172: iPhone X
02 Jun 2016MacBook speculation, another 6-series iPhone, the new Top Gear, and K56Flex vs. X2.
Episode Description:
- Last call for ATP Shirts! Sale ends on Friday ATP-time!
- John's attic
- More on the rumored new MBPs
- External Retina Display
- Apple opening Siri
- iPhone 7 "tick"?
- Apple considered buying Time Warner
- Ending theme by Jonathan Mann
- Post-show: New Top Gear
Sponsored by:
Chapters
- Last call for T-shirts
- Attics full of modems
- Fn-screens and 13” MacBooks
- Sponsor: Casper (code ATP)
- Rumored 5K Display
- Rumored Siri API
- Rumored “macOS”
- Sponsor: Eero (code ATP)
- iPhone X
- Sponsor: Fracture (code ATP)
- Apple + Time Warner?
- Ending theme
- Post-show: New Top Gear
Last call for T-shirts
⏹️ ▶️ John But I just wanted to let everyone know that I remain unsatisfied.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, I mean, I think everyone always knows that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, that’s a given. I know, but like more than usual.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It may be too late by the time you’re hearing these words to order ATP shirts. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey if you are even vaguely thinking about, hmm, I might want one of these delightful, wonderful
⏹️ ▶️ Casey shirts, now is the time to order. Or actually, it may not even be the time to order. You may have already
⏹️ ▶️ Casey missed the boat. So if you are interested in either of our two shirts, go
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to atp.fm slash shirt. And hopefully for you, it’s sometime
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Friday, I think our time. It expires sometime in the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Friday to Saturday transition. I forget exactly when. Midnight Eastern, I believe. OK, there you go. If you’re listening
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to this right now, and it is not yet Saturday, and you want a shirt, stop everything, pause
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the show, go get you a shirt. And to the many, many, many people who have already bought a shirt or sweatshirt
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or what have you, thank you. We really appreciate it. Cool, thanks everybody. I will see you next
⏹️ ▶️ Casey week. Oh goodness alright see you soon.
Attics full of modems
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So I tweeted earlier today that we would have a show without, well, I didn’t say we’d have the show without
⏹️ ▶️ Casey followup, but at that point earlier today, we did not yet have followup. And here it is,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just a few scant hours later, and we have followup about new MacBook Pros.
⏹️ ▶️ John We had followup, it just wasn’t written into the thing yet.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Followup, it just expands, it’s like hard drive space and wedding planning. It expands into whatever
⏹️ ▶️ Marco space is available for it to expand into.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, and crap in your attic, right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, John’s attic, at least.
⏹️ ▶️ John I cleaned, I did some attic cleaning actually the other weekend. I must have got rid of, I don’t know, 40
⏹️ ▶️ John boxes of not stuff? That’s a lot.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m surprised your house hasn’t fallen down.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What do you have more of, boxes of stuff in the attic or browser tabs open right now?
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff in the attic, no contest.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco I’m slightly
⏹️ ▶️ Casey surprised to be honest with you.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, so if you were able to get rid of 40, like how many do you think are still there? I
⏹️ ▶️ John mean, that’s… This is the low hanging fruit. for like, you know, modems.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Okay, so get
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rid of those. Are we talking like surfboard or US robotics? No,
⏹️ ▶️ John Oh boy. 28.8 modems, 56k modems, 14.4 modems.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco At least are they are they k56 flex? Or were they x2?
⏹️ ▶️ John They were the which one were they? I think they were the flex one. I remember those
⏹️ ▶️ John competing standards. I’m think I didn’t look too closely at the box.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey We were an X2 family. We were all about the X2 because that’s what our
⏹️ ▶️ Casey ISP said we should be.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think X2 was the superior one until they merged the two into the V90 whatever that was.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, maybe that’s what I had when they finally settled that thing. But yeah, lots of boxes of
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff. A lot of these boxes didn’t have anything in them anymore. Some of them did and the things in them weren’t worth much.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, a lot of empty boxes or somewhat empty boxes. Just had cables on them boxes for
⏹️ ▶️ John old hard drives old hard drive enclosures the easy things to get rid of but it was a Lot these all these boxes were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you you want to make sure that when you sell your 28 8k 56 flex modem I that doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco make sense You want to make sure that you have the original box so that you get the maximum price for
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, that’s the way things are stored in my attic is in their boxes I don’t get rid of the boxes until
⏹️ ▶️ John I get rid of the thing for the most part
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But think about how much more old computer garbage you could store in your attic if you weren’t also storing the boxes.
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if that’s true because they with all the loose cables and everything I just think they
⏹️ ▶️ John you can pack them in better like a Tetris puzzle if they’re all kind of rectilinear. Oh goodness.
⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway, I got rid of a lot of stuff and then getting rid of so much stuff and seeing that the bags and bags
⏹️ ▶️ John full of styrofoam that you know you can’t really compress and then these stacks and stacks of flattened cardboard boxes
⏹️ ▶️ John and then looking back at the attic and realizing it looks like stuff has been removed but not that much stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ John Boy, I got a long way to go.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can’t believe your house hasn’t imploded under the weight that you’re putting into the attic.
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I’ve thought about how much that stuff must weigh up there. Some of it’s pretty heavy.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Hey, wait, can we solve multiple problems here? Can you take some of the flattened cardboard boxes
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of old computer equipment that you’ve taken out of your attic and make interior door trim with it for your front door?
⏹️ ▶️ John No, already recycled.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sad times. Have to wait until you get more modems. Yeah. Actually, you know, the US Robotics
⏹️ ▶️ Marco external modems were about the right shape to be like molding if you line them all up, you know?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco point. Didn’t have that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many. The Sportsters.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I remember, at the time I didn’t think of it that way, but there was something oddly satisfying about hearing
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that god-awful handshaking sound. Like, today is so much better in every
⏹️ ▶️ Casey measurable way, but like that light amount of stress that you had.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Is this going to work? Am I going to get the full 56k? Oh, God, it fell down on
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the 56k negotiation, so we’re back to stupid analog.
⏹️ ▶️ John the first thing I did in my AT whatever and it string was turn off that sound. Come on,
⏹️ ▶️ John people. You don’t need to hear that. It frustrates me that I can’t remember what that was. What was the
⏹️ ▶️ John code for turning off the sound? It’s not ATS, was it? What was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that whole protocol called? that the Hayes command set or was that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey something else yeah yeah yeah yeah
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah no I actually had to leave my speaker on constantly because we only had one phone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco line and everybody would always call at night to talk to my mom and so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was only allowed to you to tie up the phone line if I left call waiting on and would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco leave the modem speaker on constantly with a special config string to set it to the higher level
⏹️ ▶️ Marco unlike John to set it to like number two or whatever that that keeps it on the entire time. So I was just always hearing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco static when I was online. And when I would hear call waiting beeps, I have to go flip off the power to the modem so it would hang up immediately,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then pick up the phone and then just go do something else for a while while my mom talked on the phone. It was fun.
Fn-screens and 13” MacBooks
⏹️ ▶️ Casey In any case, we should talk about what we were intending to talk about, which is the new MacBook Pros. Apparently,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there is going to be something funky with the Fn key row, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it may actually be only one screen and not individual screens on the individual buttons like we were
⏹️ ▶️ Casey perhaps led to believe. I don’t know what to make of this. I mean, I don’t feel like my thoughts have really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey changed since last week. It could be good. This doesn’t strike me as it’s fixing a problem I have in my life, but you never
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know with Apple. Sometimes they come up with things you don’t know you need.
⏹️ ▶️ John So assuming these parts leaks are legit, it definitely looks like one big
⏹️ ▶️ John long screen and not a bunch of Optimus keyboard style individual keys with screens on them, which I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John very disappointed about because I had my hopes up from last week that that’s what it was going to be, but boy, looking at these
⏹️ ▶️ John parts leaks, you see a little place where probably like a Touch ID sensor or the connector for things is going to be and a part where a
⏹️ ▶️ John ribbon cable exits in a big long channel. Looks like it’s going to be for a big long screen.
⏹️ ▶️ John The only thing I can think of now I’m trying to convince myself that this is not as bad as I think by saying well
⏹️ ▶️ John they could show notifications on it or something could scroll across there
⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know and the other thing I was getting my hopes up about was like if when I was thinking about the keycaps
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe they could be e-ink so they wouldn’t take any power because keycaps are kind of monochrome too and that would be like classy but
⏹️ ▶️ John it really looks like it’s gonna be a big long skinny screen again if these things are to be believed
⏹️ ▶️ John but this close to announcement date. It’s reasonable
⏹️ ▶️ John for farts to leak. These look semi-legitimate. I’m kind of sad.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, now the tipster is saying in the chat that that’s just the amount the thing sits in. We’ll see. That’s not, I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey mean, to my eye, that is not at all what it looked like, but it’s so hard to say with these like terrible
⏹️ ▶️ Casey pictures that clearly were taken, you know, what’s the word I’m looking for? Surreptitiously? Something like that. Taken
⏹️ ▶️ Casey illicitly, if you will. And so it’s hard to tell.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, the other thing with these pictures is like, you know, if you look, I mean, like Tipster’s also kind of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco arguing whether this might be the 13-inch MacBook, which, you know, last week we talked about
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this rumor. In the middle of like the big long sentence of the rumor report was also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a 13-inch MacBook One that we didn’t talk about at all. And so I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s worth mentioning. And then there’s some speculation in the chat that I think is possibly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco warranted here that leaked photos may have been that 13-inch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco MacBook, not 13-inch MacBook Pro. And there’s a few things that support that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco First of all, people in chat are trying to figure out, is this implausibly thin for the kind of cooling system
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that an i5 would need? But what I spotted earlier when I saw these photos,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it only has the four USB-C ports. There’s no other ports. And so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that would mean dropping some ports that are on the current 13-inch. it would mean dropping the MagSafe
⏹️ ▶️ Marco port. And while it is possible to charge things through USB PD into a USB-C
⏹️ ▶️ Marco port, like what the MacBook One does, there’s a limit to how much current that can actually deliver,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I think once you get into like the 15-inch MacBook Pro with its external GPU,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think you’re probably pushing that limit. It’s probably, I’m guessing the 15-inch probably still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco has MagSafe, and then if the 15-inch still has it, the 13-inch would probably have it too,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because they’re built very similarly and share a lot of similar features and ports and capabilities and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I’m guessing that the speculation that this part is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco actually the 13-inch MacBook One is probably correct, because that presumably would
⏹️ ▶️ Marco be able to be charged through USB-C just like the 12-inch MacBook One,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or at least it would be more likely to. And we can speculate also about what the heck a 13-inch MacBook One
⏹️ ▶️ Marco might include, and why that would be necessary when there’s also
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a new thinner lighter 13-inch MacBook Pro. But overall looking at these photos
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’d say it is fairly likely that we’re looking at 13-inch MacBook One enclosure
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not 13-inch MacBook Pro enclosure. However that said I agree with John and Casey I agree that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if these are legitimate parts which they look like they probably are and this would be you know a reasonable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time for to be leaking, I’m guessing that this is real
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and that you’re right about the keyboard row, that the fn key row sure does look like it’s going to be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just one big screen. And if you think about one other detail too, these rumors all said
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these were supposed to have Touch ID, at least the MacBook Pro, we don’t know about the MacBook One. These are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco supposed to have Touch ID. Where do you put the sensor? There is really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nowhere on the keyboard to put it. You might be able to put it in the trackpad, but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is that even possible without messing up the trackpad sensor? I don’t even know. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey thought there was a patent for that.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco Well yeah, there’s a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff that gets patented that never actually
⏹️ ▶️ Marco practical to show up in a product. So it might be possible, but for now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we don’t know if it’s there. I’m guessing the most sensible place to put it is probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on, if that’s going to be one big flat screen probably just like on the on the right side of that or something
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know like an area of that that is actually a touch ID sensor and not a screen but it just looks you know maybe
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just like looks straight black across the whole thing it looks unified but it’s actually like this parts of screen this parts
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of sensor you know if you think about where else you put the touch ID sensor there’s not really a lot of other good
⏹️ ▶️ Marco places that that are plausible so I’m guessing it’s there and then if you’re gonna have one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco area of of that B flat to be a Touch ID sensor and not be a key,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it would look weird if there were a whole bunch of keys next to it and then the keys end like one key width
⏹️ ▶️ Marco short of the right side and there’s a flat area there. So it’s probably just gonna be all
⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen across the whole thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I’m not sure what to make of this, but I am excited and I think it’s worth recognizing that this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey hopefully will be something new and different about the MacBook line or the MacBook Pro line.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And we haven’t really seen that much different in a long time. I mean, there’s certainly been incremental improvements.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I love my work MacBook Pro and God do I love my 5K iMac, but this is something
⏹️ ▶️ Casey new and exciting and different. And I kind of like that we’re trying something new and it’s not just the, what was it?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The titanium power book or whatever that kind of started this whole unibody look.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s not a continuation of that, just another, you know, photocopier, perhaps a slightly shrunken
⏹️ ▶️ Casey version of that. It’s something that’s a little bit different and that’s exciting.
⏹️ ▶️ John So why do you think this is the 13-inch MacBook One if it’s not wedge-shaped? Isn’t that kind of the
⏹️ ▶️ John signifier of that, of the sort of ultra-portable MacBook One line, is that it would be wedge-shaped?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t know. I mean, what would a 13-inch MacBook One be for? You know, if you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey think about like- A
⏹️ ▶️ Marco bigger screen. Okay, a bigger screen, but then what could differentiate it, what could justify
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it existing compared to just the 13-inch MacBook Pro, which the new version will probably
⏹️ ▶️ Marco be almost as thin and light as the current 13-inch MacBook Air. So like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why does that product need to exist? And I have a hard time answering that question, honestly.
⏹️ ▶️ John We have a wimpier CPU, maybe it could still be fanless. They could put the fastest of the fanless
⏹️ ▶️ John CPUs in there, give it more battery because it’s bigger and have a bigger screen, I don’t know. I mean, I’m trying to think
⏹️ ▶️ John of, when I picture a MacBook One, since there’s only been one model line in that, you know, one physical
⏹️ ▶️ John shape for that model line, I think of, kind of like the Airs, where there was the 11 inch Air
⏹️ ▶️ John and the 13 inch Air, and they were both air-shaped, and the 13-inch had a bigger screen
⏹️ ▶️ John and more battery life, but otherwise not much differentiation.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, what if it’s for price? You know, what if this is how they eventually replaced the MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Air, is by just making these like cheaper, more limited computers at the low end,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then the MacBook Pro is the profitable one?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, we’ll see. In the little picture, they show, you can see the little connector in the upper right, which
⏹️ ▶️ John I imagined, like there has to be a connector for the screen, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John I suppose you can’t have the same connector for both the screen and the Touch ID, but there’s also a little opening on the left side that
⏹️ ▶️ John like a ribbon cable could go through. So if the ribbon cable connects to the screen, that could be
⏹️ ▶️ John all the screen needs for the connector, which would leave that thing on the right for Touch ID.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, the left side just looks like a physical mounting point to me, but I don’t know. I mean, who knows?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We will probably hopefully know soon enough from Apple, but yeah, I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if it’s the MacBook Pro, if it’s 13-inch MacBook Pro, then, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco okay. Then it makes, I think it makes more sense that way, honestly, even though we’d lose, you’d lose some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of the ports and things that are on the current one, and some people would get mad. Well, that’s what Apple’s best at, is angering people who like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the old laptops. So, you know, that’s in the name of thinness.
⏹️ ▶️ John You get four USB-C ports. That’s a pretty big number for Apple, and I think
⏹️ ▶️ John you can do a lot with four USB-C ports. Like, just one of those ports, you can do a lot with a
⏹️ ▶️ John bunch of adapters, but having four of them means you’re probably not gonna run out of ports. You may be annoyed that you still
⏹️ ▶️ John have to carry a bunch of adapters around, but I think four of them is enough for a 13-inch,
⏹️ ▶️ John because you can do pretty much anything from any one of those ports. You can have a monitor, a USB thumb drive,
⏹️ ▶️ John an ethernet cable, and an external hard drive. And I feel like that is plenty
⏹️ ▶️ John of things hanging off of, and you can connect so much more through just one of those if you have like a Thunderbolt breakout
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, exactly. And then, honestly, that’s one of the biggest reasons looking forward to the USB-C Thunderbolt 3 transition
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because, you know, we finally will have like more, assuming that these are real and assuming that the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco laptops, at least some of them, are getting four ports total. I would love to have four USB ports
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in a laptop. I’m always running, I’m always using like both of mine. Usually like at least one of them is charging something
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or something else. Like I’m always using those when I travel. So that’d be, you know, I’m looking forward to this future. But
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I do wonder, like, it’s such a weird wild cards like you know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco assuming this is of the 13-inch MacBook one and not 13-inch MacBook Pro how why do they justify
⏹️ ▶️ Marco having four ports on the 13-inch version of this computer where the 12-inch version has one
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know it’s just weird it’s like this is a weird leak of what appears to be a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very like a product that raises a lot of questions and it might end up being awesome whatever it is but
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but they this certainly yeah this certainly raises a lot of questions
⏹️ ▶️ John the size the headphone port to unlike the rumored iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Oh does it? Oh yeah there it is, you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right. Yeah. Yeah so I don’t know, it’s the weird thing to me is the dropping of the MagSafe in
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this kind of enclosure. Like if it’s big enough and high powered enough to have four USB ports
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and no MagSafe, then you know, then it’s charging through this, and if that can do it, then could
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the 15-inch also do it? I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s a whole bunch of questions here. But I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know, this is looking like it’s gonna be a pretty great update. As to why
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this one’s not tapered, I commend whatever decision led to this not being tapered
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I’ve always been all for it, too. But I’m just saying, like, if I have to think of what defines the MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ John One line, it’s like not only is it so insanely thin, but it wasn’t thin enough that they had to make one edge, like,
⏹️ ▶️ John thin enough to slice cheese.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, also, you know, again, kind of going back to what I said last episode about, like, kind of defending deep
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keyboards because keyboards weigh almost nothing and laptops. Generally, when you’re
⏹️ ▶️ Marco defining the thickness of the laptop, you’re limited really by how
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much weight you’re willing to devote to battery, basically. Because batteries are generally one of the heaviest things inside
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of monocomputing devices, if not the heaviest thing, depending on the device.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The way you make computers thinner and lighter is not by just cutting the case in half and saying, all right,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco now just shove everything in tighter. That’s part of it. The way you make them thinner and lighter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is you first make them lighter by removing battery and you remove battery by removing the need
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for as much battery as you had before. It usually comes in power advancements in how much power the screen and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco processor both draw. Usually the processor is the bigger one, but anyway. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the idea is you develop technology, you develop savings, you figure out a way to make the processor
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and everything else use less power, then you need less battery mass in there to achieve
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the same battery life you had before to achieve what people consider acceptable. So then you can shrink the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco battery and then you can kind of shrink the case around it. Like, now you have free space. Now it’s like, all right,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how thin can we make this case that only has to hold X amount of battery plus the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco other parts? I think the reason the MacBook One is as thin as it is, and the reason it’s wedge-shaped,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is because they were probably first targeting a weight goal, because that makes more sense. You know, it’s like, okay, well now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Intel’s making this new 5 watt CPU so we can make a fanless and everything. So if we make a computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s small enough with a small enough screen that uses this CPU, it’ll only need this little tiny amount
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of battery inside. So then how do we make the thinnest case possible to contain these parts?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And they had to still have some, even though it’s very little, some room for a keyboard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in there. But they didn’t need the wrist rest area that was filled with battery, they didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco need that to be any thicker. any thicker and they would just been empty space or more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco battery which would have driven the weight up which they didn’t want. So you make the front of it as thin as it can be while still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco holding that battery and you make the back of it as thick as it needs to be to fit the keyboard and the other parts and that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how you get a wedge shape. So they weren’t necessarily targeting the wedge.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco They did the wedge because they just didn’t need any more space in the front half of the laptop. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if this part is real and if this is actually a member of the MacBook One line and not the the MacBook Pro line, it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco certainly raises the question of what the heck is all that extra space for? And as far as I can guess,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t the MacBook One’s CPU architecture that with that with the crazy Intel 5 watt thing,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t that have like a very low limit on how many ports you could even drive with it with its chipset? So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe this isn’t using those CPUs at all. Maybe this is using some other Intel
⏹️ ▶️ Marco low wattage chip that’s higher end than the Core M. And then that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco how it’s driving all these ports, but then it needs all this additional battery to function and to have an acceptable
⏹️ ▶️ Marco battery life. Which of course then raises the question of, well, what the heck is the difference between that and the MacBook Pro?
⏹️ ▶️ John All that empty space in the front is for speaker cavities, right? Like on the iPad Pro? Four speakers.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I tell you what, that’d be awesome. That’d be amazing, but no, I doubt it.
⏹️ ▶️ John We have so much space left over in this case, we don’t even know what to do with it.
⏹️ ▶️ John Speaker cavities for everybody.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Anything else about these laptops?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m looking forward to hearing what these actually are and seeing them. Because as you said, Casey,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco major changes to the Mac designs don’t happen very often.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And especially to the main workhorse computers. It’s one thing to introduce a brand new tiny little MacBook
⏹️ ▶️ Marco One at an event, but everyone’s still using MacBook Pros. It’s a whole other thing to totally redesign
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the MacBook Pro or the iMac or the Mac Pro. These are major events in the product line.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s exciting. It’s exciting for those of us who have and love our Macs.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s kind of reassuring. It’s nice to know that the company that seems like it cares a whole lot more
⏹️ ▶️ Marco about iOS devices, that they haven’t forgotten about the Mac in the process. That the Mac is still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco being actively developed, being evolved, and having attention put on it, really.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, and the thing is, to kind of build on what you and I had both said earlier, is that Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Casey clearly takes messing with the MacBook Pro and even the non-Pro
⏹️ ▶️ Casey line very seriously. They don’t tend to make really crummy decisions. Like, yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey we all complained and moaned a little bit about the MacBook One, but at least you could understand what they were going for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey there. And for them to be messing with a design that really does work, I mean, I have loved
⏹️ ▶️ Casey every MacBook Pro I’ve ever owned, and I love the one that Work gave me. And I’m
⏹️ ▶️ Casey very anxious to see this new one, because if they’re going to change something that is so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey important and that works so well, because the design that they have today I really do love,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey then it’s going to have to be something good. This isn’t the playground like the iPhone or the iPad where things
⏹️ ▶️ Casey change fairly frequently. This is kind of the slow and steady wins the race sort
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of product for them. And so because of that, I’m really, really anxious and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really, really excited to see it and also dreading it because then I’m going to want to buy a laptop and I really don’t need a laptop right now.
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Rumored 5K Display
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey right, so sticking with hardware for a moment, let’s talk about this rumored external
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 5K display. This is all coming back again. I don’t remember when it was we talked about this, but it was quite a while
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s all coming up tipster.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey It’s all coming up tipster. And so just earlier today, as we record
⏹️ ▶️ Casey this, there’s been increased rumors about the potential of a new
⏹️ ▶️ Casey cinema display or Thunderbolt display, given that stock seems to be running out everywhere. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey any new thoughts on this? Do we think this is real? Or is John finally getting his external retina display so he can
⏹️ ▶️ Casey get his stupid trash can Mac Pro? What are we thinking?
⏹️ ▶️ John The story, the angle on the story I’ve seen, I think we did discuss all this in past episodes. Maybe we
⏹️ ▶️ John did it off air. what all happened in the chat room, it all kind of blends together. But the angle in the story
⏹️ ▶️ John is, hey, new 5K display is fine, but then everyone’s like, oh, how are they going to plug this into Macintosh
⏹️ ▶️ John computers and make an image appear on the screen? And everyone is going through all the DisplayPort specs and seeing that they
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t give enough bandwidth and trying to figure it out and going in around and around. And eventually the GPU
⏹️ ▶️ John and the display idea comes out. So just as a review, in case we actually didn’t discuss
⏹️ ▶️ John this and it was all in the chat room, the idea is that you can’t power it with DisplayPort because
⏹️ ▶️ John there’s not enough bandwidth, unless you connect two wires, which is kind of what happens internally on the iMac,
⏹️ ▶️ John or can happen externally on a current Mac, but everyone believes that Apple won’t do that because it’s gross.
⏹️ ▶️ John You don’t wanna have two wires connected to your actual display. And Intel is not going to have
⏹️ ▶️ John the, what is it, DisplayPort 1.4 or whatever, whatever standard it is that has the bandwidth to power
⏹️ ▶️ John a 5K. 1.3, I believe. Maybe it’s 1.3, maybe it’s 1.4, but either way, it’s not gonna be in the Skylake things, it’s not going to be
⏹️ ▶️ John in the next one even, I think. It’s like it’s a long ways out. So even though DisplayPort will eventually support
⏹️ ▶️ John it, it doesn’t look like any of the current Macs are going to. And so the only thing left is
⏹️ ▶️ John something weird and people think proprietary, but really it’s not proprietary. It’s just plain old Thunderbolt, because remember the Thunderbolt
⏹️ ▶️ John spec has bandwidth allocated for data transfer and also DisplayPort.
⏹️ ▶️ John And the idea is it will ignore a DisplayPort. It will connect to it as if it’s just a Thunderbolt 3
⏹️ ▶️ John device, and you’ll be running PCI Express over a wire and the thing on the other end of the wire will
⏹️ ▶️ John be this monitor that has some sort of PCI Express terminator so that from the perspective of the Mac
⏹️ ▶️ John that you have connected to it It looks like the monitor itself is a video card And then
⏹️ ▶️ John then it starts to get hazy and like well is the GPU entirely in the monitor maybe for laptops that don’t even have
⏹️ ▶️ John a GPU that can drive it anyway the GPU and the monitor will handle it But what about something like the Mac Pro where surely
⏹️ ▶️ John the Mac Pro itself will have a better GPU than the monitor Well if they updated it might yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco it will use this internal
⏹️ ▶️ John GPU But then just use PCI Express to communicate that the image information over
⏹️ ▶️ John to the monitor And then the monitor will act as a PCI Express device even though all the GPU
⏹️ ▶️ John stuff is happening on the Mac Pro anyway Bottom line is not display port. That’s the that’s the answer
⏹️ ▶️ John that we all think of how they’re going to drive This 5k monitor from a bunch of Macs.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’re gonna use Thunderbolt bolt, and use it as the same as all those Thunderbolts PCI Express breakout
⏹️ ▶️ John boxes only this will be a breakout monitor box.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, this is another one of those things where like there’s a lot of people making a lot of like blanket
⏹️ ▶️ Marco statements of, well, this isn’t possible because of x. And you know, the reality
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is this stuff is all very complicated. Most of us who are making these statements don’t have a full understanding of all the stuff that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco involved and what actually is possible and what actually isn’t possible and what’s needed and what’s kind of just a thing we heard.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The reality is, the more I learn about this, the more I learn that it’s way more complicated than I thought.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There are actually ways to do it with current hardware or with near future
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hardware. And so it’s really just a question of, you know, has
⏹️ ▶️ Marco everything gotten together in time? And what will support it? And when will it come out? And what will it plug into?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it seems like the answer to almost all those things is kind of like, well, that’s up to Apple.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think it’s too early to say, really. And they’ve had a long time to work this out. And Apple does have experience, for example,
⏹️ ▶️ John having dual GPU laptops and dealing with the GPU switching. That’s another question people have. Like, how can you have a
⏹️ ▶️ John GPU in the monitor? What if you yank the cable out of the monitor? First of all, yanking the cable out of monitors, historically,
⏹️ ▶️ John has always been a little bit weird. Not just when you’re doing them over Thunderbolt, right? But
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple has some experience dealing with multiple GPUs, running multiple displays and laptops.
⏹️ ▶️ John granted, not all of that experience is great, but presumably Apple’s the company that can do it because they know
⏹️ ▶️ John all the hardware involved, they control the monitor side, they control the Mac side, and surely it’ll be limited to support
⏹️ ▶️ John for certain collection of Macs that can do this and it will probably require a new
⏹️ ▶️ John OS update and all this other stuff. And we’ve just waited so long. Like how long has the Thunderbolt display been
⏹️ ▶️ John out for? I guess all the date file vibes, it’s been like four years, five years, I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s been a long time.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, well it’s and it’s especially because it’s it’s barely different from the led cinema display that came right before it
⏹️ ▶️ John Right, they just updated with a thunderbolt with the having more ports than going over thunderbolt.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, july 20 2011. There you go Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ John a long time. So, uh, so It is entirely technical technically possible
⏹️ ▶️ John now for apple to launch both a new mac pro apple, please uh and
⏹️ ▶️ John or external 5k display that a bunch of the laptops that they will also introduce can
⏹️ ▶️ John drive. Now is it possible that existing laptops can drive it too? Probably, maybe, especially if it’s a GPU
⏹️ ▶️ John in the monitor that’s sufficient to drive the monitor itself. And this will be a weird
⏹️ ▶️ John solution, but it’s better than waiting for the next… waiting for the DisplayPort spec that supports
⏹️ ▶️ John this and waiting a year… many more years for Intel chipsets to support that. This is far preferable,
⏹️ ▶️ John so I really want Apple to do this. We’ve all waited long enough for an external 5k display it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John time and a mac pro update well i’m willing to believe that is not in the cards
⏹️ ▶️ John for wwc like i’m trying to keep my expectations tamped down but surely announcement of new laptops
⏹️ ▶️ John and surely an announcement of a 5k display come on although i keep seeing more people
⏹️ ▶️ John oh yeah q4 definitely later in the year so they could even they could even skip this and announce it
⏹️ ▶️ John not a wd i don’t understand why they would but they could if they They wanted to give all the glory of the
⏹️ ▶️ John WWDC stage to, I don’t know, what could possibly trump this? iPhone stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ John Swift stuff, renaming Mac OS and iOS, I don’t know,
⏹️ ▶️ John like who knows what they have planned, but this year for sure, right guys?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I sure hope not. I mean, I’m really excited for you, I hope it works out. I don’t know if I can handle
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it. You know, even if they release the new Mac Pro, You know John’s not gonna buy it. That’s true.
⏹️ ▶️ John You don’t know that, you don’t know that at all. Saving my pennies.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re gonna say, well, I wanna wait and see, make sure that it doesn’t have any big problems.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m gonna wait for other people to buy it first.
⏹️ ▶️ John of course I’m gonna do that, of course. I can do that no matter what about everything.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, and so then, so six months in, we’re gonna remember to ask you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John about it. Second
⏹️ ▶️ John piece, I don’t have to wait six months to find
⏹️ ▶️ Marco out. And we’re gonna say, hey, John, remember when you said you were waiting for the first people to buy the Mac Pro? So now it’s been a while, there’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco no problems, so when are you gonna buy it? you’re gonna be like, well, I wish I had better GPUs or the gaming performance
⏹️ ▶️ Marco isn’t that good here
⏹️ ▶️ Marco expensive. I think my Mac Pro is still gonna work for a little bit longer. I can get a few more years out of it until the next
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one. And then two years into the cycle, you’ll be like, well, now it’s pretty old. I might as well wait till the next one comes out.
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Can’t last forever. I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know, those 08 Mac Pros are pretty solid. It is tempting to try to go for 10 years though, isn’t it?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco no it’s not.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Would you would you go 10 years like for milk in your fridge? No, like it doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it doesn’t matter what the number is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco This is not the kind of area where you should achieve Incredible longevity of like your main computer
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just for this just for the
⏹️ ▶️ John heck of it This would be great when I upgrade my ps4 to a faster version while I max it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not to be upgraded. Yeah, how many gaming systems have you bought in the time? You’ve had that Mac Pro?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco 64 came out before this right
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco how it 360 right?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, I think 360 came out before it But did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the ps3 I know the ps3 was before that was like oh six or something like that right?
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, it’s not console generation for like seven years for the ps3 generation, so I haven’t bought that money.
Rumored Siri API
⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, what else is going on? Let’s see here. We didn’t talk about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple potentially opening up Siri and developing an Echo rival.
⏹️ ▶️ John We mentioned the article, but then we got off on another tangent about Apple and services
⏹️ ▶️ John and stuff. We would never do that. Us? But that was the headline of the story was, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John an Echo rival and the Siri opening up. I guess we didn’t talk too much about the API aspect of it, but we mostly just
⏹️ ▶️ John talked about Apple and services.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, so apparently Apple may be opening up Siri. There may be an Echo rival,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and that’s about all we know, which is to say basically nothing.
⏹️ ▶️ John Was this the article that said, or maybe I heard this somewhere else, that the idea of opening up Siri is that it wouldn’t be as open as
⏹️ ▶️ John the scales are on the Echo, it would still be more kind of, at least initially for like select
⏹️ ▶️ John partners to have Siri integration? I don’t quite understand what the holdup is on having an official
⏹️ ▶️ John API for Siri. Apple loves APIs. WWDC is all about APIs. They’re
⏹️ ▶️ John all just look at these great new api’s integrate this into your app and do right that into your app your app should have one of these and yet Siri
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s like Yeah, no nothing for you this year like it’s been so long.
⏹️ ▶️ John It seems like they could have come up with The safest possible Siri integration,
⏹️ ▶️ John maybe you would be useless Maybe you know and use it but like get the ball rolling on the idea that Siri is not
⏹️ ▶️ John Just like this feature of your phone But rather is an API that your apps can integrate with to make
⏹️ ▶️ John you know Now your apps can make Siri more useful in the same way that share sheets made like every app on the system more useful. Just implement the
⏹️ ▶️ John new share sheet API. And suddenly, everybody’s apps can all work together to make everybody sounds more
⏹️ ▶️ John useful. Siri should be exactly the same, but isn’t.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I really hope that this report is true that there is Siri API being unveiled soon.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because as a developer, I would love it. And there are so many things that like, I would love
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for myself to have access to it. I would love for other developers to have access to it. I would love to, as a user, for other developers
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to have access to it so I can do so much better stuff with Siri. I really hope this is real.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I recognize it’s a very hard problem to solve in a way that Apple would be happy with.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And it is not that surprising to me that they don’t have an API,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that they haven’t had an API yet up to this point, because it is a very hard problem to solve in a way
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple would find tolerable. But it’s time. It’s really
⏹️ ▶️ Marco time. We see other voice assistant platforms having APIs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and adding APIs and coming soon with APIs. This is an area where
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I just really hope Apple keeps up, I guess. As we talked about last week,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I really, really hope that they remain competitive in this area because it’s exciting. It could be
⏹️ ▶️ Marco really cool. It’s very useful a lot of times. I hope I can participate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in that as an Apple user and as an Apple developer.
⏹️ ▶️ John of the APIs and thinking of what the Amazon Echo skills system is,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not like Apple hasn’t done APIs like that before. I’m thinking of the Passbook API before they changed it to
⏹️ ▶️ John wallet. I remember didn’t remember what that was like. It was pretty easy for, you know, airlines or whatever to integrate with Passbook.
⏹️ ▶️ John It was just like it was very webby. It was very sort of make a rest ish endpoint
⏹️ ▶️ John that sends and receives Jason in this format and send some simple markup. Um,
⏹️ ▶️ John and in the app, it looked like these little cards and, I think it’s probably the same API for the wallet thing. I don’t think they’ve changed it that much.
⏹️ ▶️ John That is exactly the API that you could use for skills in terms of integrating Siri,
⏹️ ▶️ John not with iOS apps, but just with other backend services and stuff like that, to be able to
⏹️ ▶️ John ask Siri questions and have skills installed to let Siri ask something other than WolframAlpha to
⏹️ ▶️ John get questions about, I don’t know, sports, like ask ESPN for more detailed sports information or whatever, like
⏹️ ▶️ John that type of system. That is an API. It’s not like Apple has never made those APIs before. They’ve done it.
⏹️ ▶️ John But it’s possible and it’s you know it’s successful like passbook
⏹️ ▶️ John and all that stuff had pretty wide adoption pretty quickly because it’s like we don’t really care that much we don’t know how much people
⏹️ ▶️ John are gonna use it but it’s so easy to do throw one web developer at it for a few weeks every airline did
⏹️ ▶️ John it it was fine and it continues to sort of lurch along right they could do that with Siri
⏹️ ▶️ John easily maybe they just don’t think that’s sufficient maybe they have bigger plans with this the new you know whatever rumored
⏹️ ▶️ John much better Siri the The other thing I was thinking of is that if they’re doing the whole Mac OS renaming with the
⏹️ ▶️ John lowercase mac capital OS, it’s a good time to perhaps think
⏹️ ▶️ John about and if Siri is going to appear on the new version of the Mac operating system, good time
⏹️ ▶️ John to think about rebranding slash combining spotlight and Siri, which have been sort of merging and dancing around
⏹️ ▶️ John each other for years. I don’t know who wins, probably Syria instead of spotlight. But how can you have
⏹️ ▶️ John two different things that are all very similar? They really should be integrated UI wise branding and conceptually
⏹️ ▶️ John It’s kind of confusing to have them like that. So this would be a good time to unify those brands, too
⏹️ ▶️ John And if you did that Spotlight does have an extension mechanism where you can write plugins and let your your
⏹️ ▶️ John files be indexed on your Mac or whatever That’s another good time to
⏹️ ▶️ John add a Siri API because once they’re combined into one thing and you can add an API for I
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know like Like, again, Apple, that’s what WDC is all about. It’s all about sessions where they have
⏹️ ▶️ John new APIs that you can use to make your apps cooler and that usually Apple wants you to incorporate.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’re practically begging you to think of a reason, think of a way that you can incorporate this new API
⏹️ ▶️ John in all the sessions. Like, you may not think you need this API in your app, but let me show you some examples. You can add, you know,
⏹️ ▶️ John a rotating 3D cube in the corner. So you should use SceneKit. Like, they’re very gung-ho
⏹️ ▶️ John about, we have great new APIs and you should incorporate them. Because by incorporating the new APIs, add value to Apple’s platform and show
⏹️ ▶️ John its unique value proposition because Apple believes these APIs are, you know, something that the other platforms
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t have things to compete with, or that their APIs are more complicated or whatever. So
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah, I guess this is the time of year where everything seems possible WWC, all our dreams will come
⏹️ ▶️ John true. And everything we thought of will be announced at the keynote, and we’ll have 15 sessions, but obviously,
⏹️ ▶️ John They can’t all fit in so we’ll see what gets dropped on the floor.
Rumored “macOS”
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So quick aside are you in favor of or against OS 10 becoming Mac OS?
⏹️ ▶️ John Aesthetically, I’m pretty against but in terms of it’s time for a rebrand I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John for like I don’t like the lowercase them mac OS but I think it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John just like they drop the cats if you want to rename it after so many versions to do a different thing get rid
⏹️ ▶️ John of The 10 and the X thing and like I don’t know Yeah, sure rename it, but I really don’t like
⏹️ ▶️ John the lowercase thing, but I’ll live with it.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I I think it’d be good.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think it’s time. I’m ready. Yeah, me too. I’m in favor. You know, the capitalization of the MAC aside, you know, I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t really have a strong opinion on that. You know, I would, I think it’d be cool if it was capital because it’s kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of be, you know, an old school reference and kind of just fits
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John better. It’s not an old
⏹️ ▶️ John school reference if there’s no space.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But yeah. Oh, sorry,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a different name.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We have a new sponsor this week. We are sponsored by Eero. E-E-R-O. E-E-R-O.
Sponsor: Eero (code ATP)
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Eero. Now Eero is a new Wi-Fi router company for really high-end
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Wi-Fi at home. This is like enterprise-grade Wi-Fi to get at home, and it’s super easy to set up
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and super modern. So here’s how this works. Now, almost everybody I know who has ever had Wi-Fi in the house, which is almost
⏹️ ▶️ Marco everybody, there’s always areas of low reception or dead zones or parts that are just really slow.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco What you really need is multiple access points, multiple Wi-Fi routers to cover the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco area of your house. It’s very hard to have one super powerful one that you put,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco hopefully, near the middle of your house and have that have adequate coverage. So what Eero is, is a system
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that makes it super easy to have multiple Wi-Fi routers in your house that all talk to each
⏹️ ▶️ Marco other and automatically configure themselves. So you basically just plug them in wherever you need them, roughly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one per thousand square feet. So most homes in the US, you’d have either two or three of them.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You designate one of them as your router and you plug that one in with a wire to your modem or
⏹️ ▶️ Marco your internet connection or whatever. You plug that into the Ethernet. The other two, you just plug those in somewhere else
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in your house and they communicate with each other on a secondary mesh network. And so it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco faster than typical Wi-Fi range extenders because it uses dual radios. You don’t have to worry about the throughput being
⏹️ ▶️ Marco horrible. And it’s automatically configured through their really nice app. So it basically solves
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the home Wi-Fi coverage problem in a way that I’ve never seen anything that was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco as easy to set up as this. So you guys have them, right? What do you think?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m really impressed. I wasn’t sure if I would just throw them on and then kind of try them out and then
⏹️ ▶️ Casey put them away, but I think they have replaced my very old Airport Extreme. All
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right, sounds good. Well, if you’re checking it out yourself, visit Eero.com, that’s E-E-R-O.com, slash
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ATP, there’s a special code there, ATP, for free overnight shipping at checkout.
iPhone X
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So, thanks a lot to Eero for sponsoring our show.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey So, iPhone 7, another tuck or maybe tick? I didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John see this. Tell me about this. Tuck? I don’t know.
⏹️ ▶️ John Tuck, yeah, right? Christina Warren’s article at Mashable, talking about the iPhone 7. We’ve talked a lot about it already, you know, dropping
⏹️ ▶️ John the headphone port and we’ve seen the spy shots where it looks a lot like the iPhone 6, but the antenna lines are a little bit moved
⏹️ ▶️ John around and the big one’s going to have two cameras and so on and so forth. story was
⏹️ ▶️ John sort of meta story about okay assuming all that’s pretty much the case hey the iPhone 7 doesn’t
⏹️ ▶️ John really look that different than the iPhone 6 and for a long time now the iPhone has been
⏹️ ▶️ John on the thing where they make a new case design then they put faster inards in it then they make
⏹️ ▶️ John a new case design and put faster inards in it and they’re calling this the tick-tock strategy unfortunately now that
⏹️ ▶️ John Intel has left the tick-tock strategy and I have a solid grasp exactly on what is the tick and what is the tock
⏹️ ▶️ John really there they said oh the iPhone 7 will be as if it was tick tock tock
⏹️ ▶️ John when really it should be tock tick tick it’s confusing I know anyway the iPhone 7
⏹️ ▶️ John really be another tick because tick is the shrink and the shrink is the boring one where it’s the same thing but they just put it at a smaller
⏹️ ▶️ John size so and the tock is the exciting one the new architecture whatever anyway so the iPhone 6
⏹️ ▶️ John new form factor look different than its predecessor phone entirely the iPhone 6s
⏹️ ▶️ John looks like the 6 faster innards and the iPhone 7 also kind of looks like the success
⏹️ ▶️ John with faster innards and the angle on the story is that this is a new three-year cycle
⏹️ ▶️ John for phones that they’re not going to do the every other year thing they’re slowing down a little bit possibly
⏹️ ▶️ John permanently or possibly just because the iPhone 8 will be like the 10-year anniversary of the
⏹️ ▶️ John iPhone and the rumors about that one are like it’s edge-to-edge glass and it’s super thin
⏹️ ▶️ John and it’s glass all over and it looks like it’s really radical and amazing and wouldn’t it be great to have a 10-year anniversary
⏹️ ▶️ John of the iPhone with just this amazing new design that’s something that no one ever thought of. So maybe the iPhone 7
⏹️ ▶️ John year, this year, is gonna be a kind of boring year for a change where yeah it’s gonna be faster
⏹️ ▶️ John and cool and have different antenna lines and maybe some different colors and all the great stuff
⏹️ ▶️ John that we love and the big one will have two cameras and do all cool things but next year is the big one
⏹️ ▶️ John where the phone is gonna look totally different and it’s gonna blow your mind because the Touch ID sensor will be integrated into the screen and it won’t
⏹️ ▶️ John have any frame around the glass and who knows what the heck else it’ll have. And I’m not quite
⏹️ ▶️ John sure how I feel about that because I’m, I have a 6 and I skipped the 6s and I was thinking of getting a 7
⏹️ ▶️ John but if a 7 looks the same and if I know the 8 is going to be the crazy 10 year anniversary one, is it going to be like my
⏹️ ▶️ John Mac Pro over again? Am I going to keep this
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco iPhone 6? The
⏹️ ▶️ John first and only iPhone I’ve ever owned? How long am I going to keep using this? Because you know what? My iPhone 6 is fine.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like it’s still good. I still like it. The battery life is still decent.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You’re accustomed to using crappy iPod Touch hardware, John. Trust me, we need
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to teach you, as a first-time iPhone owner, we need to teach you how to be an iPhone owner. I need to
⏹️ ▶️ John get one every two years. I need to get one every year if I want to be like you crazy people.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco one every year. It’s part of your job.
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t know. My wife has a 6S Plus. I see that it’s faster and everything. It’s also giant,
⏹️ ▶️ John but I don’t know. I don’t think I need a new phone every… I’ll think about
⏹️ ▶️ John You do. You know. At least every two. But but then like then if I get
⏹️ ▶️ John these seven then when the 10-year anniversary one comes out and it’s awesome I’ll be even more resistant
⏹️ ▶️ John to getting it. I don’t know. I really have to think about this I really had to see what the seven is like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco when you get the success The 6s s or that whatever went
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John for that this year. I don’t
⏹️ ▶️ John think they’re gonna go with SS just off top of my head
⏹️ ▶️ Marco let’s let’s hope not so so when you get the one that comes out this year and Then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco next year just one year later an amazing new one comes out get that one, too I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t know you’re a tech
⏹️ ▶️ Casey podcaster. This is what we do Yeah, that’s the thing like I always wanted to go on the annual
⏹️ ▶️ Casey cycle and could never justify it to myself And then it occurred to me We do make a little bit
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of money off of this show It is sponsored for a reason and you know what a thousand
⏹️ ▶️ Casey or fifteen hundred dollars or however much damn iPhone is these days Where are you getting your iPhone? What the hell? What are they?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, they’re like if they’re like 800 bucks now I don’t even
⏹️ ▶️ John in the cost of the data plan.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Yeah, totally. That’s what I was. Oh, yeah, okay
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, but anyway, no, but the point is, you know, even a well well-equipped
⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPhone, you know, it’s what is it? Like 800 bucks with that is 900. Yeah, so once
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think I can afford that and I do consider it to be part of the job of doing this podcast and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I don’t think that’s true of everyone like Erin I’ve offered to get her a new phone on off years for her
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and she’s yeah I don’t think I really need it and that’s fine. I don’t think that’s a bad thing before the podcast I wanted
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it, but I never did it but John you make a few dollars from the show
⏹️ ▶️ John we do the podcast? All right My wife has this year’s phone and she has a 5k iMac. She’s
⏹️ ▶️ John all swanky and the fancy new hardware I’m the the one with the on the
⏹️ ▶️ John other hand. I have been buying more games recently So that’s how I spoil myself
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean it is the polite thing to do as as the tech Podcaster to make sure that you’re the other members
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of your family are adequately set up with good technology So you’re doing that part right? But you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know you do have to you know think of yourself as well here You don’t buy an iPhone and sit on it for three years to the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco next one might be good
⏹️ ▶️ John well anyway my particularly use aside, what do you guys think of having like a
⏹️ ▶️ John An off year where they just kind of cruise with like another s revision while we wait
⏹️ ▶️ John for what we hope will be an amazing new one. Do you think that’s a good idea? A bad idea? Can they lower the price if they
⏹️ ▶️ John do that? Can I get their margins up? Like, why is this something that Apple would do?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, let’s, you know, think about, you know, first of all, as a huge disclaimer here, we are, you know, this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is what we’re really talking about is an external case design. Like every new generation of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone has been a substantial upgrade from the one before it so far. You know, the ones that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are that have the S on the end look about the same or exactly the same, but they still
⏹️ ▶️ Marco have really significant upgrades. All of them have. So what we’re talking about here,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco if they actually do what this rumor might say, they’re really just saying, like, you know, we’re not going to change the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco case this time. You know, normally we would have changed the case this time, but, you know, now
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we’re going to give it another year and change the case next year. That matters a lot less, really, than
⏹️ ▶️ Marco everything else all told. I mean, granted, sometimes the case changes come with things like screen size changes,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco which is nice and important, but ultimately I think it’s not that big of a deal.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco As long as they have a good set of iPhone guts, as
⏹️ ▶️ Marco long as it’s a good phone and it’s a decent upgrade from the 6s in important
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ways, like if the rumors are true that the camera is getting a lot better, especially in the plus size one,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco then that’s a big deal. It all depends on what else they upgrade. If it’s a compelling upgrade
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the privileged of us who upgrade every year, that I’ll talk about how good it is or how good it isn’t,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’ll be fine. If it’s a compelling upgrade for all the people who still have two and three-year-old phones to want to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco upgrade now instead of waiting for the crazy rumored all-glass one next year or whatever, that’s good for them too.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I do think, though, given the state of iPhone sales being, you know, the growth
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is slowing and they’re under all this scrutiny now, I do think the timing of this is not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco good. You know, it’s obviously this was probably decided before these quarterly results came in,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but certainly the timing of an appearance of them slowing down
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or not trying as hard, whether or not they actually are slowing down, and no matter how hard they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are trying, it will appear as though they’re like slacking off if they do this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco again. So I’m totally up for it. I don’t really care for the 6 design that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco much, but it’s fine. It’s good enough. I care more about the way the phone works and the internals. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ll be okay. You know, most of us will be okay. People who buy the phones without doing a whole lot of research will be okay.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But I think in the public eye and for a lot of the for a lot of the press, I think
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it will not be well received because people will think Apple is kind of phoning it in. No
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, there are potential upsides. I can think of a couple upsides. One, potentially, the battery
⏹️ ▶️ John life could be better because if they’re not making it thinner, like that’s the rumor that not only will look the same, that will essentially like the cases
⏹️ ▶️ John will still fit and everything like or at the very least it won’t be any thinner they always go down in power
⏹️ ▶️ John and find ways to eke out a little bit more power from you know the components if they keep the same amount of battery
⏹️ ▶️ John battery life should be better there right it will also presumably be cheaper for them to make because
⏹️ ▶️ John they won’t have to have you know new tooling and everything and build those costs into the line of phones
⏹️ ▶️ John so they could either lower the price for consumers which would make them sell more or they could have higher margins on the ones they
⏹️ ▶️ John do sell So potentially even though it could be boring aesthetically and there could be stories written
⏹️ ▶️ John about how like you said They’re not really trying or whatever when it comes times to report results depending on which one of those levers
⏹️ ▶️ John they tried to pull they could have Increased customer sat because battery life is better They could have higher
⏹️ ▶️ John ASP because it’s cheaper for them to make them or they could have more sales because they could actually sell It for a lower price
⏹️ ▶️ John or at least like adjust the prices like the top end will still be the same price because that would Be a bad signal to send but they could
⏹️ ▶️ John mess with the prices and by the way, luckily it seems like I’m just I’m just believing what I want to
⏹️ ▶️ John believe. But anyway, there were stories about the low end model still being 16 gigs. And then there were follow up stories said, No, no, no, don’t worry,
⏹️ ▶️ John the bottom end will be 32. If they make the bottom end 32, that will also increase customers that probably
⏹️ ▶️ John won’t increase their cost of goods any because people probably won’t even sell them the stupid 16 gig chips anymore, because it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John insane. So financially speaking, like in terms of what results they
⏹️ ▶️ John report and how many of these things they sell and everything and a another s revision could actually
⏹️ ▶️ John be really good for Apple and really good for consumers especially if they actually do S stuff to it.
⏹️ ▶️ John So the 6S they tried to make less slippery like the outside is a little bit less slippery right and they you know
⏹️ ▶️ John obviously upgrade all the components and if there are any sort of manufacturing problems with it like it was a little bit bendy in the 6 so they made the
⏹️ ▶️ John 6S stiffer if they keep doing that stuff like if this is yet another S where it’s like
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s you know it’s even less slippery and it’s even stiffer and we’ve made it lighter and
⏹️ ▶️ John it gets better battery life And of course the components are all you know revised and faster and all this other
⏹️ ▶️ John good stuff This could really be like they’ve never had three shots at the same phone essentially
⏹️ ▶️ John before this could really be sort of a you know a third attempt
⏹️ ▶️ John at building a iPhone 6 shaped phone where they’ve learned so much from the past two years
⏹️ ▶️ John of doing that this will really be a great phone to Buy but when you look at it from the outside, it’ll be boring and
⏹️ ▶️ John then whatever the 10-year anniversary phone is however However, you know, radical
⏹️ ▶️ John that is that in theory could have a bunch of weird problems, but it will sell like hotcakes because it’ll be sexy and new and everything.
⏹️ ▶️ John So I like breaking up cycles like this. Any type of cycle you kind of get into, it starts to feel like you’re
⏹️ ▶️ John in you’re into a rut for a while. I think there are a lot of potential upsides to this, but if you’re going
⏹️ ▶️ John for like glam and trying to wow people, I’m thinking of like showing this on the stage. Traditionally
⏹️ ▶️ John showing the new iPhone has been especially when it’s like, you know, an even year or whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John odd year like when we’re expecting the big redesign has been like woo and ah.
⏹️ ▶️ John I can’t imagine that much oooing and aahing over the iPhone 7 except for maybe the dual camera thing on the plus stuff.
⏹️ ▶️ John I guess we’ll just have to save the ooo and aahing for the 10 year anniversary and whatever that’s going to look like.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know I agree. I agree mostly with Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I think that the fallout from the media will be ugly.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco Ugly well and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco not just the media the public you know like Apple gets a lot of crap from regular people from the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey customers Whenever they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t change the outside design It’s it is not just like a couple articles from from like tech media
⏹️ ▶️ Marco trolls. It’s it’s actually people care about this
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, that’s a good point and a lot of people say oh, I’m holding on you know I don’t want to bother with an ass. I want the new case
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And they saw I’m holding on for the seven or what have you I? Do think I don’t know if I’d
⏹️ ▶️ Casey go so far as to say it’s a good idea idea, but I, I don’t, I’m not frustrated by it. And I, and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey you know, like I was saying a few minutes ago, I like that my MacBook pros over the last few years have
⏹️ ▶️ Casey been basically the same, they’ve gotten a little bit thinner and a little bit lighter, but the battery life has kept about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the same, they’ve gotten faster. They’ve gotten better. They’ve gotten retina screens. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s a, it’s a formula that works and I’m, I don’t have a problem with just iterating on a formula that works.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think that there are perhaps better choices of case design than the six, but I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey don’t dislike it. And if the formula works, I don’t have a problem with them sticking with it. But
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the fallout from the press and to Marco’s point a second ago from regular people is just going to be
⏹️ ▶️ Casey intolerable. And there will be a part of me that’ll be like, oh, that’s sad that we’re not getting a new one this year. But in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the grand scheme of things, I wouldn’t be upset about it. So I don’t know. We’ll see. It
⏹️ ▶️ Casey would be a very fascinating, it would be fascinating to see the the reaction if they do have a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 6ss. They’re not going to call it that though. No, certainly not.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco They can’t call it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco 6s plus, they already used
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that name. Would they call it the 7 even if it looks the same? I would guess so.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco To me, I think if they call it a 7, that would make the negative reception even worse.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco The negative superficial reaction because people would be like, remember with the iPhone 5? It was the 4s.
⏹️ ▶️ John The 4s was the one that made everyone lose their crap because it was like, whoa, it’s supposed to be the five but it’s only a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah like I’m gonna wait for a five and it’s it was like this massively like upgraded phone with
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all this new stuff it’s Siri with way faster
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John chip and everything. The 4S was a great phone it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco an amazing it was a great upgrade and yeah and then you
⏹️ ▶️ Marco know everyone freaked out because they didn’t call it five.
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s why I think they have to name it the seven though they have to give it that like you can’t if you do it the other way it just reinforces
⏹️ ▶️ John the story you have to give it the seven because they’ll be like well it doesn’t look that interesting but the number is one bigger so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean I see the argument for that but I feel like they I feel like that would make people even
⏹️ ▶️ Marco more mad that like they call this the seven it’s the same as the last one you know like I feel like
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that would that would make that worse.
⏹️ ▶️ John I think you got to put the number because like there even if the story will then be this doesn’t justify
⏹️ ▶️ John the number seven not having the number seven is worse. Yeah that’s where I’m coming from. Because then you’re then
⏹️ ▶️ John you’re then you’re like buying into the story. Anyway They could just go to they could just drop the letters and say this is the new iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ John or the numbers rather
⏹️ ▶️ Marco here Here’s here’s how you solve this problem. You ready one simple problem. You call it the seven
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and You change all three four you change all four colors Yeah,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like you can even call them the same names and just make all of them like lighter or darker Just make them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco all look different visibly different Dalmatian
⏹️ ▶️ John and flower power. It’s time. Yeah
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Stephen Hackett has finally had his day.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I would honestly I would love cool colored iPhones personally but like even just even if you keep the same colors
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but that you offer now like the names just change them all make them all look make the phone look visibly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco different even with the exact same stupid case the exact same design like they say make everything
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that matters you know make it all like the same physically but make it just look different and people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco would be happy with that
⏹️ ▶️ John just so you can kill it still call it space gray though because everything
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco is called space gray, even though all the grays are entirely different. How
⏹️ ▶️ Marco many space grays have there been? About 14.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know. We’ll see what happens, but it’ll be an interesting fall if that’s the case. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know. There’s a large part of me that thinks maybe just
⏹️ ▶️ Casey slowing down isn’t a bad thing. I mean, we keep, the three of us especially, keep talking about how
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apple stretched so thin and how they’ve got so much going on. Now granted, that’s usually about software, but still,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it may be nice for Apple to have a rebuilding year. That may not be such a terrible thing.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco And Wall Street just imploded. I
⏹️ ▶️ Marco nobody should suggest that the way for Apple to slow down is to release the iPhone less
⏹️ ▶️ Marco often. Oh my God. All right, Casey, you should not direct
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple. Sorry. I mean, in all fairness, neither should I, but still, that’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the one option they should not do.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, I mean, sure, for the purpose of Wall Street, which, granted, is kind of the purpose for that entire company
⏹️ ▶️ Casey existing, is to please Wall Street in many ways. But I don’t know. It would just be cool to see them
⏹️ ▶️ Casey breathe for a second and take a breath and make the iPhone 8
⏹️ ▶️ Casey even more amazing than we ever could have
⏹️ ▶️ John imagined. They should call it the iPhone 10. They’re going to skip 8 and 9 and call it the iPhone 10 because it’ll be the 10 year
⏹️ ▶️ John anniversary. They can use Roman numerals if they want. They’ll take the Roman numeral away from the Mac operating system and give it to the iPhone.
⏹️ ▶️ John There you go. conservation of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco X’s and you have everybody’s saying iPhone X instead of iPhone 10 you
⏹️ ▶️ John know that they should actually call it iPhone X like it’s
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco not a Roman numeral the
⏹️ ▶️ John capital letter X confused yet wait till we’re your name more stuff iPhone times
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah you don’t remember the very brief OS 10 days do you remember that
⏹️ ▶️ John no the capital O capital S space capital X that there was for
⏹️ ▶️ John like 15 minutes that was gonna be what they called I forget if it was like the
⏹️ ▶️ John the shared operating system between the Mac and the phone it’s when they dropped the iPhone OS
⏹️ ▶️ John and they were like the iPhone runs OS 10 do you remember that part of the presentation
⏹️ ▶️ Marco during the initial iPhone
⏹️ ▶️ John yeah yeah they didn’t say the iPhone ran Mac OS 10 iPhone runs OS 10
⏹️ ▶️ John right and in the literature briefly and in Apple’s press releases there was a thing called
⏹️ ▶️ John called OSSX that was not referring to the Mac operating system. Later they would rename
⏹️ ▶️ John the Mac operating system to that, drop the Mac, and that didn’t last very long. I think it was maybe a miscommunication
⏹️ ▶️ John or they changed their mind about the branding, but it was an exciting day or two there.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It would be an amazing troll of John Gruber if they switched to Roman numeral numbering for the iPhones.
⏹️ ▶️ John That would be… No, people can’t handle Roman numeral. Yeah, although like when you do get up into the high numbers,
⏹️ ▶️ John you do have to do something because the iPhone 17, I don’t know, it just doesn’t have the
⏹️ ▶️ John same ring to it, but they’re fine for a while. Just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco start using yours, iPhone 95. No,
⏹️ ▶️ John Microsoft has tainted that whole naming scheme. Forever. Yeah, really, it’s not like,
⏹️ ▶️ John it was a good idea when they had it, it served them well, but now everyone who uses it is associated with
⏹️ ▶️ John like Windows operating system and Office and all the other stuff, even Office dropped it for 365.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco right, our final sponsor this week is Fracture.
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⏹️ ▶️ Casey almost bought Time Warner.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John I wouldn’t say that.
⏹️ ▶️ John according to this rumor story, I like the fact that it involves Eddie Cue, because now I have,
⏹️ ▶️ John well, not really new images of him, but reinforcements of old images from that cover story he was the
⏹️ ▶️ John the basketball game. Did you
⏹️ ▶️ John video of him yelling his excitement to his favorite player’s face. Anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John according to this rumor from the Financial Times, Eddy Cue was all, we should buy Time
⏹️ ▶️ John Warner. What do you guys think? And that didn’t really go anywhere and Apple didn’t buy Time Warner, but the fact
⏹️ ▶️ John that it was floated as an idea and was vaguely resulted in meetings, according to
⏹️ ▶️ John this, and and that it was a thing that might be considered It kind of
⏹️ ▶️ John blends into the, we talked about it a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about Jason Snell’s story about Apple should
⏹️ ▶️ John do something like Netflix and sponsor its own content. That type of stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple getting into the creative content business as,
⏹️ ▶️ John not as a middleman, not as a distributor, not as a store, but as a creator of original content
⏹️ ▶️ John or at least a funder of original content. I think that idea still has legs and I
⏹️ ▶️ John just think Apple hasn’t quite figured out what to do about it. Which is good that they’re, you know, considering
⏹️ ▶️ John all ideas and not quite sure. Like it’s bad to jump in with that. Time Warner itself has such
⏹️ ▶️ John a weird history as a, not a great, like there’s not, not a good
⏹️ ▶️ John precedent there for the AOL-Time Warner merger which was kind of a
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco disaster. I don’t know if
⏹️ ▶️ John Apple wants to get in on that. I don’t know if they’re the right company to buy. They have HBO now and everything, right? So
⏹️ ▶️ John you can kind of see where there’s some value there. But on the other hand, Netflix has sort of gone
⏹️ ▶️ John on its own. Apple could buy Netflix. Like so many things you can do when you have so
⏹️ ▶️ John much money piled up. And maybe that’s part of it. Maybe it’s like money burning a hole in their pocket. They’re trying to give it back to shareholders.
⏹️ ▶️ John They’re trying to buy back their own stock. They’re doing all sorts of things to try to make
⏹️ ▶️ John this pile of money not quite increase at the same rate. I think they’ve kind of leveled it off a little bit, the rate of increase,
⏹️ ▶️ John but it’s just so much money. And if they’re not going to buy Google, which they probably shouldn’t really,
⏹️ ▶️ John and they’re not going to buy Nintendo,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco and apparently they’re not going to buy TiVo, apparently
⏹️ ▶️ John we’re never going to talk about that. Buying some company that owns the rights to a bunch of television
⏹️ ▶️ John shows and has an existing system made to create original content,
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not the worst idea in the world. So even though this didn’t go anywhere, assuming
⏹️ ▶️ John this rumored story is true, I like the idea that this is what Apple’s considering doing with its money instead
⏹️ ▶️ John of say, I don’t know, I’m actually more enthused about this than the idea of them making a car
⏹️ ▶️ Marco On the other hand, this was too bad for even AOL to hold on to.
⏹️ ▶️ John Was it too bad for AOL or was AOL too bad for Time Warner?
⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco That was just…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, good point. It could be either way, I guess I forgot. But no, I mean, in the world of,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, in the areas in which Apple competes now, things that include online
⏹️ ▶️ Marco media services and possibly TV-related things. The Apple TV,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with people like Amazon playing hardball, which we can get to, but I don’t think there’s much to discuss.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Having good original content is important. It is strategically important. It is important for sales
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of your stuff and your devices. It is important for potential subscription services
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that Apple might want to launch, with things like TV service or a Netflix kind of service. So
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it totally makes sense why this is a plausible story and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco why it might make sense for Apple to do something like this. So this is the kind of thing, I mean, Apple
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is such a big company now. If you look at what other companies this size do, there’s a lot
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of big acquisitions and stuff for strategic reasons. That’s totally normal. And I know Apple doesn’t work just like other big companies,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but there’s going to be some similarities there. And we’re in a big business world
⏹️ ▶️ Marco with all this media stuff. We’re in times where lots of money
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is being thrown around for very important things and a lot of power shifting going on, a lot of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco high stakes going on. Stuff like this is gonna happen and it makes sense and most of it is going
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be really boring for us to talk about or to think too much about.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco But you know, this is the world we live in now. We’re in the big leagues now. We’re in big company dealings.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple is no longer the scrappy underdog.
⏹️ ▶️ John I worry a little bit about the size of acquisitions. I like it better when Apple is buying
⏹️ ▶️ John smaller companies, especially when it comes for something that can really change the character of a company as much as
⏹️ ▶️ John getting into the content business. I like the idea of Apple getting into the content business
⏹️ ▶️ John as just one aspect of its ongoing strategy of selling digital television
⏹️ ▶️ John movies, you know, all that kind of stuff. If you make a big acquisition with a company
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s not as big as Apple, but is actually really big, how do you incorporate that, those assets,
⏹️ ▶️ John all that intellectual property, all those employees, all those existing deals, how do you incorporate that
⏹️ ▶️ John into Apple without it significantly changing the character of the company? So that’s why I would say I
⏹️ ▶️ John would prefer smaller, more strategic purchases. So for example, if Apple could
⏹️ ▶️ John just buy HBO and the things HBO owns, right, instead of all of Time Warner, or
⏹️ ▶️ John even just buy Netflix, like, because I think the sizes of their business and their entanglement is not or not quite as better. Hey,
⏹️ ▶️ John you should have bought Tivo too late for that. Those type of acquisitions I feel like don’t threaten
⏹️ ▶️ John don’t threaten the character of Apple won’t distract Apple from the important things it’s already doing in businesses
⏹️ ▶️ John where it has a lot of competition, but will give it table stakes to be part of
⏹️ ▶️ John the competition for you know, TV set top puck boxes and having a value proposition.
⏹️ ▶️ John Why should you buy our puck thing? Well, we have original content and that’s why you should do this and and all
⏹️ ▶️ John of this, as we’ve said many times in the past, get into the whole conflict of interest where,
⏹️ ▶️ John you know, you sell a Puck box that lets me use the Netflix app, but you’re also competing
⏹️ ▶️ John with Netflix because you have your own subscription video service and you have your own original content. How does that work?
⏹️ ▶️ John That’s I think, you know, that’s unavoidable at this point. It’s the same way that Apple sells apps in the App Store,
⏹️ ▶️ John but also sells your apps in the App Store. And sometimes Apple’s apps are free or cheaper than yours can be
⏹️ ▶️ John and have, you know, to the point where Apple is funding the development of its iWork suite with all
⏹️ ▶️ John the rest of the money it makes, if you’re going to try to compete with them, you’re not doing it on a level playing
⏹️ ▶️ John field. But somehow everyone lives with the idea that Apple sells software through its own
⏹️ ▶️ John app store, and also lives with the idea that Apple doesn’t always have to follow its own rules and all these other things, and
⏹️ ▶️ John we get along, and it’s not like everyone leaves in a huff. It’s harder to do that in music and movies and TV because there are fewer players
⏹️ ▶️ John and they’re bigger and they’re crankier, but I think Apple can navigate that.
⏹️ ▶️ John Again, especially since everybody’s doing it these days, like it’s just gonna be expected at some point.
⏹️ ▶️ John And it also makes sense in light of Apple’s apparent inability to
⏹️ ▶️ John cut a reasonable deal for subscription video service, which we know they wanted to do for a long time, that they wanted
⏹️ ▶️ John to launch that with the Apple TV and just couldn’t and didn’t. This is another angle. Well, if we can’t figure
⏹️ ▶️ John out how we can license your content and compete with cable or whatever, we’ll go the bootstrap Netflix route and
⏹️ ▶️ John say, we’ll still sell other people’s stuff, but we’re going to fund our own original
⏹️ ▶️ John content. And really, in the grand scheme of things, funding your own original content, couple hundred million dollars here and there for
⏹️ ▶️ John a couple TV shows and a movie or two, that’s peanuts for Apple. They probably spend that much money,
⏹️ ▶️ John speculate about what the budgets are at Apple, because that would probably be way off base, but in the grand
⏹️ ▶️ John scheme of things, for a company with hundreds of billions of dollars in the bank, it’s nothing. And the potential
⏹️ ▶️ John upside is huge. So, uh, yeah, I’m, I’m all for
⏹️ ▶️ John something happening here. I am disappointed that this is just a rumor and that it was considered and nothing happened. I’m
⏹️ ▶️ John disappointed. There still is no TV subscription service, but I’m heartened to hear that
⏹️ ▶️ John ideas like this are floating around, even if they do come from MediQ. Well,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because content is king here, you know, in so many ways, look at what people will tolerate
⏹️ ▶️ Marco in terms of bad devices, bad apps, bad services,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco incredible expense in order to get specific content they’re looking for.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, the entire world of TV, cable, video, movies, this is like everything
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is just dictated by like must-have content and people are willing to do crazy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco stuff like have cable TV which if you think about it is incredibly hostile
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and terrible in so many different ways, but people are willing to do it for specific content
⏹️ ▶️ Marco they get there. People are willing to, even within the realm of iOS and Apple TV and stuff, people
⏹️ ▶️ Marco are willing to use horrible apps from other companies in order to get must-have content.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People are willing to pay big money. Look how many people pay for HBO. I just subscribed to it. Whichever version
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of HBO doesn’t require the cable subscription, whether it’s Now or Go, I forgot, one of those, we subscribe to that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco now. The app is horrible, and we’re paying $15 a month. I haven’t paid a monthly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco fee for television shows in almost 10 years. And now we’re paying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for this and using their crappy app because there’s stuff on there we really want to watch.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco People are willing to make decisions like that. People are willing to to use inferior apps, to pay
⏹️ ▶️ Marco decent prices, to change entire platforms or to not use entire platforms
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like Apple TV or whatever because of certain content that they get in other places. So it’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very, very important for Apple to play in that world.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco If it’s content that’s keeping people away from Apple stuff or that is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco making it less of a good proposition for people or it’s making it a worse experience for people to go
⏹️ ▶️ Marco use other things, Apple has to get into the content business. So it makes total
⏹️ ▶️ John So you hear that, Eddie? Go ahead and buy whatever companies you want. You have our blessing. We say it’s okay.
⏹️ ▶️ John Well, you know, just run it past me first to give a thumbs up, thumbs down, obviously. Obviously. But beyond
⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah. All right, go ahead, Eddie. Have fun. And if anything breaks, you know where to drive it. Thanks a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco lot to our three sponsors this week, Fracture, Casper, and Eero. and we will see you next week.
Ending theme
⏹️ ▶️ John or into Twitter, you can follow them
⏹️ ▶️ Marco at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that’s Casey Liss,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M Auntie Marco Armin,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-U-S-A
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mean to Accidental,
Post-show: New Top Gear
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Something big happened this past week.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Something happened this past week.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Season or series 23 of Top Gear started and aired
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and began, etc. The new Top Gear without our dear friends Clarkson, Hammond,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and May. All three of us have watched it.
⏹️ ▶️ John I didn’t watch the whole thing. I told you I only watched the beginning. I didn’t have time to watch the rest of it. I know
⏹️ ▶️ John to. What am I supposed to watch? I go to work, I come home, I make dinner, put the kids to bed, I do this.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey You’re the worst. Well, I’m telling you, it’s Spoiler City now.
⏹️ ▶️ John You said in the middle of the day when I’m at work, you said, we should all watch Top Gear for
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey tonight. The middle of
⏹️ ▶️ John What time did you think I was supposed to watch this?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey After you got home from work. Let’s see what time the middle of the day was. 6.57 in the morning.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey 6.57 in the morning. I’d like to discuss the new Top Gear on the Post show. So, Marco, if you haven’t watched,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey please do so today. Marco, did you do your homework?
⏹️ ▶️ John I did. He’s unemployed.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, there’s that but we’re also not allowed to give you homework because that’s what the theme song says
⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, anyway, I would have watched the rest of it if I had time, but I didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Casey know so how far did you get?
⏹️ ▶️ John I thought I got through the first segment. I felt like that was enough I’m gonna watch the rest of it,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey fair. That’s most of all you need so spoiler horn will
⏹️ ▶️ Casey be a Sounding horning whatever the word is. I’m looking for
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we have the rights to use a spoiler horn? I don’t even know
⏹️ ▶️ John you can use the spoiler dong. That’s all in the family
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Okay, so the spoiler dong has just gone off.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I think that the new Top Gear, as I’ll call it, shows a lot of promise. I really,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really honestly do.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And if you remember, you should, and this is collective you, not you Marco,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey not you John, just anyone you, if you really want to see a rough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey car show, go watch seasons and two of the Top Gear that had Clarkson Hammond and May
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because they were borderline unwatchable. They were so bad
⏹️ ▶️ John or the American Top Gear.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The American Top Gear, particularly in the beginning, was unwatchable. I actually don’t think it’s bad,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I mean, teach their own as we’ve already
⏹️ ▶️ Casey established. I’m not the arbiter of what’s good and bad, but yeah, I mean, like the first season
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of top of the top year that we know didn’t even have James It had Jason Dawes, I believe, who did like a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey used car segment on every show or something like that. I haven’t seen it in many, many years, but it was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey bad. The studio audience had like 50 people in it or something like that, because it seemed like nobody could be bothered
⏹️ ▶️ Casey with going to the set to fill, to you know, be part of the filming. It was rough. This show
⏹️ ▶️ Casey season 23, episode one, similarly rough. Chris Evans. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was expecting to love him because I’d heard just tons of chatter about how how much
⏹️ ▶️ Casey of a car guy he is, a gearhead if you’re American, a petrolhead if you’re not. I was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey excited to see him. He seemed like he really loved the brand. The brand seemed like he really loved
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the opportunity. I hated Chris Evans so much. Oh my God. Did you like him, Marco? Marco
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Mazzella I’m trying to think of what I liked about this.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Steven Connelly About the show or about Chris Evans? Because I was just concentrating on Chris Evans at the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Marco Mazzella No, the answer is no. What you’re looking for is no.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, see, I love Clarkson. Like, Clarkson is bombastic and loud and obnoxious
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and ridiculous, but Chris Evans was just like loud for the sake of loud. I did not get it
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I did not care for it. Now, John, what did you think of Chris Evans?
⏹️ ▶️ John I’ve never seen him before, to my knowledge, before watching the show. He struck me as
⏹️ ▶️ John an overexcited poor man, Simon Pegg, and he didn’t give me what I was looking
⏹️ ▶️ John for. different things than you are certainly from Top Gear.
⏹️ ▶️ John Again, first show, there’s always gonna be first show jitters, first segment of first show, I give a lot of leeway,
⏹️ ▶️ John I didn’t get the impression, I’m sure this is the case, but it wasn’t communicated
⏹️ ▶️ John to me, his enthusiasm for cars in general.
⏹️ ▶️ John Like, enthusiasm was communicated, but it seemed like non-genuine enthusiasm,
⏹️ ▶️ John not particularly focused on cars. And I guess like it’s kind of rough comparing
⏹️ ▶️ John the old Top Gear where all of the hosts were had mellowed into their roles
⏹️ ▶️ John and could relax and just kind of be themselves and had sort of established their personality. The old ones had
⏹️ ▶️ John sort of the the Gene Hackman school of acting as an interviewer. I saw Gene Hackman
⏹️ ▶️ John once where someone was asking him about his acting technique. And he says, if you’re acting for a long enough time
⏹️ ▶️ John and you’re in enough movies and you’re in enough things, you develop a certain poise based on
⏹️ ▶️ John your years of experience and you pretty much know how things are gonna go down, and people interpret that poise
⏹️ ▶️ John as good acting. So, the hosts of the show, they’ve been doing
⏹️ ▶️ John it long enough, they kinda know what their schticks are, and they do them in a relaxed manner and
⏹️ ▶️ John you become comfortable with it. And is it the case that the previous hosts were
⏹️ ▶️ John actually wittier and more insightful about cars than these new ones? Maybe, but definitely they
⏹️ ▶️ John were more relaxed and more assured in their sort of roles and personalities
⏹️ ▶️ John when it comes to their Positions on these cars whatever and in general as you all know, I don’t like the silly
⏹️ ▶️ John Stunt things they do with cars I like the part where they pretend to review cars like as seriously
⏹️ ▶️ John as the show possibly can That’s what I like out of the shows and I tolerate the parts where they Play with a giant
⏹️ ▶️ John soccer ball with a bunch of small cars. I tolerate those barely Um, so the first
⏹️ ▶️ John segment being a combination of let’s review the Viper ACR and let’s also do some silly thing
⏹️ ▶️ John with Top Gun. I didn’t like that combination. I didn’t like any of the segments and Chris Evans just seemed overexcited
⏹️ ▶️ John about nothing. The only part that came away from that first segment liking was the fact that the, uh, the jet fire pilot got sick in the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. And Sabine is excellent. Like she was relatively, relatively
⏹️ ▶️ Casey reserved. I thought on this episode and I was disappointed that she got like three minutes of airtime, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m super, super excited to see more of her because I’ve enjoyed any time she appeared on old Top
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Gear, if you will. I thought the segment was fairly cheesy. I agree.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But I was happy that they started with something American, which was surprising. You
⏹️ ▶️ Casey would figure they would just triple down on all things British. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey then Matt LeBlanc came out. Matt LeBlanc had also been rumored to be a huge
⏹️ ▶️ Casey gearhead, petrolhead, and I wasn’t sure what to make of him.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I actually really liked him. And I can’t figure out if it’s because I’m American and I’m just predisposed
⏹️ ▶️ Casey to like other Americans on the show, but I really liked him. I thought he did a great job. And
⏹️ ▶️ Casey he was far and away my favorite host of the basically three that they show, it’s Sabine, Chris
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and Matt. And I, God, did I hate Chris Evans? Oh, the other thing I noticed, I actually jumped ahead.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The lap times that they used for the supercars, he actually rewrote
⏹️ ▶️ Casey all of Clarkson’s little stickies or whatever in Chris Evans’ hand, which I thought was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey kind of funny. And I also thought the jabs at Clarkson, Hammond, and May,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like, they did make me giggle, but I don’t, I don’t know, I just didn’t think it was really necessary. Like I forget what
⏹️ ▶️ Casey he said, but something like, oh, we don’t talk about catering on this show anymore. Ha
⏹️ ▶️ Marco ha ha. Yeah, I find most of that pretty cringe worthy.
⏹️ ▶️ John I feel like you do have to acknowledge it. Like, I think if you say nothing, it will seem weird, but you have to do
⏹️ ▶️ John it. It’s a tough line to walk, because you want to do it in a way that is funny, but also respectful, but also
⏹️ ▶️ John acknowledges that I know, that you know, that I know that this is weird. And they didn’t pull that off.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I completely agree. Well said. So yeah, so Matt LeBlanc, I really liked. This segment with
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the two of them, the Reliant Robin, like, it was ostensibly US versus Britain, but they’re in two British
⏹️ ▶️ Casey cars. Like, it just served no point to me, and that I didn’t care for at all. But everything
⏹️ ▶️ Casey took a terrible, terrible, terrible turn when it was time for the guests. This
⏹️ ▶️ Casey was the most ridiculous, cringeworthy, terrible interview I’ve seen on Top Gear. So
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the premise was they were having a competition between Gordon Ramsay and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Jesse something-or-other, the dude who played Zuckerberg on the social network. And they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey were like— Eisenberg. Thank you. They were talking about like, oh, who had
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the best first car? and who had like the best
⏹️ ▶️ Casey current car. And I just thought it was terrible.
⏹️ ▶️ John That sounds like a good, I haven’t, I haven’t seen the segment, but that sounds like a good premise for an interview. Like that, wouldn’t that
⏹️ ▶️ John be fun to have celebrities on and have them compete over those type of car related things? But I guess they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, I think if the roles were reversed, I would have said the same thing. But having seen it,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I thought it was terrible. What did you think, Marco?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Hmm. Where do I begin? I mean, so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be fair, I started watching this at 8 p.m. or 745.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you had to fast forward
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey a little bit.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I knew I was going to have to fast forward through parts. And this was fine, because for old Top
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Gear, I would always fast forward through the British Celebrity Interview and the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Star of the Reasonably Priced Car segments, because they were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco too slow for me. I would always fast forward through those. And usually I didn’t know the people, so it was fine. So I gave this show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the same courtesy. Because I started watching a little bit of it to give it a chance and it was
⏹️ ▶️ Marco so bad. It just dragged on so poorly. In general, one of my
⏹️ ▶️ Marco main complaints about what I saw so far, and granted only episode one, but one of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco my main complaints is that it seems like both the writing and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the editing have gotten substantially worse. And that was made
⏹️ ▶️ Marco very clear in every part of the show, but especially in the interview, where it’s like, it was clear that,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, a lot of these things are scripted that they’re saying, they’re trying to make it
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seem like it’s not scripted. It kind of flowed in many ways, similarly to
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the Tim Cook Bono skit, Before the Finger Touch, where it’s like,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s so painfully obvious that it’s scripted, and they’re trying so hard to make it seem like it’s not,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and doing a really poor job of it. That’s how a lot of this felt to me. The interview,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the bits, the challenging quotes, whatever challenges were going
⏹️ ▶️ Marco on in reality, it all just seemed like it was really forced.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It seemed like everybody was reading badly written cue cards and having trouble
⏹️ ▶️ Marco seeing them. I mean, it was so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco rough in so many ways. so many ways. And the fundamental problem I have with this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is that they walked right into the shoes of a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco show where the show had really moved beyond its initial premise of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically like a boring BBC show about cars. It had moved beyond that into
⏹️ ▶️ Marco these three particular people who had great chemistry, great personalities, who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco had years to develop into these chemistry and these personalities and into this show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and the show that was really about them and and about their their chemistry together
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the things they did together them being funny together being you know making fun of each other and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco doing things together it was really all about them it wasn’t really about the cars sorry John and so
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it has taken that remove them and then they tried to just
⏹️ ▶️ Marco keep it going in the same way with a completely different cast and and some
⏹️ ▶️ Marco minor variation on the formula but not not much variation and I just don’t see that
⏹️ ▶️ Marco working because what you have now is all these people who
⏹️ ▶️ Marco don’t who clearly have no previous experience with each other or at least not enough to matter
⏹️ ▶️ Marco trying to take a role of a show that depended so heavily on
⏹️ ▶️ Marco chemistry and on long-established personalities, I just don’t see how it’s going to work. And
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it doesn’t. I mean, hopefully the show will develop over time into
⏹️ ▶️ Marco something people care about, but the way it is now, I don’t see that happening
⏹️ ▶️ Marco because I think what took it from that old boring British car
⏹️ ▶️ Marco show and turned it into the worldwide phenomenon that it was, was that it went
⏹️ ▶️ Marco beyond just talking about the cars and doing, you know, skits with cars. And it went
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into something that was way more mass appeal and could appeal to people who only like cars
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a little bit or barely even cared about cars at all but were just entertained by the show. The new
⏹️ ▶️ Marco show doesn’t do that. The new show is… it kind of reminds me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco or it has shown me how little I care about cars.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because I I had no interest in almost anything they did. I realized
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what I was actually watching for all this time was the cast, and not
⏹️ ▶️ Marco this cast. Maybe over time, as they’re trying too hard
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be old Top Gear, there have been other things in the past that have
⏹️ ▶️ Marco started off this poorly and have gotten better. I think the most direct, clear example of this
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is the US version of The Office, where the first couple of episodes were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco like direct clones of the British Office show with a whole different cast and trying
⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be that, and they were terrible. They were just so bad. And eventually,
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe like one or two seasons in, the show kind of grew into its own and became its own thing because it stopped trying to be the
⏹️ ▶️ Marco old show, and it became its own thing, and it ended up becoming, I think, one of the best shows
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s ever been on TV. And so this, I hope this does that.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t have incredibly high hopes that it will based on what I’ve seen so far, but I hope it does because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco It just mmm so much of it just didn’t work for me at all. I mean
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just seemed so Forced so badly acted badly edited
⏹️ ▶️ Marco badly written Badly conceived and it’s it’s like you have this massive budget
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and not enough talent to use it, right?
⏹️ ▶️ John No, this is only episode one though I mean and like Casey said if you’re gonna think of an example of a show that started off bad in episode
⏹️ ▶️ John one According to Casey top gear did like
⏹️ ▶️ John I give them I’m gonna give them some time to settle in although I wish I hadn’t read the stories
⏹️ ▶️ John or skim the stories about like who’s shooting with who on the show because It seemed to me
⏹️ ▶️ John that from the from the first shot that Matt LeBlanc does not like the the fake
⏹️ ▶️ John Simon Pegg guy I don’t know if those are the two people who were supposed to be feuding they were
⏹️ ▶️ John I believe but that’s but that’s not a good That’s not a good start for you know if your show is gonna be based on
⏹️ ▶️ John the chemistry and camaraderie what are we gonna say about the the badly behaved
⏹️ ▶️ John Slightly eccentric and all-around strange old hosts of Top Gear They seem to all
⏹️ ▶️ John pretty much get along with each other as evidence from the fact that they had some amount of solidarity to sort of
⏹️ ▶️ John stick to their jerky face punching Non-steak eater guy when he got kicked off the
⏹️ ▶️ John show like so I think they all all get along with each other, at least in their working
⏹️ ▶️ John relationship. And that came through in the show, that they mostly
⏹️ ▶️ John enjoyed being together and doing the show together. And I think you need that. If a show is going to be based on chemistry,
⏹️ ▶️ John you need that. And even though the show is not about the cars in terms of like gearhead type things, where they’re going to tell you
⏹️ ▶️ John about tech specs and get all into the nitty gritty of the testing and stuff,
⏹️ ▶️ John I think everyone on that show had an enthusiasm for cars that came through in the cars that they
⏹️ ▶️ John reviewed. like each person would would review a particular car and they would do the voiceovers and I assuming they had a lot of influence
⏹️ ▶️ John And how the segment was put together and structured and that came through in the reviews And it’s not like I read car magazines
⏹️ ▶️ John for the more in-depth reviews and stuff It’s not like that’s what I’m looking for It’s looking for basically the same reason you read like a columnist
⏹️ ▶️ John or whatever like three individual people whose personalities had come to know Talking about cars
⏹️ ▶️ John that they have interesting things to say about that They’re interested in whether they like them or not or they’re into them or they’re not into them
⏹️ ▶️ John They always had an interesting angle on the cars and I felt like the segments were put together get there well. Edited
⏹️ ▶️ John well and it’s sort of like it was like a coherent vision of it, you know. A James May review is very different from a Jeremy
⏹️ ▶️ John Clarkson review and all the different cars were, the reviews were different from each other and
⏹️ ▶️ John that’s what I enjoyed out of the show. I haven’t even gotten to, well I don’t know, have I gotten to the car review segment? Was that ACR thing
⏹️ ▶️ John it? Have I finished the episode? Is there anything more in there for me? Not really. Well, anyway,
⏹️ ▶️ John episode one, I give them lots of leeway. In the meantime, I will try out the, whatever, whatever
⏹️ ▶️ John the hell it’s called, the Amazon thing those guys are doing. Although,
⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey unfortunately,
⏹️ ▶️ John grand tour, if they’re not reviewing cars at all, maybe I’ll be not too excited about that either.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I think that Marco really took the words right out of my mouth that when
⏹️ ▶️ Casey they the rare occasions when they didn’t try to just follow the exact formula, I thought it actually
⏹️ ▶️ Casey went reasonably well. The star and reasonably priced car is now star in a
⏹️ ▶️ Casey rally cross car, I think they called it so it was like a rally mini. And part of the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey track for the purpose of the Stars is an off-road segment, which at first I was like,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really? And then actually I was like, I’ve watched it a little more and thought, you know what, this is pretty good. They’re trying
⏹️ ▶️ Casey something different. They’re, they’re, they’re trying something new. I’m okay with this. I thought the, um,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey US versus UK segments with Matt and, and Chris. After the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey starting reasonably reasonably priced car. So once they got into the, the, the Willie’s Jeep and the, um,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and the Range Rover, Land Rover, Land Cruiser, I always get it wrong. I’m sorry. It’s all a mashup
⏹️ ▶️ Marco doesn’t matter. It’s only a British thing. Right. Whatever. It’s only a British car. They never matter.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. Never at all. Um, God, we’re going to get so much email about this. Cause I know they were like the most
⏹️ ▶️ Casey popular off-road car in the world. We know, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. The point
⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, all the people who own British cars don’t listen to this. They’re busy fixing their cars. Oh,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey shots fired. In any case, um, that segment I actually enjoyed. I thought that was,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that was really good. I thought Matt’s segment on the off-road aerial Adam. I thought that was
⏹️ ▶️ Casey really good the things that bothered me the most about those two segments were exactly what Marcus said earlier that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Even though if you really look closely at old top gear you could tell it was scripted and maybe for
⏹️ ▶️ Casey some people you didn’t even Have to look close. But for me, I was so caught up in the entertainment of it I didn’t really think about
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it and then you look closely and you realize oh wow, this is totally scripted It was so
⏹️ ▶️ Casey obvious here how scripted it was and where it was completely clear
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that it was that they were trying to follow the script it just made it rough but all that
⏹️ ▶️ Casey said I do think the hosts with the exception of Chris Evans have a lot of promise
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m hoping Chris Evans gets his act together and lives up to the expectation I had because he
⏹️ ▶️ Casey is so well regarded as a radio host and that’s the other thing the other reason I hated the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey interview because he was interviewing people on the radio for decades and yet it was Such a rough
⏹️ ▶️ Casey interview. But anyway, I do think it shows a lot of promise. I thought the cinematography was still really, really, really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey good. Uh, maybe I’m easily amused, but I thought that was still, uh, completely
⏹️ ▶️ Casey up to snuff. And I really feel like if we give them time, this’ll
⏹️ ▶️ Casey end up. Okay. The other thing I should point out is that they did another show called
⏹️ ▶️ Casey extra gear, which is kind of like a behind the scenes thing that’s only about half an hour. Yeah. This was curious. I
⏹️ ▶️ Casey didn’t see this yet, but I’ve, and so I’d, I’d really prefer not to have spoilers if you don’t mind, but
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have heard it was very, very good. And Chris Harris, who was one of the hosts of
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that, at least this episode of Extra Gear, I really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey like because he had a YouTube series for a long time or a couple of YouTube series that were
⏹️ ▶️ Casey excellent. And so I’m really looking forward to seeing Chris Harris on Top Gear.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Um, without spoiling it, was Extra Gear good? I take it you had the time to watch it, Marco?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I had to do a lot of skipping through because I was trying to fit it in before this show. So I did
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I had to do a lot of skipping. But I will say that I had a way higher…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Tiff and I both had had similarly low opinions of of the main show and
⏹️ ▶️ Marco we both had similarly promising opinions of Extra Gear. Where Extra Gear is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco a different cast almost entirely. It’s Sabine Schmidt, it’s…
⏹️ ▶️ Marco what’s the guy’s name Matt Chris
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey Harris yeah
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that show was I think substantially more promising it was kind
⏹️ ▶️ Marco of like an after dark behind the scenes kind of thing but they they also did like some original bits
⏹️ ▶️ Marco here or some original things here and there it’s it’s clearly like a way lower budget thing
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and you this is clearly like the B team in like celebrity rankings
⏹️ ▶️ Marco I guess like that whatever politics led to them choosing these weird people for the main show but to me
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that has a way better chance of developing into something good than the main show does because
⏹️ ▶️ Marco those hosts are not only I thought substantially better and their enthusiasm
⏹️ ▶️ Marco for cars is more obvious and clear and and is is better integrated
⏹️ ▶️ Marco into the show but they’re doing like less goofy crap because it they’re there
⏹️ ▶️ Marco the role of that show is not to have like a fighter jet fly around
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s like all the goofy crap the main show did extra gear didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it was people it was it was what you want the main show to be in many ways which is
⏹️ ▶️ Marco three people who are very passionate about cars who know a lot about it and can talk
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that I can talk well about them in a in a seemingly less scripted way or unscripted
⏹️ ▶️ Marco way compared to the main show. So honestly, I think that I think Extra Gear
⏹️ ▶️ Marco is the better show and when you see Extra Gear it kind of makes you wonder why they
⏹️ ▶️ Marco didn’t just make these people the hosts of the main show.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s too bad. Well, I mean I’m excited to watch it even more so now but that’s too bad that’s the way the hosting
⏹️ ▶️ Casey shook out, you know, kind of played out. So did you like Matt LeBlanc or not really?
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, no. I really didn’t like him or Chris Evans yeah I didn’t
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John like either of
⏹️ ▶️ Marco them and I you know I mean I saw obviously I met LeBlanc and friends I haven’t really followed his work since then
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I didn’t really you know I had a fairly neutral opinion going in I never I never saw the other guy
⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I thought both of them were pretty painful honestly it was it was hard to watch
⏹️ ▶️ Marco it was very hard to watch because I thought they were both so they were both doing such a
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mediocre job reading you know doing things and and reading things that were
⏹️ ▶️ Marco written in mediocrity. My position on this show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco just going to let you keep watching it, and you tell
⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John me when it gets good. JL
⏹️ ▶️ Marco Collins Because I have zero interest in seeing any more episodes of this show
⏹️ ▶️ Marco until everyone else has decided that this has become good.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, we’ll see how it goes. I’m curious to see. I am hopeful,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m excited that we have two shows to watch. There was Fifth Gear
⏹️ ▶️ Casey back in the day. That actually just got canceled, which I used to watch
⏹️ ▶️ Casey when I could, and it was a much more serious motoring show, so it might have been
⏹️ ▶️ Casey much more up John’s alley. But it was never quite the same as Top
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Gear. It was always kind of an also ran. Um, I’m hopeful that. Mm. Eve
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m hopeful that the grand tour, the new top gear, if you will, with, with the original three hosts,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m hopeful that’s really good. And I’m hopeful that Amazon treats it right. And I’m also hopeful that they get
⏹️ ▶️ Casey their, their act together on the actual new top gear that we spent all this time discussing,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey because I really do think there’s promise there, but man,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it was rough. This first one.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco We’ll see. I think there’s a reason why we’ve seen all these different spin-offs
⏹️ ▶️ Marco and clones and everything of this show and none of them have taken off.
⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s a reason for that and what we have now is basically just another top-tier
⏹️ ▶️ Marco clone or spin-off. I don’t think it’s going to go very far. I think it will probably be canceled
⏹️ ▶️ Marco within maybe three to five years at most and I think you know
⏹️ ▶️ Marco whatever Clarkson and May and Hammond do is going to be what we are
⏹️ ▶️ Marco mostly paying attention to. But we will see.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, but I’m hopeful. I mean, I agree with with nearly everything you said, but I am hopeful. And John, you should watch
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the rest of the episode now that we spoiled it, just so you can see and and decide which one, whether we
⏹️ ▶️ Casey are trying to shine a turd or if it’s actually really
⏹️ ▶️ Casey just a diamond in the rough.
⏹️ ▶️ John I will. And the extra gear thing, where does that on after it? Like when is when is that supposed to be or is it
⏹️ ▶️ John web only or something?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, I believe it was on after I think you can get it on bbc america Or if you uh have a friend that might have acquired
⏹️ ▶️ Casey it you might be able to get it off of his uh plex or Synology perhaps possibly
⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe yeah, it’s right next to the main show on casey’s plex server john That’s
⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s how I might have
⏹️ ▶️ John seen it. Are they are they airing them and I get bbc america Are they airing them in in real time on bbc america?
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Not real time. I think it was uh, Monday that they aired on BBC
⏹️ ▶️ Casey America because the show airs on Sunday evenings on the actual
⏹️ ▶️ John it’s not delayed by like a week or anything. It’s like a day off
⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s correct. And or at least that’s the way it was this week, and I don’t know how much
⏹️ ▶️ Casey time was allotted to it on BBC America The chat room is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey saying that it will be consistently on Monday nights on BBC America,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco I’m not sure
⏹️ ▶️ Casey I’m not sure if They’re gonna do the thing that they used to do where they cut it down and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey add commercial But so the runtime is actually an hour on the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco BBC. Honestly,
⏹️ ▶️ Casey that would be doing it a favor. Yeah, potentially But yeah, so they
⏹️ ▶️ Casey used to cut out scenes and also change the music which that was another thing. I meant to bring up
⏹️ ▶️ Casey The music I didn’t notice any of the music on that episode, which is
⏹️ ▶️ Casey peculiar because usually the music on Top Gear is excellent and
⏹️ ▶️ Casey A friend of mine, the guy who got me into Top Gear, actually said to me that he had, he doesn’t think they actually
⏹️ ▶️ Casey licensed any actual songs, like popular songs to use on the episode.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey They just found like the oral equivalent of stock photography
⏹️ ▶️ Casey in order to fill out the episode. And I haven’t watched back since he said that. I might be wrong. He might be wrong.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey But yeah, I’m curious to see whether or not that’s true. And anyway, I bring that up because in
⏹️ ▶️ Casey the BBC America version, they didn’t have the rights to all these songs for anywhere but the UK. So they would change all the music
⏹️ ▶️ Casey and it would be crappier. They would cut it down from an hour to 42 minutes because commercials. And it was just terrible
⏹️ ▶️ Casey additions. And I don’t know if that’s going to be the case again, uh, for, for the
⏹️ ▶️ Casey new top gear. It may or may not be. Anyway, I’m hopeful. We’ll see. That makes one of us.
⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah. No matter what you can satisfy your cravings for car related things by buying an ATP shirt. Very quickly.