125: A Better Future for Everybody
10 Jul 2015On an infinite timescale, is Safari obligated to implement all web standards?
Episode Description:
- Follow-up:
- Do SSDs understand the data that they write?
- Honda Fit cameras
- Classical music on Apple Music
- Origins of "on an infinite timescale", thanks to official show historian _David Smith
- American radio sucks
- Safari is the new IE
- Microsoft eviscerates their phone business
- The frustrating comedy of business speak
- A brief history of John's feelings about Microsoft
- Post-show: the ridiculous comedy of Windows 8
Sponsored by:
Chapters
- Intro
- Follow-up: Storage layering
- Follow-up: Honda Fit cameras
- Follow-up: Classical music
- Follow-up: “Infinite Timescale Argument”
- Follow-up: U.S. radio
- Sponsor: Hover
- Safari is the new IE
- Sponsor: Backblaze
- Web “standards” and apps
- Sponsor: Fracture
- Microsoft layoffs
- Ending theme
- After-show: Windows 8
Intro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I sound like crap cuz I’m still freaking sick. Yeah, I’m currently Nursing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a throat lozenge or whatever. They call the cough drop. It’s pronounced lasange. Ah, right
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and bazelle Yeah, that was a reference John to you actually
⏹️ ▶️ John significant that one time I mispronounced the word it was culturally
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Anyway, I have a question for you, too. How wouldn’t the name of Zeus’s butthole also
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a reference? Do you get healthy when you have a child that is waking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up in the middle of the night? More than occasionally because he’s like in a wonder week or teething or sick
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or whatever How do you ever get healthy if you can’t sleep? Waking up in the
⏹️ ▶️ John middle of the night implies that the rest of the night the baby is sleeping So really you don’t have anything to complain about
⏹️ ▶️ John There’s just this time in the night when the baby wakes up. If that is significant,
⏹️ ▶️ John then that tells you that the rest of the night,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco you have an expectation that the baby will be asleep.
⏹️ ▶️ John So really, you have a really good sleeping baby and you can’t complain that much. How do you get better?
⏹️ ▶️ John You will eventually. It’ll happen. You’ll see.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right. Well, to continue with the housekeeping, all kidding aside, for the two of your benefit,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for your two benefit and for the live listeners, if I suddenly go silent in the middle of saying
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thing, just give me five to ten seconds and assume I’m hacking up a lung and I’m just muted
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and just carry on. Or, well, I guess don’t carry on. Just give me a moment. And if I really have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey disappeared, assume that I’ve poured more stuff on Aaron’s Mac and it’s just all over at this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco point. So… – Now, don’t pour cough syrup on there for many reasons. First of all, there’s no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco way it would survive that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of all, cough syrup doesn’t actually work.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey – It really doesn’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, nothing. Like, believe me, I’m an expert in coughing. it like cough suppressants just don’t work
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the the only effective ones are like the narcotic ones that just knock you out yeah that’s that suppresses your
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cough because it puts you to sleep right
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John like it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s not really fixing the right problem it’s like yeah shooting you in the head, but also stop your cough you know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not maybe not a good idea, but you know that would that would do it so yeah it cough
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nothing that’s a cough suppressant actually works the only thing that works is either fixing the root problem, which isn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco always possible or if you’re lucky just like chain sucking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco please don’t make that a title chain sucking those ricola cough drops with the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco menthol the like the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re like traditional default flavor whatever it is not like the weird fruit ones the regular like the the brown
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ones that taste like menthol that helps as long as it’s in your mouth like as soon as it’s gone it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stops working so that’s why you have to have like if you buy those Just go right for the big bag,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the one that has like 40 instead of 10. right for the big bag.
Follow-up: Storage layering
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I want to do some follow-up. Cool. Sounds great.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John, Serge K. wrote in and quoted
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you in saying that you said, the drive just see blocks. It doesn’t know about file
⏹️ ▶️ Casey systems. Serge wanted to tell us that firmware of modern drives reaches 1 million lines of code,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and they do recognize common file systems. Obviously encryption breaks this, but that’s not common,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey especially in data centers. This allows the drive to reorder or delay commit some metadata
⏹️ ▶️ Casey updates that are recoverable by checking disk in case of failure. You had put this in the show notes,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so tell us a little more about this, please.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I’m wondering, I’m actually surprised by this because this implies some sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John synergy in the market between the people who sell these drives and the machines they’re expected to go in and the file
⏹️ ▶️ John systems they’re going to use. Like how can the firmware on a drive know about a file system? How does
⏹️ ▶️ John it know what file system it’s even being initialized with? How does that communication happen across the various
⏹️ ▶️ John layers of the storage system to say like can you just buy one of these mechanisms? Stick it in a thing and format
⏹️ ▶️ John it as ext4 or whatever and then it knows that it’s formatted by ext4 and does
⏹️ ▶️ John clever things This is actually very interesting and it’s the type of thing that Capital
⏹️ ▶️ John O capital A TM only Apple can do but hey wait this has nothing to do with Apple I thought
⏹️ ▶️ John only Apple could have this kind of connection between our burn software Well, apparently it can also happen in the wild
⏹️ ▶️ John and woolly world of what I imagine are Linux servers and random storage
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware so I’m always interested in cases where the supposedly rigid layers
⏹️ ▶️ John of the storage hierarchy are Quote-unquote violated as
⏹️ ▶️ John the claim was about ZFS back in the day It was a rampant layering violation combining the
⏹️ ▶️ John file system and logical volume management and a bunch of other things and raid all into one thing like
⏹️ ▶️ John you know we have this nice layered approach where each thing is responsible for each layer and I can mix and match my logical volume
⏹️ ▶️ John manager with my file system with my raid thing and ZFS combine them all to I think
⏹️ ▶️ John great effect by saying if we don’t have that mix and match thing kind of like the way Apple you know
⏹️ ▶️ John Macs are not mix and match where you get to pick your own CPU and pick your own this and pick your own that
⏹️ ▶️ John and build your own Mac that Apple picks the components in the same way ZFS by picking all those different layers
⏹️ ▶️ John and combining them did some really interesting and cool things. This sounds like an interesting and cool thing. This is the
⏹️ ▶️ John first I’ve ever heard of this, that an SSD, I’m assuming it just has drives here,
⏹️ ▶️ John that an SSD knows about the file system and I would love to learn
⏹️ ▶️ John more about how that actually happens. But There you have it, at least one report that this
Follow-up: Honda Fit cameras
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right. We also had someone right in Ryan wrote in. Apparently Ryan
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is the one Honda fit driver that listens to the show. And he or she was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not was wanted to correct us about cameras on the fit. And as our resident
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Honda expert, john, would you like to tell us a little more?
⏹️ ▶️ John I was making a joke last time about like toasters how you know, you can make a decent toaster for 50
⏹️ ▶️ John bucks, like you just concentrate on the important things in the same way that you don’t expect a Honda fit to have the
⏹️ ▶️ John fancy cameras that Marcos BMW has you don’t expect a fancy toaster to have all the bells and whistles you just want the basics
⏹️ ▶️ John right like I was saying That the knobs on a Honda fit and the controls on a Honda fit still feel like they’re quality components
⏹️ ▶️ John even though it’s a cheap car Apparently, I don’t know if this is an optional or standard equipment the Honda fit does
⏹️ ▶️ John have the cameras on the all side on all sides Of it. I don’t know if it does that synergy thing Maybe Ryan
⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t understand the feature that on Marcos car where yes, it has cameras all the corners It also
⏹️ ▶️ John combines the cameras to show you as if there’s like a virtual camera floating above
⏹️ ▶️ John your car looking down on it so you can see what’s on all sides of your car in real time. Yes, the bird’s eye view.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah. So I think this is just a bunch of cameras on the corners to show you like your blind spots
⏹️ ▶️ John and stuff, which is cool and everything. And it just shows how this this tech is slowly creeping down. And you know that
⏹️ ▶️ John once you have the cameras in place, the the extra bit of you know, smarts to combine them into an image isn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John that complicated. So it seems like it will eventually trickle down to even the cheapest cars. But I just want to show
⏹️ ▶️ John that either as standard equipment or possibly optional on the Honda Fit, you have a bunch of cameras that show you things.
⏹️ ▶️ John Even on my Honda Accord, I have a backup camera. So, you know, they’re cameras. They’re coming to cars near
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And please, please don’t write in telling us about regulations and things that are going to require backup cameras
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be there. We know about those. Thank you. Bye.
Follow-up: Classical music
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Also, unrelated to any of the other follow-up, Unknown has told us that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there’s lots of classical music in the iTunes Music Store and on Apple Music. I’m not sure why that’s significant, but it’s in the show notes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and we have now covered it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I don’t know who said that, but a bunch of people, that’s not a quote, it was like saying, oh, there’s tons
⏹️ ▶️ John of classical music. And then the very next thing from Frank Hertz is for unknown reasons, iTunes,
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple Music, Spotify, anything are awful at classical music. Vast archives of studio recordings remain unavailable
⏹️ ▶️ John online. So there are two opinions on classical music. one person saying that one person’s
⏹️ ▶️ John I did not record saying there’s tons of classical music and another person saying that there’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John so I don’t know what to think but obviously at least one person is not satisfied with the selection available you don’t say
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah and then Chris wrote in to say that another thing that’s not on iTunes is hip-hop mixtapes
⏹️ ▶️ John even mainstream ones almost never on streaming services or stores due to copyright for all the samples they include
⏹️ ▶️ John which I guess kind of falls under the same categories mashups.
Follow-up: “Infinite Timescale Argument”
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, this is my favorite piece of follow-up for this week. We had somewhat
⏹️ ▶️ Casey comically somewhat flippantly told underscore David Smith in the last episode
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or had assumed that underscore David Smith would figure out the origin of the phrase
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on an infinite time scale This was referenced about 43 minutes into the last episode
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Underscore has reported in which is totally unsurprising and yet kind of surprising
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And he has said that the first usage of the exact phrase, infinite time scale, was by Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Casey on ATP 83 at about an hour and 14 minutes. However,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the concept was introduced in ATP 53 at about an hour and 16 minutes,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but, and now I’m quoting, John never used the now canonical phrasing himself.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I loved underscore David Smith. I don’t know how he figured this out. know what he did, but he figured
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, he is the official show historian. That is true. He is the official show historian.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the reason he looks up is that my intention is that this infinite time scale thing is not the canonical phrasing of
⏹️ ▶️ John anything that it is what Marco made up to make fun of my argument
⏹️ ▶️ John that I made to him and I and probably in episode
⏹️ ▶️ John interest the concept. The concept once again was that if you agree with me that something will happen eventually but can never actually
⏹️ ▶️ John agree on any actual finite time, like, well, you know, and then that’s the mark of the wall and an infinite
⏹️ ▶️ John time scale. The idea is that you’re not saying, you know, it will happen when time equals infinity. You’re saying
⏹️ ▶️ John we all agree that at some point in the future, this thing will happen, but it won’t happen this year or next
⏹️ ▶️ John year or the year after that or the year after that or the year after that. And so you try to try to get to pin the person down. You say,
⏹️ ▶️ John uh, well, is it ever gonna happen or is it never? And as well, it’s gonna have it eventually. Of course, we agree. But
⏹️ ▶️ John then it’s like, all right, five years, 10 years, 15 years, 100 years. And so infinite time scale, infinity
⏹️ ▶️ John was is conceptually in there. But I don’t think I use that particular phrase. Again, I’m not entirely sure because
⏹️ ▶️ John who can remember what you say? So I had, I would love for people to find definitively
⏹️ ▶️ John the source of the someone else wrote in and said they thought it was on debug. I think it was guy English was saying like, maybe you said it on debug because I’ve made
⏹️ ▶️ John similar arguments with stubborn people who refuse to acknowledge the inevitability
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey of the future.
⏹️ ▶️ John I believe, By the way, the argument with Marco was about, no, the argument maybe with Guy
⏹️ ▶️ John and Marco was both about how Objective-C needed to be replaced. Yep, that’s right. And I had to resort to like,
⏹️ ▶️ John we all agree it’s gonna happen eventually, right guys? You’re like, yeah, we’ll find out. And it eventually turned out to be like next year
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Yeah, it was like six months away, yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John But that’s what I’m saying, like you never, sometimes it’s farther than you think. And whenever it’s like a new technology it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John gonna be out in five to 10 years, especially if it has to do with medicine. It’s always five to 10 years away. And
⏹️ ▶️ John it just seems like it takes so long to get there. But in tech, you could be caught
⏹️ ▶️ John by surprise because lots of things in tech are feasible
⏹️ ▶️ John right now, but we know there’s a bunch of other things that are stopping them from happening. And so it could happen
⏹️ ▶️ John tomorrow, but probably not. And it didn’t happen last year. It didn’t happen the year before. Like we were with Objective-C for
⏹️ ▶️ John so long. And even me with my whole thing of like Copeland 2010, 2010 came and went, still Objective-C,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? So that’s the fun of the industry we’re in, that
⏹️ ▶️ John unlike medicine and other fields where things are very often, and pure
⏹️ ▶️ John science, things are very often much farther out than you think they are. In technology, there are lots of things that we know are possible today,
⏹️ ▶️ John but that sort of market forces or momentum or just stubbornness
⏹️ ▶️ John of the people in charge of these companies causes not to happen when we want them
⏹️ ▶️ John to. But then, like, you could just wake up one day, and boom, all of a sudden,
⏹️ ▶️ John there. Boom, Apple has a new file system. Where did that come from? Oh god.
⏹️ ▶️ John it’ll happen right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Just wait, it’ll happen next year. It could, it could literally happen, it could have happened this year, it could literally happen next year, there’s nothing
⏹️ ▶️ John stopping it other than, you know, taking a really long time to do something that should have
⏹️ ▶️ John been done years ago.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I enjoy this, this what has become a routine segment of in every show John has to explain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one of the arguments he’s made in the past that everybody keeps slightly misunderstanding.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, well the whole, the The idea that infinite timescale,
⏹️ ▶️ John the infinite timescale argument, that that is the short version of this thing, it’s a terrible short
⏹️ ▶️ John name because it’s misleading. So that’s why I’m trying to figure out, is this my fault? Did I actually say this?
⏹️ ▶️ John Or is this Marco’s fault? And so far it’s looking like it’s Marco’s fault. Most
⏹️ ▶️ Marco likely, yeah. But I am really good at naming things, even if the names aren’t entirely accurate. Yeah, you should have just called
⏹️ ▶️ Casey argument. Yeah, exactly.
Follow-up: U.S. radio
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, and our final piece of follow-up, which I didn’t even think to include until
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I noticed it in the show notes, so somebody else had said it, I guess Marco, this is a very good idea.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey In the show notes it reads as follows, Marco would like to explain the state of US radio to non-Americans.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I put this in here last minute because I kept thinking, we kept getting feedback from people, because last
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time we talked a lot about Beats 1 and about how terrible modern
⏹️ ▶️ Marco radio is, like broadcast FM radio. I will include Sirius XM
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in there as well. I’ve been an XM customer for a long time. Then when Howard Stern went over, I became a Sirius customer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ve been a satellite radio customer since about 2003, 2002.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I’ve been there for a long time. Before that, radio was my whole youth. Radio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was everything to me. Music was everything. radio, as I think we all did, being a very big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco deal. And the state of radio, from what I’ve heard from people, the state of radio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in other countries, especially what sounds like people love BBC One and BBC Radio,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which I have no familiarity with at all. I don’t even know if that’s the right station. I don’t know. But it sounds
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like radio in other places is potentially good sometimes. And in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco US, that is just not the case. Radio in the US was gutted by Clear
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Channel, which is now iHeartRadio. It was gutted by Clear Channel over the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco last couple decades. And, you know, you can’t just blame one company and say they ruined everything. The
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fact is, the difficult economics of radio ruined everything, really. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just became cheaper and crappier and more and more automated and fake. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just became horrible to the point where now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most FM stations in America are not… There’s very little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco human involvement. It’s not like a DJ sitting at a console playing records all day. Everything’s recorded ahead
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of time or just programmed completely with no humans or with fake human involvement or minimal human
⏹️ ▶️ Marco involvement. There is no… The idea of a person with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nice, eclectic music taste curating a playlist for you, that doesn’t exist really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on any scale. There might be one or two stations in some cities that do it, but for the most part in America,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco most places you are, you’re not gonna find that on the radio. And so radio in America is just terrible. It’s full of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the worst commercials in the world, the same 20 songs in a loop on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a playlist, And SiriusXM is, in most ways,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no better. It is, as much as I’ve been a customer of this company for so many
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years, it’s a horrible company. Like, it’s horribly run, they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have pretty questionable ethics when it comes to their marketing and billing practices.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The audio quality is just awful over the air, and their website is terrible,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco their app is terrible, it’s always been terrible. the the only reason this company exists
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and succeeds first was because it had eclectic music channels and nothing else had and and you know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at a time in the early 2000s when nobody had unlimited data plans on their
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cell phones in their pockets that could play streaming services and then and of course after that then Howard Stern
⏹️ ▶️ Marco came on and that made a huge difference and now there’s a there’s some some exclusive talk shows that have big audiences as well but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the most part I see no future for satellite radio I think satellite radio
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is dead. I think it’ll be interesting to see what happens to Sirius when Howard leaves to see how much of an impact
⏹️ ▶️ Marco he has. Because one of the problems with satellite radio is that they can’t tell who’s listening to what. So they can’t tell
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how many of their customers are listening to Howard Stern over the air versus other shows. Who knows? But anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’ll be interesting to see what happens when his contract is up this fall and he has to decide to stay or go somewhere else.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sure, sounds like from his comments he’s not going to stay, so we’ll see what happens. I’ve heard a few people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco suggest that maybe Apple would hire him to do like a Beats 2 and it’s all talk. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco see that happening at all just because I don’t see Apple wanting his,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically his profanity and dirtiness and I don’t see him wanting to do a show without it. Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John won’t even let any porn in the App Store. I think they’re going to put Howard Stern on their radio station.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco going back to the original point, radio is horrible in America. Sirius XM is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco horrible And so Beats 1 being like DJs that are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco talented at being DJs playing good music, that is actually novel again.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because we haven’t had that for a very long time in America. So that’s why it was such a big deal to us last year,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or last week rather. And if the rest of the world, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if you have great radio stations on just broadcast, that’s great. Congratulations.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Enjoy them while you can. Enjoy them while they’re there. haven’t had them in a very long time.
Sponsor: Hover
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Our first sponsor is Hover. Hover is the best way to buy and manage domain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco names. When you have a great idea, you want a great domain name that’s catchy and memorable. Hover gives you exactly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what you need to find the perfect domain for your idea so you can get started actually working on it. They give you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco easy to use, powerful tools to buy and manage domains so anyone can do it. The support team is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco also always ready if you need any hands with anything. So they are known for their no wait, no hold, no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco transfer phone service if you need it. So if you want, you can call them up and speak to a real-life human being
⏹️ ▶️ Marco who just picks up the phone and is ready to help immediately. They also have great online help if you need it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco email, online tutorials, et cetera, if you hate the phone like I do. Now, in less than five minutes, you can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco find the domain name you want and get it up and running with Hover. All you have to do is search for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a few keywords and they will show you the best available options across all the domain extensions out there. And this is,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, now they have so many like.tlds, there are just so many. Most of them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are terrible, but some of them are pretty cool and you can search them all right from hover, right from one place, and their search
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is really good. It’s fast, it gives you suggestions, I find it very, very nice. It might be the best one I’ve ever seen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So if you’ve tried registering domain names anywhere else, you know generally the pitfalls of this industry.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know that it can be very unpleasant. Some companies are, they seem actively malicious
⏹️ ▶️ Marco against you, trying to get you to do crazy things, trying to for crazy services. Some companies are well-meaning,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but they just have really clunky sites and really clunky panels and everything. Hover
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is great. They have incredibly good designs, incredibly easy to use site
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and control panel and everything else like that. And they don’t try to upsell you with a whole bunch of crazy stuff or stuff
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you don’t need. And they have sensible defaults. So for instance, they include domain privacy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at no additional cost on any TLD that supports it, which is almost all of them. And some registrars,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’ll charge extra for that or they’ll hide it or they’ll turn it off by default. Hover knows you’re a human being, you probably want
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that by default. so we’re gonna turn that on for you and not charge you for it. So it’s stuff like that. You know, they are very human,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re very reasonable, and they respect you. They respect the customer, they respect the usability of their site, they respect
⏹️ ▶️ Marco your wallet. They just, they do things right. They do things the way you want them to be done. They even
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have this cool thing called Valley Transfer Service, where if you want to have them do the move for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you, when you’re moving names into Hubbard from anywhere else, you can do that. They will log into your old site
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for you and move it all over. Of course, it’s all optional. You don’t have to have them do that, but you can, and it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco matter if you have one name or a thousand names somewhere else, they can do that. Anyway, they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have also great solutions about email. If you wanna host email with them, you can do simple things like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco forwarding. You can also, just for 20 bucks a year, you can get a fully functional email account with 10 gigs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of storage. 29 bucks a year gets you the big mailbox, a full terabyte of storage,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco plus some other nice bonuses. If you only need email forwarding for your domain, that’s just five bucks a year.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If you already have email somewhere else and you just wanna be able to receive mail at a domain, you can do that for five bucks a year with them. I do that with a bunch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of mine. It’s great. Anyway, get 10% off your first purchase by going to hover.com
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and using the promo code trim force. Wow. Promo code trim force
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this week. Thanks a lot to hover the best way to buy and manage domain names.
Safari is the new IE
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right. So we had kind of teased this last week
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and we should probably talk about it this week. John, is Safari the new IE?
⏹️ ▶️ John Somebody says it is, or sort of says it is.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then sort of retracted it, but it’s all right. He seems like a good guy. So I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I sympathize with somebody writing a rant and then it being spread way more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco than you think it should, or that you expected, and then you have to deal with all the like, oh wait a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco minute maybe I didn’t actually you know mean that as severely as I said or people are taking the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wrong idea from it yeah I sympathize with that a little bit
⏹️ ▶️ John really this is Nolan Lawson the person we’re talking about here he wrote a thing called
⏹️ ▶️ John safari is the new ie it was republished or whatever by ours technical but he’s got
⏹️ ▶️ John is that what it was I don’t know I first read it on ours but yeah somehow it appeared in multiple places
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah I like ours but I refuse to link to a syndicated version of the post. We’re going to link to the original one.
⏹️ ▶️ John did it like the whole thing was there though. So I’m assuming they asked him, hey, can we?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was with it was with permission. Like, you know, that’s just the whole like I every
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time I write an article that that spreads anywhere, I get I get a handful of big sites saying, hey, can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’d love to syndicate your article to our audience? And I’ve agreed a couple times in the past. You know what it got me?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Nothing. Every time I did it, it got me nothing. All it did was dilute the value of my original
⏹️ ▶️ Marco article, compete for it and search results and you know make my site look worse to Google because now I have duplicate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco content looks like I stole it from Ars Technica. I just… Nice. Yeah it was and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it wasn’t actually ours that I’ve done it with in the past so I won’t I won’t blame them specifically but it was it just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco never worked out well for me as the author. It doesn’t it doesn’t really it helps the site that syndicates it because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they get content for free. It doesn’t really help you the author in a meaningful way.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Anyway so the the gist of this article is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Nolan Lawson is a web developer. He said himself that he is an Android user
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and an enthusiastic web developer and he contributes to a bunch of web standards stuff and he’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very upset and frustrated with Apple for in general two major
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things. One of kind of lagging behind implementing new web standards as they come out and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco especially some of the more advanced recent stuff involving things like local databases, local storage and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco device access, stuff like that. And secondly, he’s frustrated with them for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not being visible active participants in the web development community
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the conferences and stuff that he goes to as a developer. And he thinks they need to be.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I don’t know. I mean, we are all current or past web developers.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What do you guys think of this?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I felt like it was reasonable for him to be embittered that Apple wasn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really participating in this conference. I’m going on the assumption, not knowing any better,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that this conference was important and it wasn’t like the Richmond, Virginia web developers
⏹️ ▶️ Casey conference, woo, you know, whatever. I don’t even recall what it was, but I’m going on faith
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that the conference was one that it would be appropriate for Apple to appear at. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey understand that Apple doesn’t usually like to show its hand. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey understand that this is not usually Apple style. I don’t think it’s unreasonable
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for someone who is into the quote unquote open web to say, Hey, it’s kind
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of BS that Apple wasn’t there. I don’t think that’s that. I don’t take any issue with that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I do think he got a little bit aggressive saying Safari is the new IE. And the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey way I read the original article was that he was bitter that his
⏹️ ▶️ Casey favorite new features of the web, or his favorite, I don’t know, new technologies,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple doesn’t seem to be supporting, and he seemed like he was pretty grumpy about that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t think that was really necessary, but like you said, Marco, sometimes you’re just fired up about stuff, and you get
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a little aggressive, and you really kind of regret it afterwards.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. that he did write this follow-up piece and he addresses many of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the common criticisms head-on and elaborates a little bit more and does kind of retract some of the severity of his original
⏹️ ▶️ Marco post and he talks about the title, like, you know, Safari is the new IE is a really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco catchy title, some people accused him of being linkbaity, it sounds like that wasn’t really his intent, but you know, it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco doesn’t matter. I think we can move past that analogy because that is irrelevant because it’s really not accurate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and we were all around developing for the old IEs that were really bad. The new IE’s are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco glorious compared to the old ones and they’re still not quite right, but they’re much closer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco now than they used to be. And it is impossible to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco understate how much of a pain it was to develop any kind of advanced web
⏹️ ▶️ Marco layout, or even any kind of simple web layout, honestly, any kind of web layout in like 2006
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when there was all this great stuff moving forward and you had to still support
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these terrible versions of IE that broke everything in such big ways like it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was so much worse back then believe me so this is not yeah that was not a fair
⏹️ ▶️ Marco analogy but I think we can move past that as you know that’s not really the point
⏹️ ▶️ John well I think there is something to that the reason why he picked that title part of it could be as you said like looking at this
⏹️ ▶️ John picture here maybe he’s young enough that he didn’t live through the dark times and doesn’t understand exactly exactly
⏹️ ▶️ John how grim situation was when you like I remember not being able to set the font with CSS
⏹️ ▶️ John and IE like it was like seriously like I can’t style text like forget about layout forget
⏹️ ▶️ John about the friggin box model
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco forget about it like I just want to
⏹️ ▶️ John style text and back in the bad old days like IE 5 could do it on the Mac but no
⏹️ ▶️ John other version of IE could do it so yeah so there’s obviously not in terms of severity but why why would
⏹️ ▶️ John he pick this title the frustration he’s feeling as a web developer and by the way it’s still true of current IE’s even
⏹️ ▶️ John though they’re so much better it’s still I still think IE is the new IE. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco know, and what I mean by that is
⏹️ ▶️ John you want to do something on the web and when you do anything on the web, it’s like, it’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John like Android fragmentation where you have to make 10 different versions. Sometimes it’s just certain things you can’t do because you
⏹️ ▶️ John know X percentage of your users are using a particular browser and if X is big, if X is even just like
⏹️ ▶️ John high single digit percentages, like, well, we can’t do that because you know, what are you going to say? Screw you to that 5%
⏹️ ▶️ John of our users. If you’ve got a lot of users 5% is a lot of people like no one is going to agree to that, you know. And so
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, I wish I could use this thing. But 5% of my users are still in IE eight, and IE eight has a limit
⏹️ ▶️ John on the number of selectors and CSS. And we either split up our CSS files into multiple files, or we don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John use like, what like there’s always some stupid limitation for some technology you want to use.
⏹️ ▶️ John And there’s always one browser that is like, that is the one like when you
⏹️ ▶️ John say, Hey, I wish we could do this. And then you try in all the browsers. And this is the ones like, oh, it’s supported everywhere,
⏹️ ▶️ John but at this one. And again, I think I is still that browser mostly in terms of not not so much features, but
⏹️ ▶️ John performance these days, like a lot of times things that are reasonably fast, and all the web kit based browsers
⏹️ ▶️ John are still not as fast. And I again, I he’s getting much better, really fast. So it is not
⏹️ ▶️ John the bad I that used to but it’s still catching up. But the text that no Nolan
⏹️ ▶️ John was talking about are new things like Shadow DOM and web components and
⏹️ ▶️ John service workers and like things that give new capabilities.
⏹️ ▶️ John A lot of them are sort of app related. And a lot of the focus on this article has been like, oh, he wants to write things that are like native
⏹️ ▶️ John apps by using web technologies. But I think that’s actually besides the point. I think it’s really, there’s a bunch of
⏹️ ▶️ John new web technologies and it’s like, okay, well, what modern browsers
⏹️ ▶️ John can I use this tech with? and he points to the site canius.com, which gives you nice
⏹️ ▶️ John grids of what browser support, which thing, and for a surprising number of these new things,
⏹️ ▶️ John Safari is the one that’s lagging behind, lagging behind Chrome even, which used to be WebKit-based
⏹️ ▶️ John and now is based on Blink. And even IE has some of these, has implemented
⏹️ ▶️ John some of these things more than Safari has. And so if you are a web developer and every time
⏹️ ▶️ John you wanna do something cool, you are stopped because either mobile Safari your desktop Safari
⏹️ ▶️ John probably mobile Safari because probably few people care about desktop Safari but anyway if you’re if every time you go
⏹️ ▶️ John through this exercise you start seeing Safari is the one stopping you and Safari has
⏹️ ▶️ John this historical reputation as a good standards-compliant browser you know WebKit is great
⏹️ ▶️ John everyone loves WebKit like it’s the good web rendering engine right you start to feel like
⏹️ ▶️ John Safari is the one stopping you from doing what you want to do on the web and I think
⏹️ ▶️ John it is separate from do you want to make apps or whatever, like you want to use an XDB and local storage and
⏹️ ▶️ John all this stuff. Like even stuff like Shadow DOM has almost nothing to do with apps. It just has to do with like having a sane way to
⏹️ ▶️ John plop in some content on another page and not have to fight the the cascade of CSS.
⏹️ ▶️ John You know, like web components and Shadow DOM stuff like these are these are good technologies that are just beneficial to
⏹️ ▶️ John the web period having nothing to do with making web things like apps. And
⏹️ ▶️ John Safari is behind on a lot of these. And the other part of it that Casey
⏹️ ▶️ John was mentioning is like, well, are they really behind? Or had they just not announced the support like is the next
⏹️ ▶️ John major version of Safari going to come out and have support for all these things? Because when new versions of Safari come out,
⏹️ ▶️ John tons of stuff is in it. And you don’t hear about the stuff until it comes out, which is different than the model that the other browser
⏹️ ▶️ John makers do. So in these web conferences, when all the other browser makers are showing off their cool things, Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not there because Apple doesn’t go to any conferences, Apple goes to WWDC, right? They don’t, they tend not to
⏹️ ▶️ John show up at other places, or at least not in a public way. And so it feels like they’re not participating
⏹️ ▶️ John in the community. So that combined with the fact that Safari is behind on a lot of these things makes
⏹️ ▶️ John you feel like the thing, the browser that’s stopping you from doing what you want to do
⏹️ ▶️ John is Safari, just like the browser that used to stop you from doing what you want to do with IE. And
⏹️ ▶️ John in terms of degree, it’s, you know, world’s different. Because again, people don’t realize how bad it was during the time
⏹️ ▶️ John when IE a sucked, and B was not getting any better. Safari does not suck
⏹️ ▶️ John and is getting better, it’s just possibly getting better slightly slower in these specific areas that
⏹️ ▶️ John web developers care about in terms of this browser has support for this thing, this browser has support for this thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John oh Safari doesn’t, never mind. And then that also spirals into like why can’t I have other web rendering engines
⏹️ ▶️ John on iOS and all sorts of other things, but I think the kernel of truth behind the title is
⏹️ ▶️ John that this web developer feels like every time he wants to use a new technology. Safari is the browser
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s stopping him because Safari is on the list of browsers that he cares about and has to support but
⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t have this new tech.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I think it’s even it’s even more specific than that. I think it’s that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco he’s trying to make like and he elaborates a lot more on the follow up like he believes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and this is not just him. This is a very widespread belief that app development like native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco app development is, know one thing and it’s kind of a bad thing it’s kind of inefficient and that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the way forward for mobile is to just write really advanced web apps
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and to have one web app that you write that runs on all mobile platforms and that way you don’t have to write
⏹️ ▶️ Marco native apps that is that is that is seemingly his his main
⏹️ ▶️ Marco goal or position here is like that that is the end goal that is the ideal
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so what he’s really talking about is you know ios is holding him back.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s really, it’s a thousand percent about iOS Safari and not about, you know, desktop really.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s about iOS Safari and iOS Safari being, you know, the only built-in thing that you can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use on iOS devices, which are kind of popular. And he wants to write an app that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco can run on Android and iOS by making it a web app. And he wants that app to have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically, you know, all the same abilities and quality and performance and everything as native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco apps. and that is that is extremely common among among a pretty large segment of web developers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to have that goal in that position and and those priorities in mind but i really don’t think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco those are apple’s priorities and i mean i have a whole lot to say about standards
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and standards people but maybe i’ll save that but uh it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just because that is what all these people are pushing for does not mean that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco either that’s what users care about or that’s what Apple wants to enable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s lots of downsides to that like one of the things he cites in his blog post in the second post
⏹️ ▶️ Marco he’s talking about he said you know I just one of many examples he says there’s a problem using
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this local database interface which forgive me I have not followed this stuff so I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what is possible what is not and what the limits are but there is he
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mentions how this local database thing he’s using local storage and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iOS for website web apps is capped at 50 megs and then it’ll ask
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the user to confirm that they want to go past 5 megs once they pass 5 megs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and he’s saying this is really a problem for making native apps which makes sense like if you’re trying to store
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a whole bunch of data natively in a web app and you’re limited to 5 megs without asking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then 50 megs total even after asking that is quite limiting for that purpose but from Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco point of view they already offer a way to make apps it’s called native apps and they don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have those storage limitations and I can see why from and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know if this is why this limits in place or whether they just haven’t gotten around to it yet but I can see
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why they would look at this request just to like you know basically let web pages store arbitrary amounts of data
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or whatever they want and and you could see why that could be a problem because one part of app
⏹️ ▶️ Marco review that occasionally causes controversial issues is they actually have storage
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rules on how you use storage. And you have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to mark your files as backup versus not backup properly. You can’t just download
⏹️ ▶️ Marco excessive amounts of data or store excessive amounts of data without a good reason. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco storage management on iOS is all about per-app controls. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you can go to the general usage thing, which still isn’t great, but you can go there and you can see, oh, I’m out of space,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what apps are using the most. And Apple gives you these controls to say, all right, well, you can, you know, here’s your list
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of apps. Here’s the storage they’re using. You can, you know, delete or make choices based on that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So there’s all these, like all this baggage that comes along with the ability to use lots of storage space
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on a device. And you have to, when you’re enabling web technology and web capabilities,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have to be much more conservative and much more limiting for many
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good reasons, performance, battery life but also security and usability
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and many of these features like modern web standards are going way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco beyond what quote web standards meant 10 years ago 10 years ago it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really talking about like how a page be laid out and different capabilities you have with CSS
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and a little bit of JavaScript like that’s really what web standards were about so back then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the idea was let’s you know fix all the garbage you did in the past make things better for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco layout and enable a few small things in JavaScript. And let’s make
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it so that we only have to make one set of markup and blah blah. So like, back then that made perfect sense. Back then it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was very defensible. And it wasn’t, by the way, it wasn’t some like perfectly clean thing that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just happened all of a sudden and everyone was on board. Like that took years to hammer out and took
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years before that stuff was remotely usable. But, know back then it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was a much simpler thing it was all about like how does the page render now what
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many of these standards are demanding or or or creating or requesting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is much much harder things to make performant and secure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and good for users and and you know so things like you know spawning background processes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco having any kind of native hardware access or or like you compiled code access, any kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco interaction where you can break out of the browser. So things like notifications, access to the hardware,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sensors, vibrations, stuff like that. Now so many of these new standards are breaking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco out of the page that is rendered and doing way more advanced stuff. Stuff that is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usually only the realm of native apps, at least in the past has only been the realm of native apps. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco especially on iOS where Apple’s very careful about these things for very good reasons
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can totally see why they would not only move slowly but also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco say no to some things because that actually like if they actually let every web
⏹️ ▶️ Marco app create 500 meg gigabyte large databases that are not under
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the under app review and can do basically whatever they want and it’s hard to people people to find and delete
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that storage like that’s a problem you have to with everything any capability
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that Apple adds to WebKit and the web engine in mobile Safari
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they have to assume the worst like assume like what what is the worst possible people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what are the what are the reference people going to do with this on like some ad network that’s embedded on every single web
⏹️ ▶️ Marco page or something like there are so many ramifications there’s privacy there’s battery there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usability the speed I mean so many considerations there that it is totally
⏹️ ▶️ Marco completely reasonable that Apple would both move slowly and say no to some things.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know I think that limiting web technologies to only things that show pages
⏹️ ▶️ John and not allowing app like things is short-sighted because there’s a lot of a lot of things that
⏹️ ▶️ John web applications are doing today that are crappier because of lack of progress and standards
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean even just like sort of the modern way of writing web applications where a lot of it
⏹️ ▶️ John happens client-side where they’re essentially JavaScript applications that execute on the client which
⏹️ ▶️ John is better than them executing the server. Fewer round trips and the client has faster CPU dedicated just to you
⏹️ ▶️ John and all sort of stuff. But still served up by loading a page
⏹️ ▶️ John that gives you this gigantic wad of JavaScript that may be minified and obfuscated and then gzipped and then you
⏹️ ▶️ John bring it back to the browser and of course the browser has to compile it every time even if it has a cached version doesn’t catch the compiled
⏹️ ▶️ John copy and then that takes time sometimes just you burn milliseconds just parsing
⏹️ ▶️ John and lexing and compiling the JavaScript before you even start executing it and that’s the type of crap that
⏹️ ▶️ John makes just plain old web pages feel slower it’s adds latency to everything that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of like what the web assembly and you know stuff is going on now let’s go that’s why I always kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of been rooting for something like dark but better or like Swift in the browser or something like
⏹️ ▶️ John that like that people are doing things with current technologies that are making the
⏹️ ▶️ John web experience worse for users. And there
⏹️ ▶️ John are advances in those areas that are sort of separate from the like you’re talking about it like, oh, well, you
⏹️ ▶️ John just give web developers free reign of your hardware and let them store tons of data or whatever. Just,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, even like I said, just Shadow DOM and web components. That’s not, there’s nothing nasty anyone can do with that. And
⏹️ ▶️ John in fact, that enables technologies that allow you to have sort of reusable components that that are more
⏹️ ▶️ John isolated from each other, that don’t have access to other parts of the pages that are separate, that make web development
⏹️ ▶️ John easier, just to kind of like do the things we’re doing now, but technologies to do them better. And
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not as if Apple isn’t pursuing these. Like if you talk about the web standards stuff, Apple is and has
⏹️ ▶️ John been for many years an active participant at W3C. Like they have an opinion on what
⏹️ ▶️ John you should use for like serving up written images, for example. Apple is a heavy participant in that
⏹️ ▶️ John thing. canvas tag basically comes from Apple. They do care about web standards
⏹️ ▶️ John and they have that permission position and they push their things and so does Microsoft and all the other participants in the web standards process.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s just that in the grand scheme of things if you had to rank the browser vendors
⏹️ ▶️ John about how aggressive they are pursuing standards for the most part the other browsers
⏹️ ▶️ John are more aggressive than Apple and partly because they kind of have to be because
⏹️ ▶️ John what would Firefox’s claim to fame be if it was both less popular and and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey technologically
⏹️ ▶️ John advanced than Safari and kind of the same thing for IE, which is trying to like refurbish its reputation
⏹️ ▶️ John as the browser that doesn’t implement anything. So they’re gung ho to jump on top of whatever they can. And Google,
⏹️ ▶️ John of course, which is everything it does is a web app. So you know, they I’ll put a link
⏹️ ▶️ John in the show notes to my code harder go home thing, which was talking about why it was kind of natural for
⏹️ ▶️ John Google to go its own way with WebKit because they were just they were driving the development to to
⏹️ ▶️ John a large extent and they wanted things and they wanted things now and they didn’t want to be held back by sort of Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ John more cautious release schedule. So I think the frustration
⏹️ ▶️ John that all web developers feel about whatever the browser is, it’s not letting them do the thing they want to do
⏹️ ▶️ John is real. But I don’t know what the solution is, because it’s not as if, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, all this, this frustration can be real. And this position can be just justified from the point of view of a
⏹️ ▶️ John web developer. But I don’t think any of it is compelling in any way for Apple to change what it’s doing, because then you just flip around
⏹️ ▶️ John and say, well, what is Apple’s perspective? What do they care about? What what role do they see the web browser taking? What things are important
⏹️ ▶️ John to them? And a couple of people like sort of countering this article saying, basically, Safari
⏹️ ▶️ John is not that bad. Take a look at this. There was one showing that CSS for selector support with WebKit nightly
⏹️ ▶️ John has like 53% support and the closest one is the Chrome canary at 32%. And everything tails well from there.
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple has always cared a lot about CSS, there was someone showing like a CSS spinner just showing like
⏹️ ▶️ John a little shape spinning around with CSS, looking at the CPU usage if you just let the thing spin.
⏹️ ▶️ John Safari CPU usage is zero Firefox is 23% Chrome is 20% this is on iOS 10,
⏹️ ▶️ John not an iOS. Apple has always cared about power efficiency. So they want to do as many things as possible
⏹️ ▶️ John in an efficient manner. They emphasize a lot of the past couple WWDCs of
⏹️ ▶️ John what should, you know, what should Safari or WebKit be doing when a page
⏹️ ▶️ John is just open in the browser but you’re not looking at it? Or like, how is Safari not killing your
⏹️ ▶️ John CPU and waking it up every few milliseconds to animate some stupid JavaScript thing? How is it maintaining responsiveness
⏹️ ▶️ John but not killing your CPU? Those are the things that Apple’s concentrating on. They’re spending a lot of engineering effort on things that are important
⏹️ ▶️ John to Apple for its platform. And I don’t think web developers complaining
⏹️ ▶️ John that they can’t use particular technologies, are going to convince Apple to add those technologies any faster because
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s no sort of meeting of the minds here. There’s no sort of like, let me tell you why this would be better for you,
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple. That’s why you should do it. All it is is saying it would be better for me. And Apple’s like, well, it would be better for us if you
⏹️ ▶️ John wrote native apps. And so they just stand there with their arms folded and say, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I’m not gonna write native
⏹️ ▶️ John apps. And Apple’s like, well, I’m not gonna add that thing. We’re adding the things that are already. Like the
⏹️ ▶️ John Safari team at Apple adds stuff all the time. I’m always amazed when the new version of Safari comes out how much stuff
⏹️ ▶️ John is in it. It’s just not necessarily the things that you would want if your goal is to be a web
⏹️ ▶️ John developer. I do worry a little bit about Apple kind of falling behind the other
⏹️ ▶️ John browser vendors to the point where it really is the next IE in terms of standard support when you know when like
⏹️ ▶️ John everybody else has had support for you know say index DB catches on and it becomes like a big awesome thing and everyone
⏹️ ▶️ John has it and everyone has had it for five years and Apple still doesn’t have support for it at a certain point,
⏹️ ▶️ John kind of the web community sort of votes with their implementations.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s just what happened with IE. It’s like, well, I can’t do that, because IE doesn’t have eventually the web community was like, you know what, I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John using, I’m using CSS, the standard was, you know, released in 1996. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John going to use it. The only way I’m going to style text on my site is CSS screw IE, like the web community voted, they
⏹️ ▶️ John said, even though the version of IE that some huge percentage of my users are using, does not support this
⏹️ ▶️ John feature, I’m still going to write my website in it. And when an I user complains, I’m going to say, you know what? Screw
⏹️ ▶️ John you like that. That can eventually happen. You don’t want Apple to ever get in a situation where they
⏹️ ▶️ John are the only ones refusing to implement some particular standard because it doesn’t fit with their strategy and that
⏹️ ▶️ John the wider community of web developers votes with their keyboards and says, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John fine, Apple don’t support it. We’re writing web apps with it. Everyone who comes in here, mobile Safari is going to see a big thing
⏹️ ▶️ John that says, sorry, get yourself a modern browser. Like that’s the doomsday scenario. That is we are far from that today
⏹️ ▶️ John very far from it because most of these standards they’re talking about are barely implemented in the other browsers and are super
⏹️ ▶️ John buggy everywhere. No one would write any app with it, right. But, you know, I do
⏹️ ▶️ John worry about that happening simply because Apple’s priority seems so different than the priorities
⏹️ ▶️ John of pretty much every other company that makes a web browser, even Microsoft at this point, which maybe we’ll talk about their,
⏹️ ▶️ John their, their difficulties with their own native platforms, and how the web may become
⏹️ ▶️ John more important to them as they go forward. And the same with the web was kind of the savior of Apple. Max became, uh,
⏹️ ▶️ John saved from or saved from being completely irrelevant because, well, everybody can use the web. And once the Max could use the web
⏹️ ▶️ John that that gave them, uh, you know, an extension on their lifeline and it gave Apple time to sort of come back from the
⏹️ ▶️ John brink, right? That could be the situation that Microsoft’s going into now. So even though, yes, this article
⏹️ ▶️ John is sensational and, uh, it’s, it was sort of, uh,
⏹️ ▶️ John it is stating one position, but it is not particularly compelling Apple to change what it’s doing, I do
⏹️ ▶️ John worry about the sort of kernel of truth underlying this dissatisfaction.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that’s certainly fair, but I think, you know, if this does continue to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get worse to the point where it’s a big problem that Apple doesn’t support things other people do, the market will sort
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that out. Like, you know, as you said, like, you know, if somebody puts up the doomsday page and say, well, sorry, this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cool app that everyone wants to use just doesn’t work on Safari then Apple will
⏹️ ▶️ Marco will you know if that truly succeeds then Apple will be forced to respond and to to respond
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or to lose all of our business or to lose our browser and that’s fine but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think one of the problems with this is we sort of like you know what’s Apple’s motivation here like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the goal of having web apps replace native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco apps that is something that web developers are clamoring for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but are users clamoring for it? Are native app developers clamoring for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it? Like it it seems like this is the kind of thing that web developers are all saying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in order for us to keep doing things the way we like best we need these things to make us relevant
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in this world that right now we kind of aren’t first-class citizens in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but that world and the people who use it don’t have that problem. Like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco me as a native app developer and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as a user of native apps on my phone, I don’t have the problem of my
⏹️ ▶️ Marco web apps can’t do enough. Like that is not a problem I have.
⏹️ ▶️ John But you know you do have that like web developers obviously have the problem. Users have it too because you why users
⏹️ ▶️ John have that problem is that developers have to you know companies that have a software
⏹️ ▶️ John product or service have to make multiple different native apps. Why? Because you can’t make just one web
⏹️ ▶️ John app that works for everybody. Or if you can, it’s crappy, right? And that is worse for you as a user, because it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John them spreading their efforts over several proprietary platforms like the open web is good
⏹️ ▶️ John for users. So it’s bad that you can’t use bad for users, I think that you
⏹️ ▶️ John can’t use the open web to make an app that’s as good as a native app experience or close enough to be good
⏹️ ▶️ John enough. That’s bad for users, that’s also bad for developers, because they spend
⏹️ ▶️ John more time fighting with individual proprietary platforms instead of the open web, the open web is good for pretty much everybody
⏹️ ▶️ John except for big companies, right. And so there is this constant effort to try to make the open web
⏹️ ▶️ John better as you know, native platforms are getting better all the time. platforms, companies are highly motivated
⏹️ ▶️ John to make data platforms better. They’re also motivated to make their web browsers better. They’re
⏹️ ▶️ John always working hard to make Safari run faster, put pages load faster, which is why I think Apple could actually
⏹️ ▶️ John do well to be more aggressive on the things that just simply let you, you know, get your JavaScript loaded and cached
⏹️ ▶️ John and pre compiled faster than we’re currently doing and stuff like that. But But yeah, I think the open
⏹️ ▶️ John web is a benefit to both developers and users. And it’s only a detriment to companies with proprietary platforms.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so we’re kind of in this catch 22. It’s like, well, it’s actually not really good for users. Because if you if they could make
⏹️ ▶️ John a web app ever would suck. And then the web developers like, yeah, but we want it not to suck. And so what happens first? Do
⏹️ ▶️ John you make it not suck first? Or do you implement it but then it still sucks but then everybody does it and native apps are still
⏹️ ▶️ John better like it’s a difficult situation for everybody involved. But I think it’s wrong to say that
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s no benefit for users. They definitely it’s the same thing you’ve talked about many times before about, you know, proprietary
⏹️ ▶️ John systems owned and controlled by one company like Twitter versus an open alternative.
⏹️ ▶️ John The open web is an important thing to preserve and continue to enhance and
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s always going to mean I don’t know if there’s always going to be a gap, but there’s currently a gap. And I would like that gap to narrow
⏹️ ▶️ John or and I think narrowing that gap between native and the open web would be good for everybody except
⏹️ ▶️ John the possible exception of companies like Apple and Microsoft.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, in general, I agree. But I do want to clarify that I my position is not that there is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no user benefit. My position is that there’s too little user demand.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, that’s the catch-22. Why would they demand a crappier app like they want, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John they don’t know It’s not like they’re demanding a web app is like oh when I use the web I’m gonna use the native one the native one is better, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John So it’s the it it’s something that they would benefit from the users who benefit from but they don’t they’re no they
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know Enough to ask for in the same way that users wouldn’t know enough to ask for you know Like a language like Swift like they don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ John like what causes bugs and if there was a better different programming language it would cost fewer
⏹️ ▶️ John of those bugs and help develop it like that’s not a user concern, but they reap the benefits of it like users don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ John what technologies developers need to have to make their lives better. And they’re not going to even connect back the
⏹️ ▶️ John fact that like it takes twice as long to get something especially if you’re on like a lesser platform. Like if you’re on a platform
⏹️ ▶️ John that isn’t if you have a Windows phone, maybe you feel this more acutely.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Hey, there’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John version of this app for iOS. And they said they’re making Android version, but they don’t even mention the words Windows Phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John So, but I guess I can use this web page that we can all use, right? Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John again, Mac users have been in that position, where they were Windows versions of everything they wanted. And a Mac
⏹️ ▶️ John version maybe was mentioned once or maybe never mentioned. We didn’t even get half life for crying out loud. We still
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t have half life.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, but and that’s, you know, part of the problem here is like, the argument for web developers making web
⏹️ ▶️ Marco apps being like the way forward for all mobile platforms would be a much stronger argument if there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco were more than two that mattered. But there aren’t. And it’s not and most most
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like companies and startups and everything that have an app. You can you can get away just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fine making either just iOS or iOS and Android. Well,
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s a symptom though, isn’t it? Like why are there only two? Well, because native apps are so powerful, and because it’s so hard to make
⏹️ ▶️ John a native app platform, like if the open web was as powerful, it would be harder for two platforms to sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of dominate the entire market because it would be like, well, you know, we can have a diversity like palm would
⏹️ ▶️ John have survived if they didn’t have to have their own native SDK and have people write native apps is the only viable
⏹️ ▶️ John way to, you know, if if web apps were the only apps and it’s again the same way that the Mac
⏹️ ▶️ John survived, like, why was the Mac? Why did the Mac even continue to be relevant at all? It’s because the web became so big. And it’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ John well, yeah, I can’t have all these Windows applications. But increasingly, as long as I can go to yahoo.com
⏹️ ▶️ John and order books from Amazon, a Mac is still a viable computer to own, right? So it’s you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s I don’t know if catch 22 is the right term or chicken egg or whatever, but each thing is blocking the
⏹️ ▶️ John other like, well, it doesn’t really matter because there’s only two platforms, but there are only two platforms because the only way to write apps is native.
⏹️ ▶️ John And how many native platforms can we support? Like you can’t have seven, even
⏹️ ▶️ John game consoles. It’s only ever been like three with maybe a fourth. Like there’s just
⏹️ ▶️ John you can’t have 17 native app platforms. So you can have 17 different
⏹️ ▶️ John web browsers and different devices that all can view web pages. That is totally possible. Maybe you can get into like,
⏹️ ▶️ John well, web rendering engines, how many of those are there? Similar number, right? But web rendering engines,
⏹️ ▶️ John because they’re defined by standards for the most part, and because we’ve all kind of agreed that you can’t just make up the marquee tag and just be
⏹️ ▶️ John like, like, that’s not a winning strategy to just make up your entire proprietary thing, like ActiveX
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever, even Java applets didn’t catch on. We want it to be open. We want the open web to be
⏹️ ▶️ John not controlled by a single company. But if we let it languish, that all that will be left is proprietary
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, sure. Well, and also I think it would be remiss of us not to also mention that this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is not the only solution to this problem. So we, you know, if you want, if you have this, this environment
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of multiple mobile platforms, although let’s be honest, it’s really one to two that matter right now.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Um, and, and you want to have one thing that works on all of them, There’s already lots of things
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that let you make native apps using some kind of shared higher level language that then gets
⏹️ ▶️ Marco compiled down to the native code to the other platforms. Those things exist
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and as far as I know they do pretty well in the consulting business especially. And so like there are other solutions
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to this problem. Maybe like you know the web or the internet is fine. You know all this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco communication between these apps and to servers is all going over HTTPS
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s using it’s using the internet but it is not displaying the front end in a web in a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in a web browser necessarily or something that resembles a web browser and so you know the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the problem of making one front-end app that displays your stuff for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all platforms could be solved with web stuff
⏹️ ▶️ John with another proprietary company offering you a solution that’s on top of two other proprietary companies things like that’s three
⏹️ ▶️ John things that can go wrong to it too you know because yeah but nothing ever goes wrong with web browser support for things? Well,
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, but I’m saying like, what, you know, a new version of a web browser is not going to come out in the next
⏹️ ▶️ John like in the next year that is going to break the bold tag, right? Like if you know, there
⏹️ ▶️ John that whereas, if you’re writing something that targets a particular API that you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John produces objective C code for iOS and produces the you know, Java code for,
⏹️ ▶️ John for Android and everything. There are so many things that both those platforms can do unintentionally to make it so that
⏹️ ▶️ John your thing that targets both platforms breaks. Whereas the web comparatively is
⏹️ ▶️ John much more stable because it has to be because there’s tons of web browsers and tons of markup and they can’t there’s no
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s no sort of single controlling body in the way that there is Apple or Apple can just say, well, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John that API is gone, or we changed our ABI or we just changed from x86 to arm or whatever. And you’re like, Oh, God,
⏹️ ▶️ John this thing I have that it’s supposed to be targeting multiple platforms with a single code base is now like,
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t even know with a year of work, if I can get it to, you know, I don’t know if it’s ever going to work again, or they’ve
⏹️ ▶️ John changed the security rule. So I can’t even do what I was doing before. Or they’ve changed the app submission rules like
⏹️ ▶️ John with with the you know, the snap of their fingers, they can totally invalidate your entire strategy
⏹️ ▶️ John for deploying stuff, whereas the web does evolve, but it evolves way more slowly. And there’s no single point there’s no single
⏹️ ▶️ John company that can say, you know what that thing that you are making that makes a web app that runs on
⏹️ ▶️ John mobile and desktop browsers, Like next week, it’s not going to work at all.
Sponsor: Backblaze
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Our next sponsor this week is Backblaze. Now Casey, I heard that you got some interesting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco information about Backblaze.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Indeed. Just a few hours ago a listener wrote in. Nick wrote, Hey Casey and ATP
⏹️ ▶️ Casey guys. Not really sure how that distinction happened, but that’s cool. Thanks?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, in his defense, he wrote it just to me. So I’m assuming that’s where this came from. But anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey he wrote, I just wanted to share an experience. I’m finishing up college and have a small film company
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I run out of my apartment off of old Seagate hard drives. Hopefully not those three terabyte ones, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right, and I haven’t had the money to upgrade until recently. While waiting for my new RAID to come in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the mail, both my main hard drive and backup completely failed. Because Backblaze is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so cheap, I had everything up there and downloaded my project files and was able to cash some checks. No Backblaze,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey no profits, thanks so much. So hear it from a listener, not only from us, this stuff really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey works. But with that said, Marco will tell you a little more about it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, and honestly, we’ve heard from a number of people over the couple years we’ve been doing Backblaze ads, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco people who Backblaze save their bacon. That is not an uncommon story. And it makes sense. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Backblaze is unlimited, unthrottled online backup. Go to backblaze.com
⏹️ ▶️ Marco slash ATP to see for yourself. It is five bucks a month for unlimited
⏹️ ▶️ Marco storage for your computer. You need to have online backup. It is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so nice to have the peace of mind that all your files all your memories all
⏹️ ▶️ Marco your documents your photos everything that is all safely backed up let’s say
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have you already have a backup system you maybe use time machine maybe you super duper another cloning
⏹️ ▶️ Marco program maybe use both that’s great you should that’s great back blades gives you that final
⏹️ ▶️ Marco failsafe to know like what if what if there’s a flood in my house and all my computer stuff that’s on my desk
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is destroyed Casey you create many floods all the time on your desk.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you know what what if Casey comes over and spills water on your time machine drive and your computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at the same time? Like then you’re screwed unless you have something somewhere else. Right? I highly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco recommend online backup for situations like fires, floods, theft, Casey, power surges,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco anything. You need something like this in your life and for five bucks a month for unlimited space that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty hard to beat that that value that you get for that and that peace of mind you get for that. Granted everything I’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Marco said so far far applies to every online backup server for the most part. What I like about Backblaze over the other ones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is not only have I never had any problems with throttling or with limits
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or with bad performance or bad upload speeds, which I can’t say that about the other services I’ve tried.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Also their app is just nicer for me, it’s just better. Everything about using them is just better for me.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The apps aren’t slow, I don’t hit weird limits or anything because they’re native good apps. You know, Backblaze respects
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the Mac, their app is native code, it is not like, you know, Java
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or web technologies. It is real native code. They have great features too. So they have an iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and Android app, if you want, and then what you can do with that, you can like restore just one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco file. So let’s say you’re on a trip, and you forgot a document on your home computer, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you can’t get to it. Go to Backblaze, log in, and you can restore one file,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that’s it. and you have that document anywhere you are from iPhone or Android. Stop putting off doing this,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really. You need online backup, and you need this online backup. And that’s me saying that, not them, but they’ll probably say the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco same thing. So go to backblaze.com slash ATP, five bucks a month
⏹️ ▶️ Marco per computer for unlimited backup, unthrottled speeds, no add-ons, no gimmicks, no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco additional charges, five bucks a month. You can get a risk-free, no credit card required trial
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by going to backblaze.com slash ATP. Thanks a lot to Backblaze for sponsoring
⏹️ ▶️ Marco our show once again and for just being awesome.
Web “standards” and apps
⏹️ ▶️ John I can’t believe you’re arguing the proprietary side of this, Marco.
⏹️ ▶️ John supposed to be the person who loves freedom and hates Google for copying all
⏹️ ▶️ John your data into the cloud.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco part of it is like I look at web standards and standards people and I see,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know what? This is all the same old bull. Just now you put the word standard on it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s like standard markdown like, you know, you put the word standard on it and it sounds like something that is like this,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this, you know, great purpose with this great intention, this noble effort.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the reality is, it’s just people, it’s just companies having power struggles for themselves. Like that’s all it
⏹️ ▶️ John is. Yeah, well, but consensus is always ugly. That’s the whole point. It’s not owned and controlled by one company. So you get a bunch of people
⏹️ ▶️ John arguing, and they’re going to come up with something that’s not going to be as, as sort of pure as
⏹️ ▶️ John if one company decided. But the end result is, hey, guess what? No one company decided this. No one company
⏹️ ▶️ John has enough pull of the W3C to dictate what happens. And you know, the strengths
⏹️ ▶️ John of that and the weaknesses and the weaknesses are well known, takes them forever to do anything. Sometimes they come up with a stupid solution. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a dumb compromise. Doing things by committee is dumb. The whole HTML5 mess with the what WG like,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s definitely uglier, right? But the end result, no matter how crappy it may be, is still
⏹️ ▶️ John not owned and controlled by a single company. And that is its one shining true benefit. And you have to say that,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, for all the bumps and the the crappiness over the long term, where we were with HTML
⏹️ ▶️ John for quote unquote strict mode, and where we are today, we have made progress, it
⏹️ ▶️ John is definitely not been a straight line. But web technologies and the things you can do with web
⏹️ ▶️ John apps, of all kinds, just from plain old web pages up to things that act more like applications is way
⏹️ ▶️ John better now than it was a couple decades ago.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Oh, sure. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I think we’re making progress. And all along that progress at no point, with the exception
⏹️ ▶️ John of Microsoft trying for it, has all this web crap been under the thumb of a single company?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s fair. But you know, there’s also there’s downsides to this. And one of the downsides
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is like if you’re a company like Apple, and you have strong opinions about how things should be done, which let’s face it, everyone else
⏹️ ▶️ Marco does too. But everyone else is more like a, you know, we can all agree on cheese situation where they make it sound like what they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco want is the standard for everybody, but really, it’s for them. But you know, Apple, Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is not going to be pushed around here and if you’re Apple this could look as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as though like why should I let this this consortium of other of my competitors
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically dictate my roadmap to me and dictate my features to me and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco dictate how I do things like it cuts both ways like it is nice to have some kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of industry correlation and some kind of you know ad hoc standards form and sometimes you do need like a dictated
⏹️ ▶️ Marco standard but there’s also so many downsides to that and it can go so wrong
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you have the situation where if you let the standards bodies which are just a bunch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of dysfunctional people just like any other any other committee if you let these committees
⏹️ ▶️ Marco dictate everything you’re going to do you’re gonna make you do some bad stuff too and they’re gonna make and they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gonna make you do some things that are against your interests and and possibly not good ideas even for your
⏹️ ▶️ Marco users and so you have to be a little bit picky you and you have to push back sometimes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you You have to just declare your own standards sometimes and hope people catch up, which Apple has done many
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, that’s been Apple’s kind of MO in the W3C. Like when they come and they arrive with the
⏹️ ▶️ John canvas tag, they’re like, you know what would be a really cool idea, guys? If we have this tag called canvas, which
⏹️ ▶️ John by the way, you’ve already implemented in the API, looks like core graphics, but don’t mind that.
⏹️ ▶️ John it’d be really cool if we had this, guys. And if they say yes, it’s great for Apple because they’re like,
⏹️ ▶️ John yay, they said yes. And guess what? We already implemented it. just hypothetically telling you about something we think would
⏹️ ▶️ John be cool, but telling about something you’ve already implemented. And that’s great for Apple and other companies
⏹️ ▶️ John are always doing the same thing. Hey, you know, I don’t know if they’ve already implemented, but everybody is bringing to the table,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, here’s how I think we should do red and images. And by the way, we’ve already implemented this in our web browser. And everyone wants
⏹️ ▶️ John you to pick your thing for for whatever the thing is, because a that puts you ahead and be you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John the one who got to design it and like, the committees may take it and say, well, we like your proposal, we want to adjust this,
⏹️ ▶️ John that and the other thing and then like, okay, great, we’ll go back and adjust our implementation. That’s how essentially web standards works.
⏹️ ▶️ John At this point, all the companies are coming with the thing that’s exactly the way they want to do it, the thing that’s important to them,
⏹️ ▶️ John their priorities. And sometimes what happens is the thing that Apple wants, they more or less get in the way they wanted it. And the
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that Microsoft wants, they more or less get anything that Google like, each company has things the most important to them.
⏹️ ▶️ John And sort of all the things get defined as standards. And everyone kind of agrees like, Oh, yeah, no,
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s totally a standard. But then who implements the canvas tag? Well, Apple certainly has it, they, they’re the ones made it up it’s there first
⏹️ ▶️ John who else is going to implement the canvas tag the other ones like grumble grumble maybe i’ll do it or whatever and
⏹️ ▶️ John like same thing with index db and shadow dom like whoever is the strongest driving force behind those standards
⏹️ ▶️ John is the one that wants it the most and even if it gets sort of agreed upon by the committee and written up on w3c
⏹️ ▶️ John and say this is going to be a standard like that takes years and years for it to get to that stage then you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John still left with all right who implements these standards just you know just because it’s written
⏹️ ▶️ John written down in W3C or website, like you said, Marco doesn’t mean Apple has to make it. They get to pick and choose
⏹️ ▶️ John which web standards they’re going to make. It’s bad. It’s a bad look for Apple if the committee,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, the W3C agrees on how we’re going to handle retina images. And Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John implements his own way to do it, despite the fact that it wasn’t the accepted standard and refuses to implement the accepted standard
⏹️ ▶️ John like that is sort of not playing the game the right way. And Apple wouldn’t do that because eventually
⏹️ ▶️ John five years down the line, everybody else would have implemented this way to do retina images. And Apple would have the other
⏹️ ▶️ John way and people would be like, well, I got to do conditional markup because now for everybody else, I can use this element.
⏹️ ▶️ John But for sorry, I would have to do this. Now the Apple would never do that they’re going to just go with the standard eventually anyway, for things
⏹️ ▶️ John for these other things that are implemented yet. It’s just because Apple, they’re not high on Apple’s priority list,
⏹️ ▶️ John like either they’re not going to catch on which case Apple will have been smart to not waste time implementing it or if
⏹️ ▶️ John they do catch on, eventually Apple will implement it when it becomes important. It’s all about prioritization.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s just that it seems like every other browser vendor is more motivated at this point to implement
⏹️ ▶️ John the standards faster because almost all the important platforms see
⏹️ ▶️ John the web at this point as their weapon against whatever other proprietary platform
⏹️ ▶️ John is beating them in whatever other market. They’re like, well, you may be beating me in this market, but like say Windows Phones,
⏹️ ▶️ John for example, well, Android and iOS may be beating me in the native app market. But if I hurry up and implement web standards really
⏹️ ▶️ John well, maybe I’ll have really cool web apps at the very least. And web developers will like
⏹️ ▶️ John our platform like it’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco only thing available
⏹️ ▶️ John to them, right? Or is Apple’s priorities are different. And you know, Google’s priorities are a little bit weird, because they have Android, but
⏹️ ▶️ John they also have all of Google’s web apps. So Google is highly motivated to make the web awesome,
⏹️ ▶️ John but also motivated to make a native platform that competes with iOS. So I get I mean, in this game,
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple is the only one who is highly motivated to work on native apps and slightly
⏹️ ▶️ John less motivated to work on web stuff. So it kind of makes sense that they are choosing different web
⏹️ ▶️ John technologies to concentrate on. And that so many of the things that they’re concentrating on with their
⏹️ ▶️ John web stuff, like with all this power saving things and GPU acceleration are actually things
⏹️ ▶️ John that make their overall platform better. It’s better when mobile Safari doesn’t kill your battery. It’s better for selling
⏹️ ▶️ John iPhones, right? And so they’re doing that. It’s not really a native app thing. It’s like, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s our platform. Our platform is this entire product, not just the software it runs on. And so Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John has been doing things to make their web browser, like every other part of the system, more power efficient.
⏹️ ▶️ John And I don’t think anyone else is as motivated to do that. Maybe Android a little bit, but you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s, it’s a strange mix of prioritization there. And I think the, what we’re seeing
⏹️ ▶️ John is the result of different companies with different, different goals
⏹️ ▶️ John and different priorities. I just do worry that as these companies drift
⏹️ ▶️ John off in the directions that is natural for them to drift in, that things will start separating too
⏹️ ▶️ John much. It’s why I wrote that code harder to go home thing. It was kind of disappointing to me to see that
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple and Google couldn’t stick together and put all their effort behind making a great web browsing engine. That Apple and Google’s
⏹️ ▶️ John directions and pace was so different that they had to split. And I worry about Apple being left behind
⏹️ ▶️ John simply because their web rendering engine priorities are so much different than Google’s
⏹️ ▶️ John and different than web developers and perhaps not in the best interest of users
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, the thing of it is, is that as you both have said, everyone is acting in their own interests and that in in and of itself,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t think that’s unreasonable or bad. It’s just I like you just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey said, John, I would hope that all of these different companies interest eventually kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey come back together over time. And I think it was John that said a moment ago, a few minutes ago,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you know, if it comes to be that the new food tag
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is just the coolest thing in the world and Apple hasn’t done it and everyone else has and it’s freaking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey awesome, you bet your butt that Apple’s going to implement it. It may not be as quick as you want, but it’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Casey happen. I don’t see them just completely sitting on their hands and going, la, la, la, la, la, we don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey care. So I understand everyone’s perspective here, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I just I don’t see it as near as big a deal as Nolan apparently did.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, and I just keep going back to, you know, motivations here, perspectives. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much of this is the perspective of web developers who see this world
⏹️ ▶️ Marco taking off of native apps and who just who want to stick with what they know, what they’re invested
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in, what they believe is right, which is the web app. And they don’t want to come make native apps, especially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the platform they don’t use. So you know, just like iOS developers, or you know, like me,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like I use iOS, I’m an iOS developer, I just can’t address Android in a way that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is good, because I don’t see it, I don’t use it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I choose not to have it be a part of my devices in my life. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so I just can’t serve Android. And they’re not, you know, the web development world is not used to that. the web development world
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is used to being able to serve everybody with only writing one version of the site, especially now that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco modern browsers are so good with CSS and stuff. You can really just write one version of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco site and have it work pretty much everywhere without a whole lot of effort and without a whole lot of hacks,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which is way better than it used to be, thanks to web standards, John. You have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to look at this as like, web developers really just, of course they want to stick with what they know. Of course
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they want to use all the knowledge and the tools and the code that they already have.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But the fact is this is a world of native apps now and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there is nothing from users saying we want web apps to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco come back and get better so we can stop using these native apps. That’s just not the world we live in. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many of these standards are about pushing web apps
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into becoming native app replacements, maybe that’s not the right goal.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, maybe just yelling at native apps and saying, we’re coming after you with our
⏹️ ▶️ Marco old stuff, just wait till it catches up, just you’ll see it’ll be there just like desktop Linux, it’ll be there next year. You know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe that is actually a path towards faster relevance. I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ve said things in the past that are very skeptical of the future of the web
⏹️ ▶️ Marco browser being the front end for apps. Like you know if you look at so many
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new things that matter a lot like Instagram when it came up and it didn’t even have any website whatsoever.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean heck it didn’t even have an Android app for a while but look at things like that and like Instagram rose
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up and was bought for a billion dollars before it even had a website at all like that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did anything useful. Like it was crazy and I think the website still doesn’t do that much
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you know you can you can look at examples like that. That was granted a long time ago, but these examples
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just keep happening now and you can say you know maybe maybe you know I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like I’ve hitched my train to this web this web standards thing this web app thing and that’s what I’m going to invest
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all my professional life and career in. Maybe that train you know maybe the ride there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is coming to an end. I don’t know how many more metaphors I can shove in here, but Like that might not be the best thing,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco both career wise, financially, or for your users, or for your company. Like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these new platforms come up, and right now, you know, we went through this period where web apps, it was the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco glory days of web apps. Like from like 2005 to like, you know, 2013, 2014, it’s like the glory days of web apps.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Of like, that was the place to be to succeed, to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco make a big startup, to make a successful app, or whatever, that was the place
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be. Now, that’s very clearly not the place to do those
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things. Now, apps are the place to do those things. And you can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco look at the way web developers talk about the things they need, the things they want, the future they see,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and look at other industries that have been made less relevant or less
⏹️ ▶️ Marco successful by technological change. Look at statements made by publishers of magazines
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and magazine-like websites. Look at statements made by record industries about music and the music business.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And you can see, you know, it isn’t that bad, but you can kind of see some parallels there. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I really do think like web developers would be best served by, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, sure, if you, if this is what you care about, keep pushing on it, keep doing what you want, but keep an
⏹️ ▶️ Marco open mind to the idea that maybe in 10 years, web development
⏹️ ▶️ Marco won’t reach this point that you want it to reach. Maybe native apps will, will keep the hold they have on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them. technology moves in these eras. It is not always as open
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or standards-based as idealists want it to be. Sometimes you have a span of like 10 years, like Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the 90s. Sometimes you have a span of like 10 years where one company does control a lot,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you just have to deal with it. You have to work within that. You have to find ways to succeed and get your business
⏹️ ▶️ Marco done in that environment. And, you know, what John has said about, you know, open being better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for everybody is true in theory and and it has a lot of benefits but in practice
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it doesn’t always work out that way it doesn’t always happen you don’t always have those chances and so you have to work within
⏹️ ▶️ Marco whatever era your career is happening in at this moment and where it’s going to go next you have to work within
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that just pragmatically ideally yes ideally things are different pragmatically
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is how the real world works
⏹️ ▶️ John you make it sound like you can’t get a job as a web developer like the web will be the web will be around longer than Windows Phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, don’t worry about
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco it. Well, that’s not saying much. The web will be
⏹️ ▶️ John fine. It’s just a question of relative rates of development. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John know what Nolan’s motivation is because he lists himself as an Android developer and a web developer. Obviously, he wants to make more
⏹️ ▶️ John appy type things, but I’ve seen similar complaints from other people and I don’t think it’s all personally motivated. In fact, I think most of
⏹️ ▶️ John it is kind of altruistic, hippy-dippy, like we don’t want a future
⏹️ ▶️ John controlled by a small number of companies. We want a future controlled by
⏹️ ▶️ John nobody in the Brent Simmons RSS, Manton Rees
⏹️ ▶️ John micro-blogging, get your own domain, Marco Arment, host your own email, sense
⏹️ ▶️ John of the word of independence, that our future isn’t dictated
⏹️ ▶️ John by a small number of people who run some very large and very powerful companies. The web
⏹️ ▶️ John is a hedge against that. And if we give up on the web and say, well,
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe I should just learn to write native apps, like every person who does that, every time a company moves in
⏹️ ▶️ John that direction, is it’s kind of ceding control,
⏹️ ▶️ John giving up on the dreams that all three of the people I listed, you, Brent, Manthan, and
⏹️ ▶️ John me, for that matter, have expressed about a future defined
⏹️ ▶️ John in our own terms, where we sort of own our own information, right? and
⏹️ ▶️ John where we don’t have to do, where companies don’t have the power to end our
⏹️ ▶️ John careers with a flick of the switch or change the rules on us. Like, that’s what the open web is about.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so, I don’t think it’s so much about I’m worried about my
⏹️ ▶️ John personal career, so I’m gonna write this thing about Safari as the new IE to try to make Apple do the thing that I want
⏹️ ▶️ John them to do so I can do the thing. Like, you’re right that there’s adjustments, like, especially in startups. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John startups are all about the web, now startups are all about apps. Who knows what the Hexed Arps will be about in the next couple of decades.
⏹️ ▶️ John Maybe it’ll be about biotech. I have no idea. But I think that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John separate from the overarching discussion of
⏹️ ▶️ John what is going to define the future of technology. And we define it by sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of the anyone who participates in the development community defines it. Like even
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve seen a lot of tweets from Lauren Brichter discussing this, who has very strong and strange feelings
⏹️ ▶️ John about programming and development these days. But when he did iOS development, he wrote his own GUI in OpenGL, and he’s currently
⏹️ ▶️ John having fantasies of writing a web application entirely with WebGL
⏹️ ▶️ John and the Canvas tag, right? Is that still a web application as we define it? Why would he be doing that? Why
⏹️ ▶️ John wouldn’t he just write a native app? He’s certainly a really good native app developer. He’s not doing it because he’s afraid
⏹️ ▶️ John that he won’t be, he already knows how to write native apps, right? It’s because he doesn’t want to be under
⏹️ ▶️ John the thumb of Apple or Microsoft or Android or anyone else. And that was what I think is the underlying motivation
⏹️ ▶️ John of at least some of the people who are sort of behind the, hey, let’s make the web a better place
⏹️ ▶️ John to write applications thing. It’s not so much about trying to defend their small domain of knowledge
⏹️ ▶️ John because if they can’t write web applications, they can’t do any other job. I mean, Lauren Brickner is a great example. He can obviously
⏹️ ▶️ John write native applications, right? That’s not why he’s doing that. That’s not why people like Jeffrey Zeldman
⏹️ ▶️ John are gung-ho on the web, right? It’s sort of trying to ensure
⏹️ ▶️ John a better future for everybody. And I like to think that that is the majority of the
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that motivates everyone on the Safari team, everybody on the Blink team at Google, everybody doing anything with web technologies,
⏹️ ▶️ John that they’re motivated in large part by the idea that even if they work at Google or Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John or Apple, that the web isn’t owned by anybody.
Sponsor: Fracture
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Our final sponsor this week is Fracture. Fracture prints your photos in vivid color directly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on glass. Go to fractureme.com. It’s so sad that we take so many photos these
⏹️ ▶️ Marco days, and they just pretty much just live in Instagram or photo libraries,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you don’t really ever print them or show them in any meaningful way. Most people don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco display them in their house or anything. It’s just like they live online, and then that’s it. There’s no
⏹️ ▶️ Marco artifact of them. Fracture believes you should change that. You know, you should get some photos printed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that are good, that you want to have on your wall in your house, or that you want to give as gifts.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They’re great for that. And you get the photos printed directly onto glass.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This is a really… it’s a genius structure they have here. So, here’s how this works. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a Fracture print, it has a thin layer of glass, and the photo’s printed on the back side of it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco facing forward. So, you don’t have to worry about it getting scratched, like a CD, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the way the CD layer was on top, and so CDs could get scratched from the top, and it was a terrible design.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Fracture prints aren’t like that. The fracture print, the print is below the glass, shining through, but the glass is so thin,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that it looks like it’s on the glass. It looks like you are looking at a glass print. And then,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco behind it is a thin piece of foam board that then you can mount screws or hangnails into. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it is so easy to mount and it’s also very lightweight and very thin and it looks awesome
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it doesn’t need a frame it is its own frame basically And it doesn’t need a frame it goes edge to edge, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just looks nice and clean and finished and modern That’s why I keep getting compliments on these things because people keep
⏹️ ▶️ Marco looking at them and saying hey What’s that because? You know I have like other I have like frame things around my office from other you know other
⏹️ ▶️ Marco prints and like big posters and stuff But the fracture prints just look so much nicer more modern.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They were also a lot cheaper honestly compared to framing and everything else, it’s a no-brainer. Fracture prints
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are great. We’ve heard from so many people who’ve also taken fracture prints and just love them.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I had in my idea earlier, I don’t know, last year or something like that, where I printed my app icons
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the small square fractures and those are like nice little trophies that I have hanging on my wall of the apps I’ve made.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Same thing also works with like podcast artwork. I guess it’ll work for your website, Favicon, if you’re a web developer.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sorry. You know, there’s all sorts of great uses for Fracture.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They make great gifts, we’ve given them as gifts. Both prank gifts like they do on just the tip
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and also real gifts, they are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John great for that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s a great service, these are great prints. So, prices start at just 15 bucks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a five by five inch square. The square sizes are great for Instagram also, obviously that’s probably where they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco got it from, probably wasn’t at Pycons. Great for Instagram, they also have rectangular sizes for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco traditional photo shapes. Check it out, they’re all handmade and checked for quality by a team
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of real human beings in Gainesville, Florida. They put everything you need to hang it up right in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco box. It comes with the backing, it comes with either the desk stand if you ordered that, or it comes with a little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco picture nail if you want that. It is great, I love it. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just keep ordering these things because they’re so good. Fracture is the thinnest, lightest, and most elegant way to display your favorite
⏹️ ▶️ Marco photo. Get 15% off your first order with coupon code ATP15,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco also let them know that you came from the show. Thank you very much to fracture for sponsoring our show once again, go
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to fracture me.com use coupon code ATP 15
Microsoft layoffs
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, so was it earlier today, I believe, Microsoft announced
⏹️ ▶️ Casey big layoffs. And someone was kind enough to put some snippets in the show
⏹️ ▶️ Casey notes, and I will capitalize on their hard work and claim it as my own. Microsoft Corp.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey today announced plans to restructure the company’s phone hardware business to better focus and align resources,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which typically is business speak for we screwed up. Microsoft also announced a reduction of up to 7,800 positions, primarily
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the phone business. As a result, the company
⏹️ ▶️ Casey will record an impairment charge of approximately $7.6 billion related
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to assets associated with the acquisition of the Nokia devices and services business in addition
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to a restructuring charge of approximately $750 million to $850 million. Yikes.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And just for reference, isn’t that, they’re basically saying like the entire price we paid for Nokia is a write-off?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Isn’t that basically what they paid
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, since they bought Nokia, they said they’ve basically lost $10 billion on it. Not a great
⏹️ ▶️ John acquisition. And like, I always wonder, obviously I don’t understand enough about big business
⏹️ ▶️ John to know like someone is highly motivated to make these things happen, right? Someone is highly
⏹️ ▶️ John motivated to marry two large companies together, at least it’s going to be a big payday for them,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? But anybody from the outside and probably most people from the inside know that
⏹️ ▶️ John the The joining of these two giant companies, despite all the talk of synergy, is going to be a terrible
⏹️ ▶️ John idea. Nothing good is going to come from this multi-billion dollar acquisition.
⏹️ ▶️ John The chances are really, really, really high that instead what’s going to happen is
⏹️ ▶️ John more losses, more layoffs, just like bad things will happen. It’s possible
⏹️ ▶️ John to have good acquisitions. Apple buying Next was perhaps the best acquisition in the
⏹️ ▶️ John history of the world value-wise. like $400 million for next or whatever it was. Uh,
⏹️ ▶️ John if you look at what they got out of that deal, tremendous, right. It all starts with like,
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, I bought a small company and that was a great idea because it helped me make this product that, you know, like whatever, buying the companies that do
⏹️ ▶️ John like touch ID sensor or strategic investments in other small companies. But when it’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John a company that’s in trouble buying some other company for really, really big amount of money,
⏹️ ▶️ John it just always seems like to me from the outside that it’s like, seriously, someone thinks this is a good idea, like this
⏹️ ▶️ John is not going to save them, this is going to be a disaster, and most of the time you’re right. But
⏹️ ▶️ John somebody in all these companies must be both incentivized to do it
⏹️ ▶️ John and in the position where they can make it happen. And those people are I guess laughing all the way to the bank
⏹️ ▶️ John or retiring to their private islands or whatever it is they’re doing. But Microsoft as a company, if you care
⏹️ ▶️ John about Microsoft as a company, them buying Nokia, or for that matter, Google buying Motorola,
⏹️ ▶️ John seem like really bad ideas in retrospect and also really bad ideas at the time.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like maybe there was nothing else they could do and this was the best of a bunch of bad options
⏹️ ▶️ John but boy this is very disappointing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean don’t you think though that, I do agree with you, but don’t you think in a situation
⏹️ ▶️ Casey where Microsoft was arguably a little bit on the ropes, what was it a year or two ago when they bought
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Nokia, Nokia I always pronounce it wrong I’m sorry, if they have a lot of money in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the bank and they’re kind of on the ropes, why not give it a shot? Like I agree
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that intellectually it didn’t never seem like it was going to work. It just seemed like a bad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey idea. But if you’re, if you’re in a bad position, but you have a pretty big war chest, what
⏹️ ▶️ Casey else are you really supposed to do? Quadruple down on R and D and hope you fart out something good?
⏹️ ▶️ John It kind of seemed like at the point that they bought Nokia, their whole strategy
⏹️ ▶️ John about like, are we going to make our own phones or are we going to make Windows phones and have other people make
⏹️ ▶️ John phones like trying to waffle between the Apple strategy and the Microsoft Windows strategy where
⏹️ ▶️ John do we just make the software and then we make other people like the hardware or have we decided that that doesn’t work anymore and we need to make
⏹️ ▶️ John our own hardware because you can’t do both very well like
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s it’s same thing with Google and Android like well they make Nexus phones but they want everyone else to use Android but they let people
⏹️ ▶️ John do whatever they want with Android but not really actually they want to have more tightly like it is you can say
⏹️ ▶️ John what you want about Apple strategy. But for the most part, it has been straightforward. And
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft has been in between strategies for a while the Windows strategy was clear, we make the software, you make the hardware, you
⏹️ ▶️ John guys kill each other until your margins is zero and you all go out of business, we make money hand over fist, right? That
⏹️ ▶️ John was a very clear strategy. They tried to do the same thing with mobile, and it just never worked out.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so they doing the slow motion transition into kind
⏹️ ▶️ John of like the Apple strategy, like once they bought Nokia was like, so are you all in on the Apple strategy?
⏹️ ▶️ John I know you basically bought a phone company. You’re gonna make Windows phones, running Windows that you make, like that seems
⏹️ ▶️ John like what you’re doing, but you’re also still licensing Windows phone? Like, what are you guys even doing? It was just,
⏹️ ▶️ John it was, it’s like they didn’t want to do what Steve Jobs did when he came back with, at Apple,
⏹️ ▶️ John was immediately make the super hard choices. Are we doing phones or are we not doing them?
⏹️ ▶️ John And it seems like, like they spent $10 billion to delay a few years in saying,
⏹️ ▶️ John we’re not doing them, at least not this way. this way where we make our own phones. And I don’t even understand,
⏹️ ▶️ John like the next quote I put in the show notes here is Satya Nadella saying, “‘We’re moving from a strategy “‘to grow a
⏹️ ▶️ John standalone phone business “‘to a strategy to grow and create “‘a vibrant Windows ecosystem,
⏹️ ▶️ John “‘including our own first-party family.’” What the hell does that even mean? You’re not
⏹️ ▶️ John going to have a standalone phone business? You want to have a vibrant Windows ecosystem?
⏹️ ▶️ John Fine. Including our own first-party device family? Wasn’t that what you were just trying to do? like walk this
⏹️ ▶️ John middle road of like, we want to have a vibrant ecosystem,
⏹️ ▶️ John but we’re also gonna make our own phones.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco He also wants to focus his phone business on making every kind of phone for everybody.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, like either just say, we lost in mobile. We were too late, we moved
⏹️ ▶️ John too slowly, we made too many mistakes, we’re gone. Or pick one thing, strategy,
⏹️ ▶️ John and focus on it laser-like. And their current waffling, it just seems like you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John just dragging things out and not really making things better. Like, I think you’re right, Casey. Like,
⏹️ ▶️ John the Nokia acquisition is like, well, the one thing, we don’t have a lot of time, but we do have a lot of money, so let’s just go for it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t. Maybe you could say, well, of course, the naysayers are gonna say it’s too late, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John never gonna get traction. But who knows, they could have, maybe something could have happened, they could have had a particular feature in a new Windows
⏹️ ▶️ John phone that caught the public imagination and suddenly, you know, I don’t know. Like, it’s conceivable,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it just, it has always seemed that like, they’re not quite ready. These
⏹️ ▶️ John layoffs are actually kind of a good thing, but they’re not quite ready to do the crazy, brutal, immediate cuts that
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple is. But Apple was gonna go bankrupt, Microsoft is not, right? So Apple was better motivated
⏹️ ▶️ John to do the cuts that it did. Microsoft probably needs to do the same kind of cutting.
⏹️ ▶️ John It just is, you know, because they’re not in such dire straits, they’re not quite ready to
⏹️ ▶️ John do that. And like the Satya Nadella company that concentrates on Azure and mobile
⏹️ ▶️ John services and server-side back ends, kind of like a better,
⏹️ ▶️ John friendlier, less creepy Google where
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco they have a bunch of server services
⏹️ ▶️ John that they vend to you, and of course they still own the desktop and all this. That company
⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t seem to include mobile as an essential component to me. That strategy,
⏹️ ▶️ John they wanna have that strategy. They wanna say, we sell to the enterprise, we own the desktop PC space,
⏹️ ▶️ John We also have Windows, you know, mobile services type things for vendors of all platforms, including other mobile
⏹️ ▶️ John platforms. And by the way, we also want to have our own phone platform and our own phones
⏹️ ▶️ John and have our phone operating system on other people’s phones. Like, I don’t know if Microsoft of today is the Microsoft that can keep doing
⏹️ ▶️ John that. So, God, it’s weird that I’m rooting for Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John to get its crap together. And I never thought they really were, but like, I mean, I guess I’m just in retrospect
⏹️ ▶️ John yelling at them some more for acquiring Nokia. I guess this is the right move to cut your losses to
⏹️ ▶️ John move on. But it’s tough for all the people who are getting laid off. And I still don’t understand these quotes
⏹️ ▶️ John in this press release about their strategy moving forward. It still seems like they’re still crossing their fingers and hoping
⏹️ ▶️ John somehow that windows phone will be viable in some form.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Honest question. Why do you say it’s weird for you to be rooting for Microsoft? Why? Why is that weird? Cause I hate
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft. I’m a long time Microsoft hater. Remember?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, but, but I mean, what have they, what have they done to you lately?
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t, I’m not going to make the analogy. always make again because it’s terrible and people should yell at me much more than they do
⏹️ ▶️ John about making it so I’m not gonna make it again but but yeah I’ve explained this in nicer terms many
⏹️ ▶️ John times before when I was growing up it was so clear to me that Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John had the better operating system and technology and everything for desktop computing and
⏹️ ▶️ John the company that won in the market was Microsoft with an inferior product as far as I was concerned
⏹️ ▶️ John and I’ll never forgive them for destroy like even though it was only a span of like 10 or
⏹️ ▶️ John 20 years where Microsoft was the dominant force in desktop computing. That was an important 10 or 20 years
⏹️ ▶️ John in my particular lifespan. And they ruined it all by, by winning on,
⏹️ ▶️ John on the basis of merits that I did not consider important or the most important one. So I hold a
⏹️ ▶️ John grudge against them, which is silly and immature in reality. I’m actually rooting for them. So, and so forth,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m basically explaining to you, why do I ever have any kind of resistance to Microsoft? That’s why.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, well, I understand what you’re saying. And it is big of you and I’m not patronizing you. It’s big of you to say that you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Casey holding a grudge and being a baby about it. But, not to turn this into accidental analog, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t you think that Apple needed
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the domination of Microsoft and their utter demise or near demise
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to rise from the ashes and become the powerhouse they are today?
⏹️ ▶️ John It makes a more dramatic story, but they didn’t need it to do what they did. You know what I mean? If Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John had become the dominant force in desktop computing, I would have had a happier childhood.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Slightly. I don’t know that it really could have ended up this way. Like, I mean, there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey no way for us to know, right? But-
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m not entirely sure that the situation, like the situation we end up in makes a really good story because a company that almost goes out
⏹️ ▶️ John of business then becomes the biggest company in the world is a great story, right? And the return of a leader ousted.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s all a great narrative, but the current place we’re in
⏹️ ▶️ John with the current Apple, I don’t know if this is the best of all possible Apple worlds
⏹️ ▶️ John at this point, right? I don’t know, like, anyway, like I said, I’m rooting for Microsoft to get its act together.
⏹️ ▶️ John I would like to see it concentrated on the things that it is actually good at. I still have a taste
⏹️ ▶️ John issue with Microsoft to use the old Steve Jobs slam on them in that
⏹️ ▶️ John a lot of the things they do, I find technically and aesthetically displeasing
⏹️ ▶️ John for reasons that are also probably petty and silly, but just, I mean, even down to the use of backslashes
⏹️ ▶️ John and all capital letters and things. Like, you think, well, why does that matter? Like, stuff like that matters to me. It’s stupid,
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever, it does. I feel like my sensibilities do not match
⏹️ ▶️ John up, but my sensibilities are a much greater match to 90s-era Apple sensibilities
⏹️ ▶️ John and Unix sensibilities, and combine them two, then you have modern Apple sensibilities, which I’m still pretty
⏹️ ▶️ John much on the same wavelength with. I’ve not been on the same wavelength with
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft about most things. And the major manifestation of my grudge
⏹️ ▶️ John is, I have to admit, in the gaming world, where I still won’t have an Xbox
⏹️ ▶️ John if I can possibly help it. And they bought Bungie, did I mention that? Anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco there’s a lot of bitterness, for many years. You don’t say.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So when I was in high school and middle school, I was picked on like crazy.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There were so many people who picked on me. And some of it, I wasn’t helping, but a lot of it,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was just getting picked on. So I had a rough time. And so in college,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was home for one of the summers, and I had a job. I had a good internship at
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Nationwide Insurance. And one morning, I stopped off at the coffee shop in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco neighborhood I grew up in, and And the guy behind the counter who served me was one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the biggest bullies to me in school. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco here I was, like, going to my nice job, and I’m being served by this guy who used
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to really be a bully to me. And he was so burnt out
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so out of it. He looked like he’d been hit by a train. Like he clearly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco had gone through some really rough times and was not having the life that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco anybody would have said, I want that life. He clearly, he needed to get his stuff together
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and clearly just wasn’t. And here he was serving me,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco after making fun of me for years. And I felt bad for him. I didn’t look at him and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco say, oh, here’s this guy I hated in high school. I just looked at him, I’m like, man, that is so sad.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco He was so burnt out, I don’t think he even recognized me. I hadn’t seen him in like three years. I don’t think he
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even knew who I was. And that, to me, like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hating Microsoft today…
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t hate them. It’s like you said, I feel bad for them, I wish they would do better, but I still
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey have… But P.S.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, no, it’s like, here’s the thing, like I said, the current day, I still have aesthetic differences
⏹️ ▶️ John with their tastes, in like the technologies that they make and the sort of the GUIs they
⏹️ ▶️ John make, even down to the hardware design, like it doesn’t quite match up with my taste.
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe a little bit closer, but still not quite a match. And I do give them full credit for sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of leading the charge in that new design, but I like Apple’s interpretation of it better. Right. So I’m not I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John spend my time worrying about them. But like, even here’s the thing, they still
⏹️ ▶️ John dominate on the desktop. And that still annoys me. The idea that someone who most
⏹️ ▶️ John people who own personal computers do not own Apple personal computers or Linux on the desktop or whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John that camera, they mostly own Windows. And I don’t like Windows. I don’t like PCs. I I don’t like PC hardware. I don’t like
⏹️ ▶️ John Windows operating system. I don’t like any of it And that’s still the default PC still exists and that annoys me It’s like well Apple’s the biggest
⏹️ ▶️ John company in the world and I guess it doesn’t matter anymore Cuz who cares cuz mobile is future and blah blah, but that’s still that’s still
⏹️ ▶️ John a real thing That is happening now Microsoft Exchange is still a real thing and I don’t like it doesn’t work, right? I don’t like
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft Office on the Mac and I have to use it at work because Microsoft dominates was exchange and you know SharePoint
⏹️ ▶️ John is a real thing like these things still annoy me from day to day. So there are actual real sources of
⏹️ ▶️ John complaints I would like to see Microsoft the company get its act together because I think it’s filled with smart people who can do
⏹️ ▶️ John great Things I would like them to do those great things instead of trying to pretend They’re still the old Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John and they can they can dominate everywhere And the gaming things kind of a sideshow because Microsoft is a little bit of a
⏹️ ▶️ John usurper there It’s like well, can’t you just leave gaming on those again back from the days of Microsoft needed to own everything
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s like, oh, of course, we’re gonna have a gaming console. Yeah, we’re gonna come and ruin every industry and
⏹️ ▶️ John You know that’s that’s mostly just silliness because the Xbox is a really good platform And they’ve done a really good job in
⏹️ ▶️ John that market in fact the Xbox should be the model for every other business They’re screwing up it because they
⏹️ ▶️ John stuck with Xbox even through many screw-ups including crappy First-generation
⏹️ ▶️ John hardware and the red rig of death they kept sticking to it. They they’ve learned from their mistakes
⏹️ ▶️ John They got me if they had done what they’ve done with the Xbox and all their other business They’d be in a way better position than they
⏹️ ▶️ John are now That said, I’m still not betting getting one if I can at all help it and also I would say for this
⏹️ ▶️ John generation I think the ps4 has the better hardware I like the I like
⏹️ ▶️ John the trade-offs and compromises that Sony made with this generation’s hardware better Last generation Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John probably had the better hardware than the ps3, but I was and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco last generation
⏹️ ▶️ John I was intrigued by the ps3’s crazy-ass CPU. How could you not be intrigued by it if you’re a CPU design nerd, so So
⏹️ ▶️ John anyway, this is not I don’t spend my days thinking about Microsoft and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey sure you guys
⏹️ ▶️ John brought it up and in the context of these layoffs and everything. I’m frustrated with Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ John like not I don’t know. I would like to see Microsoft rise from the ashes from as a company I can love
⏹️ ▶️ John that hasn’t happened yet.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But what could they do to turn into a company that you would love?
⏹️ ▶️ John Well I mean the Xbox is a good start.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The one that you just said you would never ever ever buy.
⏹️ ▶️ John But like but what they did with that product like how they how they behaved how did they?
⏹️ ▶️ John How did they enter the new market a new market? How what did they do? How did the company
⏹️ ▶️ John stand behind it as opposed to like you know? Oh forget about the kin we screwed it up Oh, we’re not going to do the career.
⏹️ ▶️ John You know like all the times windows ce windows mobile like They never had the
⏹️ ▶️ John courage of their convictions and so many other things where they screwed up whereas in the xbox they stuck with it through
⏹️ ▶️ John thick and thin and there was a hell of a lot of thin and and they’ve gotten better and better with every generation. And even
⏹️ ▶️ John the Connect, which they kind of tried to stick with which is not really working out for them, that was a bold, daring,
⏹️ ▶️ John interesting move, right? So take those type of things and apply that to pick
⏹️ ▶️ John your market. I mean, maybe they’re kind of also doing that in web services back ends. I don’t, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s not, there’s them, there’s Amazon and EC2 and S3 and all the other services they do and then
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s Google stuff. So there’s not, everyone in that market is a little bit weird. It’s kind of hard to, and it’s also
⏹️ ▶️ John a very young market it was hard to know what they’re doing there. But certainly what they’ve done in mobile
⏹️ ▶️ John is the opposite of what they did at Xbox. Really, you know, not standing behind what they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John doing, being really confused about what they’re trying to do, not doing anything particularly
⏹️ ▶️ John bold or daring, not learning from their mistakes, like deciding whether they were going to make the
⏹️ ▶️ John software and everyone else makes the hardware, or we’re gonna do the Apple strategy. Being really late to the game.
⏹️ ▶️ John You could argue they were late to the game in consoles, But on the other hand, like console, uh, console generations
⏹️ ▶️ John are kind of a reset point in a way that mobile is not like every year there’s a new set of phones, but it doesn’t give you, well, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a new chance to see who’s going to be on top this year. Like uh, the, the market share sort of builds from year to
⏹️ ▶️ John year. So yeah, I, I have some, I have, let’s say I have history with Microsoft. Let’s
⏹️ ▶️ John leave it at that. It’s complicated. I have history. Well, it comes down to like, and, and
⏹️ ▶️ John who is Microsoft? It’s not a person. Bill Gates is gone. I don’t have any ill will against the individual people there,
⏹️ ▶️ John but you can conceptualize the collective actions of many people under a single corporate banner as a thing,
⏹️ ▶️ John and I have history with that thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, whatever, man. Whatever makes you happy.
⏹️ ▶️ John I have history with Apple, too.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, but they can do no
⏹️ ▶️ John wrong. No, I have a different history with them. A very different history with them. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John let’s talk some time about the Performer series of Macs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a lot to our three sponsors this week, Hover, Backblaze, and Fracture, and we will see you next
Ending theme
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Now the show is over, they didn’t even mean to begin, Cause
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John didn’t do any research, Marco and Casey wouldn’t let him, Cause
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And you can find the show
⏹️ ▶️ John notes at ATP.FM And if you’re into
⏹️ ▶️ John Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So that’s Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and T. Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-U-S-A
⏹️ ▶️ Casey accidental, they didn’t
After-show: Windows 8
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Have you guys ever used a Windows 8 computer?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Actually, my first time was within the last week or two.
⏹️ ▶️ John I use one in a VM I use does that count in
⏹️ ▶️ John had Windows 8 and VMware since it’s been released
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I I was as most of you know I was a Windows
⏹️ ▶️ Marco user from the dawn of time that I that I had a computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up through 2004 And then you know kind of faded away
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into the Mac full-time by about oh five or six And so I totally missed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I never even used Windows Vista. I was I was on XP until I until I quit never used seven
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Never used eight and haven’t even seen ten really and except you know occasional
⏹️ ▶️ Marco VM is for browser testing But nothing beyond that well this past weekend I was at my kids
⏹️ ▶️ Marco preschool, and they knew I knew computers that they asked if I could take a look one of the computers was having trouble
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it wouldn’t it couldn’t see the printer basically the printer which kept saying it was offline it was running Windows 8
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the only reason I know that is I kept getting kicked to the to like the the squares screen
⏹️ ▶️ Marco again kick between that and the desktop environment and even having been a previous
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like Windows professional like I would I would be paid by people to fix their Windows
⏹️ ▶️ Marco computers like I was pretty good at it but that all my knowledge for Windows is you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know 10 years old even even having that that background and now being
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty good at Macs this system was completely inscrutable to me like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was so ridiculously confusing trying to figure out how to do things like turn
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the Wi-Fi off and turn it back on or like where is the printer control panel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where is the print queue so I can delete this document that I sent four times out of it. It was baffling
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I would like you know right click on something and of course it doesn’t help that PC hardware is awful so like you know I kept like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right clicking or left clicking when I went to right click and everything is the trackpad was terrible
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it was just unbelievable like how incredibly confusing and horrible
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Windows 8 really was to do something you know that’s beyond test something in IE on Windows 8 like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know beyond that of like okay here’s a computer that’s having what is really a very minor problem how
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do you fix it and like and the problem ended up being the computer was offline completely like it just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hadn’t it had no internet connection through the Wi-Fi and so like bouncing between ie to like test
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the connection it’s like you know good ie typing to go to google.com or whatever you know going back and forth between that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then like the Wi-Fi control panel which is really in the desktop environment because it’s some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some you know Wi-Fi thing there and then bouncing between that and different control panels oh my god you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know I know Windows fans generally hated Windows 8 for that reason, but I had no idea how bad it was.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m shocked that they shipped that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, it’s so ridiculous. So my entire… well, my parents
⏹️ ▶️ Casey are all on Macs and iOS, my brothers are on iOS, but I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey believe they’re both running PCs. I read somewhere years ago,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can’t remember specifically where it was, but somebody basically said that they told their family—it might
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have been you, Marco, for all I know—but somebody So they told their family, listen, I am going to only
⏹️ ▶️ Casey field tech support questions about Macs.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco Yeah, that was me.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, it was you. It worked. They all use Macs now. Right? So, and I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have taken that same hard line. That worked well with my family. Aaron’s family,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my brother-in-law does the same sort of thing that I do, and he is the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey eldest child and he can do no wrong. And so he continually recommends Dells and they continually
⏹️ ▶️ Casey constantly recommend or buy Dells. Granted, they constantly beep and moan about how they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey never work, but they still go and buy Dells. Anyway, my sister-in-law, who has
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a Dell, said, oh, something isn’t working. I forget specifically what it was now.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And she wanted help with it. And I went to use
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it. And this is the first time I’d used Windows 8 for more than four seconds without like a coworker
⏹️ ▶️ Casey telling me, click here, click here, click here, click here. I genuinely,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I went to do Windows key R, which in general, in like XP and Windows 7. That’s run,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right? Right. It basically brings up the start run in Windowses
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that have a start button. So I could type, I think I was trying to get to the command prompt or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I tried to do that and I couldn’t because if memory serves,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey command or Windows key R didn’t do anything because why because there is no start button anymore
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I was completely completely crippled I didn’t know what to do with myself and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I basically looked at it shook my head and said you’re gonna have to ask your brother because I got nothing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I don’t understand why they keep going back to these machines because all they do is have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey problems and all they do is come to me and say can you fix this and for everyone I typically say
⏹️ ▶️ Casey nope buy a Mac my sister-in-law is a little younger she’s in her like first or second year to college
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I felt bad for. I was like, all right, well, let me at least take a look. And nope, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t freaking figure it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey out. Now, let me remind you that day to day, I live in Windows. That
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is what my regular J-O-B job does. I could not figure out what to do with Windows 8.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Now, in the defense of Windows, Windows 7 is actually excellent. It really is very, very good. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’ve heard that Windows 10 writes a lot of the wrongs that Windows 8 made, much
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the same way that 7 writed a a lot of the wrongs that Vista made. But by God,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I could not agree with you more, Marco. 8 is so, so, so bad.
⏹️ ▶️ John Windows 8 has the problem that everyone who is familiar with the previous version of Windows, like you
⏹️ ▶️ John two, is cranky when you change where things are. So Windows 8 tried to be like, well, we know people
⏹️ ▶️ John are gonna be cranky. That’s me. So can we have a bunch of new stuff? Nope. But also try to keep the old stuff?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco And so they made
⏹️ ▶️ John everybody miserable. It was like they moved too much stuff for people they didn’t want things to move.
⏹️ ▶️ John And they didn’t do like a clean sheet kind of OS, Mac OS 9 to OS 10 transition, where it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John like, just everything’s gone, forget about classic Mac OS’s backward compatibility for a little while, but it’s going away. They didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John do that either. And so in Windows 10, they’re backsliding. They’re like, well, we were too timid to
⏹️ ▶️ John make the big transition. So let’s just roll back the most of the annoying things and try to make
⏹️ ▶️ John it slightly more familiar for people who liked Windows 7 and no one liked Vista and
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco XP and whatever, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, They have not, you know, they have not, as I said, had the courage of their convictions
⏹️ ▶️ John when it came to their desktop operating system either. And so Windows 8 and Windows 10, like these
⏹️ ▶️ John were the, at various times, the recommended thing that Microsoft would sell
⏹️ ▶️ John you, you know, for the dominant personal computing platform on the planet.
⏹️ ▶️ John And that should be upsetting to everybody involved.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, but I mean, it isn’t, Windows 8 is not just bad because it was different.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like that the new interface even if you lived entirely in like the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco new squares interface well you
⏹️ ▶️ John couldn’t live entirely in it because there are certain things you had to go to the other one to do
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but like I would I would even go as far as to say that was actually bad like it wasn’t just that it was different
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or that it was mixed I would even say like the squares interface is itself bad is that what it’s called
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yes sure it well it’s not called Metro anymore who got knows what it’s called so like it like
⏹️ ▶️ John but you’re talking about like the screen with the tiles like
⏹️ ▶️ John just the the interface of the apps when they’re running but that screen where you like have a bunch of tiles on a ribbon
⏹️ ▶️ John that you slide along and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right I’m talking about like like the tile interface to launch and see what is happening there and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the apps that run natively within it like like the IE I kept switching into was natively in that in that environment
⏹️ ▶️ John of their unified strategy of like this works on tablets this works on your phones this works on a desktop to try to make one sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of OS type of one OS paradigm if not one specific
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco UI that span
⏹️ ▶️ John one OS that works nowhere
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco yeah Well, I mean, I
⏹️ ▶️ John think that interface worked a lot better on phones on tablets Maybe had a little bit too much of edge
⏹️ ▶️ John slidey crap But on phones there, you know It kind of is on phones what
⏹️ ▶️ John you do you can basically just swipe around and stuff and so and the tiles idea of like Having active tiles where you
⏹️ ▶️ John can relay information instead of just icons like there were a lot of good ideas buried in there But
⏹️ ▶️ John it was they bit off a lot Maybe not more than they could chew but they bit off a lot and then they
⏹️ ▶️ John just decided they had to for just practical reasons, hedge their bets on the desktop
⏹️ ▶️ John and still kind of have the old windows lurking underneath everything. And that’s just didn’t make anybody
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Let me tell you another long, boring story about my past. When I was developing overcast, the very first
⏹️ ▶️ Marco version of the podcast list screen, like basically the root screen, the first version of that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I designed and wrote as a collection view with a column with like a tile
⏹️ ▶️ Marco view of podcasts. And you can see some other apps do this too, like this is not a new thing. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I assumed you’d have the tile view of like squares of artwork, it was a nice squares-based interface,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it looked really nice. Like it looked better than the long list. Visually, you look at that, oh that’s so much cooler.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I found as I was using it, it would annoy me to, like, I couldn’t browse
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it as easily as I could browse one single list. You know, you have to like kind of zigzag your eyes back and forth between columns and everything
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I decided like even though it looks nicer it doesn’t work as well it is not as good
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in my opinion as a list that like I think Windows Phone everyone said when
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Windows Phone came out with this with this brand new interface of the of the metro squares everyone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco said oh my god this is really interesting it’s a cool new design and I even I said it’s it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cool-looking new design but even like you know like when I’ve occasionally tried to use the tile interface
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like in Microsoft stores in the past and it is cool looking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it is that doesn’t mean it’s a good interface and and Apple is guilty of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that offense many very often but in general I don’t think they did it as badly as Microsoft
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did in an 8 in anything but like you know Windows 8 if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Windows Phone you know you said oh Windows Phone did it did it well people liked it if Windows Phone really did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it that well more people would have bought Windows Phone
⏹️ ▶️ John it worked better there than it did on the tablet or PC is what I’m saying. Because the screen is so small you can’t have like this massive
⏹️ ▶️ John fleet of tiles. You could basically have just one or two columns of things and
⏹️ ▶️ John so it was more manageable. Even like within the interfaces when you’re scrolling through contacts. Like they would have one per row.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like it wasn’t a table view but it also wasn’t like this giant fleet of little tiles
⏹️ ▶️ John that you had to scramble through. They were basically forced by the narrowness of the device to have interfaces
⏹️ ▶️ John that were more like if you were to wireframe them it was really
⏹️ ▶️ John more like a traditional scrolling view with a list rather than a giant grid even like the sort of home screen thing maybe
⏹️ ▶️ John had two things side by side or three and it ended up being not too much unlike swiping
⏹️ ▶️ John from one home screen to the next as you saw the next set of things that would fit on the little skinny screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know but whenever I heard from people who actually used it like like as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco their phones full time either for a brief span or for for a long time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco everyone always said the same thing which is like this interface looks cool but it has a lot of like this design
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has a lot of flaws and it isn’t as easy to use as you would think conceptually and again
⏹️ ▶️ Marco everyone agreed look it’s you know same thing like with the palm free and web OS everyone said the same thing about that like this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is really cool it’s interesting well but they did have
⏹️ ▶️ John the ideas like the tile interface is basically the current iOS multitasking thing like they did actually have
⏹️ ▶️ John good I think interface ideas like how to do multitasking how to deal with the different things to scroll along them to flick
⏹️ ▶️ John them up to you know pull things down from the top. I think they had much more good ideas. I think, yeah, but still
⏹️ ▶️ John nobody bought them. But yeah, I know, but there’s lots of reasons people want to do that. But the Metro interface suffered
⏹️ ▶️ John mostly, I think, from having too much influence from visual,
⏹️ ▶️ John the visual design department. Like a lot of it was like a consistent visual theme across the whole platforms
⏹️ ▶️ John when it could have benefited from like, you know, a little bit more influence from the the
⏹️ ▶️ John sort of mechanical usability side of things. And you can kind I see a little bit of that in recent Apple to where
⏹️ ▶️ John you know even iOS 7 like obviously huge amount of visual influence in the design and the visual part had
⏹️ ▶️ John a usability aspect to it but it
⏹️ ▶️ John seemed it seemed clear that like the original iOS you can wireframe that with a bunch of boxes
⏹️ ▶️ John and say this is going to be an interface and then let loose the graphic designers on it to
⏹️ ▶️ John give it spit and polish and it just enhances the interface whereas
⏹️ ▶️ John the iOS seven thing, the visual, like you, the wireframe is useless to
⏹️ ▶️ John you. Like the buttons don’t even have borders on them. Like you have to,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco the whole look
⏹️ ▶️ John has to be complete to say, Oh, this is what it’s going to look like. You can’t wireframe it. Cause what do you draw for the button? Like it either
⏹️ ▶️ John is the easy to finish pixels or not the finished pixels. So Metro looked like it was entirely designed
⏹️ ▶️ John as like, if you were doing a magazine and you wanted to have the pamphlet, the magazine and the coffee table book,
⏹️ ▶️ John and have a consistent theme throughout them, Metro perfect fit. But once it starts being interface that you have to use,
⏹️ ▶️ John those those people who come with that and maybe it’s the same people aspects of the same people come
⏹️ ▶️ John more with the you know the the information architecture
⏹️ ▶️ John user interface usability perspective that is hand in hand with the look and feel
⏹️ ▶️ John of it but there’s a balance between them you want it to look nice you want to have a consistent visual theme but you
⏹️ ▶️ John also want it to be usable and i think metro just went a little bit too far into the well but this just looks so good
⏹️ ▶️ John across all all of our platforms, it must be usable, and it wasn’t as usable as they hoped.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s funny because just yesterday, I was talking with a coworker, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we have a handful of coworkers that go to Build every year, which is in Moscone. It’s only three days,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but it’s basically Microsoft’s WWDC. And unlike WWDC,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the door prizes at Build are not jackets. They’re, like last year, they got
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an Xbone and a Nokia phone. This year they got some sort of convertible PC,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey which I guess is kind of a piece of crap, but it’s still a whole freaking computer. Well, anyways,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one of my coworkers is still rocking this Nokia phone from a year, a little over a year ago.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And obviously it’s a Windows phone. And I was talking to him about it just yesterday. And I asked
⏹️ ▶️ Casey him, you know, if you were to buy a new phone tomorrow, because I think he was complaining about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey something. I don’t recall specifically what. And I asked him, if you were going to buy a new phone tomorrow, what would you buy?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, would you get like a what is it the Galaxy s6 or whatever that new hotness?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Android phone is that I’ve genuinely genuinely heard very very good things about so I asked me Oh, would you get the Galaxy
⏹️ ▶️ Casey s6 or what would you get? He said actually no, I’d get an iPhone 6 or to be honest I’d probably try to wait until the 6s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and then I’d get that and this is a guy who loves his surface who?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey eschewed a getting a new MacBook Pro it to replace his existing MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and instead got this just behemoth of a Dell, what do they call them, like portable
⏹️ ▶️ Casey desktops or whatever? So it’s a laptop in theory, but it weighs 904
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pounds. The power supply weighs about twice what my laptop does.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And he got that because he’s a pragmatic guy and we do Windows work at work. And so he thought, you know what, I’m just gonna
⏹️ ▶️ Casey get a Windows machine. I’m gonna get this Dell. And then I asked him about the Dell as well, are you happy
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with that? And he said, well, the trackpad is unusable, the keyboard sucks,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it weighs a million pounds, and the power supply is worse. But you know when it’s sitting at a desk connected to external monitors,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey an external keyboard, an external mouse, it’s a great machine. I love it. I can put seven hard drives in it,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey three optical drives, you know, 42 gigs of RAM and a partridge in a pear tree. But anyway, I bring all
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this up to say that he is a guy that really does love Microsoft stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and he was telling me, mm-mm, I am definitely switching away from Windows Phone as soon as the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey opportunity arises.
⏹️ ▶️ John after today’s announcement, even before today’s announcement, it’s easy to lose faith in the future platform. And
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, like, is this is there a bright future in Windows phones? You know, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John does it seem like the applications that I want that aren’t there today are going to be there tomorrow?
⏹️ ▶️ John Are there going to be great new Windows Phone hardware? Like, we can go talk about on app.net.
⏹️ ▶️ John thing that happened to Apple, you know, you just people when people lose faith in a platform, it’s really difficult to ever get it back.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so yeah, even people who I think would love it if there was a new Windows phone that was like
⏹️ ▶️ John the current Windows phones, but better in all ways and had better software and a new version of the operating system and all the you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John that they would keep buying those, especially if they thought that they would be able to go to the Windows Phone
⏹️ ▶️ John App Store and get all the apps that they want. But at this point, it seems clear that
⏹️ ▶️ John even if that’s what you like, it’s kind of like me with the iPod touches like, you know, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John not a bright future in that maybe seek your phone satisfaction elsewhere.