catatp.fm Unofficial Accidental Tech Podcast transcripts (generated by computer, so expect errors).

188: $850 Fidget Cube

Casey almost loses a bet, Marco tries to buy an iPhone, and John thinks he won’t scratch Jet Black.

Episode Description:

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MP3 Header

Transcribed using Whisper large_v2 (transcription) + WAV2VEC2_ASR_LARGE_LV60K_960H (alignment) + Pyannote (speaker diaritization).

Chapters

  1. Follow-up: “Far East”
  2. Follow-up: Motion lasers
  3. Follow-up: Assistive Touch
  4. Sponsor: Betterment
  5. Lightning dongle timeout
  6. Lightning dongle DAC
  7. John on gadget wear over time
  8. Follow-up: Bluetooth double-encoding
  9. Sponsor: Linode (code AccidentalPodcast10)
  10. Our iPhones 7
  11. Sponsor: Pingdom (code ATP)
  12. iPhone 7 speakers, AirPods
  13. Ending theme
  14. Post-show: Custom IEMs
  15. Neutral: Apple/McLaren

Follow-up: “Far East”

⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, fine. Well, you just go go ahead keep being smug

⏹️ ▶️ John being smug I take no pleasure in being right all the time easy.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh God Please tell me you could hear my eyes rolling

⏹️ ▶️ Casey We got a few pieces of feedback about Some phrasing.

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, this is when we’re talking. What was the topic we were talking about? We’ll get to it later in the fall But in fact that yes,

⏹️ ▶️ John it’s the touch thing Anyway, and I kept referring to I was trying to refer to the region on the map

⏹️ ▶️ John that I’m visualizing in my head that includes Not just China. I didn’t want to always say China because it’s like yeah, it’s big and it takes up

⏹️ ▶️ John a lot of room in That region, but it’s not the only country there It also encompasses all the other countries that are sort of around China

⏹️ ▶️ John and I kept saying the Far East which is apparently a very Eurocentric and not

⏹️ ▶️ John favored and slightly insulting term because it just you know You’re deciding like east of what east of like where

⏹️ ▶️ John people who get to name things are or whatever So anyway, Far East will be excised from my vocabulary

⏹️ ▶️ John to the best of my abilities. And we’ll go with many suggestions. People said East Asia,

⏹️ ▶️ John which, I mean, I guess Asia’s the landmass and it’s kind of the eastern part of it. You can just say Asia, but

⏹️ ▶️ John I’m going to try not to say Far East. And if I slip up, just tell me again, live, in real time, and

⏹️ ▶️ John Marco will edit it out and I’ll correct myself on the air. But there you go.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Fair enough.

Follow-up: Motion lasers

⏹️ ▶️ Casey We need to talk about our friendly wager. There’s some confusion in the ranks,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I am also confused.

⏹️ ▶️ John Well, it’s not time for any money to change hands. We’ll just start by saying that.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yes, I would concur. Luke Brewster called this to our attention earlier today in the 10.1 beta,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey which was released as we record just a few hours ago. In accessibility, in the reduced motion section,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey there is now autoplay message effects, which to John’s credit

⏹️ ▶️ Casey at first glance appears to be a Subsetting which I told him would never

⏹️ ▶️ Casey happen with regard to messages.

⏹️ ▶️ John That was so long ago That was like that was practically a week ago. So, you know

⏹️ ▶️ Casey You don’t have to be so smug John. Although I would be if I were you I’m just saying

⏹️ ▶️ John I get

⏹️ ▶️ Casey myself

⏹️ ▶️ John until I Got iOS 11. That’s called adding padding Oh, God.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Autoplay Message FX is its own setting. However, some have said, and

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t have a link handy, but we’ll put in the show notes, some have said that it’s not quite so simple

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and that it doesn’t appear to give you any sort of lasers.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey It just messes with some of the simpler ones, like Whisper maybe. I haven’t tried this. I’m not on the beta.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey So

⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t have this installed yet. I do. But for reports from people who have it installed, and Marco will give a report as well,

⏹️ ▶️ John the reports I’ve heard so far is that it does nothing. That the setting appears, and the setting only appears when

⏹️ ▶️ John you turn reduce motion on. So if reduce motion is off, you don’t even see the setting. Only when reduce motion is on do you get the

⏹️ ▶️ John second setting. And then no matter what you put that second setting at, it appears to do nothing. Do you have

⏹️ ▶️ John experiments that contradict this, Marco?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco That has been my experience exactly, where I just installed it an hour ago, just trying to

⏹️ ▶️ Marco get it done before the show so I could try it out and we we didn’t try all the effects

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but but I did try the full-screen lasers and stuff and they they will say sent with lasers

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but they don’t allow you to send them like you can’t 3d push the the up arrow thing it doesn’t do anything which I believe

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is the same as whenever you have any reduced motion turned on right mm-hmm and yes and and I had tiff send me

⏹️ ▶️ Marco lasers and as far and you know it still says sent with lasers but it does not do any of the animation as

⏹️ ▶️ Marco far as I could tell it really appears to do nothing

⏹️ ▶️ John so the thing is like not not hooked up an interface builder as they say

⏹️ ▶️ Marco basically somebody forgot to like if def it out for the release like they were working on it and didn’t finish it in time and somebody

⏹️ ▶️ Marco just forgot to comment it out basically so

⏹️ ▶️ John anyway and this is this is not one of the public facing betas by the way I think if you are I’m not sure but

⏹️ ▶️ John if you’re on the public beta would you get this one or no

⏹️ ▶️ Marco there is no public beta yet for this version I think Panzerino said it was gonna come out on Friday

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but I don’t know I don’t know if that’s for sure

⏹️ ▶️ John I wonder if that won’t be different. But anyway, um, that’s motion on the front of the $1

⏹️ ▶️ John wager from the last episode. But no, no decision yet, because obviously a this is not a shipping

⏹️ ▶️ John version of the operating system. So it doesn’t really matter what’s in it. And B, what’s in it is a switch that does nothing.

⏹️ ▶️ John And so on the topic on this broader topic, we got a lot of feedback about it, as you would imagine,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey based on the tail

⏹️ ▶️ John end of the last show, I was not telling the feedback. But I wasn’t either. But

⏹️ ▶️ John I mean, impression wise, I think we will all agree that most of the

⏹️ ▶️ John feedback we heard was from people who agreed with me.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey That doesn’t mean anything because it’s a self-selecting group.

⏹️ ▶️ John But you don’t agree with that? I would say most, like it’s more than 50%. That’s all I’m

⏹️ ▶️ Casey saying. I agree

⏹️ ▶️ Marco with you with caveats. I mean, certainly more than 50% of the words agreed with you.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I agree with you by and large. I will say that early on for the first couple of days,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey it seemed like it was pretty darn close. You were

⏹️ ▶️ Casey probably in the lead, but it was close. And then after that initial wave of people

⏹️ ▶️ Casey who listened in the first like 48 hours, then you just ran away with it.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John And as always-

⏹️ ▶️ John You’re also not seeing the feedback that’s sent directly to me.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, why would people

⏹️ ▶️ Marco tell you that you’re right? That’s like a Trump claim, like, well, I’m hearing from lots of people.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Yeah.

⏹️ ▶️ John They email just me, because my email address is on the web, or they at mention just me and don’t at mention the

⏹️ ▶️ John show. And I get a lot of that. I also don’t see the people who are just that mentioning you or emailing you so there is that still

⏹️ ▶️ John that dark matter but uh the ratios For the people who emailed

⏹️ ▶️ John just me seemed about the same as the public one You know anyway, this is not it’s not a it’s not a democracy

⏹️ ▶️ John the only The only role I think that the feedback plays aside from you know curiosity

⏹️ ▶️ John and audience participation is The is the only data points we have

⏹️ ▶️ John to measure the idea that there could perhaps for example example, be people out there who

⏹️ ▶️ John use reduced motion for a reason that Casey decides is legitimate

⏹️ ▶️ John and

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey also want to send lasers,

⏹️ ▶️ John right? And we had several people like that write in to say, I am that person.

⏹️ ▶️ John I need to reduce motion for what I believe is a legitimate reason, but I want to send lasers. And the question might have

⏹️ ▶️ John been, maybe there’s nobody like that or maybe, you know, whatever. So people chimed in with that

⏹️ ▶️ John opinion to at least give a few data points to those people out there. Again, that doesn’t mean anything about whether

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple should add another option. And by the way, I suggested they add this option to Messages

⏹️ ▶️ John because Messages has settings too, or if it doesn’t it can have them, right? Because if you try to add these settings in Accessibility

⏹️ ▶️ John itself, what are you gonna do? Add a number of, like, little options for every single application that wants to have tweak?

⏹️ ▶️ John Like, there’s a place for those settings and it’s in Messages. Now I feel like Apple gets kind of a pass if they’re gonna put

⏹️ ▶️ John it in the, you know, general section of the accessibility section because messages is like

⏹️ ▶️ John well is that really an app or is it part of the OS or whatever but this is not a scalable solution to UI

⏹️ ▶️ John and my original suggestion was put the setting in messages because if you make an application and it

⏹️ ▶️ John has behaviors or whatever that you think you should hide if reduced motion is on but

⏹️ ▶️ John some of them are borderline make the default to hide them because that’s a safe default but if you feel like

⏹️ ▶️ John you’re taking away too much or that there may be a substantial portion of your audience that wants to modify that behavior that’s the perfect

⏹️ ▶️ John opportunity to add a setting to your settings to your settings for your application that when reduce

⏹️ ▶️ John motions on, I also want to X, Y, Z, be able to use the rocket launcher or whatever. So we’ll see how

⏹️ ▶️ Casey this turns out. Yeah, it was interesting reading the feedback because there were a couple of people that seemed like they genuine had

⏹️ ▶️ Casey an accessibility issue and some of them weighed in my favor, some in yours.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey The thing that struck me so funny was so many people who were just passionately opposed

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the zoom animation, oftentimes with no ailment associated. They just freaking

⏹️ ▶️ Casey hate it. And then somehow think that it’s okay for that to be off, but

⏹️ ▶️ Casey balloons or lasers to be on, like they’re entitled to have the exact perfect

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John thing. It’s not about

⏹️ ▶️ John title. Here’s the problem with this, this whole angle, which no one really said in the feedback, and I was hoping someone would bring

⏹️ ▶️ John it up, but they didn’t. The problem with, with your stance is that it

⏹️ ▶️ John hinges on someone, you, perhaps in this case, being the decider about

⏹️ ▶️ John what is and isn’t a quote unquote legitimate use of accessibility feature. Once, like

⏹️ ▶️ John some things you think are clear cut, you’re like, oh, there’s legitimate, there’s illegitimate, you see that you need it or you don’t need it. But

⏹️ ▶️ John once you have anointed yourself the official authority on what is and isn’t what

⏹️ ▶️ John you consider to be a air quotes legitimate accessibility issue,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey you are binning,

⏹️ ▶️ John you’re binning people and it’s like there is a gray

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey area in the middle.

⏹️ ▶️ John You can maybe we can all agree on the endpoints, but there is a gray area, right? So I think that’s just not a tenable

⏹️ ▶️ John standpoint. I obviously think that who cares what that spectrum is. If people want to use the feature, they want to use the feature.

⏹️ ▶️ John And totally removing a major feature of iOS 10 is a bad idea. But anyway, listen to that rant. You can hear all this

⏹️ ▶️ John stuff again. The few points that we did that I didn’t really hammer on that much, but that a lot of people said in the feedback

⏹️ ▶️ John is a lot of people are very mad that they can’t send the effects, right? If you have… So fine, Reduce Motion

⏹️ ▶️ John is on for you, but you can’t even send them to your friends. it’s a feature is totally gone in case people aren’t clear about this

⏹️ ▶️ John you can’t send somebody lasers forget about whether you can see them like say you have reduced motion on because you can’t

⏹️ ▶️ John have motion on your screen not being able to send them feels punitive right because there’s no legit reason for that

⏹️ ▶️ John right and you know and whatever like this that that’s the first version the operating system it was a

⏹️ ▶️ John point oh point one or whatever they could change that but that’s that’s why i feel like you know it can’t stand and the other thing

⏹️ ▶️ John is about you can’t use small text i mean that’s not a motion thing at all so there are certain things that

⏹️ ▶️ John you can make arguments against regardless of this debate we’re having about whether you need this extra setting but anyway

⏹️ ▶️ John that’s a brief rehash of last thing with uh with uh last episode with hopefully

⏹️ ▶️ John less yelling but either way

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey i think at this point

⏹️ ▶️ John i think at this point we’re all just sitting back and waiting um and i don’t feel particularly

⏹️ ▶️ John compelled by the feedback that um that the world is on my side or anything

⏹️ ▶️ John like that uh because like i said it’s a self-selecting group the people who are going to write in are going to be the people who are

⏹️ ▶️ John like all worked up like I was, right? So it’s not a representative sample of anything. And I’m assuming most

⏹️ ▶️ John of the people listening to our show are nerds, and nerds are the ones who like to have these features and so on and so forth.

⏹️ ▶️ John So I probably agree with you, Casey, that a lot of the people really are like, look, there’s, you know, I want settings for everything and

⏹️ ▶️ John so on and so forth, and I understand how that’s not going to work. But in this specific case, I think

⏹️ ▶️ John this passes muster as a case where Apple will actually add a switch. And I’m hoping

⏹️ ▶️ John these little hints that a potential switch that might do something someday mean that I’m

⏹️ ▶️ John right. And by the way, final bit on this, I did file a radar on it. I filed an enhancement request because

⏹️ ▶️ John this is not a bug. There’s nothing worse than people who file bug requests and they list it as like severe bug. This

⏹️ ▶️ John is not a bug. You’re asking for an additional feature that doesn’t exist. It’s an enhancement request. There’s a choice for it right there.

⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway, I filed an enhancement request asking for the specific functionality. It was closed

⏹️ ▶️ John as dupe. So I feel like I have done my official, you know, good platform

⏹️ ▶️ John citizen duty. And I have done the thing and now I just wait. Can we get like I filed stickers made?

⏹️ ▶️ John Like

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco the I voted? Yeah, I should for radar

⏹️ ▶️ John people should anything to encourage people to do it, because obviously it’s not a it’s a thankless process for most of the time.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Is is there some way that you could send me that radar number so I can file a radar

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that says ignore John’s ridiculous radar about how he wants to have his cake and eat it too. You can

⏹️ ▶️ John do that. Go ahead. If anyone wants to file a radar, it’s it’s you can anyone could could follow right now there’s a feedback form on

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple site somewhere but developer accounts like you can get whatever you need whatever like free

⏹️ ▶️ John developer account without giving Apple any money or anything I think if you just have an Apple ID you can get to the point where you can follow radar

⏹️ ▶️ Casey as long as that soup is just right John not too hot Not too cold, not too motiony,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey not too little motion. Just right.

Follow-up: Assistive Touch

⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, so a lot of people in East Asia have written in to

⏹️ ▶️ Casey tell us about whether or not the assistive touch thing versus the physical home button

⏹️ ▶️ Casey is real. To recap, we had said that we had heard or read some reports that people

⏹️ ▶️ Casey in East Asia use the assistive touch feature even if they are

⏹️ ▶️ Casey fully able-bodied because of various different reasons, but the most common

⏹️ ▶️ Casey one was not wanting to damage a home button that is considered

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to be fragile, whether or not that’s actually true. We had a lot of people write in,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I would say the overwhelming majority of people that live in East Asia

⏹️ ▶️ Casey or have spent significant time in East Asia have written in to say, yes, this is a thing, and generally

⏹️ ▶️ Casey speaking, it’s either about keeping something very expensive in good tip-top shape or because

⏹️ ▶️ Casey there is a phobia of breaking your home button in the same way that Americans

⏹️ ▶️ Casey seem to be convinced that force quitting apps is helpful.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey So

⏹️ ▶️ John overwhelming majority I would say I think we didn’t get a single piece of feedback that contradicted

⏹️ ▶️ John what we said all the

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey only thing that

⏹️ ▶️ John varied the only thing that varied were the percentages.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Okay.

⏹️ ▶️ John Some people said like it’s it’s 90% I see it all the time or it’s like 20% but nobody said hey

⏹️ ▶️ John those articles you read were totally not representative not a single person so So I’m going to put

⏹️ ▶️ John a confirmed stamp on this one and say,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco according to the people

⏹️ ▶️ John who purport to live there who send email and tweets to our podcast,

⏹️ ▶️ John that article is a real thing.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, and there were some really good reasons for it. I mean, as you mentioned, Casey, a lot of times it’s because

⏹️ ▶️ Marco these devices, these are expensive devices. And depending on where you live, it could be relatively more or less expensive

⏹️ ▶️ Marco compared to typical life expenses there. And so it really is a thing

⏹️ ▶️ Marco where people want to protect this thing that they’ve heard wears out or that they had an iPhone before

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and it did wear out and they had to get an expensive service because not everyone can just walk

⏹️ ▶️ Marco into an Apple store everywhere they are and get a replacement for free. A lot of times there’s more involved processes.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco A lot of these places there are no Apple stores nearby and you have to mail it somewhere and that might be expensive

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and very time consuming. There were lots of good reasons why basically

⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a lot of people getting an iPhone with a failed part serviced

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a big ordeal or expense or both. And so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco there were a number of iPhones, I would say at least the 4 and 4S and maybe even

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the 5, where the home buttons did wear out for a lot of people. It was a widespread problem.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so there is basis for this. is a very good reason why

⏹️ ▶️ Marco people have this. What I thought was very interesting about this feedback also is that many

⏹️ ▶️ Marco people said that turning on assistive touch is like the routine

⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing for the phone salespeople to do as they set up your phone with you before you even go home with it.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you’re walking out of the cell phone store with it already enabled because the person there either did it

⏹️ ▶️ Marco for you and didn’t even mention it or explained to you why you should always use this thing and then turned it on for you.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I thought that was fascinating.

⏹️ ▶️ John And for the people who are excited those reasons, by the way, we had variations in the feedback. I think we had some objections to the

⏹️ ▶️ John idea that it was about resale value, that it wasn’t as mercenary as that, that it’s just like they don’t want a broken thing. And like Marco

⏹️ ▶️ John said, they don’t want a broken thing because it’s a pain for them to get it fixed. Either it’s expensive or

⏹️ ▶️ John it’s just more of a pain, right? So it wasn’t like people like, I’m never gonna sell my phone, but I still do this. It’s really,

⏹️ ▶️ John really common. Now, to most of these people, this is another example of humans being bad

⏹️ ▶️ John risk assessment and good at pattern matching gone awry a little bit because

⏹️ ▶️ John if you’re never going to resell your phone and if you’re never going to touch the home button, it doesn’t matter

⏹️ ▶️ John if it’s broken. You know what I mean? Like logically speaking, if you’re never going

⏹️ ▶️ John to use the home button and you’re never going to give it to anybody who uses the home button, then why are you worried about wearing out

⏹️ ▶️ John the home button because no one’s ever going to touch the home button. Use it until it breaks and then use it just to touch. And

⏹️ ▶️ John The reason I suggest this, for the most part, is because I think having assistive touch on all the

⏹️ ▶️ John time is a little bit of a burden. That’s what I would think about, because you

⏹️ ▶️ John have this thing that’s on the screen and you’re always moving it around to get it out of the way because it’s always on top. Now, to counter that,

⏹️ ▶️ John many people wrote in to say, actually, assistive touch is awesome. It’s an advantage.

⏹️ ▶️ John It’s not a burden that I have to move it out of the way, or rather that burden is counteracted by the abilities

⏹️ ▶️ John that I have with assistive touch that I don’t have without it. I had never even heard of these things, but apparently people

⏹️ ▶️ John love the idea that they can sort of use features that would be harder to access if

⏹️ ▶️ John they didn’t have AssistiveTouch because AssistiveTouch is always on the top and you can do all sorts of stuff from it that

⏹️ ▶️ John sometimes that you can’t do at all. One person was saying that you can turn off the shutter sound for the camera that apparently you can’t

⏹️ ▶️ John do at all without this feature, but just having quick access to the functions that are revealed under it

⏹️ ▶️ John makes it worth having on the screen all the time.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Well, that and apparently it’s a lot faster once you get good at it. People were saying just

⏹️ ▶️ Casey having it right where your thumb is rather than having to reach, and I know people are starting to roll their

⏹️ ▶️ Casey eyes, but I’m being serious. Rather than having to reach down to the bottom of the phone to hit the home button, having

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that little white orb just hanging out right there is in many cases faster.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey And I’m just, as we’re recording, looking at the assistive touch setup. So it’s general accessibility,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey or if you’re John Syracuse, so just random customizations you’d like to make, assistive touch,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and then you can turn it on. You can customize the things that are there. The defaults on my phone are notification

⏹️ ▶️ Casey center, device, whatever that means, control center, home, and Siri. But you can add or remove the number

⏹️ ▶️ Casey of icons. I presume I can, yeah, type an icon to change. There’s all sorts of different things you can do,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey including take a screenshot, for example. It is pretty cool what’s available.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I still find this to be an annoyance for me because I’m lucky enough

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to be able-bodied and not have to have it. I can see why someone who is perhaps used to it or just

⏹️ ▶️ Casey assumes like this is the way it’s supposed to be. I can see how it would be kind of convenient and need to have it around.

⏹️ ▶️ John Orientation lock is the one that kind of turned my head. I’m like, yeah, I wish I missed the orientation lock

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco on iPads, you know,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey and like having

⏹️ ▶️ John orientation, even though it’s just in control center and you know, it’s not that far away, but you know, some apps have to do the double flick

⏹️ ▶️ John to get it up. And anyway, if it was always available, like if you, if you get what I’m saying is that if you get

⏹️ ▶️ John used to having it there, if it’s like, if it’s the cultural thing to do, because what this is. This is not a technical thing and this is

⏹️ ▶️ John not even a preference thing. At the point where the person you buy your phone from is setting it up for you,

⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a cultural thing at that point. It’s no longer anything to do with personal preference, let alone accessibility. So fine,

⏹️ ▶️ John it’s a cultural thing to have this thing on. Hopefully there are some advantages, and there

⏹️ ▶️ John are. It’s breeding a set of users who are good at flicking that little puck

⏹️ ▶️ John around the screen and who each person customizes it to do the features that they want to have quickly accessible,

⏹️ ▶️ John the cost is that they’re flicking this little thing around the screen that’s on top. Now I would say to the people who care, because

⏹️ ▶️ John maybe you don’t, maybe you’re happy like this is the way we do it all here and this is just how you use a phone and I don’t care what you say about it, that’s fine, but I would say

⏹️ ▶️ John try it without assistive touch. Use the home button until it breaks. Once it breaks, go back

⏹️ ▶️ John to assistive touch. If you’re not reselling your phone, I feel like that may give

⏹️ ▶️ John you a glimpse at how, oh I can speak over as the US but how I think most people in the

⏹️ ▶️ John US are using iOS And I guess the US side it is

⏹️ ▶️ John maybe try assistive touch See what everyone else is doing Smooshing that little puck around the screen to get it out of the way

⏹️ ▶️ John the stuff they’re trying to read and see if you think It’s an advantage. Maybe you get into a habit of leaving it right near your thumb of height

⏹️ ▶️ John You know, whatever grip you have on your phone that could be a good thing, but It’s

⏹️ ▶️ John hard for me to get away from the notion that people are badly badly be misassessing

⏹️ ▶️ John the risk of breaking home buttons on the current iPhones even on the 4 I would say

⏹️ ▶️ John universally using assistive touch for fear of home button breakage is a terrible decision

⏹️ ▶️ John rationality wise but if you set that aside and say whatever let’s

⏹️ ▶️ John just pretend they’re doing this you know there there can be advantages and

⏹️ ▶️ John I think it’s something that Apple will have to I mean maybe they already are that’s why we talked about last time

⏹️ ▶️ John maybe they’re looking at this and that’s why they made the home button that doesn’t move. But that Apple will have to think

⏹️ ▶️ John about if they’re ever going towards this mythical home button that we’ve discussed where like the whole iPhone is

⏹️ ▶️ John screen and you just put your finger somewhere on the screen for touch ID and the home button is on the screen like

⏹️ ▶️ John the fully screen iPhone. Maybe that’s not gonna be next year’s maybe next year is just gonna bring in the margins on the phone

⏹️ ▶️ John right but everyone has been talking about for years and years what if it was all just screen and the home

⏹️ ▶️ John button it was a screen and remember in the early days of the iPhone it was basically religion amongst the

⏹️ ▶️ John the Apple nerds like no don’t you understand the genius of the one physical button and it’s true that was genius

⏹️ ▶️ John but things evolve

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco yeah we also said that was

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the one best screen size that we would always

⏹️ ▶️ John speak for yourself I’m saying that I’m saying the Apple nerds who are wrong it’s always don’t include myself but

⏹️ ▶️ John but yeah like things had their time in place right that things evolve it right think of a good example

⏹️ ▶️ John of that is even Apple had to eventually concede to the notion of right-click like they don’t put two buttons on their mice

⏹️ ▶️ John but you can right-click on it right so things do evolve and it’s best not to be stubborn like Apple is by not putting

⏹️ ▶️ John a legit right-click button on their mice and making you lift your other finger which is annoying anyway

⏹️ ▶️ John things do evolve and it could be that the phones eventually evolved to the point where they’re all screen and if they do evolve to the point where they’re all screen

⏹️ ▶️ John guess what entire section of the globe has been practicing for years and years using a phone entirely touching the screen

⏹️ ▶️ John without touching the home button yeah and so maybe they can learn something from the use of assisted touch over there

⏹️ ▶️ John to influence how not just screw this up when they finally take away the home button entirely and Marco goes

⏹️ ▶️ John ballistic.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’ll be fine I mean the current the one of the seven already is mediocre so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it’s fine. They’re easing you into it there’s small degrees of anger.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah same thing you know with the headphone jack it’s like yeah okay now like here’s what the way here’s what they’re gonna do they’re gonna start

⏹️ ▶️ Marco leaking to the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg in February that the next iPhone is not gonna

⏹️ ▶️ Marco have a home button at all and it’ll be all screen and then we’ll all get mad

⏹️ ▶️ Marco about it over the summer and then by the time the fall comes around everyone will be like duh it has no home button

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s old news

⏹️ ▶️ John i think you’ve got a while to go on that because i i think my my based on nothing my impression

⏹️ ▶️ John is that the we’re not there yet for the touch id like to go to go through the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco screen yeah yeah there was a patent about it a few years back but that’s that’s a whole different thing from being able to ship a billion

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of them

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John yeah

⏹️ ▶️ John especially since especially since next year’s iphone is oled right so i think next year is all about OLED and the

⏹️ ▶️ John screen and getting everything tucked in there. I think they can’t do OLED at the same time as they figure out some magical technology

⏹️ ▶️ John to bury Touch ID under it. So I’m going to guess based on nothing next year is OLED but Touch

⏹️ ▶️ John ID will not be on the screen.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean and in all fairness like pretty much every other manufacturer has figured out how to put touch sensors on the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco back of the phone and I always assume that would be bad and weird but from people who actually use them they

⏹️ ▶️ Marco seem to be okay with it. So maybe that could be another solution.

⏹️ ▶️ John The whole back of the phone supposed to be a camera not a touch sensor right now the whole back of the phone is

⏹️ ▶️ John a fingerprint what do you call it like the things of the police station where they take your fingerprints

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco right exactly that’s why it’s perfect

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if it’s already gonna

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John be covered in

⏹️ ▶️ Marco fingerprints might as well use a touch ID all

⏹️ ▶️ John right but you won’t even need your finger there they’ll unlock automatically just from your leftover finger grease

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Lightning dongle timeout

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Betterment, investing made better.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Moving on, Scott O’Reilly, who is creator of The Dash, prior sponsor of this show,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey he made a discovery a few days back. He was, I guess, listening to regular headphones

⏹️ ▶️ Casey with the lightning to headphone adapter and had paused his headphones,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey or paused, I should say, paused the phone and whatever it was playing. after five minutes

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and he couldn’t use the little bulbous dongle-y thing on his headphones

⏹️ ▶️ Casey in order to restart audio. So he dug into this a little bit and eventually made a

⏹️ ▶️ Casey truly wonderful demonstration video, which we’ll link in the show notes, where he

⏹️ ▶️ Casey left it recording for some total of like six or seven minutes, but basically played a little

⏹️ ▶️ Casey bit, I believe, of our show, paused it by way of the headphones, and then let it sit for

⏹️ ▶️ Casey five minutes, came back. and sure enough when he tried via the headphones to unpause it, it didn’t work.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey And so this was quite the brouhaha because when a new phone comes

⏹️ ▶️ Casey out, that’s what everyone goes looking for. And somewhere, although I don’t have a link handy at the moment, and

⏹️ ▶️ Casey we’ll put something in the show notes, we’ll find it later, apparently Apple has said to someone some way somehow that yeah, this is

⏹️ ▶️ Casey a bug, we’re going to fix it.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah. And an ATP tipster said earlier in the chat, for whatever it’s worth, that we should probably expect a 10.02

⏹️ ▶️ Marco update roughly in a week or two, but I think he’s up next week. That will

⏹️ ▶️ Marco fix that bug along with the microphone cutting out bug that has hit

⏹️ ▶️ Marco both me and Tiff during phone calls and a bunch of other little bugs. So hopefully this will be fixed

⏹️ ▶️ Marco quickly.

⏹️ ▶️ John It’s good to get that feedback too because especially with the lighting headphones where we’re like we don’t know what the rules are of this new

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco lighting.

⏹️ ▶️ John Right. This headphone portless future like is this like is this to say people like is this a battery or is Is this

⏹️ ▶️ John a feature that’s supposed to be there? But I was like, it was so nice to hear very quickly from Apple sources

⏹️ ▶️ John through whatever means they have, like, no, it’s just it’s not supposed to work that way. They’ll fix it. Hopefully they will actually fix it.

⏹️ ▶️ John Because if this ends up being like, oh, we’ll try to fix it again, every point release and it keeps being wonky, that’s going

⏹️ ▶️ John to be bad. But anyway, it’s not if they’re not supposed to work like this. It’s not a

⏹️ ▶️ John feature that’s like, well, now that you’re going to have the headphone port, I’m sorry, you pause too long and it’s gone.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I love the idea of ATP Tipster as a PR outlet for Apple.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey And to be fair, ATP Tipster just provided us a link to 9to5Mac

⏹️ ▶️ Casey where the headline is Apple says a fix is coming for lightning headphones bug that causes playback controls to stop working.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apparently they made the statement originally though to Business Insider. And as

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco much as it pains me, I will

⏹️ ▶️ Casey put that link in

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco the show notes. Isn’t there any

⏹️ ▶️ Marco other site they talked to? Did they talk to iMore or Dalrymple? than anybody

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John else. I don’t

⏹️ ▶️ Marco think

⏹️ ▶️ John so. Everyone else reported on the Business Insider article. I hate when that happens.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Ah, it’s the worst. All right, moving on. But that was a very

⏹️ ▶️ Casey interesting find by Scott O’Reilly. And I was really pleased to see that demo video. And

⏹️ ▶️ Casey it wasn’t sensational. It wasn’t look at me talking for 20 minutes about how awful this is. It was just very

⏹️ ▶️ Casey plain as day. I’m gonna show you what happens, make of it what you will. So well done, Scott O’Reilly.

⏹️ ▶️ John It was failure to communicate in tweets though, because that was the problem. Like, I remember he originally

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey tweeted about it.

⏹️ ▶️ John People were like I tried to do that doesn’t happen for me. It was like it was reading comprehension and and

⏹️ ▶️ John difficulty of fitting Thought into 140 characters or whatever it is with the new limit rules

⏹️ ▶️ John Because it was like it doesn’t happen to me and like wait Are you playing the song and then it cuts out after five

⏹️ ▶️ John minutes? Or are you like people didn’t understand what was going on and a video was just the most straightforward way to say this is What

⏹️ ▶️ John I’m doing look here it is and then then everyone finally understood What he was talking about

⏹️ ▶️ John and then everyone could see that this is a real thing that happens

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I didn’t understand either and I thought he meant with any sort of headphones. I tried it with my Lightning ones

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I was like, oh, this works great. What are you talking about? And then it turns out it was the adapter that was the problem. So, try it out.

Lightning dongle DAC

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Sure enough, speaking of, this isn’t in the show notes here, but we should probably talk about it.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Apparently, a teardown has been done and there is a digital and analog converter

⏹️ ▶️ Casey in the Lightning 2 3.5mm headphone adapter. Yep,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s basically exactly what we speculated last time, which was, yes, there’s probably a little tiny

⏹️ ▶️ Marco DAC amp in the headphone adapter because that’s just easier and they’re really cheap and it’s probably at the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Lightning end of the cable. And sure enough, yeah, the teardown verifies all that is exactly the case.

⏹️ ▶️ John Nothing really exciting here. You’re still confused about this last show. I was talking specifically about the lightning

⏹️ ▶️ John earphones. Obviously, it’s in the lightning and on the adapter, but just the plain old earphones that don’t have an adapter,

⏹️ ▶️ John the ones that come in the box. That’s the, you know, strangely funny part is the, you know,

⏹️ ▶️ John the promise of digital audio is that the digital signal will get a couple of millimeters out of your phone before it gets converted. Obviously, it’s going

⏹️ ▶️ John to get converted by the adapter, but even the headphones, it looks like, which makes sense because they’re going to use the same little,

⏹️ ▶️ John you know, little lightning connector and the headphones, the audio turns analog as soon as it

⏹️ ▶️ John hits the adapter. And then it’s just plain old dirty analog signals going over those wires to your

⏹️ ▶️ John ear pods, which apparently don’t have any little DAX in them. Although looking at the size of these chips, it seems like they could have been in the

⏹️ ▶️ John ear pods if they wanted to, but then why get two when you can just have one?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Why improve the quality over the wire to those terrible little ear pods?

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, I know it’s not, it doesn’t make a difference. It was just, you know,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco although from what I understand, I’ve I’ve read conflicting reviews on this from people who have tested out the new

⏹️ ▶️ Marco AirPods, but most of the reviews have said they sound exactly like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco just a wireless version of the wired ones that we’ve had for years, which would be pretty disappointing because the wired ones sound terrible.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But most of the reviews have said they sound noticeably better. So I am actually now curious about

⏹️ ▶️ Marco them. I have my doubts on whether they will fit me

⏹️ ▶️ Marco at all, whether I’ll be able to wear them comfortably, but some people have said that they could never comfortably wear the other ones

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but these are now comfortable to them so I’m interested

⏹️ ▶️ John yeah I’ve read I read that as well too and I don’t I don’t understand that because every picture like

⏹️ ▶️ John they look the same is there something is there a scale thing on the picture is their perspective thing

⏹️ ▶️ Marco well part of it could be like if if the weight of the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John wire is pulling

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey on if that yeah

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like that could affect how it fits for you in practice but I don’t know I I think it’s unlikely

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I will end up liking them and if if I hate him I’ll just give him to tiff but because she wears those EarPods sometimes

⏹️ ▶️ Marco so that’s fine. I should probably test all the Bluetooth headphones that exist in the world anyway for my big headphone review

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but yeah basically I’m curious about them everyone says they work really well I’m pretty happy with my

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Bluetooth headphones my little Sennheiser Bluetooth things but you know

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if force comes to us I guess I’ll get some to review.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco My one reservation on AirPods which I think every review has pointed out so far and many people on

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Twitter have pointed out as well who are speculating about it, I do think that it will be annoying to

⏹️ ▶️ Marco not have any kind of meaningful remote control ability on them except either Siri or PlayPause.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Like to not have an easy volume

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey control. Steven

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Over your watch. But that’s still not as fast as

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey reaching for the clicker and hitting

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a button. And yeah, not my watch. No, that’s the bad you made yourself. Even with the Apple

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Watch. By the way, on my watch, telling the time 100 times a day is way faster

⏹️ ▶️ Marco than telling the time on your Apple Watch. It also doesn’t need to be charged But anyway, that’s that’s

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John the bed you make you

⏹️ ▶️ John need to buy a

⏹️ ▶️ Marco winder for it It wasn’t for the ones I was wearing

⏹️ ▶️ Casey That’s the best part is that that’s really a thing you can get your watch case with an automatic winder.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco It’s totally optional Totally barbaric

⏹️ ▶️ John Hire a man named Jeeves to wind them for

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey you. It sounds amazing.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey You ask him stuff to Anand tech or non tech or however you pronounce this reports

⏹️ ▶️ Casey on a chipworks report that says there’s three audio amps in the phone and And

⏹️ ▶️ Casey so they say, this is a non-tech, and in tech, however you pronounce it, one interesting aspect of the Chipworks report

⏹️ ▶️ Casey is that they unexpectedly found a third audio amplifier. Chipworks was expecting to find two, one for each of the

⏹️ ▶️ Casey speakers, but came up with a third. The firm believes that the third amp may be for headphones,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey which in turn would mean that Apple has significantly revised the Lightning port spec, oof,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey significantly revised the Lightning port specification for the iPhone 7. Previously, Lightning has only

⏹️ ▶️ Casey carried digital audio, which doesn’t require an amp in the phone itself. In the initial iPhone 7 announcement, I’d speculated

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that Apple put the DAC and amp inside their 3.5 millimeter adapter, which we now know is true,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey which would be consistent with how lightning has worked for over the last four years, but this cast doubt on that area or on that idea.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey So now this was written before this teardown that we were just speaking of. So why the third

⏹️ ▶️ Casey amp then?

⏹️ ▶️ John Obviously, it’s because it’s easier to put that in there and then you can make a go,

⏹️ ▶️ John no go on the headphone port removal at any time. That’s my guess. Like, there’s three in the success,

⏹️ ▶️ John right? Or there would be one for the headphone, not three because there’s only one speaker. But anyway, you know what I mean.

⏹️ ▶️ John Like, it’s there for the headphone jack that’s not there. That’s totally a thing. I mean, do you remember,

⏹️ ▶️ John what was it? I think it was like an iPod Touch or something that

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey if you took it apart, you saw there was like a hole for where the thing was supposed

⏹️ ▶️ John to be. This is just part of hardware manufacturing. You cover your bets. Those little chips cost nothing. If they have the

⏹️ ▶️ John space for it, they’re gonna put it there. So then they have the option, once they finalized the spec and all the electrical, you

⏹️ ▶️ John know, blah, blah, blah. That’s my guess. Unless they were just totally wrong and misidentified a chip, unless it’s used for some other

⏹️ ▶️ John purpose, someone in Apple hardware can tell us, but it’s totally plausible to me that that’s just a thing that they put there that

⏹️ ▶️ John they didn’t happen to use.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, it’s also possible, like the second one could be used for the second speaker. Like they might not be running

⏹️ ▶️ Marco one amp to drive two speakers. Maybe they have one in each of them for various, you know, electrical convenience

⏹️ ▶️ Marco reasons or, you know, better cable routing or less power.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John That’s what I

⏹️ ▶️ John said, but there’s three of them though.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Right, well, one for each speaker and one for, oh yeah, I guess. Yeah, math is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco hard. Well, it could be for the microphone. I mean, these things are so cheap and like anytime

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you’re running analog audio traces on a circuit board in a digital device full of various

⏹️ ▶️ Marco interference sources, you have to be pretty careful where you can run those without picking up noise and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco other problems on the analog signals. And because these little DAC-amp chips are so tiny

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and so dirt cheap, you can basically put them wherever you feel like, wherever it’s convenient for the rest of your needs.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So if it’s most convenient to have another one for the microphone and not use the same one

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that is used by the bottom speaker, then they can do that. It’s really no

⏹️ ▶️ Marco big deal. These chips are tiny and cost nothing.

⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway, if the goal was to figure out whether the adapters use a DAC, the best way to do it was to open up the DACs,

⏹️ ▶️ John and that’s what people did. Although, people have opened them up and melted off all the plastic and

⏹️ ▶️ John seen the little number on the chips. but because Apple uses so many custom things and everything,

⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know if anyone has tracked that number down and said definitively that this is a DAC-AMP thing, but that’s

⏹️ ▶️ John what everyone believes it to be and it totally makes sense, so I would consider this matter settled until

⏹️ ▶️ John somebody says, wait, wait, wait, that chip actually isn’t doing what you think it is.

John on gadget wear over time

⏹️ ▶️ Casey All right, so John you seem to be claiming by way of the show notes and links

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to Twitter that you are semi-clear voyant Would you like to talk about this?

⏹️ ▶️ John No, I was just thinking about like I think about the jet black phone because you know I’m still

⏹️ ▶️ John I’m still in the in the deciding mode or whether I’m gonna get jet black or not

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey I’m gonna

⏹️ ▶️ John use it without a case

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey And anyway, I

⏹️ ▶️ John got I was like I said, I got to see it in person and so on and so forth But we’re at the phase now where people have their jet black iPhones

⏹️ ▶️ John and are posting pictures of their various scratches or in the case of Christina Warren their gigantic dents

⏹️ ▶️ John and saying, this is what a jet black iPhone’s gonna look like, either fingerprint wise or the scratches or whatever, and

⏹️ ▶️ John I have to decide whether that’s worth it to me and so on and so forth, and it made me think again about a topic

⏹️ ▶️ John that I have visited in past podcasts, and I tried to do some research,

⏹️ ▶️ John so I was like, isn’t there an episode where I talked about this, and in doing my research, I found out there’s like 900 episodes where

⏹️ ▶️ John I talked about this. I talk about it all the time, for like, cumulatively

⏹️ ▶️ John hours, so it’s good that I don’t remember I passed it well. But anyway, because I did all the research, I’m not going to bore

⏹️ ▶️ John you all with it now. We’ll put a bunch of links in the show notes to me talking

⏹️ ▶️ John about the issue of electronics and how they wear as you use them, like how, when,

⏹️ ▶️ John as they get older, do they look crappier and you like them less? Or do they sort of develop a

⏹️ ▶️ John patina or like become familiar and like you love them more as they age and they become

⏹️ ▶️ John sort of worn in, you know, that that dichotomy has been discussed in many, by many people on

⏹️ ▶️ John the web and in fact these early episodes of Hypercritical where I talk about this, I’m just citing a blog post that themselves comes from years

⏹️ ▶️ John earlier. And I think the last time it came up in our little circle

⏹️ ▶️ John in a big way was with the iPhone 5 with the original black back on the iPhone 5 where the black would scratch off and you’d see the aluminum

⏹️ ▶️ John color and everything. That was the jet black of the day where I was complaining about the scratches.

⏹️ ▶️ John And at that time, this was 2012, I tweeted that an iPhone with three scratches may look awful but best

⏹️ ▶️ John case an iPhone with 5,000 scratches will look like the Millennium Falcon. And that was me trying to

⏹️ ▶️ John give my view of like, alright so one or two scratches is like oh no my beautiful perfect you know iPhone 5

⏹️ ▶️ John is now scratched. With thousand scratches everyone loves the Millennium Falcon man. It looks like a hunk of junk but it’s got it where it

⏹️ ▶️ John counts you know like that’s it you you love the Millennium Falcon because it looks worn and

⏹️ ▶️ John lived in and everything so that’s what I was trying to get at. I don’t know if the jet black iPhone qualifies for that. I don’t

⏹️ ▶️ John know if any of Apple’s current products do, but God, I talked about it so much on these podcasts. So we’ll

⏹️ ▶️ John put links to these blog posts, some of them by Koi Vin, someone who had that original iPhone that was

⏹️ ▶️ John really worn down, it looked super awesome. And the links will have timestamps in them using Marco’s

⏹️ ▶️ John cool Overcast timestamp jumping feature that works really well with CBR audio.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey And so

⏹️ ▶️ John you can jump directly to the timestamp and listen to me talk about this for a long time I’ll spare you from

⏹️ ▶️ John it now.

Follow-up: Bluetooth double-encoding

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Ed Ryan writes in to say, the Bluetooth stack almost certainly doesn’t bitstream. Without decoding

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to PCM first, you’d have no volume control. Marco, you want to kind of translate that into regular

⏹️ ▶️ Casey human for me?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sure. So, last episode, we were talking about Casey, your audiophile friends. They had a concern

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that in order for audio to be transmitted to Bluetooth headphones, it was generally being recompressed

⏹️ ▶️ Marco as some other kind of lossy format, depending on the headphones in the phone. you know that could be used different codecs

⏹️ ▶️ Marco whether it was the old a2dp SBC thing or whether it was something more advanced

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like aptX or AAC basically any

⏹️ ▶️ Marco audio sent to Bluetooth headphones is being encoded in some kind of lossy format

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in order to make that transmission happen in a practical way and so one of the options

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that that John you had asked about was what if if you have an AAC audio

⏹️ ▶️ Marco source and you have headphones and a phone that can transmit over Bluetooth in the AAC

⏹️ ▶️ Marco format, would there be some kind of intelligence there that it could just like pass it through untouched

⏹️ ▶️ Marco so it wouldn’t be decoding it and then re-encoding it and you know and possibly incurring a quality loss there?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And Ed Ryan’s pointing out here that basically if you don’t decode it and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco then re-encode it back to the headphones, if If you don’t do that, you generally can’t adjust

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the volume. And that’s technically not entirely true. There are, like,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the way the files are represented, in the way audio is represented in these lossy forms,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it is actually possible in many cases, depending on the format, to adjust the volume

⏹️ ▶️ Marco without transcoding it, basically. To actually modify the encoded compressed data,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco because a lot of times it’s represented as like frequency, volume, frequency, volume. And so you can just like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco drop those volume values. Now it’s not it doesn’t know you can’t always do it depending on the exact encoding,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it is technically possible to do that. In some cases. However,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that’s a lot of complexity in addition to all the other complexity that would be involved in passing this bit stream through unmodified or

⏹️ ▶️ Marco minimally modified without decoding to two regular samples first. So basically, this isn’t

⏹️ ▶️ Marco happening. And I should also point out a friend of the show Mark Edwards, from Django

⏹️ ▶️ Marco software makers of the amazing iStatMenus app, which everyone here except John uses.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Steven Penn

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey True story. John Lewis

⏹️ ▶️ Marco He’s an audiophile and one of the good ones. And he and I had a Twitter exchange earlier.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Basically, my position last episode on whether Bluetooth

⏹️ ▶️ Marco lossy codecs matter, my position is basically Bluetooth headphones have

⏹️ ▶️ Marco such mediocre headphone drivers, like the actual speaker parts of the headphones. They’re so mediocre

⏹️ ▶️ Marco on almost everything that’s out there that whatever quality loss

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you might incur by effectively double-encoding your music would be undetectable compared

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the poor quality of the headphones themselves. You need better quality headphones to

⏹️ ▶️ Marco really hear that difference. Mark took me to task for that. Understandably,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco he’s right. That is kind of a separate issue. Bluetooth headphones

⏹️ ▶️ Marco could get better. Maybe the reason they don’t have better drivers is because when you put better drivers in Bluetooth

⏹️ ▶️ Marco headphones, maybe they sound crap because of the double encoding. So that is totally a valid counter argument

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to what I was saying, which I didn’t really consider. But thanks to Mark Edwards for pointing that out. He’s right.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco It is possible this is audible, and maybe we’ll do some experiments and try.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But the bigger problem right now is that Bluetooth headphones are generally pretty mediocre sounding. So

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if this is a problem, we can’t tell.

⏹️ ▶️ John One more thing on the bit streaming, the solution to that if they wanted to bit stream is you got to put the volume control on

⏹️ ▶️ John the headphones. And obviously that’s not going to work on little tiny ear pods, but if you had big honking headphones you

⏹️ ▶️ John can bit stream to them and the DAC would be in the headphones and the volume control could also be there in theory.

⏹️ ▶️ John Not that I think they’re going to do that,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but. Many Bluetooth headphones have volume control built in. And it’s kind of like one of the ways that they

⏹️ ▶️ Marco differ is like some of them, when you push the volume buttons on the headphone, it just controls

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the source device’s logical volume for that headphone. So like, basically you’d have

⏹️ ▶️ Marco one unified volume control and if you push the button on the headphone, it’s not like doing that reduction in

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the headphone, it’s sending the command to the phone saying, hey drop your volume by one increment or whatever.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So some headphones do that, and some, especially older ones, maintain their own volume control in addition

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to the phone’s volume control, which is, it allows more control but it’s also kind of annoying, like if the phone is set

⏹️ ▶️ Marco really low and you keep pushing up on the headphone, it’s like maxed out and you can’t tell why it’s too quiet.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it’s kind of annoying there, but anyway, usually having one unified

⏹️ ▶️ Marco volume control being the headphone controls are actually telling the phone what to do, that

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is generally better, which would have this problem. We’re also sponsored this week

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Our iPhones 7

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⏹️ ▶️ Casey So we should talk about what phones we have in the process by which we

⏹️ ▶️ Casey retrieve them And since I got so angry at John last episode about his preposterous

⏹️ ▶️ Casey claim that accessibility is also his personal private a private stereo set of

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John humans. Not

⏹️ ▶️ Casey my

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John claim.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Do you want to

⏹️ ▶️ John tell me again that I think the default should be different? Because you seem to be stuck on that one for a while,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey too.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, I’m just poking. So I think this is the time when

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Marco and I get angry at each other, but we need to meander to that. What did you end

⏹️ ▶️ Casey up getting, Marco? And why were you on the news, exactly?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Okay, so I was on my we went to go. We did an in-store pickup

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to get tips phone As I mentioned last week I had some order trouble and then some waffling

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and then some order trouble with the waffling order and so basically I was unable to To make an online

⏹️ ▶️ Marco order for what I ended up ordering which was a jet black regular size 7 anyway We so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco we went to go pick up tips on day one mine wasn’t gonna be right on day one It was gonna be like, you know mid-october or something and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it just so happened that while we were waiting online a local news anchor wanted to do a segment

⏹️ ▶️ Marco on the incredibly long lines at Apple stores. Meanwhile, the line wasn’t long at all, but that’s beside the point. Obviously it’s the news, they’re

⏹️ ▶️ Marco gonna do whatever they want anyway, regardless of the truth. So, you know, the news anchor just asked the people who were right in front

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of her, which happened to be me and this other guy. She just asked us like, hey, would we be willing to go on camera live

⏹️ ▶️ Marco for the local news and tell, you know, why we’re waiting online, what our favorite features of the new iPhone are,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and whatever else. And we said, sure. And there, you know, there were no questions asked besides that, you know, they didn’t, she didn’t ask what we were gonna

⏹️ ▶️ Marco say. Well, she did, but then I lied. I said I was talking about the camera, how great it

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John was.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Because that’s what she

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John wanted.

⏹️ ▶️ John Look, your story changes. She didn’t ask what we were going to say. Well, she did ask what we

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco were going to say. She kind of prompted

⏹️ ▶️ Marco us with what she wanted us to say, in the journalist standard of implying, like,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco here’s what I want to hear. And she didn’t ask who we were or anything. She didn’t know that I was an Apple person in

⏹️ ▶️ Marco some capacity. She had no idea. It didn’t matter. It didn’t come up. So fine. So yeah,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco turns the camera on. and I give a more sarcastic answer than I think

⏹️ ▶️ Marco everybody was expecting, and it was fun. So we could pick up Tiff’s phone, it was fun. It’s

⏹️ ▶️ Marco fine, we get it back, whatever. So I, in

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey the meantime. Well, slow down,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey slow down. So what did Tiff end up with, which

⏹️ ▶️ Marco model? Regular size gold. Meanwhile, here I am. When I went into the store,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was able to finally see and pick up and feel both of the black models,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and I decided right then, oh my God, I have to have the jet black, because

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the way it feels, it is so like, if like me,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have been out there unhappy with the 6 and 6S because they are slippery and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco they’re hard to hold without a case, you want the Jet Black iPhone 7 because

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it feels like, the back of it feels even more

⏹️ ▶️ Marco grippy than the screen. Like if you put your hand on glass and you feel the glass screen, that

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is grippier. Like your hand like sticks to it better than it does to the slippery aluminum back of the phone.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco On the Jeplac, it’s the opposite. The Jeplac, the phone is even grippier than the screen. It is so, it feels

⏹️ ▶️ Marco about as grippy as the old plastic phones did, or the iPhone 5C, the only newish

⏹️ ▶️ Marco one. Very, very grippy, very easy to hold. The fact that it looks really

⏹️ ▶️ Marco cool from most angles and in most conditions, that to me is secondary.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t care how the back of the phone looks, really. I mean, I’ve lived with an ugly-backed phone for the last

⏹️ ▶️ Marco two years. I think the 6 and 6s design looked hideous from the back. You know, and for the 6s, I ended up using one of these

⏹️ ▶️ Marco dbrand vinyl skins for the second half of my ownership of it to cover up half the back, just to give it a little more

⏹️ ▶️ Marco grip. The Jet Black 7 is even grippier than that dbrand vinyl skin

⏹️ ▶️ Marco was. Like, it’s so nice and grippy. So I immediately thought, I don’t care how quickly this

⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing scratches, how bad it looks, I don’t look at the back of my phone when I’m using it, but I’m always feeling

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the back of my phone when I’m using it. So grip matters more to me than looks. So of course I go home and try

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to get a jet black phone and I’m going through like eBay and everything and it’s just a disaster. Like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco trying to buy anything ever on eBay or sell it for that matter is always a

⏹️ ▶️ Marco bit of a disaster. eBay is just a horrible place full of horrible people trying to scam each other, with

⏹️ ▶️ Marco eBay being one of those people trying to scam the sellers. Anyway, it’s wonderful.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it was a mess trying to get it on eBay. I did try a bit in a

⏹️ ▶️ Marco few, but they were, you know, The phone I wanted retailed for like, after tax, about $800,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and they were going on eBay for like $1,200 and up. So I was like, I don’t really wanna spend like $400 extra

⏹️ ▶️ Marco dollars just for the privilege of getting it a little bit sooner. I started talking about it on Twitter, and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I was contacted by a guy named Chris Rees Hansen. He’s the author

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of DoveNote Software, so I should give him a plug. He really went above and beyond here. DoveNote, like the bird,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco dovenote.com slash pace is his main app. It’s an app called Pace that lets you take

⏹️ ▶️ Marco breaks on the Mac while you’re working. It’s pretty cool. Chris from Dove Notes Software contacted

⏹️ ▶️ Marco me on Twitter and he said, hey, I have a jet black one that I just opened. I decided I didn’t want that color,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco so I’m gonna return it, but if you wanna sell it to you at cost. So this is pretty cool.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey That is super cool.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco If he would’ve just sold it on eBay, he could’ve made 400 bucks, right? But he didn’t. He was a fan of the show. He wanted to help me out. Awesome.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And the box comes. I’m signing for

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it with my UPS driver, and I’m like, this is really light. This box seems like, is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco there really a phone in here? Like did he like not, did he like just send like the phone itself and not the packaging

⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe? Like it feels really light. And even the UPS driver’s like, yeah, there’s no

⏹️ ▶️ Marco phone in here, it’s way too light. I’m like, okay. So I

⏹️ ▶️ Marco go inside, open it up, and kinda fish through it, and it’s full of packing peanuts, and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco only packing peanuts.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Oh

⏹️ ▶️ Marco no. And the packing slip with the phone, you know, the Apple packing slip, and a little card

⏹️ ▶️ Marco from Chris saying, hey, hope you enjoy it, he’s a nice guy. And the plastic wrap

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to an iPhone box, which you can identify by the little green pull tab arrow on one side. Oh

⏹️ ▶️ Marco no. You know, Chris, like, you know, we had some common friends, so I was pretty sure he

⏹️ ▶️ Marco wasn’t like the scammer here. So I contacted him and I’m like, hey, we have a problem

⏹️ ▶️ Marco here. And he was super great about it. So it turns out

⏹️ ▶️ Marco he dropped it off at the store. He has a receipt at the store saying it weighed seven pounds when it left the store.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh goodness. And it arrives with me weighing nothing and being filled

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John with packing peanuts. Seven

⏹️ ▶️ John pounds you say? Yeah. Go on, go on, just keep going, just plow

⏹️ ▶️ John bravely ahead. All right. Yeah.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco You know, so he immediately refunds my money. And you know, if you’re the buyer in this situation, if you

⏹️ ▶️ Marco use PayPal and you pay the goods rate, not like the sending people cash rate, which eliminates the fee,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco look, there’s a reason you pay those fees. Those fees cover you as the buyer. And when you’re buying things, you should always

⏹️ ▶️ Marco do that option of the goods rate where there is a fee. Even if the seller makes you pay the fee, which is actually,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think, against PayPal’s terms of service to ask you to do that, but regardless, even if the seller makes you pay the fee,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you need to do it that way because that protects you in situations like this. So anyway,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I didn’t have to file a claim because he’s a nice guy and he immediately refunded the money. He’s like, I’ll deal with it because it was insured.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So he goes and deals with UPS It’s still in process, but he’s working with them. I

⏹️ ▶️ Marco feel so bad for this guy, because here he was, doing me this favor. Yeah, he’s trying to do you a solid.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, so now we’ve learned, don’t send an iPhone right during iPhone mania time,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco because, and it’s like, it’s obviously an iPhone box, because people

⏹️ ▶️ Marco who work for UPS have seen a billion of these boxes over the last few days. And he sent it in the same

⏹️ ▶️ Marco box. That’s the perfect opportunity if you’re like, Anyway, so it was stolen.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Now Chris is stuck dealing with all this insurance crap with UPS and I feel really bad for him. So please look at his

⏹️ ▶️ Marco app, Pace, by DevNote Software. Make me feel a little bit better. Oh, that sucks so much.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So then I was like, you know what, screw this. I am not gonna try to buy another

⏹️ ▶️ Marco phone on the internet. Like, I’ll just get it through Apple, however long

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it takes, I don’t care. I have bought so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco many things online, eBay, Amazon, everywhere else, individual sellers, people

⏹️ ▶️ Marco on forums. I’ve bought and sold so many things online. This is the first time I’ve ever had something stolen.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I emailed my business rep, or the Apple retail business rep,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco at my two local stores on Monday morning, right after this whole

⏹️ ▶️ Marco thing happened, basically saying, hey, if there’s any kind of waiting list you can put me on anything, please,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know, I could really use one. One of the stores said, sorry, we can’t really do it, we don’t know

⏹️ ▶️ Marco what we’re gonna have. The other store said, yeah, I got two right here, you wanna come pick it up right now, you need both?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Wow. So I, Monday, I went

⏹️ ▶️ Marco on Monday around lunch and picked up my brand new Jet Black

⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone 7 128 gig T-Mobile Unlocked. I finally have it through a regular means

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and hopefully everybody buys Pace by DevNotes Software so that Chris is less put out by this whole ordeal

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and everything is fine now. And do you like it? I think I love it.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So here’s the thing. As I said, the Jet Black finish is amazing.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco If you have any chance to, if you don’t have one of these yet, if you have any chance to go handle one in a store,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I strongly suggest you do it. If you’re on the fence about whether you want Jet Black, really, really go try them.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco If you really value the grip of your phone, I’d say just order it blind. Just

⏹️ ▶️ Marco get it because it really does make a big difference. Mine is, of course, already has some minor

⏹️ ▶️ Marco micro abrasions on it, but I don’t care. You can only see them in certain lighting. It’s very

⏹️ ▶️ Marco much like, I would compare it to clear coat scratches on a black car,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco where The black layer itself does not appear to be scratched, but if you move it around

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in the light and catch the glare of the light, you will see little fine scratches here and there, mostly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco around the edges. And it’s fine, I don’t care. It’s amazing. And

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if this ends up looking like the Millennium Falcon, cool. If it ends up just looking like a scratched up old

⏹️ ▶️ Marco classic iPod with the steel back, I don’t really care about that either. As long as it continues to feel anything like it feels,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I couldn’t care less how much the back’s scratched, because it feels so incredibly good. And if I didn’t

⏹️ ▶️ Marco have it feel that good, if it was as slippery as the other ones, I would put some ugly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco case or vinyl decal over it anyway. So like either way, like I’m not seeing the perfectly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco clear back of the phone. I would also point out on the fingerprint issue that the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco ones I saw in the store for the matte black model, it seems that the matte black one is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco actually pretty bad about fingerprints too. The difference is they’re harder to wipe off. The Jet

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Black has, I’ve heard from a couple people who have Apple PR connections that apparently the Jet Black

⏹️ ▶️ Marco does have the oleophobic coating along the whole backside of it. So it does wipe

⏹️ ▶️ Marco off easily, just like the screen basically, if you like rub it on your jeans or whatever. So getting

⏹️ ▶️ Marco fingerprints off of it is fine if you actually care. Honestly, I don’t care because I don’t look at the back. But if you’re concerned about fingerprints,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the matte black, I would say, is really no better because the fingerprints

⏹️ ▶️ Marco show up just as much on it and they don’t come off as easily. kind of just like dull or smear if you try

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to wipe them off. So anyway, that’s my thoughts on the case and the color so far.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco The home button I am kind of mixed on. I don’t hate it as much as I thought I would.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I don’t love it. Some people love it, that’s fine. I started out on the setting number one, the weakest.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I have now since moved to setting number three based on Mike Hurley’s urging on

⏹️ ▶️ Marco upgrade that that is the one true setting. That seems okay so far. It’s a little loud for me, honestly, but

⏹️ ▶️ Marco oh well. And yeah, that’s about it. So far so good. I haven’t used the headphone jack yet because I

⏹️ ▶️ Marco hardly ever use wired headphones and that’s it.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I have so many thoughts.

⏹️ ▶️ John Before you have your thoughts, can I ask Marco a quick question? Yeah, of course. About the Jet Black as a potential purchaser?

⏹️ ▶️ John A couple people asked you this, but I didn’t see your answer. What about wetness

⏹️ ▶️ John combined with the surface? It’s very tacky because it’s very smooth, but if your hand is slightly wet, does it suddenly become

⏹️ ▶️ John a slippery little pill?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco If your hand is just like slightly sweaty, it’ll actually be really grippy. It’ll be better that way. If

⏹️ ▶️ Marco your hand is like soaked, then I think picking up any phone is gonna be a problem. Well, this

⏹️ ▶️ John one is waterproof. That’s why I asked, like, cause it’s waterproof, you can use it in the rain, like in the Apple ads, or you could

⏹️ ▶️ John like, you know, drop it in the water. I don’t know. Like, it just seems like it’s a confluence of events here. This is the first

⏹️ ▶️ John phone where you can actually get wet without, you know, terror that you’re gonna destroy your phone. And it also

⏹️ ▶️ John seems like the one that might be the slipperiest with water. What I’m asking for you to do is get your phone wet. Try this.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco No, it’s not gonna happen. If your hands are frequently like dripping wet, like you just submerged your hands

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in water and then you have to handle your phone. Or the blood of your enemies, you know, whatever. Sure, then maybe

⏹️ ▶️ Marco choose a different one. But, you know, for everyday regular use in most

⏹️ ▶️ Marco conditions, the grip of this is incredible.

⏹️ ▶️ John I’m gonna have to bring a wet sponge to the Apple Store, aren’t I? Because

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco you’re not gonna do this for me.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, I think it would have to be really wet to make that, to really

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John tell. You’ve

⏹️ ▶️ John seen all the videos, people are dropping these things in the water, taking pictures underwater with them, like it’s gonna get, you

⏹️ ▶️ John know, it’s potentially can get wet. I just, you know, because that’s the thing, like if the grip is entirely based on,

⏹️ ▶️ John you know, it being super smooth and grippy, like if it suddenly becomes very slippery, that’s something I wanna know about. Not that

⏹️ ▶️ John I plan on using it in the rain, but it’s conceivable that I just washed my hands and I’m in a hurry and

⏹️ ▶️ John walk into the other room and grab the thing and if it squirts out of my hand, I’m gonna be sad because it may be waterproof, but it’s still not

⏹️ ▶️ John quite drop proof.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think the estimation by, I think it was Jason Snell,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or no, it was Gruber who said this on this week’s talk show. Basically, if you’re a person

⏹️ ▶️ Marco with extremely dry hands all the time, then maybe you might

⏹️ ▶️ Marco wanna go feel one in the store to see if it’s gonna be a problem for you. I don’t have that problem. My hands are always warm

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and not sweaty, but slightly moistened, I guess. I don’t know.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sorry for grossing everybody out. So for me, it’s perfect because it is really incredibly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco grippy if your hands are, if your hands have any normal level of moisture, really. I think it’s only if your

⏹️ ▶️ Marco hands are extremely dry, like in the middle of winter and you have to like cover them in lotion to in order for

⏹️ ▶️ Marco them not to fall apart. Maybe before you’ve lotion for the day, it might be a bit dry. Or if your hands

⏹️ ▶️ Marco are literally like in water, you know, then that it might be a little more slippery. But,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco uh, I don’t, I don’t think those are common occurrences for most people who are gonna be buying it. It

⏹️ ▶️ John rubs the lotion on its iPhone.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh, or else it gets the pose again.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Hey, you got a

⏹️ ▶️ Casey reverence. Look at you. That’s that’s that got that got aggressive.

⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway, I put in the link in the show to the seven pounds just to save you guys. Okay, I’ve never heard the flop house.

⏹️ ▶️ John I know. I know.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey You know, I heard that you can just jump right in anytime and you’ll be fine. I went to the Apple store

⏹️ ▶️ Casey today. And this was my first time seeing or handling a jet black iPhone.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I went to buy a extra headphone adapter too, because

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I know myself enough to know that it’s just wise to just sprinkle these little things all over the place

⏹️ ▶️ Casey rather than rely on myself to remember to take it with me when I might need it. So for

⏹️ ▶️ Casey example, Erin’s car, we play our iPhones by way of a cassette adapter because her car was

⏹️ ▶️ Casey built like one of the last years that cassettes were sort of a thing. So I’m going to just

⏹️ ▶️ Casey leave one of these little adapters in her car. And the advantage of it being only $9 is that, you know, $9 is not free,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey but it is not an exorbitant amount of money. So I just grabbed a couple. While I was there, I looked at the jet black iPhone.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I picked it up. The first thing I noticed was, Holy God, I need to dip my hands in Clorox because I’ve just touched

⏹️ ▶️ Casey a thousand fingerprints. And that I did not really

⏹️ ▶️ Casey like. I am holding my matte black iPhone in my hand. And admittedly, at a couple of angles,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey you can see some fingerprints on it, but Generally speaking, the only thing I see is all the fingerprints on the Apple

⏹️ ▶️ Casey logo, which looks to me to be more of a jet black-esque material slash

⏹️ ▶️ Casey color. I did not notice when I was holding the jet black phone, which I

⏹️ ▶️ Casey held for a grand total of maybe 15 seconds.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And probably very gingerly.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I did not notice that it was tackier, but

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I can’t tell if that means that in my estimation, that

⏹️ ▶️ Casey in my estimation, Marco was wrong and that it’s not tackier, or the fact that it wasn’t slippery

⏹️ ▶️ Casey made nothing registered. Does that make, you know what I mean? So like, I didn’t think to myself, oh, this is super slippery. So

⏹️ ▶️ Casey maybe that means it was tackier. Now I deeply regret not having thought to like examine

⏹️ ▶️ Casey the two of them side by side. I was kind of in a rush and I had Declan with me. And so I didn’t want to just stand

⏹️ ▶️ Casey there for an hour playing with these things while he’s looking at me like, dad, are you serious right now? Um,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I’d like to go back and try it again, but I do not see a lot of fingerprints on my

⏹️ ▶️ Casey jet black one. And having seen, excuse me, on my map, black one, and having seen the jet black

⏹️ ▶️ Casey one in the store to my eyes, I actually think the map black looks better.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Hand on heart. I really do. And I was scared to look at the jet black one because I expected to think to myself,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh God, I’ve made a terrible mistake, but I really think the map black looks better. And

⏹️ ▶️ Casey it’s what it occurred to me just a day or so ago. I think what this is, is

⏹️ ▶️ Casey my unbelievable unbridled love for the black book, the black polycarbonate

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mac book from years ago, I wanted one of those so hard. And it was like 70 or 150 bucks

⏹️ ▶️ Casey more than, than the equivalent white one. And so I didn’t do it when I bought my initial Mac

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and I missed, I missed having the black Mac book. I thought it looked

⏹️ ▶️ Casey so good. And this to me is the black book of iPhones. And I just love

⏹️ ▶️ Casey the look of it. And that doesn’t make Marco wrong, but I love the look of this matte black one, which I know

⏹️ ▶️ Casey John is not helping you because I know Marco was really effusive about his jet black. I’m really effusive about this

⏹️ ▶️ Casey one. I think this one looks so much better than the jet black to my eyes. I definitely

⏹️ ▶️ Casey feel for me, I made the right choice.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, and I think we largely agree on the relative benefits

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of them. The question is just priorities, really. It’s like, what gives you more joy

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or what is more functional to you when you’re choosing your phone’s color and finish, basically?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Normally, we don’t even have these kind of choices that make any difference at all. This time, we actually do have a choice. So basically, the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco question is, would you want one that looks kind of fingerprinty a lot of

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the time and is gonna be scratched up pretty fast but feels this particular way,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or would you want one that, like the one you have, the matte black one, that looks

⏹️ ▶️ Marco more consistent over time. And generally, a lot of people really do find it very attractive.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, I find the black one a little bit boring and a little bit dated looking, because for years, so much

⏹️ ▶️ Marco nerd stuff had just been available in black. And I know not necessarily iPhones, but

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s a personal preference, I guess. I find it kind

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of boring looking to be just flat black. And honestly, the jet black one,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco It just so happens that I like the way it looks, but I really don’t care how it looks because it feels so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco good. That’s why I’m willing to do it worth the scratches. So basically it comes down to, John, first of all,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco with your type of hand, do you find it a lot grippier? Do you care?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And then, if the answer to those things are yes, then basically, which do you prefer? Having

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a phone that you love the way it looks or having a phone that feels this

⏹️ ▶️ John particular way? Well, the other thing that’s in the mix for me is cases because I always had cases

⏹️ ▶️ John on my iPod Touches and I have a case on my first iPhone. And the Jet

⏹️ ▶️ John Black, because my first iPhone was a six, which as we all know is way too slippery.

⏹️ ▶️ John With the Jet Black, the question for me is like, can I go caseless? Can I, if this is grippy

⏹️ ▶️ John enough, can I go caseless with it? And for me, the equation is all right, so if I

⏹️ ▶️ John decide that it’s grippy enough to go caseless, can I tolerate then the disaster that will be in the back of

⏹️ ▶️ John that phone from the

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey scratches I have to sort of get to

⏹️ ▶️ John Marco’s place where it’s like, look, just who cares how it looks? Or I gotta I gotta believe it’s gonna look good when it’s all scratched up.

⏹️ ▶️ John So far, all the pictures that I’ve seen on Twitter of scratched up ones do not look good to me. And I would just have to sort of resign

⏹️ ▶️ John myself to say, Well, you know, just don’t worry about it. Like you’re in exchange, you’re getting a smaller, lighter phone because

⏹️ ▶️ John you don’t have a case on it or whatever. But the on the other side of this is if I

⏹️ ▶️ John if I go to the store, and it’s like a toss up, or I can’t quite decide or whatever. But I decide

⏹️ ▶️ John that like the jet black is grippy as it may be is not as grippy as like my leather case or whatever I just decided

⏹️ ▶️ John like the leather one for whatever I may I’m getting a jet black one just so I can ensconce

⏹️ ▶️ John it in leather and preserve it so it actually is perfect because it’s never actually seen the light of day because from the day

⏹️ ▶️ John at the second I took it out of the box I put a case on it and so that it will be perfect under there and I could

⏹️ ▶️ John see the perfectness peeking out on the bottom or the speakers are to just know in my heart of hearts that there is an unblemished

⏹️ ▶️ John perfect jet black back on this thing so that’s a factor and the final factor is first of all that won’t by the way

⏹️ ▶️ John yeah I really like matte black yeah that’s a question you get a little piece of grit in there but I’ll try really hard

⏹️ ▶️ John the matte black I really like as I was thinking the same thing like the main function of this matte black is just to make us all wish that

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple had had this technology because the black book did not stay pristine because it was made of plastic and it wasn’t you know it

⏹️ ▶️ John didn’t hold up and showed fingerprints like crazy I mean we’re just saying the matte black one does too

⏹️ ▶️ John but I like I see the pictures of the matte black and it’s a look that I like if jet black didn’t exist I’d be like boy that matte black isn’t

⏹️ ▶️ John that great guys no more space gray like Matt but you know I like the Matt black

⏹️ ▶️ Marco no no I’m talking about the the black book that the plastic the black plastic map with that showed fingerprints like crazy but

⏹️ ▶️ John you’re saying the Matt black a phone in the star also showed fingerprints

⏹️ ▶️ Marco not as much as the jet black obviously but but I’m saying like it shows way more fingerprints than like the old space gray

⏹️ ▶️ Marco ones yeah so I mean

⏹️ ▶️ John but mine have always been a case so anyway I’ve got some research to do and I got to go to the store the other thing I was thinking about

⏹️ ▶️ John two things in this topic one the jet black finish with it being grippier and everything,

⏹️ ▶️ John they can make that in colors. They could, you know, you can imagine if they keep this finish,

⏹️ ▶️ John right, if this becomes sort of like a signature finish of iPhones, maybe the super duper cool glass one,

⏹️ ▶️ John the back of all of them are that super glossy highly polished aluminum. It just so happens they

⏹️ ▶️ John don’t all come in black. Can you imagine, you know, Lifesavers colors like the old iMacs but with this

⏹️ ▶️ John super glossy thing? And by the way, this is a neat thing that we left out of the show, it’s the last time. Someone had noticed that the,

⏹️ ▶️ John what is it, like the wallpapers they give you with this weird blob of gel exactly matches the color of some

⏹️ ▶️ John of the Lifesaver iMacs plus the the original one, which I thought was neat.

⏹️ ▶️ John But I can imagine this finish, if it ends up being successful, being a signature of the iPhone going forward. But as

⏹️ ▶️ John I said to Marco on Twitter today when he was talking about what are the things that we’re gonna look back on about the iPhone 7

⏹️ ▶️ John and think, you know, those didn’t quite work out or those complaints were legit and he was saying the home button and a few other things, my suggestion

⏹️ ▶️ John was that probably the finish on the back of the iPhone 7 will

⏹️ ▶️ John not be an ongoing thing. Not the aesthetic look, but I feel like if they’re gonna

⏹️ ▶️ John make another version of that finish, if they decide to do that, they’ll work a little bit harder on the scratch thing, right? Like that I feel

⏹️ ▶️ John like this is not where they wanted it to get. They love how it looks, they had to put in a little warning about scratching. If they have the

⏹️ ▶️ John technology, say, like the 6s being slightly less, slightly less slippery than the 6, they could say, oh it’s got the same

⏹️ ▶️ John awesome finish that you love from the 7, but now it is more scratch resistant. Not perfect, you know, it’s not gonna be like the

⏹️ ▶️ John stainless steel DLC thing because that apparently is not a process that you can do with aluminum and they’re not gonna make it out of steel because the

⏹️ ▶️ John foam will weigh a ton. But I can imagine this shiny glossy finish

⏹️ ▶️ John being a thing because it looks cool, right? And if you could make it less scratchy, that would

⏹️ ▶️ John be cool. And if you could do it in different colors, that would also be cool. So I see potentially

⏹️ ▶️ John a future in that. Or this would just be like a one-off thing where this was the glossy black one and they go on to whatever they’ve already had in mind

⏹️ ▶️ John for the age. But anyway, I’m not any closer to decision. Gotta see the things in person. And hopefully

⏹️ ▶️ John by the time I get all the weird bugs with like the headphone connectors and everything will be worked out. So thanks for dealing with that, guys.

⏹️ ▶️ John They’ll also have the option for reduced motion and messages.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Right,

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco guys?

⏹️ ▶️ John Just on to our own schedule for that. Okay, go ahead.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco All right, so just a couple of minor follow ups to what you just said. First of all, your your

⏹️ ▶️ Marco potential option of by the jet black anyway, and just put it in a case and keep it pristine forever, it won’t actually

⏹️ ▶️ Marco work. Because first of all, As you mentioned, yeah, a little piece of grit might get back there or whatever and scratch it. I’m really careful.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, so am I. And I’ve had this phone for two days and it’s already scratches on it.

⏹️ ▶️ John It wasn’t in a case. It was never in a case.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And some of them are along the bottom edge where the speakers turn into

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John the back. I know

⏹️ ▶️ John I said the speaker, that I said the speaker grill would be poking out. I understood that

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco would be

⏹️ ▶️ John exposed.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco So yeah, I mean,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it’s just like, just handling this, having it in a pocket with lint in it. I mean, this thing,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like, I am very careful with my stuff. Most of my electronics that I own and use,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco after I’m done using them, look brand new. They look totally unused, they have no wear on them whatsoever.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco This phone I’ve had for two days and it already is scratched. So I will say, if you are the kind of person who thinks,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you know what, I can get a jet black and just be really careful with it, no, that’s not going to happen. So you

⏹️ ▶️ Marco really, you have to be okay with it scratching if you’re going to get it. But, and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if, like me, if you are so enamored by the feel of it that you don’t care,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco then it might be right for you. And I also would say, I do think that you are probably

⏹️ ▶️ Marco right, this is probably gonna be a one-off. I don’t expect this color to return in future years

⏹️ ▶️ Marco simply because I think it is probably very expensive and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco more complex for them to do. And also I think the way it ages is not going

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be received well. I think people are gonna look back on it kind of like the scratchy iPod Nanos and old classic

⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPods with the steel backs as like. be that

⏹️ ▶️ John bad because the scratchy-eye banana was on the front. That’s

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco true. So that was that was a problem. But

⏹️ ▶️ John yes, but like even if they can improve it because that’s the wild card like I said like I really don’t feel like they’re gonna

⏹️ ▶️ John do this exact back again but this aesthetic I think has legs right and so if they can improve

⏹️ ▶️ John the process somehow like come up with some super hard clear coat that resists scratching and

⏹️ ▶️ John doesn’t look like a disaster like ceramic I think as aesthetically it would be really nice I mean

⏹️ ▶️ John obviously it’s probably also expensive and you know so and so but can you imagine like if they had like bright candy

⏹️ ▶️ John colors under that kind of gloss, that’s a good looking phone.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, I mean, I would even say like a white one. What?

⏹️ ▶️ John Let’s not go crazy. White on the back and black on the front. There we go. Yeah. Business

⏹️ ▶️ John and front party in the back.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh my gosh. If they had like a white glossy finish, I don’t know much about, I don’t

⏹️ ▶️ Marco know anything about this process. I don’t know whether it’s possible to do it in different colors or whether this can only be done

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in black because of some component that’s used in it. But if it could be done, If the same finish could be done

⏹️ ▶️ Marco in white, I bet the scratches would be very hard to see.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey So you heard it here first, kids. John Syracuse would like a mullet phone.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Would

⏹️ ▶️ John like, I was just identifying as the thing that could be made. I’m just messing

⏹️ ▶️ Casey around. The home button, hashtag Mike was wrong. The correct

⏹️ ▶️ Casey setting is the middle setting. Additionally, I hated,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey hated this home button for six hours, and now I freaking love it.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Um,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t know why I love it to be completely honest with you,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey but it just feels so much more crisp than the home button on my

⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPad or even my success, which I still have for, for at least a little while I grab the

⏹️ ▶️ Casey iPad, or if I just pick up the success for whatever reason, those feel just positively.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Mushy by comparison. And I don’t care for it all at all.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I feel like double clicking, for lack of a better word, the home button to

⏹️ ▶️ Casey bring up multitasking, I feel like I can do it quicker and it’s more reliable

⏹️ ▶️ Casey on the new phone. I have guided access enabled,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey so if I really need a break for a minute if Declan’s in the car

⏹️ ▶️ Casey or something like that because he hates the car, and I wanna give him like Plex to look at and look at

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Daniel Tiger or Sesame Street or what have you, I’ve got it access ready and waiting to be enabled

⏹️ ▶️ Casey so he doesn’t navigate away from the app I want him to use. So a

⏹️ ▶️ Casey triple tap oftentimes, or a triple click, I would oftentimes fire that accidentally. No,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey maybe not often, but definitely regularly fire a triple click by

⏹️ ▶️ Casey accident with physical home buttons. I’ve yet to do that on this one. And you know what, as stupid

⏹️ ▶️ Casey as it sounds, and I’ll be the first to say it’s stupid, I just kind of like being on the home screen and

⏹️ ▶️ Casey mashing away at this home button feeling the Taptic Engine. I really think it feels better and crisper.

⏹️ ▶️ John You’ve got an $850 fidget cube. I do. It’s great. I love this

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey thing.

⏹️ ▶️ John Click on your pen caps and your home

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey button.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yep, that’s right. No, I really do love this thing. I think one is too gentle. I think three

⏹️ ▶️ Casey is just overbearing. I think two is just right. It was weird at first because

⏹️ ▶️ Casey it is very clearly not the same feel as

⏹️ ▶️ Casey a physical button. As many people have said, particularly those who had review units, it’s not the same

⏹️ ▶️ Casey as the trackpad, which despite what Marco believes does feel like an actual click. It is,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey you cannot discern the difference unless you’re

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Marco Armani. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I never said the Force Touch trackpad

⏹️ ▶️ Marco doesn’t feel like a click. I said it feels like a bad button and the

⏹️ ▶️ John old one was a good button. And you can totally tell, and you can totally tell the difference. Don’t tell me you can’t tell. It’s a, yeah, it’s a

⏹️ ▶️ Marco pretty, it’s a pretty apparent difference. The force touch might be good enough for lots of people, but that doesn’t mean it’s not

⏹️ ▶️ Marco worse.

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, it’s definitely much more convincing than the reports say, because you, if like you said last time, if you didn’t tell

⏹️ ▶️ John someone, especially someone who’s not a marker, that this wasn’t a button, they wouldn’t figure it out. But once you tell them, they’re

⏹️ ▶️ John like, oh yeah, I can see that. And like I said, the trackpad does move. I wonder if the home button moves. Has anyone gone

⏹️ ▶️ John in macro on that and see does the home button move? Because the trackpad moves just because it’s a big thing and it flexes, but I wonder if the home button

⏹️ ▶️ John moves at all. I don’t think it does.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And I will say too, like, I actually find the Force Touch Home button on the 7 less

⏹️ ▶️ Marco crappy than the Force Touch trackpads. I actually, I think,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco give me another couple days, I’ll probably even like this. However, I’ve been using a Force Touch

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Magic Trackpad for a while now, and I still don’t like its click. Like, the Force Touch on the trackpads, I think,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco stays mediocre. But the one on the phone, I think you get used to pretty fast.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, I just, I really don’t mind, and in fact, like the trackpad. But be that as it may, really like the home button,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey setting number two is the right setting. The best way to describe it, which I’m stealing from

⏹️ ▶️ Casey either Panzerino or Snell or somebody, is that it feels like the whole bottom of the phone, not

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that it’s being depressed, but it’s the whole bottom of the phone that’s reacting. And that’s

⏹️ ▶️ Casey very unnatural as compared to a physical button. And that’s why I think I hated it so

⏹️ ▶️ Casey much at first, because it’s as though the whole bottom of the phone is

⏹️ ▶️ Casey not really depressing, but like I said a second ago, reacting. But I’ve come to

⏹️ ▶️ Casey really like it, and it almost feels more obvious, even at setting two,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that yes, I have engaged the home button. So I freaking love this thing. The one downside

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I found, which I almost never run into, but it is striking, the

⏹️ ▶️ Casey difference, is if you have the phone sitting on, say, a table or something like that, and then

⏹️ ▶️ Casey press the home button, it feels very, very weird. either

⏹️ ▶️ Casey you don’t feel it at all, or, this is particularly on like a hard surface, so

⏹️ ▶️ Casey like I have a glass desk, so putting it on my mouse pad, which I have to use like an animal,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that feels about the same, but on the glass, you can barely feel the darn thing moving at all,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco which

⏹️ ▶️ Casey is super, super weird, and I don’t care for that at all, but it’s so rare

⏹️ ▶️ Casey that I have the thing sitting on a flat surface like that and pressing the home button that that doesn’t really bother me,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey but that is something worth noting, And as a friend of the show, Mike Hurley had also noted,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey the ring that kind of enables touch ID is the same thing that enables

⏹️ ▶️ Casey listening, for lack of a better word, that you’re pressing the home button. So if you don’t have the right kind of capacitive

⏹️ ▶️ Casey gloves, or if you like put your shirt between your thumb and the home button, you can no longer tap

⏹️ ▶️ Casey or press the home button, which to me isn’t a problem at all, but it is very peculiar.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey And it makes you realize that this is all just software and hardware

⏹️ ▶️ Marco trickery. Yeah, I actually hit this like in the, like I have next to my bed, I have an

⏹️ ▶️ Marco iPhone dock, and I’ve gotten in the habit of like, when I wake up in the morning to check the time, I will just like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco kind of push my pinky into the home button to just make sure it doesn’t unlock the whole phone and everything. I just want to see the clock on the phone.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And so now I kind of can’t, it doesn’t work very well anymore because I’ve gotten in the habit

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of only pushing this little tiny bit of the home button with my pinky, and you know, you kind of have to activate that Touch

⏹️ ▶️ Marco ID ring to make it work at all now.

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, a mechanical clock next to your bed, as you looked over it would tell you the time.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey No, but it wouldn’t be lit up. Whereas the Apple Watch, when it’s close to the time you’re supposed to wake up, automatically

⏹️ ▶️ Casey lights up for you. It’s

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John the future.

⏹️ ▶️ John Radiation can solve that problem.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Our final sponsor tonight is Pingdom. You can start monitoring your websites and servers today.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco at pingdom.com slash ATP. And when you enter code ATP at checkout, you get 20%

⏹️ ▶️ Marco off your first invoice. Pingdom is also an amazing service that I use. And again, nobody can pay

⏹️ ▶️ Marco me to say that, but I’m saying it. Pingdom is great. I’ve been a Pingdom customer since like, I think 2008 or something. It’s

⏹️ ▶️ Marco been a really long time. So Pingdom is a monitoring service for your web services, other

⏹️ ▶️ Marco people’s web services. You don’t even have to, you can point at anybody’s web services, yours or anyone else’s.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Obviously most frequently used for monitoring your own stuff to let you know when things are down or where things aren’t doing what they’re supposed

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to be doing. So Pingdom makes web faster and more reliable for everyone by offering powerful easy

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to use monitoring tools and services for anybody with a website. You can for example monitor availability and performance

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of your servers, your databases, your website from more than 70 global test servers. You can tell

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like if one country can’t access your site Pingdom will tell you that. Pingdom can emulate visits

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to your site checking for its availability as often as every minute if you want to. So developers

⏹️ ▶️ Marco know No, there can be so many things going wrong with your websites today. There’s often lots of complex things.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Maybe one part of the site might work, but this other part can be down. You can have Pingdom monitor all this stuff.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco You can have it do key interactions. You can do contact forms. You can do checkouts with e-commerce. You

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⏹️ ▶️ Marco a URL to monitor and optional conditions to check for. Or you can just have it check if it’s up.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco And when they find an outage, you are immediately alerted so you can fix the problem before it becomes

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a much bigger and more costly outage. You should not be learning that your site is down from people on

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iPhone 7 speakers, AirPods

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Thank you very much to Pingdom for sponsoring our show.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Speakers. The speakers on the new phones are indeed louder. They are in stereo,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey which I haven’t watched very much on my new phone in terms of video or what have you,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey but I have had it playing some podcasts from time to time. And oh man, these

⏹️ ▶️ Casey speakers are so much louder and I love it. Have you used yours much, Marco?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a ton, but I have used them and tested them here and there, and yeah, it’s better. I

⏹️ ▶️ Marco wouldn’t say it’s like twice as loud perceptually, and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco maybe in certain conditions it might be, that their claim of it being twice as loud might have been like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a decibel level measurement, where it can be funky. Anyway,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco it is definitely noticeably louder and of better quality, and that’s what’s important.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I’m pleasantly surprised that, like I thought, because the speaker, there isn’t one that fires

⏹️ ▶️ Marco out the top edge, it’s just the earpiece that speaks during phone

⏹️ ▶️ Marco calls. That thing is now just loud enough to be a speaker.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John And so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco you have that one firing straight ahead, and then you have the one on the bottom where it’s always been firing

⏹️ ▶️ Marco kind of down, like, you know, away from the phone. So these are firing at two different

⏹️ ▶️ Marco angles. And so I thought it would sound weird, but it doesn’t really. It

⏹️ ▶️ Marco just sounds like the whole phone is making one loud sound output, which is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco exactly what you want. So I’m actually very pleasantly surprised by it.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I expected it to be useful from a utility point of view of just getting more sound out of the phone,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco but it actually is better quality than I expected.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Yeah, completely agree. Two thumbs up. The AirPods, obviously

⏹️ ▶️ Casey none of us have them yet. When they were first announced, I thought, eh, I

⏹️ ▶️ Casey mean, that’s clever, looks cool, but eh. But a few different things

⏹️ ▶️ Casey have happened over the last few days that have made me think, you know, I think I do want those,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and very much in the watch style. First of all, I’ve been using the Lightning earbuds from

⏹️ ▶️ Casey time to time, and I really think that

⏹️ ▶️ Casey having the cables come off of them really does pull on them enough to

⏹️ ▶️ Casey try to pull them out of my ears. And I really think not having the weight of the cables would make a huge difference.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Additionally, there’s been a handful of times that I’ve, or even perhaps most of the time, I’ve only had

⏹️ ▶️ Casey one of the earbuds in because I wanna be able to hear Declan or maybe

⏹️ ▶️ Casey he’s asleep and Aaron’s out and I just need to make sure that I can hear the monitor or what have you.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey For whatever reason, I’ve only had one in and not having

⏹️ ▶️ Casey the phone or perhaps it’s the earbuds, whatever, force mono

⏹️ ▶️ Casey when only one of them is in. I can’t say I’ve noticed it, but I can just think to myself, man, it would be nice if I

⏹️ ▶️ Casey knew that everything that I could hear, I was hearing through just one of the AirPods. And

⏹️ ▶️ Casey additionally, there’s been a handful of times when I’ll go for a walk with Declan where it would be kind of nice

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to be able to just not have wires or maybe even leave my phone at home and just

⏹️ ▶️ Casey use my watch and have these things just magically transfer from the phone

⏹️ ▶️ Casey to the watch would be really nice. So at first I thought, yeah, I don’t want any, I don’t really have any

⏹️ ▶️ Casey interest in the AirPods, but within just a few days, I’ve convinced myself that’s going on the Christmas and Hanukkah list this year.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Even if the sound quality ends up being not meaningfully better than the regular

⏹️ ▶️ Marco earpods, the wired ones, which means not very good, I think a lot of people are going to buy

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and use these things and like them just for the utility factor. I mean, that’s the thing with Bluetooth

⏹️ ▶️ Marco audio. Like in many ways, as we’ve discussed, as in many ways, Bluetooth headphones are

⏹️ ▶️ Marco worse than wired headphones or at least more complicated, you know, at best, but it really

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a lot more convenient in a number of big ways in practice. And that’s why, like, you know, that’s why

⏹️ ▶️ Marco my walking headphones are these terrible sounding little tiny, relatively inexpensive

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Sennheiser Bluetooth ones, because I’m listening to podcasts or the quality doesn’t matter very much. And it’s

⏹️ ▶️ Marco just so much more convenient with Bluetooth headphones that have no wire and have nice

⏹️ ▶️ Marco big button controls on the earcup. And so I think people are going to feel similarly about the AirPods,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco where if you really want like big thump and bass and everything for music, you’re probably going

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to go with Beats or some other headphone that’s more for that purpose and tuned for that.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But if you just want basically headphones as a utilitarian object

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that are primarily serving a functional role for you and you don’t really care as much

⏹️ ▶️ Marco about the quality, I think they’re going to be really great again. My only my only reservation about them is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco how inconvenient will it really be in practice to not have a lot of remote control options to

⏹️ ▶️ Marco not have the volume control to not have the seek buttons you know and in practice

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think most people won’t care because most people could only ever use the volume

⏹️ ▶️ Marco control and play pause most people didn’t never even knew that you could like you know double click

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or triple click or click and hold that middle button to do other things like the seeking and stuff.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that might end up not mattering at all to most buyers of it, but

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to geeks like us, I think people who were aware of the remote control gestures, I think it’s going to be a notable omission.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But otherwise, they do seem like they’re going to be pretty compelling. And I might get a pair just as I said, just to see,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco can I get away with this? Because there are situations where I would probably want those.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco My walking Bluetooth headphones, I can’t put those in my pocket. They don’t fit in pockets, but these,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can put them in their little case, which I think their case does fit in pockets. It’s a little thick, but it does fit,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco right? Isn’t it like a dental floss size, roughly?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Yeah, roughly. It looks

⏹️ ▶️ John like a Tic Tacs or something. It’s definitely pocketable.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So there are lots of occasions where I would like to have headphones with me, but I don’t have

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a pocket to devote to them. So I would love to have these for those kind of situations

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if I can wear them without pain. So time will tell on that front, but

⏹️ ▶️ Marco they are probably going to be very practical and very compelling in real world

⏹️ ▶️ Marco use. So

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John we’re gonna do some

⏹️ ▶️ John ear spreaders so you can start preparing. Wow. Wow. That’s

⏹️ ▶️ John the problem, right? Your ears are too small, they don’t fit in there?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Honestly, I don’t know what the problem is. They seem, I think my ears are not too

⏹️ ▶️ Marco small, but just don’t have exactly the right type of shape for them to sit properly. I don’t know, I don’t know what the problem

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is. Whatever the problem is, they don’t sit very well in there and it hurts.

⏹️ ▶️ John What are those things they call that you put in shoes? Shoe trees?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, the things that hold them open?

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, you need ear trees. Wow. Ear trees shaped like ear pods.

⏹️ ▶️ John That’s Apple’s next big product. The world will conform to our ear pods. We measured a thousand ears.

⏹️ ▶️ John Get in line.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, couldn’t you just take the wired ones that come in the box for free and just shove those in there all the time? I don’t know. It’s

⏹️ ▶️ John still open for debate whether they’re exactly the same shape as the wireless ones.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John Goodness.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco All right, well, I believe that’s it for today, right? I think so. All right, thank you very much to our

⏹️ ▶️ Marco three sponsors, Betterment, Linode, and Pingdom. we will see you next week!

Ending theme

⏹️ ▶️ John Now the show is over, they didn’t even

⏹️ ▶️ Casey mean to begin, Cause it was accidental, oh it was accidental.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey John didn’t do any research, Marco

⏹️ ▶️ John and Casey wouldn’t let him, Cause it was accidental,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey oh it was accidental. And you can

⏹️ ▶️ John find the show notes at ATP.FM And if you’re

⏹️ ▶️ John into Twitter, you can

⏹️ ▶️ Marco follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So that’s Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and T. Marco Armin,

⏹️ ▶️ John S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-Q-U-S-A It’s

⏹️ ▶️ John accidental, they didn’t mean to Accidental,

⏹️ ▶️ John check the podcast so long

Post-show: Custom IEMs

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Raffola, I have been barking up this tree so many times

⏹️ ▶️ Casey and Marco refuses to listen.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Oh, IEMs? Yes, I know. Yeah, no, like there was one time where like in 2006

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or so, I did try one of the like entry-level, I think it might

⏹️ ▶️ Marco have been one of the sure ones or Edemonic, I forget which one I did, but I did try like an entry-level

⏹️ ▶️ Marco IEM with like a few different various tips on it and I had to return it. I could not, even

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that, it hurt. I couldn’t wear it. The custom

⏹️ ▶️ John mold one is the

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco one I was pitching you on. Let me

⏹️ ▶️ John pour some goop into your ear.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco But

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I feel like the custom mold, first of all, I think the cheapest custom molded ones are like $700-ish,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like somewhere in that price range.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Oh yeah, for you, that’s so damn expensive, mister. I spend gazillions of dollars on headphones on

⏹️ ▶️ Casey a daily basis.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But to spend $700 on something that I will almost certainly not be able to use and that

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I can’t return or resell, that is

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey not a great sell.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I understand where you’re coming from, which is why I’m only going to slightly beat you up. But

⏹️ ▶️ Casey the whole point of custom-poured IEMs is that they are built for Marco

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Armand. They are perfect for Marco Armand because they literally put goop in your ears to make

⏹️ ▶️ Casey a mold

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco of your ears. Oh,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I know, I know. Like, this is, it is by design, by definition, perfect.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey That is the whole point.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco But what if the problem isn’t the shape? What if the problem is my ear is too sensitive there, or whatever?

⏹️ ▶️ John The problem is he doesn’t like crap in his ears. It’s like, they’re perfect. If you want something that perfectly wedges itself in

⏹️ ▶️ John your ear canal, this will perfectly fit in your ear canal. It’s like, no, I don’t want something filling up my ear canal. I

⏹️ ▶️ John want there to be air in my ear canal, and maybe a little bit of wax and some Harriscus mold.

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, like, I

⏹️ ▶️ Marco find, I mean, people who love and can use IEMs more power to you,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I find them a little gross, and I also, the amount of isolation

⏹️ ▶️ Marco they provide is not usually something I want. Like if I’m out walking. That’s actually, that’s a fair point. I don’t want

⏹️ ▶️ Marco full isolation. Like my little stupid Sennheiser ones are these relatively small

⏹️ ▶️ Marco on-ear headphones. So they are closed back, but there’s not much sealing that’s actually happening.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So I’m not very isolated from the world. So I can hear things like traffic, which is pretty important when I’m walking.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So, especially because, you know, I’m often walking in the street with my dog. So, you know, to be able to hear

⏹️ ▶️ Marco cars coming is fairly important.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey See that I have no argument for but the oh I don’t think it’ll feel good Oh, just go try it Just

⏹️ ▶️ Casey so I don’t have to complain and moan at you for the rest

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, John of

⏹️ ▶️ John you want to pitch him you want to get him to use these things you got to go to the audio file angle and say people say that the real

⏹️ ▶️ John best sounding earphones are the Ones that jam themselves up inside your ear like little eels That’s the way

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco to go for it

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Again, I’ve never I’ve never you know benefited from this But people do say that I EMS

⏹️ ▶️ Marco are really amazing and like the quality you can get out of a good pair of IEMs is really something. So that’s

⏹️ ▶️ John what’s gonna bring you over the edge eventually if anything ever does. It’s not going to be the idea that you know

⏹️ ▶️ John that it’ll be better than the Bluetooth ones you’re using.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Yeah. And

⏹️ ▶️ John I’m I’m predicting now that I think you’ll switch to the ear pods if they in any way manage to stay in your ears. If they don’t

⏹️ ▶️ John obviously then whatever you’ll just give them the TIFF. But because I feel like they’re just gonna be so much more convenient than those big like

⏹️ ▶️ John my I’m one of those people who would feel weird walking around outside walking the dog with big

⏹️ ▶️ John headphones on. I know yours aren’t big.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco They’re not big.

⏹️ ▶️ John They’re bigger than ear pods put it that way right some somehow in my world I feel okay with earbuds going on a walk

⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t feel okay with the thing that goes over my head anyway I think once you you know use the ear pod honestly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I find ear pods I think I hear pods look a little bit dumb like I

⏹️ ▶️ John do they’re a little dumb I will grant you but but they’re certainly less conspicuous and from a distance

⏹️ ▶️ John than the big thing on your ears yeah and I think probably you’ll be able to hear more with the ear pod there’s

⏹️ ▶️ John someone who wears ear pods every day when walking around and stuff I think they don’t do much noise

⏹️ ▶️ John isolation at all Like I think you’ll be able to hear more traffic which I think is a good thing because you really shouldn’t be Walking

⏹️ ▶️ John around on roads with earphones on

⏹️ ▶️ Marco no I actually would I would actually want that

⏹️ ▶️ John or just or just do one ear and if you’re just doing podcast just do one ear And listen to mono something you can’t do with a headset,

⏹️ ▶️ John right?

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I do it all the time take one off and just stick it next to my ear on my head You know like put

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John it forward

⏹️ ▶️ John even more ridiculous. It’s still on your head still squish anyway one ear pod and a dog is all

⏹️ ▶️ John you need

Neutral: Apple/McLaren

⏹️ ▶️ Casey So earlier today, there was a rumor that Apple was in talks to

⏹️ ▶️ Casey buy McLaren, who makes supercars and many, many other things,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey works on an F1 team or is an F1 team, whatever.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey, Marco Strollers.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Strollers.

⏹️ ▶️ John Different company, right? Yeah, it’s a different company.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey They were going to buy McLaren, then they were going to make a strategic investment in McLaren, and

⏹️ ▶️ Casey then, no, they’re definitely not looking at McLaren. No, they’re not. No, nobody’s looking at us. Leave us alone. So

⏹️ ▶️ Casey what do we think about this? Is this a thing? It doesn’t sound like this is a thing, but if it was a thing,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey then certainly both companies would be saying, oh, no, that’s not a thing.

⏹️ ▶️ John Well, this is a McLaren spokesperson official comment. Obviously, Apple’s not commenting. All right. Well, sometimes they do on these things

⏹️ ▶️ John to deny them. But the McLaren says, we can confirm that McLaren is not in discussions with Apple

⏹️ ▶️ John in in respect of any potential investment. I don’t know who this heck says in respect of. It’s probably some weird

⏹️ ▶️ John Britishism. But anyway, in respect of any potential investment, that doesn’t rule out

⏹️ ▶️ John them buying them outright. just an investment. So all they have denied is the investment. They didn’t even bother to deny

⏹️ ▶️ John buying them outright. So I feel like this is a bad job from corporate PR. If you’re going to do the thing where

⏹️ ▶️ John you just deny everything, whether it’s true or not, but either way, obviously it seemed like the goal of the PR was no,

⏹️ ▶️ John no, no, no, no. Forget everything you heard. That’s all BS, which is fine. Go ahead and do that. And then, you know, three

⏹️ ▶️ John weeks later it can turn out to be different. Either way, you have to deny everything. You can’t issue a denial that you forget to deny

⏹️ ▶️ John one of the possibilities because now I can’t help but read that and say, oh, so I guess they’re not investing in you. They bought you out. But

⏹️ ▶️ John anyway, setting that aside the corporate PR speak, my question in all this is of all the car companies

⏹️ ▶️ John in the world that Apple is going to buy, does it make sense that they would buy

⏹️ ▶️ John McLaren? Obviously Tesla doesn’t want them because they’re mad at each other and whatever, right? Because we’ve talked about

⏹️ ▶️ John that deal in the past, like that they would be a good fit, but that Musk doesn’t want to do it and

⏹️ ▶️ John you know, whatever. They have some bad blood there that marriage doesn’t seem like it’s going to happen, although

⏹️ ▶️ John it totally make sense strategically for both companies of Apple once again to cars but McLaren

⏹️ ▶️ John but like tell me the synergies

⏹️ ▶️ Marco yeah I don’t I mean I don’t know anything about McLaren but

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I I thought the same thing of like you know if Apple is really making a car

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and if they really are you know if it’s what we expect it to be which would be

⏹️ ▶️ Marco most likely only electric cars most likely for the

⏹️ ▶️ Marco mass market starting at the high end probably first and then coming down you know over time as they could

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, Casey similar to what

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John Tesla is doing.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco It seems like and that’s why like if you’re thinking about like would Apple buy another car company

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if they wanted to get into the car business it seems like yeah Tesla’s the obvious one to buy because it seems

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like whatever Apple would do in the car business would be very close to what Tesla is already doing in the car business

⏹️ ▶️ Marco and and there would just be like lots of duplicated effort for Apple to reach where Tesla already is.

⏹️ ▶️ John Or the other angle is the thing that neither Tesla nor Apple are good at. Tesla is a newish

⏹️ ▶️ John car company. They haven’t been building cars for very long. Their original cars are based on Lotus things, and Apple

⏹️ ▶️ John has never built a car. One of the other investment or

⏹️ ▶️ John strategic partnership or purchase things you can do is find a company that has been building cars forever

⏹️ ▶️ John and kind of knows how to do that in the way that it has been done in the past. a company with car manufacturing

⏹️ ▶️ John experience, mass car manufacturing experience. Tesla doesn’t have that and Apple doesn’t have that. So you could also say,

⏹️ ▶️ John oh, maybe they go with like a Honda or something because it’s like, oh, or Toyota or BMW. We keep hearing

⏹️ ▶️ John them talking to BMW about things and those companies that do that, you know, whatever that company is called, Magnus

⏹️ ▶️ John Deere or whatever that does like the, you know, the subcontractor for BMW. Those kinds of deals

⏹️ ▶️ John make sense to me because it’s complimentary. Apple’s bringing one thing, but they don’t know how the hell to make a car. In that respect,

⏹️ ▶️ John Tesla doesn’t really know how the hell to make a car either. They’re just kind of figuring out as they go along. They’re doing a good job, but

⏹️ ▶️ John they don’t have the years and years of experience in terms of like the Toyota assembly line and mass market things.

⏹️ ▶️ John McLaren does not make a lot of cars. Let’s be honest. They don’t know how to make thousands and thousands

⏹️ ▶️ John and thousands of cars. Yes. The only synergy I see is McLaren has that Apple aesthetic

⏹️ ▶️ John where everything is beautiful and clean and super expensive and the pictures of their factory are amazing.

⏹️ ▶️ John And did you see that? What is that Netflix thing? It’s

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey some

⏹️ ▶️ John supercar thing, Apex, the story of the supercar or something. It’s on Netflix. It’s a documentary.

⏹️ ▶️ John It’s so-so. But you get to see a lot of shots of the inside of the factories of these various car makers,

⏹️ ▶️ John less so Ferrari, because I have a feeling Ferrari didn’t want to participate in this at all, which is kind of a shame, but you can kind of tell we

⏹️ ▶️ John couldn’t get much access to Ferrari. Anyway, everything looks beautiful. The McLaren car factory

⏹️ ▶️ John looks like you would imagine an Apple car factory would look, but guess what? They’re building supercars there.

⏹️ ▶️ John They’re building cars that cost hundreds of 1000s of dollars. That is not

⏹️ ▶️ John what the tree that Apple is barking up. And by the way, they also have an f1 team and they all do a bunch of other stuff that is

⏹️ ▶️ John not really have any particular synergy with Apple. Maybe Apple might someday make a car or something related to cars.

⏹️ ▶️ John Is Apple going to get into f1? Now I feel like we’re reaching.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, that’s the thing. I mean, like, if Apple were to buy or strategically invest a lot in

⏹️ ▶️ Marco another car company, I would I would expect it to be somebody who makes a lot

⏹️ ▶️ Marco of cars or who already has the kind of car in development or the kind of skills

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that Apple would be using for things like electric cars. McLaren seems to have neither of those. You know, it’s a very different

⏹️ ▶️ Marco kind of company. If I had to put forth, you know, a company that maybe might

⏹️ ▶️ Marco be it, I’d say maybe Nissan because they have the Leaf project that

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John actually… Oh

⏹️ ▶️ John please, you’re killing me here.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco No, but look, Nissan is a

⏹️ ▶️ Marco company that needs a lot of design help, let’s be honest.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John They need a

⏹️ ▶️ John lot of help in in every area of making cars at this point. They are really lost their way lately.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Yeah, but mostly in design choices. What they do have is a successful

⏹️ ▶️ Marco electric car that is already, like they already have a lot of the stuff required to do that.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco They have a massive network of factories, showrooms, dealers, service centers,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco parts. Like they have all the stuff that is hard, and they can make lots of cars at reasonable prices.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So like these are all the challenges of like doing a new car company, especially a new consumer

⏹️ ▶️ Marco focused car company that’s going to try to sell lots of cars. So a company, maybe not exactly

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Nissan, but a company like Nissan would make way more sense to invest in or partner with or to just

⏹️ ▶️ Marco outright buy if that was possible. That would make way more sense if

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple wants to do what we think they’re trying to do than McLaren. Please

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple, don’t buy Nissan. Please. Please of all the car companies. I mean, I would say you’d be better off buying GM than

⏹️ ▶️ John Nissan. That’s how bad I think it is. That’s a lot.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I would say in Matt Drance put this idea in my head. What about Lotus?

⏹️ ▶️ John But what do they have?

⏹️ ▶️ Casey They have design aesthetically and chassis design for sure.

⏹️ ▶️ John Well, Apple doesn’t need the aesthetic part of it. The chassis design, sure, but the chassis design for

⏹️ ▶️ John sort of these beautiful, extremely low volume racing cars that Apple is not

⏹️ ▶️ John making and the Lotus cars are lightweight and don’t have giant battery packs in them.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey Uh, except,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, the Tesla Roadster was effectively a Lotus Elise, wasn’t it? I

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey mean,

⏹️ ▶️ John but Lotus didn’t put that battery in there.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco Elon Musk

⏹️ ▶️ John behind the back seat.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Well, the thing is, like, you can look at what Tesla has done in a relatively short time and Apple.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco There’s no reason why Apple couldn’t do the same kinds of things. So like the basics of just like

⏹️ ▶️ Marco making an electric car, getting it, you know, designed, built, certified,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco safe on the road and getting it into people’s hands is getting a sales network going, getting a charging network

⏹️ ▶️ Marco going if they’re not going to use standards, all that stuff. Tesla did it, so

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple could do it too, plausibly. Tesla did it in a relatively short time, relative to people like Nissan,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a relatively short time with a lot of budget constraints and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco a lot of trying to prove the idea first to people and trying to get people to even

⏹️ ▶️ Marco consider an all-electric car, and especially a very expensive one.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco had had to do all of themselves and they did so Apple could like there’s nothing stopping out from doing it

⏹️ ▶️ Marco where Apple would need help is in the more mass market stuff so like yeah they can make their

⏹️ ▶️ Marco own chassis they don’t they don’t need someone else to make a chassis if they if they feel like it they don’t need someone else

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to to do design whatever McLaren’s designing Apple would have their own opinions and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco that you know it’s it’s almost like like if you’re buying a house

⏹️ ▶️ Marco if you’re looking at houses to buy and you walk in to one and and there’s this

⏹️ ▶️ Marco two-year-old, so nearly brand new kitchen. And it’s

⏹️ ▶️ Marco all designed the wrong way. But you’re just like, man, it would be really wasteful

⏹️ ▶️ Marco to buy this place and to hate this kitchen, even, because it’s brand new. And what

⏹️ ▶️ Marco are you gonna do? Remodel a brand new place? That’s incredibly wasteful. That’s bad.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think McLaren being involved in the design of the Apple Car would have a similar thing. You have an already established,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco highly opinionated design company here that would conflict with whatever Apple would want its design to be.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So you don’t want like two very opinionated people on the same thing fighting for

⏹️ ▶️ Marco power. That’s the same problem. That’s the whole reason why Apple probably will never buy Tesla because like Elon

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Musk would not let that happen because he doesn’t want to have Apple come in and tell him what to do. He

⏹️ ▶️ Marco wants to do things his way because he, you know, he’s running the show and he’s done pretty well so far all things considered.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So like he doesn’t Apple company and tell them what to do. So if Apple’s going to

⏹️ ▶️ Marco buy or substantially partner with another company, it’s going to have to be the kind of relationship where

⏹️ ▶️ Marco the other company will do the stuff Apple sees as boring, maybe beneath them,

⏹️ ▶️ Marco or just really uninteresting. And Apple will do the stuff that Apple likes to do. So

⏹️ ▶️ Marco software, UI, design.

⏹️ ▶️ John So the other thing that’s related to this is this other story from, you know, like 10 days ago

⏹️ ▶️ John so ago about the rumor that Apple has changed the focus of their car project

⏹️ ▶️ John shifting from an emphasis on designing and producing an automobile to building out the underlying technology for

⏹️ ▶️ John an autonomous vehicle. That’s a quote from this story that we’ll link that was in the New York Times actually.

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco So

⏹️ ▶️ John, Casey yeah it’s

⏹️ ▶️ John like hey we’re not building a car anymore instead we are whatever the hell building

⏹️ ▶️ John out the underlying technology for an autonomous vehicle. It makes it sound like they’re making like self-driving software

⏹️ ▶️ John but you can’t really do that without a target car. So I’m not quite sure. I mean, this is kind of the

⏹️ ▶️ John trickle out of the rumor that we had been hearing for many months about, oh, the project Titan, the car project,

⏹️ ▶️ John has had this big reorg and big Bob Mansfield has come in and reshuffled things.

⏹️ ▶️ John And so that seems like a thing that’s happening. But a big reorg and a reshuffling, we don’t know the details.

⏹️ ▶️ John And so this is the first trying to pin that down and say, oh, what really happened is they’re shifting their

⏹️ ▶️ John emphasis from designing and producing a car. You don’t really shift that. It’s like either you’re making a car or you’re not making

⏹️ ▶️ John a car. You can’t accidentally make a car. Like, you know, that’s a pretty big shift. It’s like, so are

⏹️ ▶️ John we going to manufacture, build and sell a metal thing with wheels, or are we not? Or are we

⏹️ ▶️ John just gonna work on like software and, so I don’t know. I don’t know what the hell’s going on over there. All I know is this project’s

⏹️ ▶️ John spent a lot of money and we’ve talked about it for a long time and there’s still no car, so chop chop Apple. You got

⏹️ ▶️ John maybe three more years to show something for this.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I mean, from these stories coming out too, it sounds like there’s still, everything’s still in a lot of flux.

⏹️ ▶️ Marco So it sounds like whatever Apple is doing is probably not imminent.

⏹️ ▶️ John Oh no, we always expect it like 2020, but at this point I feel like you have to decide, if you haven’t decided whether you’re building a car

⏹️ ▶️ John yet, I don’t see you having a car to sell in 2020. Like it takes a long time for these things. So I don’t know

⏹️ ▶️ John what’s

⏹️ ▶️ John, Marco going on here. Yeah, if you’re

⏹️ ▶️ Marco like restructuring the place and laying off a bunch of people like now, in late 2016, that doesn’t bode well

⏹️ ▶️ Marco for a 2020 launch date of a brand new car. A car

⏹️ ▶️ Marco is a lot harder to ship than other things. Like, there’s a lot involved here.

⏹️ ▶️ John Yeah, and I can imagine them partnering, like bringing McLaren back in. Like, it’s not, because the aesthetics

⏹️ ▶️ John are so similar and because you can imagine them starting with something expensive, it wouldn’t be ridiculous for them to

⏹️ ▶️ John partner. McLaren would help them manufacture this electric car that’s like

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple and McLaren co-branded, high-end, like Apple’s version of the Tesla Roadster that’s like,

⏹️ ▶️ John I don’t know. I feel like that would just be a weird thing to do, but there are synergies here. Car companies do stuff with

⏹️ ▶️ John each other all the time. Everyone’s using Toyota’s hybrid systems. Volvo is reselling its self-driving stuff.

⏹️ ▶️ John People are using transmissions from all the entire fleet of part sellers like ZF and everything

⏹️ ▶️ John that supply parts to the entire industry. Like in the car world, it’s not as if there are these islands that

⏹️ ▶️ John make cars. So I think anybody, BMW, all these rumors you’ve heard, Apple’s been talking to BMW forever, would totally be willing

⏹️ ▶️ John to partner with Apple in any kind of thing that they wanna do related to cars. I just keep pointing back to Apple, deciding

⏹️ ▶️ John Apple, what do you wanna do? Because there’s lots of car companies that will partner with you in various ways. There’s probably

⏹️ ▶️ John car companies that would let you buy them, probably including Nissan. Cause you know, I don’t think McLaren

⏹️ ▶️ John would let them buy them because I don’t think McLaren’s hurting for money at this point. But there are so many possibilities.

⏹️ ▶️ John Albatross needs to decide what it is they want to do because it’s fine to waffle in secrecy,

⏹️ ▶️ John but at this point the car project is practically an open secret. Even Tim Cook can’t help but like

⏹️ ▶️ John hinting at it. And if you have nothing to show for that five years from now like that in one respect, we’re like, it’s good

⏹️ ▶️ John that Apple didn’t ship something crappy, but in other respect, that’s a hell of a boondoggle. Like it’s fine to have projects

⏹️ ▶️ John and then cancel them when they don’t work out, but allowing a project that’s consuming this much money to go on for

⏹️ ▶️ John five or 10 years, it’s like a certain point it’s, I’m not gonna, you know, sunk cost fallacy

⏹️ ▶️ John is making you not want to cancel it and canceling it may still be the right thing to do, but canceling it five

⏹️ ▶️ John years earlier would have been the righter thing to do.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey So to go back a step, when we were discussing who could Apple buy, if that was the answer.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey Let me throw a really, really peculiar idea at you. What about BMW? Because

⏹️ ▶️ Casey according, like I don’t really understand how all this business-y stuff works because I actually do

⏹️ ▶️ Casey work for a living instead of just running around and talking about stuff. But the

⏹️ ▶️ Casey owners of BMW are Stefan or Stefan Quant, Suzanne Clotten,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey who I believe is also a Quant by birth. The two of them own 50% of the company and the public owns the other 50%.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey If you could convince at least 1% of the public to sell, would that work? And I mean, the

⏹️ ▶️ Casey BMW market cap as per Google is $50 billion. So could it be done?

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, they have the money.

⏹️ ▶️ John The problem with buying those big companies is like the same thing with the F1 team. It’s like if you buy BMW,

⏹️ ▶️ John I feel like the only way that’s going to fly is if you buy it with the intention to continue for at least

⏹️ ▶️ John the short term, continue being BMW, which means continuing to sell cars

⏹️ ▶️ John and regular non-electric cars and hybrid cars and develop, like, if you’re not

⏹️ ▶️ John gonna do that, if you’re buying them to say, okay, and all existing BMW lines are canceled, like you’ve just killed half the value

⏹️ ▶️ John of the company. And then the question is, does Apple want to continue running BMW

⏹️ ▶️ John as BMW, as like a Claris type thing, like a wholly owned subsidiary that you’re content to continue

⏹️ ▶️ John to follow BMW’s plan for future cars, slowly transitioning to electric, doing all that stuff, while in

⏹️ ▶️ John the meantime, also doing some Apple-y thing? It’s much better and much simpler when you can buy companies

⏹️ ▶️ John like Apple does all the time, these little companies that you can entirely consume and say,

⏹️ ▶️ John whatever the hell you were working on before, that’s great and everything, but we are either taking the technology from it or

⏹️ ▶️ John just taking the employees or just like, it’s going to transform and come out as an Apple product.

⏹️ ▶️ John The products you were making before are gone. Even if we use like the code or the technology or the people or whatever,

⏹️ ▶️ John you have just become part of Apple. You can’t do that with BMW. You can’t buy them and say, forget about all those cars that

⏹️ ▶️ John you were making before. No one will ever see them again. From now on, we just take you and all your expertise

⏹️ ▶️ John and factories and people and designers and we’ll make an Apple car. And I think that doesn’t fly because it destroys

⏹️ ▶️ John too much value that’s currently in BMW.

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I mean, that’s fair, but they took Beats and Beats is still largely Beats, isn’t it? I mean,

⏹️ ▶️ Casey I don’t feel it’s that

⏹️ ▶️ John different. Yeah, that’s the Claris thing. Wholly owned subsidiary with its own brand, but that’s a pretty

⏹️ ▶️ John big exception. And is Beats still their biggest acquisition? It might be, I would assume.

⏹️ ▶️ John Anyway, that’s a weird one and we talked about it at the time. Did they get to stay Beats or did they become Apple’s headphones? They stay Beats,

⏹️ ▶️ John but I think continuing to sell headphones is a much easier fit than Apple saying, we want to buy this company

⏹️ ▶️ John that makes a whole line of cars and continue to sell that whole line of cars. It’s not

⏹️ ▶️ John as if Apple bought Beats and Apple had been making its own line of Beats-like headphones for years and then continued to

⏹️ ▶️ John sell both of them. Like it didn’t. It just didn’t have headphones like that and now it does and it’s branding them them as beats and

⏹️ ▶️ John Clarice is the counter example where they spun off quote unquote this company to make all these things and it just kind

⏹️ ▶️ John of withered on the vine it’s still out there I think but it never really it

⏹️ ▶️ John was never really allowed to fly free and nor was it like supported by the Apple mothership in a way that could make

⏹️ ▶️ John it really succeed

⏹️ ▶️ Marco I think also I mean the big reason why they wouldn’t buy BMW is that BMW is the anti

⏹️ ▶️ Marco Apple their cars are full of buttons they’re just buttons

⏹️ ▶️ Marco for everything there’s buttons everywhere There’s physical knobs and

⏹️ ▶️ Marco, John buttons

⏹️ ▶️ John sometimes. There’s not a button to sync the right and left climate control here. Yeah