129: Tap-to-Click Wizard
06 Aug 2015Upside-down mice, plastic iPhones, cracked screens, and Casey’s buttonless welcome to 2012.
Episode Description:
- Skylake desktop CPUs launch
- Casey joins 2012
- 2015 iPhone predictions
- Carrier subsidies and pricing games
- Post-show:
- Repairing iPads
- Hot water heaters
- Marco's new camera
Sponsored by:
- Cards Against Humanity: A free party game for horrible people.
- Harry's: An exceptional shave at a fraction of the price. Use code ATP for $5 off your first purchase.
- Hover: The best way to buy and manage domain names. Use coupon code INFINITETIMESCALE for 10% off.
Chapters
- Boring Skylake CPUs
- Sponsor: Cards Against Humanity
- Casey goes Retina
- Trackpads, balls, and points
- Sponsor: Harry’s
- iPhone lineup speculation
- Sponsor: Hover
- Phone upgrade pricing
- Casey finally cracks
- After-show: Cracks
- After-show: Water heaters
- After-show: Beach babies
- After-show: Cameras
Boring Skylake CPUs
⏹️ ▶️ John Sometimes people just like to have something to fiddle with their fingers.
⏹️ ▶️ John What else going on? Nothing because we have nothing in the follow-up section this week except for an item we decided we’re not
⏹️ ▶️ John talking about this week and that’s it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So we actually genuinely have no follow-up for real as confirmed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by John Syracuse himself?
⏹️ ▶️ John We had a long, you know, I was away on vacation and we, you know, we had a weird recording schedule.
⏹️ ▶️ John What the hell was our last show about? It so long ago. It doesn’t really matter. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So yeah, we should, I guess, talk about Skylake because that’s a thing as of today.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, sort of. I mean, I think the most boring Skylake chips launched today, the ones that go
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in like iMacs and desktops.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, are they the most boring? I think Intel thinks that they’re the most exciting because they are
⏹️ ▶️ John extreme to use the 90s parlance. Like they’re the the
⏹️ ▶️ John able to be overclocked like Intel is actually talking about overclocking in them you know what I mean like they’re the ones they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John sort of the PC enthusiasts chips now that there’s many of them left but like maybe they think that’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John the only place that is a potentially a growth market so I don’t think they are the most boring
⏹️ ▶️ John ones maybe they’re the least relevant to people who buy apple computers because like you said these are
⏹️ ▶️ John just going to be the ones that go in the iMacs and the ones that go in the iMacs aren’t going to be overclocked and it’s going to be the middle
⏹️ ▶️ John range one with the iris pro graphics and it’s like whatever. But I think Intel,
⏹️ ▶️ John because they were released and announced, what is it, Gamescom? What the hell is the name of that conference? It
⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t matter. Anyway, a gaming related thing. And so they’re going to be releasing the chips that would be
⏹️ ▶️ John of interest to people who are building gaming PCs. And they want to know, I’m building my next gaming PC. I want
⏹️ ▶️ John to maybe overclock it. Maybe I want to put two, three, four
⏹️ ▶️ John GPUs, graphics cards inside it and gang them together in some way. And so, yeah, these-
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s really about ethics and
⏹️ ▶️ John These are, Intel thinks they’re exciting, but you’re saying they’re not exciting because
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re not like the ones that are gonna go in most of the Macs that Apple sells, which are the laptops,
⏹️ ▶️ John and they’re not anything that would ever go in a Mac Pro, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, but it isn’t even just that. I’m saying even for the markets that they are intended for,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it’s an incremental update at best.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What is apparently the big thing with Skylake is really, it’s a small
⏹️ ▶️ Marco incremental improvement in performance, but it’s an allegedly substantial
⏹️ ▶️ Marco improvement in power consumption and battery life. And so to have these high-clock desktop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco chips come out that are high wattage, high clocks, not meant for laptops where the power stuff is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably not super tuned in or at least super emphasized. It’s interesting,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but only on a mild level for a very small number of people. It doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really matter if the desktop chips get 10% more power efficient. It doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have that big of an effect on them. Yeah, you can slam against the TDP more and get a little more clock
⏹️ ▶️ Marco speed out of it, maybe. But for the most part, the exciting part here is when these come to laptops.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We have heard so many things that that Skylake is gonna be this major power improvement and everything,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the reality is that matters so much more in laptops. So if we can actually get 20%
⏹️ ▶️ Marco more performance in a laptop or 20% more battery life, that’s way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco more impressive and that could make a big difference in things like the MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One or the 11-inch Air where the battery right now is pretty short, really, for what you need
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it for. or it could allow Apple to, you know, obviously
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would hope with like the 15 inch line, I would hope they would use this new savings to just bank some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco battery life and bring it up like to 12 hours instead of nine or something like that, you know, or, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bring it up to six hours of heavy use instead of five or four. That’d be great. In
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reality, what’s probably going to happen instead is they’re probably gonna just redesign the 15 inch to make it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thinner and lighter. And, you know, I don’t love that they keep doing that, but it’s at
⏹️ ▶️ Marco least interesting and exciting and certainly a lot of people like that. And so, you know, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco where the action’s gonna be with Skylake is when it comes to the laptops. In the meantime, you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, I don’t, as it’s sitting here in desktops and not even the Mac Pro, it’s just sitting here like in high-end,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mostly PC desktops and maybe the iMacs, that just isn’t that interesting to me.
⏹️ ▶️ John I haven’t read too much about these chips and I think not everything has been released because even though they were sort of launched
⏹️ ▶️ John at this game thing, the technical details, according to Nontech anyway, are not
⏹️ ▶️ John coming out until Intel’s developer forum thing, like where they’re gonna tell you about the guts of the stuff. But
⏹️ ▶️ John this is their, oh God, what the hell is it? TOC, right? The new
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco architecture.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s the same, it’s not a shrink. It’s still, you know, 14 nanometers. It’s their TOC, it’s a
⏹️ ▶️ John new architecture. But what is new and different about that architecture, I don’t think we know the details
⏹️ ▶️ John yet officially. And this thing that we’ll link
⏹️ ▶️ John in the show is benchmarking them all, like, not impressive performance game for the desktop ones. Some weird
⏹️ ▶️ John things where it’s actually a couple percent slower due to some issue they couldn’t work out when using external
⏹️ ▶️ John GPU. But whatever, like, a low single digit percent increase
⏹️ ▶️ John on the stuff that you’re doing. And like Marco said, power savings are not of interest for the
⏹️ ▶️ John desktop things It’s like whatever that’s similar power range of the other chips If this
⏹️ ▶️ John is a new architecture, what is different about it that it’s going to give us this
⏹️ ▶️ John supposed Big increase in power savings because normally you think you get you’d get a big
⏹️ ▶️ John increase in power savings maybe with a shrink, right? But this is not a shrink It’s just an
⏹️ ▶️ John architectural change and I guess like I’m reading this article I can see how they can get a little bit of
⏹️ ▶️ John savings out here from moving execution units around and having like the display some some fixed function hardware
⏹️ ▶️ John in the display chipset so you don’t have to send data out through DRAM and back into the GPU
⏹️ ▶️ John and you know all sorts of small changes to save power lower voltage
⏹️ ▶️ John for the memory interfaces and stuff like that but
⏹️ ▶️ John I you know we don’t know at least I don’t know the technical details of the internet so I’m curious to where
⏹️ ▶️ John the big savings are coming from I mean I believe that they’re there from you you know, our tipster and other people, you
⏹️ ▶️ John know, speculating about sky like saying that that is going to be the selling point of this line of ships that it’s going to be
⏹️ ▶️ John well, who cares? Not a big deal for desktops, but for laptops, you should see a nice power savings.
⏹️ ▶️ John I want to know where that power savings comes from, because I think that’ll be interesting, especially if it’s not. It’s not like they it’s clear that
⏹️ ▶️ John they didn’t spend their time working on performance because it’s like, well, performance, you know, whatever. It’s basically a wash, maybe a little bit better.
⏹️ ▶️ John But power savings, boy, that’s going to be great. And we did it without a shrink. How do we do it? So I look forward to those
⏹️ ▶️ John details when they are revealed.
Sponsor: Cards Against Humanity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco first sponsor this week is our friends at Cards Against Humanity. And as usual,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they have, instead of a normal ad read, they have asked Jon to review a toaster.
⏹️ ▶️ John This week’s toaster is the Hamilton Beach 31330 toaster oven.
⏹️ ▶️ John and this is a pretty big toaster. It is
⏹️ ▶️ John what I would call a four slice toaster. Although of course the manufacturer claims that it’s a six slice toaster,
⏹️ ▶️ John but this claim requires the standard miniature bread that they use in the toaster oven box shots, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Like they don’t put anything in there for scale, but honestly that bread is microscopic. So anyway, four slices
⏹️ ▶️ John comfortably. Like Mr. Burns, this toaster has a mighty hump on the back of it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Those humps, you know the humps I’m talking about where it’s like at some point in the past decade or so, toasters grew humps
⏹️ ▶️ John of some kind because someone decided that it’s great to be able to advertise a toaster oven by showing a picture
⏹️ ▶️ John of a pizza inside it and of course the pizza is not gonna fit in a rectangular oven very easily but if you put a little rounded hump
⏹️ ▶️ John in the back of it you get a little extra room to shove your pizza in there and blah blah blah. You know my toaster does not have this John. You don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John have any hump? You sure? No it’s flat. Is it pre hump? It’s a pre hump toaster. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re pretty old. My toaster that you said was inferior to your toaster does not have the hump.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah I have a small hump most than the humps. But anyway, this it’s made the hump is
⏹️ ▶️ John made to look larger because this toaster is skinnier at the top than at the bottom. So honestly, like
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe the hump is only a couple inches or maybe it’s the same size as the average, but it looks huge. It really stands out the way this
⏹️ ▶️ John this toaster shape the wire rack is kind of medium gauge. The wire rack is not rectangular. It’s like a rectangle.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then there’s this extra little thing like a little house poking out the back that goes into the hump section. That’s how big the hump is that the
⏹️ ▶️ John wire rack is like it’s you know, it’s a rectangle with another thing attached to it sticking out of there.
⏹️ ▶️ John Supposedly, again, the purpose of the hump is to accommodate a round pan for something like a pizza, but
⏹️ ▶️ John this toaster does not come with a round pan, which seems weird that this is such a prominent hump and it doesn’t actually come with a round pan
⏹️ ▶️ John or a round rack or anything. I love the promo pictures, they show a pizza sitting on top of the wire rack
⏹️ ▶️ John of the toaster, just on top of the wires, not even in a pan. I feel like that would be a disaster.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That would have to already be done before it’s put in there. Right, yeah, you cook
⏹️ ▶️ John it and if you put a fake pizza made out of wax or whatever they make the food out of you know when they take pictures of it
⏹️ ▶️ John so it doesn’t melt under the hot lights anyway it comes with a rectangular pan the rectangular
⏹️ ▶️ John pan doesn’t quite fill the toaster edge to edge I don’t know if they did that on purpose to try to allow hot air to come
⏹️ ▶️ John around or whatever but it seems like kind of a shame plus there’s a little small wire rack that goes
⏹️ ▶️ John in the pan the knob situation this is a three knob toaster top one is for
⏹️ ▶️ John temperature but you still need to set it to toast if you want to toast middle one is for function Toast,
⏹️ ▶️ John bake, whatever. Bottom one is the timer knob. And this is one more toaster where all three knobs have to be in the right
⏹️ ▶️ John position in order for you to toast. You gotta make sure the top knob is on toast, and you gotta turn the function thing on toast,
⏹️ ▶️ John and you gotta turn the bottom knob every single time to a particular angle. This one on the knob
⏹️ ▶️ John also says, Please turn the timer knob past 15 and then back to the time that you want every time. Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ John gross. I don’t even know if you need to do that, because I think it feels like you can just turn it to like, you know, they have a very limited
⏹️ ▶️ John range, like maybe 10 or 15 degrees, that constitutes the entire range of toasting and you have to turn
⏹️ ▶️ John it in that range. The knob feels okay, they don’t wiggle or feel loose, they feel like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John solid, but they’re pretty darn hard to turn. They’re not very grippy, like actually kind of hard to turn,
⏹️ ▶️ John and the indicator of like where the knob is pointing is just kind of like a dull pill-shaped lump
⏹️ ▶️ John in the shiny metal or shiny plastic face of the knob,
⏹️ ▶️ John and the knobs are pretty tall, so you’re trying to line up like sort sort of a indistinct capsule-shaped
⏹️ ▶️ John lump in the metal that’s on a knob that’s like an inch off the surface, and you’re like way above on an angle,
⏹️ ▶️ John and you’re trying to line up that lump with like the exact unmarked spot in the 10 to 20
⏹️ ▶️ John degree range that constitutes toasting, depending on like what angle you’re, it’s really
⏹️ ▶️ John not easy to get repeatable stuff, and it just doesn’t, it feels like too much effort, like you’re turning a little
⏹️ ▶️ John bit, especially if you have to turn it past 15 and like force it back, not a great experience.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s got four unshielded resistive heat elements in it, which I knew were gonna
⏹️ ▶️ John be slower than the big, thicker, quartzy-looking things. Four minute, 30 second
⏹️ ▶️ John toast time, not great. At least it’s not over five minutes, but when it does toast,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s pretty even. One edge was a little bit darker than the other, but it was kind of like a smooth gradient. I would say
⏹️ ▶️ John it makes acceptable toast. Takes a little bit too long. Crumb tray, blessedly, comes straight
⏹️ ▶️ John out, so you’re much less likely to dump the crumbs back into the toaster when you’re trying to remove it, So a thumbs up on that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Door feels a little flimsy, but at least it opens all the way and you don’t feel like you’re breaking it at any point.
⏹️ ▶️ John The little claws on the door, that like when you pull the door out, also pull the tray out a little
⏹️ ▶️ John bit. This toaster has the same problems the other ones where it has two different positions for the rack and you’re supposed to use
⏹️ ▶️ John the middle or a higher position when you’re making toast. But the little claws, like we talked about, how do you deal with the little
⏹️ ▶️ John claws that pull the tray out, pull the wire rack out when the wire rack can be in two different positions. And a couple of
⏹️ ▶️ John the manufacturers that are clever things the fancy Breville one has like magnets, which I think are really cool to pull it out. This
⏹️ ▶️ John one just punts on it and says, You know what? Our little claws are only going to pull the tray out when it’s in the bottom position. When it’s in the top position,
⏹️ ▶️ John little claws do nothing, which is kind of lame. I don’t know who made that decision,
⏹️ ▶️ John especially since most of the time you’re using it in toast mode, aren’t you? I don’t know. Maybe most of the time people are using it oven mode.
⏹️ ▶️ John But anyway, it seems lame.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have never until now consider the possibility that a toaster oven would have multiple rack
⏹️ ▶️ Marco heights. Are Are we supposed to be changing our rack height depending on what we cook? Because I never have. Does yours have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco multiple rack heights? I have no idea. I’ve never even looked. It’s pre-hump. It could be pre-multiple rack heights. Maybe.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So the one that we had until it broke recently, and so I am toaster oven-less, which is terrible. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know a guy who has some extras. Yeah, so I hear. It had a very interesting design.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It had a wire rack that was kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in an upside, or kind of in a U-shape, sort of. I mean, it was flattened, but the way it would work
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is you would put it in with, when it looked like a U and it would be very close
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the bottom of the toaster. And then if you put it so that it was an upside down U,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it would bring the rack such that it was about the middle of the toaster.
⏹️ ▶️ John Don’t you listen to my reviews? I just reviewed a toaster that had that exact feature a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it’s the same
⏹️ ▶️ John toaster. Anyway, yours might have different heights. I think a lot of people buy these, never look at the manual. And if there’s
⏹️ ▶️ John nothing written on the surface of the toaster, they just put rack wherever they want it to. And that’s it. But
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, in the recent maybe five years, 10 years, most toaster ovens have
⏹️ ▶️ John been coming with racks with either multiple positions. Yeah, usually multiple positions, because the higher position, the
⏹️ ▶️ John position that looks crazy to all of us, like when we were growing up, the toasters all had the racks way down low on the bottom, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ John the only place they would go that was that. Now, toaster ovens all seem to have a higher position,
⏹️ ▶️ John it looks way too high. But that’s where they want you to do basically everything except for bake, they want you to toast there,
⏹️ ▶️ John they want you to broil there, only if you’re baking you’re supposed to bring it down to the bottom. This one is no different. When you
⏹️ ▶️ John were toasting it wants you to put the rack in sort of the midpoint of the oven and only when you’re baking
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re supposed to put it down in the bottom.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This seems like a step backwards in toaster oven convenience because the whole point of this thing is like you can
⏹️ ▶️ Marco put basically anything in a toaster oven and get okay results out of it with very little effort. But once you start putting in the complexity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of multiple rack heights and… It’s not that
⏹️ ▶️ John complicated. I feel like the toaster oven is used either mostly as an oven and mostly as a toaster so this is kind of a default
⏹️ ▶️ John position. And honestly, if you just leave it in the high position, it bakes things fine. Mostly they want you to use
⏹️ ▶️ John the bottom rack is if you’re baking something that is tall so that it doesn’t get like if you’re baking something
⏹️ ▶️ John like maybe even just a big baked potato maybe starts getting too close to the heating elements on top. So you want to move it down. But
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. I think it is an improvement because when they were on the bottom, it was basically impossible
⏹️ ▶️ John to get even toasting because you’re so close to the bottom elements and so far from the top ones that it
⏹️ ▶️ John was always, you know, a crapshoot when they’re in the middle. It’s better. Overall for this toaster, I give it a passing
⏹️ ▶️ John grade. Nothing on it is terrible, nothing on it is particularly great, but it is certainly better than some of the
⏹️ ▶️ John really, really bad toasters that we reviewed recently. And it’s 50 bucks-ish, so it feels
⏹️ ▶️ John quality-wise like a $50 toaster, but it just barely
⏹️ ▶️ John gets a passing grade, I think.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco A glowing review. Yep.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Thank you very much to Cards Against Humanity for sponsoring once again.
Casey goes Retina
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, so I have big news in an otherwise completely
⏹️ ▶️ Casey empty week. Are you guys sitting down? Are you running for president?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I am running for president as a Republican like the rest of the country is. No, not really.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Let’s talk about that. People will love that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey let’s not. No, there’s not a fast text update. I have joined 2013.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 2012. 2012, whatever. I have a Retina Mac now.
⏹️ ▶️ John you have it or is it a work computer?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, it’s sitting next to me, but it belongs to work.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Well, that’s close. I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s baby steps. You know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that helps. Yeah, I’ll take it a step in the right direction. So the funny thing behind this is I was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey talking in Slack with a bunch of people, including the two of you guys,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about, you know, it’s about time for me to get a new personal machine.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have Aaron’s MacBook Air that I’m using right now, which has been underwater about eight times. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey have two late 2011 high-res anti-glare MacBook Pros, one
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with a platter drive and eight gigs of RAM, which is mine, one with a SSD
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and 16 gigs of RAM, which is works. I knew it was about time to upgrade,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I knew I should probably wait for Skylake, and so I knew I wasn’t going to order anything for me
⏹️ ▶️ Casey anytime soon until the Skylake one comes out. But I’ve been working really hard lately.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m really getting sick of my work computer having screaming fans anytime I do anything.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And really, I was supposed to get an upgrade in June at my three-year work anniversary, because that’s when AppleCare
⏹️ ▶️ Casey runs out. And I didn’t get one then for various and sundry reasons. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so today, just mostly to be snarky, I emailed our IT guy and was like, hey, just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a reminder, not only is this computer three years old in that I’ve received it three years ago.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But even when I got it, at that point we weren’t buying new Macs, we were buying refurbished old Macs. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey even though I got it in mid-2012, it’s actually a late 2011 Mac. And so I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey said that really just to kind of remind him that I’m looking for a new Mac at some point.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Next thing I know, he’s going to the Apple Store and getting me a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if you’re going to choose a problem to have, is a pretty solid problem to have. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah, so I got a maxed out 15 inch Retina MacBook Pro. The funny thing about it was I had
⏹️ ▶️ Casey concluded along, well really because of the tutelage of Steven Hackett, Marco and a few others,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I should get the not discrete GPU MacBook Pro because there’s really no need for me to have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a discrete GPU MacBook Pro. I said to our IT guy, listen, I think what I want is the not discrete
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one, but I want the terabyte hard drive if I can get it. I want, what was the other,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, the maxed out processor, if I can get it. But don’t worry about the baller, baller
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one. Just get me the Intel GPU one, that’s all I need. So he said, okay, got it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey He comes back three hours later, whatever it was, and says, hey, also I gave you the super loaded one because it was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey only $100 more and I figured you’d like it. Thanks.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Thanks. Close enough.
⏹️ ▶️ John Man. This is kind of the problem when like, people know you’re interested in something
⏹️ ▶️ John and wanna like, if someone’s like, Marco likes coffee, right? I should buy him some coffee, but you don’t know anything about coffee,
⏹️ ▶️ John and you’re gonna buy Marco coffee. Right, the odds of that, like maybe Marco would appreciate
⏹️ ▶️ John the thought, but it’s like, especially if Marco, and you’re in the situation, like it’s their job
⏹️ ▶️ John to buy you a computer, and you have preferences, and you communicate them, but you just know if you’re not there during the purchase,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like they’re gonna do something that they think is the nice thing to do. It’s like, if I could just, let me just tell you exactly
⏹️ ▶️ John what to get. Just get this. I know exactly what I want, just get this. Yep, yep, and that’s what I tried. But they feel like they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco something. even better, like, give me the credit card, I will order it and give you back the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey credit card.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like, that’s even better if you can get them to do that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, in his defense, you know, not only was he trying to do the right thing and get me even
⏹️ ▶️ Casey more than what I asked for, and not only that, but I’m pretty sure part
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of what influenced him was that he could have this computer today, and if I had gotten the not-discrete
⏹️ ▶️ Casey GPU one, it wasn’t, you know, that’s not carried in any normal Apple store.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, the base model is, but not with the terabyte and the upgraded CPU, so yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Exactly. So here again, like I’m not mad about it. I’m actually really excited to have a new computer because again,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey as much as I do love my high-res anti-glare 15-inch MacBook Pros, they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Casey both getting pretty long in the tooth now. But I bring all this up actually because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I wanted to share what it’s like to have a Retina Mac for the first time in 2015.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Because all of you have lived this before, but I haven’t. So I want my moment in the sun, damn it. You
⏹️ ▶️ John mean all of you, I don’t have any Retina Macs?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you believe in ancient cheese graters so you don’t even count
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how am I the only one of the of like three alleged Apple experts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how have I been the only one who’s had a retina Mac since 2012 you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John also the only one who loves to buy expensive things and sell them and buy different expensive things whereas Casey and I are much more cautious
⏹️ ▶️ Marco well it’s more that it’s more that John you just don’t own laptops generally speaking
⏹️ ▶️ John I have two of them sitting in the room with me right now
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco yeah but they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know like I think I think if you were the kind of person who bought a laptop for yourself, I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you would have had one sometime in the last three years.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, that’s definitely true. If I was a laptop person, I would have had a Retina one a long time ago.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. See, and I am a laptop person, but just like John said,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I try to be frugal whenever possible. I usually fail, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I try. And so one way or another, this is my first Retina Mac, and I’m going to try to make this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey fairly quick. Retina screens are beautiful.
⏹️ ▶️ John A retina display delivers the very best viewing experience.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s the first thing I noticed. Second thing I noticed is, oh my God, everything is huge. Because I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Casey used to this high res, anti-glare MacBook Pro, whose resolution I don’t even remember offhand. 1680. Sure, that sounds about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey right. It is. Whereas this 15 inch retina MacBook Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is considerably less than that effective resolution. 1440. Is it 1440?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but you can change it, there’s
⏹️ ▶️ John a setting. You can… the scaled mode for
⏹️ ▶️ John but native is 14 i always keep forgetting that the native 2x is 1440 that is tight
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah it is huge everything is huge by comparison which is a little bit weird
⏹️ ▶️ Casey i haven’t yet changed the scaling i suspect i’m going to it’s only a matter of time yeah
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just change it it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey no big deal just change the name where do i know that from i don’t even know um anyway
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re not even getting apple references anymore come
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on sorry although to be fair i don’t remember what he was talking about like i don’t which Which app it was?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t remember the app. I just remember that it was a jobs email. Just change the name, not that big of a deal.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That does ring a bell.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That was the first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed after how beautiful it was, was, oh my God, I cannot put anything on the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey screen. Everything is enormous. Yes, I’m aware of scaling. I just haven’t tried it yet. I wanted to live with it as
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was for a little while first. The third thing I noticed was, I’m trying furiously to prep
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this thing for work tomorrow, And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m installing VMware Fusion, which is the particular VM software that I use, just because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that’s what I bought forever ago, and I haven’t ever switched to Parallels since. Fusion’s way better.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Don’t please don’t email us. Fair enough. I was installing VMware Fusion, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the first screen that comes up after whatever generic like OS X screens pop
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up for the installation, first real VMware Fusion screen comes up, and oh my
⏹️ ▶️ Casey sweet holy, it is ugly. Everything is blurry. What
⏹️ ▶️ Casey has happened?” And I’ve never had this experience before, and so ignorance was kind of bliss
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the past because everything was blurry, you could argue. But now it sticks out like a sore thumb,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I can already tell this is going to get annoying really quickly. Now, to be fair, that’s the only screen I’ve noticed in using
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this machine in the last couple of hours that was like that. But oh my God, it’s so blurry.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, it was way worse back in 2012. Like for anybody who bought some of the first generation Retina MacBook Pro, like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was way worse back then because web pages were all just look terrible. Software
⏹️ ▶️ Marco updated itself pretty quickly, but it took the web a long time to really get into
⏹️ ▶️ Marco having high DPI versions of anything. Websites on Retina still, you’ll occasionally run
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into one now that’s not Retina, but they’re much fewer and further between than they were in 2012.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco To be fair, VMware has had three years, and more if they were, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco once the iPhone 4 came out in 2010 with its Retina screen, you know, any
⏹️ ▶️ Marco observer would have been like, you know, this is probably gonna expand for the rest of the lineup. We should probably get ready
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for this. Then when the Retina iPad came out a year later,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know what, we should probably get ready for this. And that was 2011 then, and it’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco okay. Now, anybody who is still not Retina ready now, like, that’s their fault, really.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That’s this is beyond reasonable.
⏹️ ▶️ John VMware doesn’t really have much of a UI. So maybe they just don’t dedicate the resources and
⏹️ ▶️ John have the department that is responsible for updating the graphics. Because really, you’re mostly not looking at VMware’s
⏹️ ▶️ John UI. You’re mostly looking at whatever virtual machine you’re using inside the thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right. And to be fair, this was an installation screen. And I haven’t gotten to the point that I’ve put a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey VM on the machine yet. But I believe that all of the honest to goodness VMware screens
⏹️ ▶️ Casey will be retinafied, or whatever you want to call it, high res.
⏹️ ▶️ John While we’re complaining about VMware, by the way, I have a pet VMware bug that has been with me since 7.0.
⏹️ ▶️ John I figure what they’re up to now, they’re 7 point something, point something, whatever. When 7 came out, I
⏹️ ▶️ John had this bug where you launch VMware and it shows me that little screen that shows you like the virtual machine library with like the little
⏹️ ▶️ John screenshots of everything. And if I launch it, that thing comes up
⏹️ ▶️ John and I quickly double click the VM I want to launch, it crashes, right? If you let it launch,
⏹️ ▶️ John You let that screen with the little library come up and you just wait a couple seconds. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John those old school bugs, like classic Mac OS, cooperative multitasking, memory corruption, just wait, just let it,
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t touch anything, just let it sit there. And then go over and double click, it’s fine.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it’s been a repeatable bug through multiple minor, and I think they even did like a major, I think it was 7.1,
⏹️ ▶️ John I forget, multiple revisions. Every time it says send a crash report, I do, I think they’re just going to Apple, VMware probably never sees
⏹️ ▶️ John them, but boy, I love those kind of bugs where it’s like, just don’t touch it, just be careful, just wait, Just wait,
⏹️ ▶️ John wait, okay, now it’s good. What the hell could that possibly be? I have no idea. Anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So that’s basically all I have to say about the computers so far. It does seem
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very nice. The fans did kick on once or twice as I was doing an installation or two. And by comparison,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they were super quiet. I don’t know if that means that they’re quieter in general now. I don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Air is pulled into vents and propelled through sculpted cavities by fans
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with asymmetrically positioned blades. In most fans, the blades are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco positioned symmetrically, which creates a single identifiable frequency.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We positioned ours asymmetrically to spread the sound over a variety of frequencies,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which makes it seem quieter and less intrusive. Every part of the enclosure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco makes a contribution that directly benefits the user.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right, and so that’s the thing, is I’d never experienced this for myself. So that was very exciting. It doesn’t sound
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like a jet engine slash hair dryer anymore, which I was very happy about. So that’s all I have to say so far about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey software and whatnot.
Trackpads, balls, and points
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I will note, however, that this has a Force Touch trackpad. Yeah. Marco’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco favorite thing. So you got four times the pixels and infinitely fewer buttons.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Still just one fewer, by
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Wow. Anyway, when you first get a brand new
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mac with the Force Touch trackpad, it is the worst trackpad in the entire world.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey However, there is a magical switch one can flip.
⏹️ ▶️ John Wait hang on before you talk about the magical switch What is making you say that when you first get it? It’s like the
⏹️ ▶️ John worst ever like what about it? You comes out of the box. You’re not touching anything you start using it. What what repels you?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s that there’s a click, but it’s almost it almost feels like I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know like a fingernail got under the trackpad So like it clicks, but it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey feel right. It’s almost mushy. It’s almost like a thud Yeah, I guess I don’t know it. Just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it It, it, it doesn’t have the depth that you expect. Yes, I understand there is no depth. It’s all an illusion.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m just saying, you know, if you don’t really think about that fact and you’re just clicking around, you’re expecting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey more depth than it has. It feels like something’s broken.
⏹️ ▶️ John So like a fit, you’re saying like a fingernail, I caught it on like a traditional button, but rather than going all the way
⏹️ ▶️ John down, it feels like it goes to about like half travel.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Perfect description. That’s why we keep you around. That’s exactly right. So I hated it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I hated immediately. I had a feeling I was going to be able to get over it, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I hated it. But I thought to myself, self, why don’t you take a look in system preferences?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so I took a look in system preferences and sure enough, there is a completely unlabeled
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or two completely unlabeled sliders. Well, I shouldn’t say completely unlabeled. There’s a, they’re labeled click
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and tracking speed. Click did not mean anything to me, but there’s light,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey medium, and firm as the three options. And I realized after thinking about it for a second, I was like, what the hell
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is, oh, right. When I switched from medium, which was the default
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to firm, angels came out, came down from the heavens and everything
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was right in the world.
⏹️ ▶️ John The pressure you apply activates an electromagnet that responds with tactile
⏹️ ▶️ John feedback. So now instead of just seeing what’s happening the screen,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I have no problem with this trackpad anymore.
⏹️ ▶️ John You have no problem with it? Like, do you like it better? Is it just like, well, it’s acceptable, it’s the same
⏹️ ▶️ John as the other one? You got them right next to each other, you can like go back and forth and like click, click,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey click. So yeah, I mean, I’m doing this mostly to get a rise out of Marco. I wouldn’t say I don’t have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a problem with it. I wouldn’t say I like it more. I would say I like it marginally less.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Um, it doesn’t feel as crisp as it used to. And there have been occasions when
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think because there is no physical depth to it, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey misconstrued when I, when I’m dragging or clicking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and holding and when I’m not, uh, it’s hard to describe and I haven’t really put my finger on how to like reproduce it, but there’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Casey been occasions where I’ve thought I’ve released a click, but my thumb is still physically
⏹️ ▶️ Casey resting on the bottom of the trackpad and The software seems to think
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I’m still holding down on the button
⏹️ ▶️ John Have you done the thing that some people have talked about like with the with the physical button because it was hinged on an edge
⏹️ ▶️ John We all kept using the thumb because the bottom your thumb usually near the bottom and the bottom part is easiest place to
⏹️ ▶️ John click But when no part of it moves, they’re all equally valid so you can stop using the thumb, sort of the theory
⏹️ ▶️ John goes, and use whatever finger you’re using to control the cursor is also the finger
⏹️ ▶️ John that you use to click. And no matter where you do it, it’s the same exact amount of effort required. Have you tried that? Is that even a thing?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey My brain understands everything you just said. My hands are already writhing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in revolt for that idea.
⏹️ ▶️ John But it should be easier, because it’s not coordinating. Like, you’re not cording. You’re not trying to like, oh, I press my thumb over
⏹️ ▶️ John here, but then let me drag my pointer finger over there. It’s all just, you know, one thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, I totally understand what you’re saying. And all snark aside, I just, I think it would be really hard to train
⏹️ ▶️ Casey myself not to use my thumb, a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I mean, I’m sure I could. It’s just,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it would be hard for me to train myself to do that.
⏹️ ▶️ John So. I just think like, it’s one of those things that is made possible by the forest trust track pad. And of course
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not what we’re all used to, but like maybe someone who this is their first laptop ever, like a kid, like just
⏹️ ▶️ John accepts they, their habits are built on that and they would find it barbaric to have to press down with your thumb
⏹️ ▶️ John on this particular edge of the thing while moving your finger. over there. I don’t know. I haven’t tried either, and I hate trackpads overall in
⏹️ ▶️ John general. I’ve heard that from other people. I’m just wondering if you should give that a try, like give it a good
⏹️ ▶️ John chance to be like, maybe this is better. Although I think you’re about to talk about something else that is even more potentially
⏹️ ▶️ John blasphemous about your trackpad habits.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco before we get there, let me just rebut slightly. What drives me nuts about the Force Tux trackpad
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is not that I hate it. I don’t hate it. And I know that the next time I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco buy a laptop it’s almost certainly going to have one and I’ll just have to deal with it and that’ll be fine. It’s not going to stop me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from buying a new laptop forever. You know I’m not going to like hold on to the old version forever because I don’t like this trackpad.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like it’s not I don’t hate it that much. It’s not your Apple extended keyboard too. Right.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But what I find unfortunate about it is that what you’re saying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is you’re basically in apology mode for it. It’s like well this is almost good or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is great except for this unreliable thing and and the click is almost as good as the old one you know it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s all these apologetic excuse excusing statements about it because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it really isn’t as good and it what bothers me about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this trackpad is that we had a great trackpad before that very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco few people had problems with you know yes you could only click firmly on the bottom because it was hangs at the top but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco buttons used to be at the bottom on many PC laptops they still are that way That’s why it was hinged that way. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why we used our thumb on the bottom. And everyone’s been fine with that. It’s been fine. More importantly, it was rock-solid
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reliable. I don’t think I’ve ever misclicked on a trackpad that had
⏹️ ▶️ Marco tap-to-click disabled. To go make something… to take something like the trackpad that is such a fundamental
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing and to make it even 5% or 1% less reliable… It’s like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if every 50th tap to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco spacebar just didn’t work or inserted an X instead you know making
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fundamental input methods slightly less reliable than a hundred percent is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think are really big annoyance. I think
⏹️ ▶️ John everyone should use mice, but Besides the point
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the fact is if you’re really good with the trackpad, and you don’t have tap-to-click enabled It’s very reliable like it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you very rarely have like Unintended results from it or missed clicks or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco missed gestures. It’s very reliable with forced touch Yes, they did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco something that’s really cool technically, but on this fundamental level of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco reliability, even if you can get over the feel issue, which I honestly still don’t think it’s as good, even
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the firm setting. I’ve heard that El Capitan makes it better in software.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have not been able to verify that yet, but I heard that’s better. I don’t know. But even with the click
⏹️ ▶️ Marco feel aside for now, which I don’t think is a small thing, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco put that aside for now. The fact that it got even a little bit less reliable, the fact that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it is occasionally misinterpreting what people want, and you weren’t the first person to say that, Casey. I had that problem
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when I owned one for two days. I’ve heard many people who still have the same problem with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it, where it is a little bit less reliable. It is like you will occasionally have a misdrag
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or a misclick or something. That, to me, is unacceptable. Like, why
⏹️ ▶️ Marco make it worse? Because that is, it’s making it worse. Why take something that is so
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if it is making it… that’s what I was getting at with asking about the habits. I don’t know if it’s really making it worse. It’s making
⏹️ ▶️ John it worse for you and for people whose habits are trained on the old one because you will find your fingers
⏹️ ▶️ John doing things and acting in ways that were appropriate for the old device that are not appropriate for the new one. But I’m not entirely
⏹️ ▶️ John sure that if, you know, like ignore all of us and say this is the first time anyone ever used a trackpad,
⏹️ ▶️ John This is the first computer. They’re 10 years old. They start on this thing. Is it worse for them?
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m this that’s one aspect of the other aspect that you talk about reliability of like I don’t want it missing clicks and stuff like That
⏹️ ▶️ John that may be tied to our habits But the other aspect of us that you think of like the the iPod click wheel remember
⏹️ ▶️ John that thing with the spinning wheel Apple quickly got rid of The ring that
⏹️ ▶️ John actually turns and changed into a ring that does not turn but that you just slide your channel your finger around this
⏹️ ▶️ John Channel and people didn’t like that either because it was like well Well, yeah, maybe it was bad because that ring popped off all the
⏹️ ▶️ John time on the old one, but I like the fact that it actually moved. Now I’m swiping my sweaty finger across plastic that does
⏹️ ▶️ John not move. How is that better? Well, you know, it’s just a reduction in moving parts. Apple loves to reduce
⏹️ ▶️ John moving parts. This is a reduction in moving parts, kind of, sort of, mostly. Is it? It is, I mean,
⏹️ ▶️ John it is because it’s like the force sensors, there’s not a crack that opens up, that like Casey said, fingernails can get
⏹️ ▶️ John into, food crumbs can get into, that, you know, setting aside the whole depth and battery thing, which is, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John is a big motivator for this. Like it is one fewer moving part and it is more
⏹️ ▶️ John uniform. It is, like I said, the whole surface is equally tappable. Maybe it’ll take a couple of versions to figure
⏹️ ▶️ John out the feel and stuff like that. And the reliability, I don’t know, because I don’t have one of these. I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know if that’s just because your fingers are used to it. I know that coming from a mouse, trying to use any kind of track pad,
⏹️ ▶️ John I felt like I was, you know, just completely unable to, like I felt
⏹️ ▶️ John like there was a huge barrier between me and the cursor all of a sudden, because I grew up with a mouse and not a track pad. took me a long time
⏹️ ▶️ John to even become vaguely competent with the trackpad. And even now, if I have to click and hold and drag something with a trackpad,
⏹️ ▶️ John like with a traditional one, I have one with an actual physical button sitting behind me so I use that one a lot with the regular button.
⏹️ ▶️ John All of them I feel like are terrible. And the Force Touch trackpad, I agree with you, it doesn’t feel as good to me,
⏹️ ▶️ John but I feel like I’m more reliable clicking and dragging. Again, I haven’t used one for a long period of time. But anyway, I’m willing
⏹️ ▶️ John to believe that even though you dislike this thing strongly and it is worse for you.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, no, no, that’s not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what I said. I don’t dislike it strongly. I just think it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John worse. I know, even though you even though you think it’s worse, I would say it’s definitely worse
⏹️ ▶️ John for you so far, even though you didn’t have a very long time either. But I’m willing to believe that it is going to be better for
⏹️ ▶️ John people who aren’t used to the old way. And I’m even willing to believe that could actually be better for you three or four years
⏹️ ▶️ John from now when the mechanical ones are totally gone and you just kind of get used to it. So put a mark in your calendar for three years
⏹️ ▶️ John to get from now and I’ll ask you how
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco you’re feeling about forced trackpads now. Okay,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, But anyway, like again, Apple is forward looking and they’re saying the same thing with like, who’s
⏹️ ▶️ John gonna use these track pads? I mean, you guys don’t remember this, but you used to have track balls down
⏹️ ▶️ John there with a button above and below the track ball and use the track ball either with your thumb and then with the other thumb on the top
⏹️ ▶️ John button, or you can use the track ball with your finger with your thumb on the bottom button.
⏹️ ▶️ John Some people will use the track ball, some people like them and they replaced it with, you know, code name Midas, the touch pad thing. People are
⏹️ ▶️ John like, whoa, what the hell happened to the track ball? This is worse, I was much better at controlling things. I never had any
⏹️ ▶️ John mis-taps or swipes or whatever. The ball was easy to control. I could feel it moving back and forth. Eventually, we
⏹️ ▶️ John just all get used to it, and no one is like, this track pad sucks. I wish I had a track ball, right? So I feel like this is
⏹️ ▶️ John one of those type of moves where it has the inevitability of fewer moving parts that is
⏹️ ▶️ John very in line with what Apple does and what technology moves to in general, just because it allows you to make things thinner
⏹️ ▶️ John and lighter, and there’s fewer things that slide back and forth against each other. And I think it may be
⏹️ ▶️ John perfectly acceptable possibly even better depending on the habits for new people so I’m I
⏹️ ▶️ John still say the jury’s out in this thing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re gonna hear from all the trackball users by the way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco remembers the trackballs in power books some people still use them like they’re the big external desktop ones they still
⏹️ ▶️ John oh yeah no that’s the people who don’t understand how a mouse works and I know it’s like you turn it over
⏹️ ▶️ John the ball goes facing down guys no one remembers mice with balls in them either
⏹️ ▶️ John was an expert cleaning mouse balls let me tell
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah yeah me too we get tweezers to peel off the big like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John yeah awesome
⏹️ ▶️ Marco get it off on one piece yeah if you’re if you’re lucky you come off a one piece yeah you know just scrape
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it it’s so gross so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah so in case you thought we weren’t going to get enough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey email let me make it better trackpads are barbaric the only one
⏹️ ▶️ Casey true mobile pointing device is the trackpoint period that is the deal
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know I I kind of wish we still had track points in Apple products because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I agree with you because I had ThinkPads from eBay back forever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ago before I could get myself a new laptop. I would get old terrible
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ThinkPads on eBay every couple of years for like $300.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I had track points here and there briefly in my younger years and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I liked them a lot. I really, really liked them a lot. But I Wonder if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know if you know the same way like I thought the Sega Saturn had awesome graphics when it came
⏹️ ▶️ Marco out And then I saw it you know ten years later, and did not think that anymore I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wonder like do track points still hold up yep today.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, they never held up It’s like it’s like flying flying the spaceship cursor pointer
⏹️ ▶️ John with a joystick. That’s what you’re doing with the trackpad You are basically riding on top of the cursor Which is a spaceship
⏹️ ▶️ John that you are controlling on the screen with a joystick? It
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey is not direct
⏹️ ▶️ John manipulation. Trackpads are better than little trackpoints. I know people like them and they have one advantage
⏹️ ▶️ John which is it allows you to keep your fingers on the keyboard. You just got to move your finger over between the F and the G or wherever the hell
⏹️ ▶️ John the thing was on the keyboards and use it over there and ignore the fact that it’s cutting into your keycaps a little.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it’s good you keep everything in the same place. Like that’s that’s it’s one advantage. Everything else about it sucks. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John as in how quickly can you move the poor cursor towards something that you are interested in? Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So the thing about it is, if I’m really honest with myself, most of this is nostalgia. And if
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you don’t know what I’m talking about, the track point on a ThinkPad was almost always red if not always red.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey They were also oftentimes put on Dells among many other manufacturers. It’s the little nubbin that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in between, I think it’s actually the G, H, and B keys. I don’t have one in front of me, but I believe that’s right. And so you would
⏹️ ▶️ Casey push the little nubbin. It kind of was basically a little joystick. You push the little nubbin forward and back and side to side.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And there were mouse buttons immediately below the space bar, and that’s where the mouse buttons
⏹️ ▶️ Casey were. And I would fly on that track point, and it was so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey much more accurate to me than I am on a track pad, even after having a track pad for the last,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what, eight years or something like that, 10 years? I still genuinely prefer
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a track point. The one place where a track point just completely falls down
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is multi-touch in terms of swiping. So for example, what do they call it now? Is it Expose now? Or is it Mission Control
⏹️ ▶️ Casey now? I feel like they’re always changing the name. I’ve lost track.
⏹️ ▶️ John Mission Control as of a couple of years ago.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, so the Mission Control thing where you can swipe between desktops.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I use that constantly. And not being able to do that, what is it, three-finger swipe?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Not being able to do that three-finger swipe would absolutely ruin me on a Mac. But any time
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m on a desktop, excuse me, any time I’m on a PC, If
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s a PC that has a TrackPoint, that’s immediately where I’m reaching. Because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I just think it’s better and I am still more accurate with it, even
⏹️ ▶️ Casey though I never use one anymore. But to be fair, I think a lot of that is nostalgia and it’s because it’s what I grew
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up on because my dad worked for IBM. And so I was always using old ThinkPads, just like Marco.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so I’ve always, always, always used TrackPoints up until I started using Macs. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah, so I still think the TrackPoint’s the way to go. John, you’re entitled to your opinion as long as it may be. Please don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John These are things you don’t have to have opinions about. These things you can test. You can have just, you know, a series of targets that you have to
⏹️ ▶️ John get and measure time and accuracy and like you can actually figure this stuff out for
⏹️ ▶️ John an individual person, for people in general, if you get enough testers, like we don’t have to just, you know, in theory, this could be tested.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, you could also test whether vinyl sounds good or not. But when have I ever cared about that?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Have also been done. You’re right. That
⏹️ ▶️ John can be tested and has been so check. All right.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey the track point,
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m not sure about. By the way, have you ever seen the mouse with the track point in it? We had them. Like, think of where your scroll
⏹️ ▶️ John wheel is. That seems crazy to me. It’s like, you’ve got a mouse in your hand.
⏹️ ▶️ John Sometimes people just like to have something to fiddle with their fingers. Ew.
⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway. Hey, at least we’ve been calling it the nubbin. We’ve been staying away from the various other names for this thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey we’re doing very good. We’re doing well.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The other thing I wanted to say is, Um, I happen to think that track points
⏹️ ▶️ Casey are terrible, but as, excuse me, not track points, touchpads are terrible.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Um, but as touchpads go, the Apple touchpads are far and away
⏹️ ▶️ Casey leaps and bounds better than any other touchpad I’ve ever used. And I think, oh yeah. And I think the multi-touch has a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to do with that. But to me, the biggest reason that’s true is because of the sheer
⏹️ ▶️ Casey size of the touchpad, because maybe it’s different recently in newer PCs, I haven’t used a Terribly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey modern PC in a year or two but on PCs up until at least
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a couple of years ago The trackpads were tiny they were postage stamps
⏹️ ▶️ Casey compared to what you get on an Apple on an Apple device And that just made it impossible
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to me It’s like have you ever seen someone to use a mouse on a space that is nowhere near big enough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for that mouse Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John they used to sell they would sell like mouse pads. They were like four inches by four inches, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Was that even a mouse pad? Yeah, it’s just the word and so all you hear is The entire time they’re using this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey all you hear is Because they’re constantly picking up the damn mouse
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and putting it back on the table, it’s the
⏹️ ▶️ John worst Yeah, I’ve seen you ever see them use it like at a point of sale and they don’t have a place for the mouse It’s like wedged
⏹️ ▶️ John between like the monitor
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Things so they’re literally using it with like
⏹️ ▶️ John with like a half a centimeter of slop and so like thump thump thump thump thump thump Thump thump thump thump
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco thump. They have to pick
⏹️ ▶️ John it up every three pixels. They move the thing
⏹️ ▶️ John sometimes they’re using it upside down. You ever see those people?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No that I’ve not seen
⏹️ ▶️ John all right, that was a big thing back in the early days where people weren’t familiar with mice and they would get one
⏹️ ▶️ John and You know, well, there’s no clear way You’re supposed to use it if you’d ever use them before so they would turn it around so that
⏹️ ▶️ John the wire is coming out Sort of towards them and you know, the mouse works fine like that It’s like inverted y-axis
⏹️ ▶️ John in a video game, right? And they would press the button Either the single button or double with their palm left or right side
⏹️ ▶️ John of their palm and some people just got to using a mouse like that. And that was just it. That’s like, that’s the way they’re going to use
⏹️ ▶️ John the mouse for the rest of their life. And if someone eventually would come up and say, No, no, it goes around the other way, and put your fingers over here. And they’d be like,
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh, well, I like it the other way. Like you get used to inverted Y, you get used to using the buttons with your palms.
⏹️ ▶️ John And that’s it. And who’s to say that’s bad, really, I mean, you kind of run over the court a little bit. But
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, it’s always used to some people left handed to Can you believe that?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Are you sure those weren’t just trackball users that you were misinterpreting as mouse
⏹️ ▶️ John users? No, I’ve seen this in real life multiple times, widely separated geographically and over periods
⏹️ ▶️ John of time, people who use the mouse upside down. I’ve
⏹️ ▶️ Marco never seen that. Well, I’m with you, Casey. I would rather use a Force
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Touch trackpad on a MacBook One, set to the squishiest setting, than
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use the best PC trackpad available.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh yeah. I think it’s not just the size, too. It’s also, I don’t know if they’re not made of glass because it’s too expensive but they’re
⏹️ ▶️ John always made out of like sometimes it’s textured plastic or some other kind of plastic that feels bad
⏹️ ▶️ John or like ends up getting like bubbles or wrinkles in it. It just it just feels like the cheapest thing you’ve ever felt
⏹️ ▶️ John in your life compared to like Apple has traveled that same trajectory. The original code name Midas trackpad on the
⏹️ ▶️ John first PowerBook was plasticky and garbagey and terrible. That’s what Windows
⏹️ ▶️ John trackpads are like now. Apple slowly progressed making its trackpads but then Midas the Midas trackpad
⏹️ ▶️ John It was really tiny. It was like the size of the two combined mouse buttons on my mouse. And Apple just kept making
⏹️ ▶️ John them bigger and bigger and bigger and making the button part smaller and smaller and then removing the button part and making it glass.
⏹️ ▶️ John And PC manufacturers said, you know what? We can just slap a piece of plastic on here with some cheap sensor underneath it, that’s fine.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Fair enough. The only other thing I wanted to say because I don’t think I’ve ticked off enough people yet
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this evening, I use tap to click. And I just wanted to throw it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey out there. I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t see why everyone’s so worked up about it. I don’t see what the issue is.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t typically click by way of tapping, but I can go either way.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can swing either way and I’m okay with that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Are you just using tap to click now when you’re with a new thing or have you always
⏹️ ▶️ John No, always. Well, then you have no reason to ever complain about missed clicks or accidental clicks because you’re just doing this to yourself.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, you deserve any unreliability in tapping that you get.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think, you know, see, I think tap to click, like I’m not super anti-tap to click. Here’s what I think about tap
⏹️ ▶️ John to click. If you are a tap to click wizard, I think it’s better. Like I feel like it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John the expert mode because you don’t have to apply a lot of pressure. Like if you have somehow trained yourself to
⏹️ ▶️ John magically dance your fingers across a surface and you can walk that line between
⏹️ ▶️ John putting your finger down into the thing and tapping to click, it is more efficient because you don’t have
⏹️ ▶️ John to press hard, right? But I know I can’t do it. I know when I enable it, I get misclicks
⏹️ ▶️ John all the time. And I try to do, I would like to be a tap to click wizard, but I’m just not right and almost everyone else
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve ever seen, they accidentally tapped to click to and they’re just they’re just willing to accept the error rate as just
⏹️ ▶️ John the cost of doing business. I mean, my own mother uses it because it’s just more comfortable. You don’t have to press as hard there is sort
⏹️ ▶️ John of a luxury and a kind of a higher level of user interface
⏹️ ▶️ John like it’s one step removed from just waving your hands in front of something a minority report style or what the hell
⏹️ ▶️ John is that thing called the track pointy thing. Remember that I actually use it if attached to my computer
⏹️ ▶️ John was cool. The thing where you like put your hand over this little bar and you see like these five points for your five fingertips and move them around
⏹️ ▶️ John what what let me go look at my application follow you guys all remember well
⏹️ ▶️ Marco anyway I so I actually I one of the reasons why I I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I resist tap to click is because I secretly want to be a tactic like wizard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would love it if I was really good at it and really used to it because it does seem like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it would be superior if it was perfect and it’s It’s silent and there’s lots of times like I’m using a laptop
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in bed trying to get some work done before going to sleep or something like there’s lots of times or like even while
⏹️ ▶️ Marco podcasting I would love to you know get like a magic trackpad and be able to like tap to click on it comfortably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and there and then have silent mousing while podcasting you know something like that. I would love that, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I just I’ve tried it here and there for like a couple days at a time and just could never get into it
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s not that it’s not reliable. It has a threshold. This is a tap and this is not a tap right.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s just that you can’t walk that line. Very often you will find your fingers hitting the pad with enough
⏹️ ▶️ John force to go over that threshold and you didn’t mean to and you don’t have control of that threshold really either. So
⏹️ ▶️ John I think it is, you know, as reliable as a button. It’s like if you press with this amount of force, I consider it a click. If you press
⏹️ ▶️ John with anything less for that, I don’t. But you find your fingers hitting the thing and causing taps
⏹️ ▶️ John when you didn’t want to. By the way, the name of the thing was called leap motion. Don’t you remember it? Leap motion? I feel like I’ve heard that name. Go
⏹️ ▶️ John click the link I just put in the chat room and in the show notes. You’ll remember it. one of them. I tried it out when the SDK
⏹️ ▶️ John was in like beta or whatever. It was really neat and cool and fun to use in the demo. I’m not sure how you could use it to control any piece
⏹️ ▶️ John of software, but it was a cool tech demo.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have never heard of or seen this in my life.
⏹️ ▶️ John You had to have. We had it in like the show notes, I think, for this show at some point. What?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, that’s possible. I don’t have that good of a memory, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. Could have been
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco I’m on a lot of podcasts. Anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John take a look at the videos. This is a real thing and the demo is like you can get this thing stick it
⏹️ ▶️ John in front of your Mac and do the thing they show in the demo and it works like it shows in the demo what I’m just not sure about is like
⏹️ ▶️ John okay can I is it useful for me to use to control my mouse pointer probably
⏹️ ▶️ John not is it useful for gaming maybe maybe someone can make a cool game with it there is a lot of noise
⏹️ ▶️ John and kind of fuzz in the thing and there’s a lot of freedom of where you can put your limbs in front of it so
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s the potential to be the sort of miscalibrated enough but sure is an interesting piece of technology.
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iPhone lineup speculation
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, so Marco, tell us about what you think is happening with the iPhone 6c.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Is this that interesting? So I don’t know. So there’s been all the, everyone’s speculating
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that, you know, that we’ve had the iPhone 5c, which was like the redone iPhone 5 with the plastic
⏹️ ▶️ Marco case and everything. And you know, everyone’s now saying, well, we hope
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this fall when the new iPhones come out, there’s going to be a 6c. And everyone’s kind of expecting it as if it’s fact, like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco oh yeah, there’s going to be a 6c. do the internals and everything, and it’ll be the six’s guts in a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco plastic, four-inch, inexpensive phone. I said on Twitter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco earlier this week, I don’t see that happening at all, because the simple reason is that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we always, for the last many years now, we have seen pretty
⏹️ ▶️ Marco solid, healthy events of parts leaks in the late summer, leading up to the fall iPhone releases.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because the fact is the supply chain for making millions and millions of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhones to be bought all at once like on day one, it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is very unrealistic to expect that they would have a brand new model of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone even if it isn’t the top of the line one. They would have a brand new model using a new casing and new parts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and those parts wouldn’t be leaking at all yet. It is possible. I I just think it’s unlikely.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so I think if there was going to be a 6C, there would be some changes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the casing, certainly. Even if it looked kind of the same, there’s always minor variation.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Whenever there’s like an S model, where like the case stays basically the same,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but there’s like new guts, the parts are actually different enough, even on the casing, that those always
⏹️ ▶️ Marco leak. And those in fact have leaked already for what is called in quotes the iPhone 6S,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco presumably the main iPhone 6 update for this fall, there have already been
⏹️ ▶️ Marco leaked parts for that. There was a back case, there was a screen. So,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we have seen nothing else though. We haven’t even seen the 6S Plus parts leaked yet.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I assume there will be one, because it would be weird if there wasn’t. But, you know, so all we’ve seen so far is the 6S parts.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would assume based on that then, that we’re not gonna see any totally new-looking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco external cases, and that we’re probably not even gonna see iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco 5C falls out of the lineup or replaces the 4S, which is still for sale today in some markets, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco In some India and China markets, isn’t that still for sale, the 4S?
⏹️ ▶️ John I think so. I remember when they were saying they were keeping it, but only in certain regions, but I don’t know how long.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right. I think it’s probably safe to assume that everything basically moved down a step.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you have the 5C moving into that spot. In the US and a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rich countries, basically, you have the cheapest phone becoming the 5S,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then you have the old 6 and 6 Plus, maybe? At least the old 6, maybe the 6 Plus, who knows?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then the new 6S and 6S Plus. I think that’s the lineup. And I don’t think there’s…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It doesn’t seem like it’s that hard to predict. And maybe there’s going to be a new rose gold color, people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are speculating, who knows? But I don’t think we’re going to see a new low-end model.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think that’s a shame though, because I think the 5C had a lot of really good attributes. So obviously
⏹️ ▶️ John the guts are now outdated or whatever. And if you’re going to keep a phone like that in the
⏹️ ▶️ John lineup, you’d have to change the innards. But that’s what we’re talking about, like the new iPod touch. Like, oh, an
⏹️ ▶️ John A8 in a 5C size case. You could make that into a replacement
⏹️ ▶️ John 5C type phone, which would be the old four-inch screen. the things that is going for it for the people you can ask
⏹️ ▶️ John someone who owns them. Why did you get this? We all know somebody who is like an iOS developer or
⏹️ ▶️ John an otherwise tech nerd who usually gets the best, fanciest phone, but decided to get a five C. What’s
⏹️ ▶️ John so great about the five C? Number one comes in colors. People like colors. Just people
⏹️ ▶️ John like them. You want to have a phone with a white back or yellow back or whatever. These are your choices,
⏹️ ▶️ John or you can just get a case and slap it on. But people like things that come in colors. The iPod has taught us anything. Number
⏹️ ▶️ John two, it’s super comfortable. nice curved back like the plastic, the people who have them and like them say
⏹️ ▶️ John one of the reasons they like it is it feels especially compared to the stupid 5 and 5s with the little sharp chamfered
⏹️ ▶️ John edge crap like not as comfortable in your hand. And those two
⏹️ ▶️ John things may sound stupid like who cares whatever how comfortable it is just a big rectangle of the screen
⏹️ ▶️ John what color it is those things matter especially in product lines and I think that
⏹️ ▶️ John you know maybe they didn’t sell up to their expectations maybe they didn’t think it was worth it maybe it’s better to just keep using the
⏹️ ▶️ John tooling from the other things. I’m not saying it has to be in the five C thing. I just think those are things that Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John should bring to its phones and they are kind of like giving you over time. There have been more and more variations
⏹️ ▶️ John in all the products, even their laptops. This point you can get in gold and space gray and stuff, right? Expanding the repertoire
⏹️ ▶️ John of things you can buy. And if Apple wants to segment its line, you can know they kind of do
⏹️ ▶️ John like it used to be like aluminum was the expensive ones and then plastic for the cheaper ones and they went all aluminum
⏹️ ▶️ John and you could have a more kind of refined in the line of colors with space gray and gold
⏹️ ▶️ John and black or whatever for the fancy high end phones. And then as you go middle or lower, have them come in 700
⏹️ ▶️ John different colors, right? You know, have different colors change every year. And I think Marco on Twitter, you were making fun of the little
⏹️ ▶️ John case with the holes and it was mixing and matching things like that’s silly. They’re overpriced. People like to do
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff like that. Maybe that particular design was ugly and didn’t sell well. But I really, really think
⏹️ ▶️ John that Apple should bring back at some point into its lineup of phones,
⏹️ ▶️ John selection of colors and a more comfortable thing to hold and if it’s not going to be this generation then
⏹️ ▶️ John hopefully like whenever they do the big revision for the 7 or whatever they’re gonna call it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well but I mean and first of all I should point out that I’m a total hypocrite as I’m sitting there saying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco who the heck ever bought multiple holy cases for their iPhone 5Cs I also own three
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple watch bands but anyway
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m so angry that I didn’t get to point that out.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sorry but also you know if you look at the direction Apple’s going with product designs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco All of the laptops now are metal. They’ve been that way for a long time. They just don’t use that as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a differentiator anymore. They use other things. All the iPads are metal. Plastic never reached the iPad line.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If you look at the iPhone line, the iPhone 6 is holdable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and comfortable for nobody.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s more comfortable than the 5, other than it slipping out of your hand. Don’t you feel like the edges, at least, the rounded edges are more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh yes, they are much more comfortable for as long as they’re in your hand and they fall out.
⏹️ ▶️ John I know, I’m just saying, like that’s, I know what you’re getting at, like they’re going for all metal, but I think like
⏹️ ▶️ John metal is a poor fit for all of your phones. It may be
⏹️ ▶️ John a poor fit for any of your phones. Just look at how they’ve struggled with like the antenna lines and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sure, no, but I agree with you. However, I’m just saying realistically what they’re doing,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it sure does seem, and I heard from back when I was first complaining about the iPhone 6 design, which now seems
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like forever ago, I heard from a couple of Apple people who were kind of coyly suggesting,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco well, what if the rationale wasn’t state? You know, they would never actually say this is why we did it. But but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the the the coyly suggested rationale was basically your naked robotic core theory
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of like, we we will just make the the thinnest, lightest phone,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the smallest thinnest lightest thing and then you can customize it with cases
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to give it either more battery life or or a better feel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so and I did you know with with the iPhone 6 this is the first phone that I’m constantly using a case on because I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m using Apple’s leather case because I just needed some more friction but
⏹️ ▶️ John it is a valid product strategy like I’m not even saying that’s the wrong thing to do because if if faced with this option
⏹️ ▶️ John this is a great way to go because you’re like do whatever you want with the case we’ll make a whole bunch really nice cases
⏹️ ▶️ John you can buy a bunch of third-party cases when you drop your phone when you ding it when something spills on it when you
⏹️ ▶️ John scratch it get a new case because all that damage is happening to the case which if you buy from Apple $70 for a thin piece
⏹️ ▶️ John of leather stuck to plastic but let’s ignore that for now and just say like this is a good plan
⏹️ ▶️ John Naked Robotic Core is a viable good strategy well see I disagree with you there
⏹️ ▶️ John all right so what part of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that don’t you like the problem is that if you let’s say you have the Naked Robotic
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know fish phone in the middle there that feels like nothing and this is bar soap, okay. That
⏹️ ▶️ Marco phone with, let’s say you want a little bit more battery life, so you buy a battery case.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco A battery case attached to the phone is always going to be bigger and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco worse than just building that in to begin
⏹️ ▶️ John with. I agree with you for the battery, I’m thinking only for fashion and protection. Like for what color do you
⏹️ ▶️ John want it in and do you want something to be grippier or soak up nicks or whatever. Battery, you’re right
⏹️ ▶️ John because you’re, I mean, you’re forced to have two layers there and all the stuff like although people
⏹️ ▶️ John still do it right and I still think it becomes a viable thing, but it but it’s inefficient. I agree
⏹️ ▶️ John with you that basically, that the trade off that Apple makes, and its phone line between thinness and battery life, we
⏹️ ▶️ John talked about this a million times, there is definitely place in lineup for for a phone that Apple sells that makes a different trade
⏹️ ▶️ John off. Oh, and by the way, if your most important thing is you need really good battery life, we sell you one that is way
⏹️ ▶️ John thicker than our other ones, you know, a millimeter or whatever the is how weak and way thicker is these days. It
⏹️ ▶️ John gives you more battery. And at this point, like the 6 Plus is kind of that model just because it’s got the bigger battery, but Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John just does not make, does not offer a phone that’s like that. So they force you to get these big humpback, speaking of hump some
⏹️ ▶️ John things, these big humpback things that you’re right. You have to have a layer of plastic of metal, the battery, another
⏹️ ▶️ John layer of plastic of metal, then a connector thing, and then it just, it makes your phone way bigger than it would be if you built it
⏹️ ▶️ John in. But for the color and protection stuff, I think making a robotic core is a reasonably viable strategy, but
⏹️ ▶️ John also so is selling plastic phones that are comfortable and come in a bunch of colors.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, but so going back to the feel and protection issue though, I would say that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco selling a plastic phone and selling thicker metal phones, that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a better strategy than selling all thin bar soap phones and letting you put cases on afterwards.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because the fact is, people are always gonna put cases on if they want a case. Like anybody who wants extra protection
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for their phone, for dropping and everything, they’re gonna use a case no matter what shape or material the phone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is, doesn’t matter. For people who don’t want to put cases on their phone, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s I think a lot of those people, and I think a lot of Apple people. So I just took out my, I got my 5S
⏹️ ▶️ Marco here, and my 5S with no case, which is how I used it because it’s very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco comfortable for me with no case, is thinner and lighter than my iPhone 6
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with the big leather case on it. The argument of the battery being better if it’s built in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that applies also to the feel of the phone. So I’m both agreeing with your earlier point
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and disagreeing with your most recent point where I think that the Nikkor Robotic Core strategy falls over here
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because I think you’re better off just making phones to begin with that can be used
⏹️ ▶️ Marco without cases and have good battery life if you want those. And if you want even more battery
⏹️ ▶️ Marco life and if you want an even bigger, grippier, more protective case, those are options you can add on as well.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People always will do that. But the basic phone I think needs to be better than what we got
⏹️ ▶️ John see I think that all the phones have been pretty darn slippery right that that is not as if
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco By the way, you never actually
⏹️ ▶️ John My wife had a 4s and a 5 uh and With and without the case and you know, like
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve I’ve they’ve been around and of course I felt other people ones like you’re right that the 6 is Slippery-er
⏹️ ▶️ John a lot of that has to do with the size change Like that’s why your 5 and 5s are lighter because they’re smaller phones, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Sure Sure. But I always like grippy phones. I always like cases like silicone
⏹️ ▶️ John or something like that and a leather one. I need that grippiness. You can’t build in that grippiness because
⏹️ ▶️ John by the nature of that grippiness, it wears out. It scratches, it dents, it peels away. It is
⏹️ ▶️ John subject to abrasions. You just can’t build that into the phone. So you’re going to make the phone out of something. It has to
⏹️ ▶️ John be something that’s smooth and hard and shiny, whether it’s plastic or metal, because you
⏹️ ▶️ John can’t… It would be terrible to make a phone that you buy that basically like the whole back of it is leather
⏹️ ▶️ John right but I like the feel of something that is that is backed by leather so it has to be a removable case for
⏹️ ▶️ John that material what you’re saying is like the 4s with a glass back or whatever or the 5 with the metal thing
⏹️ ▶️ John like make it of a sturdy material that doesn’t scratch and doesn’t wear out and isn’t really subject to abrasions
⏹️ ▶️ John but also isn’t slippery and that is really difficult to do so I feel like if
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re either gonna go naked robotic core for metal or you’re going to go nonmetal material that is nevertheless pretty hard.
⏹️ ▶️ John You’re never going to be able to you shouldn’t I think make a phone that has like integrated rubber
⏹️ ▶️ John grips or indicated silicone things because you’re just asking for the phone to get dinged up and ugly and then
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like oh I can’t take this off it’s not a case it’s part of the phone.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco God this 5s feels great.
⏹️ ▶️ John Speaking of the 5s on Twitter I forget so who was saying on Twitter maybe it was the tipster maybe it was someone else talking about
⏹️ ▶️ John how Apple was having difficult with that with the five and the five s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was it was the five only yeah it’s like because i was i was i was asking like you know with the 5c whether
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was a failure and and we know what the reason was for like it apparently got better margins
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and my theory my question was like would would continuing to make the five
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but just just the advances in time and mass production would they have had similar margins like it was really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that much worth it and the answer apparently was yes because on the five because remember the five
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the 5s the black color was different between the two. The 5 had a very
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very dark black color I think it was called space black whatever it was called the 5s got lighter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and called it space gray but anyway the the black finish on the 5
⏹️ ▶️ Marco chipped and flaked off really really easily and most of the time like I like on my 5 I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco saw this most of time it would show up on the on the edges the chamfered edges where you’d
⏹️ ▶️ Marco see the bright colored aluminum shining through the black finish where it had chipped off and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So apparently, that was such a big problem for Apple in getting yields on that and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The tipster said that that was one of the biggest reasons that they switched to the plastic for the 5C,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rather than continuing to make those black cases as the 5 aged and went down the lineup.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because any phone they make where they don’t do a 5C and replace it, which has been every other one,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these are made for, what, four years? They’re made for a long time. It isn’t just the year they’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the newest phone. So if there was an issue of like this thing is proving to not age well or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have too low manufacturing yields, it might be worth it for them to switch out the entire casing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and redesign the whole thing. And so that was clearly a contributing factor very likely
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the 5Cs existence. But we don’t have that now.
⏹️ ▶️ John They talk about yields, what they’re basically talking about, and we can remember back to the, what was it, the white backed,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, the 4S series, the white ones, remember? Like, they’re talking about the yields, what they’re talking about is they build this phone,
⏹️ ▶️ John like it goes down the manufacturing line, at some point in the manufacturing process is a random sampling of things. And you look at them and say,
⏹️ ▶️ John do does this pass our quality standards? And what are our standards? Can it not have any nicks gonna has to be uniform
⏹️ ▶️ John color, you know, whatever their standards are, and Apple standards are pretty darn high in terms of it has to basically be
⏹️ ▶️ John perfect looking to the naked eye, and maybe even with magnifying things, the ones that aren’t perfect,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like rejected, like this one came off the line, it’s an iPhone five, it’s black all
⏹️ ▶️ John over except this one little part here where flight came off in a shiny rejected. And every time you do that, it costs you money because you
⏹️ ▶️ John spend all this time manufacturing this phone and now it didn’t pass Q A. And you don’t get to sell that as the phone.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s got all the parts have to be recycled back and you start over and try again. So that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about yields for these things. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John all down to what your standards are. And I think what your conversation on Twitter was one of the things
⏹️ ▶️ John that was offered was that the way Apple dealt with this yield problem eventually was they started lowering their standards a little
⏹️ ▶️ John bit just to like to not have not to be rejecting. I don’t know what the percentages are. And And again, this is all speculative,
⏹️ ▶️ John rumor, blah, blah, blah. We don’t know this is all true, but these are all things that sound plausible because we know for a fact that all manufacturing
⏹️ ▶️ John has some sort of quality control process. And we know based on what Apple sells that their quality control processes must be pretty
⏹️ ▶️ John tight because every time you open up one of those Apple boxes and look at that thing under a jeweler’s loop, it’s pretty darn.
⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, look at the frickin watch. Like it’s pretty amazing what they do on a massive scale.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it doesn’t take much to throw that off to say now this is costing us big bucks because
⏹️ ▶️ John If our yield goes off by just some small percentage or fraction of a percentage, that’s a big
⏹️ ▶️ John deal to us. But setting all that aside, colors are cool and the 5C is really comfortable. I’m still a
⏹️ ▶️ John big fan of that idea of a phone, if not that specific phone, because now the Androids are all old.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, it’s funny because on a daily basis, I typically have my hands on three different generations
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of iPhone. I have a 6, I have it in a leather case. I’ve used cases
⏹️ ▶️ Casey since, shoot, I think I had one on my 4S. I did not have one on my 3GS, if memory
⏹️ ▶️ Casey serves, and I had one on my 5S. So I am a case kind of guy.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That being said, Marco, I completely agree with you that even if I wasn’t into cases for my phones,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey for the 6, I would absolutely have had to put one on because I do agree that it is slippier
⏹️ ▶️ Casey than any other iPhone I’ve owned. But anyway, on a daily basis, I will
⏹️ ▶️ Casey typically have my 6 in my hand at some point. I’ll have Aaron’s 5S in my hand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey at some point, that’s in the Apple leather case just like mine is. And we
⏹️ ▶️ Casey use my old 3GS as a white noise machine for Declan when he’s sleeping.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so I’ll typically pick that up to turn on the white noise.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco My 3GS was a, you look nice today on loop player for Adam while he was sleeping when he was a baby.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yep, see? Exactly. So, because of that,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel like I have a pretty good span of several different models. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to my hand, the 5S is far and away the most comfortable. I agree
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with you, John, that the 5C is actually more comfortable, but we don’t have one in the house.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So if I were just truly for comfort, if I were to pick a new iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ Casey tomorrow, it would be a part my ideal iPhone tomorrow is the guts
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of a quote unquote success in the case of a 5s.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s if you have to hold it or if you have to start actually looking at the screen.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Completely agree. In
⏹️ ▶️ Casey case, I have to have a six. I still think the six plus is a little bit freakishly large,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but maybe if I had one, I would change my tune.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What’s interesting. So I know this is very, very unlikely. It’s almost certain
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not to happen in this revision and it’s even very unlikely for the iPhone 7 I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or for any iPhone just because of the nature but what I would love is if the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the DLC space black watch finish was available on an iPhone and I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know enough about the materials to say it would probably have to be made of stainless steel I don’t I don’t know if this could bond
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to aluminum in the correct way but so obviously this is a massive stretch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the imagination but But if you could do it, if you could have the stainless
⏹️ ▶️ Marco steel DLC coating from the Space Black watch on a phone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco somehow, whether it’s made from steel or not, don’t care. If you could do that, that I think would be perfect
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because, although it’s probably going to be heavier unfortunately,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but that would be great because the Space Black coating is extremely durable. It looks great. It is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very dark, but it looks great. It kind of feels like it’s almost like a wrap wrapped
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in vinyl kind of feeling it does not feel like slippery metal it It is a little bit tackier. It’s a little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bit more friction. It almost feels like plastic Yeah, that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey amazing. I completely agree
⏹️ ▶️ John or they can make it out of plastic We have
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey that we can do that it’s plastic
⏹️ ▶️ John Make it kind of like a not so shiny kind of matte finish really
⏹️ ▶️ John hard plastic. It could be unapologetically plastic someone said that once.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Oh God. That’s great. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so probably not going to happen because of the materials and cost involved,
⏹️ ▶️ John weight. You called that weight. Like, why not make it out of, what is that big cylinder you have?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Tungsten. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John make a tungsten phone.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The very small cylinder I have that’s heavier than the MacBook One. Good grief.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, I do have some questions about upgrade cycles
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and some other things, but anything else about the hardware and what may or may not happen in a couple of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey months? Actually next month, in theory.
⏹️ ▶️ John had some bold predictions about flash storage capacity too.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, this is boring. Yeah.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, you make these predictions on Twitter like, I totally think this is going to be it, but it comes time to the podcast, you’re like, yeah, maybe
⏹️ ▶️ John not. You think this is going to be it or you don’t? Because I’m not ready to make these predictions,
⏹️ ▶️ John but you seem very sure.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, what happens is I make these predictions on Twitter. And then between the time I make these
⏹️ ▶️ Marco predictions on Twitter, and now when we record the podcast, I’ve had hundreds of of people telling me I’m an idiot and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m wrong. So then I introduced myself doubt. But my theory here is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think that we’re that we’re gonna lose the 16-64-128 split
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the high-end models now. I think that’s I think that’s gonna be here for at least one more year. So 16
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gigs we’re gonna keep going on that and then I just think you know everything else like the like the the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the existing 6 and if the 6 plus stays which I actually predicted the existing 6 plus won’t stay in the lineup, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s not that important. I’m guessing that it does basically what it did this past year, where the 6
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that we have today moves down a slot, becomes available in 16 and maybe 32.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because right now, the 5S is available in 16 and 32. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe they would do that again. And then the existing 5S that we have today is 16 only.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then the, uh, what’s below that? No, that’s just the, well, yeah, the 5c,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the 5c right now is only eight, right? I think that’s right. So God, I hope the 5s doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco go to eight. Jeez. They, they gotta stop doing that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Nothing’s going to eight, please. I’m still holding out hope for a 32. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would love if the base was 32 for the new 6s or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco whatever we’re calling that thing, but I, I don’t see it happening unfortunately. Yeah. Someone won
⏹️ ▶️ John like you don’t need that anymore app thinning app slicing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah I mean if you look at like you know the direction that that they’re taking with so many iOS 9
⏹️ ▶️ Marco app features and OS features you know part of that obviously is that they have a lot of phones out there already
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the installed base that have 16 or even 8 gigs of space which is really unfortunate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and really tight and really stingy they they have a lot of phones out there that have those capacities already
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they’re gonna they want all those to be able to upgrade to iOS 9 so So that’s a problem
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they were trying to solve. But if you look at all these app thinning and the various resource things they’re doing, all
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this stuff, and they’re also promoting app thinning very heavily. They sent out a bulk email about it today, encouraging
⏹️ ▶️ Marco developers to use it. And you can now test with internal testers, which are useless. All
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this stuff. So they are clearly laying the foundation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a world in which tiny capacity iOS devices continue to exist, basically.
⏹️ ▶️ John I know. I know, I feel like, you know, there’s a reason for them to do all that, because like you said, all existing devices, they’re kind of
⏹️ ▶️ John righting a wrong that already exists. But I fear someone
⏹️ ▶️ John also used that to explain why we have to continue making 16 gig devices in this next round and
⏹️ ▶️ John why we don’t have to make a 32. Totally agreed. Wish I could have been there and said, no.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what I’ve heard from people here and there, what I’ve heard, which has no credibility whatsoever,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is that it is very, very hard to convince the people at Apple who matter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like about things like this, to convince them to spend the extra couple of bucks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the bill of materials to get the bigger RAM chip or to get the bigger flash memory chip.
⏹️ ▶️ John I believe it. I mean, we see the evidence of it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Exactly. Like we see and there are some trade-offs too. Like, you know, with RAM, RAM uses battery life. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I like, you know, there are some trade-offs there, but a lot of the things just come down to making sure they have very, very healthy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco margins and other things like that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Right. And just time marches on. It’s like, all right, I understand that you have reasons for it, but eventually,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, you got it. And it’s like they’re just kicking and streaming, dragging their feet. And like even bumping the capacity is like,
⏹️ ▶️ John we bump the capacity, but can we cut out 32 and make keep 16? Yeah, let’s do that. That’ll that will make me feel better for
⏹️ ▶️ John the fact that I gave you the larger capacities and we put two gigs of RAM in the iPad three.
⏹️ ▶️ John can I get rid of the 32 and keep the 16s? Ooh, money, money, money. I just wish I could convince these people
⏹️ ▶️ John of the long term downsides. Like, oh, look at our customer sat. What long
⏹️ ▶️ John term downsides are you talking about? It’s totally invisible to us. I agree that it’s probably invisible to them, but we all know
⏹️ ▶️ John from seeing the experiences like that, it’s like tiny little nicks of doubt and damage
⏹️ ▶️ John for the person who can’t like can’t upgrade because their phone is full. It’s like, oh, we’ll fix that and software with the next version can’t
⏹️ ▶️ John fit all their stuff on it. And like, well, we’ll figure out we’ll be more gracefully handle when you run out
⏹️ ▶️ John of where it’s like, all these things are good to do, but another thing you can do is stop selling 16 gig phones. That’s
⏹️ ▶️ John another thing you can do. And eventually you have to, eventually you have to, like you have to eventually stop selling eights. You’re gonna eventually,
⏹️ ▶️ John like, they don’t want to believe that it’s like, it’ll be 16 forever. Like, I don’t want to have to use my argument
⏹️ ▶️ John again, which doesn’t have a name that we’ve agreed upon, but I had to say like, 2075, 16 gig iPhones. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ John fine, we did app thinning. Like, you gotta upgrade eventually, people. And it’s just a matter of arguing
⏹️ ▶️ John over what year it’s gonna be. and I feel like the year I want it to be is like always two to three
⏹️ ▶️ John years different than the year Apple wants it to be. So we should.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So what kind of timescale would we need to get that?
⏹️ ▶️ John You just need them to agree that it’s going to happen
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco and then make
⏹️ ▶️ John them pick which year it’s going to happen in. Yeah. You agree with me that 16 gigs will go away. What
⏹️ ▶️ John year will that happen? Well, not this year for sure. Okay, we’ve narrowed it down. Not this year. Will it happen next year?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco year, but ask me
⏹️ ▶️ John again next year. Will it happen the year after that? And you just keep going And then eventually you’re 75 years out and like, look, we’re all
⏹️ ▶️ John dead now. And you still think it’ll be 60 gig phones. Like I just can’t spare the margins. I just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco can’t do it. Yeah. Well, because, you know, if you think about like, you know, the iPhone from Apple’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco financials point of view from, you know, from the stock and from, you know, their financial performance and everything,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the iPhone is their most important product by a long shot. And anything that drives
⏹️ ▶️ Marco up the average selling price of iPhones is a pretty big deal to them. It’s a huge
⏹️ ▶️ Marco deal for their money. It’s a huge deal for Tim Cook’s evaluation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco by the market and the press and maybe the board who knows.
⏹️ ▶️ John But that’s not how they operate though because you know how they could save a lot of money? Use crappier materials and don’t be so obsessed
⏹️ ▶️ John with the stupid chamfered edges. But those people, the people who want that stuff to be perfect, they win the
⏹️ ▶️ John arguments. They say, yes, we could do this much more cheaply and we wouldn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John have all these QA problems. And by the way, the ADB tipster wants us to know they didn’t actually decrease their standards. what they do is increase their
⏹️ ▶️ John standards earlier in their production process to not let those cases end up being completed phones or whatever. But anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John those people win their arguments, because you could save tons of money, you’d be a PC manufacturer, make all
⏹️ ▶️ John your track pads out of plastic, it’s way cheaper. Look at those huge margins, but they don’t do that. Why? Because they want to
⏹️ ▶️ John make the best product they can. And I feel like at this point, selling phones for 100
⏹️ ▶️ John or $200 with or does even you can even $300 one with 16 gigs of flash storage
⏹️ ▶️ John is making your products worse for people in
⏹️ ▶️ John a way that is avoidable with not too much you know wouldn’t hurt your margins that much
⏹️ ▶️ John in the same way like if you need a trade-off maybe find a way to make it out of cheaper easier to make I think they
⏹️ ▶️ John did that I think the six-plus is easier to manufacture this curve piece of aluminum than it was to
⏹️ ▶️ John manufacture the five and the 5s with a little chamfered edges it seems like I don’t know anything about manufacture but it seems to me
⏹️ ▶️ John this one must be cheaper to manufacture hey so hey use some of that money that you saved making a easier
⏹️ ▶️ John to manufacture case that’s easier to get to pass QA put that into maybe having a 32
⏹️ ▶️ John gig model somewhere in your lineup and maybe not selling the 16 at the top of the line.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But it’s it’s not about saving the you know five or ten bucks or whatever the cost is of the flash
⏹️ ▶️ Marco chip in you know going from 16 to 32 it’s about the people who who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco upgrade who paid the extra hundred dollars to go from 16 to 64 who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco wouldn’t have done that if the base model was 32? Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re right. It comes down to money. Basically what it’s down to is like, well, they’re really sensitive to money. This is a big product line.
⏹️ ▶️ John Any small change in a device that sells in this volume for this amount of money adds up to big numbers.
⏹️ ▶️ John And you’re right. It’s the anchoring. It’s like, well, I don’t want a 16. And so my only other choice is 64. And they can charge more for 64, 64 is
⏹️ ▶️ John so much bigger than 16. All that stuff is all true. It’s just like, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John those type of pricing games and stuff, you can play those. But the worst thing you can do is put a product into the hands
⏹️ ▶️ John of people that is going to give them a less satisfactory experience that
⏹️ ▶️ John will just get worse over time, that will make them have bad feelings about you or your products.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I agree, but Apple has always done that. They’ve always had very low RAM configurations
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the base model laptops and stuff like that. They
⏹️ ▶️ John came out of that. I felt like they got over that. It used to, it was a really dark time where your new $3,000 Mac
⏹️ ▶️ John comes standard with an obscenely small amount of RAM. It might as well be empty. Don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John even try to use it in this
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco configuration.
⏹️ ▶️ John And by the way, if you don’t buy your Rams from us, it voids the warranty. And like those are the bad old days. I felt like they came
⏹️ ▶️ John out of that, especially when they started soldering RAM on the board. That’s one of the best things that happened to them. Ram wise,
⏹️ ▶️ John because they were forced to use a sane amount, right? Because if there was going to be, you know, it’s a pro laptop, but we
⏹️ ▶️ John put solder on the board for gigs now and you can’t expand it. Like so they were forced to pick same numbers
⏹️ ▶️ John there. I think that was a plus. The flash and iPhones is their new area of backsliding.
⏹️ ▶️ John They just feel like they can get away with it for just way too long.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, and they they obviously can get away with it. I
⏹️ ▶️ John know, but there’s there there are it’s ramifications. I mean, we have podcasts. Am I going to say that on now?
⏹️ ▶️ John What is the fallout? I’ll even give them this current lineup that we’ve all got, you know, in our hands. I’ll even give them that 16.
⏹️ ▶️ John Fine. You get a pass on that one. But this year, I really, really, really hope in the top of the line product doesn’t even go
⏹️ ▶️ John down to 16 and that there’s definitely a 32. You want to bet? I would not bet against
⏹️ ▶️ John it because I think it’s about at least a 50-50 chance that you’re right and that it’s going to go down to 16. But I just
⏹️ ▶️ John really, you know, if only just because like that’s the phones that they’re making like.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ll bet you a 16 gig SD card that the base model stays 16.
⏹️ ▶️ John No, I would not take that bet. I just, I feel like it’s a, it’s a coin toss.
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Phone upgrade pricing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have a couple of questions about upgrading. So last
⏹️ ▶️ Casey year I was off cycle, but I treated myself and somehow convinced Aaron that it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was worth it to get a 6 out of contract. Well that’s not even true. It was like kind
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of in contract and it was weird. Anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like the half subsidy where you pay
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like $400 for it or something? Exactly. This is on AT&T. This year Aaron is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey unequivocally due for a new phone. Her 5S is two years old or will be
⏹️ ▶️ Casey two years old. It is her time. We’ll see if I can convince her slash me
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if I should also get a new phone. We’ll see how that goes. But my understanding,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I’ve not really had any time to look into this yet, but my understanding is AT&T and most of the other carriers have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey largely done away with the subsidy and two-year contract
⏹️ ▶️ Casey dance that has been going on for forever and a day. Do you guys happen to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know anything about how this is working?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh man, I tried doing research before the show because I’ve also heard the same thing that apparently
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in Apple stores this fall, if you buy the phone through an Apple store, apparently they… I heard that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they won’t do subsidies at all or that you have to do these like AT&T Next type plans where
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you pay per month additional amounts for the phone for like X months, which by the way is apparently
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how the entire rest of the world works.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it’s the more sane way to do it. It is the less manipulative way. The way things
⏹️ ▶️ John are priced now is to fool you into, like, you’re not good, people’s brains aren’t good at realizing exactly
⏹️ ▶️ John how much money they’re paying over the X number of years for this, like they don’t see the subsidy. They’re like, oh, I get a phone for 200
⏹️ ▶️ John bucks and I have a monthly bill, that feels so much better to me and no one wants to do the math to figure out, you know what, you’re actually paying more.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I’m kind of baffled as to why they’re changing it because the voodoo of
⏹️ ▶️ John that pricing works really well. maybe competitive pressure
⏹️ ▶️ John from, I don’t know, from T-Mobile? I can’t even think of why they would change this, you know, because the underdog,
⏹️ ▶️ John the crappy carriers that don’t have good coverage, that are trying to get customers, like, hey, we have honest pricing and you can do math and
⏹️ ▶️ John figure out how it works and blah, blah, blah, to try to attract customers. Maybe that’s putting some pressure on
⏹️ ▶️ John AT&T and Verizon, but honestly, it’s a mystery to me why they would, why they would go from
⏹️ ▶️ John a confusing pricing plan that makes people feel like they’re not paying a lot, but really they are to a pricing
⏹️ ▶️ John plan that is initially more off putting because you see the real costs but is actually more fair, fair and understandable
⏹️ ▶️ John in the long term. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one thing’s for sure, I think this is not good news for Apple. Like to me,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I think having the iPhone being compared on unsubsidized pricing at any level,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco even if you try to, you know, put it in as a well, this is the iPhone six s will be $25 a month more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the iPhone six will be $20 a month more, you know, even if you try to break it into a layaway
⏹️ ▶️ Marco plan pricing like that, having the real price become more visible in any way without
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these subsidies is almost certain to negatively affect iPhone sales.
⏹️ ▶️ John How do you think it’ll negatively affect all sales? Aren’t the carriers doing this across all their phones or just for the iPhone?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think they are doing it across all their phones, but now it is creating a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco price umbrella for people to go under Apple on. And some phones already are cheaper than Apple’s. I think it’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Marco greatly help things like, Like what are the, is it the Moto X, whatever the cheaper?
⏹️ ▶️ John But they’ve always been cheaper. They’ve always been like the free with contract phone or whatever. Like, I guess
⏹️ ▶️ John it depends on like how much bigger are Apple subsidies than they are for the basically comparable phones
⏹️ ▶️ John for the top of the line Samsung smartphone or whatever. Like, I think the pricing on the box is that
⏹️ ▶️ John it’d been similar. Like it’s, you know, 199 to get you into the best Samsung Galaxy
⏹️ ▶️ John S, whatever they’re up to and 199 for the best iPhone. And the only difference may be, well, actually behind the scenes,
⏹️ ▶️ John even though the list price for you is $199 plus, you know, two year contract behind the scenes,
⏹️ ▶️ John the carriers are paying Apple way more than they’re paying Samsung. And so once that becomes visible, suddenly it’s not $199
⏹️ ▶️ John versus $199. It’s actually a much bigger number for the iPhone versus a smaller number
⏹️ ▶️ John for the supposedly equivalent top of the line, you know, Samsung phone. If that’s true, then that
⏹️ ▶️ John could hurt Apple. But I think it’ll just hurt everybody across the board because people don’t want to see the real fight, the
⏹️ ▶️ John real price of their their smartphone I mean I guess we get used to it because like you said that’s how the rest of the world kind of does it and it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John still kind of hidden you know it’s like plus X number of amounts per month for X number of months and that’ll still be enough
⏹️ ▶️ John multiplication to stop people from doing it as opposed to like basically buying an unlock phone like okay
⏹️ ▶️ John give me $1,200 or whatever the hell it is for the unlock you’re like whoa whoa I’m not using a $1,200 phone it’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John you are you just don’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it. Right and and the other problem is in the US be you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know up till now in the US if you kept buying buying the contract discounts, basically.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco These pay-every-month things have been around for about a year or two now, but a lot of people still haven’t been using them.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Up until now, if you’re on one of the big carriers, basically AT&T and Verizon in the U.S.,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let’s say you were on a two-year contract. At the end of those two years,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco your bill doesn’t go down. Once your phone is, quote, paid off for the contract, your bill
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has not decreased. You basically had a reason to go into the phone store
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and pick out a new phone for, quote, free every two years, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you could. There was no new cost to you to do that, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you were paying for a subsidy whether you were using it or not. Your bills stayed the same.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco With these plans, that is changing. So now,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think you’re right, John. This is two-sided. One is, Apple could be vulnerable to people having
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cheaper phones than them. But two, which is bigger, which you’re right, affects everybody, is that now I think people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco will expect their phones to last longer than two years, and they won’t upgrade as frequently.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The entire smartphone business, the reason why Apple is never going
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to find another thing like the iPhone, there’s never going to be the next great product that is as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good financially for Apple as the iPhone was, because there is nothing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like the subsidized cell phone market. It’s such a weird little oddity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of a market where everybody buys a phone, like everybody. And smartphones
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in so many countries, and especially in the US, have been so heavily subsidized over the years
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that not only is everybody buying these expensive devices, and they could have these high
⏹️ ▶️ Marco behind-the-scenes prices because nobody was seeing them, but Also, people would update them constantly.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People update their phones way more often than they would update their computers or any other $500 electronic device or more.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People update their phones every, I think it was like every 18 months on average, something like that for most of the world.
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s partly because phones are at the point where they’re getting, we’re in the early phase
⏹️ ▶️ John of smartphones, like every new phone is better in some significant way and eventually that will start slowing down just like it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Maybe, but this subsidy model that we’ve had has been, I think, artificially
⏹️ ▶️ Marco inflating both the prices that these companies can charge for the phones, because you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an iPod Touch with an A8 inside and a great screen and everything is 200 bucks,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that same device in a phone is 650? It does have a bigger screen.
⏹️ ▶️ John right, yeah, they can make more money. And same thing with the carriers. Like, how can the carriers charge so much money?
⏹️ ▶️ John they have a monopoly on all the, you know, a near monopoly on all the stupid cell towers and
⏹️ ▶️ John infrastructure and the barrier to entry to everyone else and all that other crap. Like, why is it? Why are they able
⏹️ ▶️ John to charge us so much money? Like, there is not enough competition in the space of charging us.
⏹️ ▶️ John But even they’re feeling the pressure, the places where there are competition, there’s enough pressure to drive their prices down. And
⏹️ ▶️ John like a lot of the reason you know, like, Oh, this has been so subsidized, who’s subsidizing it, who is doing it’s the carriers, because they
⏹️ ▶️ John know the total lifetime value of the is huge because they’re going to get some massive monthly bill that people will be like,
⏹️ ▶️ John all right, I guess I just got to pay $100 a month for my whole family or more
⏹️ ▶️ John to use cell phones because you got to have a cell phone. And so who is subsidizing this? The carriers like all
⏹️ ▶️ John right, fine, Apple will pay you $700 because you know, the lifetime value of the customer is huge. Because like you said, you know, you get this huge
⏹️ ▶️ John bill, it’s monthly, they just feel like they have to pay it like a utility. If you’re lucky, you
⏹️ ▶️ John have limited or no competition in your area. For or maybe there’s like one other company or two other
⏹️ ▶️ John companies that you can maybe collude with unless they’re T-Mobile and they’re a thorn in your side,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Maybe your Verizon and your network is really mediocre, but everyone thinks it’s the best one in the country for some reason.
⏹️ ▶️ John Amen. Well, it’s better than T-Mobile’s, right? And the barrier to entry is high and all these other things,
⏹️ ▶️ John right? And so that should start to work itself out. Hopefully
⏹️ ▶️ John they can’t just continue to charge huge amounts. And if they can’t charge huge amounts, the lifetime value
⏹️ ▶️ John of a customer is not as high, So they can’t, they won’t be giving Apple as big a subsidies,
⏹️ ▶️ John whether they’re splitting it out or not. Like, anyway, I don’t understand enough about this change in pricing to understand what’s
⏹️ ▶️ John motivating it. But for me, it seems like what they’re doing is
⏹️ ▶️ John better for consumers and worse for Apple and carriers. And so I’m obviously missing something
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I generally feel the same way. Like I maybe the carriers are trying to take away some of the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco power of Apple and the high-end device makers.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, it could be a power struggle like that,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah. But I definitely think that this is most likely to lead to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco longer phone upgrade cycles, which is bad for both of those, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lower monthly bills.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I think that power struggle makes sense to me, because I think… We’ve
⏹️ ▶️ John always known that Apple has made more demands of the carriers than other companies, because
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s kind of the other hard negotiators. And you know, for a long time, it was just an AT&T. And you know, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John they’ve made more demands. And one of those more demands is you’re going to pay us a higher subsidy. And they’re gonna be like, well, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John and we you’re not allowed to put your crapware on our phones and all that stuff. And from the carriers perspective, I think they
⏹️ ▶️ John like Android phones better because they have more power over the Android phones. And as far as they’re concerned, like I don’t even care what the
⏹️ ▶️ John hell crappy phone you use, I just care that you pay me your monthly bill. So for cat from a carriage perspective, it’s better if
⏹️ ▶️ John you buy one of their cheaper, crappier phones they get to put their crap where on.
⏹️ ▶️ John They don’t care if you buy a new one of those, don’t buy a new one, like whatever, we have to pay a lower subsidy. I think
⏹️ ▶️ John it feel like from a carrier’s perspective, they’d be happier if people use cheaper, crappier phones, but just continue to pay the high,
⏹️ ▶️ John same high monthly bills. You know, it’s better for them than having to deal with
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple and all its demands and not being able to put their crap where on it and having to pay them a bigger subsidy than everybody
⏹️ ▶️ John else because everyone loves a stupid iPhone. And so yeah, that that is an explanation that makes sense to me.
⏹️ ▶️ John I’m still not sure entirely sure it’s not the carrier shooting themselves in the foot because it seems like
⏹️ ▶️ John as demanding as Apple is and what power they might have. Android is the majority of the market anyway.
⏹️ ▶️ John And so they really need to just like continue to smush Apple into an ever smaller slice of the pie. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, but Apple, Apple still has a lot of power in that people are willing to switch carriers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for iPhones and they don’t they probably aren’t as willing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to do that for Android phones. And also they don’t really need to, because Android phones are everywhere. But like, you know, if Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco decides not to work with your carrier anymore, that’s kind of bad news for your carrier.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I guess that’s true. And you know, Apple customers have a lot of money because the phones are expensive. And so maybe they’re the good customers
⏹️ ▶️ John who can pay for your fancier plans where you overcharge them for more bandwidth that really doesn’t cost
⏹️ ▶️ John you much more. And I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But do you really think that Apple would say to AT&T Or Verizon,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey no, I’m not going to be on either of your networks anymore. Like there’s no freaking way that Apple
⏹️ ▶️ John might threaten it or allude to threatening, you know, it’s negotiations. Like, I don’t know. I mean, hell, they were on
⏹️ ▶️ John AT&T only for a really long time, which if you look at it, you’re like, boy, is that seriously Apple still
⏹️ ▶️ John AT&T only? Like when is the Verizon iPhone coming, you know?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but hold on though. That’s because at that point in time, Marco was absolutely right. that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey back then Verizon really was the only network that really freaking worked. And so Verizon
⏹️ ▶️ Casey had a lot more leverage. And I think that 18, or excuse me, Apple couldn’t put the squeeze to Verizon
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like they did to AT&T.
⏹️ ▶️ John But Apple held out. Verizon had the leverage. It seems like Apple should have been forced to come over to Verizon even
⏹️ ▶️ John sooner because Apple, because Verizon had all the leverage. We’re the best network. You’re on that crappy AT&T.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s hurting you in the press. You should totally come over to us. But Apple held off for a really long time. So you’re saying it does,
⏹️ ▶️ John would Apple ever even threaten to pull out of like, you know, AT&T or whatever. No way.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think, I feel like they would. Whether they would actually do it? Probably not.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey maybe they’d threaten, but no way they’d do it. And also, I just want to quickly underscore what Marco said earlier.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have and this is actually a kind of good transition. I have a Verizon iPad
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mini, the original Retina iPad Mini, or as I love to say, my Retina Pad Mini. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it came with a Verizon SIM, but I got a T-Mobile SIM after the fact, and I’ll flip back and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey forth between them willy-nilly as I see fit. And my phone, like I said earlier, is AT&T.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I have devices that can use data on AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And Marco, I could not agree with you more. Everyone who has been a loyal Verizon user for a decade or
⏹️ ▶️ Casey more swears that Verizon has the best service in the entire world. I really don’t think that’s true at
⏹️ ▶️ Casey all. I would even go so far as to say, I think AT&T service is actually more robust and faster
⏹️ ▶️ Casey than Verizon in anywhere I ever typically travel. So I just wanted to say
⏹️ ▶️ Casey amen to that. I agree with you.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We’re going to get so many people telling us otherwise. However, I totally agree. I do the same thing where I used to have Verizon
⏹️ ▶️ Marco phones back before the iPhone, and I had Verizon data sticks for a while after that,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then I started tethering, and then I got Verizon iPads. And so I’ve had an AT&T phone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and Verizon data devices for a very long time now. And it is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no contest that Verizon used to be the best network and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think they’ve banked on that with their reputation for so long.
⏹️ ▶️ John Don’t they still have the best coverage in the US anyway? Just in terms of total square miles of where you can get a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco think they might, but AT&T has closed that gap so much that right now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there are places that don’t have AT&T reception, but they don’t have Verizon reception either.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Certain places upstate, they have neither. They have no carriers, and that’s fine. AT&T, it’s been
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a very long time since I have found a place where AT&T is not covered, but Verizon does.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the opposite, where I have tried to use Verizon data somewhere, and it has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one circle and is unusable, and then I’d go try AT&T, and it’s three circles and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco perfectly usable and fast, that happens a lot. I really think that Verizon,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for whatever reason, I don’t know if there’s a radio theory to back this up,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if this is just coincidence, Verizon seems to really suck at indoor coverage
⏹️ ▶️ Marco way more than AT&T does. And this, anecdotally, this has always been the problem.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People rave about how much their Verizon phones are great, Verizon’s the best network, and they come into your house and they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco can’t make a call. When I have Verizon phones, yeah, it’d be great until you go into a grocery
⏹️ ▶️ Marco store and then all the call drops or data doesn’t work anymore. That has always been the problem I’ve had with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Verizon. I have family members and friends who still have Verizon today. Those problems have never gone away for them.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And AT&T has… The best thing to ever happen to AT&T was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Verizon iPhones coming out, because that unloaded a lot of AT&T’s network.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so AT&T’s network has been rock solid for me for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the last, I would say, at least three years. Before that,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco little bit spotty. I’d say for a good three years, AT&T’s network has been awesome for me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with tethering. with travel all sorts of different places, with voice, everything has been solid. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the Verizon devices I’ve had, I’ve only seen mediocrity
⏹️ ▶️ Marco from them. The Verizon people I know who use it on their phones, they keep complaining about the same mediocre
⏹️ ▶️ Marco problems that I always had with Verizon back in the day. And I don’t think I will buy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco any more Verizon devices because the original reason I would buy Verizon iPads
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and keep my AT&T phone is, What if I’m somewhere where AT&T doesn’t cover very well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but Verizon covers it better? And that used to be the case, like when I would travel to San Francisco for WBC, I would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use, like I could use the faster one for tethering. And that one was usually the Verizon one back
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the day, like when LTE was first coming out and everything. That was the Verizon one. In the last two
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years, I would say, the Verizon one has never been the faster one, not once. Like every time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I try, like the AT&T, I always end up using, go back to the phone because it’s way faster. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think I’m done buying Verizon stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I agree with you. And I know that there are people that are listening right now that are saying, oh, but in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my particular part of the country, be that completely rural or completely, what the hell is the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey opposite of rural?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Thank you. God, I had a total brain fart there. Anyway, completely urban or completely rural, Verizon
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is the only one that works. You all are crazy. I’m sure there are parts of the country that that’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s what I’m getting at, because we don’t go to the whole country. We go to like five spots in the country, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco So I’m saying it
⏹️ ▶️ John is still entirely possible, even if those five spots are city, city, rural, city, it’s still entirely possible
⏹️ ▶️ John that Verizon still has the best coverage in terms of if you put a little pin in every square
⏹️ ▶️ John mile of the country and check the signal strength for AT&T and Verizon, that Verizon still covers more. Like
⏹️ ▶️ John that has always been the thing with Verizon, that not necessarily that it’s always the fastest connection but that if you
⏹️ ▶️ John sample the entire country, you can get a Verizon signal or a stronger Verizon signal in more places than you
⏹️ ▶️ John can get in AT&T. As AT&T has been building out, I’m assuming they’ve been building out on the population centers
⏹️ ▶️ John first. So yeah, New York city, San Francisco or whatever. And there are still places where you can’t get either one of them. But I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John like, I don’t know. I know I’m in kind of a cell phone dead area. The only thing I know is the T-Mobile gets crap signal here and
⏹️ ▶️ John that I can actually receive phone calls inside my house with Verizon. I don’t have an AT&T data point to go by.
⏹️ ▶️ John But I’m still entirely willing to believe that Verizon still has better overall coverage.
⏹️ ▶️ John And then it just boils down to, okay, but I don’t go in the whole country. I go to these seven places and the seven places that I go
⏹️ ▶️ John who has better signal who has Faster data or whatever and an indoor thing I think maybe Moscone
⏹️ ▶️ John must have some kind of Verizon repeater because I get crazy good signal during Wwc deep inside the bowels of
⏹️ ▶️ John that building through like many layers of maybe they’re just because they’re like fabric fabric partitions or
⏹️ ▶️ John whatever Don’t you get awesome Verizon’s? Maybe you don’t use Verizon anymore
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I I get awesome AT&T coverage in there I to the point where I I usually don’t join the Wi-Fi
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with my phone. I don’t I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t use the Wi-Fi anymore I use Verizon only and I get great signal, fast download speeds.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, so I don’t, you know, again, I don’t know if like Verizon week indoors type of thing, whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John is going on in Moscone is definitely not week indoors there.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, yeah, who knows?
Casey finally cracks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But anyway, the one the one other thing I want to talk about then we should probably wrap is I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Kind of cracked the screen on my beloved iPad mini when I was at the beach.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco I wasn’t holding
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it I didn’t drop it. It was in my beach bag my book bag and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I guess I’d for whatever reason maybe Declan had an issue or whatever. I didn’t flap
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the smart cover closed and So there’s this little hairline. In fact, I thought it was a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hair crack So if you’re holding the iPad in portrait, it’s just a little like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey semi circle that only dips into the visible screen area
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Right where the edge of the battery indicator is when you’re holding in portrait and the portrait right side up
⏹️ ▶️ Casey orientation ruined throw it away That’s ruined. It’s absolutely freaking ruined.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know I genuinely don’t know but what I know is I it wasn’t cracked I put it in the bag that we had
⏹️ ▶️ Casey towels and the camera and a whole bunch of other junk in that we had taken down to the beach.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And when I pulled it back out, it had this hairline crack in it. I presume we picked up the bag or threw something
⏹️ ▶️ Casey into the bag. I genuinely don’t know. We all know that I fess up when I do dumb
⏹️ ▶️ Casey crap to my devices. I genuinely don’t know what happened. It must have been my fault some way,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I don’t know what happened. So the reason I bring this up is because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was about time to upgrade the iPad anyway. I was like the iOS 9 stuff I’m actually kind of amped
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up about for the iPad. And so I was probably going to get a new one, but now
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m definitely going to get a new one. Well, I really happen to like having cellular
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPads. I understand that most people tether and that works for them.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m still on the unlimited plan on AT&T, which doesn’t allow me to tether. I understand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I could probably save money and it doesn’t matter, blah, blah, blah. This is the way it is. This is what I’m dealing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with. This is a choice I’m making. So I’m going to get probably a new
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPad mini with cellular this upcoming fall. The question
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have that I genuinely don’t know the answer to is my understanding
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of this, having not really paid much attention in the last couple years is that cellular iPads have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the Apple SIM in them. And what I’m not clear on is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my recollection of when they first came out was that once you committed to any of the carriers, you’re locked
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to that carrier on that Apple SIM. So your device could choose between Verizon or T-Mobile or what have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you up front, but the moment you choose, that’s it forever. Is, do you guys happen to know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is that true or can you flip-flop willy nilly?
⏹️ ▶️ John No idea. I have heard the same thing as you, but I have no idea whether it’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. Someone, someone who knows without question, not just anecdotally, like
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if you have some sort of webpage somewhere that describes how this works, I’m assuming Renee
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Richie has something somewhere and I just don’t realize it. I would love to see it. So send me a tweet or something like that, because
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what the reason I bring this up is I, like I said, I bounced back and forth between T-Mobile and Verizon.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I find that T-Mobile’s coverage does indeed suck. However, when it is good,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s great. And so it’s much faster than Verizon and oftentimes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey much more reliable than Verizon when you’re in a Metro center that actually has T-Mobile service, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey one of the three areas of the country. And so I’d like to be able to flip back and forth. Additionally,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey T-Mobile presently is giving me 200 megs a month of data for free. I don’t know if that would still be the case in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a brand new iPad, but I’d love it to be the case. And so I would rather
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not get the Apple SIM locked to Verizon
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if I can avoid it. And maybe the answer is, if Verizon is the only thing that locks, maybe I do what
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Marco was alluding to earlier. And if I flip-flop at all, I do it between AT&T and T-Mobile. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if there is some clear documentation somewhere that I can read, I would love to read it. So please
⏹️ ▶️ Casey send me a tweet and let me know. I’d really love to see it. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably worth considering just getting a Verizon SIM and swapping that in and out or getting
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a second Apple SIM. Apparently they will sell you a second Apple SIM.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Oh, is that right? Oh, I didn’t know that. Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco somebody in the chat said that’s only five bucks. I don’t know if that’s true or not. But I mean, for this kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco concern, first of all, just putting AT&T on it is probably the right choice and you could probably add it to your phone plan for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco some minimal cost per month. But, you know, if you’re going to do swapping at all between carriers,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you might as well swap sims, just to be safe. Then you avoid this entire problem.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, totally. I actually genuinely did not realize that you could pop a different sim in. I didn’t know
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if the sim was like soldered into the board. Because I really haven’t had to pay attention to this because I wasn’t planning on getting an
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPad until this year. And so now is when I’m starting to think about these things
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I’ll have to do some research and maybe we’ll have some follow-up about it. Since I know, John, you’re probably
⏹️ ▶️ Casey about the lack of follow-up this week.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week, Cards Against Humanity, Harry’s, and Hover.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And we will see you next week.
⏹️ ▶️ John Now the show is over, they didn’t even mean to begin,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John didn’t do any research,
⏹️ ▶️ John Margo and Casey wouldn’t let him Cause it was accidental,
⏹️ ▶️ John find the show notes at atp.fm And if you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John into Twitter, you can follow them At
⏹️ ▶️ Marco C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that’s Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Anti-Marco Armin S-I-R-A-C
⏹️ ▶️ John Syracuse It’s accidental They
⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t mean to Accidental Tech Podcasts
⏹️ ▶️ John Because it’s so long
After-show: Cracks
⏹️ ▶️ John I learned a disturbing thing about an extended family member on vacation this year.
⏹️ ▶️ John Now I am related to somebody who is using an iOS device with a completely cracked and
⏹️ ▶️ John shattered screen. We’ve all seen people do it. We’ve seen them in real life. You see people sitting there, you notice they’re swiping
⏹️ ▶️ John their little thumb along their smartphone, and then you look closer and you realize the thing is just spiderwebbed to hell,
⏹️ ▶️ John cracks through the whole thing, right? Everyone has seen someone doing that and you think, Mm-hmm.
⏹️ ▶️ John Why don’t they I don’t think it that fix. This is just like a permanent thing Are they gonna put a piece of packing
⏹️ ▶️ John tape over it? Just say you know what? I’m just gonna use it like this until my contract expires in a year and a half and they just do
⏹️ ▶️ John and you wonder like Eventually, will they wiggle loose? Are they gonna slice their finger open on that?
⏹️ ▶️ John Is this a permanent state of being don’t they get annoyed trying to look through the cracks where the refraction makes the little
⏹️ ▶️ John image? Messed up or whatever And now I’m related to someone who’s doing that
⏹️ ▶️ John and I could not I could not convince them to You know pay the $99 or whatever it costs to replace
⏹️ ▶️ John the screen of the thing So they’re just gonna keep using it like that until I don’t know until
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Speaking of do you guys know how much it is to get the iPad mini screen replaced? It’s not
⏹️ ▶️ John it probably more than 99. Obviously. This is this is I’m talking about a phone size device
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I can tell you, my kid’s iPad has a cracked screen. It’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a very small crack, but it is a crack. It’s the very first iPad Mini with a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco terrible non-retina screen. We looked into what it would cost to replace the glass.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I forget exactly what it was, but it was basically like it is the cost of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco buying a new iPad, or it’s very close to it for the low-end ones. It’s probably different on an Air, where you’re spending…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If it’s worth $500, then it might be different but for the for the minis
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s like 200 bucks and it’s a really barely if at all worth doing that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a bummer so yeah that so we just quote fixed it by getting a like six dollar
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen protector that sticks
⏹️ ▶️ John more people more people I know who are just like cracks cracks happen you know you figure like I figured
⏹️ ▶️ John you would have just bought a new mini I guess you’re waiting for the new ones to come out before you bother
⏹️ ▶️ Marco well it’s it first of First of all, it’s the first generation non-retina, and it’s to play occasional kid
⏹️ ▶️ Marco games on. He doesn’t give a crap whether the screen is retina and whether it’s new or fast. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m like, okay, I have this. There’s nothing else I can do with this. It’s not even worth reselling, like especially with a cracked
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen, it’s not worth much. There’s nothing I can do with this, so I’ll just let him use it until it dies. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have Casey’s RetinaPad Mini. I have that model of iPad that’s been
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sitting in a drawer, unused, and I keep meaning to sell it or get rid of it, I’m like, well, if
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Adams I’ve had dies and I can just kick him down, kick that one down into his slot, and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know, now I can just mail it to Casey, I guess.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Is it cellular? Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco it’s Verizon. Oh, nice.
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh yeah, I’ll take it. Do you guys remember when shampoo used to come in glass bottles?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No. I think that was like the 50s, and you’re really old. No, I don’t,
⏹️ ▶️ John Do you remember, I think it was like maybe Prell, there was some particular brand. Anyway, I feel like that
⏹️ ▶️ John our grandkids, when we tell them stories that we used to carry around a bunch of rectangles
⏹️ ▶️ John that were made of glass, and that sometimes they would crack, and then people would just use them shattered, or sometimes they will look
⏹️ ▶️ John at us, and the same way we think about, you had glass bottles of shampoo in the shower?
⏹️ ▶️ John Doesn’t that seem idiotic? Like, why didn’t you just make them out of plastic? And say, we didn’t have plastic, really.
⏹️ ▶️ John I feel like we’re in this period where glass is the right material be making out of right now unquestionably.
⏹️ ▶️ John But there are obvious downsides to glass that someday when we get past that
⏹️ ▶️ John and get a device that has like all the benefits of glass without the whole shattering and not being, you know, like
⏹️ ▶️ John they’ll look back and I think you guys were carrying around glass things. It was like you’re carrying around these fragile east Faberge
⏹️ ▶️ John eggs that if you drop them on the cement, they were just like shatter or crack or spider web and you had to put this.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s going to look weird to them because already it seems to me like it’s just really the best thing we should be doing. Everyone
⏹️ ▶️ John in the world carries around a little rectangle of glass. Is that what we’re going to do now? Seems
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, the tipster is asking in the chat, you know, what am I to kind of recap?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey If I’m going to get a new mini this year, which isn’t guaranteed, but it is my intention,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey what do I care about the existing one? And the thing of it is, is that it’s perfectly fine with the exception of this stupid
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hairline crack. And so I feel terrible, like, not that I would necessarily throw it away. probably like gazelle
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it and just take the hit on the cracked screen but I feel like this is a perfectly usable device
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean I just told you earlier that I’m using a 3GS every single day in 2015. To
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just get rid of this seems so stupid like I could use it for Declan in a year or two maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I could give it to Erin if she wanted it there’s so many things I could do with this and so it seems so wrong
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not to get it fixed but jeez for $200 it’s probably not worth it.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, it is unlikely to be worth Apple’s fix. Now, there are also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco third-party fixes. There’s also do-it-yourself fixes. I didn’t look into any of those options because I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco did five minutes of looking into it and it seemed like it was not only very difficult, but also not that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much cheaper. I think it was maybe $150. It wasn’t that much cheaper. So I was like, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not worth it. But it might be worth considering for you. I think the better
⏹️ ▶️ Marco move is probably take the hit, sell it, and just get something new. Or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco do what I did and stick a $10 screen protector on it and give it to Declan to play stupid games on because kids really don’t care.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m just annoyed. Just like before, I’m annoyed at myself because this one is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not a quasi-deliberate action. Not that I deliberately poured water on Aaron’s back twice, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know. I wasn’t even touching the damn thing when it broke, so I feel a little less
⏹️ ▶️ Casey guilty about it, but I still am frustrated and I still want to make it right.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know. You make it right by buying yourself a new iPad this fall. See, that’s the Marker way. No, no, I didn’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This happened to me and I didn’t do that.
After-show: Water heaters
⏹️ ▶️ Casey John anything interesting from you. Did you break any iPads at the beach?
⏹️ ▶️ John I did not break any of my things Although when I came home from vacation, I found that my hot water heater was leaking. So that’s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that ruin anything what happened?
⏹️ ▶️ John I did ruin a rug. I didn’t like, you know flood the basement It wasn’t like all the water in the hot water heater came
⏹️ ▶️ John out and went onto my floor Which is good because it would just keep going right but enough water because that’s usually what happens when they
⏹️ ▶️ John fail, right? Well, I tend to also like fail slowly and started weeping Anyway, just it was just leaking over the course
⏹️ ▶️ John of a week and you know covered the floor with Barely enough water to
⏹️ ▶️ John basically soak and ruin a rug, but didn’t you know cover the whole basement floor? Anyway, we have a new hot water heater now.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Did you go tankless?
⏹️ ▶️ John No, we talked about it again. We talked about it every time we replace it still not the thing for us to do
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And why do you say that?
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s what they say I talked to them about it basically if you if you have what we have which is like a
⏹️ ▶️ John a boiler for making hot water for heat, an older one that vents to the chimney, and then
⏹️ ▶️ John you have a hot water heater and you just want to replace the hot water heater, you could go tankless, but there’s still issues
⏹️ ▶️ John of how much pressure can it put out if you’re running all your hot water things at the same time. And the
⏹️ ▶️ John better way to do it is to just replace your entire system with a new high efficiency one that just vents straight
⏹️ ▶️ John to the outside, doesn’t need to go through the chimney, and that does the hot water for all your radiators and the
⏹️ ▶️ John tankless hot water, and that has more capacity to instantly heat the water. And he was talking
⏹️ ▶️ John about basically when it’s cold here in the winter, you get freezing cold water coming in from the outside and a lot of demand for hot water
⏹️ ▶️ John for all the radios at the same time you’re running, trying to wash the dishes in the sink with hot water
⏹️ ▶️ John and running a shower, that it’s very difficult to keep up with that. So we’re sure as hell not replacing the entire system
⏹️ ▶️ John down there, because it’s fine. If you’re just replacing the hot water heater, they recommended, and
⏹️ ▶️ John they’re recommending me buy a cheaper thing from them with a 10 year warranty. So there, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John I basically trust the fact that if it really was better, they’d try to sell me the much more expensive tankless thing.
⏹️ ▶️ John But when they say they got every time I’ve talked to them, the same company like that it goes
⏹️ ▶️ John in new construction all the time because it’s like the the sort of fancier, more expedient
⏹️ ▶️ John thing to do. But new construction has entire high efficiency system, not just like, oh, you got an old
⏹️ ▶️ John boiler that does your hot water and then next to it we have just the tankless system. And then he still hears complaints from
⏹️ ▶️ John people who get them in new construction that it’s it’s not as good as a big tank. So we went with the big tank full of hot water.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco That is usually the most sensible economical option, even though we have fancier things.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco My system is, fortunately we didn’t do it, the people before us did, but my system is the kind where there is one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco boiler for both heat and a big heat exchange tank for the hot water.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so we just have one big boiler that can do both and a big tank that it heats up also.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the advantage there, besides I’m sure there’s some efficiency gains, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the biggest advantage is like, according to some guy who looked at it once, is that then the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco boiler is continually running year round. So that tends to make them last
⏹️ ▶️ Marco longer because it isn’t going like the whole all the summer months without running at all. And then you start it up in the winter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and hope it works. You know, it’s it isn’t it doesn’t have like those big cycles of non use for a long time
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then turning it on.
⏹️ ▶️ John But it’s still vented to the chimney, right? Not just to the outside of your house? No, it has a direct outside vent. All right, well, so
⏹️ ▶️ John then maybe it’s one of those new, higher efficiency systems. And in mine, I can do the same thing as yours. Another option
⏹️ ▶️ John is we have a big boiler. I could also, it has the hookups and supposedly,
⏹️ ▶️ John perhaps, the capacity to say, oh, this can also do your hot water. But it’s like maybe barely got
⏹️ ▶️ John the capacity. And every
⏹️ ▶️ John has come up, it’s like better to just get a dedicated thing and be independent because
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not a big, high efficiency thing. and you know, you may be borderline, you
⏹️ ▶️ John may be taking a downgrade in how much hot water and how much hot water pressure you have available to you. So
⏹️ ▶️ John the new one is actually the same size as the old one, but fancier and like higher recovery
⏹️ ▶️ John so that once you start using the hot water, it will heat up sooner. Anyway, bottom line is we got the new thing
⏹️ ▶️ John installed and someone went to take a shower, like the temperature is turned down like as low as it possibly can be, like
⏹️ ▶️ John we always do in the summer to turn the, you know, the like sort of standby, this little dial that you can turn to say, how hot do
⏹️ ▶️ John you want me to keep the water in this tank? summer you can keep it way lower because the water coming in is warmer and you just
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t want hot showers we had it in the lowest possible setting and still the first person to take a shower
⏹️ ▶️ John put turn the little knob to like what they normally turn it to it was just scalding hot and incredible amount of pressure
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco and it was like
⏹️ ▶️ John all right the old hot water heater not only was leaking but obviously it was crap at this point
⏹️ ▶️ John in its life cycle it was like seven years old or whatever we’re just just one year out of warranty they make these things so precisely
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey know. So anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John new one has a 10 year warranty. So I need to put a reminder on my calendar for the 10 year anniversary. Before it starts leaking,
⏹️ ▶️ John just make the call and don’t even bother to see if it’s going to last 11 or 12 years.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right. No, just replace it. I’ve been told now from multiple contractors and plumbers over the last couple of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco years that water heaters don’t last as long as they used to and that they always die at about 10 years.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And that like if you like it’s now to the point where like if you buy a home the home inspector will
⏹️ ▶️ Marco flag a 10 year old water heater as like a problem that needs to be addressed
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John yeah because they
⏹️ ▶️ John fail in ways that cause much more you know
⏹️ ▶️ John not that expensive and when they fail potentially big problems because you know you don’t want your entire basement
⏹️ ▶️ John flooding with water coming yeah
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usually the way they fail is the bottom falls off
⏹️ ▶️ John and I’ve been lucky the two hot water here’s that we bought for this house both
⏹️ ▶️ John of the previous ones failed by starting to leak slowly from the bottom which is a good way to fail yeah
⏹️ ▶️ John although when you’re on vacation it’s kind of scary that it was slowly leaking from the bottom for an entire week when we weren’t here
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, do you have a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No. Cool. How was the vacation? That’s fine.
After-show: Beach babies
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So Casey, besides losing your iPad to the Eurovacation, is that…
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, it was good. Declan did not like the water. Did not like the water.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco My kind of kid.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Liked the beach just fine. Yeah, right? Liked the beach just fine. Got him near the water, and as long as he wasn’t touching the water, everything was mostly okay.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But even just dipping his little feet in the water, like way up at the very edge of where the wave
⏹️ ▶️ Casey can reach, you know, so I’m talking about it’s, you know, a quarter inch of water on sand. He did
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not care for that at all, which is fine.
⏹️ ▶️ John standard baby behavior.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey yeah, I’m not bothered by it. But I will say he is crawling like a champion
⏹️ ▶️ Casey now, starting to pull up on things now, sort of. I mean, he’s not standing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey without holding on to stuff, but he can stand for a long time like tripod-ed, so he’s got
⏹️ ▶️ Casey his hands on something and his feet on the ground. So that’s both wonderful and petrifying
⏹️ ▶️ Casey all at the same time, but progress is being made. My parents were here when I was at work.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey They tend to come in once a week to give Erin a little break and let her go grocery shopping without the baby or whatever.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And they said in the last two weeks, because they just hadn’t seen him in two weeks, they said that the change was just tremendous, which
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean that’s to be expected when it’s a baby. I’m not trying to be like, well,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey my baby is the most smart baby ever. It’s none of that. It’s just babies change quick as it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey turns out. So lots happening, big doings around the List household. But
⏹️ ▶️ John to concentrate on the weekends when you’re home or nights when you’re home or whatever, concentrate on getting
⏹️ ▶️ John him to if you want to see his first steps. Chances are he’ll do it when you’re at work. So you have to basically take
⏹️ ▶️ John him during the weekend and say, now we’re going to do the first steps, because the only way you’re going to see it is if you make it happen.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve been like holding his hands, like when he’s standing and trying to like tilt him
⏹️ ▶️ Casey forward enough that he’s like just to keep his center of gravity under him. That’s probably not the wrong way to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey describe it. But anyways, just to keep himself balanced, you know, he’ll have to bring a foot forward and sometimes he gets it. Sometimes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey he doesn’t. But it’s been funny. He’s also occasionally mimicking us, sometimes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey directly, sometimes vaguely. So like we’ll tilt our head from one side to the other, and sometimes
⏹️ ▶️ Casey he’ll tilt his head the same way, and sometimes not. Sometimes we shake our head like, no, not to
⏹️ ▶️ Casey indicate not to do something, but just to shake left and right. Sometimes he’ll like follow that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and shake his head left and right, which is really adorable. He’s becoming more and more a person
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with each passing day, which is wild.
After-show: Cameras
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Um, shoot, there’s something else I was going to ask you. Oh, did you get your new camera?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s arriving tomorrow. Wah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John wah. The Rover’s not as big
⏹️ ▶️ Marco boxes, just lenses. Lenses, yeah. And the lens is so tiny, like.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, no, no. But like, can we back up just a smidge? You ordered a new Sony camera that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey full frame with interchangeable lenses. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay. So this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is kind of like that, that crazy Sony you had at my house for Top Gear a couple of years ago with the crazy good
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It is extremely similar in many ways to that, but just with a larger body and with interchangeable lenses.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And one of the lenses I bought, yeah, so that was the RX1 that you’re talking about, which I have since sold. You
⏹️ ▶️ Marco sold something, no way. Yeah, right? And one of the lenses I bought is basically
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the lens that was on that. It’s a little 35 millimeter prime, the Sony F2.8 35 prime.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And like optically, the measurements are almost identical. It’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s about the same size. yeah it’s very very similar so because I love that that little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that focal length and the small package but yeah so the camera I got is the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a7r II and it just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco came out today and that my order from B&H which I placed like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone style but refreshing the page back when it went for sale in June and it just shipped today
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the US so I will I will have it tomorrow because I’m very close to B&H’s warehouse
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so everything I get from there comes in one day. And yeah, so I got the 35mm f2.8 prime, I got
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the 55mm f1.8 which is one of the best lenses in the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco world by most measures and I ordered the 90mm macro which is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very, very new but everyone seems to think it’s amazing so far. It’s getting stellar reviews. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this is my first upgrade to my big camera since
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the RX1 maybe when I bought that like two years ago, but that was kind of a temporary
⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing that I ended up not sticking with. Before that, my last upgrade to my big camera and the last upgrade
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I had to interchangeable lenses was in 2008 with the 5D Mark II.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So, it’s been a long time coming. This one I totally replace using any
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Canons for me. Tiff is still using the Canons and she still does photo
⏹️ ▶️ Marco shoots, so we will see. She’s interested in the new camera, and so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe we might convert the whole system over. I’m at least most likely going to sell some of the Canon lenses
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that we don’t really use in TIFF’s photo shoots because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m never gonna use them again.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So why wouldn’t a professional photographer want to use a full-frame camera with interchangeable
⏹️ ▶️ Casey lenses? Let’s suppose you really you were really good at photography but you sold all your stuff
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you’re doing other things for a while but now you’re starting the business back up and you’re looking
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to buy all new cameras, all new glass. Why not buy this? What’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The biggest thing for pros, and a lot of pros are buying this, so that’s one thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And one of the reasons why I think TIFF is likely to stick with the 5D Mark IIs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for—we have two of them. We each got one in 2008. And one of the reasons
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why we’re likely to stick with those for a while is the same reason why we haven’t upgraded since 2008, because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco there’s a lot of inertia there like we have we have probably five or six batteries
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for it. We have tons of compact flash memory cards for it some you know very good
⏹️ ▶️ Marco quality ones that are very expensive. We have a battery grip for one of them.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We have a cable remote with a timer for time-lapse remote. We have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco four speed light flashes two old ones that were kind of flaky and two new ones that I bought
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to replace them recently. We just have so many accessories
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that are not universal that only work with those cameras. We have so many accessories for them that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we didn’t even upgrade to the Canon 5D Mark III because the 5D Mark II was so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good and the Mark III, for our purposes, didn’t seem like a very compelling upgrade to replace all this gear that we
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would have had to replace. We have, in addition to all the Canon lenses and everything, so there’s a lot of inertia behind sticking
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with what we have.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But if that wasn’t the case, if you didn’t have any of that, what would prevent you?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Is the viewfinder not optical? Does that even matter anymore? What would cause
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that? Anything mirrorless, basically, I know there’s going to be some exception, weird, but basically the viewfinder is not optical.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s not like what you think of when you think of an SLR, where you are looking through a prism across
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a mirror into across out the lens. That is what defines an SLR, is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the single lens reflex. It’s like you’re looking through the lens with this mirror thing that flips up
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when you take a picture and expose the sensor. So mirrorless cameras lack that. And yes, there’s rangefinders
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and other weird things, but basically, you know, mirrorless cameras lack that. And there are a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of advantages to that. There’s a lot that is very nice that I really enjoy about that. And this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a bit of a leap of faith for me too. In the process of renting this, I also rented the Nikon D750,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which is a fantastic traditional style SLR. It is excellent in so many ways.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It has an amazing focus system. It has amazing low light performance, amazing sensor made by Sony coincidentally.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it is a fantastic camera in many ways. The reason why
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pro might choose that, besides the handling and just preferring looking through the lens directly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco through the optical thing and everything, is mostly just because there are certain things that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco appeal to pros and certain things that pros need. So certain things that appeal to them, there’s a huge, there’s a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much larger library of available lenses, first of all. Now, granted, you have to, you know, pick a system.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you’ve got to pick Nikon or Canon or, you know, even the big Sonys, but nobody picks
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And you know if you buy a Nikon camera you you got to use Nikon lenses right and there are adapters
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and there are adapters to use Nikon or Canon lenses on the Sony cameras
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but you give up some things like there’s some you know some some of them don’t work quite right some of them don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco focus very quickly if at all some of them you know they have little little bugs little glitches little
⏹️ ▶️ Marco little setbacks the adapters are all these kind of like hacky third-party things that are not supported by anybody.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it’s really not… if you have lenses that you want
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to use from Canon or Nikon’s big lens lamps that stretch back like 20 years, 30 years or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco longer, you can’t really use those well on a small mirrorless camera. You can use them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco usually through the adapter, but you can’t use them well. You’re better off just getting the native body if you can.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And because these mirrorless cameras have been around for way less time, the lens lamps are just way smaller.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like one of my favorite lenses on the Canon is the 135 f2 prime. It is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco awesome. There is no equivalent to that that I can mount on the Sony that is native. There
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are some that I can mount through adapters and then I don’t have autofocus and everything or I can mount the Canon
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one through and have autofocus but it might be weird I don’t know. Regardless like there’s no native
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one and so that’s you know the lens library is small that’ll that’ll change over time but that is still the case. There’s also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco things like There’s no great first-party flashes that have amazing metering as far as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I know. You can use any flash and you can manually meter it but that’s not as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good. There’s all sorts of stuff like that. There’s just a lot more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco limitations in what kind of gear is available. There’s also things that a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco pros either need, really, or at least would want. One
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the biggest downsides to the Sony full-frame system is that the cameras have terrible battery
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lives because they’re really small, they’re really high-powered, you know, computationally,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they have these little tiny batteries that, like, the battery for a full-size
⏹️ ▶️ Marco SLR can last like five times as long and full-size SLRs are not lighting up screens constantly in the viewfinder.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that’s like, these little cameras have terrible battery lives. That is the biggest downside to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco me. Also, for pro use, the cameras are usually not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco weather sealed which a lot of pros need and many pros want and they are also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t think any of them have some of the more unusual but sometimes needed pro features
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like dual memory slots so there’s like stuff like that like there’s just there’s some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco features that pros need or want that are not available on mirrorless
⏹️ ▶️ Marco cameras and are probably not gonna come soon so we’ll see what happens.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m very happy not being a pro in this way right now. Like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco back in 2008 we bought the Pro 5D because it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco was the only way to get really great image quality. I mean the difference, I mean your camera is awesome
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Casey, but the difference between full-frame and not full-frame
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is large. This is not a small difference, it is a very big difference
⏹️ ▶️ Marco difference, and we just loved that difference. And back then, there was a much bigger
⏹️ ▶️ Marco gap also. Now the gap is smaller, but it was much bigger back then.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, it’s also a considerably larger financial penalty as well, right? Because I got
⏹️ ▶️ Casey a really, really beautiful lens, or at least I feel like it is, on top of the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey kit. And off the top of my head, I want to say it was about $1,500 all in. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey so the kit lens, which is a little zoom and this really good lens, it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not a pancake, but it’s a really solid prime that Sean Blanc recommended, which I love.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I couldn’t even tell you the statistics off the top of my head but anyways, that was like $1,500 all in.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I’m going to, you don’t have to tell me a number, but I’m going to guess that you’re in a lot more than that for this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey full frame camera.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco A lot more than that, yeah. I mean, and you can, I mean, part of it’s because I just got like the cutting edge best model.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sure. I’m me and also because I don’t upgrade these things very often. So part of it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is that. Certainly I think even if you get like a more reasonably priced one,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re looking at for a good lens and a good body, you’re looking at over $2,000
⏹️ ▶️ Marco probably for this type. But regardless,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so yeah, that’s what I got. It arrives tomorrow. There is no like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco massive full review available of it yet. So it’s a bit of a risk, but based on the early…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I rented its predecessor, the a7 II, I rented that back right before I rented the D750. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rented that. And it has basically an identical body, identical handling, identical
⏹️ ▶️ Marco menus. There’s almost no difference in the physical side. So I know that I like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco shooting with it. It just has a different sensor and a better sensor.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So anyway, I don’t think it’s that much of a risk but we’ll see. I have no idea.