exist, I would still say, OK, for the next Mac, I’ve just got to go SSD and figure out how to do my own
⏹️ ▶️ John tiered storage thing. But with Fusion Drive, it’s a no-brainer. I mean, people don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John have a choice. The spending disks are going away. But we are past the point where even the most conservative
⏹️ ▶️ John person with the most data should have an SSD somewhere in the mix in whatever next
⏹️ ▶️ John machine they’re buying. We’ve cleared that hurdle. And for regular people, I think we
⏹️ ▶️ John cleared it much sooner than I had thought, because I guess I just didn’t realize how little data people have. Or maybe they delete stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ John Or maybe they, where else all the photos of your kids? I don’t know. Nine gigabyte seems small for me with my 100 plus gigabyte
⏹️ ▶️ John iPhoto library of my two kids over the course of eight years.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well keep in mind also, a lot of people aren’t shooting raw. They’re not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John shooting massive cameras. I’m not shooting
⏹️ ▶️ John raw. I don’t have a fancy camera. I’m shooting JPEGs from cruddy point and shoot cameras. I guess I just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You had 100 gigs of JPEGs? Yes. That’s impressive. That’s really impressive.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t delete enough pictures. I know. have problems.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco On that note, this episode is sponsored. Our first sponsor here on ATP,
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⏹️ ▶️ John I didn’t realize how awesome our sponsor coupon codes would be. It’s three letters. I
⏹️ ▶️ John always wonder that people are going to misspell or mistype neutral or something. ATP. It’s great.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco there. ATP3.
⏹️ ▶️ John We got a three-letter domain with a two-letter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco extension. That surprised me. I mean, FM is pretty wide open because it’s like 80 bucks a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco year to register one. So I’m not that surprised that it was available
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on FM, but still, it’s only three letters. I mean, that is pretty good.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even need a link shortener. If people still… I mean, link shorteners I think are like so 2010, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we don’t even need that anymore because we have ATP.fm. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s pretty great. So all right. I wanted to mention about my mall trip today before I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco move on. I also stopped down at the Microsoft store on the way out because, I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco come on, you have to.
⏹️ ▶️ John Because you love that place so much.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because I have to be fair and balanced.
⏹️ ▶️ John They know you there. Hey, there’s Marco. We read what you said about our store.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Fortunately, they didn’t recognize me. They did, however, remember how I had the picture of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Windows 8 letters on the floor and they had to have a guy stationed there to tell people not to step over them? They have fixed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that that problem now by putting up big floor to ceiling glass
⏹️ ▶️ Marco strips that attach at the floor level to those letters. And so now it’s like a big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sign. And that was probably always the plan. They just wasn’t done in time when I was there. So now they no longer have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to have an employee stationed there to tell people not to step over them. So that’s, hey, progress. That’s, you know, Windows Update.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And one thing I noticed immediately about the store, first of all, is that it was empty. But that said, I was there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on a Wednesday at like 1 o’clock in the afternoon, so I can’t really fault them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for that. That’s not really a high mall traffic time as far as I know.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But the mood in the store among the employees, because they were the only ones there, was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so low-key. You know, when I was there for the Surface RT launch,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which was also, I believe, the store’s grand opening or very close to it, the employees were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really energized and you could tell they had all been like jazzed up by some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco training exercise to be all high energy and and high pressure and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hey let me show you this cool thing the Surface RT can do you know all that stuff today there was none of that it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was like a funeral home in there there were like there were like eight employees standing around doing nothing I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t know why the staff is that big it probably shouldn’t be although Microsoft is really good at wasting money so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe maybe that’s just they haven’t figured out the retail thing quite yet but it was way overstaffed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but the salesman came over to me and like you know I guess the one guy who was assigned to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco next walk-in as everyone else stood around he came over and he was just like can I help you with anything
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that was bored like drab no energy and I told I’m just looking around okay
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and he just like kind of stood he walked away you know it was so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so different from the last time I was there and so much less energy.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so I looked around what I really what I went in there to see was the Surface Pro because I hadn’t seen that in person yet
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I was curious about it. And they don’t make it easy to find. The store
⏹️ ▶️ Marco still had a lot of Surface RTs in like the main middle like when you first walk in the tables
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you see those still have Surface RTs but it was way fewer than before because they filled the rest
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of store up with Windows phones and other laptops and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco other people’s tablets, things like from Samsung and Toshiba, you know, all their partners, they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco filling up the store with their stuff. So the Surface is actually being
⏹️ ▶️ Marco significantly deemphasized in the store, which I thought was interesting. Probably the right move because it isn’t selling that well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but interesting nonetheless and kind of a shame for them. And the big thing was the Surface Pro,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there was no sign for it. There was no big demo of a Surface Pro being this cool
⏹️ ▶️ Marco laptop that is like a tablet. There was nothing like that. It was ‑‑ there were two tables side by side
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of Surface RTs with four tablets on each of them. On one of them, one of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco those tablets was a Surface Pro. And the only way you could tell was to look at the little tag
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on each one to see the little standup sign to see what each one was. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so there was no calling out of, hey, this thing is actually something kind of interesting that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you might want to look at or you might want to know about, you know, relative to a regular laptop. Like, this is interesting.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Nothing like that at all for the Surface Pro. There was, and there was only one of them, as far as I could tell, in the whole store, at least one I could
⏹️ ▶️ Marco find. And so I thought it was, it was weird that, you know, it looks like Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has already given up on the Surface, honestly. And maybe that’s not true, but that’s how it looked in the retail store.
⏹️ ▶️ John The first gen Surface Pro is like a sacrificial lamb, because they know
⏹️ ▶️ John that the first gen Surface Pro, the power envelope
⏹️ ▶️ John for the processors, they can fit in that thing. It’s not great. The battery life’s not great.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s like to get something out there. The second generation Surface Pro should be significantly more interesting
⏹️ ▶️ John as a complete product rather than just a curiosity.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I hope so. Because really, what this store looked like to me, the first time I went in there, it was very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ServiceRT heavy and that was interesting. And I think if the ServiceRT was a more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco successful product, then they could have kept the store that way and that would have had a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco long-term value for them. Now though, the Microsoft store doesn’t really have any value
⏹️ ▶️ Marco over like a Best Buy. Like it’s just a whole bunch of computers from different people all in a row, kind of haphazardly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco laid out, nothing really called attention to more than the others. So if you’re a buyer walking in there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco who doesn’t already know what you’re looking for. There’s not a lot of reason.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s not very welcoming. It isn’t a very good cold first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time experience to go in there anymore.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Because it’s kind of confusing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as to why exactly you should be in there instead of any other computer store.
⏹️ ▶️ John It still has far fewer products than a Best Buy. And that is advantageous. Because if
⏹️ ▶️ John someone goes into a Best Buy, you are assaulted on all sides by a million flashing, blinking
⏹️ ▶️ John things, only some of which are tablet computers, only some of which are Microsoft’s, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John You go into the Microsoft store, even though they carry all those other things, you’re not gonna look at the TVs, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John not gonna look at the washing machines, you’re not gonna look through the racks of DVDs and Blu-rays or whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re not going to, you know, you’re gonna look at tablets, and there’s gonna be a variety
⏹️ ▶️ John of them, and they’re emphasizing the fact that we have tablets that are kinda like PCs, but kinda like tablets.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so at the very least, until their leases are up on those stores,
⏹️ ▶️ John they get some benefit of making people aware that Microsoft has created this product that’s like an iPad,
⏹️ ▶️ John but you can use it like a Windows computer. And the most recent thing that’s brought it up on my radar, I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know if it’s come up on any of your radars, is the Penny Arcade guy picked
⏹️ ▶️ John up a Surface Pro and tried using it for sketching. And he wrote this little review of it on his site. And
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s an application that’s, again, like the car makers and automatic,
⏹️ ▶️ John not doing what a third party had to do. Why didn’t Microsoft emphasize that? Why did their ad show people dancing
⏹️ ▶️ John and clicking the stupid keyboard to the thing? Not that artists are a big market, and like,
⏹️ ▶️ John oh, finally, we’re going to get the artist thing. But he was interested in it because he heard it has a stylus. And it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John Windows computer. And it’s a pressure-sensitive stylus. And it’s portable. And you can draw on it. And unlike the iPad,
⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t have to use a capacitive stylus type thing. And so as an artist, he’s like, huh. because
⏹️ ▶️ John he tried sketching on the iPad and it wasn’t what he wanted because he’s used to a
⏹️ ▶️ John Wacom tablet or Wacom, or however the hell you pronounce it, the Cintiqs, which is a different experience than using those weird
⏹️ ▶️ John stubby capacitive things, and especially with pressure sensitivity and everything. He said, OK, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ll try this thing. So you could sketch with it. It was small and portable.
⏹️ ▶️ John So some software issues because Photoshop doesn’t support it yet with the pressure sensitivity and stuff like that. But it was a viable
⏹️ ▶️ John thing there. He drew a bunch of comics with it. And the second thing was, since he’s a gamer, since the comic’s about gaming,
⏹️ ▶️ John you can play Windows games on it because it’s a Windows computer. And so you install Steam, download
⏹️ ▶️ John a bunch of games, play games, and also use it for sketching. And there has never been any device
⏹️ ▶️ John like that where you could do those two things, or even one of those things. Can you play PC
⏹️ ▶️ John games on something that’s so small it doesn’t even have a keyboard, like just a tiny little touch screen? And can
⏹️ ▶️ John you use something sketching like a tablet with a stylus? That’s an interesting
⏹️ ▶️ John angle. It’s not a mainstream angle. They’re not going to sell a million to them like that. But why wasn’t there even one ad emphasizing
⏹️ ▶️ John that? Because just in this one, you know, semi-famous person’s post about this and it getting passed around Reddit and Hacker
⏹️ ▶️ John News and stuff like that, it has produced buzz about the Surface Pro. The terribly compromised, poor battery
⏹️ ▶️ John life, really thick, fan blows hot air on your hand, you know, first generation
⏹️ ▶️ John device that Microsoft couldn’t seem to figure out what was interesting or unique about.
⏹️ ▶️ John And here’s one, just one thing, and I’m sure there are other things that are interesting and unique about it too.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s kind of a shame that Microsoft is not on its game on this.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, because you’re right. That’s something that Apple is not going to address that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco As far as we can tell, they’re not going to address pressure sensitive, resistant touch screens anytime
⏹️ ▶️ Marco soon, if ever. And that’s a major market where that actually matters a lot.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If you want to sketch on an iPad, it’s gonna be way way better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on a uh… surface cuz that’s green and the kind of styles obviously like that’s a major difference
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you’re right they don’t they don’t know what to do with that they they instead ignore that in their marketing and and granted you know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco obviously not everybody wants to sketch but i feel like there are enough things about the surface pro
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that make it different from an ipad that microsoft could be showing in their ads and could be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pushing the marketing and they’re just not there they’re trying to make it cool and hip and i can’t imagine it ever
⏹️ ▶️ John They picked one. They picked the attachable keyboard and that is a distinctive thing, but there are other there are
⏹️ ▶️ John other distinctive things about it and like it’s so they they have a product they did so
⏹️ ▶️ John well in differentiating it like it really is a differentiated product not a wannabe iPad like it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John like the Nexus 7 or something I was like, well, it’s like an iPad, but not as good like it’s It’s really differentiated
⏹️ ▶️ John like and maybe they did it too much Like well, you got a stylus and it runs Windows and it’s got the desktop and you can attach a keyboard Maybe
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s too much, but those are sure those are things that you can hang your hat on in an ad campaign
⏹️ ▶️ John and Yet they you know, they picked one of them and kind of glossed that everybody explained it
⏹️ ▶️ John They just kind of oh it clicks on there’s a clicky thing and like I don’t know This is a multi-stage campaign
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s gonna kick in with the other benefits later They didn’t know why people will want to use
⏹️ ▶️ Marco waiting for that second stage to kick in
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco or fourth Yeah, I mean they
⏹️ ▶️ John have software problems to Windows 8 is kind of hodgepodge and you know, like it they don’t have the
⏹️ ▶️ John total package But I think there’s enough there that I would be really sad if
⏹️ ▶️ John that whole effort of this type of product goes away, because I really think there is definitely
⏹️ ▶️ John a place for this type of product. And I’m really—I was proud of Microsoft that they didn’t do
⏹️ ▶️ John what Google did and just make like a wannabe iPad, you know?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, they really did do something different. I mean, that’s—with Windows Phone, people have said
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that, and with Windows 8, people—I mean, it really is different. It doesn’t look like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a total ripoff of something else, the way Android does, honestly. I know we’re going to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hear it from Android people. Android looks… Yes, it has done some original things, but it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has ripped off so much from other operating systems, mostly iOS, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you kind of feel that the whole way through, like this is kind of a cheap ripoff. Whereas Windows Phone actually
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feels dramatically different in most ways, in certainly more ways than Android does.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s a lot of good, there’s also a lot of bad. I mean, so I want to talk about also, while I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was there, they have devoted a lot of their store space now to Windows Phone, which is probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wise, because Windows Phone has pretty poor retail presence otherwise, outside of Microsoft stores.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that’s always a problem. Like if you go into Verizon store, and you ask to see a Windows Phone,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re gonna try to talk you out of it. And they’re gonna try to talk you into an Android phone. Like that’s, because, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s better for Verizon if you buy an Android phone for a few reasons. So Windows has always had
⏹️ ▶️ Marco issues at cell phone retail with Windows 8. And so now, Microsoft has had issues,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not Windows, sorry. So Microsoft is using their stores now to push Windows phone aggressively,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that’s wise. So I got a chance to use them and look at them. And first of all,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it’s worth mentioning that every Windows phone they had in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco store had at least what looked like a four and a half inch diagonal screen. It was huge.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Windows phone looked massive and that most of them were the Nokia 920 and there were a few
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there was like the HTC 8 or something like that something like that all right I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people who know Windows phones would know these models and there were some Samsung things and and some miscellaneous Windows
⏹️ ▶️ Marco phone objects and mostly the the Nokia one though and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all of them were huge and I feel like you know in our previous discussions about a potentially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco large iPhone in the future. I feel like more than ever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple needs to do this because you look at any other lineup of cell of smartphones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in any other store in a Verizon store and a Microsoft store if you can actually find one of those but you know any
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cell phone store you look at the lineup and the iPhone looks really small and not necessarily in a good way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it looks really small by comparison and you know while while we can look at them we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nerds a lot of times at least, we can look at them and say, oh, it’s great, it fits in my pocket better.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, I don’t want a phone that big. The fact is, those other phones look like they’re better in a store.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it’s similar, you know, we talked about TVs earlier. TVs, as John, you’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Marco frequently ranted about, they always have these ridiculous settings in the stores to attract people in the store,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even though in real life, they’re better off not having that kind of setting and they’re better off having something else
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or different priorities or different levels of things, that doesn’t matter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in sales. You know, like, if people are seeing all these phones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that are a little bit too big for their pockets, they don’t really realize that necessarily by
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the time they’re buying it, they see a nice big screen and it looks really good. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s gotta be really hard for Apple to keep competing with when it’s the smallest phone there,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it has the smallest screen there. that there are going to be some people who are going to buy it for that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because it’s small and sleek and thin and light in your pocket, but I feel like that number is really small
⏹️ ▶️ Marco compared to the number of people who are going to be swayed towards these larger phone devices just because they look nicer in the store.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I really, to be honest, I don’t have anything to add on that because I just don’t have any interest
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in a bigger phone. Well, get used to it. I know, and that’s the thing is anytime
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I say I don’t have interest in something, I end up getting it months or years later.
⏹️ ▶️ John going to get it like you may have no interest in it, but if all the phones are like that, what choice do you have? Like, that’s just what
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, I agree. Well, and typically the more negative my reaction is to something, the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey more I end up falling in love with it later. Um, take max, take my iPhone, take my
⏹️ ▶️ Casey BMW. I mean, these are all things that I poo pooed in years past and now couldn’t imagine
⏹️ ▶️ Casey living with living
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my SSD, another great example. So the fact that I’m saying me is probably a good
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sign that in a in a few months or you know, cause I am due to upgrade this year. So in a few months when the seven
⏹️ ▶️ Casey inch iPhone comes out and I’m forced to get it because it’s the only one and then I get it and I say to you guys, holy
⏹️ ▶️ Casey God, you will not believe how awesome the seven inch iPhone is. I can’t put it in my pocket. It’s it looks like a brick when
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m actually talking on the phone, but oh man, I can get so much done on that screen.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not going to be as big as the 920. So don’t worry. I mean, the 920 looked ridiculously
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But it looked nice. In a store,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it looked nice.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I picked it up and I held it in my hand, you know, with the giant security
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cable hanging off the back. But still, you know, I picked it up and I’m like, you know, this is, you know, this, it’s too
⏹️ ▶️ Marco big for me, but not by a massive amount. Like it could be a little bit
⏹️ ▶️ Marco smaller than that and still be substantially larger than the iPhone 5 and it would be fine for my pocket. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, a lot of us in tech, you know, we’ll say dismissive things like, oh, well, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t want an iMac. I want a Mac Pro, but for other people, the iMac is fine. It’s always about the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco other people. And it’s generally not a great attitude to have if you don’t really understand
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what about something is great, and you kind of dismiss it as, oh, well, somebody will find a use for this. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with the bigger phones, I think, honestly, I would probably get a bigger iPhone if they had it. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I like the bigger screen on the iPhone 5, and if they could make one even bigger than that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco while still maintaining a reasonable pocket size for the phone and I do think there’s a lot of middle ground between
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the iPhone 5 and the 920. Like there’s a lot of middle ground there. And if Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco made a bigger phone, I’m not just saying that I think it would sell well, I’m saying I might pick that one, even if it had the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco same resolution as the iPhone 5 and they just made the pixels bigger.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Even then, I would still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably pick the bigger one.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve been asking nerd friends that same question I’ve been saying. So Apple comes out with a slightly
⏹️ ▶️ John bigger phone And they keep selling the iPhone 5 size
⏹️ ▶️ John one which one would you get and then like the modifier question is okay? Does it what if the resolution is the same or whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John the resolution is different does that change your calculus? And I’ve been getting about 50 50 with people
⏹️ ▶️ John saying that they would stick with the iPhone 5 size And they would get the bigger one You don’t know what people are actually gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John do and I think at this point They the super Apple nerds that I’m talking to or
⏹️ ▶️ John if anything biased towards sticking with the iPhone 5 they have because they really like it and I’m giving them a hypothetical
⏹️ ▶️ John of a product that doesn’t exist. But I think the outlook
⏹️ ▶️ John for sales of the larger phone, even among us super tech nerds,
⏹️ ▶️ John look pretty bright.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, definitely. I would say the same thing. I mean, I haven’t been asking anybody because I’m not that much of a nerd, John. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I really do think, you know, I can see not only do I see this as, I guess
⏹️ ▶️ Marco somebody might want that. But I see this as I would actually want that to a degree.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It depends on how they do it, of course. I don’t think it being the same resolution
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or not would really matter that much in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think it really matters. It would matter to a few geeks.
⏹️ ▶️ John think it definitely matters, but it’s not a deal breaker, I don’t think. It’s going
⏹️ ▶️ John to be one of those can’t-go-back things where it’s annoying, you’re going to hate it because you’re going to have to redo your layouts for your
⏹️ ▶️ John apps and everything. But then once Once you get that thing
⏹️ ▶️ John and see how much more stuff you can see, even if it’s just like one extra little sliver of stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ John it will make a difference once app developers update their apps to actually use that space
⏹️ ▶️ John as long as they don’t stretch it. It’s like when you go back to the iPhone 4 size screen now,
⏹️ ▶️ John and you feel like, where did the rest of the screen go? It’s not that big of a difference. It’s like a one centimeter
⏹️ ▶️ John little strip at the
⏹️ ▶️ John It is not that big of a difference, but when it’s not there, it just feels like your world has been truncated,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, so I think it will be the same effect, even if we just get an extra sliver of pixels there,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, I mean, maybe maybe 1080p is the inevitable. That
⏹️ ▶️ John like there’s no fighting that resolution because it’s such a convenient matchup with television screens, which is basically
⏹️ ▶️ John meaningless. Who cares if it’s a matchup with TV screens, but just it’s like one of those things like stock markets around numbers, it may just be
⏹️ ▶️ John that that’s ballpark of how you get a reasonable size iPhone. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not gigantic, but not too small and you get around you
⏹️ ▶️ John know 400 something DPI can you fit a 1080 above just just go to 1080 I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t think Apple will go to 1080p but like that’s what all the Android phones are doing and you can see the attraction to it like it that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John that slots into maybe a little bit higher maybe you have to go like 500 DPI maybe
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s crazy maybe you know maybe it doesn’t work out but that is that seems to be the sweet spot for the
⏹️ ▶️ John super high-end Android phones Apple’s going to be smaller than that, and maybe not even
⏹️ ▶️ John this generation, but that’s where I think things are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I don’t think the resolution of these Android phones matters that much, honestly, because as we said earlier, people don’t really see retina
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that much. On average, most people don’t really notice that difference, as far as we can tell, or at least a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of people don’t. I think whether your screen is 300 dpi or 500 dpi,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s going to be almost nobody who will tell the difference. The big advantage there is definitely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in marketing and spec comparison and things like that. Certainly that helps. But with Android,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as we’re seeing with the market, most people don’t buy on spec comparisons with Android. They buy on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how it looks in the store, what kind of deal they can get at retail. There are some people who buy the specs,
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. I mean, they’re still using… A lot of them are using the OLED screen still, and
⏹️ ▶️ John some of them are still… I think people are still using that pen tile thing where you don’t even have real
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco pixels. Oh, I hope not. That
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, like all these things are cost-saving things because that’s the other advantage they have is like they’ll compete on
⏹️ ▶️ John price by giving you a lower quality screen. And that is, talk about selling against retina, how hard it is to sell
⏹️ ▶️ John retina to regular people. Trying to sell people on like color saturation and contrast
⏹️ ▶️ John and viewing angles, that is, you know, and we nerds all appreciate that Apple cares about
⏹️ ▶️ John those things and its displays and its monitors and it’s handheld devices, other people do not.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, yeah, definitely. And so I hope Apple holds the line on
⏹️ ▶️ John that. But that’s one of the boat anchors that they have to drag behind them as they attempt to compete is
⏹️ ▶️ John we will continue to hold our screens like, our screens aren’t bigger, but they’re better. That’s why they
⏹️ ▶️ John keep saying, this is the best screen and blah, blah, blah. It really is a really nice screen. But now you have to drag
⏹️ ▶️ John that behind you as you try to compete on price, on power, on resolution,
⏹️ ▶️ John on all those other things that you want to compete on, while still not sinking to their level in terms of,
⏹️ ▶️ John wow, just give me high DPI, high resolution, and it’s good enough.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I had a topic I wanted to ask you guys about, if neither of you
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have something more impressive. I’m actually, it may end
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up that this is a 30 second thing, but I’m really intrigued by the GarageBand release today
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and it’s support for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco what is it? Audio bus, I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. So for those of you who may not know what
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this is about, so Apple obviously has a garage band app for iOS.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And a few months ago, I don’t remember exactly when, some group of people came up with this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey app called Audio Bus. And the general premise of it was you can chain audio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sources together such that different apps on your iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or iPhone, one can feed audio into another, which can filter it and can
⏹️ ▶️ Casey feed audio into something else. Or at least that’s my understanding of the premise. And this was really interesting because it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey inter-app communication in a way that really shouldn’t be allowed.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I think my understanding, and guys, feel free to interrupt me, my understanding of how this works is it’s a combination of background audio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey API, the apps allowing audio to be mixed. So if you think about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like when you have navigation on and music on, you know, you can still hear the navigation
⏹️ ▶️ Casey while the music is on. And additionally, apparently it’s a local network protocol
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as well, as far as I understood. Is that at least reasonably accurate at a high level?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, I don’t even know what how they’re doing. I mean, I assume background audio is involved to let them run indefinitely.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I mean, they’re not using URL schemes, that’s for sure. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey actually, I think they are in part, but not not
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco as transferred audio.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Correct, right, right, right. So anyway, so the latest version of GarageBand actually works
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with AudioBus and has included and they use the AudioBus SDK to do it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and This to me is extremely interesting because for a couple of reasons firstly, it’s Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey getting on board with a community And maybe not community but a third party
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Framework for lack of a better term and I think that’s very interesting and I’m hoping that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey between you guys you can point me to other examples of where this has happened. The only one I could think of is their
⏹️ ▶️ Casey kind of bastardized version of pull to refresh. But otherwise I couldn’t personally think of any examples of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this, and I’ll give you a chance in a second to correct me. And I thought that was interesting, but the other thing I thought
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was interesting is here’s another sort of tacit admission that inter-process
⏹️ ▶️ Casey communication is a need in iOS, And it’s something they need and something
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that we are all going to want going forward. And I know we’ve talked in the past about, what was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it, remote view controllers, I believe, was what people had discovered a few months ago in iOS 6.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And this both excites me in the sense that Apple’s getting more on board with inter-process
⏹️ ▶️ Casey communication, but it also scares me a little that it seems to me if they had a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really awesome fix for this problem coming in iOS 7, wouldn’t they have held this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey garage band update to leverage that new thing? No,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think they would have held it. Because I
⏹️ ▶️ John something entirely different. But actually, I had an interesting idea when I’m hearing you talk about this. And I did a little bit of research
⏹️ ▶️ John on it before the show. But I don’t know if any of you have ever seen this. But apparently there exists, I’m told,
⏹️ ▶️ John stereo equipment, like, I guess, presumably high end stereo equipment that has firmware.
⏹️ ▶️ John And to update the firmware on the stereo equipment, you put in a special CD that the manufacturer gives you, and
⏹️ ▶️ John you play the audio CD, and then it interprets the sounds as code that’s going
⏹️ ▶️ John to update the firmware update itself.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey like a modem thing about
⏹️ ▶️ John we don’t have true interapp communication. But once everyone can listen on the audio bus,
⏹️ ▶️ John if you can encode the data that you want to transfer between applications as audio and decode
⏹️ ▶️ John it on the other end, there is no reason why you can’t pass arbitrary structures, including in-memory
⏹️ ▶️ John objects or anything else you could possibly want to do for interapp communication entirely through audio,
⏹️ ▶️ John provided you could mute the speakers for it. And I’m sure Apple would love to try to approve your application if you choose to
⏹️ ▶️ John do interapp communication with this. The reason I don’t think it’s like they’ve
⏹️ ▶️ John hold this because this is not really interapp communication. This is really shared access to
⏹️ ▶️ John audio resources. It’s more like I.O. or multiple applications sharing
⏹️ ▶️ John the proximity sensor. Once sound goes out of your application into the audio system, the fact that
⏹️ ▶️ John another application can pick up that sound, intercept it, and before it gets through the rest of the audio system, using the
⏹️ ▶️ John background audio APIs and stuff, that is barely inter-application communication. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John more like existing background APIs, where
⏹️ ▶️ John some small part of your application can still be running and see what’s going on in the system. And one of the things that’s going on in the system is
⏹️ ▶️ John another thing is putting audio input into the audio subsystem, and we’ll let you get it before it goes out to the speaker. You know what I mean?
⏹️ ▶️ John But that is a far cry from, hey, let me put up a UI when I’m not running.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, now, Casey, you said that you looked at it briefly, and it sounds like the way it works is via
⏹️ ▶️ Marco local network communication, right? It’s not, it isn’t over audio buses itself.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Isn’t it over local network? Is that what you said?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s, again, I read into it very briefly. And candidly, I’m probably getting this totally wrong. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that’s why this is also a casual podcast. But I believe there that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey somebody had said that there was a network component. I’ll I’ll see if I can get this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco link back up. I’m going to start talking, so look it up.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I think there’s three things about this that are really interesting, that make this announcement
⏹️ ▶️ Marco interesting. One is that it’s technically possible at all with iOS today.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because the problem with iOS, you can do anything you want in an app running in the background for 10
⏹️ ▶️ Marco minutes. And then you hit your time limit, and then you’re killed or suspended.
⏹️ ▶️ John be killed way before then if someone launches a game
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s true. Right. so uh… you know that the and and and when apple introduced multitasking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with i was for the they announced these like you know five or six officially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sanctioned and technically allowed methods to keep running the background indefinitely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or be woken up periodically and and one of those is background audio and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so it’s kind of a fluke that it okay so we have a need for apps to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco work together for more than ten minutes in the audio business. They just kind of lucked out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that audio happens to be one of the permitted things on iOS to run for longer than that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then the other thing that makes it impressive is that it’s technically possible at all to share
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a substantial amount of data between apps without switching back and forth URL schemes, which themselves would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have issues with lots and lots of data flowing through them. So, Casey, do you know yet whether it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like shared core audio buses or or network communication. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sort of let me read you a couple of very brief things. The first which is less reliable is a post
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on stack overflow, which is the accepted answer to the question of basically how does this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco work and it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey well, right and I’m quoting now. My guess is that they use some sort of audio over network
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because I’ve seen log statements when our app gets started even on a different device don’t really know about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the details of the implementation, but this could be a way of of staying in the sandbox constraint.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco Yeah, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know, basically, with Core Audio, I know a little bit about Core Audio, and as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco far as I know, I don’t think you can create any kind of shared communication
⏹️ ▶️ Marco between apps using the audio frameworks on iOS, because you’d have to create a virtual device.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It wouldn’t be an issue of being piped through the speaker. It would be an issue of you even having access to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any other apps created audio devices. So if it’s not Core Audio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco based, it probably isn’t. If it is based on local networking, then that’s interesting,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco too, because I don’t think people have really, besides this, I don’t think people have really explored
⏹️ ▶️ Marco interapp communication potential of just opening up a local web server or a local socket
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and communicating over a local host to some other app. I don’t think we’ve really ever discussed that. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would never have assumed that would even be possible. I would have assumed there were some kind of like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco per app firewall going on there. But I guess there probably isn’t. I mean, that would probably be pretty hard to do.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And there are probably some problems with it. So maybe there isn’t any kind of protection against local network communication
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right. So let me read you a couple of other very brief things on the same stack overflow post. This is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a comment now to a different answer. This is Sebastian Ditman. I’m part of the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey AudioBus team. We developed our own SDK for this. as has been mentioned before, it’s basically a network
⏹️ ▶️ Casey protocol. And then let me go to the audio bus developer docs and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This process involves setting up your project, enabling background
⏹️ ▶️ Casey audio, creating a launch URL and registering your app, making sure audio session mixing is enabled,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which is where we were talking earlier. John was talking earlier about having everyone on the same audio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey bus, getting access to your apps, audio unit candidly. I’m not really sure what that means.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and then creating instances of the audio bus controller, input and or output ports, and the audio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey unit wrapper from your app delegate. Easy peasy. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco what it says.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco OK, so it’s using Core Audio in the audio unit, but then it’s taking the inputs and outputs of it and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically pulling them out of the Core Audio
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s a side channel. It’s like the audio unit is probably there just so it can, oh, you want the samples?
⏹️ ▶️ John Here they are. And oh, by the way, I’m going to take them. It’s like T. It’s T’ing them off into whatever its
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so it is definitely working over network than it sounds like, because I don’t think they would do any kind of cordial thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So anyway, there’s three things about this that I think are really interesting. There’s the fact that it’s technically possible
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at all, which, okay, we got that. The second is that it’s been permitted
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so far in the App Store, that Apple hasn’t removed these apps from the store, told them they can’t do this anymore,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rejected them outright. That is very interesting that Apple has kind of looked the other way on this,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because you could argue that it’s probably misuse of the background audio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco API, because each one of those apps, like, the background audio API is made for or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is intended for one app to be playing something you’re listening to, like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Pandora, or, you know, like, that’s or a podcast app. Like, that’s what these
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are for, is something that’s playing a continuous audio thing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that is not the built-in music app. know, that’s what it’s for.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So the fact that you have, like, multiple apps all doing background audio working together
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to make one combined stream to pipe into something else, that is clearly against the spirit
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of what this is for. So it is surprising that Apple allows it. And now the third interesting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco part about this is that not only have they ‑‑ not only is it technically possible and they permitted
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it so far, but now somebody in the GarageBand team actually got them to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let them add support for it in GarageBand. So it’s kind of an implied endorsement
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of this method. And granted, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco company with more than one person, so it’s possible this was like, you know, one thing that slipped
⏹️ ▶️ Marco through that like doesn’t really fit with the overall strategy of iOS, but this one person on this one team was allowed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to add it, nobody noticed. You know, it’s possible. But it also is possible that they want
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to encourage this. And part of it, you know, Apple has always culturally, especially with Steve Jobs,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they have a soft spot for music and musicians. And that’s why GarageBand was one of the first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major iPad apps they made that launched with the iPad 2.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And they were so proud. You know, music is great. And in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco our culture, it’s well-respected. People love musicians. And it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very fulfilling to a lot of people in a very basic way.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, it’s really hard to explain, but, you know, it’s, music is very powerful. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so, Apple’s always had a soft spot for it. So, maybe, this is, Apple was just kind of saying,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco okay, you know, we’ll let this happen for this group of musicians and music people who are making these things, because we like music
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a lot, and that’s fine. Because I can’t imagine, also,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I guess, another reason they would allow this would be that if they do something in iOS 7,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or in any future iOS, something involving interapp communication that’s better, something like sharing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with contracts are intense like Android and Windows Phone 7 or Windows Windows Metro whatever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if they do something like that I don’t see anything like that being able to replace
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this you know the way they would architect something like that probably couldn’t be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a stream of constant high bandwidth network communication high bandwidth low
⏹️ ▶️ Marco latency with a bunch of apps hanging out in the background I can’t see that happening
⏹️ ▶️ John well it’s not that high bandwidth it’s actually low bandwidth I I guess why they get away with it.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think it all comes down to this being audio, and not so much in the musical sense of how they want to do that. Although there’s part of that.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think they want to encourage the ecosystem of applications that cooperate and make it a more interesting musical
⏹️ ▶️ John device. But because perhaps they’re wrong about this, and they’ll
⏹️ ▶️ John find out and have a harsh lesson. But you’re not reaching into someone else’s
⏹️ ▶️ John application root directory and screwing with it. You are not calling into another application
⏹️ ▶️ John and executing arbitrary code. Audio is seen as inert. It cannot cause
⏹️ ▶️ John arbitrary, as far as they know, it cannot cause arbitrary execution of code elsewhere. It doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John do any of the things that they want to keep people separated for. And they already have an API
⏹️ ▶️ John that lets you do audio stuff in the background. This is audio stuff. It seems safe.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not a security thing. Presumably, no one is actually crazy enough to do the thing I was joking
⏹️ ▶️ John about before, but actually encoding all of your inter-application communication as an audio stream because
⏹️ ▶️ John that would be crazy, but I think it would be awesome. So anyone out there wants to try that, I give you a thumbs up.
⏹️ ▶️ John And like you said, so they come out with something different, they would still keep this, I think that I think the most interesting
⏹️ ▶️ John thing about it is they didn’t do the Apple thing, which is so there’s these audio bus guys out there, and they have this idea,
⏹️ ▶️ John either buy them or make something of our own. That’s exactly like it. And you know, crush them.
⏹️ ▶️ John Maybe, maybe, maybe audio bus got out front, maybe they are planning to buy them, maybe waiting for the other shoe to drop.
⏹️ ▶️ John But it could I mean, this is so weird for the modern app. And I was like, we totally expect them to either buy the company,
⏹️ ▶️ John just to get the employees by the protocol, or just simply say, Oh, yeah, that that’s a good idea. Can we do that?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, do that. And then just do something that’s does the exact same thing, possibly
⏹️ ▶️ John a little better, possibly a little worse, but completely in house. I mean, maybe this got out in front of them. I’m not in the
⏹️ ▶️ John music scene. But it could be that, you know, audio bus look like it was getting traction among people developing
⏹️ ▶️ John applications, and Apple just wanted to join in. But it’s like I like that activity of them looking
⏹️ ▶️ John into the third party market, seeing someone who’s come up with something and not
⏹️ ▶️ John just attempting to buy them outright, not attempting to crush them with their own implementation, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John dashboard style or whatever, but just say, Alright, well, you guys are going with that will join into your thing
⏹️ ▶️ John because it makes the it makes the iOS devices more compelling for people who are interested in music to
⏹️ ▶️ John have this ecosystem like, you know, as if it wasn’t compelling enough to have all these great music apps now they can cooperate
⏹️ ▶️ John with each other, they could be the first people to get the benefit of what we’ve all been talking about, of like, jeez, if
⏹️ ▶️ John you could just get rid of these silos that are separating at the iPad, it could become a much more useful device. Maybe they’re the first
⏹️ ▶️ John people out of the gate who are able to do that, the musicians.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I have a hypothetical question for you guys. In hearing, John, you talk about encoding everything
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as audio, and I know you say that kind of jokingly, and I also know you say it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seriously. And I still maintain that’s probably not possible to transfer between apps, but go ahead.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree. So let me take you on a meandering journey that hopefully will end up at a decent point.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey When Pastebot came out, which was, to my knowledge, the first TapBots app
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that really people started paying attention to, maybe that was their first app, I don’t recall. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I believe it was Pastebot that tried to run silence in the background in order
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to stay in open and in sync constantly, because, you know, obviously there’s only a couple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey reasons you can background your app for more than and 10 minutes. So they thought, Oh, we’ll just play silence forever.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Use this audio mixing, not unlike audio bus. So you don’t, you can still hear other things at the same time.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And Apple ended up saying, nice tribe that ain’t happening. So you can’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey leave an app running constantly. And, and so Marco, this also was cued by
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what you said a moment ago. And so I wonder if it would be possible to do something like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have your app have your app have some sort of server component just locally? And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey let’s say you wanted to transfer an 80 gig file, an 80 meg file
⏹️ ▶️ Casey between two apps, whatever that may be, it doesn’t matter. So what if app one says,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Hey, I’m about to background this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and, and starts up a server locally on the phone or the iPad or whatever,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey does a call a URL scheme into some other app that it’s aware of, you know, like an X
⏹️ ▶️ Casey callback URL or something along those lines. And that second app, app two, then
⏹️ ▶️ Casey gets on to app one’s server component or whatever you’d like to call it, downloads that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing, that 80 meg file in the span of under 10 minutes, because why wouldn’t it? It’s on the same device.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And then suddenly you have a way of doing file transfer between apps as long as it takes less than 10 minutes.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Does that even make sense? Would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco that theoretically work? It does.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco These are all such ridiculous hacks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco think it would be more wise, unless you had a really pressing need to make an
⏹️ ▶️ Marco app that did this kind of stuff right now, I think it would be more wise to just kind of wait and see what iOS does
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to address this. And you know, because obviously,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think with Forestall being out now, it wouldn’t surprise me if we start
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seeing major new directions with iOS. We probably won’t see it with iOS 7, it’s just too soon since he’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco been out. But, you know, I think we can look at Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco under Tim Cook and we can see things are being shaken up gradually. You
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, it’s not like totally transformed overnight to a different company, but things are being shaken up
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and we’re seeing like things that were previously very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco attributable to Steve Jobs, which had a lot of overlap with things that were attributable to Scott Forstall,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because Forstall very much kind of made himself and Jobs’ image,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or even vice versa, I don’t really know. Things like everything being
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so strictly sandboxed and so strictly separated, it wouldn’t surprise me if we start seeing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco relaxation of that as the platform matures, as competition gets more strong
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and addresses all those areas way more robustly than Apple does.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think we’ll start seeing development here. And so, you know, you mentioned remote view controllers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and iOS 6 being behind the scenes for a few things. That is something to watch. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if we, if you think about how Apple would implement something like remote view controllers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for general purpose use, an app would kind of have to have like a,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like a low, almost like a low power state where it’s in the background.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s not rendering an interface. Ideally if you only have to load up
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a sharing sheet for your app or something and then it goes away and your app was never launched recently, ideally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it could only load a small amount of the app and not even instantiate the whole view
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hierarchy even if it’s not being displayed. Ideally your app would have some kind of fast loading,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco low needs mode where it could interact with other apps like this and iOS could still maintain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco its great battery life and only loading apps when they’re needed to be loaded
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and suspending them for all their times. I feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there are a lot of technical, like, hairy details about that, about how you would do that from a developer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco point of view, from an architecture point of view. There’s a lot of ways to do it that would suck in some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major way for somebody, whether it’s a developer or whether it’s iOS or the user.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I feel like that area, the entire
⏹️ ▶️ Marco tech world has been pressuring Apple so hard, especially this past year,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to address that particular area. And the remote view controller thing and UI activity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco looks like baby steps towards something better there. And I feel like investing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any kind of major time or effort or development or product, investing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco heavily into the old ways that you can do things, right now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is probably bad timing. Because iOS 7 is going to be announced in a few months
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in all likelihood, probably at WWDC, and I feel like we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are right on the verge of a change that is very likely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to affect this particular area of iOS dramatically. So I wouldn’t put much into it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right now. The short, the very long way of saying that is what I just said. The short
⏹️ ▶️ Marco version is, I don’t think it’s the right time to invest heavily in in weird workarounds
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for iOS’s lack of good interapp communication.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, but it would definitely be cool. I mean, I was joking. Like, it’s a silly thing to do, but if someone did that,
⏹️ ▶️ John that would be a story that would get passed around because it’s just it’s you know, it’s a hack. It’s it’s interesting
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s novel. And I’m sure we could find some sort of technology or protocol
⏹️ ▶️ John for perhaps modulating and demodulating audio to transfer data?
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know. I’m just… Oh, sure. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mean, you could just do like one bit per sample where you just move, you know, have like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a sample of one to zero to negative one. Like, you know, you can modulate into just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a very, very tiny waveform that is so small that you would not hear it on any kind of speakers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or headphones that you would have put into an iPhone and, you know, encode the data that way.
⏹️ ▶️ John question is if you can mute it or not.
⏹️ ▶️ John I was trying to think of who would, given the ridiculousness of this and
⏹️ ▶️ John why shouldn’t you just wait for iOS 7, who would actually have the resources and
⏹️ ▶️ John poor judgment to attempt
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco something like this?
⏹️ ▶️ John And the only people I could think of have no reason to do it because they already have server-side components. And those would be
⏹️ ▶️ John the Zyngas of the world. They would use it as a backdoor to share information between their
⏹️ ▶️ John annoying applications. But they don’t need to do that because they’ve got a server and they’ll just talk, they do what they do now and
⏹️ ▶️ John transfer all your information to the servers. When you launch another game by the same manufacturer, they know all about what you played here and can
⏹️ ▶️ John promote this game or buy this, you know. So they don’t need this. Like their inter-application communication
⏹️ ▶️ John for that crowd is called a server. And that’s, I mean, it works
⏹️ ▶️ John that way for a lot of people too. Like what we really want it for is like, stop stranding
⏹️ ▶️ John my stupid text documents in the umpteen text editors I have, you know, what we all want. And
⏹️ ▶️ John in those cases, it’s not because you want three games from the same maker to be able to know
⏹️ ▶️ John about each other and know about your scores and activities. I want documents created in
⏹️ ▶️ John applications not made by the same vendor to not be in these stupid silos. And that’s what
⏹️ ▶️ John we’re all waiting for. It’s like popping up UIs is one thing and the other thing is the file system or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ John And maybe iCloud is a solution to that, but not really because they’re still siloing that off as well. So that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John what I I think we’re looking for in, you know, interapp communication is shared you wise
⏹️ ▶️ John type of thing, loadable bundles with with you guys that you can put in where your application isn’t really running, but some code that’s part of
⏹️ ▶️ John your application is running and some solution to how can we use multiple applications to work
⏹️ ▶️ John on the same project, you know, with this with file multiple applications from different vendors and the audio buses
⏹️ ▶️ John almost not the really solution. That’s more like a bunch of guitar pedals that you hook up in sequence to a layer effects on.
⏹️ ▶️ John But like, I feel like it’s the same type of thing. What if you want to do audio creation and you have audio bus
⏹️ ▶️ John and be like, geez, I wish I could use the seven apps to collaborate to create this instead. One kind of
⏹️ ▶️ John has to be the master app that actually gets to record the resulting audio and then everything else is just a bunch of effects
⏹️ ▶️ John boxes and pedals that you’re, you’re putting in a chain to modify things. Uh, so they’re, they’re creeping
⏹️ ▶️ John up on it, but you know, they, they still have a long way to go. And, and as, as for your speculation about the forestal
⏹️ ▶️ John jobs thing, like, do you have any actual information about like, everyone likes to attribute to
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever thing they don’t like now that Forrestal’s gone, it will stop happening and the good thing will happen. And like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if he’s the one who was insisting on silos. It’s like, why is his departure
⏹️ ▶️ John make you think that this good thing that we want will now finally happen? Like as if he was the barrier to it? I don’t,
⏹️ ▶️ John and maybe you have information, I don’t, but I have no information about it. I don’t, I don’t see that. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, it’s conceivable, but I, without any actual
⏹️ ▶️ John connection to information, I’m like, oh yeah, Forrestal was totally… and because I have heard some things about
⏹️ ▶️ John things that he was gung-ho for that I disagree with, but this was not among them. But, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, I’m hesitant to pin my hopes on
⏹️ ▶️ John the magic debaucher of Scott Forrestal.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, you’re probably right about that, honestly. I mean, I don’t have any information to support that either. It was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just a hunch. It’s probably wrong. Who knows?
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, like, we know they need this anyway, but like, they need lots of things and they 10, you know, they’re,
⏹️ ▶️ John they’ll get there eventually.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This is going to be the year of desktop Linux.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. Well, no, we actually do get it eventually, though. We got we got notification
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey such as such
⏹️ ▶️ John as it is eventually.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, it’s funny, because as you guys were talking, I was thinking back, you know, what, you know, you said,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey well, one thing we want is is to be able to pop up a view or some sort of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey view controller in another app from within my own app. And it It occurred to me that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when I was spitballing about transferring this Phantom 80 Meg file,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we can already do that. The thing is, we can’t do it locally. We do it via Dropbox. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I kind of wonder if in addition to being able to throw up something small
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in somebody else’s app, I wonder if really what I’ve been asking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for this entire show is just Dropbox but local, you know, something that serves the same
⏹️ ▶️ Casey purpose that Dropbox does
⏹️ ▶️ John system case you know what you’re touching it
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco in your little sandbox what’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco interesting is that you know that the iCloud does not address that at all and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John and they chose to silo
⏹️ ▶️ John right you know it’s no reason iCloud couldn’t work exactly like Dropbox except that Apple doesn’t want it to and so it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I think history will show that that particular detail of iCloud
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a big mistake and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey I really think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if you look at something like the photo library on iOS that’s a really good example of how to do something
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like this better. Certainly it’s not perfect, but you know there’s a lot of apps that can interact
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with the same photo library and and it’s you know it’s fine. Yeah again it could be better,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it’s way better than if you have some other type of document
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or some other type of data that you want multiple apps to be able to interact with. There’s just no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good option for that, except Dropbox, which you know obviously that’s not great for Apple.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I really do think like if iCloud could be broadened to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically have different containers for any given mime type say or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John of mime types.
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re just bargaining now because it’s like well I’m working on a project that has some images and some text documents
⏹️ ▶️ John and some audio and some movies and now they’re in they’re in silos by type like I mean this
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s a reason that the the file systems exist the way it does is because it’s like you can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John predict ahead of time what what what would you call it what facet you’re going to use
⏹️ ▶️ John to organize things what you know what is the word I’m looking for what axis or whatever how
⏹️ ▶️ John are you gonna categorize things is it by type is it by date is it by like oh well if you just make a file system
⏹️ ▶️ John you can do all of those things and we also have another thing which is like a hierarchy with like by location by path
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco and I mean it could be by
⏹️ ▶️ Marco project you know I have like I have photos that I have to work with for the magazine that are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not in my photo library for myself because they’re not my personal photos. Everyone has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John of exceptions to everything.
⏹️ ▶️ John Inside the project folder, maybe you’ll divide it up by type underneath the project folder, or maybe you’ll divide it up by a secondary category
⏹️ ▶️ John and then by type. I think the decision not to have a real file system in iCloud
⏹️ ▶️ John is the right one. I admire them for sticking with it. I hope they
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t cave because they could implement Dropbox. They could have implemented Dropbox a long time ago, but they didn’t because they said,
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, we understand that. Yeah, just give us a shared hierarchy file system that’s on
⏹️ ▶️ John the network that syncs everywhere. Dropbox does that Apple could do that they’ve chosen not
⏹️ ▶️ John to because they know, like how untenable the file system is
⏹️ ▶️ John for human beings, period, like non nerd people. And so they’re holding the line and saying, No, we are
⏹️ ▶️ John not going to give you an arbitrary hierarchy that you can in order to do what you want, because people have proven they can’t make that work.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it They just haven’t figured out a workable alternative yet. But I’m proud
⏹️ ▶️ John of them for not caving and not saying, well, you know iCloud documents in the
⏹️ ▶️ John cloud? Well, now it’s just an arbitrary file system, just like Dropbox and GoNuts. Because everyone would cheer that and
⏹️ ▶️ John be like, yay, this is great. Apple’s finally done what we wanted. But I’m totally
⏹️ ▶️ John convinced that people in general cannot grok that concept.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it’s not a question of education and time, because now we’re several generations into the computer age is just,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not something people grasp. It’s something that we have no problem with and a subset of geeks have no problem
⏹️ ▶️ John with. But, you know, the simpler things, like you talk about the photo sharing, people can
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of grasp that. People can kind of grasp the stupid limited silos that we all hate.
⏹️ ▶️ John There’s got to be something that doesn’t expose the full file system that gives us some of the benefits
⏹️ ▶️ John and, you know, Apple hasn’t found it yet. And I feel bad for them and I feel bad for us. But I am proud of them
⏹️ ▶️ John for not making Dropbox. I’ll be proud of them right up to the point where my frustration just overflows. And
⏹️ ▶️ John as long as Dropbox is still around for the nerds, that also kind of mitigates this thing. It’s like, OK, well, you keep working
⏹️ ▶️ John on that, Apple. But in the meantime, all the nerds are just using Dropbox to get their work done.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I kind of feel like the, obviously, there’s been a lot of discussion in the last few years about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco moving away from exposing the file system to users. And I feel like it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one of those simplifications is that the problem is way more complicated
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than that simple solution can properly address. And the reason
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why files have lasted as long as they have as the metaphor for storage
⏹️ ▶️ Marco management for people is that this is a complicated problem. And files
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are a very simple and extremely powerful way to address it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the cost of user complexity, especially for people who just can’t, who just don’t think that way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or who are so new to it, they need time to adjust. And we see,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco obviously, we see so many failures of, like, quote, normal people or people who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are really new to computers or just don’t care that much. We see so many failures of them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just not getting the concepts of file storage and files and moving
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them and where they’re located on the computer and stuff like that. But I feel like where Apple has gone with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iCloud, with the tremendous, very strict siloing per app, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty much no file system, everything’s just kind of a collection of documents in each app, I feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s going too far in the other direction.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John It’s too much of an extreme.
⏹️ ▶️ John It doesn’t cover the problem space. It just doesn’t. We all recognize. It doesn’t even cover the problem space
⏹️ ▶️ John for casual people. It solves like, there’s nobody for whom that solution is adequate, I
⏹️ ▶️ John found. Because even just like my parents, like once they can’t find their stuff and I explain
⏹️ ▶️ John the siloing, they’re like, oh, well, that’s dumb. How do I do that? And I’m like, I don’t have a good answer for
⏹️ ▶️ John them. Like, I’m not going to say nobody. There’s so few people. And so is that the
⏹️ ▶️ John first step? And they have a master plan? Did they want to try that and say, hey, maybe this is adequate? Because
⏹️ ▶️ John they don’t care what we nerds will just use apps that work with Dropbox, right? But
⏹️ ▶️ John they haven’t figured it out yet. They have not even come close to covering the problem space. You’re talking about the
⏹️ ▶️ John small, simple, but powerful tools. That’s the continuum. It’s like Unix, where
⏹️ ▶️ John the ideal of Unix, you have a bunch of tiny, single-purpose tools that you can chain together to do
⏹️ ▶️ John amazing things, but nobody can figure that out. And on the other end, you have a big red button that you press, and it just pops
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John you have Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John Because Excel is actually a good example of a small, simple tool that you can assemble.
⏹️ ▶️ John Because their simple tool is we have a grid. And there’s a few simple things that regular people know how to do with the grid. and people are amazing
⏹️ ▶️ John at taking Excel. It’s like, oh, a two-dimensional grid. I can solve any problem with that, because it’s like Lego
⏹️ ▶️ John blocks. It’s a terrible solution, but they can understand this one simple tool, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, Unix, these series of simple tools, you can make up your solution. But the other end of the spectrum is
⏹️ ▶️ John there is no small reusable part. There is no Lego brick. There is no thing that you can stack together to make a solution. There’s just
⏹️ ▶️ John one big, shiny red button, and you press it, and it does whatever the hell we say this thing’s going to do. And that is inadequate to
⏹️ ▶️ John cover the things that people need to do. And that’s documents in the cloud
⏹️ ▶️ John at this point. There is a huge gap between those extremes. And there’s got to be something in the middle that
⏹️ ▶️ John can work for us. And it would be a failure on Apple’s part to
⏹️ ▶️ John ever surrender and say, fine, it’s a file system. So they’ve got
⏹️ ▶️ John work to do, but I hope they don’t just give in.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, because I think it would be an equally significant failure on their part to say, we’ve solved it. It’s done.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John cloud, this iCloud stuff, this is it. We’re done. It’s fine. You just got to get used
⏹️ ▶️ John to it. Right. I mean, they realize that. I don’t think that anyone thinks
⏹️ ▶️ John that. Anyone ever, anywhere who’s ever used documents in the cloud.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we should wrap it up. You want to have some kind of outro? People have been asking for an outro to the show so you know when it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ending. So you can look at our website, atp.fm, for Accidental Tech Podcast.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Follow us on Twitter. We have Syracusa, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Casey Liss, C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, and me, Marco Arment,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T. And that’s about it. Go rate us on iTunes so that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we can get more people and stuff, and I don’t know, thanks to Squarespace for sponsoring.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What do people usually put in these outros?
⏹️ ▶️ John I thought you were gonna sing a song. You’re not gonna sing a song?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think, I’m not really in the mood to sing tonight. Maybe maybe we’ll record one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when I’m in the shower one time then I’ll sing to you
⏹️ ▶️ John looking forward to it. I
⏹️ ▶️ John Think Twitter handles are good and and website URLs. You probably just don’t have to spell them. That’ll make them go by
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, cuz we all have a long spell of old
⏹️ ▶️ John last name cadence. It’s three two three SIR AC USA, that’s the cadence
⏹️ ▶️ John just saying. Oh, I’ve been doing two Oh, no, it’s threes, because that’s how you have to do it.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s what drives me nuts about the stupid Google Authenticator things for, do you use that for the two factor?
⏹️ ▶️ John No, I don’t. So they’ve got a Google Authenticator app, which is great. It integrates with Dropbox. And I have three of them on there
⏹️ ▶️ John now. It’s one app, Google Authenticator, that gives you just the number. It’s your second factor, right? And it’s six
⏹️ ▶️ John digits. And they shove them all together. I’m like, come on, guys. What planet do you want? Like, it’s two sets of three.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like, everybody knows you don’t put six digits together. So your eyes go crazy in the middle. on his repeated digits
⏹️ ▶️ John and you screw it up. That’s just unbelievable to me that they didn’t put a frigging space or a hyphen or something. It’s two
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco as a lead in. I have